Halloween!

Yeah, no, sorry: I've got nothing spooky cued up for today. Our house is suitably decorated and I'm ready with candy, monsters, and teeth to give away, but I'm just not quite into it this year. I'm honestly not too much into anything right now, even writing, except that I'm very much trying to get myself in order: diet, sleep schedule, exercise, new job, that sort of thing. Self-care, basic self-care, which we've all long known that I'm particularly bad at.

...And once I get home tonight, I'll make ready with the treats. 

Student: Harbinger [Team Kraken]

Name: Lyceus Antonius
Codename: Harbinger
Age: 17
Appearance: 6', curly black hair, olive skin, brown eyes
Notable Skills: wrestling, gymnastics, dance, knife-fighting, unarmed combat, poison, basic sorcery, politics & society, Latin
Quirks:enjoys sneaking around, very curious about his fellow students and the school, protective of his privacy, exercises to help himself relax, faintly Italian accent.

Lyceus is the latest arrival at the school, having been caught trying to break in and then accepted by the headmaster. He had come from Imperia in search of his sister (Charm) after making his own escape from their family. He is still finding his way around, both academically and socially, but he's already starting to make connections.

Following an unfortunate accident with another student, Lyceus was invited to try out for Team Kraken; he chose the name Harbinger because he liked the way it sounded. He seems to have two very different sets of powers; on the one hand, he has a number of physical advantages, and on the other he has a nearly-impenetrable mind shield that makes him inaccessible to telepathy and related mental powers.

Student: Snoop [Team Phoenix]

Name: Ryan Jacob Darling
Codename: Snoop
Age: 17
Appearance: 6'1", muscular, with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes, olive skin.
Notable Skills: Football, track, hockey, firearms, bows, various crafts, camping, riding horses
Quirks:enjoys knitting, sports fan, loves pizza/burgers/hot dogs, owns a horse, loves camping/hunting/fishing

Ryan enjoys working out and is in many ways the quintessential jock, participating in a variety of sports and outdoor activities. He works to keep his grades up, but almost always has some sort of crafting project going -- anything from minor woodworking, to leatherwork, to sewing costumes for the school's theater. He knits when he's sitting still; he says it gives him something do with his hands. 

His role on Team Phoenix is primarily exploratory and investigative; his extra abilities aren't physical, and the limited amount of telekinesis that he possesses is only moderately useful for combat. However, his ability to see and listen to events at a distance has proven extremely useful -- and his ability to sense psychic residue and past events by touching items or people has been invaluable. He can also locate objects (generally or specifically) by focusing on them.

Student: Catapult [Team Dragon]

Name: Paula Ann Stone
Codename: Catapult
Age: 17
Appearance: Blue eyes, purple hair, light brown skin
Notable Skills: excellent judge of character, tactical thinking, soccer, rock climbing, hiking & orienteering
Quirks:goal-oriented, enjoys socializing over card and board games, competitive but also big on sportsmanship, people-watcher, wants to be an astronaut

Paula is what most teachers consider an ideal student: focused, disciplined, and goal-oriented, but self-aware enough to include room for rest and social activities in her schedule. She's willing to take risks, but only after she thinks them through carefully. She intends to become an astronaut (one way or another) and tries to keep herself in peak mental and physical condition; working with Team Dragon is just another part of that. She also harbors a secret romantic streak; she would love to experience an irresistible, all-consuming love. 

As Catapult, Paula uses her power to tranfer momentum at close range to perform powerful leaps and equally powerful impacts, hurl objects (including her teammate Wrecker) and perform other tricks. Using her powers requires tactical thinking and precise timing, but Paula enjoys the challenge. She is well aware that she has no special resistance to injury, and even a single mistake could maim or kill her; but she would argue that the same is true (if less dramatically so) on the soccer field as well.

Villain: Shine

Name: Daniel William Morrison
Alias: Shine
Age: 28
Appearance: 6'3", blond hair, blue eyes; tall, athletic, and ruggedly handsome, with a fashionable haircut and expensive clothes
Job: President of V3 Investment Group

Daniel Morrison is an up-and-coming venture capitalist, and not at all shy about using his abilities to ensure his success. He is very much invested in his lifestyle and image: flashy cars, expensive clothes, exclusive clubs, and high-end hobbies (including his dating life); he has recently gotten into racing yachts. Some people want to be loved; he just wants to be worshiped.

