Jacob Tyler Fleetwood

Blast

Jake

21

Male

H.E.R.O. (Full-Time)

Jake's physical appearance doesn't stand out all too much in a crowd. He stands a bit taller than average, at just around 6 feet tall, and he has a muscular but decidedly lean runner's build. He is very evidently Caucasian, with peach colored skin that tans somewhat in the summertime and is usually accompanied with a smattering of knicks, cuts, bruises and sometimes road rash. He has a mop of wavy, golden blonde hair and has hazel eyes. Most of the time, he has around his neck a pair of black goggles that look similar in design to ski goggles, albeit slightly smaller and with a lot more technology going on.

Jake is a Castleburg native, born right in the heart of the city. His parents, both heroes, died in the line of duty when Jake was extremely young, before he could ever really forge any sort of relationship with them. He was raised by his paternal grandmother, Louise, in his formative years, where his life was relatively normal for a good few years. He played sports, made friends, got into some- but not too much- trouble, and read comic books. Nothing really stood out about him, outside of his boundless amounts of energy and affinity for the outdoors.

Jake's powers unlocked right around the age of 12. He made an extremely difficult catch while playing football for his school team, but instead of rushing the ball into the endzone, he rushed it about 800 yards through a brick wall and into a high-end Italian restaurant. This incident, as did many incidents of superhuman children unlocking their powers, the attention of HERO, who reached out to Jake's grandmother and offered him admission into their Academy for Young Heroes. Jake's grandmother, though very protective of the young lad, could not keep up with the hyperactive, and now superpowered, youth, and knowing that the school would temper his powers better than she could, she sent him off.

Jake did fine in school: his grades weren't good, but they weren't bad, but he stood out in the development of his powers and his aptitude (and great interest) in combat training. As soon as he was eligible, he waved goodbye to the school and enrolled at HERO on the day of his 16th birthday, eager to both start making money just to use his powers and experience the joy of being a hero. When he was younger, he never really understood why his parents left the world. Now, he could start to grasp it. Who wouldn't want to use these powers every day and every night? Jake started undertaking hero work as soon as he was able to, and he became a hit. At 17, he was named Castleburg's Best Junior Hero. By 19, he had completed the most solo tasks of any HERO operative under the age of 20. He even got his face on a cereal box (Fruity Crisps!) and appeared in news ads.

Since then, the story has pretty much been the same for Jake. Keep defeating villains, finishing missions, collecting paychecks, and getting onto those cereal boxes. He's been doing that, and he shows no signs of slowing down.

Ι (Iota Class)

Ting Feng

CRANE

Tiff, Dumpling

Nineteen

Female

HERO

Ting Feng is tall. Very tall. Approximately ten meters, or thirty three feet tall. She is also wide, as in muscular, with broad shoulders. Her light brown skin is darkened somewhat by exposure to the sun, and her black hair is cut short above her ears, with her short bangs usually swept to the side. Her skin is freckled, and the freckles are the size of most people's fists. She has a wide nose and big eyes, proportional to her face.

For Ting Feng, her super hero clothing and her civilian clothing are pretty much one in the same. Back in the day she used to wear massive cloth cloaks. Now, with the power of technology, she usually wears athletic, skin-tight clothing. She wears a sleeveless cropped sports top. It's white, with orange outlines around the arms and torso, and a black, circular symbol that resembles a crane spinning a vortex. For a bottom, she wears black leggings that go all the way down to her ankles, where her feet are bare. Her outfit is made of a durable, waterproof material.

Ting Feng is quite bubbly, earnest, and excitable, but she's always almost sneaking around like she's trying not to upset a particularly touchy librarian. Whenever she senses her emotions are getting too roused, she apologetically reels them back in. Even her voice, if she speaks too loudly, can do serious damage. There's a genuine sense of gentleness about her. Crane carries herself deliberately, and with poise.

As far as heroes go, Ting Feng is what some in the business call: "The Real Deal". She's one of those true believer hero types, whose primary motivation is just the goodness of their heart. Of course, the money doesn't hurt, though Tiff sends most of it back home to her family, and saves the rest. To her view she doesn't have much to spend money on. Praise and applause has always made her self-conscious, but Tiff has spent her entire life being self-conscious. There's kind of an eternal embarrassment involved with being a giant. It feels like constantly being under a dozen different microscopes. She'd much prefer to be one of those anonymous hero types, but...that's not really possible, is it?

Tiff tries to considerate of other people's feelings, though she isn't confident of her skills as a conversationalist. The last thing she wants to do is upset people. Being so far away, it is relatively easy for her to miss some emotional queues. And due to her overall kind-heartedness and trusting nature, Tiff is easily beguiled. Some might call her naive, others might just say she looks for the best in other people.

When she isn't heroing around, Tiff's favorite place to be is the ocean. It's a new novelty to her, having not grown up around any. There's no place she feels like she can be herself than in a big body of water with no one and nothing around to step on. It's so big, it can even make her feel small, which is liberating. Back in the day her old hobbies were yoga, tai chi, and messing around in the woods. Now swimming has been added to the list.

Ting Feng is the child of an immigrant who moved from China to the United States, and ended up in the country side. Ting Feng was a normal sized baby who just got bigger and bigger as she grew up. Her growth spurt, as her mother put it, never stopped. Ting Feng had to learn early on how to be careful around other people, and was quite grateful when she stopped growing the year she turned 16. One odd benefit of Ting Feng's unusual biology was the lack of needing to eat, but Ting Feng still ate her mothers dumplings, which was the source of her nickname.

She did her first act of heroism as a fifteen feet tall 10 year old, smacking around a supervillain and his troops. This made the local news and it turned out Ting Feng, more than just carrying heavy things around for the rest of her life, wanted to be a superhero! Tiff, as she was called by some of her classmates, was mostly well-liked despite her differences. There would always be some loneliness to her condition, though, in a world not meant for her. Every year she just got bigger and bigger, and the people she loved got smaller and smaller. Moving to the big city seemed like a natural fit. Her mother was reluctant to let her go, but when she turned nineteen, she was finally allowed to 'pack her bags' and leave her midwestern hometown.

Though, when she did, she would find herself missing the big open space. But being in a place bustling with people just as radically different and unusual like her, where her strength and gifts would be appreciated, and where she could make enough money to give her family a comfortable life? Tiff would put up with it. She is a rookie superhero with little experience beyond defeating a low tier supervillain.

Probably has a large online presence by default. Not entirely wholesome, either. She has nothing to do with it, and there's not much to be done. In fact, please don't tell her.

Kappa Class

Truly large, with super strength and durability to match. She has a slight regeneration factor, only relevant in scale of days, rather than minutes. Lighter than she ought to be, and she can sustain herself from the sun in lieu of eating or drinking.

Tai Chi- A defensive martial art/ form of exercise. Mostly used to improve her balance and spatial awareness.

Most equipment she has access too, she is just carrying around for other people. Most technology is beyond her ability to use.

Tristan Jennings

Backup

TJ

Twenty-four.

Female

Hero/ Stunt Double/ Underground fighter/ Racer (No, she is not good at making up her mind)

Tristan has stark pale skin and black-as-night irises. She's toned with the strong, athletic frame of an MMA fighter. She has short black hair with white streaks, and black lipstick usually set in a thin, grim line.

Casually, she usually bright colored clothing of blues and pinks. Cutesy denim jackets and skirts, and bright colored wigs over her hair. This is basically a disguise so she can go out in public without being disturbed. This very rarely happens, and only when she is in a good mood and not on hero duty, which is rare.

Her costume is black with white as a secondary color. She is mostly without armor, relying on her speed and agility. Of course her costume is made of more durable material that protects from glancing blows but little else. It's form fitting athletic wear that covers her entire body except her face and fingers. Around her face she wears a simple mask around her eyes, and her eyeliner is especially dark.

Tristan is sardonic and often foul-tempered. She doesn't raise her voice in conversation often, but there's an edge to her tone that prevents her from qualifying as 'quiet'. She likes fighting, and tends to get snippy and poke at people to bait them into fighting with her. Despite this, she doesn't hold grudges, though she will return to frequently harass any 'easy targets.' Tristan's main enemy in her life is boredom, and she's always searching for her next dose of action. Not just any action, though: Tristan is surprisingly disciplined, and only engages in activities she feels she can be better at. She's tidy, and a perfectionist at heart, with little patience for incompetence.

After she's gotten said action, Tristan tends to brighten up considerably, almost like she was on withdrawal before. Unfortunately most people aren't much in the fun-having mood after a life or death situation. Her powers have given her a disposition that make it difficult for her to connect with people. Either she's grumpy or inappropriately peppy.

