Script's Characters

[Script]

View attachment 5780Name: Kirin Althourne
Alias: Mouse
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Species: Human

Appearance: Rin is a mousey-haired boy of small stature, standing a mere 5'5" in height with a slight and unimposing build. He blends in easily with crowds, with a relatively unassuming appearance, his most standout features being his bright green eyes and the gold-feather earrings he wears. He can seldom be found with anything other than a wary, guarded expression - constantly assessing his surroundings and those he interacts with both for hostile intent and exploitable weaknesses. He favours dark shades to his clothing, usually those that blend in well with a crowd.

Personality: Once a sweet and caring young boy, Rin has grown into a guarded and calculating young man. He treats kindness with suspicion and believes that on some level, everyone has an ulterior and selfish motive. Though cold and mercenary, at his core remains the boy that he once was, which occasionally shows in acts of out-of-place kindness.

Brief Bio: Raised in a forest village after his life was saved by the forest's fey protector during birth, Rin was trained in druidic magic by his mother from a young age. When he was still a young child, his village was razed by slavers, and he was taken prisoner. After witnessing many horrors aboard the slave ship, he passed into service of several different households before he was eventually purchased by an order of assassins and spies, who saw the potential in his magic's applications to their craft. He spent the next years of his life being honed into a tool for them - using his shapeshifting for infiltration, his magic and his uncanny awareness of the world around him for information gathering, and the more violent magic at his disposal for fulfilling darker contracts.

Given the codename 'Mouse' for his transforming capabilities, he worked for that group - the Crimson Scarabs - for several years. Memories of who he was before were largely forgotten, and his new life became his identity.

More recently, he has stumbled into the Nexus, and found himself at a loose end - separated from his 'handlers', and the others who oversee him. The concept of 'freedom' isn't one he's contemplated for a long time, and so he's not really sure what to do with it.

Ability Summary:

• Druidic Magic (shapechanging, elemental control, nature control, animal communication, healing, etc.)
• Spirit Magic (soul-reading, spirit conjuration, emotion-detection, etc.)
• Uncanny Awareness - Rin has a supernatural level of perceptive power, able to spot the most minor details around him with near perfect reliability. Similarly, he is uncannily good at telling when a person is lying. These abilities are derived from his attunement to the world around him, and to souls and spirits, subconsciously sensing fluctuations in a person's soul when their emotions shift.

 

[Script]

View attachment 5799Name: Finn Harken
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Species: Half-Orc (Orc / Half-Elf)

Appearance: Unusually fair-featured for a half-orc, Finn's half-elven blood shows clearly in his facial features. Boyishly handsome, he stands at a respectable 5' 10" tall and has a broad, athletic build. His perpetually-cheerful eyes are a bright amber-gold, and he keeps his long blue-black hair partly tied up in a top knot to keep his fringe out of his eyes in battle. He favours simple clothing, usually worn beneath armour, and can rarely be found without his other battle gear near at hand.

Personality: A friendly, good-natured young man, out to prove himself a match to any challenge and protect those who need protecting, Finn has very naive ideas about heroism and selflessness. He believes it's the strong's duty to defend the weak, and that good will always triumph in the end.

Brief Bio: Finn was raised in a caring home by his half-elven mother, Elora, alongside three siblings who were themselves half-elves. His father, an orc raider, was responsible for the death of his Elora's husband - his siblings' father - but Elora never harbored any resentment toward him for this. Though the same was not always the case for his siblings (Tadric, Nessa and Faye), his childhood was still relatively happy - with only a little inter-sibling conflict to colour it. His village community wasn't always accepting, but for the most part their prejudice was contained to quiet disdain rather than open hostility.

Finn was always the baby of his family, though as he grew older it became apparent that he was strong. Very strong. Even moreso than his half-orc heritage would advantage him, he was lifting hay-bails by the time he was six, and could hold a cart up by one hand for repairs by the time he was twelve.

The source of his supernatural strength and toughness has never become clear to Finn, but by the time he reached his late teens, he decided a simple farm life wasn't for him. He took up arms and trained to fight, aiding his village against several vicious beasts before eventually crossing paths with an adventuring party and deciding to travel with them.

Finn has had a taste for adventure, and discovering a whole new world of possibilities in the Nexus has only emboldened him further to find new and more impossible things to prove himself against.