Though he comes from a relatively affluent background, his power -- and his ruthless willingness to use it -- is what has allowed him access to the lifestyle he wants and the money to afford it. Daniel is an influencer; when his power is active he seems larger-than-life: charismatic, magnetic, dominating, and authoritative. Anyone under his influence finds it hard to disagree with him, refuse him, or ignore him. This is more subtle than actual mind control, and consequently harder to spot; the only tell is that when he's using his power, he glows -- an effect that he usually explains away as an imaginary by-product of his charismatic way with people.

In addition, when given time with a specific target he can focus his power to mesmerize them, influence their decisions directly, and even alter their memories. His power can also be used in reverse, making himself unobtrusive and hard to keep track of, but he essentially never uses it that way.

Faculty: Glimmer

Name: Grace Reshelle Campbell
Codename: Glimmer
Age: 38
Appearance: dark brown skin, black hair in tight braids, brown eyes, 5'2", tends to wear a lot of beads and colored patterns.
Job: dance instructor, gymnastics coach, teaches health and biology, RN and licensed physical therapist

As Glimmer, Ms. Campbell was always more adjacent to the original team than a part of it. She is able to project herself in a sort of astral form, but in order to do so she must put herself into a trance that leaves her body helpless. In astral form she appears as a transparent, ghostly image of herself and has a number of powers: invisibility, telepathy, telekinesis, cryokinesis, intangibility. Her astral form is almost completely immune to physical and energy attacks, but can still be engaged psychically. However, the vulnerability of her physical body and the fact that she can't remain in a trance for more than a few hours at a time have kept her in a more behind-the-scenes role. 

As a teacher, Ms. Campbell trains students in dance and gymnastics, and teaches the health, biology, and life sciences classes. She also acts as the school nurse, and is licensed to help students with longer-term physical therapy when needed. (This doesn't come up very often, since several of the students are capable of using their powers for one sort of healing or another, but it does come up.) 

Ms. Campbell is a very organized, focused woman but also very physically affectionate with her friends. She is currently dating a slightly younger defense attorney who has no idea that she is anything other than an ordinary faculty member at a very exclusive private school. Her daughter from a previous marriage (Indigo) is currently enrolled in the school; Grace was very disappointed when she turned down a chance to join Team Phoenix, but also very careful not to let her daughter know that.

Student: Wrecker [Team Dragon]

Name: Cedric Johnson
Codename: Wrecker
Age: 17
Appearance: Cedric has tightly-curled black hair, dark brown skin, and soft brown eyes. He has a swimmer's trim musculature, and a tendency to overdress for anything he's doing.
Notable Skills: Boxing, Driving, Socializing, Thinking Through Possible Consequences, Drawing, Crafting, Gamemastering.
Quirks: enjoys theater but isn't good at acting, loves animals, absolute fanatic for Thai food, bad at romance/dating (thinks he's unattractive), finds going for a drive relaxing.

Cedric is a devoted but not exceptional student; his academics are all passing, but not exceptional. Where he really excels is in drawing other students into games -- anything from cards to boardgames to tabletop roleplaying, the weirder the better. He has aspirations to be a writer, and is considerably better at it than he believes even if most of his writing involves characters from his games. Other students like him because he's low-maintenance and always willing to help out.

As Wrecker, he works with Team Dragon as both a tank (using his super-strength and near-invulnerability) and a blaster, using his ability to punch people with his super-strength at distances of up to fifty feet. He is deeply annoyed by the fact that his power isn't more subtle, and doesn't seem to lend itself to clever tricks. He's hoping to improve that, though.

Student: Razzle [Team Phoenix]

Name: Debora "Debbie" Vasquez
Codename: Razzle
Age: 16
Appearance: Debbie has thick black hair, dark brown skin, and dark brown eyes; she is lithe and lean, and generally favors dark-colored clothes that match her coloration.
Notable Skills: speaks Spanish, German, and passable Chinese; History; Politics; knows how to drive; theater kid with an emphasis on singing, dance, and acting; good at making people smile and deescalating situations.
Quirks: reacts badly to jokes about her Mexican heritage, reads history books as a hobby, loves having an audience and plays to any she finds, would love to be rich and famous, is a bit of a glory-hound.

