Code Name: Specter
Real Name: Gloria Lieth
Age: 19
Nationality: American
Power: Intangibility – Simply put Gloria has the ability to shift the rate at which her molecules vibrate in order to pass through solid matter. The biggest exception to this is electricity, attempting to phase through anything that carries a heavy electric charge will cause her a great amount of pain. If the charge is towards the lower end but still present she may still be able to push through, this kind of stress of her powers will leave behind something akin to a severe friction burn on any exposed skin that went through the process, effects on clothing may vary by circumstance. If Gloria tries to reform inside a solid object her body will attempt to expel the foreign material with varied degrees of success. If it is a small portion of her body inside a comparatively less dense material then the material will warp and shift to accommodate that body part however if it is most of her body inside something like stone then she will experience excruciating pain her molecules fuse with the stone in a permanent and fatal manor. Organic matter carries a discernable electric charge. This means that the same rules apply to Gloria moving through a person as they do moving through electricity. Compared to something like an electric fence the charge that humans or animals carry is relatively low so Gloria could move through someone however it would hurt quite a bit. Reforming inside something with an electric charge would be suicide, Gloria may succeed in reforming but the charge of the matter she is moving through would kill her. However Gloria has discovered that if she moves through something with a low level charge and alternates solid and not very quickly she is able to fry circuitry, such as security systems or computers. Passing through vegetation is not a problem as the charge it carries is almost unnoticeable compared to other living things. The denser a substance is the more difficult for Gloria to move through it. Something like class would be fairly easy but something like lead or osmium would be much more difficult and possibly even dangerous depending on how much of it she is phasing through.
Origins: Gloria grew up in New York City. Her home was not exactly a stable one. Both her parents Peter and Rose, worked constantly, her mother was a lawyer and her father a doctor. This meant that both Gloria and her little sister Cassandra lived well but there’s more to life than that. Because of their occupations neither of Gloria’s parents were home consistently and when they were home Gloria was not there favorite person. They saw Gloria as a deviant, unwilling or worse unable to fulfil their vision of what a daughter should be. On the best days they ignored her but on many of the less pleasant ones Gloria and her parents would get into violently loud arguments. Because of this Gloria stayed out quite often when she knew her parents might be home. She spent most of her time at pool halls or twenty four hour coffee shops.
It wasn’t really a secret that Cassandra was Peter and Rose’s favorite but Gloria didn’t resent her sister for it. If you met Cassandra you’d know it was hard to resent her for anything. Cassie as Gloria called her was almost as unstable as Gloria’s home life. She had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age, her parents however couldn’t bear to have her institutionalized. Usually her delusions were pretty tame but every now and then she’d have a serious fit. Peter and Rose didn’t see many of these, they were too busy working. To them Cassandra was there perfect daughter, they weren’t capable of seeing how seriously she needed help. Gloria didn’t like spending time at home, it contained very few pleasant memories for her but at times when she knew her parents were working she would stay none the less to keep her little sister calm. When Gloria was out she gave Cassie a cellphone, if anything scared or frightened her, or anything happened that Cassie couldn’t explain she was to call right away.
The development of Gloria’s meta-gene when she was fourteen was the beginning of the end. At first her parents didn’t notice but Gloria’s control over her ability was spotty, she’d phase partway through things at the randomest times and soon enough it happened in public. Once a month Gloria, Rose Peter and Cassie all sat down for a family dinner. This family time once a month was hell for Gloria but Cassie five years younger than her sister seemed to love having everyone together, she didn’t see the tension between her parents and her older sister. For this reason when this time rolled around Gloria tried to be as pleasant as she could, to be the person that Peter and Rose wanted despite the fact that it was not who she was.
Gloria helped her mother with dinner that night trying so hard to make this special for her sister. When she was taking the plates to the dining room table Gloria tripped on a piece of loose carpet and went careening towards the table plates flying everywhere. Some sort of instinct activated in Gloria then, a primal sense of self protection cause her power to activate that moment. It save her head from smashing into the fine oak but it doomed her in her parent’s eyes. Gloria passed straight through the table top with her entire family there to witness.
