Current
I'm bringing Dragon Cave back and no one can stop me.
4 yrs ago
MEEP
1
like
7 yrs ago
I am back into this shit, I guess. Say hello if you'd like.
7 yrs ago
I am one with the force and the force is with me.
1
like
8 yrs ago
I have suddenly become deeply troubled.
Bio
"That's why we must eat the old people first. They can't have that kind of power."
I've been roleplaying for six years, and if I do say so myself I've gotten pretty good. I've been to many roleplay sites around the internet, and for right now I'm happy calling this one home. I write fantasy, high science fiction, and poetry. I'm involved in the Nerdfighteria community as well, making the world suck a little bit less one day at a time. Though sometimes it's rough and incredibly time-consuming, roleplaying has brought me some of my closest friends, some of the most genuinely awesome people I've ever met. This train is still going, and there's no stop in sight! DFTBA.
The Disappointment Club:
"What the fuck did I just read"
We're special-ed special forces, the most exclusive internet club that no one wants to join, and the most thoroughly disappointing group of individuals the world has ever seen (we even disappoint when it comes to disappointing). Together, we're quite possibly the best six friends the internet has know.
- @Junkmail : Living Proof That God is Dead. - @He Who Walks Behind : I still won't forgive him for what he did to that starfish. - @Dragonbud : Her Gregory Cosplay is fire. - @Surtr : I think he's still trying to pimp me... Help. - @Spoopy Scary : He's Greg.
The loathing came in bursts sometimes. Grey stood there in the empty warehouse, leaning against the railing of the second-floor catwalk and looking down at the gathered assembly of morons they called comrades, and it struck. It hit like a swarm of hornets, needled the base of their neck and the tops of their shoulders. They wanted to run away, go home and say it was too hard, it was too much to handle. They wanted to run home to Baltimore and climb in bed with their Joey and sleep until the morning reached through the blinds.
But Grey didn’t do that. That wasn’t an option. There was too much money on the line to mess this up. Instead, Grey looked down at the blue plastic Gameboy in their hands and drowned themselves in distraction— Tetris, as usual. The scowl on their face felt like a permanent fixture these days. Down below, three men sat in a circle around a glass bong. The acrid smell of marijuana floated through the air like smog and mixed with the ever-present reek of urine, alcohol, and body odor. Off in the corner, a trashy rap song played from a boombox in front of a crowd of young men all tripping on Happiness. They all laid in circles on the ground, laughing and moaning and smiling Joker-esque grins. Grey hated that drug more than anything else in this god-forsaken place. The labs smelled of harsh chemicals and the addicts lumbered around like limp zombies, their constant laughter echoing through the cavernous warehouse.
“You want a hit Grey?” a man called from the circle below. It was Enrique, one of Grey’s subordinates in the Boyz. He was a short, fat Latino man with a mop of curly black hair on his head. He spoke with a cuban accent. Grey made no reply, only scowled deeper and tried to look like they weren’t paying attention. Some grumbling came from below.
“You gotta lighten up, my brother,” Enrique called. “Put that fucking artifact down and take a load off! The boss ain’t paying you to sit around and be a grump all day!”
“Don’t call me ‘brother’,” Grey replied in a monotone, not looking away from the screen. “We’re not friends.” He rotated a straight piece and dropped it onto the left side of the screen— Tetris.
“Ah fine, fuck you then,” Enrique replied. “You think you’re so much better than us because you got some dumb fuckin’ mask and dress like a travesti.” Grey lowered the Gameboy. One of the other men in the circle around the bong picked it up and took a deep hit.
“The fuck did you just call me?” Grey’s voice echoed down, tinged with anger.
“Oooooh,” one of the men in the circle said in the ton of a 3rd grader when someone is called to the office. He was a skinny and weak-looking guy with a mess of brown hair, a long beard, and eyes that flitted around constantly. His clothing hung from his gangly frame like bloated flesh on a corpse. They all called him Bible Bill. He called himself “The Second Christ”.
Grey turned the Gameboy off and put it in their pocket. They walked to the end of the catwalk and down the stairs to the concrete floor of the warehouse. The stench of piss and marijuana was stronger here than before. Off in the distance, someone laughed raucously. They approached the circle. Enrique fell back and crawled on his hands and feet.
“Hey brother, I’m sorry,” Enrique said. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Honest.” Grey stepped through the circle, kicking the bong over as they did so. The water spilled in the direction of the third man, a red-haired miscreant with bad teeth and gigantic tinted goggles taking up most of his face. He wore a Miami Heat jersey with a horrible yellow stain going down one side. Grey approached Enrique, who had turned onto his knees and struggled to his feet. Before he could get away, Grey grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar and pulled back hair. Enrique slipped and fell onto his back. Before he could react, the four-inch heel of a black leather boot rested on his throat.
“Let me make one thing very clear,” Grey said monotonously. “If you ever say that word again as long as you live you’ll end up in a mental institution chewing on your own tongue. Is that understood?”
“I-,” Enrique stuttered, short of breath. “I-yeah, yeah I fuckin’ get it. Won’t happen again b-boss. Sorry...” Grey’s boot hovered over the man’s throat. Suddenly, their phone pinged loudly. Boot still over the man’s throat, they pulled their phone out, a sleek iPhone 8. On the screen was a single notification. The app was a simple black box with “.io” in the left corner in white text. Grey scrunched their face up and signed into the phone, a seventeen-letter password, and scrolled to the third page of apps. The black square was on the third page of a folder titled “Misc.” It had no name under it and would not show up if searched. Grey clicked on the app and put their thumb on the home button. The phone buzzed and a white screen appeared with two words of black text in that same monospaced font:
Drake_Blackmore
The two words blinked three times. Then the app crashed and the phone turned off.
Grey thought for a long time. Then they moved their foot from Enrique’s throat and turned back towards the other two, who were cleaning up the spilled bong and salvaging as much of the weed as they could. Enrique laid on his back and stared up at the ceiling, breathing heavy.
“Albert,” Grey said to the man with the goggles. “Clean your shirt.”
“Oh yeah sorry boss,” Albert replied, pulling out a plastic bag. Inside were several dime-sized nuggets of weed. “I’ll do it later tonight.”
“What even is that stain?” Grey asked. “It looks like...vomit?”
“Sauce from an everything dog from Brunhilde’s,” Albert replied. “It’s got mustard, relish, ketchup, chili, onion powder-”
“That sounds carcinogenic,” Grey replied. “Don’t tell me about it anymore.” Albert shrugged and began to grind a nugget of weed with a small metal spice grinder.
“To each their own, I guess,” Al mumbled. “We still got a few hours ‘fore we’re on duty, right?”
“Yeah, Joyboy doesn’t want us on the streets until it’s safe,” Grey replied. “Cops have been getting wise, especially in our part of town.”
“Alright,” Albert said, still grinding the weed up. “I’m gonna pack a new bowl. You want some boss?” Grey sighed hard and looked around.
“Fuck, I guess,” Grey said. They found a spot on the floor around the bong that was...cleaner than the rest and sat cross-legged. Enrique lumbered up, limping a little, and sat down across from them. Across the room, Grey heard a commotion of obnoxious laughter.
“RANDY JOHNSON!” someone screamed. The sound of a shattering bottle then broke the laughter.
“FUCK,” a different guy screamed. “MY FUCKING ASS!” Grey groaned.
“Alright, who did that?” Grey shouted across the room, turning their head.
“Robbie fucked Gonzo’s ass up again!” a chorus of voices shouted back.
“Oh fuck you guys!” Robbie shouted.
“Robbie! What did we talk about?” Grey shouted back.
“I know...I have to control my anger... sorry boss!”
“Don’t apologize to me! Go take Gonzo to the med bay! And make sure there’s not any blood left behind!” Grey turned their head back towards the bong, which Albert was now lighting. They took their glasses off (round and clear with gold frames) and put their head in one palm.
