BCTheEntity

Warhammer 40K: Beyond the Law - A Mercenary Adventure [MATURE] (Open for business, apply within.)

@Quinntessential@Hank Uh, I'll try to get a post out for Harvin tomorrow if I can. Since Kaicero did just talk to him, and all.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

'Ah... your tone of dismissal wounds me so, ma'am,' Settionne proclaimed quietly, hand over heart as though his breast had been pierced by an arrow. Even so, he followed through on the Elven noble's pointer, taking up the bag of Elven silk and the items contained therein, though the material's value was lost on him. He did, however, perk his head at the mention of a free silver necklace, one enchanted in order to improve his vision at night. "Like walking in a field under a full moon with naught a cloud in the sky", as the lady said... though to Settionne's recollection, he'd never been beneath a full moon that had actually illuminated the night very well, even with the benefit of no clouds to block it out, be they natural or smoke-formed. He supposed it was a flowery metaphor for okay lighting that was common in the Elven tongue, and the necklace itself was very pretty, containing a large number of tiny emeralds in the shape of a sideways X with a vertical line coming off the top-right flange, seemingly emulating the combined crossed fingers and thumbs up that were a symbol of Fineki's cult. He could not say for sure that this meant the Queen or her sister knew the truth about his normal occupation, since it was also a general symbol of luck among Vrettonia's lower class and certain members of the rest of Vrettonian society (and presumably many other civilisations to boot, perhaps even that of Riverhope itself), and felt it would not be wise to ask about it regardless.

The other items were, it seemed to Sett as he pulled the necklace overhead, consumable in nature, though if he could get his hands on any more of the empty jugs of Guarden juice, he could sell them on after the fact for what he presumed would be a pretty penny. A well-made jug is a well-made jug, after all, and even his own weight in gold and jewels wouldn't last forever. He didn't suppose he'd be able to preserve his rations for long enough to retain much of the juice itself, even given that he had his own food supplies available for a substantial amount of travel, but if he could hold off on using the holy water, that'd make for a good starting point as far as his future cathedral went.

Beyond this, the Princess' words were merely directions, and then hardly that for how much of the early path would be set in stone (presuming all went well for everybody involved), followed by a request for questions, and the suggestion that everybody ate and got to know one another before they were dismissed. Sett had no issue with this proposal: since it seemed many of the other guests remained with thumbs up asses, if only for a brief moment, he made the first move towards feeding himself, acquiring as many choice morsels as he reasonably could for his plate before tucking in with gusto, reminding himself to refill his plate once it was empty - though so rich was this banquet compared to his typical fare that he wondered if he'd even succeed in clearing the plate in the first instance. As long as he would be wandering the Southlands, however, he figured acquiring as much sustenance as possible for the days to come would be appropriate, especially for his rather mild frame, for his constitution was one that insisted on little mass no matter how he ate, and even significant weight gained was oft lost within the week... a surprising boon, at least for the lifestyle of a priest.

@The ZAX@Fetzen@POOHEAD189@The Fated Fallen@Lacks@Luminosity

The Fate of Lucumbro

Sorry for not posting recently. I'm not entirely sure what I ought to write, is all... I kind of have something in mind to bring Akella toward Kait and Shamus, but I don't know that it'd be particularly good as far as posts go, and wouldn't build up the appropriate sort of character I have in mind for the fair Lady Snow, for however long she remains relevant. So, erm... I'll try to think of an alternative.

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

Alessa Heather, A.K.A. "Messiah"

Messiah

Name: Alessa Heather
Alias: Messiah
Age: 16
Alignment: Hero
Loyalty: Wards
Appearance: Alessa is a rather pale girl with a fairly thin build and a figure that's nothing to particularly brag about, though recent heroics have pushed her more towards lean musculature as time passes. She is around 155cm tall, with straight brown hair running down to the small of her back, and her eyes are green speckled with blue, though she often has them glow a bright white colour whilst on the beat, which is as a rule more than enough to obscure her features. Though she wears more normal clothing on the rare occasions when she isn't out fighting crime, typically including a long skirt and a generic shirt in some colour or another, her cape outfit is simply a large white cotton robe with integrated body armour resistant to bullets and knives and the holographic computer interfacing tool standard to the Protectorate's Denver division, running down to the ankles of her uncovered feet with the sleeves hanging loose, though it is tied quite tightly at the waist.