At the best of time Peter and Rose were not tolerant people but finding out that there child was a
mutant was the final straw for them. They removed her from school, couldn’t have that happening in public, what would the neighbors think? Then they forbid her to leave the house. Of course Gloria was happy to stay when both her parents were out if only to keep an eye on her little sister. At that point in her life the only reason that Gloria didn’t run away from home
was because Cassie. The little girl need Gloria now more than ever.
Cassie had always had an over active imagination which often enough fueled her delusions. Ever since she’d seen what Gloria could do her schizophrenia had incorporated it into her own personal reality. She’d become convinced that she also was a meta-human. That might have been okay if she thought she had telekinesis or pyrokinesis or energy manipulation or telepathy or anything else. Except Cassie didn’t dream up an ability like that. One that couldn’t hurt her. Cassie had started to believe that she could fly.
At the beginning it was almost funny, seeing the eleven year old jumping off tables and chairs and laughing when she hit the ground. Two years after Gloria first discovered her powers when she was sixteen things turned dangerous. Gloria came home one day to find Cassandra standing on the railing of the back deck, fifteen feet off the ground. “I’m gonna do it this time sis.” She shouted with a smile on her face, before Gloria could do anything Cassandra leapt from the railing. She broke both of her legs and fractured her collarbone.
Gloria called 911, when Peter and Rose got home they wouldn’t believe that there dear sweet innocent Cassie had actually jumped off a fifteen foot deck. The real answer seemed obvious, Gloria had pushed her sister off the deck out of jealously. No matter how many times Gloria told them what happened they refused to believe it. It was only Cassandra’s insistence that Gloria had gotten home after the fall that kept her from ending up in Juvi.
Three months later after Cassie’s bones had healed Gloria’s relationship with her parents had deteriorated further, to the point where Gloria couldn’t be in the same room with them without an argument starting. That fateful night Gloria stormed out of the house not wanted to be there when Peter and Rose returned.
She went down to the pool halls were she wasn’t too bad at hustle guys out of there cash. That night Gloria got a phone call in that special phone she’d reserved for her sister. She picked up with haste leaving a game mid play and forfeiting her bet. “Cassie what’s wrong?”
“There’s something in the attic with me sis. I’m scared, but one of the windows in the attic is open. I’m gonna fly away from it. I’m going to be alright.”
Gloria’s heart nearly stopped, she began to run for home as fast as her legs would carry her as she tried to talk her sister down. “Cassie don’t do this. Whatever’s in the attic with you isn’t scary enough to waste your powers on it, your powers are special. They should be used for special things.” Gloria had learned that directly opposing Cassie’s delusions was a mistake. Her little sister would get irritable and angry and Gloria couldn’t calm her down.
“Its big sis, it’s got horns.”
“Cassie I’m almost at the house, don’t do anything till I get there.”
“It’s coming for my Glory. I have to fly. I have too.”
Gloria rounded the corner to the street her house was on. She shoved open the gate with enough force to smash it into the fence beside. Gloria ran up the walk just in time to hear her sister’s scream and see her body hit the ground.
In shock Gloria gathered her little sister in her arms, she wasn’t even twelve yet and she seemed so small all broken. She tried to smile and Gloria could see blood coating her teeth. “It didn’t get me sis, I flew. Did you see?”
Gloria smiled tears streaming down her eyes. “I saw, my little angel, you flew. It was beautiful.”
The smile on Cassandra’s face was so innocent it broke Gloria’s heart. “I… I have to go somewhere else now don’t I?”
Gloria couldn’t answer. How did you respond to a dying girls last words?
Cassie reached up a hand and touched Gloria’s chest right below her collarbone. “Don’t worry sis, I’ll always be there for you. Right there.” She said pocking Gloria’s chest, smearing blood on her tank top.
