Solemn

X-Men: United We Stand

I liked your post. Also, I like the word picayune. So thanks for that.

@Jon, I believe "shadowmancy" is referred to as Umbrakinesis as far as it being a power, rather than an actual magical manipulation of darkness. And man, you really keep trying to "break the mold" in some odd ways. Usually only physical mutations are manifest at birth, but if KL doesn't mind that's all that matters. I do like that my character could wipe you out without even a second thought, though. So. Keep that up.

X-Men: United We Stand

The bags of bruise-like tiredness under Jeanvieve's eyes punctuated her pale face like little hammer blows and somewhere along the way a vein had popped in her eye, coloring the white background pink for the dark green of her iris. She stared into her phone's screen, miraculously existing beyond the "incident" when so much hadn't. There was some resentment for that fact welling up in her, but the instant Miles' slow, smooth sound poured into her ears her tension eased for the briefest fractals of a second and that made it worth it. Somehow.

The red of her rugged, sporty in-ear earphones was a splash of color against her faded, overlarge tanktop and the flat crimson cord trailing a snake path down the baggy front of her shirt. A black sports bra kept her decent enough, not that that really mattered to her. Was life long enough to be ashamed of your body? No, especially not when most of the people she cared for weren't around anymore to appreciate theirs.

Her shirt almost covered her shorts but for the phone's clipped position, bunching up her tank top around it for easy access. Jeanvieve stretched her right hand down to her left foot, matching lavender nail polish going unappreciated on her toes beneath the electric blue running shoes. Her back creaked and popped and she stretched, working out any unnecessary strain her morning's typical work out might've caused.

What looks like self-abuse to some is necessary to others; varying reasons accompany this, of course, but the most common being (at least in this instance) her need to prove her strength to herself. The opinion that mattered most, yet was challenged ceaselessly by some internal demon seeking to spread turmoil in a once-peaceful head.

The room was mostly empty, which is why she chose it, but smaller than her typical practice area. She'd moved most of the stuff out to appropriate rooms, hoping to hoard this little corner to herself. Only a table and a single chair remained. With little to no strain she placed her heel on the table and stretched a diagonal sort of split; she exhaled placidly as the muscles in her leg tightened and burned that unmistakable burn of a worked muscle struggling to push past its acidic limit.

She switched legs and started over.

After her myriad of stretches concluded she dropped into her opening kata's stance, fending off imaginary foes with slow, fluid motions. During her first few years here she'd only practiced killing maneuvers. As, truthfully, those were the only ones she believed she needed. Jeanvieve saw not the limits placed upon herself; trying to control a fight through force went well for one opponent, but not usually multiples. A mutant's shortage of enemies usually only occurs in one's dreams.

Jeanvieve twists and arcs around her imaginary foes punches, kicks and clubs. She produces a knife from, seemingly, nowhere. It's small, not even a traditional handle as such, but a place to put between two fingers. With precise, perfect slashes she tears into nothing as sweat collects and rolls down her elegant visage like so much rain. She feels her body loosen, each individual muscle having been tight from her tenacious morning.

With a practiced balance she kicks off the chair and inverts herself over the table, throwing the knuckle blade with frightening precision as she presses her palm onto the cold, black wooden surface and pushes right back off as if this were some natural process that all sentient life could perform at will. The two inch blade bit deep into a cupboard door pock-marked with a colony of gashes tightly huddled in the center of it.

Jeanvieve placed her hands on the table and leaned, supporting her weight as droplets fell to its surface. Her breathing was hardly labored, but noticeably harder than her usual silence. Her eyes closed tight and she inhaled, standing straight up and exhaling slow and deep. She dotted her forehead with a few presses of her workout towel and turned to leave.

Careful fingers traced a memorized pattern that unlocked her phone, which remained clipped to her hip, and switched to some more upbeat music. As much as she loved Miles Davis she was wont to sit in silence or generally wish to be alone when she heard his trumpet's song. With the deep bass resonating in her head against light synths she set off to find any sign of life that might indicate a need of assistance.