“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee” Bible Bill said, staring off into the distance. “for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
“I’m a fucking babysitter,” Grey groaned.
Present-Day
Grey walked down the boardwalk wearing high-cutoff jorts and a pink blouse tied off at the midriff. A straw hat rested atop their mess of platinum hair and round blue sunglasses covered their eyes. It was a nice warm overcast day, and a cool wind blew across the boards from the ocean nearby. The sounds of children laughing echoed from the carnival and mixed with the sound of EDM and trap music coming from the kitschy weed-themed shops on the boards. Grey sat down on a wooden bench by a light pole and watched the seagulls circle overhead. Off in the distance, a loud bell rung from a carnie’s booth and a little girl screamed with excitement. Albert walked across the boardwalk from a shop and sat down next to Grey. He wore the same Heat jersey as always, albeit freshly laundered, and a pink bucket hat covered in marijuana leaves. As he sat down, he munched on a large hot dog covered in a strange yellow sauce.
“How do you stomach that shit,” Grey said cattily.
“Look bro, I don’t hate on your organic vegan quinoa shit. Let me eat my hot dog in peace.” Grey grumbled and rolled their eyes. They began to look out at the people walking down the boards until they came across a man with spiked black hair. He was leaning on the fence of the boardwalk, looking out sunset and licking an ice cream cone. Grey opened their phone and looked at the picture he’d been sent. The face and hair matched exactly. Quickly, they deleted the picture, scrolled to “Misc”, and opened up the black app again. This time, a keyboard appeared on the screen. They typed three words:
The most touristy part of town, Downtown Charity is located north of the Dog River and bordering the beach. Here, you can find an assortment of nice restaurants, amusement parks, night clubs, hotels, and plenty of tacky gift shops. The famous Charity Beach boardwalk extends long the beach here. The boardwalk contains high-rise hotels, dozens of arcades, casual dining options, and the Charity Beach Aquarium, a massive cylindrical glass building extending five stories up. The police presence here is heaviest, and crime is met with extreme prejudice (nobody wants to disturb the tourists).
Jackson Row:
Located south of the downtown area, across the Dog River, Jackson Row is the bougie part of town. The houses here are all narrow row homes with brick and limestone facades. This part of town contains the Charity Beach Museum of Modern Art as well as several other museums. The main branch of the Charity Beach library can also be found here, a large, palatial building with glass domes in the ceiling and limestone walls. The area along the Dog River is known as Dog Run, and contains a string of popular trendy bars and fashion boutiques. The property value is high here, as it's become a trendy place for young well-off people to live. Crime in Jackson Row is moderate, with many of the city's newcomers looking for more high-brow drugs (cocaine, marijuana). Happiness has begun to become trendy among the druggies of Jackson Row however, and the police have begun to become concerned that Boyz presence in the area will grow over time.
Las Costas:
Located to the south-west of Jackson Row, Las Costas is a large, poor area of the city, populated mostly by people of Latin American and Cuban descent. The houses here are mostly brick-front row homes and overcrowded projects. The property value is low, with boarded up windows, busted sidewalks, empty vacant lots, and many condemned buildings. Las Costas contains many churches, including La Catedral De La Caridad, a large, beautiful church near the beach. The people of Las Costas are at odds with the police, who often act with prejudice towards them. As such, The Boyz have formed a strong foothold here and Happiness runs rampant.
College Village
Charity University lies to the east of Downtown Charity, bordering Dog Lake to the south and the Seminole River to the north. It is a mid-sized college campus, with around 25,000 students. The buildings here are mostly modern, with tall glass windows and stone exterior. All around Charity U are tons of apartment buildings and row homes mostly frequented by students. Most of the businesses around here also cater to students, with lots of pizza shops, cheap bars, and nightclubs. Crime in College Village is moderate, with Boyz influence beginning to enter the area, as students have begun to try Happiness.
“Bible Bill”, as he is called, is a skinny and weak-looking member of the Boyz. He has long brown hair that is tangled and messy and comes down to his shoulders. Bible Bill is schizophrenic, and this causes him for some reason to believe that he is the second coming of Jesus. He runs around battlefields during turf wars with a Gideon Bible that he stole from a hotel in one hand and a gun in the other, screaming about how people should follow him to paradise. Besides that, Bill spends a lot of time arguing philosophy to no one in particular. Once homeless, the Boyz gave him a place to live in exchange for his services to them.
Powers:
Well if his claims of being the Messiah are true, then total Omnipotence. His claims of being the Messiah are not true.
Should additionally mention that Grey is an indoctrinated member of the Boyz.
"I have to fill this out? Shit, if you say so I guess."
▼ | BIRTH NAME : |
Gregory Jackelwitz (dead name)
▼ | ALSO KNOWN AS: |
Grey
▼ | GENDER : |
Nonbinary. Uses they/them pronouns.
▼ | AGE : |
26
⫸ A P P E A R A N C E ⫷
“Beauty standards are so over. I look how I want to look. You should do the same. Let’s go shopping sometime when we’re not trying to kill each other.”
▼ | P H Y S I C AL S T A T S : |
▸ HEIGHT : | 5’3” ▸ WEIGHT : | 110 lbs ▸ ETHNICITY : | 3rd generation Polish/Russian. ▸ HAIR COLOR : | They change it all the time. Naturally it’s brown but usually it’s a platinum blonde. ▸ EYE COLOR : | Light Blue
▼ | PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION : |
Short and fit, Grey looks like someone who works out but doesn’t lift weights. Their body looks neither male nor female. Their skin is very pale and they don’t have any real stick-out blemishes or scars. Grey has a long neck, a slim, angular face, and a strong jawline. Their ears are average-sized and stick out a little from the sides of their head. Grey usually wears makeup, accentuating their cheekbones and jawline. They collect and wear strange colors of lipstick, some reds and pinks but also purples, greens, and blues. They’re not for eye makeup much (goes bad with the glasses). Their eyes are a cool blue and always look generally spaced out, like they’re trying to look detached. They have long, thin, brown eyebrows with a piercing in the right one, a simple silver stud. Their hair is usually dyed platinum blonde and is combed down to the right or put up in a pompadour.
▼ | ATTIRE : |
Grey loves fashion more than anything else. They’re always looking for new outfits or ways to wear old digs. They blur the lines of gender with their outfits, wearing both masculine and feminine clothing. It wouldn’t be out of place to see Grey wear a skirt or a suit, or both at the same time (somehow). Grey typically wears large round glasses with gold rims and/or round sunglasses when outside.
Grey is a makeup artist by trade. They have a degree from a beauty school and, if things had gone better, probably would have ended up working on movies as a makeup artist. As such, Grey can change their appearance drastically using makeup and prosthetic items they’ve collected over the years (wigs, body molds, clothing, etc). Out of necessity, Grey has also become a good liar. Grey knows how to use a gun (also out of necessity) but is a fairly poor marksman. Beyond practical skills, Grey is decent at sewing and good at old video games.
▼ | BACK STORY : |
Grey doesn’t know their birth parents. All they know is that they were born Gregory Alberts in Fairfax, south of DC, and at a young age was left at an orphanage. Few memories of this time exist in Grey’s head, only vague shadows: a crib in the corner of a beige room, a white teddy bear with one eye missing, falling on the asphalt and tearing a bloody gash across their knee. It fits, then, that Grey doesn’t remember contacting the crystal that gave them their powers. At the age of four, Greg was adopted by a young lesbian couple; Leanne and Tanya Jackelwitz. They took Greg back to Ellicott City, Maryland, where they grew up. Leanne and Tanya were artsy people. Leanne was an elementary school teacher who painted on the weekends, while Tanya was an english professor at a local college and a published poet. They lived a comfortable middle-class life in an old stone row house in Old Ellicott City.