Kids, animals, and elderly people tend to bring out Tristan's softer, more begrudgingly caring side, even when she is in a bad mood. She used to play the violin before she became basically addicted to adrenaline. This sweetness is one of her motivations for heroing, alongside it being the most exciting action she can get her hands on. The same might go for villainy, but being arrested would be the most boring thing ever.

She's a hero who maybe swears too much and has a bad attitude, but a hero nonetheless.

Tristan Jennings was born in Castleburg, and her parents expected great things of her. It was a lot of pressure to put on a girl, and Tristan found herself without any friends or hobbies beyond the violin, which was one of the only things forced upon her she actually enjoyed. Even martial arts tournaments were becoming stressful, because if she lost she would be disapproved of.

In high school the stress got to her and she broke, stealing her parents car and going on a joyride. She crashed into a lake and died. The end.

Well, it ought to have been. This might be the exact kind of situation one discovers their powers in before their death, but Tristan discovered them become of her death. After drowning in the front seat, she woke up, sober and her lungs full of air instead of water. She managed to break the window and escape. She was in big trouble with her mother and father but she didn't care- this life they wanted for her wasn't for them. Now she had to prove her suspected immortality. It didn't take long for her to 'die' again in a street racing accident, and eventually the rules of her undying ability became clear to her.

It'd be no good if she was holed up in jail, though, so she had to dial it back on the illicit activities and try to get a rush in more productive ways. If she could become a hero, she could hone her craft and prove herself useful, finally. On her own terms, on her own time...with nothing to lose. After liberating herself from her family she signed up for hero school.

Still, when there's no hero work to be done, she spends her nights fighting (illegally) and racing (legally), and has even started performing as a stunt double.

She has been a HERO for a few years now, and is overall enjoying her life, but she's finding it harder and harder to enjoy the thrill of the game. It might be time for some self-reflection, but Tristan doesn't really want to do that. On the field, Backup has literally no sense of self-preservation. This isn't out of a misplaced sense of martyrdom, it's just what she believes to be the best strategy given her abilities. Backup is disposable, and can do 'suicide plays' that would kill anyone else without any risk. If someone who isn't bulletproof is about to get shot, it just makes sense that she leap in the way to take the bullets instead.

TJ is a nickname she came up with herself, to distance herself from her previous life. Her power is tied to the number 24, but it being her age at the moment is just a coincidence.

Lambda Rank

The ability to return from death, no matter the cause. Essentially an insanely strong healing factor with specific, unusual limitations. Rather than being a constant healing rate, she returns to full health at regular, increasingly separated time intervals.

For the below-listed rankings, please rank yourself using the colored and uncolored boxes on a scale of 0-10, with a 2 corresponding to what an average, non-powered human can put out, and provide a brief explanation for the reasoning of said ranking. See "Power Rankings" hider below for more guidance.

MMA fighting, both formal and underground tactics
Weapon fighting, using clubs, knives, shields, etc.
Throwing weapon proficiency
Decent stealth
Basic understanding of firearms
Excellent freerunning
Skilled driver and mechanic
Mathematics and computation
Playing the violin
Pretty okay cook

Backup tends to go pretty light on the equipment, only usually bringing a few items on the list at any time. Considering the likelihood of her exploding, she doesn't want to waste time with finnicky material. Too much heavy armor can mess with her ability, not preventing her from coming back to life but rather making getting up off the floor an awkward process. For example, if her arm breaks, the armors arm will still be broken when she comes back to life, and thus her arm will be stuck.

Really, she prefers to be equipped with weapons the techy heroes on her team are willing to give her, which can be difficult considering her attitude sometimes. Still, the more experimental the better, and she is smart enough to use them proficiency if given instruction. Given her reckless style, though, they should only give her weapons they don't mind losing or sacrificing. If they have anything they want to field test that might be too risky for them to use themselves, or doesn't fit their fighting style, she will happily take the risk on herself. Giving her toys to play with is a fast track to Tristan's good side.

Of course like every HERO she fights with non-lethal weapon, but she has secondary weapons for killing Leftovers should the need arise.

Electric Stun Baton
Machete
Reinforced Arm and Leg guards
Buckler shield
Running shoes
Stealth boots

Bolas
Throwing Knives
Stun grenades
Frag grenades

Grapplehook

Her knowledge about armor not vibing with her comes from experience, as R&D did whip up a suit of armor for her. It looks like a modern day knight, made of black, Kevlar-like material with a sallet helmet. It's actually pretty badass, and should the specific need to reduce her agility and versatility but increase her durability ever arise, she may don it again.

Arguably her most iconic and consistent piece of equipment is The Stop Watch. On her left wrist is a watch that doubles as a heartrate monitor. When it detects no heartbeat, it begins counting down for 24 seconds, which will be when she resurrects. Then it will count down the Cooldown period, another 24 seconds. It's basically an easy way for her, and anyone nearby, to keep track of her Backup ability. The face of the stop watch has an image of a skull wearing her eye mask on it. She only wears it on missions where she will be around the civilian populace. Otherwise she takes it off so at least any bad guys aware of her powers have to do the counting themselves.

Theta Class

Befitting his name, Wiseman’s brain operates on a level that puts a supercomputer to shame. Austin’s power allows him to think faster than most people, form strategies in seconds, do advanced calculus in his head and understand topics that would otherwise be exhausting to learn. He cannot forget anything, as his memory is infallible, and as long as his body is still capable, Austin will never get rusty at anything he learns.

Subject LMA-93593 "Undergrowth Dweller"

Mire

Freak, Mushy, Shroomer, etc.

Unquantifiable

N/A, they/them

HERO, full time

Mire is not a human being in any way. They are a Leftover, an amalgamation of biology given superpowers by the meteor that spawned them. They were once a network of mundane, uninteresting fungi scattered across a forest, which has coalesced into something vaguely resembling a mockery of the human form. Mire's "bones" are extremely dense mycelical structures that formed around dead trees. Extra material came together to form legs and limbs, but Mire is ultimately a walking incarnation of the role that fungus has on earth. Dozens of molds, mushrooms and other forms of fungus just out from their body like battle scars, blooming and withering eternally. They stand at roughly four feet tall, and atop Mire's "skull" is a huge hymenophore, or the "cap" of a mushroom. Four gaunt limbs jut out from their torso, which seem to constantly be changing shape. They would look beautiful if they didn't appear to be rotting.

When the X-200 meteor broke apart in the planet's atmosphere, it changed more than just human beings. It changed animals and plants. It made them monsters beneath the awareness of a human being, and above the feral nature of something like a starving animal. One of these monsters rose up from the largest organism on Earth, a colony of fungus found beneath the soil of Oregon, said to be as old as over eight thousand years by some scientists. The fungus was nourished by the particles that flaked off of X-200, stirred to evolve and mutate past its biological programming. No one had the faintest idea this was happening for well over two centuries, since the growth was slow. But overtime, the colony grew aware of itself, its surroundings and what it was. Things below the ground which humans walked picked up little things like the sounds of footsteps one day, and then the mushrooms growing in the forests of Oregon began to listen to things.

Roughly one century ago, the colony began to writhe and shape into things that it had seen, as if it had been watching humanity for the last few hundred years. It evolved the ability to think on the level of humans, and thus a creature of hyphae and mycellium sprouted from the dirt. It grew legs, it grew arms, and like wet clay, it reformed itself over and over again to match what it had witnessed throughout the state of Oregon. This creature did not have a name, it did not truly understand why it existed or what to do with itself, and so it simply wandered the forests. Everywhere it went, it heard a hundred billion voices echoing through the tall trees, among the undergrowth of dead and decaying matter. Mold on rocks, mushrooms growing from dead wood, it all spoke through the walking colony, and it came to understand things about humanity through this.

The creature spied on humans from the edge of its forest, watching them through the mushrooms and the mold that they overlooked. No one knows just how long it did this for, but the fact that it picked up human speech is a clear indicator that it is old. In the dead of night, sometimes the colony would sneak into a nearby town and leave behind figments of its body to hear the whispers of humanity, and understand what was going on in the world. Through this, it learned of events happening in the world, that "heroes" fought "villains," and made the world a better place. To exist as it had was a strange thing, it wasn't meant to exist in this world. But for years, it lived in that forest like a ghost, going from one end of a forest to the other, listening to the world.