History

Before the age of fifteen, Alessa's life wasn't particularly notable as anything that might produce a trigger event on its own. The family that lived with her- including her parents, two siblings, three of her grandparents, and a multitude of aunts, uncles, and cousins- were all generally friendly folks who had pooled their resources to buy a large, almost mansion-like house and various other luxuries, though two of their number were parahumans of modestly scarred personality. One of them, a cousin with the Tinker ability to create devices containing the information on any computer in the world pre-installed- though only one computer per device- decided it would be a good idea to show off to the young Alessa just how awful the world really was, by effectively hacking into a number of servers and showing off the statistics for how much worse off than her the vast majority of humanity really was. This was, of course, a calculated move: though not really scarring by itself, as numbers and figures rarely are, it set up in Alessa a distinct unease about the state of the world, and a firm desire to make Earth a better place for humanity once she hit the right age, prompting her to begin researching into the appropriate fields, such as public speaking and various humanitarian sciences.

And then her entire family died. Late Summer of 2004, and the family was out by their pool along with a number of friends. Alessa dived beneath the surface to grab something from the bottom; a flash of light and heat hit her from above the pool's surface; and when she resurfaced, everything within a hundred meters was burned to a crisp, including her family's house, and her family and friends. In other words, nearly everyone she knew and loved was dead, and she couldn't escape the area either because even the concrete around her was on fire. Though it hardly mattered: the parahuman who had killed them all promptly showed himself, an indistinct figure wreathed in flames which would supposedly burn anything short of air, water, and a few other substances, and even those would be superheated drastically to slay any in their vicinity. In other words, Alessa was doomed.

Or would have been, if she didn't abruptly absorb the heat energy from the parahuman's next blast of flame aimed directly at her, to the point that even the water around her failed to boil. His confusion was evident, but quickly turned to anger, leading to hit her with yet more fire and flame, to similar lack of obvious effect. This in turn led to shock and surprise when, out of nowhere, Alessa fired her own burst of heat energy right back at the parahuman himself, detonating something on or in him and throwing him well away from the area. To date, she does not know if he survived that attack, and has agreed to herself that if he never reveals himself to her again in her life, it'll be a hundred years too soon. Regardless, she was now alone, homeless, traumatised, and inexplicably feeling an intense urge to deal with the bad aspects of the world right then and there, with a severe sense of failure because she knew full well that as things were, she couldn't do it, especially in a relatively small and crimeless town like hers. Crawling out of the half-empty pool, she searched for any intact clothes other than her own, failed to find them, and promptly made a plan to get somewhere where she could make a difference, starting by sitting out the front of her previously-intact home and waiting until emergency services turned up.

Various formalities followed on from there, ending with Alessa in a foster home for about a week, with new clothes and bedding and what have you available. In this time, she gathered up supplies in secret, including water and food for several days, bedding to sleep under, and various other necessities. Then, once she felt she was set, she left without a word to any of the few remaining acquaintances she had, and set out at walking speed toward the nearest big city: Denver. That lasted about five days before, inexplicably, she began emitting heat and radiation great enough to start damaging her clothes and even spoiling some of her food; she soon figured out that this was a result of her absorbing the light and heat from the Sun for over two weeks without using it, only to hit an arbitrary limit that prevented her from absorbing more energy than that. She quickly rectified the situation by firing a few beams of energy out toward the Sun, but plenty of her water had already evaporated as a result; even so, she made it to the city proper with only mild dehydration, and from there to the local headquarters of the Protectorate, where she signed up as a Ward. If she had to start somewhere, why not there?

From there to the present day, Alessa's story is straightforward: she acquired a costume designed to her specifications complete with standard Ward equipment, began training in Krav Maga in order to protect herself at close range when needed, continued her education where it left off, and of course helped to fight crime as and when it was necessary. If she had her way, this latter activity would be almost all she ever did short of satisfying basic human needs; she knows, however, that to solve these inherent problems in the long-term, she must work on other facets of herself too. A proper resolution to problems such as those cannot be reached without a greater strategy in mind, in her opinion, but as long as she can't enact that strategy, she will settle for the short-term victories.

