Shooting Star background:
[sblock]My name is Megan Lynn and I’m a superhero. I don’t think I’m a good one though. Almost dying twice (via suffocation of all things) and nearly killing someone wasn’t exactly an auspicious debut. I swear I had no idea how much damage the sonic boom would do to air lady in Factor Four (whatever her name is, I forget) – plus she was sucking the oxygen from my lungs and had proven immune to my other powers. Improvising a shockwave attack was my only option! Anyway, that’s not the end of things. While I try to respect superheroing conventions, inspiring comments and combat repartee don’t come easily to me; instead of saying “Stand aside, citizen” I really want to scream at everyone to get into cover. I’m super tough, but not bullet proof. Getting shot hurts, and if slowpokes are standing behind me, I can’t dodge freely. It takes more than some powers (or gadgets, or secret training, etc) and a costume to be a super hero. I seem be lacking a bit in the other parts – the moral fortitude or something. When Frostblade offered me money to stand aside at ASTRO, I visibly hesitated – which is saying something considering how quickly I normally deal with new information. And when Backfire seized control of my powers, it only took some good guesses and a calmly delivered threat to drop me into total panic, complete with begging. The gratitude I felt when he only sent me off into the stratosphere at Mach 5 was pretty sickening too. I’d like to see him go down, but given fairly casual manner in which he shut down my orbs, hijacked my abilities, and screwed with me emotionally, I don’t give myself good odds. Even one heck of a trap probably wouldn’t be enough. He can make my worst fears real. Maybe with a team…
Ah, right. I haven’t explained why I find Backfire’s ability so terrifying. Allow me to start with the observation that most individuals with energy creation/manipulation super powers (mine seem to be mutation based) seem to have a few powers in common: the ability to project energy, generally in some kind of beam, blast or explosion and the ability to generate a sheath of energy around the body that protects or works retributively (or both). I’m no exception. Even powered individuals without some kind of special defense against their own type of energy aren’t really harmed by their own powers at the moment of use (even if they are if the power is reflected back somehow, or they clumsily include themselves in an explosion) – that young sound guy on Next Gen (I’m pretty with bad names, unfortunately) doesn’t resonate the bones in his hand to pieces when he fires off a sonic blast. But I burn. I guess I was around 10 or so when my main powers kicked in (kind of young for a mutant though): I fell on the playground, getting more scared than hurt (my improved health and resilience had already shown up without being tested). But it was enough to set off a defense instinct and activate that energy sheathe I mentioned above. Which inexplicably had defective safety features – if I wasn’t abnormally tough that would have been the end. I woke up in a burn ward.
That was the beginning of a lengthy series of hospitalizations, problems of power control, and reconstructive surgeries that ate years of my life and pretty much all of our savings and credit. Since I don’t like to dwell on that period, let me present a few conclusions. First of all, I can’t control my plasma aura at full power. If it turns on, it will spread from hands to cover all of body and all of efforts will only slow it down. Second, I developed a number of handy tricks for projecting plasma while trying to learn how to use the sheath safely or at least keep it from activating. My basic blast is a torrent of intense plasma that I can barely shape into a cone, and it does burn my hands. But I learned to project plasma that starts away from my body (a distance of ~3 inches to ~110 ft, although I prefer to keep the distance about 6-12 inches), as if I were taking the errant “droplets” that would be produced by the full spray without doing the whole thing. Of course, those droplets are nowhere near as intense, although I can pump them out rapidly. Then I slowly was able to control the orbs so they’d do different things. Straight line movement is pretty easy, not really any different from a normal beam attack. But by imagining what’d it be like to move along a curved path instead of the straight line one, and then imprinting that understanding into the orb as I create it, I can force it to move along that path. And that was just the beginning. Now, after much thought and practice, I can stick in waypoints, target following, collision avoidance, etc with basically no additional effort. There’s some room for improvement in the programs though – particularly in dealing with weird things like following a target through a teleportal or not losing lock on a shapeshifter or someone who turns invisible (without increasing the chance that some bystander will be randomly targeted by mistake). I’d been hoping that a formal study of programming would help me refine the defaults I use, but it’s mostly worked the other way around.
Thirdly, Dr. Werner is kind, considerate, and a genius. He’s an expert in the hybrid field of stuff relating to super powers (well, not so much in “magic”) – probably the best around, although I’ll admit to being biased since actually helped me. He devised the few drug treatments that actually helped. He figured out how to end the cycle of injury, recovery, and then new burns. When I moved to Freedom some months ago, it was mostly because Dr. Werner also transferred here to pursue some research opportunities; neither he, my mom, nor myself really trust some random doctor to get my treatment right, especially if something new happens. The means to prevent future ignition is actually disturbingly simple. We just needed to interrupt the recovery so that my powers would continue to act at a reduced (and therefore controllable, via drugs and training) level. Since my hands are basically of the origin points for my dangerous powers, they’re what has to stay burned. My fingers are clumsy and slow. There’s some chronic pain, hypersensitive areas, or numbness at times. But I can leave the hospital without really worrying my powers spiraling out of control. I’ve a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully, super heroine inspired fashions mean that it’s not weird to wear gloves all the time. Amazingly, I just discovered yet another medical issue regarding my powers when I captured Frostblade: running about a hundred clusters on individualized, complex programs to pin down the teleporter can cause a splitting headache. Oh well, I can’t really see setting up anything like that again.