But eventually, the Leftover actually encountered humans. Superheroes dressed in their bright costumes intruded on its domain, tracked it to a pit of mold that it had taken to call home. They tried to speak with it, and for the first time in the last century, it spoke back. The words just made sense to it, having watched others use them for so long. They said they meant it no harm, and it told them it wanted to be left alone, but the heroes insisted on taking it from its home. It said no, over and over again, and then they used force.

One of them trapped it in a bubble of energy, another lifted it into the sky and they began to soar over its home. They took it somewhere made not of soil and rocks, but of steel and plastic. There, it stayed for months, where people calling themselves scientists tried to reason with it. They took to calling the Leftover "Mire," and managed to have conversations with it. Of course, Mire was prickly from the moment they trapped it, so these conversations didn't last long, even if they were coherent enough to mistake them for a human. Some of the scientists got brave enough to enter the chamber with Mire. The first ones were reasonable and just sat with them. They gave Mire books that they somehow managed to read, which baffled and intrigued everyone. But then they started talking about running tests on Mire. They mentioned examining the cells of its body, to try and understand why it was so intelligent. Mire refused, and they pressed, eventually coming in with hazmat suits to take samples by force.

Four of the five researchers who attempted this were hospitalized, the fifth transferred to a different department out of fear. No one managed to get anything from the incident, and it was determined that Mire only attacked them out of self-preservation. They didn't trust humans, even if they were sentient like one. Who could blame them? They were taken from their home, and prodded at with instruments nonstop.

Eventually, someone at ICOSA decided that Mire was too unique to simply let loose, so they sent diplomats and experts to speak with Mire in person. They were told, in no uncertain terms, that the only way they'd leave that containment cell was if they used their gifts for the benefit of others. If a human had been impressed into service like that, someone would've faced charges on a national level. But Mire wasn't human, and didn't enjoy the same rights as humans. But they were smart enough to understand that steel and plastic wasn't pleasant. So they relented, and let themself be enslaved.

Mire was transferred to New York, where HERO could monitor their new heroic career in an environment that put them at a disadvantage. After all, Castleburg wasn't known for its lush woods and untamed wilderness.

Any details you would like the Director to see.

Leftover

Mire is the walking embodiment of the fungus kingdom. Their body is composed of literal thousands of molds and mushrooms that have never occurred naturally on the planet. They are a colony without beginning or end, never truly done forming. This has many benefits that make them extremely unusual. As a Leftover, their powers are unlike anything a superhuman can demonstrate. They are capable of shapeshifting, reforming limbs and the general shape of their body into whatever state it needs to be in order to navigate terrain or get their new "job" done. The upper limit of this seems to be completely liquifying their body into a thick sludge of fungus and enzymes.

Undying Kingdom: Being composed of mycellium, Mire is also capable of extreme regeneration. If an arm is cut off, or if they are set on fire, they only need to consume organic matter to regain what they lost. This can be anything from food to a villain's arm. Their consciousness exists in every individual strand of hyphae that they are made of. As long as a single piece of it exists, even if it's only a few atoms thick, then Mire is not dead.

One with the Colony: Due to Mire's nature as an infinite colony of fungus, they can rapidly grow entire mushrooms from their body. These mushrooms vary in their exact type, and it is unclear if they are even remotely edible, but Mire could grow them by spreading spores in secretive areas such as a back alley or in a villain's lair. Mire is connected to fungus that isn't directly apart of their body, like a hivemind. This is mostly benign in a city like Castleburg, but it means they can grow patches of mushrooms in an area and keep a constant eye on things that happen, as the mushrooms would "hear" what is going on, in much the same way they learned all they know of humanity.

Cycle of Life: Many mushroom species rely on enzymes to break down dead things for consumption. Mire can secrete a similar, slurry-like substance that resembles chunky glue, to melt any form of matter they need. It acts similar to acid, able to eat through bricks and rocks like normal fungus turning stone into soil. The only known way of neutralizing this substance is either having Mire soak it up, or soak it with water.

For the below-listed rankings, please rank yourself using the colored and uncolored boxes on a scale of 0-10, with a 2 corresponding to what an average, non-powered human can put out, and provide a brief explanation for the reasoning of said ranking. See "Power Rankings" hider below for more guidance.

Gardening: Surprise, the fungus monster knows a thing or two about plants.

Stealth: Mire is used to going undetected, dissolving into the ground to avoid being spotted by humans and making absolutely no noise. They are more comfortable with it, anyway.

N/A

Madison Weaver

Wireframe

Maddie
Rich girl
Princess
Slinky

20

Female

H.E.R.O.

Madison stands tall for her age, with an athletic muscular build. Her hair is long and dyed blonde. She frequently wears makeup and nail polish despite her fashion sense tending to lean more towards baseball caps, ripped jeans, boots, and metal band tees or baggy clothes. It takes more effort to appear carefree.

Her hero costume is a little on the freer side as it's segmented to avoid restricting usage of her powers. A silver domino mask, tank top and leggins, with fully exposed midriff and forearms.

Madison is always happy to be approached for a casual conversation or to be asked for help. Madison likes to see herself as a big sister to H.E.R.O. members younger than her and strives to be a warm, approachable figure they can turn to when they need help.

Madison is a little too insecure to commit to being properly cool or properly enthuiastic. To compensate, her sense of humor is just the right touch of tryhard to be endearing rather than grating. Hoever, she is deep down always worrying how people think of her.

Madison is an overachiever. No matter how much others might tell her she doesn't need to prove herself to anyoneanymore, she still needs to get over herself. She is in a constant heated rivalry with the version of herself from yesterday and always strives to improve all her personal bests.

Her drive to be a Hero stemmed from the desire to be more. Growing up, she was popular because she was rich and naturally gifted on account of her innate ability. While this warped her perception growing up into believing the sky was the limit, even back then, she wanted to be taken seriously. Nowadays, she'd put in so much hard work at the Academy to change people's perception of her and prove them wrong. She likes to think she's succeeded but her single biggest pet peeve is people still treating her like a delicate spoiled basic valley girl who isn't tough and hasn't worked hard.

Madison grew up a rich, spoiled girl from Beverly Hills. Her power manifested at a very early age and she was the center of attention wherever she went. When she was thirteen years old, her parents divorced and she followed her father to Castleburg. She chose to enroll in the Academy for Junior Heroes rather than continue regular education. She wanted to be a hero.

Madison was almost immediately humbled. Her attitude, background and even accent rubbed everyone else up the wrong way. Practically overnight she had gone from being the star pupil, winning all the trophies, head cheerleader, to the class joke. The soft, sheltered princess. Most other students were of more modest backgroundsand upbringings. Here, she was the outlier.

She had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. Merely keeping up with the top achievers of the class took serious effort for the first time. But work hard she did. She became obsessed with her grades and placements to an unhealthy degree in hindsight. Even though she never even cracked the top five, her displays of earnest gritand struggle turned public opinion around and she began to start getting acknowledged and making friends.

By this point, the overacheiver obsessed with athletic prowess was toodeeply ingrained in heridentity, and it became who she was. She started training, sparring and taking classes simply because she wanted to. Thatwas what she found fun and fulfilling now.

Graduating from the academy at nineteen, she has been a full fledged member of HERO for one year, and tends to focus more on street level crime and public service than fighting powerful villains.

Madison loves 80’s ‘training montage’ rock. It’s pretty much all she listen to.

Z (Zeta Class)

Madison can transform parts of her body into steel wire at will andback to flesh, and has full control of the movement of the wire.

4/10
Madison's physiology gives her significantly enhanced physical strength when it comes to striking power and grip/hold strength due to her arms and hands being made of metal, and her increased mass.

6/10
The combination of her training and her power usage makes her a very mobile and slippery individual. She hand reach with her coils and retract them, allowing her to scale buildings.

3/10
Madison was a good student at school and can get somewhat creative with her powers but she's no genius.

2/10
Madison's power has no effect on her destructiveness.

3/10
Madison hits harder and has more ways to theoretically kill somebody with ease than the average person, but overall not particularly dangerous.

9/10
Imagine dropping a coil of steel wire from twenty stories. Or shooting it with a machine gun. Slashing at it with a sword. Hitting it with a car. After all that you have still not significantly damaged the steel wire. All these things are also true of Madison. On the off chance she does become wounded, turning the affected area from wire back to flesh will fully 'reset' and heal the flesh. There are, however, ways to harm Madison specifically. Targetting a single strand of wire with wire cutters, for example.

7/10
The result of extensive cardio training throughout her life copled with the energy of youth, means Madison is hard to tire out. Her power is also helping in this, by preventing anaerobic respiration and muscle fatigue.