Personality

Motivations: Alessa's primary motivation is to protect others. If this means risking her own life as a cape, then so be it. In the long run, she'd very much like for the citizens of Denver, and indeed the world at large, to stop harming one another and co-operate in handling the worst threats to humanity, such as Endbringers, and global warming; for now, she is content with simply preventing crimes as they happen.
Sexuality: Bisexual
Likes:

• Heroism and its associated activities
• Training and practicing to help engage in heroism
• Meditation

Dislikes:

• Crime and criminals, especially child molestors
• Injustice
• Out of control fires

Derangement: Due to the circumstances of her past opinions amplified by her trigger event, Alessa has a serious hero complex: she feels that if she can assist in a bad situation, she must, even if her presence is entirely unwarranted. Indeed, the primary reason she doesn't go to help out in every single Endbringer fight is because the vast majority of them are much too far away for her to reach them before they are dealt with, and because she'd most likely perish anyway having not helped the fight or the world overmuch in the long run; knowing this eats her up inside whenever she is reminded of it. She at least has the sense to prioritise events and target worse criminals before less harmful ones, but when she isn't recuperating or otherwise training, she's out fighting crime, and often deprives herself of personal time as a result. By contrast, when she is socialising with others, she can't help but try to see the best in them, even if they are horrible people (barring a few notable exceptions), which may or may not tint her views on which people actually deserve to be dealt with as far as any given crime goes.

Parahumanism

Skills:

• Krav Maga - As the practical purpose of Alessa's powers is to deal a lot of damage very quickly at range, it stands to reason that showing quarter in close combat is a bad idea for her, much as she'd often prefer otherwise. Whilst not necessarily helpful against many more physically-concerned capes, Alessa has begun training in Krav Maga as a last resort for self-defense, able to enhance her attacks through use of her abilities as well, and currently holds the second-lowest rank of P1.
• Gun Training - As part of her Krav Maga training, Alessa has also been learning to wield guns such as the M16, both in close combat and for their intended purpose of shooting people, though as far as the latter point goes, this is rarely necessary, and she does not typically carry weapons on her in the field.
• Rapid Reflexes - Not strictly superhuman in nature or specifically a skill, but a combination of MA training and her own personal hangups on the topic of protecting others have led Alessa to gradually reduce her reaction times in an effort to deal with villains and criminals more effectively; she is currently at about three percent faster than an average human, and aims to get much quicker as time goes on.
• Meditation - When not doing anything else, Alessa likes to meditate in order to center and calm herself in preparation for her next crime-stopping activity. She will often do so in an active fireplace or similar source of heat, since the flames will further energise her for the fight.

Classification: Shaker/Breaker/Blaster
Details: Alessa is able to absorb and redirect heat energy (any amount greater than around 20 degrees Celsius) and high-end electromagnetic radiation (from gamma to UV, as well as some visible light) that she makes contact with. This includes natural forms of these energies, such as that emitted by fire, the Sun, or even sources of fissile gamma radiation, but also extends to parahuman abilities of that sort, such as the powers of certain Blasters. The energy she absorbs can be unleashed by her in whatever manner she desires, ranging from blasts to beams to spheres, even fairly powerful heat barriers which melt anything passing through them, and can be reabsorbed if the released energy happens to strike her again.

The logical conclusion...

By unleashing the stored energy in her body, Alessa can produce an omnidirectional explosion whose power varies heavily depending on how much energy she puts in; with enough energy released, it is entirely plausible that Alessa could destroy a large area of Denver with a single attack, surviving the corresponding devastation through use of her own ability to absorb any excess energy that might otherwise harm her. She calls this attack Rapture, yet fears to use it for exactly the reasons described above.