Greg had a rough childhood growing up in the 90s. Greg’s parents were extremely liberal, rejecting the role of gender roles in clothing, and Greg themselves had a very peculiar sense of dress for a boy their age. Greg would go to school wearing pink clothing or girl’s skirts and they’d be bullied for it by their schoolmates. In 4th grade, another boy in class beat Greg up, leaving him with a black eye and several bruises. When they got home, Tanya taught Greg how to throw a punch. A week later, after the bully had come back from suspension, Greg, oversized sunglasses covering their bruised eyes, walked up to the bully, and stood there for a long time, staring ahead, breath raspy and hands shaking.
“What do you want, pussy?” the bully said. Greg couldn’t speak. Their eyes teared up. The bully laughed.
“What, cat got your skirt?” the bully replied. He grabbed Greg by the shit and threw them to the ground. Greg got back up, stood in front of the bully once more, and once more was thrown to the ground. They remembered what Tanya had taught them: square up, push through them, don’t hold back. Greg lifted his fist. The bully put his arms to his sides and puffed out his chest, smiling a shit-eaten grin as he watched Greg fail to throw a punch.
After that, nobody messed with Greg, but they still didn’t have any friends. Quite the opposite, it made things worse. Not long after, Greg’s moms got a knock at the door from a bald man in a tan jacket. He introduced himself as an agent of NEST, a government organization who oversaw metahuman affairs and protection. He talked to Greg and his parents for a long time, about schools where metahumans could learn about their powers, safe from outside influence. Ultimately, Greg and their parents declined. Instead, a NEST agents would come to Greg’s house on weekend and teach them some basic power control abilities.
In middle school, Greg began to identify as nonbinary. This came without much resistance from their parents, but much from the school, where teachers refused to call Greg “they” instead of “he”. On his thirteenth birthday, Greg legally changed their name to “Grey”, and thus Gregory Alberts was officially gone.
In high school, Grey had a little more luck. Their high school was bigger, and thus had a larger student population. Here, Grey found their place among the theater kids, many of whom were also LGBT. While in drama club, Grey developed their love of makeup. While Tanya and Leanna had taught them the basics before, Grey began to excel. Grey had their first boyfriend in high school, a tall red-haired boy with square glasses named Michael. He was a lighting tech in the drama department and liked using big words. They had their first kiss with him in the dressing room before a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That night, Grey watched from the wings as the lights descended upon the stage from above: it was red, and green, and yellow, and brown, and blue.
Grey went to beauty school in Baltimore for a cosmetology degree after high school. While in school, they discovered Instagram and became one of the first makeup artists there, showing off their abilities. Near the end of college, Grey met Joseph. He was a violinist, long and graceful with brown hair that swept down the right side of his face and stubble across his jawline. He wore hoop earrings and v-neck shirts. They met at a recital at the Peabody institute, where Joseph went to school. After the recital, Grey struck up conversation about Joseph’s suit. They went from there to get a drink and then...well, we won’t talk about what happened then.
Grey and Joseph became inseparable. Where Grey was haughty and caught up in their own coolness, Joseph was mellow and brought them back down to Earth. Where Grey was shy and reclusive, Joseph was passionate and loud and would bring Grey safely out of their comfort zone. The two are, in fact, quite inseparable to this day. They got married in 2015. It was one of the last happy days of Grey’s life, as they’d retell it.
What happened next... you'll have to find out, won't you?
⫸ P O W E R I N F O R M A T I O N ⫷
"That’s all you people ever fucking want to know, and it’s the one thing I won’t tell you."
"There's a lot of strange people in this world, but it's not like we're ones to talk."
Things which Grey collects:
Nail polish Records Classic video game consoles/games Postcards Lipstick Decks of playing cards (but doesn’t know many card tricks; just thinks they look cool) Rubik's Cubes
Additionally, Grey is a low-level lieutenant for the Boyz, mask and all. Grey and their crew work in Jackson Row, dealing drugs to the hipsters and bar crawlers.
Character name
Opinion
Joyboy
"He's the only one of these meth-heads I can tolerate. At least he's actually interested in helping out the community."
Joygirl
"I stay away from her. She scares me..."
Big Dong
"What a creep."
Bible Bill
"I feel bad that Bill's been caught up in all this. He needs psychiatric help, not a job peddling drugs and beating people up. The least I can do is try to keep him out of trouble."
[19 | Enrique Castro-Perez | Male ]
Description: 5'6", 220 lbs. Latin-American man with a pot belly and a round, chubby face. Dark eyes, short-cut curly black hair, a double chin, and messy stubble. He wears baggy cargo shorts and a white tank top, and usually carries a canvas backpack. He operates as a drug dealer for the Boyz. Recently, he fell under the command of Grey, and the two don't get along at all. Enrique is fairly close-minded and conservative, and thinks Grey is a freak.
Power:
Meatloaf: Enrique has the ability to rapidly inhale and inflate his body, expanding his fat cavities to create a wall of marshmallow. In this form, Enrique is extremely immobile, but his fat becomes hyper-regenerative, making him very difficult to damage.
[ 22 | Albert McCalister | Male]
Description: 5'7", stocky build. Pale skin with freckles and curly red hair. Messy red beard and bad teeth, yellowed, thin, and crooked, with a few missing. His eyes are enormous. They look like those puffy-eyed goldfish eyes. The eyes themselves are gold-colored with shimmers of red. To cover his eyes he wears a gigantic pair of black ski-style goggles. He always wears a Miami Heat Dwayne Wade jersey, cargo shorts, red Air Jordans, and a bucket hat with weed leaves on it. His left arm has a sleeve of tattoos, some of which are references to sports, anime, weed leaves, etc. Al is a dealer for the Boyz, and is quite good at his job.
Power:
Eye of the Tiger : Albert has highly-advanced eyes which allow him to see a range of colors beyond human abilities. He can see deep red, infrared, and ultraviolet light, and can also see in very dark environments. His advanced eyes also give him an increased reaction time. However, his eyes are very light sensitive and can be easily damaged.
Name:
William “Bible Bill” Bryan
Age:
25
Description:
“Bible Bill”, as he is called, is a skinny and weak-looking member of the Boyz. He has long brown hair that is tangled and messy and comes down to his shoulders, and an enormous beard. Dark eyes that dart back and forth constantly and a constantly-clenched jaw of yellowed teeth. Bible Bill is schizophrenic, and this causes him for some reason to believe that he is the second coming of Jesus. He runs around battlefields during turf wars with a Gideon Bible that he stole from a hotel in one hand and a gun in the other, screaming about how people should follow him to paradise. Besides that, Bill spends a lot of time arguing philosophy to no one in particular. Once homeless, the Boyz gave him a place to live in exchange for his services to them. Bill works under the Boyz lieutenant Grey as an enforcer, putting the fear of God into anyone who infringes on the Boyz' turf.
Powers:
Well if his claims of being the Messiah are true, then total Omnipotence. His claims of being the Messiah are not true.
"I have to fill this out? Shit, if you say so I guess."
▼ | BIRTH NAME : |
Gregory Jackelwitz (dead name)
▼ | ALSO KNOWN AS: |
Grey
▼ | GENDER : |
Nonbinary. Uses they/them pronouns.
▼ | AGE : |
26
⫸ A P P E A R A N C E ⫷
“Beauty standards are so over. I look how I want to look. You should do the same. Let’s go shopping sometime when we’re not trying to kill each other.”
