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Alex Fumal; 'The Spirit of Smoke'

Name:

Alexa Maya Fumal

Nicknames:

'Alex'; 'Lexi'; 'May'

Alias:

The Spirit of Smoke

Gender:

Female

Birthday:

Born 4th August, 1994; 19 as of October 2013

Height:

Five feet, eight inches

Weight:

One hundred and thirty pounds

Hair Colour:

Naturally auburn

Eye Colour:

Naturally hazel

Appearance:

Standing slightly short, but acceptable for a pretty girl studying at college, and slim without looking emaciated, Alex can be said to be a picture of health and is envied by many girls at her college for the attractive figure she strikes. Her hair is wavy and kept short so as to remain manageable, and many times (mostly due to her habit of waking too late for a shower before class) hidden beneath a fashionable hat or beret. As an Architecture student, she's often seen with a leather tote bag, which contains a drawing pad and several pens and pencils, along with course notes, her phone, her purse, her various public transport passes, and snacks to keep her going throughout the day. Warm weather has her in shorts, flowing skirts, and sheer tops, while the colder months usher in thick, patterned leggings and over-sized woolly jumpers.

Compared to Alex's standard fashion sense, her vigilante costume is an altogether different beast. With a deep love of (and vested interested in) the Gothic and rustique architecture of the city of New Lilith, Alex has chosen to forge her vigilante aesthetic in line with that of her beloved city's visual identity. Her costume, then, is reminiscent of the magical and mythical history of New Lillith, using robes, sashes, and hoods coloured with ashen grays and whites and garnished in deep, rich purples and red to inspire the feel of some kind of sorceress, or an enchanter. She hopes that the visual direction of her costume, coupled with the thick, sight-impairing smoke that she creates, will instill the criminals she hunts with a fear of the city, and the belief that she is some vengeful spirit of New Lilith itself.

Alex is also aware of the importance of misdirection, and especially the presentation of a false target when it comes to being engaged in combat. To this end, she employs a heavyweight lantern-like burner fixed tight and strong to several chains decorated with engraved beads, in keeping with the aesthetic of her costume. While her powers are able to work separately to this burner, she centers the use and production of her smoke and gas around it to engage in a kind of double-bluff, making her opponents aware of the burner and luring them into believing it is the source of her abilities. The burner, drawing their attention, becomes a target of a higher priority than her, and the loss or destruction of it in combat will give Alex an opportunity for a strike of surprise once her enemies believe they have the upper hand. She also uses it as a weapon, competently swinging it around in a manner similar to the flails of the past in order to do simple blunt, destructive damage.

Abilities:

Alex has the unique ability to manipulate particles in the air around her, condensing them and changing the properties of the molecules to synthesize a thick smoke or smog that she can then manipulate further. Alex needs to concentrate to begin the process, but after it has begun, she finds it increasingly easier to continue spreading her smoke through the air around her. The smoke is thicker the nearer it is to Alex and thins as it spreads out to between 5 and 10 meters, but concentration and direct manipulation can increase the effectiveness of it up to a range of 20 meters.

The smoke's most basic function is simple obstruction of sight, a gray hanging mass thick enough to restrict the vision of those caught in it to a few inches in front of them. Alex can use this to her advantage to disallow the enemy sight on her, and then strike from the smoke at them before seamlessly melding back into the fog, creating paranoia, confusion, and instilling a fear of the smog for what may be lurking within it. However, Alex retains the capacity to manipulate the smoke and change its properties in various ways, creating smoke that knocks trapped foes unconscious, fog that seeps in and poisons those caught in it, and even vicious fog that corrodes objects and people that stand in its way.

Alex's basic smog also has a secondary use that Alex has yet to master, or even discover. With concentration and practice, Alex can compress the smoke and form crude constructs, basic blocks or walls of dense smog that can slow projectiles, block melee strikes, or be used to cause blunt injury through ramming and bashing.

Alex, thankfully, remains unaffected by her smoke, whatever form she commands it to take, due to an unconscious secondary ability of her power that simply blocks her smoke from entering her system or harming her. However, this secondary protection affects only the smoke Alex herself creates, and has no effect over any gases or smokes from outside sources.