X-Men: United We Stand

Silver Carrot said
I just posted, but I think it clashed with an update.Dammit...I have no desire to retype it at all right now. Not that it was anywhere near the size of other people's posts...

You shouldn't worry about posting quantity, just quality. Post size reaaaally doesn't matter at all - just write at the size you feel most comfortable at and have the most fun with.

X-Men: United We Stand

Twigs, dead leaves and pine needles crunched underfoot, almost drowned out in Jeanvieve's head by her mantra and her heavy breathing. She felt a ringing in her ears, her heart pumping hard enough to kill a baseline human; she could feel the damned thing rattling her supernaturally strong ribcage. Vivi wove between trees, leapt over logs and danced between fallen leaves as if death itself had rose up to claim her. Far from it. Each step was heavy, determined. Purposeful. Of course the weights on her ankles, wrists and the military surplus backpack filled with an approximation of supplies, balanced as you could get it with a frying pan and a kukri of pure iron strapped to it, weighed her down more than usual.

Still...she appeared to float between the trees like a ghost, the sound of her movement was the only true testament of its existence. Sweat poured down her forehead, back, legs and arms, making the layers of warm clothing cling tighter than comfortable. The hiking boots made it hard for her to move like she wanted, she felt restricted and careless with each step - not that her movement reflected such a thing. She felt sloppy. Imperfect.

Jeanvieve's breaking point hit instantly, she fell to her knees and gave her morning's sustenance back to the earth unwillingly. Droplets of sweat fell to the earth as she heaved, her stomach cramping and wrenching against the intensity of her seeming self-abuse. Slowly, carefully, she sat up, sitting back on her feet and taking a deep breath. She'd lost most of her friends, her team was either captured or dead - she didn't know which and that ate at her more than anything else. Not that she would tell anyone...no, the only one she would've told was gone. Some secret mission for the government. She spat bile onto the ground and gritted her teeth, the clearest display of emotion she may have ever shown, but if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it...does it make a sound?

V strode from the forest calmly, mostly glad she remembered to pack mouthwash this time. Her breathing and the beating of her heart had returned to normal, but she was a little shaky. At least...in as much as she could be. Her body required a substantial amount of food with this new regimen of hers, but that basically meant free rein on caloric intake. She liked that. Food was one of her very few vices, an indulgence no one could every truly deny having in some form or another. V finished off her canteen and let it fall, the strap snapping tautly as it fell into place on her shoulder.

As she moved up to her mostly unfinished room to stow and care for her gear, she planned her meal. It would have to be something heavy to make up for all the lost protein. Steak and avocados? She gave a look that said "not too shabby" as she pulled the clinging, sweat-caked clothing off layer-by-layer. Her muscles ached, hot and pulsing as she switched to her typical workout gear. Before, of course...applying another coating of deodorant. You can train all you want, but God forbid you forget to cover up the scent of your humanity and people turn their noses up. A smile caught her by surprise as she pictured her old team leader's face. Her eyes closed tightly and she swallowed back emotional attachment like she was trained to do. Food...focus on the food. She told herself, reassured herself really. Enabled herself not to feel anything but anger for those that destroyed her home.

Was this her home? She paused to check her sense of loyalty to her family, an odd sense of conflict boiling up. Vivi passed it off as hunger and jogged down to find something to eat. Perhaps someone would need help afterwards, there wasn't a lack of anything to do and she had spent hours doing push-ups, sit-ups, pull ups, swimming laps and going on her runs this morning already. She'd watched the sunset from a tree top and felt next to nothing, but it seemed like the thing to do. To her, the steam rising from the tea cup and the leaves steeping, reaching out into the water was every bit as beautiful. Of course it did resemble droplets of sanguine life-force overtaking water. Which only served to make her stomach rumble with hunger.

Jeanvieve's fingers twisted a medium-sized santuko knife around in delicate little arcs before decisively chopping into her lunch with a precise *schlik*.