▼ | P H Y S I C AL S T A T S : |
▸ HEIGHT : | 5’3” ▸ WEIGHT : | 110 lbs ▸ ETHNICITY : | 3rd generation Polish/Russian. ▸ HAIR COLOR : | They change it all the time. Naturally it’s brown but usually it’s a platinum blonde. ▸ EYE COLOR : | Light Blue
▼ | PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION : |
Short and fit, Grey looks like someone who works out but doesn’t lift weights. Their body looks neither male nor female. Their skin is very pale and they don’t have any real stick-out blemishes or scars. Grey has a long neck, a slim, angular face, and a strong jawline. Their ears are average-sized and stick out a little from the sides of their head. Grey usually wears makeup, accentuating their cheekbones and jawline. They collect and wear strange colors of lipstick, some reds and pinks but also purples, greens, and blues. They’re not for eye makeup much (goes bad with the glasses). Their eyes are a cool blue and always look generally spaced out, like they’re trying to look detached. They have long, thin, brown eyebrows with a piercing in the right one, a simple silver stud. Their hair is usually dyed platinum blonde and is combed down to the right or put up in a pompadour.
▼ | ATTIRE : |
Grey loves fashion more than anything else. They’re always looking for new outfits or ways to wear old digs. They blur the lines of gender with their outfits, wearing both masculine and feminine clothing. It wouldn’t be out of place to see Grey wear a skirt or a suit, or both at the same time (somehow). Grey typically wears large round glasses with gold rims and/or round sunglasses when outside.
Grey is a makeup artist by trade. They have a degree from a beauty school and, if things had gone better, probably would have ended up working on movies as a makeup artist. As such, Grey can change their appearance drastically using makeup and prosthetic items they’ve collected over the years (wigs, body molds, clothing, etc). Out of necessity, Grey has also become a good liar. Grey knows how to use a gun (also out of necessity) but is a fairly poor marksman. Beyond practical skills, Grey is decent at sewing and good at old video games.
▼ | BACK STORY : |
Grey doesn’t know their birth parents. All they know is that they were born Gregory Alberts in Fairfax, south of DC, and at a young age was left at an orphanage. Few memories of this time exist in Grey’s head, only vague shadows: a crib in the corner of a beige room, a white teddy bear with one eye missing, falling on the asphalt and tearing a bloody gash across their knee. It fits, then, that Grey doesn’t remember contacting the crystal that gave them their powers. At the age of four, Greg was adopted by a young lesbian couple; Leanne and Tanya Jackelwitz. They took Greg back to Ellicott City, Maryland, where they grew up. Leanne and Tanya were artsy people. Leanne was an elementary school teacher who painted on the weekends, while Tanya was an english professor at a local college and a published poet. They lived a comfortable middle-class life in an old stone row house in Old Ellicott City.
Greg had a rough childhood growing up in the 90s. Greg’s parents were extremely liberal, rejecting the role of gender roles in clothing, and Greg themselves had a very peculiar sense of dress for a boy their age. Greg would go to school wearing pink clothing or girl’s skirts and they’d be bullied for it by their schoolmates. In 4th grade, another boy in class beat Greg up, leaving him with a black eye and several bruises. When they got home, Tanya taught Greg how to throw a punch. A week later, after the bully had come back from suspension, Greg, oversized sunglasses covering their bruised eyes, walked up to the bully, and stood there for a long time, staring ahead, breath raspy and hands shaking.
“What do you want, pussy?” the bully said. Greg couldn’t speak. Their eyes teared up. The bully laughed.
“What, cat got your skirt?” the bully replied. He grabbed Greg by the shit and threw them to the ground. Greg got back up, stood in front of the bully once more, and once more was thrown to the ground. They remembered what Tanya had taught them: square up, push through them, don’t hold back. Greg lifted his fist. The bully put his arms to his sides and puffed out his chest, smiling a shit-eaten grin as he watched Greg fail to throw a punch.
After that, nobody messed with Greg, but they still didn’t have any friends. Quite the opposite, it made things worse. Not long after, Greg’s moms got a knock at the door from a bald man in a tan jacket. He introduced himself as an agent of NEST, a government organization who oversaw metahuman affairs and protection. He talked to Greg and his parents for a long time, about schools where metahumans could learn about their powers, safe from outside influence. Ultimately, Greg and their parents declined. Instead, a NEST agents would come to Greg’s house on weekend and teach them some basic power control abilities.
In middle school, Greg began to identify as nonbinary. This came without much resistance from their parents, but much from the school, where teachers refused to call Greg “they” instead of “he”. On his thirteenth birthday, Greg legally changed their name to “Grey”, and thus Gregory Alberts was officially gone.
In high school, Grey had a little more luck. Their high school was bigger, and thus had a larger student population. Here, Grey found their place among the theater kids, many of whom were also LGBT. While in drama club, Grey developed their love of makeup. While Tanya and Leanna had taught them the basics before, Grey began to excel. Grey had their first boyfriend in high school, a tall red-haired boy with square glasses named Michael. He was a lighting tech in the drama department and liked using big words. They had their first kiss with him in the dressing room before a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That night, Grey watched from the wings as the lights descended upon the stage from above: it was red, and green, and yellow, and brown, and blue.
Grey went to beauty school in Baltimore for a cosmetology degree after high school. While in school, they discovered Instagram and became one of the first makeup artists there, showing off their abilities. Near the end of college, Grey met Joseph. He was a violinist, long and graceful with brown hair that swept down the right side of his face and stubble across his jawline. He wore hoop earrings and v-neck shirts. They met at a recital at the Peabody institute, where Joseph went to school. After the recital, Grey struck up conversation about Joseph’s suit. They went from there to get a drink and then...well, we won’t talk about what happened then.
Grey and Joseph became inseparable. Where Grey was haughty and caught up in their own coolness, Joseph was mellow and brought them back down to Earth. Where Grey was shy and reclusive, Joseph was passionate and loud and would bring Grey safely out of their comfort zone. The two are, in fact, quite inseparable to this day. They got married in 2015. It was one of the last happy days of Grey’s life, as they’d retell it.
Nail polish Records Classic video game consoles/games Postcards Lipstick Decks of playing cards (but doesn’t know many card tricks; just thinks they look cool) Rubik's Cubes
"You don’t need to read this, really. I’m not all that interesting."
▼ | BIRTH NAME : |
Richard Joseph Blume
▼ | ALSO KNOWN AS: |
Rich. His FAMA agent handlers used to call him "Gold Rush" sometimes.
▼ | GENDER : |
Male
▼ | AGE : |
16
⫸ A P P E A R A N C E ⫷
"...who wants to know?”
▼ | P H Y S I C AL S T A T S : |
▸ HEIGHT : | 5’7” ▸ WEIGHT : | 300 lbs. He doesn’t look like he should weigh this much, but his power makes him weigh a lot (though really not as much as it should). He looks pretty skinny. ▸ ETHNICITY : | Generic white, basically. His father’s side is Ukrainian, his mother’s side is a mix of a bunch of stuff. ▸ HAIR COLOR : | Platinum blond (he dyes it) ▸ EYE COLOR : | Hazel with a touch of gold around the edges.
▼ | PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION : |
5’7” with a precariously skinny build. Rich is innately unathletic and weak-looking. He’s very bony, with knobby elbows and knees. He has long arms and legs, a kind of gangly build. His skin is fairly pale and plain, with acne occasionally but no real distinguishing scars or tattoos. His hands are thin with long fingers and well-kept short nails. He has narrow shoulders and a long neck. He has a prominent nose that gives him a birdlike persona and a strong jawline. His whole face is thin. Framing his hazel eyes are dark eyebrows that make him always look concerned. His ears are of about average size and lay flat against his head, and he has two stud earrings in the left ear. Rich’s hair is naturally brown, but he dyes it a platinum blond color. He typically keeps up on the color well, but occasionally it can be seen peeking through from the roots. He sweeps his hair to the left and generally keeps it short. His voice is fairly high for a boy, and he has a slightly southern drawl.
▼ | ATTIRE : |
Urban teenager. Rich wears a lot of dark clothing, greys and blacks mostly. His clothing is generally v-necks, hoodies, and dark skinny jeans. As of late, Rich has been trying to get more bright-colored clothes, and he’s begun to mix light purples and pinks into his wardrobe. On his feet he wears a pair of black vans.
