Simulacrum
| Simulacrum | |
|---|---|
| Author | /u/Shadeshadow227 |
| Pronouns | she/her |
| Civilian name | Dahlia Roslin |
| Alignment | Villain |
| Affiliation | None (Devilfish) |
| PRT Classification | Changer/Brute, Tinker (Trump), |
| Born |
November 16, 2003 Fargo, North Dakota |
| Status | Noncanon |
Rumors of a monster have been circulating in certain corners of the city, a horrifying sight scavenging through dumpsters and scaring people, a dozen different retellings sharing a single commonality: a glittering metal skeleton wrapped in flesh, almost human.
Character Sheet
Appearance
When in her civilian identity, Dahlia wears her most humanlike frame, adopting an appearance similar to how she was before triggering (a fairly tall young woman with blue eyes, black hair, and a pale complexion), albeit with certain subtle inconsistencies, like her breathing being on a consistent rhythm regardless of exertion, her teeth occasionally being revealed to be painted metal, or other small differences from the norm.
Simulacrum's appearance in costume can vary wildly owing to her powerset, but at this point she's a malformed human figure swaddled in ill-fitting stained clothing, mouth full of needle-fine keratin teeth, three-inch claws sticking out from hands fused into fists. A form mostly used for intimidation, scaring off potential assailants as she scavenges for materials.
Equipment and Resources
Wealth Level: 1
She barely has anything besides the clothes on her back, and even those were something she had to steal.
Tinkertech
Frame: Adam
Appearance: A mostly-anatomically-correct human skeleton assembled out of metal parts and wiring, complete with metal teeth set in a hinged jaw and other small details.
Abilities: The most basic frame Simulacrum can create, allowing her to move around as a human. Most of the joints are ball-joints instead of what they would be on a person, allowing her more freedom of rotation. A bit more durable than a normal skeleton, tending to bend where most normal bones would break, but the joints can be disconnected fairly easily if struck. No special parts to build exotic mutations on, but easily replaceable if damaged.
Duration: Permanent unless destroyed, easily rebuildable, effectively requiring as little maintenance as possible due to being so basic.
Notes: Simulacrum can always be assumed to have one of these built, due to how basic it is and how necessary a frame is for her to act, unless deliberately deprived of a frame or the materials to build one.
RibCage Grenade
Appearance: A compacted cylinder of polished metal parts and wires, small enough to be held in one hand and thrown. A section at the top can be pushed further inwards, serving as a button to activate the device.
Abilities : On use, expands after a few seconds into a copy of Simulacrum’s Adam frame, without any augmentations, that she can transfer to on contact, best used as an emergency escape tool or second wind in a fight. When thrown the result is more haphazard, metal bars and wiring unfolding out in a tangling mess that can ensnare opponents for a short duration, fairly easy (if annoying) to pull apart and untangle.
Duration: Until used
Nailtooth Augment
Appearance: A small, polished device made of curved metal pieces, welded and wired together. Has visible input and output ports, the overall construction making it look somewhat like a human heart.
Abilities: When attached to a frame, allows Simulacrum to feed her mass into it and produce small amounts of shaped keratin, in the form of small plates, spikes, and other shapes. Enables her to add solid structures like claws, scales, or teeth (albeit without enamel, substituting it with keratin) to a form, or brace damaged parts of a frame with lengths of the material, though the keratin it produces is noticeably brittle, similar to ceramic or glass, cracking or shattering when damaged.
Duration:Permanent unless destroyed/stolen
Notes: Built using tech scavenged from her creator’s lab, post-trigger.
Skills and Specializations
- Highly-skilled at assuming roles and acting based on limited information about an individual
- Her creator was partially through getting an engineering degree before dying, programmed that knowledge into her when she was first created and had her keep up studying in order to maintain her persona.