X-Men: United We Stand

Name - Jeanvieve "Vivi" Monceux
Alias - Vanquish, aka "Vanq","V"
Age - 18

Power[s] - Microwave Manipulation: She can cause a bright flash of light to blind and escape, for the moment that's all she's willing to use it for. This flash of light is powerful enough to do serious damage, not to her of course. Because of her proclivity to this sort of radiation she is, of course, immune to the effects.

- Supernatural Enhancement: Jeanvieve is magical in the sense that her body is enhanced beyond that of an average 18 year old. She is supernaturally strong and agile, but couldn't take more bullets or any more damage or move faster than, say, an olympic-level athlete in their prime. Her strength isn't all that inhuman, but enough to punch through the rib cage of a muscular adult male; thanks to the nature of her bloodline's magical "enhancement" (read: curse). Her hearing, sense of smell and eyesight are enhanced as well to near-superhuman levels, but still not wholly impossible for a baseline human. Her blood is that of an apex predator's.

Weaknesses - She is weak to magical bindings and spells, certain charms and words a baseline human, or even mutant, would not be. All of her incoming sensory data can be extremely overwhelming, as she hasn't been completely trained on how to master it like the rest of her family has been - smell especially. Her morality is EXTREMELY black and white, good or evil. She does not see grey, she cannot allow grey in her family's line of work. She does not see herself as a person, but a tool - and is completely 100% okay with it. As a result she doesn't really understand the concepts of friendships outside of blood bonds and "battle siblings". Empathy is very difficult, but she is still a teenager and dealing with emotions she believed to be trained out of is difficult, her head is not as clear as she thinks it is.

How long at the Institute - 7 years
Favorite subject - Tie between danger room drills and the art of combat strategy.
Favorite teacher - Wolverine

Appearance

BRIEF Bio - Jeanvieve was born in Brittany, France to a family of hunters. For centuries they'd fought against evil, as early as the 1500's. One of their oldest and original pureblood Monceux relatives chose to become the beast he was trying so difficult to hunt. With a lifetime of black magic knowledge and the heart of his enemy's daughters, he embraced the same curse he sought to wipe from the face of the earth. He succeeded in destroying the source of the evil that infested him, but to his surprise...the curse remained, bound and woven into him and his children forever after.

Vivi was trained as any other Monceux was - from the moment that took their first steps, until the night of her power's fruition. A prefect of the family's academy had noticed lights coming from her room, bright beyond compare. Thinking perhaps a spirit, he gathered up the nearest elder and alarmed roused some of the most experienced hunters the wing had to offer. They watched the door knob melt off and heard her screams from the inside. Screams of surprise and terror - screams not made by a Monceux for hundreds of years. She had melted the room to a nearly liquified state, even the water in the surrounding pipes had evaporated, and the pipes themselves had mostly ruptured or melted shut.

She was carried out in a hazmat suit and brought before her parents after a series of tests were conducted.

Jeanvieve's grandfather Robert knew from the instant he laid eyes on her exactly what she was, what she'd always been. What had been hiding inside of her this whole time. He smiled while the others frowned, stoic in their unwanted place of unfamiliarity. Robert had been a...well, not exactly a friend of Xavier, but he knew the man well enough to know what that Mansion in Westchester housed.

And so she was sent to live in America, away from everything she knew, everything she held deal. Dropped in a place where she was the odd one, where all of her ideas and concepts about humanity had been so wrong. At first she saw why she lived such a way, it only strengthened her resolve and made her understand why her family was the way it was. But slowly her walls broke, fractured bit-by-bit with little plumes of dust puffing up from the ground to mark their descent.

It's been 7 years since her arrival. Most of her friends and teammates are dead or MIA. She is at war with herself and only has the remaining few mutants to turn to. Everything she knows has crumbled for the second time.