He’s pretty good at skateboarding. Got good at photography a year or so ago and since he’s turned it into a real hobby. Rich is also a fairly good actor and singer. He knows a lot about musical theater.
In southern Maryland, near the tip of the Delmarva peninsula, there lies the town of Sundew. It’s a small, fairly unassuming town just off of Maryland Route 13, a collection of mismatched plaster-sided buildings in yellows and beiges separated by stretches of forest and the occasional farm. There’s a gas station with a dingy convenience store, a few greasy fast food joints along the main drag, a brick-sided doctor’s office by the grocery store, an Applebee’s across from that in a strip mall with a pet shop and a quarter laundromat. A white-sided traditional church sits farther down the road, with a small, well-kept garden and a school jutting off of the side in an L-shape. A graveyard huddles off in the distance. To anyone who doesn’t know this place, Sundew appears as a normal, albeit slightly run-down, southern town, and in a lot of ways they’re right. Yet, beneath the surface, there lies a darkness that most don’t come across. Richard found this out oh-so-sadly.
Richard was born in the gargantuan white-sided black-shingled manor that looms across the street from God’s Echoes Evangelical Church. His father, Rev. Daniel Blume, was the pastor, a gargantuan figure well over six feet tall with a chin that looked cut out of diamond and hair that glowed with gel. He spoke with a southern drawl and had a voice that boomed and echoed. He was a pillar of the community, a self-appointed town leader, the kind who everyone knew and who was invited to every event. Daniel hosted a Christian radio show every Sunday after church where he’d tell people about the rewards of keeping to God’s path and the dangers of modern society. It was a dynastic role, pastor of God’s Echoes, passed down from Daniel’s father to him, and hopefully one day down to Richard’s older brother Mark.
Daniel was a terrible father. While he held up a kind and gracious persona out of the house, inside he was a strict, terrifying presence. It wasn’t that he struggled with alcoholism or depression- no, it was something deeper than that. Daniel looked at the world outside of Sundew and saw nothing but sin. The acceptance of what was once held in contempt disgusted him. More than anything else, more than the acceptance of abortion or homosexuality or Islam, Daniel Blume hated metahumans. He saw them as sins against God, as literal trials by Satan descended unto humanity by the powers of Hell. Every sunday, he would tie his sermon message back to them, how they defied God by accepting power beyond what He gave them. When Richard was seven, he came home with a comic book a friend at school had given him. His father beat him with a belt, then forced a lighter into Richard’s hand and made him set the book ablaze.
“You will learn eventually, my son, to avoid sin,” Richard remembers his father saying. “But you must learn first what to hate.”
So Richard learned to hate. He attended church multiple times a week. He listened to his father’s sermons, learned about the evil that lay in the heart of the Metahuman Revolution. When Richard was nine, there was a boy in class named Felipe who came to school on crutches after breaking his foot. Richard carried his books around all day. He liked how Felipe’s hair curled around the nape of his neck and he loved his smile, small flashes of sweetness. The boys would sit together during recess and talk about everything while the other kids played. When word got back to Daniel that Richard had a boyfriend, he beat his son again, told him that it was evil to like boys. Richard came to school the next day and wouldn’t talk to Felipe. Felipe followed him through the halls. A crowd gathered. Richard pushed him to the ground and threw his crutches down the hallway. That’s how Richard came to hate gay people.
Things recovered quickly after that incident. Richard got a new friend group, one that more fit his family’s economic status (Rev. Blume was very wealthy). They were all the kids of rich folk; one’s father owned a country club. Another’s was the head of a successful cardiology practice, another was a contract lawyer who worked for Perdue. The kids were wealthy, white, popular, and utter dickheads. In middle school, they would hide out in basements drinking their parents’ alcohol and talking about what girls they wanted to fuck. They bullied the misfits at school, the gays like Felipe, the children of migrant workers. Once, the leader of the group, a tall kid with a buzzcut and enormous braces named Frank, asked a girl in class for a blowjob. She said no, so they told the whole school to call her a whore. Richard would hang in the back. He couldn’t stop them, but he couldn’t bring himself to join in. Once, Frank shoved Felipe into a locker (it was a small town, everyone went to the same elementary and middle school) and told Richard to call him a faggot. Richard refused. Frank called him a pussy. Richard broke Felipe’s nose. Richard went home that night and lay in bed and felt nothing at all. He thought about Felipe’s beautiful face and how he’d broken it. Then he sat motionless for a long time and thought about his belt in his closet and if it was strong enough to suffocate him. He wondered what God would say if he did.
During late summer, when Richard was thirteen, his friends and him went hiking in the woods outside of Sundew. They followed along a small creek that wove through the woods between the trees and under the highway bridges. Around dusk, they came to a spot in the woods where the trees had fallen into piles of splinters around a crater in the ground. It was cold and dusty— it had been there a long time. Carefully, the boys crept through the hazardous environment, stepping over the remains of the trees and between the enormous splinters, to the crater itself. It was about the width across of a minivan and jagged at the edges. In the center, a rock the size of a softball sat firmly in the ground. Soft light emanated from its depths, casting shadows around the crater’s perimeter. Somehow, Richard felt drawn to it. The light seemed to call out to him specifically, like mystical hands reaching out to grab him. Before he could stop himself, Richard was standing over it, his other friends in tow. He knelt down before the meteorite. Here, he could feel its warm glow reach up to him. He could see two colors in it, one red and one yellow, occasionally mixing into a soft sunset orange. Gently, he touched the meteorite. The glow moved towards his hands like the tendrils of a plasma ball. It floated past him like sparks or fireflies. Soon, he was surrounded in light, enveloped in it. Richard felt something course through him, a power unlike any he’d ever felt. Every muscle twitched, every neuron fired at full force. He felt nothing but warmth and happiness and...and power, oh power like nothing else. The glow began to fade into his skin, and with it went the ecstacy of power. The other boys gathered around. They too tried to touch the meteorite. Some of them got a reaction, but nothing like what hit Richard. They promised never to tell anyone what had happened, and went home before it grew dark.
Things proceeded as normal from that moment on. Richard went to school the next day and his friends gathered around to see if he had any super powers. He disappointed them; nothing had changed, at least nothing significant. He noticed that he got really cold when he sat by the air conditioner in math class. Later that day, he plugged in a fan in his English class and the outlet shocked him. Instead of a small spark, it felt like his entire body lit up in pain. Things stayed like this for months. That November, Richard got his first girlfriend, a cute girl named Riley who lived in a literal mansion on a hill outside of town. She had strawberry blonde hair and large breasts. She rode horses competitively and loved equestrian sport. He guessed she was hot. Felipe changed schools over the summer, and Richard never saw him again. Richard would still think about him sometimes, and when he did he’d go into the chapel and pray for a long time.
Nothing ever felt enough. Richard hated his friends. They made him do things that he couldn’t stomach. He didn’t love his girlfriend, though she tried so hard to make him. Drugs didn’t help; sure, smoking would clear his mind for a bit but then he’d wake up exhausted and angry and smelling like death. Richard couldn’t stand alcohol either; he despised how it burned his nostrils and throat and made him want to vomit. He lived in the jaws of a trap, one that he couldn’t escape.
Richard got out of the trap by luck. Freshman year of high school, a horrendous hurricane hit the Delmarva peninsula and devastated Sundew. Building flooded all across the town, and the parish school Richard had attended for so long was completely destroyed. This came in early August, mere weeks from the start of classes, and none of the children of the town had a place to go to school. As a response to the emergency, the children were enrolled in South Bend High School, a public school a few miles north of Sundew in Pocomoke City. The hundred student class of God’s Echoes Parish School was thrown into a high school with over 1500 students. At first, this scared Richard, being thrown into this brand new environment where he knew almost no one, but he quickly found it incredibly liberating. Here, Richard could avoid Frank and his gang of thugs without disturbing the peace at home. Bullies were fewer with such a large school size (while they still existed certainly, Richard could avoid them).