Limitations: Aside from the Manton Effect, which prevents her from simply touching a person and sucking out their heat energy like some sort of pseudo-vampire, Alessa's power has a fair few limitations. Most notably, she does not have any particular invulnerability beyond her absorption, and can't negate damage from sources that are not based on heat or EMR - in other words, she'd survive a bomb blast's heatwave at point blank range, but end up being pulverised by the kinetic shockwave and/or shredded by the shrapnel thrown out. Her energy absorption is also active constantly; whilst useful for ensuring that she always has at least some energy available for a fight in a worst-case scenario, she can't explicitly "turn off" the power at her convenience, and she can only store a limited amount of energy before she begins uncontrollably releasing the excess in all directions, even to the point of being forced into the use of Rapture to varying degrees if a large excess builds up in a very short period of time. Finally, as a logical consequence of her limited energy supply, utilising Rapture to its fullest extent by expending all of the energy she has stored up or otherwise running her energy reserves down in combat means weakening her offensive capabilities substantially, though not completely.
Equipment: As a Ward of the Protectorate, Alessa possesses the standard PCE and costume-incorporated HCIT. Other than this and her outfit proper, she rarely carries around very much gear, as she does not often require it.

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

Alessa Heather, A.K.A. "Messiah"

Messiah

Name: Alessa Heather
Alias: Messiah
Age: 16
Alignment: Hero
Loyalty: Wards
Appearance: Alessa is a rather pale girl with a fairly thin build and a figure that's nothing to particularly brag about, though recent heroics have started to push her more towards lean musculature. She is around 155cm tall, with straight brown hair running down to the small of her back, and her eyes are green speckled with blue, though she often has them glow a bright white colour whilst on the beat, which is as a rule more than enough to obscure her features. Though she wears more normal clothing on the rare occasions when she isn't out fighting crime, typically including a long skirt and a generic shirt in some colour or another, her cape outfit is simply a large white cotton robe with integrated body armour resistant to bullets and knives and the holographic computer interfacing tool standard to the Protectorate's Denver division, running down to the ankles of her uncovered feet with the sleeves hanging loose, though it is tied quite tightly at the waist.

History

Before the age of fifteen, Alessa's life wasn't particularly notable as anything that might produce a trigger event on its own. The family that lived with her- including her parents, two siblings, three of her grandparents, and a multitude of aunts, uncles, and cousins- were all generally friendly folks who had pooled their resources to buy a large, almost mansion-like house and various other luxuries, though two of their number were parahumans of modestly scarred personality. One of them, a cousin with the Tinker ability to create devices containing the information on any computer in the world pre-installed- though only one computer per device- decided it would be a good idea to show off to the young Alessa just how awful the world really was, by effectively hacking into a number of servers and showing off the statistics for how much worse off than her the vast majority of humanity really was. This was, of course, a calculated move: though not really scarring by itself, as numbers and figures rarely are, it set up in Alessa a distinct unease about the state of the world, and a firm desire to make Earth a better place for humanity once she hit the right age, prompting her to begin researching into the appropriate fields, such as public speaking and various humanitarian sciences.

And then her entire family died. Late Summer of 2004, and the family was out by their pool along with a number of friends. Alessa dived beneath the surface to grab something from the bottom; a flash of light and heat hit her from above the pool's surface; and when she resurfaced, everything within a hundred meters was burned to a crisp, including her family's house, and her family and friends. In other words, nearly everyone she knew and loved was dead, and she couldn't escape the area either because even the concrete around her was on fire. Though it hardly mattered: the parahuman who had killed them all promptly showed himself, an indistinct figure wreathed in flames which would supposedly burn anything short of air, water, and a few other substances, and even those would be superheated drastically to slay any in their vicinity. In other words, Alessa was doomed.

Or would have been, if she didn't abruptly absorb the heat energy from the parahuman's next blast of flame aimed directly at her, to the point that even the water around her failed to boil. His confusion was evident, but quickly turned to anger, leading to hit her with yet more fire and flame, to similar lack of obvious effect. This in turn led to shock and surprise when, out of nowhere, Alessa fired her own burst of heat energy right back at the parahuman himself, throwing him well away from the area. To date, she does not know if he survived that attack, and has agreed to herself that if he never reveals himself to her again in her life, it'll be a hundred years too soon. Regardless, she was now alone, homeless, traumatised, and inexplicably feeling an intense urge to deal with the bad aspects of the world right then and there, with a severe sense of failure because she knew full well that as things were, she couldn't do it, especially in a relatively small and crimeless town like hers. Crawling out of the half-empty pool, she searched for any intact clothes other than her own, failed to find them, and promptly made a plan to get somewhere where she could make a difference, starting by sitting out the front of her previously-intact home and waiting until emergency services turned up.