As a student, Debbie's twin hobbies of history and languages have already forced the faculty to step up their game. She's bad at math, and usually behind in the sciences. She adores having an audience, and loves to perform for her fellow students, but reacts badly when people respond negatively to her attention-seeking. 

As Razzle, however, she is a key part of Team Phoenix, providing both distractions by way of conjured lights and ranged attacks by way of lasers. She is well aware of her physical vulnerability, and wears armor designed to protect her from harm. She wants to be the public face of the team, but Jade has managed to keep her under control so far. Razzle is aware of this and feels like the rest of the team is holding her back, but for now she's willing to go with it because of the opportunities it provides. She plans to strike out on her own after graduation: find an agent, maybe get a reality TV show, go from there.

Student: Gaunt [Team Kraken]

Name: Omar al-Rikabi
Codename: Gaunt
Age: 17
Appearance: Omar has moderately curly black hair, brown skin with silvery undertones, and brown eyes with tawny flecks; he is tall and thin with broad shoulders and a narrow waist overlaid with a wiry musculature and barely any fat; his face is gaunt and he looks vaguely as if he is starving.
Notable Skills: Basketball, Track and Field, Soccer, moving silently, hand-to-hand combat with an emphasis on grappling and restraint, lockpicking, guns, escape artistry, and mechanical restraints
Quirks: Loves burgers and french fries, hates public speaking and also speaking in general, will absolutely lose his shit at any evidence of bullying, good with animals and younger children, periodically brooding and depressed.

Omar al-Rikabi was an American-born Muslim; his father was a doctor and his mother was a dentist. He was twelve when he discovered that not only could he whisper to people silently and hear their replies, some people glowed when he looked at them just right. His best friend's parents (who were, he learned, already wrestling with suspicions about their own child) called in law enforcement and CPS when they found out, and the ensuing drama was enough to draw the attention of an experimental CIA initiative called DAAT (Deviant Asset Ability Training) who leaned on his Iraqi-born parents until they finally gave in out of fear that the agency was going to kidnap their son outright and then ruin their lives anyway. Omar left behind his family, including parents, grandmother, and younger sister Zahra. 

DAAT taught him to use his abilities to track down and capture his fellow deviants, subjecting him to experimental treatments designed to increase his strength, stamina, and overall toughness, and also to keep him biddable and firmly under their control. After his escape exposed the existence of the program, Dragon Team managed to intercept him before his fellow "hounds" could track him down. 

As a student, Omar is haunted by the memories of his experiences and training. He fears that the hounds might find the school, or take his sister; he fears that the experiments he underwent may have altered him permanently, turning him into something inhuman and horrible. Despite this -- or perhaps in an effort to escape it -- he is a voracious reader and does well in his classes. Other students tend to perceive him as shy, but Omar wouldn't call himself that; it's just that he doesn't have a lot to say, so he keeps quiet. His decision to accept the invitation to join Team Kraken was based on a clear understanding that if he ever did have to take on the hounds or their masters in DAAT, he was going to need help.

Student: Charm [Team Dragon]

Name: Sophia Antonius
Codename: Charm
Age: 16
Appearance: Sophia has black hair and olive skin, tawny eyes, and an elegant, slender build; she is graceful and poised from years of dance and deportment training
Notable Skills: Negotiation, dance, knife fighting, poisons, politics, herpetology
Quirks: has trouble with modern technology, occasionally stumbles when speaking English, loves dancing, enjoys learning, scared of her parents

Team Dragon recently found themselves in the city of Imperia -- which claims to be the last remaining colony of Imperial Rome -- located on the edge of the Preserve -- a hidden area of Antarctica where the last remains of the dinosaurs still roam. Metahumans in Imperia are consider Demi (short for 'demigods') and their unexpected arrival caused conflicts with several local Demi as well as local political and religious authorities. Sophia first encountered them during their imprisonment, helped them break out, and departed with them. She claims that her actions were based on a combination of outrage at the injustice of their treatment and a desire to see the world where they were born. She is the newest member of Team Dragon, but has shown consistent good judgement and a keen understanding of political and social interactions; she evaluates and quickly adapts to new situations. 