It wasn’t perfect, though; try as he might, Richard struggled to make new friends. Being around other people make him anxious— he expected them not to like him. Eventually, he did make friends with a girl one year ahead of him named Alex. She was unlike anyone he knew back home; she listened to Green Day and Rage Against the Machine. She wore camo pants and backwards baseball caps and talked about redistributing the wealth. Something about her drew him in, she had a unique charisma that he couldn’t shake. They started to hang out after school (Alex lived right down the street). He’d stay over at her house sometimes on weekends- they became nearly inseparable fairly quickly. The spring of his freshman year, the two both auditioned for the school musical (Richard at Alex’s pressuring). Though at first Richard found it hard to push through his usual shyness, musical theater opened him up to a side of himself he hadn’t experienced before. Something about pretending to be someone else freed his headspace in a unique and powerful way. She made him feel comfortable with himself, though they differed significantly ideologically.
With her influence in his life, Richard started acting differently. He entered a rebellious phase, started dressing more urban and got his ear pierced. On his fifteenth birthday, Richard used the money his aunt gave him to get his hair dyed. People around Sundew started treating Richard differently. The townsfolk were more suspicious of him after this strange transformation. Generally people would be nicer to Richard because of his father’s status, but now they treated him like any other teenager. His old friends in town avoided him, called him a weirdo when they saw him. Not long after he auditioned for the play, Riley broke up with him. His father started acting more hostile than he ever had before. Often, the two would get into arguments over the dinner table over Richard’s embrace of modern society. His mother Laura, while mostly accepting of Richard’s change (“It’s just a phase, hun”) didn’t stand in Rev. Daniel’s way. Richard lived his life reserved from the rest of his family, staying out of the house or hiding in his room to avoid them.
One day, Alex and Richard were talking on their way back from school. It was raining and they were ducking under branches to keep dry. They were talking about the football team (which was hilariously bad). One of the safeties on the team was this tall, muscular guy named Devin Heller—Rich thought he was cute, but he said “good-looking”.
“Oh yeah?” Alex said through laughter.
“I mean, you know, as good-looking as a guy can get.” Rich replied. They kept walking until they reached the crosswalk at the end of the block. Then Rich stopped in his tracks. He stared down at the puddle at his feet, imagining he could see its reflection. His face felt cold and numb. Alex said:
“You okay, b-”
“Alex,” Rich said. “I’m gay.” Alex stopped too.
“Yeah?” she said after a second.
“Yeah,” Rich said, his eyes still downcast. He nodded vigorously, his face still white. “Yeah, I’m gay. Yeah.” The words came out like splinters.
“Okay,” Alex said.
“Is that, like, is that okay? Is that cool? I...haven’t done this before and I don’t know what to do and I’m afraid it’s wrong and that I’m wrong and that, uh-.”
“Yeah, its okay,” Alex said. She put a hand on Rich and smiled. He started crying into her shoulder.
Richard had done it. He rang the bell, and it could not be unrung. Alex was gentle about it; she pushed on the boundaries of his comfort bits at a time. At first, she changed nothing, but then she’d slide in a comment about a boy he’d been staring at and they’d whisper together for some time. Richard wasn’t ready to tell anyone else, and she respected that. Yet now, Richard was more afraid than ever to be around his family. He feared that a text would be intercepted or his parents would overhear them after school. Alex came over for dinner every once in a while and those filled Richard with unbridled horror. Daniel hated Alex, hated everything she stood for. His mother assumed they were dating and didn’t want to tell anyone yet. Daniel became more strict than he ever had before. At dinnertime, Richard’s phone was taken (as was his brother’s who was eighteen and a senior). His computer was child-blocked to academic sites (he knew how to get out of that). His father would come earlier and earlier to pick him up from school.
Then one day, it happened. Richard had gotten back from church (which included a particularly long sermon about the dangers of accepting homosexuals) and his family was sitting down for lunch. Daniel had been in a peculiar mood lately, more nervous and paranoid than usual. He was sitting at the head of the table, reading a newspaper. In it was a story about a kid who went to a different high school in Pocomoke City and had committed suicide after being outed as gay. Daniel was reading the paper aloud. Richard stared hard into his baked beans.
“Serves them right,” Daniel said, folding the newspaper. Richard froze. “That’s what happens when you stray from God’s love. It’s a quick path to depression and death.
“Well that’s a little extreme, dear,” Richard’s mom said.
“No, it isn’t,” Daniel replied with his mouth full. “You cannot live without the light of God in your life. It is like grass living without water, or fire burning without oxygen. They should know that. They go to church and they should listen to the preachers there. They chose to screw each other instead of listening to God’s word and now they will suffer for-”
“You shouldn’t say that,” Richard said. He stood up from the table and the chair hit the drywall hard. Daniel looked up peculiarly.
“Sit down,” Daniel said calmly.
“No, you’re gonna apologize for what you just said,” Richard snapped. Daniel grimaced.
“Do you know who you’re talking to, boy?” Daniel replied.
“Do you realize what you’re saying? You’re condoning suicide. That was a person no matter what you think about their sexual preference.”
“They had chances to stray away from sin and they didn’t! You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink!”
“Maybe if you didn’t spend so much time hating in the name of God they’d come to church!” Richard shook with rage. He felt an energy flowing through him unlike any other.
“Richard Joseph Blume!” Laura said.
“No mom, I’m tired of it! Every sunday you get up on that podium and you tell people who to hate! God doesn’t hate anyone!”
“You think that because you’re friends with that dyke you can say these things about me in my house.”
“What did you call her?!” Richard stepped forward, shoving the table out of his way with inhuman strength. His plate teetered on the table’s edge and fell to the floor, breaking. The room felt hot.
“Enough of this!” Daniel stood up and punched Rich in the left cheek. A sickening smack filled the room. Daniel withdrew his fist. His whole arm ached. It was like he’d punched a brick wall. Quickly Daniel’s hands flew to his belt. He grabbed Richard by the collar and shoved him down to the table. Laura ran to hold him back. Mark watched on in horror.
As Daniel held the belt into the air, Richard felt that power again, coursing through all of his body, just beneath the skin. Something dripped off his nose and hit the table in a little bead. From his odd angle, it looked like gold. He began to sweat, but it wasn’t quite sweat; it felt like it was clinging to his skin and it was oddly heavy. Apparently, everyone else had noticed it too. Daniel stood with one hand in the air and the other spread wide between himself and Richard. Laura stepped back and made the sign of the cross. Suddenly, Richard felt his whole body lurch. He pushed himself up off of the table, but his limbs didn’t move. Dozens of gold wires had exploded out from Richard’s body, grabbing at the table and ceiling and walls and pulling him upright until he floated a few inches off of the ground. All of the gold glowed a cool orange. Richard’s skin was all covered in a thin metallic layer. He held out his hand, and a blob the size of a grapefruit materialized from his skin. Daniel stepped back, shaking his head with sheer horror on his face. Richard launched the grapefruit, and it smashed into the wall next to Daniel’s head, leaving a hole in the drywall.
“Satan has taken hold of you, my son,” Daniel said. Then he ran off towards the church.
There wasn’t much time. Richard was terrified. His family was terrified of him. Quickly, he ran up to his room, pulled out a gym bag, and began to throw things in haphazardly. Occasionally, he’d notice a gold fingerprint on his clothing. He was crying; the tears were also golden. He came back down to the first floor with his things packed. Both Daniel and Laura were nowhere to be seen. Mark was standing in the hallway.
“Mark, I don’t know what’s going on,” Richard said. “I swear I don’t know how I did that or what I’m doing or-”
“Get out of here before dad gets back,” Mark said.