I’m proud of the control I’ve developed with the plasma orbs, but flight is the only power I really love. It’s safe, without any messy reaction jet that burns stuff. I think I’m one of the faster flyers around. And it feels so good.
I study computer programming at Freedom College. I know it doesn’t have the best technical programs but I could only attend a school that provided a scholarship. My mom and I are in enough debt as it is, from all of my hospitalizations. Not sure I want to keep going, but my roommate Alaiya is encouraging me to stay. Not having much time in conventional education has to some uncomfortable situations. Plus it’s incredibly frustrating to have the primary difficulty in my coursework to be physically writing or typing things since my fingers barely work. Especially since I can do pretty much everything else much faster. Other than that, I guess things are okay. I get out some, thanks to Alaiya’s circle of friends. I’m kind of popular as a designated driver; I avoid substances that might compromise my control over my powers, for obvious reasons. I hate being a passenger anyway.
The super hero name I’ve been using is Shooting Star. The nice folks at ASTRO Labs whipped me up a costume out of super fabric with a comet symbol on the chest. It was a sort of a consolation prize for getting my ass kicked attempting to protect their stuff. And not getting that internship. But the costume looks pretty good: it’s white with some reflective silver slashes and trim, including the comet/shooting star symbol. It even has some pouches which come in handy even without gadgets – a pen comes in handy for pushing tiny buttons, and I don’t like to be without an electronic copy of my medical records. Some of the younger employees were quite eager to explain how to disable the autorepair feature for certain areas so I could cut sections out and “customize my look.” I think I’ll pass. Besides, “the pale coloration of the costume creates a striking contrast with your long, dark hair” to quote my roommate. As of yesterday, the radio earpiece and mic that came with the suit no longer work. Frostblade is an impossible showoff: creating a tiny sliver of ice inside the casing to short the electronics at a distance with just a glance into my ear… There don’t seem to be many people who have more finess with their powers than me. I got him though. It just felt like a colossal waste of time – lots damage (thank you, Doctor Metropolis) to capture a fairly nonviolent (to non-supers anyway) thief, while dangerous killers are loose. Just dealing with the crime or threat that immediately presents itself seems like a losing strategy now. Especially since he didn’t seem to mind getting captured all that much.[/sblock]
That grew to be significantly longer than I had first planned.
I did decide to move some points into knowledges, at the expense of Diplomacy. It seemed like she would have fewer chances to work on social stuff than I first considered, plus I can easily see Megan reading up the the scientific basis of her powers and problems.
Shooting Star stats:
[sblock]
STR 10
DEX 10 (18)
CON 28
INT 12
WIS 10
CHA 10
F: +9
R: +13
W: +7
Spd: Walk: 30/60/120. Fly: 10000/20000/40000 (using 1 mph = 10 ft/round)
MpH: Walk: 3/6/12. Fly: 1k/2k/4k
Ini: +4
Att: +3 (+6 ranged) (+14 plasma orbs)
Dmg: +8 (autofire)
Def: 23/15
Toughness: +9
Trade offs: +3 attack, +2 def
Attractive 1, Attack Focus Ranged 3, Attack Specialization Plasma Orbs 4,
Acrobatic Bluff, Elusive Target, Luck 1, Move-by Action, Precise Shot 1, Redirect, Uncanny Dodge (hearing), Evasion 1, Defensive Attack, Dodge Focus 3
Flight 7 (14)
Enhanced Dex +8 (8) Quickness 3 (2) [not helpful for tasks requiring manual dexterity -1]
Plasma Orbs: Plasma Control +8 Autofire 2 (1 for 1, max 5), Penetrating 3 (4/rank, +3)
Triggered 2 (any trigger), Reversible (on latent triggers, not for undoing effects), Homing 2 (2 extra chances), Indirect 3 (any angle), Precise
(4/rank x 8 = 32. +3 Partial Extra, +9 Power Feats = 44)
AP: Flaring: Dazzle (visual) +11 Area (Burst 55 ft radius) Selective Attack.
(4/rank x 11 = 44)
AP: Barely Controlled Plasma Projection: Corrosion +11 Area (Cone 110 ft)
Side Effect: Blast +11. Always occurs, roughly half value -1
4/rank x 11 = 44
Acrobatics 16 +20
Computers 16 +17
Knowledge: technology 2 +3
Knowledge: Current events 2 +3
Knowledge: Physical sciences 2 +3
Knowledge: Life sciences 2 +3
Language: French, Spanish
Notice 6 +6
Stealth 4 +8
Feats 8+6+6=20
Stats 2+18=20
Powers 14+8+2+44+1+1=70
Combat 6+20=26
Skills 13
Saves 0+9+7=16
Total: 165
Complications:
Medical problems, particularly relating to her hands.
Fear: burning herself with her own powers. With some spillover into related areas.
Collateral damage: Sonic booms too close to major urban centers can be quite unpopular.
[/sblock]