Ability Summary:

• Divine Heritage - Finn's strength and toughness are as a result of a divine bloodline. His feats are, semi-literally, Herculean.
  • Uncanny Strength: Finn is immensely strong even for a boy of his muscular build. Capable of easily wielding two-handed weapons in one hand, lifting huge weights and other feats of might normally only possible for a creature twice or three times his size, Finn packs a punch.
  • Uncanny Toughness: Where most people buckle beneath a single sword-blow or axe-wound, Finn can take an axe to the chest and come out if it with little more than a shallow cut.

 

[Script]

Name: Jace Parker
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Occupation: Mercenary

Height: 5' 8"
Weight: 132lbs
Hair: Longish, blonde, spiky with a mixture of gel and static.
Eyes: Hazel
Build: Wiry muscle, lithely athletic
Typical Clothing: Unassuming/cheap shirts and jeans, shoes good for moving around quickly, whatever music-playing device he hasn't accidentally short-circuited lately. During a job, often supplemented with body armour as detailed below.

Gear:

• Cybernetic Exosuit: Bullet-resistant armor equipped with exoskeletal physical enhancers that allow him to hit harder and leap further.
• Gadgets: A variety of cyberpunk-esque gadgets suited to work as an infiltrator and fighting a rebellion.
• Gun: I'm not a gun expert. He's got a handgun. It's cyberpunk, so it's probably cooler than your standard 9mm. It's basically the same thing, just hits harder and is more aesthetic.

Personality: Cocky, sharp-witted, hot-headed but savvy. Idealistic but not naive. Resentful towards those who turn a blind eye to injustice. Developing sense of responsibility as one of the closest things to a community leader amongst a cluster of people transplanted from his homeworld to Nexus.

Powers:

• Electricity/Electromagnetism Manipulation: Jace can manipulate the electrical energy flowing through his body to a wide variety of effects. He can utilise this power to electrically enhance his own speed, using it to stimulate nerves to increase his reactions and movement to superhuman heights. He can also manipulate an electromagnetic field around his own body to attract or repel metal objects, allowing him to deflect bullets and other metal projectiles to a limited extent, or magnetically attach himself to metal surfaces, aiding in climbing. He can discharge jolts of electricity into those he touches, or within close proximity to him. At his peak, he is just about capable of short stints of flight by manipulating the electromagnetic forces around his body, but this is unreliable at best.

Strengths: Resourceful, Jace has lived a life on the run and knows how to navigate urban environments with practised ease. He's well practised in making the most of his enhanced agility to confound and evade enemies, as well as to reach objectives others would struggle with. While he's no trained soldier, he knows his way around a fist-fight and knows how to use his powers to get the upper hand on a person limited by human reaction times and speed.

Weaknesses: Jace is cocky, he knows he's good and sometimes takes unnecessary risks because he's sure he'll be able to handle any complications. He's something of an idealist, and whilst far from naive, he's empathetic enough that the people he takes care of and other innocent victims are an easy pressure point for him. Though he's seen a lot for his years, his age does mean he's inexperienced by comparison to more veteran fighters.

History: Jace comes from a place called "Meropis", a vast and sprawling city of steel and shadow. The last bastion of mankind on a foreign world plagued by impassable radiation storms, Meropis was the be all and end all of civilisation in any person's living memory. Stories of "earth" were known only by the well-educated, and viewed with the same novelty as the ancient civilisations of Rome or Egypt are in our modern world.

Meropis was a city of two halves: the upper and the lower city. Those who lived in the upper city were the "Citizens", while those who dwelled below were the "Dwellers". Life between the two places was like night and day. The upper city was pristine and luxurious: fully automated smart homes were the norm, the streets were clean, life was easy and work was white-collar where it was even necessary. The lower city was an urban sprawl ranging from the working middle classes, who lived high enough to still catch the occasional glimpse of sunlight through the upper levels, all the way down to the dregs in the depths, who were lucky to see natural light in their lifetimes.

Jace was born in the lower city, where he lived a life typical to his place in society: violent, dangerous and filled with strife.

Such injustice could only breed conflict, and many rebellions against the ruling power of "The Corporation" had been attempted over the years. All had failed. One such rebel group had begun forming when Jace was in his early teens, and it was a group his older brother joined. His brother's story ended at the barrel of a CorpSec rifle, but that was where Jace's begun.