As the daughter of the goddess of one of the local mystery cults, Sophia began learning sorcery as well as social graces almost as soon as she could walk. While she lacked her parents' innate powers, her own native ability was a sensitivity to certain kinds of energy, which she used to cultivate her own personal mystic energies and tap into stronger cosmic powers, allowing her to master a sorcerer's spellcasting abilities in the space of a few short years. She is also sensitive to extradimensional magics, but extremely wary of making contact with them. Her go-to spells include shields, armor, elemental blasts and blasts of force, and a handful defensive or utility measures such as teleportation, healing, and cleaning. While she can design and empower other sorts of magic, she generally does that in advance and stores the prepared spell in her amulet.

She remains terrified that her parents might come to reclaim her.

Faculty: Bridge

Name: Larry Martin Hendrickson
Codename: Bridge
Age: 32
Appearance: A short (5'4") wiry red-head, with pale skin, a hint of freckles, and blue eyes, generally wearing converse all-stars.
Job: Teaches Latin, Fencing, European Swordsmanship, Guitar, English, and Research Methodology; sends teams to their destinations and retrieves them afterwards.

Mr. Hendrickson is something of a polymath, and frequently assists in various roles (costuming, stagecraft, music) with the school's theater club. He is friendly, good-humored, and popular as a teacher or guest lecturer; troubled students frequently choose him to confide in. He also helps maintain the school's computer systems, acting as a backup to Mr. Jenkins. 

His role as Bridge is to transport students and faculty to various locations as needed, watch over them, and bring them back afterwards. His power is a unique blend of clairvoyance and teleportation which allows him to view (and with a bit of extra effort, listen in on) remote locations. If he focuses hard enough, he can connect his current location to the location he is viewing, allowing himself and/or anyone nearby to step from one frame of reference to the other. There are a handful of administrators in the CIA who tried to recruit him for espionage over a decade ago, but Mr. Hendrickson found the idea distasteful and removed himself.

Student: Spectre [Team Phoenix]

Name: Baati Meleak
Codename: Spectre
Age: 16
Appearance: 5'9" with dark skin and tightly-curled black hair shaved into a fashionable cut, medium build, and a dazzling smile
Notable Skills: first aid, rock climbing, hiking, camping, track & field, history and current events, logic puzzles; currently learning to drive and fight
Quirks: loves pizza, likes being in the water (swimming/baths), follows the rules but isn't a narc, speaks Oromo (Ethiopian), afraid of dogs

Baati is the kind of kid who likes to make other kids feel included. He's studious, courteous, well-behaved, and at his most comfortable when he's been given a job to do and the tools to do it. Originally from Ethiopia, he came to the United States at age seven when his parents took jobs at a tech firm in Boston. At first deep in culture shock, he made it a point to learn flawless English, and can switch between American, British, and Australian accents with near-perfect accuracy. He also made it a point to learn how to make friends, which frequently meant learning how to reach out to other kids who also didn't have any friends yet. 

Baati's powers manifested at age thirteen, causing him and his family considerable distress before they came to grips with what was actually going on. The FBI caught wind of it and passed word to the CIA, which offered to place Baati in a special program called DAAT (Deviant Asset Ability Training); his parents decided that he was too young, and refused. Shortly after that, Headmaster Saint-Vincent got in touch with them and after visiting the school they decided to enroll Baati there. As Spectre, Baati can step slightly outside of reality to become invisible and/or intangible; he can also communicate telepathically, but only through physical contact. (This still works when he's invisible and intangible, though, so he's quite capable of "haunting" anyone who lacks psychic defenses -- though he would find the idea completely appalling.)

Student: Nightmare [Team Phoenix]

Name: Sandra Lynn Livingston (possibly an alias)
Codename: Nightmare
Age: 16
Appearance: Any, but since joining the school she has gradually become more comfortable with presenting herself in what she thinks of as her "normal" form. 5'2", black hair, dark-ish brown skin with silvery undertones, brown eyes.
Notable Skills: Bluff, Acting, Sleight of Hand, Finding An Exit, Dealing With Emergencies
Quirks: blends her own teas, very slow to trust, moody/shy/violent, keeps a cache of supplies just in case, enjoys climbing trees (in any of her forms)

Nightmare was being hunted by the Halls County Sheriff's Office in Texas when Phoenix Team recruited her. Prior to that, she was responsible for a series of brutal deaths and injuries, starting in her home and then tracking through a series of foster homes -- always in response to abuse, neglect, or other mistreatment (not always of herself). Headmaster Saint-Vincent and the other faculty have been working closely with her to help her develop better social relations and coping methods, with mixed results; she still tends to turn into a beast and stalk away into the forest at the back of the mansion when she gets frustrated. 