Skills and Talents:

Alex is intelligent and eager to learn, interested in Architecture and History and studying both at college. She has an artists hand and draws detailed diagrams and sketches with ease, only practised further with the isometrical drawings she must often complete as part of her course. Her memory for shapes and details is also impressive, and she has many hand-drawn sketches of various New Lilith sights and buildings scattered about her student dorm, a habit that she has retained since a young age, and indeed her main reason for thrusting herself so vigorously into the study of Architecture. Her study of History comes mostly as an accessory to her main course, the Architecture of her city so steeped in the past, but Alex also harbours a deep belief in learning from the mistakes of former men and often quoting the creed "Those who forget our history//Are condemned to repeat it."

Beyond a good memory and mastery over a pad and pencil, Alex is toned and physically fit due to a habit of attending first a New Lilith public gym and now her college's private gym. Chubby as a child and mocked for it in middle school, she worked hard to shed the extra pounds and tone her body, and developed a habit of daily exercise, resulting in a good amount of stamina and agility, although she focuses little on weight training and as such has not developed her physical strength. She is also fairly computer-literate, her architecture course requiring skill with most forms of design programs, and particularly the use of CAD software.

Equipment:

Alex owns several personal artifacts that are a regular commodity in a young woman's life, including:

-An iPhone 5;
-A brown leather tote bag;
-A set of lead and coloured drawing pencils;
-Several A4 and A3 sketch pads;
-Yearly passes to New Lilith's various public transport systems;
-A Macbook Pro laptop;
-A digital drawing tablet;
-An iPad.

As a vigilante, Alex takes several separate useful objects with her on her 'outings':

-Plastic cable-ties for impromptu handcuffs;
-A pager set up to the police scanner system;
-A stick of mace;
-A small first-aid kit, including bandages and painkiller pills;
-And of course, her costume and her burner.

Biography:

Born early August but a week late, Alexa Fumal was unquestionably an Autumn child. She came as the leaves fell from the trees, and throughout her childhood and adolescence it was this time of year that she adored the most; the colours of the trees shifting in a hundred myriad ways, the satisfying crunch of a fallen leaf underfoot, the cozy afternoons and the cooling evening breezes. Her father, an aspiring architect himself, trying to set up his own firm (which he would later accomplish, though not to any divine amount of success), often took her on walks around the city on days like these, enjoying the air and pointing out the particular ways a building curved into a spire here, or tapered into gargoyles there, or the way two walls intersected, or how one set of windows created light and heat and a pretty building. Alex, rather than reject these teachings for the things more worthwhile to a child's mind (although there was plenty catching of fireflies on days like those), absorbed them fully, becoming as enraptured with the sculpture of a functional but beautiful city building as her father. She took up drawing young, her crayon scribbles focusing on rectangles and other shapes mashed together in pre-pubescent attempts to emulate her father's observations, and eventually advanced her talent - and by proxy, her compositions of polygons - as she grew older, her father teaching her the tricks of isometric sketching while she was in middle school.

Amongst all the inheritance of her father's traits, Alex's mother remained slightly distant. She loved her daughter dearly, but both parents knew her conception had not been purposeful; indeed, Alex's mother had not been entirely sure she desired children at all (such uncertainty the chief reason Alex never received a brother or sister). Alex's genesis had come about by way of a broken condom, and panicked store-brand pregnancy test a few weeks thereafter, and some days after that, a debate between the parents-to-be that eventually - with heavy praise on her father - settled on the birth of the child. This lingering doubt of whether Alex was truly wanted or not remained with her mother always, and Alex felt it. Not explicitly, but Alex felt it. Her father was more involved, more doting, more invested in Alex's achievements. Her mother was kind and gentle but retained an aloof air, and it created a schism between them. Alex fell further into her fathers arms, and eventually, when her parents separated (for reasons relating to financial security, her mother's belief that her father refused to be responsible with his income from his firm, and her father's belief that her mother refused to see a dream as more important than the money earned from it) she inevitably chose to live with her father full-time.