Meropis had, in recent months, become home to an unusual new phenomenon: "mystokinetics". It was the name given to those in the lower city who had spontaneously begun to develop supernatural powers. Speed, strength, endurance, elemental manipulation, technomancy: mutations like those out of old comic books.

There was no explanation, but it was - for the first time - an edge the Dwellers had over the Zens.

The rebellion - Phoenix, they called themselves - was hard-fought and bloody. When Jace's mysto abilities manifested, he became a part of it, a runner, a fighter, whatever he had to be to avenge his brother and change the world.

They fought a war, and they won, but what they found wasn't what they expected. Behind the Corporation, an AI. Meropis wasn't a colony on a hostile planet -- it was an ark. A colony ship, supporting its own self-sustaining civilisation, while its AI pilot searched for a habitable world.

And it was dying.

The AI had been developing wormhole technology to expediate its search, as its systems had begun to fail, and it knew that Meropis only had decades left before it could no longer sustain it. It was radiation from these wormholes - located in the deep bowels of the ship, below the lowest reaches of the undercity - that had caused the mystokinetics to appear.

What became of Meropis, Jace would never know - after a section of the city he was in collapsed and was sucked through one such wormhole, ultimately depositing them in Nexus.

Jace now lives in something of a shanty-town settlement in Nexus City, where he and the other survivors of the wormhole collapse in Meropis attempt to make their way in this strange new world. As a member of Phoenix and a mysto, he is one of the people they look to for leadership and protection. It's a responsibility he's started to take more seriously since there were suddenly a lot less people above him in the command chain.

Jace uses his skills to find work as a mercenary in Nexus, freelancing for whoever's buying.

 

[Script]

Name: Shay Estrada

Age: 19
Gender: Male
Species: Half-Dragon
Race/Nationality: Latin American
Sexuality: Homosexual
Occupation: Student

History: Shay is the result of a union between a sea dragon in human guise and an unsuspecting tourist in Hawaii. His mother, Maya, was unaware of the fact that he was anything other than human until a late-stage ultrasound revealed her baby sported unusual scales, fins, and a tail. And so Shay was unplanned and unexpected in every respect. This revelation came too late in the pregnancy for it to be terminated, and Maya’s religious beliefs would not have permitted it anyway, and so she was ‘stuck’ with him.

Maya had not considered herself a ‘humanist’ before that point, but the revelation of having slept with a ‘sea monster’ without realising it and carrying a ‘mutant’ baby shifted her opinion on the supernatural community to the negative.

When Shay was a baby, his strangeness quickly caused Maya to become ostracised from her close-minded circle of friends, and as he aged and his draconic features developed it became increasingly more difficult to find care for him while she worked. And so, when he was two years old, Maya bit the bullet and applied to a government relocation scheme to Casticor City.

Shay’s childhood has been frought with a strained and volatile relationship with his mother. Though Maya does love her son, and wants the best for him, she has been unable to help her resentment at how drastically his birth derailed her life from affecting her. The stress of working to support him while dealing with the bizarre and hazardous additional difficulties of raising a baby who can spit lightning has led to frequent shouting fits being directed at him as he’s grown, making him a nervous and withdrawn boy.

In his highschool years, Shay’s awkwardness and social ineptutide earned him few friends and made him an easy target for bullying - coming to carry the nickname ‘Droopy the Dragon’ for most of his school career. He found solace in a few places- the quiet solitude of the countryside and the city’s parks for one, and - surprising nobody more than himself - in dance, where he could find a therapeutic calm in focusing solely on his movements and not worry about communicating with stuttering words.

When it came time to graduate, it became clear that Maya was never going to be able to afford to help him through college, and his grades - while good - weren’t quite up to scratch for most scholarships. For the better part of a year, he fell into menial work as everything from a busboy to a shop clerk to a pizza delivery boy. His ‘saving grace’ came from a newspaper ad - offering college grants for supernatural creatures in exchange for ‘regular consultation throughout their period of study’. It seemed too good to be true, but after responding to the ad, Shay quickly found himself funded to study at Casticor University, majoring in magical agriculture and minoring in dance and theatre.