Mentality
Still recovering from her time under her creator's thumb, her trigger event, and the aftermath, Dahlia is a stressed-out mess of a person, not helped by the remnants of her programming occasionally conflicting with reality (such as her ironclad belief that the Protectorate will capture and dissect her for study if she's discovered, artificially-instilled by her creator to ensure that her tech didn't end up in the hands of the heroes) and a dawning awareness of just how bad her situation was in hindsight.
Power
After her trigger, Dahlia's power rapidly mutated her to save her life. Passively she exists as a large mass of soft tissues, various organs, muscle, fat, etc., capable of extremely fast regeneration and reconfiguration, dissolving and regrowing various bodyparts and organic compounds as-necessary, manifesting everything from a rainbow of human and animal-derived pigments, to fully-functional eyes, or various organs (largely limited to variations on human bodyparts, though with a lot of flexibility and room for alterations therein, she can bulk up or make more sensitive ears but is incapable of mimicking electric eel parts to shock people, as an example) at the drop of a hat. Because of her unorthodox body structure, she breathes directly through her skin, effectively has no organs unless she creates them, and does not bleed unless she creates a circulatory system or converts part of her mass into blood cells, though she still needs to eat (and due to her ability to manipulate the structures of her body, she can reconstruct her digestive system to handle things a normal person wouldn't be able to obtain nutrients from and digest materials that would typically be harmful) or else she will starve. The maximum amount of mass she can reach is roughly 400lbs, and she can survive when severely reduced in mass, though she can still be killed if fully destroyed (such as being dissolved in acid, incinerated, disintegrated, etc.) and any mass that's separated from her will rapidly lose cohesion, turning into a slurry of cells.
However, she cannot grow bone or similar inflexible structures (she can do cartilage, but the result is so flexible that it's useless for any kind of support except on small scales), requiring her to build and maintain a tinkertech skeleton to affix herself to, providing structure for mutations and allowing her to move around freely. Due to her unique physiology, damage to specific organs or her flesh doesn't impair her at all unless it severely reduces her mass, since she can just replace what was harmed, but her skeleton is her weakpoint, parts removed or smashed out of alignment equating to malformed limbs and other impairments that need to be fixed out of combat. If she's ever fully removed from a frame she's effectively rendered incapable of movement, only able to slowly drag her mass around, forming weak pseudopods to manipulate objects and interact with her surroundings until she manages to build herself a support structure.
Her tinkering almost solely extends to the production of various scaffolds and support structures, without the potential for exotic elements or even motorized components (in most cases) on her own, quite weak and without much room to expand into other areas, though she can make a variety of frames for a variety of purposes coupled with her altered form, ranging from enabling functional wings to multiple limbs and other potential mutations.
However, when given a sample of another tinker's tech, she can universally deconstruct it and add it to her own tech in the form of a minor augmentation or trinket, regardless of how close or far it is from her typical creations, even if it's biological in nature or otherwise exotic. Augmentations created in this way are relatively weak, though they may potentially synergize with various mutations, incorporated into the scaffold she's using or her flesh depending on the result. A pistol from an electricity tinker might be turned into a taser-like implement built into one hand, shocking on contact and working well with forms of enhanced reach; a sample of a vibration tinker's tech might lead to a stunning scream augment wired into a skull, etc. She can have up to two augmentations hooked up to a frame at once (barring specific circumstances and the right tinker assistance, as they're powered by her bioelectricity, which is a limited and fairly weak source of energy, three at once would render them all with insufficient power to function in most situations), as well as swap them to different frames given enough time to uninstall and transfer them.
Backstory
Dahlia Roslin knew that she had a purpose in life. Ever since she emerged from the vat of stem cells that supplied her with the blessed form she was painstakingly sculpted into, she heard the voice of her creator, and she obeyed.
She was to assist her in her efforts, act as a second pair of hands, act as her whenever the situation required it, she was programmed for it all from the very beginning. That was her purpose, and it was one she performed without question, for it was a necessary task, and a tool that can refuse it's purpose is not a useful tool at all.
