Cheshire

Cheshire
Author	/u/Mr_Serine
Pronouns	he/him
Civilian name	Michael Rose
Alignment	Villain
Affiliation	Mafia (Devilfish)
PRT Classification	Striker, Brute, Shaker, Master, Stranger, , , ,
Born	(1998-10-20) October 20, 1998 Devilfish, Minnesota
Status	Active

A relatively new member of the mob, has been seen acting as an enforcer in various parts of the territory. Little information available for now.

Character Sheet

Appearance

Civ: A tall young man, light brown curly hair in a light undercut. Thin, elegant features. Expressive. Curious multicolored eyes, which he often hides behind mirrored aviators.

Cape: A sleek steel full-face mask, mostly featureless but with a large toothy grin. Lightweight body armor under a nice leather jacket, and fingerless studded gloves. Dark pants, belt with sheaths for his knives, and military boots.

Equipment and Resources

• Mask
• Two knives, one curved and one straight
• Flashbangs
• A motorbike

As one of the powered members of the Mafia, he has quite a decent income. He lives in a nice house overlooking the lake, deep in Mafia territory, and has a cover job as security guard. He also works part-time as an instructor in a dojo. He owns a cat.

Wealth level: 6

Tinkertech

Until further notice, I am no longer using these.

Skills and Specializations

• Skilled fighter
• Athletic and acrobatic
• Quick thinking
• Some skill in both lip reading and sign language
• A bit of a power geek, interested in Manton effects and limitations. For understandable reasons, he also recently got interested in cluster mechanics

Mentality

A generally nice guy. Cheerful, nice smile, pleasant voice, all that. Seems to keep his cheer no matter the circumstance. He's usually friendly and polite even to his enemies, making friendly chit-chat while actively kicking their teeth in. He is also theatrical, often making grand, sweeping gestures when using his powers, even though it's not necessary.

He may be nice, but he is not a *good* guy. He could be diagnosed as a sociopath, having little empathy, willing to do a lot to achieve whatever goals he has. He follows rules and regulations because of the mess that comes when you break them, but he *will* break them if given enough cause and excuse.

After the simulation he had trouble finding a purpose, he roamed the streets looking to fight and push himself because that's one of the few things he really enjoys. He joined the Mafia because it gave him exactly that: a purpose.

Mental issues ho! When he's in an intense fight and the adrenaline really gets pumping, he sometimes reverts to the instincts from the simulation. This is bad, because he had a superhuman body in there, and he may try to do things he's not physically capable of in the real world.

Power

Trigger type: Natural Cluster

Primary power: Energy

Striker

Cheshire’s primary power is point-blank dynakinesis. He can control and transform energy within himself, and within an inch of his skin.

Converting heat to light, light to kinetic energy, kinetic to electrical energy, etc.

He transforms energy with almost 100% efficiency. He usually uses it to transform ambient heat and light into kinetic energy for himself, to move faster and hit harder, as well as causing him to turn into a black silhouette as a side effect. He can also use other sources of energy, even his own body heat as a last resort. Just using ambient energy under normal conditions, like light and heat, Cheshire can generally punch hard enough to dent a car door and run at peak human speeds.

More esoteric uses of the power include:

• Punching the air and turning the kinetic energy into light, for an impromptu flashbang
• Fire punch/taser punch/frost punch
• Staying cool in the summer

The power is mostly tuned for offense, and isn’t as efficient or effective for defending against attacks by converting energy to other forms. Under general circumstances, in the time a single punch lands on him, he can transform roughly half of the energy in it. Something like a bullet moves too quickly for him to affect. In addition, this power has trouble affecting larger amounts of power-generated energy (from pyrokinetics, lasers, etc).

To support this power, he also has a minor Thinker sense allowing him to see the energy within things, although usually without enough clarity to actually do something with it besides making it harder for people to hide from him. It has a range of roughly 10 meters, and can partially see through solid surfaces (just enough to see what’s on the other side of a wall). He can see the energy in invisible people, but nothing in illusions.

Subpower: Overwriting

Shaker

Cheshire can overwrite small 'cuts' of objects with air, sending them to a pocket dimension for a few (2-3) seconds. Effectively, he chooses a small (up to 20 cm across) spherical area of space within 10 meters of him, and turns any matter in it to air. It affects him just the same as others.

He can tune the Manton limit, choosing between cutting only living or non-living matter.

Overwritten parts are still connected to the rest of the object, so 'loose' parts won't fall off, and structural integrity isn't compromised. When the place something should occupy is occupied by something else when it returns, the most mobile of the two intersecting objects will be shunted to the nearest free space.

He tends not to use it on heads, to be a good sport.

Subpower: Flawed copies

Striker

Creates spectral limbs.

More specifically it's a spectral copy/clone of himself, but he can never summon the complete copy, he can only summon up to half at a time.

The spectral limbs aren't especially durable, only taking a good hit to dissipate, but he can re-summon them without much difficulty. This includes the recoil of hitting someone else. They don't have super strength either, they're just as strong as his normal body.

He can channel his primary power through the copies as easily as through the rest of his body.

Subpower: Desensitized

Stranger

Cheshire can make himself, or anything he touches, impossible to recognize.

People still have all their knowledge and memories, it just becomes impossible to connect it to what Cheshire has tagged. Even details like "is wearing a mask" can't be identified.

Shapes and sizes can still be roughly recognized, no-one will mistake a baseball for a bat.

The effect can be difficult to recognize, especially if you aren't focused on trying to identify whatever's tagged.

It works on simple Thinker senses too, though more specialized powers will trump it

The power can only be used on physical objects and creatures, only up to the size of a human, and only on one target at a time. It can last up to several minutes after he lets go of something.

Cluster Mechanic

The relation between the members of the VR Cluster is competitive: whenever they come across each other they will feel an intense drive to defeat (but not to kill) each other. It's not fully overwhelming and can be fought of, but this is very difficult.

The cluster members can also sense each other's presence in close proximity.

Backstory

Michael followed an ad looking for testers for an "absolutely life-like gaming experience". Sadly this turned out to be a ruse by a Tinker specializing in simulations, who trapped him and pitted him against others in a high octane deathmatch-type-thing.

Eventually, something went wrong. As the simulation started glitching and breaking, the world literally falling apart around him, Michael Triggered. The glitches also caused three others to Trigger and break free, but sadly the Tinker who put them there got away before they did.

Michael was free again, but he had changed. After getting his powers, he went around making trouble and getting in fights for a while. Eventually, the Mafia heard about him, and sent someone to offer him a job, a purpose. He said yes.