Alex gained weight after the separation, and insensitive peers in middle school pushed her into her now-unconscious habit of daily exercise, and by late high school, she had slimmed down and blossomed. She had a few boyfriends, and lost her virginity at the Lover's Ring in the summer between High School and College to a boy she left a few weeks later. During high school, her interest in Architecture had focused and she'd passed an extra-curricular course on the subject, and her interest in History had wormed its way into her mind. She applied for both subjects - Architecture major, History minor - at nearly every college in New Lilith, and got accepted by the New Lilith Institute of Technology. She got a part-time job at New Lilith's mountainside Ski Resort to help cover the costs, and now lives in cheap student accommodation off-campus, shuttling in and out of the city on various forms of public transport, and finding time between her work and her studies to engage in a social life.

Sample Post:

"...anyway, that's it for today." The professor looked up at the lecture hall, maybe a hundred student poised at the edge of their seats with pads and bags in hand. "Dismissed," he said, and hadn't even finished the word before the shuffling of paper and quiet stomping of feet drowned him out. Alex shuffled out at the back of the crowd, tote bag slung over her shoulder and notepad clutched in her hands, hugged to her chest. A beret hid her hair and a pair of large circular sunglasses hid her eyes. She held her head down, only raising it as she stepped outside into the brisk October afternoon air, trying to feel some of the sun's warmth on her face. The nights were fast drawing in, but the weather was still good while the days held. Alex turned as someone called her name.

Jethro. A cute boy she'd met by the virtue of social circles brushing at the edges on a night out, where drinks and laughs and numbers could be shared without a second thought, barely with the first. He'd asked for hers and she'd complied, and then two days later her phone had buzzed and they'd began chatting. It had been a couple weeks and several nights out since then, a few kisses shared and his strong hand on her ass, but no real date yet. Alex wasn't sure if she should expect one. She wasn't really sure if they weren't dating already. She tried not to pay it any mind.

"Alex." Jethro said, smiling as he pulled her into a hug with a single hand, the other coming out of his jacket pocket to embrace her properly. Alex hugged back and smiled in kind, enjoying his smell and the height of him. When he hugged her, she could press her ear up against his ribs and hear his heart. They stepped apart and he took off his sunglasses. She didn't. They made her feel more confident.

"I wanted to ask you to dinner." He said, rubbing the back of his head with his hand. She smirked, knuckles turning white from clutching her notepad to stop the smirk turning into a full-blown grin. She raised an eyebrow.
"Dinner? I thought you'd spent all your money on drinks." She was teasing, doing her best to be playful. He noticed and fell in line.
"I spent all my money on your drinks, maybe." He grinned, and they both chuckled. "I'm gonna cook for you. Kicked my flatmates out for the night."
Alex lowered her notepad to her side and put a hand to her chest in mock surprise. "Especially for me? Do you spoil all the girls this way, Jet?" He smiled and tutted.
"I've been known to. Don't share my weed stash with them, though." Alex's eyes shined. "Dove forwarded me some for a favour." They both smiled again and Alex looked at the ground, appearing to mull it over.

"Yeah, alright. Sounds pretty good." She said, and Jethro bent back on his knees, throwing a hand to his heart and another to his forehead. Alex giggled and pushed at him, and he stepped back to catch himself, grinning as he straightened up.
"Brilliant. Come over for seven?" He asked, and Alex nodded. They hugged again, and then parted, Alex biting her lip and failing to suppress a wide smile. In hindsight, she hadn't been expecting it, and that had just made it even better.

Related Reoccurring Characters:

Oliver [+]

Oliver 'Oli' Barnes

Age:

Personality:

Cheery, but by nature a private person, Oliver's actual extroverted tendencies were suppressed by several years within the closet denying his sexuality and being generally uncomfortable with his own identity as a result of his upbringing with slightly bigoted, but otherwise loving, parents. Since arriving at college, he's been able to let his chain loose a little, especially in the wake of his close friendship with Alex, though he's still holding on to parts of it. He's compassionate and a common go-to for a shoulder to weep on, but still has as good a time at a party or club as the next guy. He's sarcastic a lot but idealistic at heart, and ever the optimist striving for a better world to live in.