She happily complied with every order she was given, playing the part of Sarah Roslin perfectly, as she'd been designed to, while her creator, the true Sarah, continued her acts as the "villain" Sinew, battling the "heroic" forces of the Protectorate in an effort to protect her creations and expand her capabilities. So what if she needed to collect materials from a few jewelry stores, or acquire funds from a few banks? That's what banks are for, and they should be honored to have witnessed the majesty of her creator.
Life continued on, with her creator's fantastic exploits and her simple role to play, going out in the image of her creator, going to college classes in her place and learning, seeing wondrous sights and doing amazing things before heading back to the lab to await further commands. She even met a member of the Protectorate on patrol one day, holding in her fear long enough to not compromise her purpose and even getting an autograph for her creator.
One day, however, things were different. Her creator had to defend her lab from a parahuman-led gang seeking to capture her and steal her tech, knowledge she had gained through an informant in the group. Dahlia was sent to her house, ordered to cover for her and not return until she dealt with the coming threat. And so she went. Her creator would be fine, she was unbeatable, after all.
That night, a segment on the news caught her eye.
Gang clash turns deadly: Ironspine, Egghead, Sinew confirmed dead, several arrests made in the aftermath. Civilian casualties currently unknown.
Surely it must have been a trick. Her creator would not have died so easily, she's clearly...hiding, rebuilding her strength for another offense. Dahlia rationalized it to herself, faith unbroken.
And yet, in the coming days, Dahlia's standing orders remained in place. Her creator did not arrive to relieve her, there was no activity from her lab.
Days turned to weeks, Dahlia began feeling ill. Still, her creator did not come for her favored creation. Impossibly, her faith began to waver, ever so slightly. Surely her creator wouldn't have abandoned her, right?
Nausea so severe that she was puking after almost every meal, risking her cover more and more with each passing day. A sensation of weakness, draining the strength from her body. Coughing fits that practically immobilized her when they struck, feeling as if her lungs would shred apart with each hacking breath.
Each day, it all threatened to overwhelm her more than the day before, and her faith shook further. Her orders were absolute, she could not falter...and yet, her steps grew shaky, her purpose becoming harder to fulfill.
One night, after a severe bout of nausea sent her scrambling to the bathroom, hacking up blood and bile, something ripped in her mouth, with a sound like overripe fruit being stepped on, splashing down into the toilet bowl she was leaning over. Half of her tongue floated atop the muck, slowly dissolving into the mess around it.
Terror. Agony.
The commands she was given fell away beneath the weight of what had just happened. She needed to find her creator, needed to be healed. Something terrible was happening.
In a daze, she makes her way to the lab where she was given form, ignoring how clumps of her hair were falling out with every step, trying to stem the bleeding from her tongue. She struggled to open the door with stiff, uncooperative fingers...
Only to be met with sparking machinery and the scent of rotten meat. Clearly the lab had fallen into disarray while she was gone...but her creator should have come back, should have prevented this, long ago.
A traitorous thought wormed into her mind, an unthinkable prospect sitting like a rock in her stomach.
What if she's never coming back?
What if they really did kill her?
...then there was nobody coming to save her.
The fear of death gripped Dahlia's heart, in that moment. She rushed inside as fast as she could. Surely there was something here to heal her, restore her. She grabbed bits of malfunctioning tech, her skin squishing against the mechanical parts, frantically trying to remember how her creator had used them in order to try and save herself.
Her attempts were clumsy, the results entirely unusable. Hours passed. She felt her left eye deflate, contents putrefying, and tried to repair it. The result was a tumor stuck to her eyesocket, full of underdeveloped eyes. She still couldn't see. She tried again.
The sun shone through the windows. All of her teeth fell out hours ago, she managed to seal her gums shut, which held for all of five minutes until the inside of her mouth began peeling away. Everything was falling apart faster than she could fix it, if she even could.
Her fingers began to slough, her bones visible. She could barely move, and yet she still needed to try.
