Hellgate

Hellgate
Author	/u/Scrublord_Koish
Pronouns	He/Him
Civilian name	Alex Nathaniel Hale
Alignment	Hero
Affiliation	Noncanon (Devilfish)
PRT Classification	Shaker (Thinker 5, Stranger 4),
Born	(2005-06-18) June 18, 2005 Devilfish
Status	Noncanon

There have been reports going around of a new cape wearing a devil mask summoning forth some sort of hellscape. Mixed in with spaces of black nothing doing the same. Seemingly being able to cause people within it to spontaneously combust.

Character Sheet

Appearance

Hellgate's costume takes after his powers. Hellish. Clad in dark clothes with a sort of tattered cloak overtop alongside a horned devil mask. Grinning at whoever is willing to watch. Still looks a cheap on a second look though.

Alex out of costume looks like trouble. The way he holds himself in casual attire, the slightly unkempt look and the way he looks at people from under messy, sandy blonde hair. It's almost like he's trying to scare people away by looks alone.

Equipment and Resources

• Wealth Level: 3
• A bunch of miscellaneous stolen goods.
• A room back at his now very worried parents' house.
• A pair of batons
• A knife
• A civilian and a few extra phones
• Zip ties
• A fire blanket
• Some bandages
• A small backpack with snacks and to hold his supplies in

Skills and Specializations

• Parkour
• Proficient with a variety of melee weaponry
• Can fire a gun with reasonable accuracy (Does not know how to clean them and such. Just use them.)
• Quickly getting the lay of a room
• Putting on an intimidating look
• Has a surprisingly wide vocal range
• Pretty decent at hand to hand combat (learned via thinker power)

Mentality

Alex is rather contrarian in demeanor. Pushing back harder the more someone tries to push him into things he doesn't want to do.

To contrast this, he is also very impulsive. Going with things he thinks would be cool or interesting rather than stopping or thinking about what to do.

Power

Cluster mechanic:

As part of the VR cluster, Alex becomes intensely competitive towards other members of the cluster. Feeling the need to one up them or be superior in some way at all times. Additionally, cluster members can sense one another when within a 50 meter radius.

Main power: Hellgate's main power is to overwrite the environment. The area around him effectively becoming a portal to an alternate earth with a very similar shape of the land.

This alternate earth has high degrees of volcanism and intense storms, while the ground is a mixture between greyish quartz-adjacent crystals and sand with a high amount of iron. Lightning strikes being a very common occurance.

This area grows by a radius of 1 meter per second, but can be slowed down or stopped entirely by Hellgate. This can also be stopped only in certain directions, 'shaping' the portal.The portal may extend a maximum of 200 meters away from Hellgate in any direction.

Should the portal not extend to a point below him, Hellgate can still stand on surfaces higher than ground level without falling through.

Only living matter can fully transfer over to the alternate earth. And will instead be returned should they cross back over the boundary of the portal. Nonliving matter is overwritten unless held/worn by a living creature. Things such as mechs, cars and other vehicles are always overwritten.

Distance travelled on the alternate earth translates 1:1 to the regular world.

Hellgate has 360 degrees vision from his position inside the alternate earth. Regardless of if the portal is active.

Should the portal start closing over someone, they will be sent back to the regular world in roughly the same spot. Appearing in the closest safe, open space.

Subpower from Flicker

Hellgate can spread out or condense energy that he is touching and within line of sight. This effect isn't selective, and energy can only be condensed in an area that already carried said energy. The area shrinking and condensing the energy in an area with a radius that shrinks at a rate of 1 meter per second. Diffusing said energy is done by spreading it out to connecting matter. Perfectly transferring it over as if the matter were a superconductor.

Examples of this in effect would be, say, a punch being able to cut something or leave a serious crack in concrete by condensing all the energy into a fine point. Meanwhile, a bullet wouldn't be affected at all, as they are simply too fast to see coming, and messing with the energy on impact would likely do more damage.

In combination with the main power, this subpower can be used to set things on fire using the high ambient heat, or use static electricity to vaguely guide down lightning strikes.

Subpower from Transient

Hellgate can copy the skills and muscle memory of 1 person within 10 meters of him. These skills do not stay when the target leaves the area, though practicing the skill while copying someone with the skill greatly speeds up the time it takes to actually learn it himself.

The target does not need to be conscious for this effect.

Subpower from unnamed /u/TheTowerIV cape

Hellgate can designate one person or object to effectively censor it from being experienced. Appearing as a formless black mass a bit larger than the original object or creature. Creatures and objects censored in this way cannot make noise, do not emit warmth, cause no vibrations or feel like they have texture. Nor will they show up on cameras, sensors or powered senses.

This effect works on people, Hellgate included. A person has access to all of their senses, though to themselves they still appear as a black mass and cannot hear themselves.

For clarification. Cameras can still record the black mass, but it will not trip any related alarms.As for thinker powers. Powers that extend someone's senses or create visions (pre/postcogs included) see the black mass, while thinker powers that do not simply do not work on them.For the sake of pre/postcogs, the censoring has to be during the pre/postcogged event for it to take effect.

Backstory

Alex was a rebellious kid. Not for anything his parents did wrong. They just ended up getting into more and more disagreements as time went on in a rebellious phase that seemingly would never end.

Playing games and hanging out with friends rather than going along with family activities or trying to raise his mediocre grades. Probably not the smartest idea, but he was relatively happy.

Then he found himself staring at a poster that had been stapled to the pole of a power line. Needing beta testers for an indie VR game.

If he was honest, he'd never done virtual reality gaming before, but it looked rather interesting, so why the hell not? (Also there was a bit of pay involved, which made it all the more appetising.)

Arriving there, he was greeted by a guy who gave him some weird vibes just looking at him, but then again, he had made a video game. Probably hadn't left the house much recently.

Following along with the instructions, he found himself holding controllers and an odd headset before the game was finally started. A bit of initial glitching aside, he had nothing of praise for the 'game'. Revelling in the experience...

And then he realised after what felt like forever with no sign of getting tired, Alex quickly became confused. He'd been moving around a lot so far. And trying to take off the headset, he found himself grabbing onto the metal head of the robotic avatar the game had. Fuck.

That was when the creepy guy from before, a tinker apparantly, appeared in his vision and explained the deal. Alex would have to make it to the end. Racing against others to be allowed out. Double fuck.

So he did just that. Racing through the areas. Getting increasingly better at aiming, better with weapons, and even finding himself revelling in the experience a bit.

Then something broke. Alex finding himself frantically running for his life as the virtual environments started to glitch and fall apart. His vision switching between a now partially ruined laboratory and his increasingly smaller. Then, his avatar died.

Respawn, dead. Respawn, dead. Respawn, dead.

Every time, the environment crushed him. Falling, crushing, impalement. It didn't hurt, but every time he saw it coming. Trigger.

And then he was pulled out of the remains of some machine. The tiled floor feeling cold to his now weak frame. Three others looking to be in similar states. What the fuck?