5/10
Madison is very accomplished and practiced with casual use of her powers, but she has merely scratched the surface of her potential.

2/10
As an overachieving volunteer who wants to be looked up to, there’s no need to take any extra precautions with Madison. She’ll behave herself.

Madison is accomplished in MMA, parkour and gymnastics. She also holds a motorbike licence.

Custom Motorbike. The segment containing the seat and rear wheel can be detached from the rest of it.

Dr. Flora Lucas

Lab Rat (formerly Ratgirl)

Ratty

29

Female

I.C.O.S.A. / H.E.R.O.

Flora is on the shorter side, with a petite face, pointy nose and black, beady eyes. There’s a hunch in her shoulders that accentuates the rodent-like qualities of her demeanour and invite more than a few comparisons to being a mouse-like/rat-like person. Her hair and clothing are usually neat and utilitarian. She’s fond of sweaters and miniskirts with leggings, when sweatpants and a vest top are too casual for the occasion.

Her hero costume is a brown and beige bodysuit and singlet with long black boots, that still fits comfortably from her days as Ratgirl. Over this, she now wears a white labcoat.

Flora appears friendly and sociable at the surface, but this is only practice in faking it until she could make it. Flora is a quiet, introverted eccentric at heart and has always felt a little…off compared to others. To her, being in social situations and being expected to put on a warm smile is the work, and spending eight hours a day on patrol, learning or training is the R&R. She can get obsessed over her passions and excitable when such topics are brought up.

Flora was born in Salzburg, Austria, with the innate ability of strong bones. Her parents were both scientists who worked for a shady weapons development and research company that was looking into using Leftover DNA to develop drugs and gene therapy with the goal of giving people off-the-shelf superpowers. Flora’s innate ability made her a durable test subject for something called ‘Project Chimera’ when she was twelve years old. The initial month, where her DNA was forcibly combined with the DNA of a giant rat Leftover, was torture. The following two years of tests and trials to determine the long term success of the experiment, was mind-numbingly boring, but Flora was watching, listening and learning about science and biology the whole time.

The facility was raided by Austrian Superheroes and all test subjects rescued. Flora’s birth parents, who she hadn’t even seen for three years, were arrested, and Flora couldn’t find it within her to care. The Heroes, and her foster family all seemed concerned and sympathetic, and showered her with pity, but Flora was unable to adjust to normal life. She began to prefer the company of rats to the company of people.

There were jokes that Castleburg was the world capital for rats. Flora, mentally and emotionally stunted, didn’t get the joke. She ran away from home, hitchhiked and stowed away all the way from Salzburg to Castleburg over the span of several months, and spent a few weeks living on the streets while she applied for jobs. That was the initial reason she joined H.E.R.O. at age sixteen; a job to make ends meet with the only thing she had to offer; her powers. She gave everything she had to her training and education, finding comfort in the similarities to running tests and exercises. Despite a modest Hero career as ‘Ratgirl’, she never managed to make many deep friendships with one exception. Emily Duff AKA ’Butterfly’, was one year Flora’s senior and adopted an unofficial role as her mentor and big sister figure.

As Flora grew older and more knowledgeable, she caught the attention of I.C.O.S.A. at the age of 22. Rather than stay a Hero of middling success, she chose to become a scientist for I.C.O.S.A’s R&D dept, specialising in both biology and Leftovers. She quickly proved herself to be in her element, and was the happiest she’d ever been as a scientist. That was until her higher-ups went over her head and against her recommendations and attempted to use force on an intelligent Leftover. All five were sent to the hospital and Flora was ready with an “I told you so.”. Cracks were beginning to show in her perfect life, she was becoming disillusioned with her work and when the opportunity arose, she decided to return to H.E.R.O. on I.C.O.S.A’s orders and return to crime-fighting for the moment.

Flora struggled with English during her first Hero career but is now a fluent speaker.

Λ (Lambda Class)

Flora’s inherent ability is abnormally strong, dense bones. As a result of the experiments she was subjected to, Flora’s powerset now includes increased speed, strength and stamina, sharply enhanced senses and reflexes, and the ability to communicate with rodents.

7/10
Flora can’t lift a car over her head or anything too crazy, but her enhanced strength does let her bust open security doors, tear apart metal and punch through brick like it’s drywall.

7/10
Flora is a very agile individual, even able to scurry up the sides of buildings provided there’s enough purchase.

9/10
Flora’s greatest strength is her impressive scientific knowledge and photographic memory. Flora’s unsure if her intelligence is aided by her power or if her smarts are purly the result of effort and talent.

4/10
High capacity for minor property damage if she isn’t careful. However, she usually is.

3/10
Flora, in her I.C.O.S.A. work, has subdued many superpowered individuals using a level of force that would kill a regular human. However, she is very careful and in full control of her strength..

7/10
Flora’s bones are nigh-impossible to break without some very heavy duty destructive force, but she’s not that much more immune to flesh wounds than most other heroes.

9/10
Flora’s stamina is greatly boosted by her artificial powers to the point where nobody has ever seen her physically tired, only mentally.

5/10
Flora’s powerset is an uncomplicated one that does not require much finesse or mastery to use. Nevertheless, Flora has had a lot of practice to creatively squeeze every drop of efficacy from such a powerset.

1/10
As a member of I.C.O.S.A, she may be keeping an eye on us more than we’re keeping an eye on her.

Flora received freerunning and combat training during her initial Hero career, though she may be a little rusty

Multipurpose goggles that include night vision, thermal, infrared and zoom, as well as the ability to take pictures and video. Lab Rat currently also carries her old grappling hook though she may be in the market for some new gadgets later.

Male

Megumi Takaki

Gematria

Sparky/Static

17

Female

H.E.R.O.: Part-time

Megumi has long grayish hair, pale skin, and a rather slim build. She prefers to wear whatever's comfortable, but she does make an effort to look at least somewhat fashionable when outside. She also carries a large satchel that contains her action figure robot that provides her the android body for her hero identity Gematria.

EMOTIONLESS: At first impression, Megumi doesn't seem to possess any emotions. Her tone of speech is monotone, and tends to move in a somewhat sluggish manner. The truth is that she just has a difficult time showing her true feelings. Get to know her a little, though, and it'd be easy enough to know what she's thinking, assuming she doesn't just tell you outright.

BLUNT: Megumi isn't afraid to speak her mind and will be direct in her methods and intentions. However, she tends to be quite curt and literal-minded in doing so, which tends to result in some initial misunderstandings until she is asked to explain what she truly means in her messages.

OBSESSED WITH KNOWLEDGE: Megumi has an avid interest in learning more about the unknown, particularly about science, magic, and everything in between. She is unhesitant about trying new things in her experiments with the two, but will at least maintain a level of caution to try to prevent any catastrophic events.

Megumi was born in Castleburg, as the daughter of a CEO of a large video game company. Her mother died in childbirth, and Megumi was often left with a nanny to take care of her. As a result, she was often left with plenty of games and other material desires to keep herself occupied, but no one to actually spend that time with. She poured herself into these games, and soon discovered her powers when she got absorbed into the controller she was holding, finding herself inside the game itself. She found a whole new world to explore, and didn't come out until the nanny turned off the console, which forcefully ejected herself from the game and back into the real world.

It was then that Megumi found a new interest: coding. By being inside games, she could see how the game functioned, and alter it in ways it was never intended to function. She learned plenty within them, and her knowledge of her own ability continued to grow as well. Her father merely continued to send her the latest tech and games, thinking it would make her happy. Her attention turned to the various magic systems that often existed within fantasy games, and while she had fun experimenting with them in said games, she then began to wonder if it was possible to bring them to real life. Try as she might, though, she just couldn't do it.

One day, while attending an real life gaming event, it fell under attack by a rampaging Leftover. She hid behind a table, but it was tossed aside and was about to be attacked, only for it to be bound up and quickly dispatched by arriving heroes. Her attention focused onto one hero in particular, Stray, who had used some interesting symbols to perform the job. In the crisis, she had found the solution to a problem she had been dying to solve: performing magic, or at least something similar to it. Unfortunately, she was quickly taken someplace safe by other heroes. Due to Stray being a a bit of an unknown hero, it seems that there was little interest on him, making him difficult to track down. She was frustrated, but it would not stop her. She made it her new goal to become a Hero. In her mind, she thought the best way to learn more about Stray was to go out and be a Hero herself. And if she was able to help people along the way, that was even better.