Her skin sagged on one side of her face, her jaw began to shift as the muscles securing it to her skull began to rot. She raised a malfunctioning sealing gun to the injury, trying to secure it back in place--
Splosh
The weight of the piece of equipment pulled it through her arm, the sudden movement jarring whatever remained solid enough for it to sink past. It clattered to the ground, covered in rotten bits of bone, dripping with muscle, her hand and half of her forearm pouring down around it.
For a few seconds, she just...stared in utter disbelief, as the extent of what she was doing set in. It had been...maybe five, six hours, fumbling her way through trying to restore herself, fucking it up at every turn. Nothing had been working, she was struggling as hard as she could to survive, and nothing worked as she had hoped.
This is how she was going to die. Unable to stand up from the stool she was half-sitting on, half-melted into. Bereft of purpose, condemned to death by the loss of her creator. Lost and alone, falling apart in more ways than one, scrambling to do *anything at all* in the end.
As the vision in her one functioning eye began to dim, her remaining fingers worn down to the bone, surrounded by the inevitable failure of everything her creator had built, her failure, she triggers--
Awareness burns through her body. Nothing feels right, rot and apoptosis and pus across skin and muscle and half-organs--
Instinctively, she turns inwards, shoveling rot and decay into what she could feel was still alive, digestive juices and endless ripping folds recycling the mass, her cells sing and something clatters into place in her mind, buzzing through partially-melted neural tissue and out through skin, what was once a bicep, fragments of bone, things that could be assembled into organs. A single thought, simple and yet earthshattering.
I'm alive.
She's in a puddle on the ground, she feels the concrete beneath her, tastes the air, but it's not enough, she needs to see.
Eyes float to the surface, newfound senses stinging for an instant before she adjusts, because she had eyes before and it's good to have them again, she can even make more and so she does.
Sparking machinery, bubbling flesh, scraps of what used to be her, fills her vision. She crawls around, ever so slowly, delirious in the thought that she's alive, she can feel and move and think and a thousand other things.
But it's not enough. Her mind thrums with inspiration. She knows she cannot grow some things, so she takes, rips apart, carefully rewires, the thoughts of inspiration growing and changing as she finds the really interesting things her understanding has to shift to comprehend, mind as fluid as her form.
Eventually, she has hands, arms, ribs, legs, she's almost human, almost herself again, managing to wire together a machine that beats like a heart, printing keratin (almost bone but not right, not quite, there are a lot of almosts with what she can do but that's better than nothing) she can use to quickly assemble solid parts for herself until she gets the metal right, determined to restore and improve herself.
This continued for about a week, until one night, she heard vans pull up outside of the lab, people talking. Someone had tipped off the Protectorate to her activities, she needed to hide, quickly.
So she stuffed herself into an empty vat, hiding the skeleton she just managed to finish and expanding to fill the container, smearing herself with the decayed remnants still present on the surface and doing her best to play dead.
Soldiers wearing the PRT insignia opened the door, inspecting everything and taking samples where they could, even scooping out a sample of her flesh while she was frozen in fear. They began taking everything they could safely remove, loading it all, along with her, onto a vehicle.
Inside of the truck, Dahlia was terrified. She knew what the Protectorate would do to her, her creator had told her horror stories of how they treat creations like her. She needed to escape as soon as she got the chance.
The truck slowed to a stop and she sprung into action, climbing out of the vat and smashing out the window with one metal arm, managing to squeeze herself out and start sprinting away as the shouts of the men in the truck echoed behind her. A bullet struck her in the back, the jolt of pain ignored as the wound closed up, a set of eyes forming on the back of her head to watch for more gunfire. She kept running. Another shot deflected off of the rod in her leg, pushing it out of alignment, she reinforced it with a length of keratin from the only augment she managed to create with her creator's tech, something to supply what she could not create herself. She kept running even as her injured leg grew worse, refusing to let herself slow down.
She needed to repair herself, needed to disappear. So she ran as fast as she could towards the lights in the distance, a city that would have food and shelter and materials and safety.
And so, Dahlia found herself on the streets of Devilfish, Minnesota.