Biography:

Born 1993, Oliver had a close relationship with both parents, but grew older quickly and realized his sexuality early in High School after wrestling with inner conflicts throughout the end of Middle School and the Summer between the two. He kept it hidden, fearing both his peers and his parents, who unwittingly aided his self-destruction by hinting at girlfriends and asking about dates, talking about 'late bloomers' and the unnecessary anxiety that kept many boys his age from pursuing their romantic feelings. Oliver managed to make it through High School fettered but unscathed, and graduated with high grades, securing a place at the New Lilith Institute of Technology studying Practical Engineering.

He met Alex quickly after a particularly drunken night had her making several attempts to kiss him, and being rebuffed each time, with no other excuse than 'you're drunk, and I'd rather not take advantage'. Alex relented and instead gave him her phone number, impressed by his steadfast chivalry, and they quickly began chatting both over the phone and over pints and cocktails in the Stein and Cauldron. Alex caught on to a repressed issue and eventually, with a little prodding, Oliver gave in and crumbled into her arms, spilling the truth of his sexuality and identity, and the struggles he'd experienced surrounding both. Alex assured him that she thought no worse of him for who he was, and slowly allowed him to embrace himself fully.

Oliver and Alex remain loyal friends, each other's first ports of call for times of hardship, and Oliver has waltzed out of the closet with gay abandon - although he still has not told his parents.

Jethro [+]

Jethro 'Jet' Tolliver

Age:

Personality:

Friendly, generous when drunk, and often regretting being a jackass the morning after, Jethro is near-globally liked for his aura of reassuring calm and the complete lack of judgement that permeates his every thought, word, and action. Many people cite their ability to be 'completely themselves' as their favourite quality of Jethro, and he cites that 'life is too short and the world too miserable' as his reason. He's well aware of his own vices (beer and weed) and his lacking qualities (lack of motivation, little direction in life) and firmly believes in the flaws of other people, allowing them mistakes and opinions and lifestyle choices. If he dislikes someone, he simply lives and let lives, not avoiding them explicitly, but not coming into contact with them if such an action is easy without upsetting others. Some find his choices to be desperate attempts to be liked by everyone, and Jethro himself admits that far too much of his self-esteem is dependent on being liked and loved by many far and wide - but until either of these become a serious issue, he's happy. And to Jethro, that's what matters.

Biography:

Born February 1991, Jethro formed a close relationship with his mother at a young age, their humour, tastes, and opinions usually clicking easily, Jethro always having someone to talk to about school, girls, himself, or any number of issues and conflicts, or even just mindless idle chatters. His father, however, was emotionally withdrawn, an inherited issue from his own father, and a trait that Jethro rejected as much as he could. As a result of his dad's inability to properly express himself, Jethro had a far more distant relationship with his father, and the two generally just got on with it, Jethro learning to get by without the strong role model he otherwise desired from his father. He made a few friends in middle school, forming a close-knit group, but mostly kept to himself.

Toward the end of Middle School, Jethro's mother developed Ovarian Cancer. She did well to begin with, but slowly grew worse, her body eventually giving up, unable to fight its own malfunctioning cells any longer. She died shortly after Jethro began High School, and both he and his father took it hard. Jethro began acting out, becoming impatient and prone to fits of temper, starting fights and generally being unco-operative and nasty. He lost the few friends he had, and his grades fell hard - but his father managed to connect with him in their shared grief, and they forced themselves closer, developing a true father-son relationship in the absence of Jethro's mother. In the wake of her death and the loss of his friends, Jethro realized life was too short to waste time on anger, and this revelation lead him to his current easy-going ways.

Jethro's GPA plummeted as a result of his acting out, but he worked hard for the rest of his education, pulling it up as much as he could and scraping middling passes by the end of High School. He passed on the opportunity to pursue a degree, instead landing a decent job at a Classic Car Auto-dealer through connections his Dad had and old favours owed to his mother. He secured a good salary, and moved out of his father's house. He now lives in a 4-bedroom apartment with two flatmates, having many people he'd call friends thanks to his new ways. he met Alex through them, and they're currently tentatively pursuing dating.