Nightmare is powerful and subtle shapeshifter, able to assume animal forms, mimic individuals, and assume a "nightmare form" that seems to be an expression of her rage. In her nightmare form she is nine feet tall, mostly humanoid but with pitch-black skin and blood-red eyes, covered in spikes, and equipped with wings, a prehensile tail tipped with a stinger capable of delivering various poisons, and clawed hands and feet that are also capable of delivering powerful bio-electric shocks. She is both stronger and tougher than ordinary flesh should be, and is capable of flying at roughly seventy miles per hour. She acts as Jade's second-in-command, but has not formally accepted the position; she just finds it encouraging that people listen to her in emergencies.

Headless

I could hear the sound of the hoofbeats behind me, louder than the gasping efforts of my own mount. I urged my horse to greater speed, but the poor beast simply didn't have it in him; he stumbled, and I threw myself from his back before he could collapse on me. It was a rough landing, but at least I didn't have to worry about the horse; the rider wouldn't care about him.

The bridge was close now, mere yards away, and I made a dash for it: a covered bridge, its interior darker than the night around us, but spanning the stream that marked the edge of the rider's domain.

They drew up at the last possible moment, his black horse skidding to a stop before rearing up and screaming, its hooves no more than an inch from the first of the wooden slats. The rider held his seat, seemingly without effort, saber balanced in one hand as he drew back the hand that held his decapitated head. Its eyes were blazing with a horrible orange fire as he hurled it at me.

Fortunately, I had retained my cane. A gentleman should never be so undignified as to lose track of his hat, his coat, or his cane; and my cane, when I snapped it out to the side, extended a silvered blade from the tip. I pivoted, bringing the blade up at an angle, and sliced that accursed skull in half.

The rider drew back as if struck, the shift in his weight enough to cause his horse to stagger as well. For a moment we just stood facing each other: myself unharmed and staring, and the horseman headless but turned as if to look at me.

"All right, motherfucker," I said. "Let's do this."

The Horseman raised his saber, but his mount was too close to the bridge to charge. My blade parted the beast's throat, and it dissolved into unnatural black mist before fading away entirely; the horseman landed neatly on his feet, already placing himself en garde.

That was when Geoffrey hit it from behind, with a glass bulb of oil followed almost immediately by a lucifer to set it alight. The horseman whirled around, only to get generous coating of thrown salt; that was when I ran him through with my silvered blade.

Silver and salt, oil and fire. He was an old spirit, a strong one, but he couldn't stand against that. He writhed, cutting and flailing, but his time of reclaiming heads from the living was over.

And this, my eager pupils, is why we always hunt in pairs.

Student: Blink [Team Dragon]

Name: Tyler John Taylor
Codename: Blink
Age: 18
Appearance: 6'4"with broad shoulders and narrow hips, sandy brown hair worn long but pulled back, leather jacket that he will not be parted from.
Notable Skills: strategy games, particularly chess, basic cooking, camping, football, basketball, pop culture trivia, speaks French (Canadian)
Quirks: loves video games, works out to maintain his physique, doesn't see himself settling down romantically, night-blind, terrified that he might screw up and get somebody hurt

Tyler is a decent student, but frequently gets by on his looks and charm; socially, he's more of a follower than a leader, but he knows how to pick up on other people's cues and is always willing to lend a hand. In strategy games he is absolutely ruthless (but never cheats); in sports he's more laid-back. He's originally from Canada, but he's been in the States since shortly after his power kicked in and only occasionally lets his accent slip through. 

As Blink, he is a master teleporter, capable of teleporting either himself or others; he can still only teleport one person at a time, though, and he needs to either be able to see his destination or already be familiar with it in order to arrive safely. His role on Team Dragon is generally more supportive than combative, but his ability to teleport others gives him some offensive options.