So Richard ran out of the front door of his family house in broad daylight with his skin leaking gold and a bag around his shoulder. He sprinted past everyone he saw, trying to hide his face in his jacket. Some saw still and recoiled. He ran to the forest at the edge of town and hid deep within the brush. Within an hour, sirens echoed down the street. Richard didn’t know what else to do. He called Alex and said he needed help now. She left with her mom’s car and sped off towards Sundew. For forty-five minutes Richard ran through the forests, getting as far as he could away from the rest of the town. In the distance, he could hear shouts through a megaphone and sirens whirring. Alex met him on a road a mile outside of town and they drove back.
“Dude, what the fuck do you have on your face?” Alex asked when he sat down.
“This is my face,” Richard replied. Alex drove the rest of the way in silence as Richard had a panic attack in the passenger’s seat.
They couldn’t go to Alex’s house; Daniel knew Alex’s dad and knew where they lived. So Alex drove them to an abandoned Arby’s on the outskirts of Pocomoke City and parked the car in a shady spot beneath some trees. The musical theater kids had come there one day under the guise of doing some “underground shit” and instead spent the time complaining about classes and smoking. Once Alex had parked, Richard explained everything: the argument, his dad’s punch, the orange glow and the meteor and the gold all over his skin.
“No way dude,” Alex said at some point. “You’re a...you’re a meta! That’s awesome!”
“Are you fucking joking? This is not awesome!” Richard replied.
“You have superpowers! That’s fucking rad man!”
They got dinner at a local Taco Bell and hid out overnight in the dirty and infested Arby’s. Richard was beside himself— he couldn’t help but panic. His father had only told him terrible things about metahumans; Richard had been indoctrinated into hating them. He felt a deep sort of sickness in the pit of his stomach. Self-loathing that was familiar to him, but this was something deeper, something more sinister.
The kids didn’t fool anyone. Both of them left their phones on during their hideout and police were quick to track them down through GPS. By the next afternoon, Rich found himself sitting in the Pocomoke City police department in an office surrounded by frosted glass windows. A very stern-looking police officer was snapping at him across the table about appreciating those who raise you. Through the glass, Richard could see the silhouette of his father, tall and imposing, standing by the door. He assumed that any minute he would be sent home and endure hellish punishment. Just as the police officer was ending his speech, however, Richard heard a gasp from outside. Off in the distance, he could hear a low, rumbling voice echo through the police office, like if a mountain could talk. Enormous footfalls followed it, and soon a truly terrifying figure appeared in the silhouette, standing several feet over Daniel Blume.
“Reverend Blume, I presume?” the creature said in its mountainous voice.
“My lord...uh, yes, this is him,” Daniel replied. His voice shook.
“May I speak with you a moment?” The two lumbered off. The police officer looked at the glass with utter confusion, then back towards Richard, then towards the door.
“What on Earth…” the officer mumbled.
A few minutes later, the figure reappeared and there was a polite knock at the door. Hesitantly, the police officer opened the door a crack and gasped.
“...may I come in, officer?” the monstrous voice said once more. Something was pulled out of a pocket. The officer stood in stunned silence, then nodded and opened the door wide. Standing there was an enormous lizard in a black suit. He had deep green scales like a crocodile, a short snout, and a tail that dragged the floor behind him. As he stepped into the room, his head nearly scraped the ceiling.
“The furniture in here is a little small,” the lizard-man said, confused. “I’ll just stand I suppose.” He looked over at Richard, whose face had gone white.
“Who...who are you?” Richard asked.
“My name is Henry Olin. I am an agent for the Federal Agency of Metahuman Affairs, or FAMA. It’s nice to meet you.” The lizard-man extended an enormous clawed hand, and Richard shook it hesitantly. “Now, I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”
They talked for a long time. Henry explained metahumans to Richard and how FAMA worked. Richard told him about the meteor in the forest and the orange glow. He told Richard about the academy programs, a system of schools designed to train metahumans to better use their powers. One in particular could be found in South Carolina, the famous Academy 003.
“I am aware that you come from a background which is rather...non-conducive to having metahuman abilities,” Henry said. “Academy 003 is a very good school, both academically and supernaturally. There, you will have a safe place to practice and refine your abilities, away from those who could hurt you. The application process can be difficult, but considering your situation, you will have an advantage to getting in. What do you say?”
Richard stared at the floor for a long time.
“...I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he said.
The next few months passed in awkward tension. Richard stayed at Alex’s house, avoiding his family completely. Henry would visit a few times a week to check up on him and have him fill out paperwork. Some FAMA agents began to help him figure out how to use his power, though progress was slow and he's still quite a novice at it. He was able to get into Academy 003 without much trouble, as his grades were fairly good and his background necessitated protection. By the end of the summer, he left for South Carolina. He came to his family house with a car full of FAMA agents. He and Henry went in and collected his things. Daniel stood at the back of the kitchen, looking at the floor. Richard’s mother begged him to stay. Mark was nowhere to be seen.
Now Richard is here, in a new place full of strange people he’s never met. He’s nervous about being at this new place, and he’s still getting used to accepting meta-humanity both from others and from himself.
⫸ P O W E R I N F O R M A T I O N ⫷
"So, you wanna see what I can do? It’s pretty cool...I guess."
▼ | POWER CLASSIFICATION : |
Type-Chromatic (Yellow-Red)
▼ | POWER DESCRIPTION : |
Gold Rush: Beneath Richard’s skin lies a layer of molten gold. This layer is supernaturally-compact, defying the laws of physics by doing so (ie there’s more metal in there than would appear and it doesn’t impact his weight as much as it should). Despite being a liquid, the gold is naturally at room temperature, preventing it from burning Richard or anyone else. At a base level, this gives Richard some superhuman durability, as the layer of metal acts as a suit of armor. Anything which attempts to penetrate beneath Richard’s skin is stopped by the metal, causing minor bleeding but no severe internal damage beyond that. This has a limit, of course, as gold isn’t very strong as far as metals go and a strong enough projectile or thrusting instrument will still push through it.
What really gets interesting is what Richard can do with this gold. By channeling it out of his pores, Richard can produce gold constructs which he can freely manipulate. In total, Richard can produce an amount of gold equal to his total surface area and one-inch thick. There’s a lot Richard can do with this, from increasing his own mobility to producing complex shapes. The gold is of superhuman strength, capable of lifting things much heavier than Richard could on his own, though its strength is relative to the amount of it being used (ie, a single wire will be very weak, while a large clump will be incredibly strong).
The name “Gold Rush” comes from Richard’s favorite way to use this ability. By creating a mat of gold beneath his feet, Richard can create a layer of semi-liquid gold which is slippery, allowing Richard to slide very quickly along the ground. He’s gotten quite good at this, and can move at about 20 mph when at max speed, using gold wires to maneuver himself by pulling on surrounding objects. This works much better in urban environments than rural ones, as without things to pull on he can’t maneuver very much.
The other primary way the power manifests is as wires, which Richard can weave together and individually manipulate. Richard can do a ton of things with this, from restricting opponents to swinging through urban environments Spider-Man-style. Enough of these wires can overwhelm even a strong opponent, tangling them up or throwing them around.
▼ | LIMITS : |
Richard can only produce a limited amount of gold at a time, equivalent roughly to his body’s surface area with a one-inch thickness. While his powers afford him a good deal of range, they will run out if pushed to their limits. Most of his mobility options are lost in flat environments where there isn’t anything for him to grab onto, and his gold mat becomes harder to control on wet or grassy surfaces. Additionally, Richard’s gold constructs must always stay attached to him by a thread no matter what. Any amount of it that is cut off from him loses its shape and becomes a puddle of gold (it also quickly solidifies). Richard can regenerate gold, but it takes an extremely long time (I’m talking months to years) so for all intents and purposes he loses any gold that is cut off of him.