N/A

Ι (Iota Class)

ELECTRO-SURFING: By being in contact with a machine that uses electricity, Megumi can leap into it, her body transforming into a mass of electric particles that travel within it freely. Within these machines, Megumi can take control of its functions and freely study its structure and coding, and can even modify said coding to suit her needs. Things like firewalls and encryptions pose little obstacle to her, as they do not recognize her as an intruder, but power limiters can hinder her movement. She can also forcibly short-circuit the machine, though this causes her to immediately be ejected (or forced into another area of said machine, if applicable) afterwards as that part would no longer be functional. She is also capable of discharging small amounts of electricity from her body (enough to hurt, but otherwise leave no lasting injuries, as well as power machines from the outside), as well as absorbing electricity to supercharge her other abilities.

CODING / HACKING
ROBOTICS ENGINEERING
GAMING

G.E.M.: The Glamorous Ergonomic Model. Originally a 1-foot tall female action figure bought by her father in an attempt to give her company. Megumi customized and improved upon it with time, turning it into a proper robot and giving it a few more special capabilities. Within it lies several feet of thin yet strong cable with an advanced grappling claw, suitable for grappling, trap-setting, constraining, etc. The face plate is actually a screen, allowing for a wide variety of facial expressions and emoticons to be displayed. The arms contain small lasers and other various swiss army knife tools to access areas otherwise inaccessible. The legs contain various movement enhancers such as wheels and impact boosters designed to provide quick bursts of movement and jump height. The body itself can also be shrunk down to 4 inches tall and alter its own colors like a cuttlefish to camouflage itself in its surroundings. In its back is a short charging cable with a form-shifting connector head to access various ports for easy charging / electricity access.

Denzel Solomon Powers

Blur Rabbit

Zel, Dizzy, B. Rabbit, Blitz Hare, Bunny (If you dare.)

27

Male

HERO AGENT

Formerly [ CLASSIFIED ]

Denzel stands at six feet even with a mocha skin tone and deep brown eyes. He possesses a toned and athletic build but he isn’t a walking wall by any means. His body has varying scar marks due to training and from a few missions. His hair is largely black with a slight umber tinge and is often an afro with tapered sides, but the top can have varying designs in the sides and back. Zel is also typically clean shaven, albeit some shadow could develop over a couple weeks if unattended.

As far as dress and grooming goes, Zel can be seen in a wide array of outfits. As if in contrast to his demeanor, his outfits often describe how he is feeling with color and accessories. When on duty or in HERO facilities, he dresses professionally, in a dress shirt and slacks, though willing to change when appropriate.


The Blur Rabbit heroic uniform consists of a plain black dress shirt with a white tie, black pants, and even a sleeveless surcoat at times. Underneath is a white bodysuit with black accented gloves and boots. The bodysuit is form-fitting to maximize mobility and is highly resistant to laser-weaponry. He also wears a black and white helmet with two protrusions that stick out above his head, reminiscent of rabbit ears.

^{Further detail on the helmet will be found under equipment.}

Has an inexplicable affinity towards Rabbits and Hares, a soft spot if you will. It has been confirmed that he has several as pets. The reason for this odd interest is unanswered currently.

Blur Rabbit’s abilities are essentially a means of self-enhancing his physical attributes, absorbing energy through the particles around him via motion. His power relies on momentum and requires his constant motion to build in potency. The more momentum he garners, the more energy he is able to draw towards his physical capabilities; his trademark “Blur” speed for example. This can be as simple as getting a running start before an attack but it is not limited to such. Varying athletic actions can also create differing boosts depending on how rapid and rigorous the movement involved.

While seeming to have no upper limit, this ability does have its weaknesses. For one, if he is immobilized, unable to move his muscles in any way, his abilities take no effect, leaving him about vulnerable as any above-average human. Coupled with this, he must be conscious in order for the abilities to work properly. Further, while the enhancement does grant him enhanced durability and some regenerative healing, it does not give any extra stamina. In fact, should he have a lasting injury and need to recover, his therapy is moving while injured and that will sap his stamina until utter unconsciousness.

Ranked below are averages of what he can output:

Advanced-Level Martial Artist
_{Has a mastery of Muay Thai, Baguazhang, Capoeira, Wushu, and a special martial art developed by a former hero, “The Glide”, designed to target special pressure points. It is capable of briefly disrupting the powers of metahumans and can cause temporary paralysis. It is aptly named in swahili “Kukatiza Mkono” or “The Interrupting Hand”. The acquisition of this skill is what affirms the Blur Rabbit with at least a Gamma Rank as there are only a handful of practitioners ever documented.}

Advanced-Level Free-Runner/Acrobat

Advanced-Level Escapist/Infiltrator

Professional-Level Musician

Professional-Level Detective

Professional-Level Marksman

Professinal-Level Mechanic/Handyman

Amateur-Level Actor

Amateur-Level Medic

Amateur-Level Chef

Hare’s Helmet - The Helmet of the Blur Rabbit is designed to enhance the senses, essentially shortcutting the time his brain needs to catch up to the speed his body moves when close to his max. It is the most durable part of his uniform.

Swift Slicers - Two swords wielded by the Blur Rabbit. They are designed in the shapes of a Katana and Wakizashi and are worn in the fashion a samurai would. Although not the most durable or sharp, they are quite dangerous with the Hare’s precision and speed.

Smoke Pellets - The Blur Rabbit carries smoke pellets of varying types for differing situations. These are often used as a diversion, getaway option, and means to draw fear in the hearts of enemies.

Evangeline Giarratana

Dahlia

Eva, Wolfsbane (as an ex-member of Death Bouquet)

22

Female

Currently H.E.R.O., previously Death Bouquet

The main thing people may notice about Eva are her bright green-colored eyes which would definitely remind people of a snake. Like the rest of her sisters, she has a beauty mark on her face. It may not look like it but she's pretty fit underneath her clothes too. Speaking of clothes, she mostly keeps up to date with the latest fashion. Whatever's trending, Eva's bound to wear it. She also has a tattoo, an insignia of her family at the center of her back.

As for her hero costume, Eva tends to wear a set of coat, suit, gloves, and dress pants; she'd wear a turtleneck instead of a suit underneath her coat if she's feeling feisty that day. They're all custom made so that it doesn't impede her ability to move around and fight bad guys while also making sure she's always looking her best, crisp self.

Cold. Hard to read. Very scary. Whatever their mission is or objectives are, Eva does what is necessary in order to get the job done. She doesn't really want to be distracted during her missions as she doesn't want to screw things up, which is why some people would those kinds of words about her since she's always by herself whenever she can.

That said, that doesn't mean she's not affected by the rumors and the whispers the others make when they thought she couldn't hear them. Some would even outright say it to her face since they also thought she didn't care, and that's fine. She can't control how others think of her but what she can control is how she reacts and what she does. For now, Eva just keeps all her emotions in then cry for an hour in her room when she couldn't handle it anymore. She holds on to a pendant her late younger sister made for her as she weeps her sadness away, then composes herself to face today's challenges. She does always choose to do the right thing, but it's proving difficult when everyone keeps fronting their judgment on her.

As for the things that make her happy, they'd have to be children shows: a talking dinosaur, a green monster singing about a party in his tummy, cartoon animals making imaginary adventures in their backyard, and a whole lot more. She wasn't given a chance to enjoy her childhood so watching those shows now never fails to put a smile on her face. It's the only time she feels completely at peace and safe. She can feel the sincerity from them, the genuine passion to entertain and educate children, and hopefully make the world a better place with their songs and dances. Eva liked to think she does the same thing too.

Evangeline was born to a supervillain family known as the Death Bouquet, where each family member was nicknamed after a deadly flower. Her and her siblings' powers came from their mother, their father was cut-out from their lives the moment Eva was born. It caused a rift between her and the rest of her family members that lasted to this day, believing she was the one that broke their family. Eva spent everyday of her life trying to make up for the mistake she didn't even commit, falsely believing her sisters will forgive her. They won't.

In any case, they were infamous hopping from places where rich dumb men were found like bars and clubs, luring men with their beauty before they used their paralyzing venom to leave them unable to move. The ladies still everything of course and those men could've pressed charges, but their fragile egos will never make them admit they got bested by women. Their growing greed didn't stop there. They turned their attention to banks, paralyzing all the guards and escaping with their hard-earned rewards. They broke into several houses, posed as hired models to steal from bachelors and high-profile celebrities who were too blinded by fame and fortune to do a background check on them.

