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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 1372015" data-attributes="member: 16760">Carlos Gutierrez (age 18) PL 10 Abilities: Str: 14 (+2) Dex: 16 (+3) Con: 12 (+1) Int: 10 (+0) Wis: 16 (+3) Cha: 14 (+2) Dmg: +12 (+9 flat-footed, +1 helpless) Fort: +1 Refl: +12 Will: +6 (I am assuming that Combat Sense allows him to retain most of his dodge bonus for purposes of Evasion when flat-footed, but not when helpless. Correct me if I'm wrong.) BAB: +3 (+4 ranged) BDB: +4 Attack: Melee: +5 Ranged: +7 Defense: 27 (23 flat-footed), 17 mental (14 flat-footed) Skills: (Bought 2:1.) Acrobatics +5, Bluff +7, Diplomacy +5, Gather Information +6, Hide +4, Intimidate +5, Knowledge (LA) +1, Language: Spanish, Move Silently +4, Taunt +4, Urban Survival +10 Feats: Commlink (Same as the Shadow's.) Detect Psionics Dodge Evasion Hero's Luck (x2) Improved Grapple Improved Initiative Instant Stand Point Blank Shot Precise Shot Psychic Awareness Rapid Shot See Invisibility Streetwise (New feat: +2 on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Gather Information checks when dealing with street people, thugs, and so forth.) True Sight Powers: Budding Esper +3 (4 pp/rank) Source: Psionic Insight (Super-Wisdom) Telescopic Sense (for Psychic Awareness) Gypsy Abracadabra +9 (7 pp/rank) Source: Psionic The name is his own half-humorous, half-nervous term for his powers. Precognition Extra (2): Triggered by imminent danger to those he loves Flaw: Uncontrolled Super-Dexterity: Carlos has an uncanny sense of where and when to dodge. Flaw: No bonus to Dex skills. Combat Sense Power Stunts: Bestow Luck (This represents his ability to give timely warning in combat.) Postcognition Extra (2): Triggered by the presence of malicious death. Flaw: Uncontrolled Weakness: Insomnia: Carlos hardly ever gets enough sleep, and it takes a toll on him. Every waking hour in which he engages in strenuous activity (including combat), he must make a Con check vs. DC 10 (+1 for each previous check that day) or become fatigued. If already fatigued, he becomes exhausted and starts making checks every ten minutes of strenuous activity to avoid sinking into a deep slumber. (He won't fall asleep during a combat, of course, but it'll hit shortly afterward, when the adrenaline rush fades. Generally he can manage to get someplace safe before he collapses.) He can spend a Hero Point to avoid extra fatigue as normal. Carlos suffers half the usual fatigued and exhausted penalties against his Intelligence as well. Background: Carlos Gutierrez was a typical casualty of society gone wrong. Abandoned by his father before his birth and neglected by his drug-addicted mother, he was mostly raised by an aunt and uncle who didn't really want him and abused him physically and verbally on a regular basis. His true family was the local gang, the Lions. By the time he was seventeen, he was a hardened fighter and gunman (having killed two men) and a fairly accomplished drug dealer who occasionally sampled his own wares. All of that changed when the Shadow broke up a gang rumble that Carlos was participating in with great enthusiasm. Mind you, the Shadow himself got a nasty surprise - Carlos HAD always heard rumors about his Gypsy grandmother, and had occasionally had some weird dreams, but he hadn't figured on seeing this dude all in black striding through the battle bold as brass with a really weird feel to him! Nobody else seemed to see him... Was he a ghost? A hallucination? BANG! No, ghosts and hallucinations don't bleed. But then the dude turned on him, (gripping his wounded arm) and sheer ravening fear ripped through the boy like he'd never known it before. He pissed himself like a baby and ran... soon the others ran too. Scrabbling at a wall to get away, he could do nothing but cower, babbling his terror, when the dude approached him, exuding a cold contempt. He knew him now - damn, that Shadow guy was said to be a KILLER! Scary-loco. But he just hauled Carlos to his feet and held him against the wall, keeping the fear on him. Finally he spoke: "You're not quite old enough to have wholly lost your humanity, boy. But mark my words - you shall be there soon, if you keep on this path. And I will be waiting for you." Then, after relieving him of his gun and stash, "Now get out of my sight," with a shove. Carlos didn't need any more encouragement to make like a rabbit. Maybe it was the fear, worse than he had ever known. Maybe the drugs in his system hyped up the whole experience. Maybe it was the sudden flash of ultimate sadness and tightly-leashed fury he got when the guy touched him. (Something to do with his wife? She died, ugly...) And maybe he'd been gradually ripening for some sort of change for some time. Whichever, he couldn't get the Shadow's words out of his head. And he knew, down to his core, that they were the truth. Not just that he was on the road to losing his humanity - but that the Shadow would