Kitty [+]

Kathryn 'Kitty' Genaveve

Age:

Personality:

Deeply sarcastic and skilled at spinning nasty words, Kitty's outward acerbic spikiness is betrayed by an incredibly loyal heart. She strives for perfection, her constantly immaculate makeup just one example of the regulations she lives her life by, seemingly with ease. She's alluring and seductive but, surprisingly to some, she is also a virgin, another line of purity in her life. If her lifestyle causes Kitty stress, there's not one wrinkled crease on her face to suggest so. She's an anchor to her friends, a straight-forward and often brutally blunt rock to keep them grounded and down-to-earth. She rarely loses control of herself, always carefully drinking less than everyone else and declining drugs. She's ambitious herself and an ambition for others, and there are many whispered words about how she manages to do it all.

Biography:

Born October with a pale complexion and hair already sprouting from her scalp, Kathryn was a proud addition to the Genaveve family. As she grew, her pale skin became an almost-pristine white in complexion, and her hair dipped to a solid black, shimmering like the feathers of a raven - to her parents, she was their perfect Snow White, a princess to be kept safe.

She met Tré in High School, and they quickly became best friends, Kitty appreciating Tré's sociability (a trait she lacked) and protective instincts, and Tré grateful for someone honest, down-to-earth, and loyal at the core. The two became a force to be reckoned with, their own ways connecting and counterpointing each other perfectly, and many boys - and a few girls - took up the foolish challenge of trying to conquer Kitty and Tré, while the more bitter and spiteful took up the even more foolish challenge of attempting to turn the two against themselves.

With subtle prodding from her parents, and support from Tré, Kitty did well at school, discovered an intense passion for art and sculpture, took little interest in the boys that fawned over them, and left with passable grades and a fixation for perfection ingrained into her unwittingly by her mother and father. She and Tré took a year out, in which Tré found a job serving and bartending at The Stein&Cauldron, and Kitty worked on her sculpting, working with all manner of materials - card, resin, foam, fiberglass, clay - and eventually applied for college for the next year. She got in to the Institute of Technology, and moved into student accommodation. She now lives with Alex, studying Art, major module of Sculpture, and keeps contact with Tré.

Tré [+]

Addison 'Tré' Tremolte

Age:

Personality:

Tré is attractive, and pretty, and desireable. She knows this, and she loves it and uses it, never turning down free drinks - but it's often said that one of her better qualities is her humility. Tré has never been known to flaunt herself, and in fact it's the lack of intimidation in approaching her, the ease of which she makes you feel like you belong, and how quickly she is to smile and make friends, that truly make her wanted, above good hair and cute dimples. Tré's most apparent quality, however (at least after you get to know her) is her natural maternal and protective instincts, a falling into place as the Mama Bear of the group. Mixed with her spunky nature, she's often found defending her friends - and the friends of her friends - rather passionately, even viciously at times. Tré is easily sociable, quickly amiable, and a fierce protector. And she loves a drink, especially when they're bought for her.

Biography:

Born a Winter child in the deepest cold of December, Tré quickly determined that she far preferred the summer for it's warmth, brightness, long days, masses of free time, and later on in life, the socials and lazy summer evening drinking. She was pretty from a young age, and socialising came easy to her. She made a lot of friends, scraping classes with bare minimum grades. Her social life was far more important to her than her academic life.

In High School, Tré met Kitty, and the pair rapidly formed a fiercely strong bond. Tré needed someone as honest as Kitty, someone who became and stayed loyal for more than a pretty face, someone who told her to take her head out of her arse, to keep her grounded; Kitty needed someone as diplomatic as Tré, someone to protect her through her verbal venom, someone to fight back against those that sought to match Kitty's claws, or sought revenge. The two were unstoppable, and no one could dent their friendship.

Tré didn't care much for her grades, and while she passed High School, she had no ambitions to continue her academic adventure. Instead, she took a year out and supported Kitty's growing passion and talent for art, and found a job serving and bartending at the Stein and Cauldron, one of New Lilith's most popular haunts. Kitty eventually applied for college and got accepted, and Tré remains at the Cauldron.

Tré met Alex through Kitty, who brought her out to the Stein and Cauldron on her first night as a student the day after she'd moved in to their flat. Kitty explained her predicament and Tré could see the anxiety in Alex - and immediately stepped in, maternal instincts kicking up. Alex is now Tré's adoptive little sister, and there's a lot the girl will do to protect her newest friend.

Jess [+]

Roman Member

King of Dirt

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