Various formalities followed on from there, ending with Alessa in a foster home for about a week, with new clothes and bedding and what have you available. In this time, she gathered up supplies in secret, including water and food for several days, bedding to sleep under, and various other necessities. Then, once she felt she was set, she left without a word to any of the few remaining acquaintances she had, and set out at walking speed toward the nearest big city: Denver. That lasted about five days before, inexplicably, she began emitting heat and radiation great enough to start damaging her clothes and even spoiling some of her food; she soon figured out that this was a result of her absorbing the light and heat from the Sun for over two weeks without using it, only to hit an arbitrary limit that prevented her from absorbing more energy than that. She quickly rectified the situation by firing a few beams of energy out toward the Sun, but plenty of her water had already evaporated as a result; even so, she made it to the city proper with only mild dehydration, and from there to the local headquarters of the Protectorate, where she signed up as a Ward. If she had to start somewhere, why not there?

From there to the present day, Alessa's story is straightforward: she acquired a costume designed to her specifications complete with standard Ward equipment, began training in Krav Maga in order to protect herself at close range when needed, continued her education where it left off, and of course helped to fight crime as and when it was necessary. If she had her way, this latter activity would be almost all she ever did short of satisfying basic human needs; she knows, however, that to solve these inherent problems in the long-term, she must work on other facets of herself too. A proper resolution to problems such as those cannot be reached without a greater strategy in mind, in her opinion, but as long as she can't enact that strategy, she will settle for the short-term victories.

Personality

Motivations: Alessa's primary motivation is to protect others. If this means risking her own life as a cape, then so be it. In the long run, she'd very much like for the citizens of Denver, and indeed the world at large, to stop harming one another and co-operate in handling the worst threats to humanity, such as Endbringers, and global warming; for now, she is content with simply preventing crimes as they happen.
Sexuality: Bisexual
Likes:

• Heroism and its associated activities
• Training and practicing to help engage in heroism
• Meditation

Dislikes:

• Crime and criminals
• Injustice
• Out of control fires

Derangement: Due to the circumstances of her past opinions amplified by her trigger event, Alessa has a serious hero complex: she feels that if she can assist in a bad situation, she must, even if her presence is entirely unwarranted. Indeed, the primary reason she doesn't go to help out in every single Endbringer fight is because the vast majority of them are much too far away for her to reach them before they are dealt with, and knowing this eats her up inside whenever she is reminded of it. She at least has the sense to prioritise events and target worse criminals before less harmful ones, but when she isn't recuperating, she's out fighting crime, and often deprives herself of personal time as a result.

Parahumanism

Skills:

• Krav Maga - As the practical purpose of Alessa's powers is to deal a lot of damage very quickly at range, it stands to reason that showing quarter in close combat is a bad idea for her, much as she'd often prefer otherwise. Whilst not necessarily helpful against many more physically-concerned capes, Alessa has begun training in Krav Maga as a last resort for self-defense, able to enhance her attacks through use of her abilities as well, and currently holds the second-lowest rank of P1.
• Gun Training - As part of her Krav Maga training, Alessa has also been learning to wield guns such as the M16, both in close combat and for their intended purpose of shooting people, though as far as the latter point goes, this is rarely necessary, and she does not typically carry weapons on her in the field.
• Rapid Reflexes - Not strictly superhuman in nature or specifically a skill, but a combination of MA training and her own personal hangups on the topic of protecting others have led Alessa to gradually reduce her reaction times in an effort to deal with villains and criminals more effectively; she is currently at about three percent faster than an average human, and aims to get much quicker as time goes on.
• Meditation - When not doing anything else, Alessa likes to meditate in order to center and calm herself in preparation for her next crime-stopping activity. She will often do so in an active fireplace or similar source of heat, since the flames will further energise her for the fight.