be waiting for him. Somehow he knew that the man was intertwined with his destiny. Carlos turned over a new leaf. He ditched the drugs and went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings. He got a job for chump change and started taking classes to get his GED. He separated himself from the Lions as much as he could without getting killed, suffering the inevitable beatings stoically. He got involved with his church, which had always seemed boring and pointless up to that point. He found to his amazement that he was actually tentatively happy in a way he'd never imagined before... but also that the memories of his old life filled him more and more with shame. Almost a year later, walking home from work one night, he got waylaid by his homies from the Lions. This was no ordinary beating - they were joking around about putting a bullet in him if he didn't stop "putting on airs", and maybe it wasn't all a joke. Next thing he knew, the Shadow was there, a most welcome sight, tossing unsuspecting gang members about with abandon. The Shadow hauled him to his feet, just as on that other day, then recognized him. "You," he said flatly. "I warned you..." but to the astonishment of them both, Carlos suddenly burst into tears. He started pouring out his story as he never had before to this total stranger who had changed his life so much. But suddenly a nameless dread gripped him that he could not explain, nothing like the Shadow's fear. He cried out, almost involuntarily, "Look out!" The Shadow (already more than a little paranoid) dove forward, bearing both of them to the ground, while a rifle shell cracked into the pavement through the space they'd both occupied a moment before. The Shadow made short work of the sniper (who turned out to have been tracking him for weeks for the local crime syndicate). Meanwhile, Carlos was busy falling in love - not a love like he'd had for the girls, but a love for an idea and for the man who embodied that idea for him - the man who could have leaped any direction and let him take the bullet but chose to save his life too. He poured out the rest of his story, with many tears, on that street corner when it was safe again, not even daring to hope for any response... he'd been disappointed so many times. But the Shadow pondered deeply for a while - Carlos had the distinct impression the man was looking right into his heart - then said, "Come with me." He set Carlos up on a cot in the basement of an abandoned building he'd fixed up. (He'd moved some of his more outre' stuff there out of concern of putting his secret identity at risk. Later, that basement got souped up into something completely other by Hal Garrity.) The lad would receive room and board and a small stipend for watching the place and doing whatever errands the Shadow needed doing. It wasn't much by most standards, but to Carlos it seemed like heaven compared to flipping burgers while sleeping on the street on those nights he didn't feel like getting yelled at by his aunt or beaten by his uncle. The Shadow has come, with ample justification, to trust Carlos implicitly. He hasn't revealed his true name (he's too paranoid for that) but Carlos knows what he looks like. Carlos is nearing nineteen now, but his feelings for the Shadow stop only just short of worship. The man is the only father-figure he's ever had, and he soaks in every bit of approval and affection. (The Shadow is not all that demonstrative toward him, but it seems like a lot by Carlos' standards.) He mans the headquarter's communication panel, keeps track of details, has learned carpentry just so he can keep the place in repair, and offers what he can from his unusual but unpredictable flashes of the past and future... but what he really wants to do is help in more tangible fashion. He scrimps and saves to take karate lessons, and works out with the base's gym to exhaustion daily. The Shadow has told him it's a no-hoper, but he keeps hoping anyway. (Despite the official lack of hope, though, Carlos has helped pull the Shadow's bacon out of the fire on a couple occasions - occasions he is fiercely proud of.) The Shadow has been getting a little concerned about Carlos' fixation on him, and when the kid finishes his GED - it's slow going, because he missed a lot of school - he intends to gently push him toward college or some other path that will get him out on his own. While the Shadow never discusses his "real" life with Carlos in any substantive way, Carlos has picked up more than he lets on through his retrocognition. He knows about David and has a pretty good idea that David causes the Shadow some grief, which makes him privately indignant. Indeed, if the two were ever to meet (David has no clue about Carlos' existence), it's probable that sparks would fly - with Carlos likely seeing David as a spoiled brat who is too stupid or too pissy to appreciate his father, and David seeing Carlos as a threat - somebody who knows more about his dad's "other" life than he does! (And who's a tiresome one-man cheering section for the old man, to boot. Plus, ahem, who's considerably more hardened and experienced than most teenage wannabes. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> But if they were to get past the initial conflagration, they would likely have a good bit to learn from each other. Carlos is unfailingly eager to please without being too obtrusive about it (he outgrew being obtrusive in his first few months at the base). He has metamorphosed into a rather clean-cut youth who makes a good impression on people. He donates a large fraction of his money anonymously to the families of the two young men he killed. He always addresses the Shadow as "sir". (People he sees as "decent folks" are also always "sir" or "ma'am".) While the Shadow can do little wrong in his eyes, he is merciless to his own mistakes. A bad grade on a test in his GED classes, or a word of disapproval from the Shadow on any topic, is liable to find him driving himself even harder than usual in the gym and denying himself fun activities. (Once, early on, he "punished" himself by going to his old house and deliberately mouthing off to his uncle, then submitting to a terrific pasting, but the Shadow gave him a VERY stern talking-to after that, and he's never repeated it.) Though he'd been in and out of juvie repeatedly as a child and teen, now that he's eighteen "Mr. Reston" (Lance Reston is an upper-crust lawyer-minion of the Shadow's, who is definitely a "sir" in Carlos' book) has gotten his record sealed by the court. Lance has also managed to get Carlos off probation in view of the manifest change in his life, which is why Carlos doesn't have to worry about keeping the authorities notified of his rather unusual address. (The criminal justice system never knew about the gang shootings, otherwise that probably would've been impossible.) Physically, Carlos is a bit short (5'6") and sensitive about it. He's also rather slender for his height - he didn't have the best nutrition in his formative years. Even so, he's managed to pack a surprising amount of wiry muscle on his slim frame with his arduous workouts, and there isn't an ounce of fat on him. He has a truly impressive collection of scars and welts, especially on his back (where his uncle got overly enthusiastic with a variety of domestic implements) and a number of nasty burn scars on his wrists and torso - cigarette-size and on up. (Some from being "punished" by his uncle, some self-inflicted to prove his machismo, some from being tormented by a rival gang and by the Lions when he tried to leave.) He is quite embarrassed about these marks of his old life. While at home in the base, he usually lounges about casually in shorts and a t-shirt or undershirt; when "on duty" he will be seen constantly wearing a wireless headset to monitor police bands and keep in touch with the Shadow. When he goes out, though, he takes great pride in his appearance, usually wearing a button-down shirt and a nice pair of jeans or slacks, his jet-black hair slicked back with gel. His father was Mexican and his mother Puerto Rican; he speak Spanish as fluently as English. Carlos doesn't get enough sleep, and it's not just that there aren't enough hours in a day for GED classes, the laborious studying he has to do to keep up with them, karate classes, his long workouts, and helping out the Shadow at night. The long and the short of it is that he's afraid of his dreams and wants to sleep as little and as hard as possible. He rarely sees pleasant things with his precognitive and postcognitive dreams, and even his normal dreams are plagued with nightmares - nightmares of the things he's done and suffered in the past, of letting the Shadow down, of failing to measure up. (He can usually tell which dreams are "special" and which aren't, but it's not a sure thing.) The Shadow has talked to him gently about it a few times, and occasionally takes a night off to let Carlos recharge the batteries and simultaneously let Alex have some quality time with David. (Alex himself is one of those rare people who only needs two or three hours of sleep a night, so his schedule does little to discommode him.) When he finds the kid snoring on the bench press, he knows a night off is overdue. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> The two have a series of standing jokes between them. The Shadow calls him "Carlos Castaneda", though he had to loan him one of the books before he got it. Carlos strikes back with cheesy TV and movie references - especially from "Men In Black", "Meet Joe Black", "Dirty Harry" and so on. (Nor does he neglect "The Shadow". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> A typical exchange: "Don't eat any mushrooms while I'm gone." "Jawohl, Herr Kapitan!" (In an incredibly bad fake German accent - Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes.)</blockquote>

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