They would've continued on for years, stealing from one man to the next, if Eva didn't screw up their last target. Her mother and sisters punished her for even the littlest mistakes, even treating her more as a maid than as a family member. Her last major screw up made her writhe and cry in pain as they punished her with their paralyzing toxin.

Instincts kicked in and she tried attacking back, shocked that instead of the usual toxin, Eva countered with an acid spray that left burns on their bodies. She always felt that she's different from her family, that she could do more than what they forced her to conform to. She felt horrible for what happened so against her mother's wishes, she called 911 and they were caught at the hospital as soon as they recovered.

Eva would've been thrown into jail too, but H.E.R.O. stepped in. They must've known about what Eva did along with how completely remorseful and sorry she felt, especially when she fully recounted every single person and group of people they stole from. She was offered a choice: become hired by H.E.R.O. to become the type of person that could help people, or go to jail.

So here she was now, fully focused on fulfilling her missions, saving civilians, and making up for her family's mistakes. Unlike at her house, Eva was trained to fully harness her powers by the company under strict supervision of her trainers. They wanted to give her the choice to do right by her, and it's the type of freedom she didn't know she longed for all these years. She thought that, by choosing to do the right thing, she could find forgiveness for everything. Maybe Evangeline could forgive herself too. Someday.

She's a sucker for corny jokes, and she loves pizza and pasta.

Γ (Gamma Class)

This person has the ability to create and control all kinds of poison, toxin, venom, and acid. The effects of the poison they generate ranges in usage: paralyzing toxin, acidic sprays and mist that can burn flesh and stone, toxin that can induce hallucinations, and more. User has full control over the dosage and lethality of the poison they create. They can even absorb the poison from another target and convert it into antidote in their system.

Luna Francesca Angelica Bianco/”Luna Bianco”

Freakshow

Anything you’re called outside of your name and public identity.

19

Female

H.E.R.O. (full-time)

Describe your physical appearance, in terms of both your physique, casual clothing, and any sort of superhero suit you may want.

A younger woman with soft, long, and frankly deathly pale white hair that would seem fitting on a person decades older than herself. Her body is toned and muscular but not overly so, with a fittingly athletic but still conventionally attractive build. She is, however, covered in numerous scars and nicks and damage, all of which is thought to be and testified to be a result of damage prior to her powers awakening. Otherwise, she retains no form of scarring or the like when recovering from even extreme injuries. It is assumed her powers have something to do with this in how they emerged, but attempts to theorize on this subject remain inconclusive. However Luna's yes are blue, with noted Northern European ancestry existing on both sides of her family in some capacity by current times, and despite the visible facial scarring from her pre-powers involvement with the Blue Skulls gang both of Luna's eyes are normal and are both fully functional and operable with seemingly perfect vision due to her healing factor.

Often in casual attire she enjoys wearing sleveless shirts and even tank tops indoors and outside alike, usually alongside jean pants or jean shorts, depending on the temperature and the weather. Sneakers or other casual tennis shoes seem to be her preferred mode of footwear, with a few sets of boots being the one exception to that for the most part. Swimwear is a topic she hasn't ever had to think about wearing, it seems, and she is uncertain what she would wear on such an occasioon. In terms of winter clothes, long-sleeved shirts and practical winter jackets of a rugged sort seem to be her usual go-to's and style during the colder months.

Hero attire is generally considered optional due to Luna's power allowing her to shift appearances and alter herself at will, giving her determinably unlimited appearances to take on. Durable designs have been developed for her potential use when not undergoing major transformations, however, includinmg pants, shirts, and even several bodysuit designs, usually featuring blue and darker blue colors as well as the use of silver and similarly fitting colors. However a small number of the design team for H.E.R.O. have as a result taken to this project with a worrying zeal 'for fun' in their words.

A person who usually says what she wants to without reservation, the sort of blunt and straightforward type in the sense of not seeing any point in sugar-coating things when she feels like something needs to be or should be said/done. She is also an individual who enjoys being hands-on with things, and is more apt to take action over something than not sometimes. That being said, she isn’t the type to not stop talking or is unable to read the room. Quite the opposite in the case of the latter, she will keep her lips shut and senses peeled just as simply as she will speak when she feels she needs to. She likewise less enjoys the ‘usual girly type of stuff’ in favor of more physical activities and exercise and video games and so forth, though learning how to brush and even tie her hair up in a bun is something she’s picked up on (among a few small things) from a practicality standpoint over the last few years. She is also more understanding when it comes to human suffering in a number of ways, though while she can be soft at heart she is pragmatic enough and hardened enough to say “Yeah, what you went though sucks pretty bad. And I feel for ya, get where yer’ comin’ from, etc. Still isn’t an excuse for killing people and all of this though” without skipping a beat. Likewise, Luna has a sort of soberness when ‘in action’ compared to her more laid-back and casual self when ‘off of work’ and not actively doing something at the time.

At the same time, however, Luna also has a certain bone to pick when it comes to what few members of her former gang might still be out there or haven’t jumped ship from Castleberg. Leadership she knows is gone at the very top, and putting them in the ground is something she in part still says some part of her doesn’t regret despite her blind rage at the time overwhelming everything in her eyes in the heat of the moment. At the same time, however, she’s reformed to enough of an extent and had years enough to ‘cool down’ that she regrets things as well with how it went down. In her words: “My head wasn’t clear, and I was pissed beyond recognition at what they did once it all clicked into place. Wasn’t an excuse to do what I did, but hell a lot of those at the main base didn’t deserve it. I still remember them from base that day….always will for the rest of my life I think. Wish they hadn’t been there, or sometimes that anyone had been for that matter, and that I coulda’ just led the capes and blues to where they were so some of em’ might’ve had a chance to clean up.”

At the same time, however, when it comes to her past she has likewise mixed emotions talking about it even now. Talking about how it was a mistake, and showing herself as proof of it among other things? Yes, she can do that. Talking about the details of ‘that day’ with other people, or other more complicated matters tied to it? No. These matters regarding her past are….much more touchy for her, even after she’s talked with therapists since the time of her initial incarceration. It has, however, led to her putting an incredible effort into furthering her skills, self-control, and self-discipline, such that the difference is most notable of all to maybe the few left in the world who ever saw her ‘worst’ side. While already hard to goad her into anger in a general sense, if angered enough she especially struggles with the worst parts of herself within her. These parts of her are something she has come to rather hate about herself, not that she entirely loves herself in general otherwise.

A Watervale native of Castleberg whose parents are of Italian descent, Luna Bianco was a platinum blonde girl and the second oldest of three children of her parents. However, her family lived virtually on the border with Brookside and generally wasn’t very well-off in terms of finances. Her father worked one job, her mother worked full time to keep keep the house together aside from a part-time job of her own, and her older brother by a decent margin, Giorgio, would send money back home to help his family after he moved to the Southeast USA to work at a steel mill until he managed to get into management there. It wasn’t the most plentiful or wealthy life, but it certainly was a life that led to the young Luna being exposed to a fair amount of local cuisine and the like in Watervale and mostly friends who lived just over in Brookside to boot. Her life seemed hopeful, and yet it would be her and her two best friends Drew and Chen who eventually got pulled in by the seedier side of Brookside that would spell out years of issues to come….a gang called the Blue Skulls.

An aspiring superhuman-run gang, the gang had aspirations for becoming an organized crime group on the level of those that existed within Watervale and also recruited normal people to their ranks to boot. They pushed the idea of ‘family’ in the gang, moving to care for members and trying to lure in kids and adults alike to meet their goals and ends. Set up in the eastern border of Brookside where it meets with Watervale, and close to where Luna lived, the Skulls were closest to the turf of Watervale and certainly ended up in conflict as they tried to get ground and make bank on that side and in Brookside alike. For the three friends, Luna especially, the lure of the gang and other crimes going on near enough to their homes led the protection and ‘care’ of the gang to seem enticing somehow. Or perhaps it was the lure of the forbidden, the promises of wealth, the hope for something in the future, or something else entirely? In the end even Luna would most frankly comment over the matter: “It doesn’t matter how I got in, not fully, but that I got sucked in like my two best friends did. Plain and simple.” It led the three friends to begin with small things like carrying small bags of ‘product’ for gang sellers they were bringing it to for peddling on the streets. Running messages, doing little errands, and the like also had their part in things.