Classification: Shaker/Breaker/Blaster
Details: Alessa is able to absorb and redirect heat energy (any amount greater than around 20 degrees Celsius) and high-end electromagnetic radiation (from gamma to UV, as well as some visible light) that she makes contact with. This includes natural forms of these energies, such as that emitted by fire, the Sun, or even sources of fissile gamma radiation, but also extends to parahuman abilities of that sort, such as the powers of certain Blasters. The energy she absorbs can be unleashed by her in whatever manner she desires, ranging from blasts to beams to spheres, even rudimentary barriers, and can be reabsorbed if the released energy happens to strike her again.

The logical conclusion...

By unleashing the stored energy in her body, Alessa can produce an omnidirectional explosion whose power varies heavily depending on how much energy she puts in; with enough energy released, it is entirely plausible that Alessa could destroy a large area of Denver with a single attack, surviving the corresponding devastation through use of her own ability to absorb any excess energy that might otherwise harm her. She calls this attack Rapture, yet fears to use it for exactly the reasons described above.

Limitations: Aside from the Manton Effect, which prevents her from simply touching a person and sucking out their heat energy like some sort of pseudo-vampire, Alessa's power has a fair few limitations. Most notably, she does not have any particular invulnerability beyond her absorption, and can't negate damage from sources that are not based on heat or EMR - in other words, she'd survive a bomb blast's heatwave at point blank range, but end up being pulverised by the kinetic shockwave and/or shredded by the shrapnel thrown out. Her energy absorption is also active constantly; whilst useful for ensuring that she always has at least some energy available for a fight in a worst-case scenario, she can't explicitly "turn off" the power at her convenience, and she can only store a limited amount of energy before she begins uncontrollably releasing the excess in all directions, even to the point of being forced into the use of Rapture to varying degrees if a large excess builds up in a very short period of time. Finally, as a logical consequence of her limited energy supply, utilising Rapture to its fullest extent by expending all of the energy she has stored up or otherwise running her energy reserves down in combat means weakening her offensive capabilities substantially, though not completely.
Equipment: As a Ward of the Protectorate, Alessa possesses the standard PCE and costume-incorporated HCIT. Other than this and her outfit proper, she rarely carries around very much gear, as she does not often require it.

@BCTheEntity

I finally finished Messiah off. You are now capable of reviewing her in her entirety, @ProPro.

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

Alessa Heather, A.K.A. "Messiah"

Messiah

Name: Alessa Heather
Alias: Messiah
Age: 16
Alignment: Hero
Loyalty: Wards
Appearance: Alessa is a rather pale girl with a fairly thin build and a figure that's nothing to particularly brag about, though recent heroics have started to push her more towards lean musculature. She is around 155cm tall, with straight brown hair running down to the small of her back, and her eyes are green speckled with blue, though she often has them glow a bright white colour whilst on the beat, which is as a rule more than enough to obscure her features. Though she wears more normal clothing on the rare occasions when she isn't out fighting crime, typically including a long skirt and a generic shirt in some colour or another, her cape outfit is simply a large white cotton robe with integrated body armour resistant to bullets and knives and the holographic computer interfacing tool standard to the Protectorate's Denver division, running down to the ankles of her uncovered feet with the sleeves hanging loose, though it is tied quite tightly at the waist.

History

Before the age of fifteen, Alessa's life wasn't particularly notable as anything that might produce a trigger event on its own. The family that lived with her- including her parents, two siblings, three of her grandparents, and a multitude of aunts, uncles, and cousins- were all generally friendly folks who had pooled their resources to buy a large, almost mansion-like house and various other luxuries, though two of their number were parahumans of modestly scarred personality. One of them, a cousin with the Tinker ability to create devices containing the information on any computer in the world pre-installed- though only one computer per device- decided it would be a good idea to show off to the young Alessa just how awful the world really was, by effectively hacking into a number of servers and showing off the statistics for how much worse off than her the vast majority of humanity really was. This was, of course, a calculated move: though not really scarring by itself, as numbers and figures rarely are, it set up in Alessa a distinct unease about the state of the world, and a firm desire to make Earth a better place for humanity once she hit the right age, prompting her to begin researching into the appropriate fields, such as public speaking and various humanitarian sciences.