Student: Nightfall [Team Kraken]

Name: Catarina "Cat" Altagracia Montoya
Codename: Nightfall
Age: 17
Appearance: 5' tall, with medium-brown skin, dark brown eyes, and black hair, with a gymnast's tight musculature; wears a black jeans jacket adorned with various patches that she's sewn in place herself.
Notable Skills: first aid, dance, gymnastics, driving, bluffing, reading reactions, speaks Spanish
Quirks: slow to make friends/keeps to herself, constantly polishing her glasses, likes animals better than people, nervous and has trouble relaxing, loves sushi

Cat is a relatively new addition to the school, as well as to Team Kraken. She's a solid student; what she lacks in insight, she makes up in persistence. She prefers not to interact with people she doesn't trust -- which is basically everybody -- and can come across as aloof or even hostile. (She is also quite capable of being actively hostile if she feels the situation warrants it.) She gets along better with the instructors and the younger students than she does with anybody close to her own age. 

Despite this, she has been recruited to the recently-formed Team Kraken -- in part for her power, and in part because of her absolute willingness to fight. She is working on developing more control, both of her power and of herself; she's been reprimanded for overdoing things during training once already, and doesn't want a second reprimand on her record. Cat's most obvious ability is the power to summon darkness, suppressing all visible light in an area of her choosing, but she can also shut off most electromagnetic radiation (notably including radio waves). When she extends a field of darkness around her, she can feel everything that happens inside it, so despite her lack of physical enhancements she generally has little trouble dodging enemies unless they can see in the dark. 

She once used her darkness to escape a particularly nasty situation, actually traveling through the darkness to take herself outside of a building where she was being held. She would love to be able to move around that way at will.

Student: Veil [Team Dragon]

Name: Chance Justin Rutherford
Codename: Veil
Age: 18
Appearance: 6'0" but lean enough to look taller, light skin, brown eyes, dark brown hair
Notable Skills: guitar, driving, boxing, track and field, basic handyman skills
Quirks: gay, enjoys brightening the school uniform with fashion accessories, loves theater, talks a lot (especially when he's nervous), wants to be an entertainer

Chance is a quintessential Theater Kid, with a flair for the dramatic and a deep love of being the center of attention. He is a decent but not exceptional student, strongly motivated by praise from his instructors. He took up boxing in middle school when he first started getting seriously bullied for his flamboyance, found that he enjoyed the exercise, and added track and field to his routines as well. When he's not entertaining an audience, he enjoys building and repairing things. 

In his identity as Veil, Chance is the second-in-command for Team Dragon, and the primary reason that they're largely undefeated. He uses his ability to create psychic illusions to keep himself hidden and ensure that the rest of his team is not where they appear to be, allowing them to attack unseen while their opponents attack non-existent targets. The power is not without its limitations; at present, Veil can effectively influence about thirty people at once, with a maximum range of about ninety feet. Because his power is psychic in nature, any cameras in the area will record actual events rather than the illusions. Nevertheless, it has proven to be a huge asset for the team.

Student: Armor [Team Kraken]

Name: Allison "Ally" Catherine Colvin
Codename: Armor
Age: 16
Appearance: 4'8", with a petite build, light brown hair that she mostly keeps shaved, and blue eyes.
Notable Skills: electronics, lockpicking, welding, soldering, math, physics, chemistry, Science!
Quirks: enjoys stress-testing her creations as much as inventing them, thinks hot dogs are the best food ever invented, forgets to practice fighting and related skills, doesn't like the sun, loathes spawn-campers.

Ally is the school's first gadgeteer, and the faculty are still working out how best to deal with her. Quiet and prone to wandering off on her own, she tends to get absorbed in what she's doing to the point of ignoring obvious dangers -- especially when her power has kicked in and she's busy working out a design for something that's going to be really, really cool, she promises. 

Her masterwork so far is the suit of power armor that she uses to make herself part of the newly-formed Team Kraken. Its design and creation has put a serious strain on the school's budget, but when she's wearing it she can monitor, decrypt, and disrupt all sorts of broadcast communications, use controlled EMP bursts to fry electronics and (potentially) send people into seizures, and recreate some degree of super-strength and damage resistance. She hasn't worked out how to make it fly (yet) but she has equipped it with jump jets that allow her to leap about sixty feet forward and forty feet up, along with a variety of non-lethal armaments to deal with combative opponents. Her real power, however, is that given the time and resources she can assemble the right tool to handle nearly any situation.