Eventually, Luna and her two friends would graduate up to being in combat or fights, sneaking around to scout things out, and even getting moved to different sub-bosses of the Blue Skulls as time went on and their survived the experiences of the initial years. Luna’s parents, close enough to her as they still were, tried to get her to stop and back out of things before it got worse….but this only led to conflict between Luna and her parents as a result. To show some respect to them she would go to school still and learn from her classes, even if she got in some definite trouble here and there for things naturally so otherwise, and the gang made use of her position in school to do a little more subtle selling and influencing where it could to boot. Luna did come to love her blood family, even using her ‘pocket change’ from gang activity and work to try to help with bills and such….or at least groceries once her parents rejected the criminal nature of her income. To Luna, however, the gang was more like a ‘family’ of sorts in its own right as well, and they seemed to do as the gang’s founders had worked to arrange it. It was still a violent and criminal gang to be sure in the end, but they worked to entice members to stay in its ranks.

Yet as time went on, the gang’s leadership began to change its tactics and goals and the gang began to become a more overt threat within East Brookside and West Watervale and even sought to reach as far as Southern New Athens. Its work began to become more competitive than before with competitors around itself, its interests began to become more and more heated in the streets and behind closed doors alike, and ultimately the gang became a mess targeted by HERO and the police in the end for its growing threat. Straying from the aspirations and claims it had made when she was sucked in at the age of just eight years old, the change in internal culture had been slower moving in an aim to maintain membership and retain numbers until eventually the Blue Skulls’ leadership decided to drop the idea of being like the more organized gangs of Watervale and to become ‘big shots and a major villain organization’ that would outclass them in scale, power, fame, and scope. Yet with HERO crawling down the gang’s spine after several higher-profile incidents involving powered and non-powered members of the gang, including several daring heists in large businesses in Southern New Athens and two instances of mass deaths, the leadership of the gang knew that the target would be on their backs unless something was done to stop it for a little while. Thus came a plan known as the “Cleansweep”, one which involved the delaying tactic and saving the skin of the leadership and those seen as ‘most valuable’ as contacts and such while using the rest of the gang as fodder in an event that became scarred into Castleberg history.

Much of the gang’s lower forces were deployed to seize the bridge going from Brookside to New Athens, a daring move that put the gang on the front headlines of the news as leadership knew supers and cops (“blues” as they called them in the Blue Skulls among members) would be focused on that aspect rather than doing more investigative work. It would draw in combat as the members were told to hold out until ‘a special surprise was ready’. Indeed, many were told that they would be big-timers and at their strongest once the bridge was held for ransom and they fought back supers and the cops, and indeed promises of being able to retire from the gang were made to many as well. To Luna, it was the payout of a lifetime and a mission she didn’t know any alternative to at the time. She was only fourteen years old, having had her powers kick in at the age of ten, and so she too was on that bridge fighting and using the cars and such as barricades alongside others. Yet the last bit of that ‘old spirit’ of the gang’s culture that was leveraged and manipulated to push these members both older and younger to stage that seizure of the bridge was also what the leadership deemed a ‘cleanup’ as well for another reason.

After a three-day holdout from the siege being made on the seized bridge, the Blue Skulls left on the bridge debated freeing what hostages they had kept to secure a surrender. It had gotten that bad for them in just a bit of time, and just at this moment as they moved to surrender and stop the fighting and such, even as the police and heroes were moving in, the Blue Skulls’ leadership sprung their last great and promised ‘surprise’. Three secretly-planted bombs by agents of the leadership went off, killing the remaining surrendering gang members, many police, three supers, and most of the hostages outright while blowing chunks out of the bridge itself and hurting many others. Hence came the resulting title of the incident in the news for years to come: “The Brookside Bridge Bombing”. Among the survivors was Luna herself, scarred and marred in the worst way since she started with the gang. She crawled out of debris as survivors gang, cop, and super alike dug through the rubble and searched the water for survivors. Even if for a brief moment, all were only united briefly in the search for survivors as the news caught the three simultaneous blasts of the bombs on-camera and live.

Luna, for her part, assisted in dragging out two of the former hostages and the dying form of her sub-commander during the battle as she spoke to her. Said sub-commander had suspected something from leadership, but while she had protested initially she had gone along with things in the end due to pressure from some of her peers and from leadership. She’d heard about a ‘cleaning up’ from spying on leadership prior to the operation being carried out, but had not been suspecting that the gang was ‘clearing space’ in its ranks by killing the last of the ‘old culture and old guard’ from its ranks instead of just expanding operations or the like using the capital from a supposed ransom of the bridge. It was madness, and Luna upon getting the news and finding her two old friends were likewise dead amidst the rubble would feel something come over her. Frustration….no, anger. Yet not even anger, but pure, blind, and unadulterated rage. It had always been hard to ‘get her goat’ and make her angry in most cases, but the revelation that they’d all been sent to the bridge to die was something beyond the teenager’s ability to keep calm and level-headed more than enough despite what she’d been able to live through in the past three days already or had seen and done on the streets.

Managing to flee into Brookside using her powers and the chaos of the post-explosions situation, the younger teen’s blind rage was focused as she tore through alleyways and the low-hiding places in the area, bee-lining it to the gang’s main base. While her and only two other members of the gang on the bridge were the only gang survivors out of the dozens that had been placed on the bridge, those at the base who were in the know weren’t expecting survivors either. Told that in case of any they should ‘put them down’, the two human outside guards of the hidden base at the time fired on Luna as she descended upon them and those inside of the building like a rabid and berserk monster. Those who knew, those who didn’t know, she couldn’t tell the difference nor cared at the time in her state as raw fury turned into a nightmare for those there. By the time the blood settled, the haze of uncontrolled fury simmered down, and the screams had faded into quiet once more, the furious monstrosity that Luna had become in more than one way turned back to normal Luna once more….and she was left with coming to her senses and seeing much more clearly what she’d done now in hindsight.

It was a bloodbath that literally spelled the end of the Blue Skulls gang, and Luna after looking through the building for survivors would call the police to her location before sitting there on the rent and torn concrete front steps staring at the dust and blood-covered shoes on her own two feet. Even after the arrival of a group of supers to the location, all they found was death and one kid sitting there mostly unresponsive to the world around her. It took one of them daring to come closer, and softly telling the girl to please come with them, that Luna came back to enough lucidity to go without a fuss or a fight. After the incident, and with leadership gone and HQ a mass grave, the few sub-leaders and those not at HQ during the operation ultimately scattered to the winds or abandoned ship. The daring of the Blue Skulls’ leadership, for what it was worth, was a great and terrible gamble in order to bolster the gang’s fear factor and name in the city while removing what was seen as ‘a lot of obstacles’ to the gang’s full shift in stance and a break from its past. A move to try to go above a ‘mere big gang’ and to become ‘a proper big-leagues villain organization’ by downsizing to ‘only the best and brightest’ of its members instead backfired, leading to the massacre of what was left at HQ and the death of the very gang itself as an organization.

Luna, for her part, was placed within a lockup at HERO One to a certain extent and would see incarceration for the next five years. Five years that would see her not have any contact with her parents for one and a half of those years, before the first time she saw them again she broke out into tears after her father hugged her. Five years that would see her meet a hero visiting ‘youthful offenders’ in the lockup area, coming after Luna’s first six months there, who would seek to get her enlisted into a rehabilitation and preparatory program called “Criminals Turned Capes” after seeing her at-the-time silent, defeated, and rather non-violent state she’d gone into in the aftermath of ‘that day’. Five years which would see her ultimately get into said rehabilitation program for those last four and years of her five year stay, even after some difficulties and debate, that would help her improve herself and work toward becoming something else. It was a day-by-day process, but with visiting heroes, myriad therapy sessions, very close supervision, and ultimately showing enough ‘good behavior and a real desire to change’ that she would one day be approached by H.E.R.O. proper with an offer after the end of one of the rehabilitation sessions. The offer was simple: “You keep up good behavior, and come work for us, you get to leave lockup and stay under supervision. You work for us for long enough, then, and you will earn your freedom in full. If you reject this offer, then you can stay in rehabilitation and HERO One still. Your choice.”

It was a deal she couldn’t refuse….actually, no. Instead it was an opportunity to become something else and do better in the world, and was the one thing that she didn’t want to turn down. If she knew how to fight, might as well turn it to good use. If she could be sneaky or do things, it might as well be to help people. Save lives. Actually make things better, and to keep stupid kids like herself from engaging in the same danger, mistakes, behavior, and problems as she did. Maybe, just maybe, she could put the labor into something that genuinely would help the world be or get better this time around.

*Spicy food, Thai food, Japanese, and Chinese as well as Chinese-American foods are among her favorite sorts to eat, and her spice tolerance is....unnatural to the eyes of a number of H.E.R.O. staff. Picked up learning Mandarin Chinese due to her frequenting a certain restautant in Watervale's Little Chinatown, and both requested take-out from there during her rehabilitation at H.E.R.O. One as well as seems to have close ties with its owner and the owner's family personally based on observations and inquiries.