And then her entire family died. Late Summer of 2004, and the family was out by their pool along with a number of friends. Alessa dived beneath the surface to grab something from the bottom; a flash of light and heat hit her from above the pool's surface; and when she resurfaced, everything within a hundred meters was burned to a crisp, including her family's house, and her family and friends. In other words, nearly everyone she knew and loved was dead, and she couldn't escape the area either because even the concrete around her was on fire. Though it hardly mattered: the parahuman who had killed them all promptly showed himself, an indistinct figure wreathed in flames which would supposedly burn anything short of air, water, and a few other substances, and even those would be superheated drastically to slay any in their vicinity. In other words, Alessa was doomed.

Or would have been, if she didn't abruptly absorb the heat energy from the parahuman's next blast of flame aimed directly at her, to the point that even the water around her failed to boil. His confusion was evident, but quickly turned to anger, leading to hit her with yet more fire and flame, to similar lack of obvious effect. This in turn led to shock and surprise when, out of nowhere, Alessa fired her own burst of heat energy right back at the parahuman himself, throwing him well away from the area. To date, she does not know if he survived that attack, and has agreed to herself that if he never reveals himself to her again in her life, it'll be a hundred years too soon. Regardless, she was now alone, homeless, traumatised, and inexplicably feeling an intense urge to deal with the bad aspects of the world right then and there, with a severe sense of failure because she knew full well that as things were, she couldn't do it, especially in a relatively small and crimeless town like hers. Crawling out of the half-empty pool, she searched for any intact clothes other than her own, failed to find them, and promptly made a plan to get somewhere where she could make a difference, starting by sitting out the front of her previously-intact home and waiting until emergency services turned up.

Various formalities followed on from there, ending with Alessa in a foster home for about a week, with new clothes and bedding and what have you available. In this time, she gathered up supplies in secret, including water and food for several days, bedding to sleep under, and various other necessities. Then, once she felt she was set, she left without a word to any of the few remaining acquaintances she had, and set out at walking speed toward the nearest big city: Denver. That lasted about five days before, inexplicably, she began emitting heat and radiation great enough to start damaging her clothes and even spoiling some of her food; she soon figured out that this was a result of her absorbing the light and heat from the Sun for over two weeks without using it, only to hit an arbitrary limit that prevented her from absorbing more energy than that. She quickly rectified the situation by firing a few beams of energy out toward the Sun, but plenty of her water had already evaporated as a result; even so, she made it to the city proper with only mild dehydration, and from there to the local headquarters of the Protectorate, where she signed up as a Ward. If she had to start somewhere, why not there?

From there to the present day, Alessa's story is straightforward: she acquired a costume designed to her specifications complete with standard Ward equipment, began training in Krav Maga in order to protect herself at close range when needed, continued her education where it left off, and of course helped to fight crime as and when it was necessary. If she had her way, this latter activity would be almost all she ever did short of satisfying basic human needs; she knows, however, that to solve these inherent problems in the long-term, she must work on other facets of herself too. A proper resolution to problems such as those cannot be reached without a greater strategy in mind, in her opinion, but as long as she can't enact that strategy, she will settle for the short-term victories.

Personality

Motivations: Alessa's primary motivation is to protect others. If this means risking her own life as a cape, then so be it. In the long run, she'd very much like for the citizens of Denver, and indeed the world at large, to stop harming one another and co-operate in handling the worst threats to humanity, such as Endbringers, and global warming; for now, she is content with simply preventing crimes as they happen.
Sexuality: Bisexual
Likes:

• Heroism and its associated activities
• Training and practicing to help engage in heroism
• Meditation

Dislikes:

• Crime and criminals
• Injustice
• Out of control fires

Derangement: Due to the circumstances of her past opinions amplified by her trigger event, Alessa has a serious hero complex: she feels that if she can assist in a bad situation, she must, even if her presence is entirely unwarranted. Indeed, the primary reason she doesn't go to help out in every single Endbringer fight is because the vast majority of them are much too far away for her to reach them before they are dealt with, and knowing this eats her up inside whenever she is reminded of it. She at least has the sense to prioritise events and target worse criminals before less harmful ones, but when she isn't recuperating, she's out fighting crime, and often deprives herself of personal time as a result.