Notes - Her proficiency with knives is rated at a solid "daaaaamn", her use of ballistic projectiles and bows is enough to be considered very dangerous. She's been using all three from a very young age, she lives and breathes that sort of thing. Vivi's martial art is a blend of various Eastern and Western styles centered around disabling and causing as much damage as possible, each member of their family has their own specialized style tailored to their strengths and preferences. Her vinyl collection (obscure jazz and electronica mostly) was the closest thing to self-expression she had outside of her martial arts and she lost it in the destruction of the mansion, the music on her phone is a poor substitute and a sore subject. She retained most of her survival gear and a lot of her weapons thanks to a pair of bug-out bags stashed under her bed. Her favorite book is Robinson Crusoe and to this day she pretends to be shipwrecked when she goes to the beach. She will murder you if you keep her from her pizza.

---

Relationship Sheet: Jeanvieve Monceux - Calculating, observant, protective
Age: 18

F - Friend, E - Enemy, N - Neutral, L - Love Interest

Note: Friendship to her is a bit different. She values people for their potential and doesn't really register when someone is being nice to her or coming onto her. She doesn't see herself as someone with the propensity for a relationship outside of some business-like arrangement, but...she has been at the mansion a damn long time and she may be softening up just a little. A skosh.

Pyra - Sarina Saunders: She's bursting with power and grace...it's nearly impossible not to enjoy her presence - even if I may get burned. F
Bass - Caleb Idlett: I respect his martial skill, but I don't know how to feel about the man. He is an oddity and I know he's harmed others...I'll keep an eye on him. N
Raiix - Shuya 'Steve' Denzan: It's kind of cute when he tries to punch and kick things without having a solid form. N
Elixir - Aaron 'X': An asset to any team with that healing of his, but he's as dangerous as he is helpful. N
Prodigy - Heidi Williams: A brilliant strategist, a beautiful mind and a strong spirit. Another invaluable asset to the X-Men. N
Scattershot - Jacob Jones: He seems polite and very powerful. We've interacted almost nil and he's very new, but he seems to be good. N
Eye Spy - Jay Redmond: Something about him is unnerving and that's...well, that's saying something. E
Chimera - James Venture: He seems nice, but it's difficult for me to trust someone who can shapeshift until they truly prove themselves. N
Animus - Zhayne Spencer: His calm approach to situations won me over in the end, even despite the previously mentioned aversion to shapeshifters. He's a cook...that helps. F
Sage - Laurie (last name unknown): Her potential is nearly limitless, she could be used for countless good or evil. Either way she would be used. She is a strong one. N
Odin - John Smith: He has had a rougher life than most would imagine, few people have been kicked in the ribs harder when they were down. I wonder his loyalties lie, similar to my own. I see a friend in him, but I do not know what he sees in me. N
Vanquish - Jeanvieve Monceux: In my blood sits a poison and on my horizon sits the blood of others. I hadn't questioned who I was or what I was put here to do until very recently. I can't tell if this is personal growth or betrayal. Where does my family lie? I cannot say. For now the only thing I can do is be me, the rest shall fall into place. Though, a better question would be...who am I? N

X-Men: United We Stand iCheck

Can't I just post "What Is Love?" and be done with it?

X-Men: United We Stand iCheck

Try that one instead. It may require you to make a Mibbit account, but I don't think it should. I've never created a channel for it before, so I have no real clue.

X-Men: United We Stand iCheck

Here's an IRC chat, since piratepad sucks. http://mibbit.com/?channel=%23Xmen&server=irc.mibbit.net

X-Men: United We Stand iCheck

Blackthorn said
I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the irony of that post juxtaposed with your username...Also, James is pretty extroverted and laid-back, and is a musician. So she won't be the only artsy character.

That was sorta' the point, darlin'.

Jeanvieve would pretend not to enjoy sitting and listening to everyone else talk and sing. And, you know, she'd totally help set up the camp 'cuz survival is, like, her whole schtick.

Also, KL why for are you laughing at poor little V? She can't help she's amazing...and just for that (because I totally wasn't going to do this anyway) I'll give her a penchant for knives and otherwise sharp and pointy objects of elimination.

X-Men: United We Stand iCheck

If it helps at all to add it, Assallya is a fantastic writer and it kinda sounds like we could use that sort of character given the seeming solemnity of everyone else.