That was how Peter and Rose found the two of them three house later. Cassandra’s broken body being cradled by a despondent Gloria who was still crying and holding Cassie in her arms.
“My god Gloria, what did you do?” said Peter looking on the scene with horror.
This snapped Gloria out of whatever state she’d been existing in before. Her pain and anguish quickly turning to anger. “You can’t possibly think… I’m your
daughter, her
sister. I would never… but then what do you know about me? What do you know about either of us? Maybe if you’d bothered to come home every once in a while you might have been able to stop her from jumping.”
“Jumping?” said Rose in shock. “You can’t possibly think we’d believe this was self-inflicted? Our daughter would never commit suicide.”
“Mom! You’re
daughter was schizophrenic, she needed help. Help you weren’t willing to admit might be necessary. Her blood in on your hands.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. “No actually I think it’s on
your hands.” he said gesturing down Gloria’s hands which were indeed stained wither her sisters blood. “Rose call the police.”
Gloria watched in horror as her mother pulled out a cellphone. “Police, I’d like to report a murder. My daughter is dead, yes I know who did it. She’s still here. Get here as quick as possible I don’t think we can hold her for long.”
Gloria looked between her parents and realized two very important things, they’d never really loved her, and they were determined to see her jailed for Cassandra’s death. Gloria started to run.
“No you don’t.” shouted Peter moving to intercept. Gloria didn’t stop she just kept running and as she approached her father her both moved through his. Pain crackled through her limbs that Gloria didn’t fully understand but shock, horror, and grief dulled its edge so that she barely felt it.
Gloria didn’t stop running till she was ten blocks from her house. She used the little money she had on her to buy new, clean clothing and she wiped the blood from her skin. This began Gloria’s life on the streets. It took six months before the police gave up on finding her. Of course officially her file was still open and she was still wanted but after that amount of time no one expected her to be found. She stayed in New York, using her gift to steal what she needed. A neat trick she discovered was that if she made her stomach intangible she could store shoplifted items in it for several minutes before she started to feel like she was choking. Gloria did what she had to, to survive. Six months ago her jobs finally caught up with her. She was hired by a local fence to steal a diamond ring from a safety deposit body.
It was a trap set by MetaOps. They’d gotten winds of her exploits, the vault were the diamond was held had been retrofitted with an electrically charged grid in all of the walls, floor and ceiling which was activated once she was inside. After that they used insulated cuffs that were wired to transport her to a holding facility. Her choices were simple, join the MetaOps project or spent the next two to five years in jail for the various crimes she’d committed to get by.
Personality: Gloria has a prominent wild streak to her and enjoyed partying, drinking, and having sex. Often enough she’ll use a guy and dump him without forming any sort of emotional ties. She can also be careless and irresponsible, Gloria treats serious matters more lightly than she probably should. She is generally carefree and laid-back, causing her to view people who take matters serious as being wound too tight. Gloria doesn’t really want to be in any sort of leadership position on the team because of a deep seated fear that her mistakes could cost them a lot just like with her sister. She explains this reluctance to take command of a situation by nonchalantly saying it’s too much of a hassle. When she wants to be Gloria can be both forceful and persuasive, she could be a decent leader given the chance.
Gloria frequently proved herself to be impulsive. She is known for her quick, easily irritated nature, something her father described as the "Lieth temper". Gloria has deep issues with parental figures, due to being raised by neglectful, absent parents while she was young. Nonetheless, she has a deep yearning for a family. She has many trust issues, always fearing that she will be betrayed or hurt if she lets someone in. Often enough she is incapable of understanding why someone would show kindness with nothing to gain for themselves. She is always suspicious of people who take an interest in her. Gloria shows hostility to those she doesn't trust or doesn't know but on the one hand, she would display extreme loyalty to those who were close to her and cared for her, yet that hasn’t happened since her sister died.
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Apollosarcher,
shylarah