Parahumanism

Skills:

• Krav Maga - As the practical purpose of Alessa's powers is to deal a lot of damage very quickly at range, it stands to reason that showing quarter in close combat is a bad idea for her, much as she'd often prefer otherwise. Whilst not necessarily helpful against many more physically-concerned capes, Alessa has begun training in Krav Maga as a last resort for self-defense, able to enhance her attacks through use of her abilities as well, and currently holds the second-lowest rank of P1.
• Gun Training - As part of her Krav Maga training, Alessa has also been learning to wield guns such as the M16, both in close combat and for their intended purpose of shooting people, though as far as the latter point goes, this is rarely necessary, and she does not typically carry weapons on her in the field.
• Rapid Reflexes - Not strictly superhuman in nature or specifically a skill, but a combination of MA training and her own personal hangups on the topic of protecting others have led Alessa to gradually reduce her reaction times in an effort to deal with villains and criminals more effectively; she is currently at about three percent faster than an average human, and aims to get much quicker as time goes on.
• Meditation - When not doing anything else, Alessa likes to meditate in order to center and calm herself in preparation for her next crime-stopping activity. She will often do so in an active fireplace or similar source of heat, since the flames will further energise her for the fight.

Classification: Shaker/Breaker/Blaster
Details: Alessa is able to absorb and redirect heat energy (any amount greater than around 20 degrees Celsius) and high-end electromagnetic radiation (from gamma to UV, as well as some visible light) that she makes contact with. This includes natural forms of these energies, such as that emitted by fire, the Sun, or even sources of fissile gamma radiation, but also extends to parahuman abilities of that sort, such as the powers of certain Blasters. The energy she absorbs can be unleashed by her in whatever manner she desires, ranging from blasts to beams to spheres, even rudimentary barriers, and can be reabsorbed if the released energy happens to strike her again.

The logical conclusion...

By unleashing the stored energy in her body, Alessa can produce an omnidirectional explosion whose power varies heavily depending on how much energy she puts in; with enough energy released, it is entirely plausible that Alessa could destroy a large area of Denver with a single attack, surviving the corresponding devastation through use of her own ability to absorb any excess energy that might otherwise harm her. She calls this attack Rapture, yet fears to use it for exactly the reasons described above.

Limitations: Aside from the Manton Effect, which prevents her from simply touching a person and sucking out their heat energy like some sort of pseudo-vampire, Alessa's power has a fair few limitations. Most notably, she does not have any particular invulnerability beyond her absorption, and can't negate damage from sources that are not based on heat or EMR - in other words, she'd survive a bomb blast's heatwave at point blank range, but end up being pulverised by the kinetic shockwave and/or shredded by the shrapnel thrown out. Her energy absorption is also active constantly; whilst useful for ensuring that she always has at least some energy available for a fight in a worst-case scenario, she can't explicitly "turn off" the power at her convenience, and she can only store a limited amount of energy before she begins uncontrollably releasing the excess in all directions, even to the point of being forced into the use of Rapture to varying degrees if a large excess builds up in a very short period of time. Finally, as a logical consequence of her limited energy supply, utilising Rapture to its fullest extent by expending all of the energy she has stored up or otherwise running her energy reserves down in combat means weakening her offensive capabilities substantially, though not completely.
Equipment: As a Ward of the Protectorate, Alessa possesses the standard PCE and costume-incorporated HCIT. Other than this and her outfit proper, she rarely carries around very much gear, as she does not often require it.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

Gird your loins. Post incoming Friday night (my time).

@POOHEAD189

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

I'm interested as well, with the same conditions as @Kafka Komedy. So, uh, yeah.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Funky Fistfight Freezers

@Gentlemanvaultboy@Lurkerlurks@Lazy Rocktime@Lugubrious@Kafka Komedy@Pandapaw23@CaptainCaptcha So, uh, anyone else want to post again? Or is this just... down and out, as it were?

The Three Realms War [A DMC, Bayonetta and Darksiders RP]

Alright, I've finally gotten a post done. I tried to cover both of the events involving Iscah and Iacobos in it, i.e. Scarecrow horde and meeting up with @rivaan's Kosara; if the way I've written the post makes it a touch godmoddy as far as handling the NPC enemies goes, please tell me so I can fix it, @Sho Minazuki.