▼ | WEAKNESSES : |
Gold isn’t something that you want to have under your skin. Gold is extremely conductive, and because of this Richard has to deal with a host of weaknesses due to having it permanently inside of his body. He suffers the effects of heat and cold much more severely than other people, as the gold will quickly become the same temperature as his environment without insulation. Even mild weather can quickly make Richard hypothermic if he’s not careful, and summer heat can give him severe burns if he doesn’t shield himself from the sun or otherwise keep the gold off his body. Another of Richard’s vulnerabilities is electricity. Gold conducts electricity like it’s nobody’s business, making any shock Richard receives exponentially worse. His metal must always stay attached to his body, so shocking any part of it will eventually travel back to him. An electricity manipulator would hard-counter Richard in almost every situation.
⫸ O T H E R ⫷
Richard's favorite food is fried catfish. He's also fond of okra.
Within a few days, Richard made his way down the east coast, parting with Agent Olin and what few friends he had in Pocomoke City and leaving in a black FAMA car. On the way down, he kept himself occupied on his phone, scrolling through Reddit until his brain felt numb. Alex had recently introduced him to it, and he found nothing else to be a better time sink.
The ride down I-95 to South Carolina felt eternal. They passed around DC, right through the heart of Richmond, and hit south Virginia by the afternoon, where they stopped at a fast food joint for lunch. These two agents were ones Richard wasn’t particularly familiar with, and he kept his distance appropriately. He spent most of his lunch texting Alex and munching on french fries. The agents stared at him from across the table with curiosity, but said nothing. Their quietness unsettled him.
By nightfall, Richard arrived in Charleston. There, he stayed overnight at a hotel across from the FAMA station there. He spent most of the night staring out the window from his bed at the city sprawling out around him, trying hard not to think about anything. He slept poorly.
The agents shuttled him to the bus station early in the morning and he shuffled aboard, awkwardly fumbling with his ID and bus ticket. He took a seat at the very back of the bus, content to spend his time staring out the window and not making eye contact with anyone. Other students came aboard the bus and took their seats. They all looked as scared as Richard felt, and he guessed that was a comfort. Within a half hour of departure, he was fast asleep, his head against the window.
Richard awoke to the hiss of steam as the bus stopped on the road in front of the academy. He blinked hard to get the sleep out of his eyes and groaned as he rubbed his sore neck. He hung back as others departed the bus, texting with Alex.
“Guess I’m here now,” he said.
“Ur at a school for superheroes, at least try to be impressed,” Alex responded.
“None of these people are superheroes, and neither am I.”
When everyone else had left, Richard walked to the front of the bus and got off. The heat immediately struck him; the FAMA agents had told him it would be hot in South Carolina, but Richard didn’t realize what that entailed. He had dressed for warmth, in a grey striped tank top and tan khaki shorts. He followed the crowd to the auditorium and found a seat near the back where no one else had gone to. As he looked around, he was astonished by the variety of people in this room. It seemed as if metahuman children from all over the world were in this auditorium, all of them with their own unique gifts. He watched each presented carefully. Adam Blackmore put the fear of God into him. Something about the old man intimidated him, and the threat of expulsion made him shiver a bit. Richard didn’t want to think about going back to Sundew.
The bug-woman made Richard sit up straight. If there weren’t other people around, he would have gasped. Rich hadn’t been around metahumans long, and still he had trouble getting used to their presence. As the bug-woman talked about teams and games, Richard looked down at the floor and sighed. He held out his hand, palm-open. Tiny beads of liquid gold formed in the cracks of his palm and rolled around lazily like blobs of liquid mercury. He flexed his fingers, and they formed together into a blob the size of a ping pong ball. Then he closed his fist and the ball dissipated, sinking back into his skin. He felt something under his skin shift, like his muscles were sliding beneath it. That part of his power always freaked Richard out.
Soon, the meeting was adjourned and the kids were herded off to the enormous, spotless cafeteria. The cafeteria was packed with students and the lines for food were becoming quite long. Richard picked one at random and grabbed a porcelain plate from a dispenser. People chattered at all sides of him. Richard talked to no one. Quietly, Richard made it to the front of the line and received a chicken pot pie and green beans. Then he looked around for somewhere to sit. Richard found that finding a place to sit in a cafeteria was perhaps the only part of teenaged life that movies actually got right. He scanned the room in vain, looking for somewhere to belong, for someone he knew or who looked inviting. It felt like everyone was looking at him. His skin crawled.
Eventually, Richard found a place near the edge of the cafeteria, a long table where only a few people had sat down. To his left, two girls about his age were talking awkwardly. Likely, they were just as out of their element as he was.
“So, are you excited to attend *super school*?” one of the girls said. Richard cringed and looked down at his lunch. He wasn’t excited, but that didn’t particularly matter. It wasn’t like he had a choice.
[quote=@Spoopy Scary]"That's why we must eat the old people first. They can't have that kind of power."[/quote]
I've been roleplaying for six years, and if I do say so myself I've gotten pretty good. I've been to many roleplay sites around the internet, and for right now I'm happy calling this one home. I write fantasy, high science fiction, and poetry. I'm involved in the Nerdfighteria community as well, making the world suck a little bit less one day at a time. Though sometimes it's rough and incredibly time-consuming, roleplaying has brought me some of my closest friends, some of the most genuinely awesome people I've ever met. This train is still going, and there's no stop in sight! DFTBA.
[h1]The Disappointment Club:[/h1]
[quote=@JunkMail] "What the fuck did I just read"[/quote]
We're special-ed special forces, the most exclusive internet club that no one wants to join, and the most thoroughly disappointing group of individuals the world has ever seen (we even disappoint when it comes to disappointing). Together, we're quite possibly the best six friends the internet has know.
- [@Junkmail] : Living Proof That God is Dead.
- [@He Who Walks Behind] : I still won't forgive him for what he did to that starfish.
- [@Dragonbud] : Her Gregory Cosplay is fire.
- [@Surtr] : I think he's still trying to pimp me... Help.
- [@Spoopy Scary] : He's Greg.
List of Super-Power Pet Peeves:
-Shadow Powers
-Blood Powers
-Pain Powers
-"Dimensional Storage" Powers
-Spider Powers
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><blockquote class="bb-quote">"That's why we must eat the old people first. They can't have that kind of power."<footer><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/spoopy-scary">@Spoopy Scary</a></footer></blockquote><br><br>I've been roleplaying for six years, and if I do say so myself I've gotten pretty good. I've been to many roleplay sites around the internet, and for right now I'm happy calling this one home. I write fantasy, high science fiction, and poetry. I'm involved in the Nerdfighteria community as well, making the world suck a little bit less one day at a time. Though sometimes it's rough and incredibly time-consuming, roleplaying has brought me some of my closest friends, some of the most genuinely awesome people I've ever met. This train is still going, and there's no stop in sight! DFTBA. <br><br><div class="bb-h1">The Disappointment Club:</div><br><br><blockquote class="bb-quote">"What the fuck did I just read"<footer><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/junkmail">@JunkMail</a></footer></blockquote> <br><br>We're special-ed special forces, the most exclusive internet club that no one wants to join, and the most thoroughly disappointing group of individuals the world has ever seen (we even disappoint when it comes to disappointing). Together, we're quite possibly the best six friends the internet has know. <br><br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/junkmail">@Junkmail</a> : Living Proof That God is Dead. <br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/he-who-walks-behind">@He Who Walks Behind</a> : I still won't forgive him for what he did to that starfish. <br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/dragonbud">@Dragonbud</a> : Her Gregory Cosplay is fire. <br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/surtr">@Surtr</a> : I think he's still trying to pimp me... Help. <br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/spoopy-scary">@Spoopy Scary</a> : He's Greg.<br><br>List of Super-Power Pet Peeves: <br><br>-Shadow Powers <br>-Blood Powers<br>-Pain Powers <br>-"Dimensional Storage" Powers<br>-Spider Powers</div>
Member
Punished GN
shylarah
Asura