Faculty: Headmaster Jonathan Saint-Vincent

Name: Jonathan Charles Saint-Vincent
Codename: The Saint, but he rarely uses it
Age: 86
Appearance: 6'1" with broad shoulders and well-developed arms and torso; his legs are of regular proportions, but otherwise atrophied. His eyes are mismatched: one green and one gray, and his salt-and-pepper hair is neatly styled. Tends towards business suits. Owing to various attempts to cure the nerve damage caused by polio, he looks about half his actual age.
Job: Headmaster, teaches history

Jonathan Saint-Vincent presents himself as an affable older man with a variety of intellectual and political interests. He is considerably older than he looks, and is completely paralyzed from the waist down owing to a childhood brush with polio. He detests using a wheelchair and used to get around with crutches and braces, but recently one of the students (a gadgeteer named Ally Colvin) provided him with a supertech exoskeleton for his legs. (He still has to be careful about how he moves; the rig provides movement but not feedback. Ally says she's working on actual prosthetics but hasn't cracked the neural integration problem yet.) 

Jonathan is a sort of jack-of-all-trades psychic, with modest (but well-practiced) telepathic abilities, telekinesis able to lift up to about three hundred pounds, and minor cryo- and pyro-kinetic abilities. He can defend himself one-on-one, but generally avoids super-battles. He's far more interested in running his school and helping his students prosper. While he's an active and committed proponent of the idea that Exceptionals and Mundanes can live together in peace, he does sometimes have qualms about sending teams of students into potentially dangerous situations, and the recent business in Antarctica has dropped him back into his doubts -- despite the fact that Dragon Team returned completely intact, and with a new student/team member. 

Publicly, he is known as one of the world's foremost researchers into "deviants" and their origins and powers, and his stance on the need for well-considered policies that promote equality and integration garners him both support and opposition from various interested parties.

Student: Team Captain Jade [Team Phoenix]

Name: Emily Annette Hubbard (goes by Em)
Codename: Jade
Age: 17
Appearance: A six foot tall, athletic blonde with creamy skin and blue eyes, who tends to sportswear or jeans and t-shirts and keeps her hair short, giving her a somewhat boyish look
Notable Skills: Soccer, rock-climbing, spelunking, baseball; recently took up classical european swordfighting; good leadership skills with a (usually) easy-going approach; knows how to drive.
Quirks: loves animals, hates thunderstorms, dyslexic, sings to herself, bisexual

Em is very laid-back when off the playing field, but extremely focused and competitive when on it; for her, leading Phoenix Team is just a natural outgrowth of being a team captain for soccer or baseball. She's equally focused on her academics, and considerably more intelligent than her "dumb jock" persona suggests. Her power allows her to manifest shapes of shimmering green force. (She takes her code name from its appearance.) So far she has demonstrated the ability to create armor, sword, shield, axe, and spear, but only as objects touching her body; she would love to be able to throw them or create the effect at range. Her power sometimes appears to act on its own, and it's an open question whether it's simply reacting to her unconscious thoughts and desires or whether it's actually some sort of symbiotic entity that sometimes acts for itself.

Faculty: Salvation

Name: Dianna Dean Salvatore
Codename: Salvation
Age: 31
Appearance: 5'10", slender, with black hair, olive skin, and dark brown eyes.
Job: Auxiliary Headmistress; also teaches algebra, calculus, and trigonometry.

Ms. Salvatore (as even her colleagues usually address her) is graceful, reserved, and always attentive. She is also one of the top five telepaths on the planet, and in her identity as Salvation is renowned for her Salvation Sword, a construct of pure telepathic energy capable of bypassing all physical armor and damaging an opponent's psyche to produce a variety of effects. She also possesses minor and unreliable precognition, which she swears is more a burden than a help.

Together with Headmaster Saint-Vincent, she keeps track of the day-to-day functioning of the school, the students, and their teams. Budgeting, logistics, and accounting all fall under her purview, and she frequently serves as the school's investigator, using her power to resolve minor disputes, determine the truth of accusations, and in extreme cases prevent outsiders from remembering any of the school's secrets. She is very much by-the-book and has little sympathy for troublemakers. The students generally regard her as hard but fair, and nobody really wants to get on her bad side. 

Like this.