*Height: 5’10”/177.8cm

*Luna has noted Italian ancestry on her father's side, with naming patterns continuing to persist along her patrilineal line even long after they moved to America and came to live in what became Castleberg's Little Italy. Similarly, due to their location her father's side of the family kept up speaking Italian to talk with relatives back in Italy and among themselves even through modern times.

*Wrote physical letters while in lockup to each of the families of those at the 'HQ bloodbath' that she knew and regretted the death of, as well as some of those who died on the bridge that she knew to boot. Has memorized the names of a fair many of those lost on the bridge fiasco and the HQ bloodbath. A number have responded back, a nunber haven't responded, and at least two of those she wrote to have kept up more common correspondence with her since that time.

*Her favorite restaurant is a small place in Little Chinatown called "The Jade Lantern", also affectionately referred to as "Mama Li's Place" by Luna personally. The proprietess, one "Li, Daiyu", has been described as being as her 'second mother' by Luna, and the source from which she learned a fair bit of Mandarain Chinese and got to be close with the woman's family to boot. Even wrote to her while she was in lockup. Upon her first day of release from lockup, Luna requested to go to the restaurant and was allowed to....but with a distant tail to keep tabs on her just in case. True to her word, however, according to those tailing her she went to the restaurant directly and was seen hugging Ms. Li and both seemed to be crying.

*Luna's moniker during her time in the Blue Skulls was 'Cadaver'

(Maybe will think of some more later on.)

Self-Biokinesis - A power allowing the user to manipulate and alter their own physiology and biology at will, ranging from simple alterations like hair color and such to even vast body-warping alterations and a change in size. Great super strength and super durability augments, to generating bone spikes harder than alloyed steel and firing them like projectiles, to making chitinous plates on the body, to even warping one’s own body form and shape into some kind of horrific monstrosity out of the horror genre is possible with this power. It is a versatile and strong power in its own right, though these transformations and modifications must be actively done and aren’t lingering passive effects in-perpetuum.

Regeneration/Healing Factor - A potent thing in its own right that affects both healing and one’s stamina very greatly and superhumanly so, normally treated as part of the 'package' of the main Self-Biokinesis power. However, it is listed on its own in this file for a greater ease of reading. Lost limbs, lost chunks of body, losing a number of vital organs, being injected with toxins and poisons, sources that cause genetic damage, and so forth along such lines are all readily surviveable and are possible to recover from. However, affects on the subject's aging has yet to be determined beyond the subject seeming to normally grow heading into her 'prime', though tissue studies indicate the repairing of genetic damage is also part of this sub-power's capabilities. More study is required in the future to better understand these effects, however, in the long-term.

***Note: The hair color of this subject was originally ‘platinum blonde’, and according to parental testimony and photos from before her power emerged this has been verified to be true. However, the hair color is currently pale white and has seemed to change after this power awakened, though after observation and study of the incarcerated subject this has been proven to not be a temporary active effect related to the subject's power. A potential side effect, perhaps? Cause remains currently unknown.

***Combat/Fighting Skill - Gained from internal training and participation with the Blue Skulls gang from around the ages of 9 to 14 years old, Luna spent years in fights involving other superpowered people, cops, animals, and even other gangs and mundane humans. The evidence she gives for this is of her own myriad scars, which were gained before her powers emerged at the age of ten, and even in the three days prior to The Brookside Bridge Bombing she was among those fighting and successfully holding out on the bridge between Brookside and New Athens when the Blue Skulls moved to take and hold the bridge ransom. From her experience, mentoring and training inside the gang by some of its veterans (including one or two ex-military members from the old guard of the gang), and so forth, she’s a generally pretty competent and seasoned fighter from the streets still by current times from a sense of practicality. Unarmed combat, the use of some firearms, and even things like fighting with knives and improvised weapons are within the realm of her skillset on top of learning how to use her power to fight to boot were introduced into her ‘toolkit’ of skills during her ‘fighting years’ in the gang.

This all being said, this isn’t a reason to overblow what she can do either. Luna isn’t some retired special ops soldier, a middle aged martial arts master, master sharpshooter, knife wielding expert, or so on and so forth. There is always room for improvement, and she is still rather young anyways despite what she’s lived through and learned. Much of her survival can be attributed to her powers, but it's that very survival of hers over the years that allowed her to learn and grow from her experiences as well in turn. Further tutoring and training and some sparring with her powers and regular body alike during her rehabilitation in the “Criminals Turned Capes” program has also helped her better hone herself with further discipline and such in this regard/area of her general combat skill set (naturally she wasn’t taught more how to use a gun or such in this program and such).

***Other Gang-Related Skills - Thievery, robbery, stealing, breaking in, sneaking around, hiding, hiding things for later, smuggling items or substances or other contraband on her person or such, and pickpocketing are things she gained some solid experience in while running with the Blue Skulls. They are certainly not the best sort of skills for a person to have, but they are skills she can still apply and make use of for sure.

***Parkour and Exercise - Two areas she gained experience in from her time in the gang and from the time of her rehabilitation respectively. It doesn’t make her powers suddenly much more agile, but she even now in her normal body can navigate the urban streets well in the field and likewise maintains a disciplined and serious workout routine otherwise in her personal life.

***First Aid - Practical things learned in street fights to recover and help peers, as well as classes in it optionally taken during her rehabilitation program, compose her skills in this area. An at least practical enough combination of experience and training in her case has made her generally competent in this at the very least. Her powers even provide her tools in some cases to help in this realm of things as well, at least in terms of having hands to hold bleeding wounds tightly or so on and so forth in the simpler sense. A skill she holds as symbolically important as ‘learning something to help people’ in her mind as well as it being something that is practically useful in the field as she is taught more in the future.

***Observation - Reading the room, keeping an eye on one’s surroundings in case of sudden danger, navigating the streets of Brookside and even Watervale in dangerous areas, keeping tabs on the mood in a room, noting where you saw something move, and the like are things that have been ingrained into Luna’s mind for longer than she’s was even in the Blue Skulls. It was a way of life needed to survive at her core, and even now she generally keeps it up as a personal habit to continue to hone which has also somewhat turned generally into an instinctual thing for her to do. It isn’t being some mentalist about people or the like, but it's practical as a skill and is something she is at least good and even keen at.

***Languages: Luna can speak American English, a good bit of Mandarin Chinese, and Italian.

Smartphone w/ an Attached Wallet

Wireless Headphones

"Benjamin' Lee Wen Fong

Bastion

Ben, Benji, Shield

28

Male

H.E.R.O.

He is the definition of the meme of wanting a man in finance, 6'5". Blue Eyes. Not so much as a trust fund, though. Sorry ladies. Otherwise, he is of fairly athletic build as he strives to one day out-bench Director Powers. Maybe when Hugo dies.

Jovial, caring, charismatic

Benjamin was born to a migrant family that immigrated from Asia in the late 1940s to the United States. Of course, as with most Asian families at that time, they had decided to settle along the West coast and that is where his family had settled. The story of his family took the typical route. Everyone worked hard, saved money, and told their children to go to school in order to not have to work as hard.

Fast forward to the current day. Benjamin, himself a graduate of the prestigious Castleburg University, is doing pretty good for himself. He works, of course, in the financial sector, at one of the big Wall Street banks. Him, and his family by extension, discovered his powers around the time he was 10 years old. Through the decent amount of wealth his family has amassed through the generations, they were able to commission a pair of special bracelets that allows for Benjamin to better control his powers.

While not working his normal 9 to 5, he works as agent for H.E.R.O., taking part in missions in whatever capacity the Director assigns him to. Otherwise, as charismatic as he is, he tries to stay out of the limelight, preferring to not be the center of attention if at all possible.

Benji likes to hang out at the headquarters, when not working his normal 9 to 5 or going on an assignment. Also. He likes to drive fast, having purchased a rather gaudy sports car with his first big-boy bonus at work. Also, Director Powers, when are we going to have another bench-off?

Δ (Delta Class)

Kinetic Field Manipulation/Projection

Driving, financial analysis, cooking

A pair of pure silver bracelets with his family crest and two small sapphires encrusted on them. These bracelets are enhanced to allow for Benjamin to have precise control of his powers. The exact method as to how that is achieved is unknown. To note, without the bracelets, Benjamin can still use his powers, though with less control and thus potentially more mishaps.