Faculty: Wolfman Bob

Name: Robert Edwin Craven
Codename: Wolfman Bob, or just Wolf
Age: 42, but looks younger
Appearance: 6'2", with brown hair and eyes and deeply tanned skin, broad-shouldered and lean. When transformed, he retains the same size and build but adds silver-grey fur, fangs and claws, and his eyes turn golden.
Job: Science Teacher, Track Coach, Outdoorsmanship

Fearsome as he sometimes looks, Bob Craven is a gentle soul who was practically born to be a teacher. He enjoyed school, loved learning new things, and was always trying something new. If there's a hobby out there, he's probably dabbled in it, and there's nothing he loves more than getting someone else interested in something that interests him. He loves running, and camping, and would have loved to settle down and have a quiet married life with lots of friends and family in it. Teaching at Saint Vincent's has finally given him most of that, though he still regrets never having found the right person to marry and have kids with. 

His abilities include near-instantaneous regeneration (including virtual immunity to poison, disease, and infection), enhanced senses, and a partial transformation that renders him fanged, furry, and armed with claws strong and sharp enough to cut metal. Transforming also enhances his strength, though only to about half again his usual athleticism. He hates that the only options his powers give him in a fight involve vicious, close-range violence, and has spent the last several years studying locks, holds, and other non-lethal ways of immobilizing opponents. He worries that if he's ever put in a position where he really has to kill someone, he won't be able to do it.

Having a Moment

Had a rough moment a couple of nights ago. I believe I've mentioned before that two of our married-couple friends (that is to say, two couples) have abruptly moved out of town. The first couple moved away about a month ago, just before the start of school; the second couple finally managed to sell their house, so they finished packing and departed this weekend, while we were away visiting Firstborn for Parent's Weekend at his college. 

I found myself awake in the middle of the night, feeling sad. Those two couples were largely responsible for me having any kind of in-person social life these past few years. Three of of them were my camping buddies, and as much as I love the state park where we used to go, the thought of camping there without them is almost as depressing as the thought of never camping there again. 

And I don't know why that was suddenly hitting me that hard, right then, though I suspect there were some extenuating circumstances: the trip up for parent's weekend, and the afternoon we spent at the renaissance faire. The trip up was always going to involve some complications, and I knew that going in, so I was coming into it with this weird combination of anticipation and resignation. We're staying in a hotel, and I didn't bring the CPAP machine -- which is okay, but not ideal. I can sleep without it, I just don't sleep as well and I need to keep my head tilted in a way that hotel pillows don't always want to cooperate with. My father -- Firstborn's grandfather -- and his wife wanted to come up as well, which meant bringing her brother along. (Her brother is living with them owing to a pretty comprehensive lack of any other options.) So that meant trying to coordinate with them (best case) and trying to wrangle them so everybody got where they needed to be (much more often the case). 

Beautiful Wife had spotted an advertisement for a local renaissance festival, and we decided to eschew the on-campus activities on Sunday and go try it out. This turned out to be a great decision, in that the event was quite a lot of fun despite being in its first year and still getting its feet under it. That did mean getting a bit more sun than I'm used to, though, which frequently knocks me for a loop. And, of course, before we left for the faire we took the time to figure out why Firstborn's car refused to start. 

Turned out the battery was dead, so completely dead that it wouldn't even unlock the doors when we hit the key fob. We were able to jump it, so it wasn't a completely loss, and I moved the car around to a spot where we'd be better able to park beside it if we needed to jump it again. Which seemed likely, seeing as I was unable to get it to start a second time. So we got back from the renfaire and dropped Firstborn off at his dorm (he had homework to finish for Monday), and then had dinner and went back to the hotel room to collapse... but, y'know, with the awareness that we were still going to have to deal with the car before we could head out in the morning. And honestly, a really happy afternoon with a lot of stimulating new things to see? It leaves a kind of emotional hangover.

All of which doubtless fed into me waking up at one in the morning, finishing a very good book, and then finding myself profoundly depressed and thinking about absent friends.

In the course of writing this out -- because that helps, strangely; I've always used writing to process things -- I keep reminding myself that it's not like they're lost forever. We're still gaming together online, fer Chrissakes. We can still go camping together, if I can quit burning through my vacation as fast I earn it at work and actually build up some time. It's not like we've lost touch and we're never going to see each other again. 

But damn it, I liked having them in town. I liked getting invited to go see a horror movie, or to come over for swimming and a cookout. I liked being able to just drive up for a weekend around the campfire. I liked playing D&D together in person. So no, it's not the end of the world; but yes, I do get to mourn this.