Of course, there was always going to be a catch. The ‘consultations’ in the advert have turned out to be invasive medical tests, complete with a dizzying array of contracts and thinly veiled threats to ensure the poor half-dragon’s silence on what he’s grown to suspect are almost certainly very illegal procedures. Shay is too desperate not to lose out on his place in Casticor to even consider going to the authorities at present, and so weathers the unpleasant tests in silence.

Shay is a sweaty, nervous boy with a slight stammer and a great many issues with anxiety, low self-esteem and poor judgement. Though genuinely talented in both his fields of interest, he constantly undervalues and blames all his issues on himself. Beyond his image and self-confidence issues, Shay is a sweetheart: empathetic, supportive and caring towards those who he considers friends, and kind-hearted to a fault (to the point of being easily exploitable).

Relationships

• Maya Estrada » Mother: As an adult, Shay's relationship with his mother is less conflict-ridden, but still strained and unhealthy. He is easily cowed by her, and still feels irrationally guilty over the 'burden' he has been to her his whole life. For her part, Maya cares for her son but is so used to snapping and yelling at him for even slight things, she does so without thinking.
• Milo Kelly » Childhood Friend: Though they don't talk as much these days, Shay has fond memories of his next-door neighbour Milo, who despite being kind of a trash-pile on fire, was always nice to him, stuck up for him and made him laugh. What little he knows of Milo's life at the moment has him concerned for his friend, but he's far too nervous to ever question his choices.

Abilities

• Storm Breath: Shay can spew bursts of lightning from his mouth in a manner not dissimilar to a traditional dragon spews flames. Alternatively, he can loose a crack of thunderous energy that can throw things away from him (fus-ro-dah!). When he was younger, this would sometimes happen when he sneezed too violently. Now, it ... mostly doesn't.
• Limited Draconic Transformation: Shay is capable of assuming a fully draconic form for brief periods, though doing so takes a great deal of energy from him and leaves him ravenous afterwards. While transformed, he is the size of a truck and - for the most part - very clumsy about it. He can also, while in his regular form, sprout draconic wings that allow him to (still clumsily) fly.
• Natural Affinity: Shay has an affinity for animals and nature thanks to his specific draconic ancestry. Plants respond unusually well to his cultivation, and animals trust him instinctively.
• Draconic Traits: Even while not transformed, Shay's half-draconic nature affords him superior strength and hardiness, the ability to swim as well as any fish, and breathe underwater.

 

[Script]

Name: Milo Kelly

Age: 22
Gender: Male
Species: Therianthope (Raccoon)
Orientation: Homosexual
Race/Nationality: Casticorian
Occupation: Delivery Boy
Place of Residence:
Height: 5' 7"
Weight: 136lbs

Abilities:

• Shifting: Milo can transform at will between his human form and the form of a raccoon.
• Regeneration: Like most Therianthropes, Milo heals from injuries very quickly, and as a result can survive things that would kill a human.
• Enhanced Strength: Many Therianthropes are stronger than an average human, and this is marginally true for Milo too, although not to a significant degree. He's stronger than he looks, but not by a huge amount. Raccoons aren't known for their upper body strength, after all.
• Enhanced Senses: Milo has an enhanced sense of smell and hearing, but most of all has an incredibly sensitive sense of touch with his hands in particular. He can run his hands along a smooth wall and feel every slight bump of paint, or trace of dirt. His eyesight isn't any better than a human's, bar the ability to see well in low light.

History:
Milo was born in Casticor to a fairly unstable household. His parents - still a young couple at the time of Milo's birth - argued a lot, and were largely too wrapped up in themselves to do much in the way of proper parenting for their unplanned kid. Neither of them had been prepared to become a parent, and so their experience with Milo largely consisted of them making all kinds of mistakes raising him.

By the time he was at kindergarten age, Milo was badly behaved, unruly and had a terrible attention span. He argued with his parents all the time as he grew older, and the instability of his homelife only multiplied when they eventually split up when he was in his early teens. Despite all this, Milo's relationship with his parents wasn't bad per say. They loved him, despite their failings as parents, and the arguments he had with them never spiralled into anything truly serious. It's thanks to this that despite all the fuck-ups made in raising him, Milo grew into a good-natured boy, even if kind of a mess of one.

In school, Milo was a nightmare for his teachers - undisciplined, disinterested and disruptive. He squandered any natural talent he had, coasting by on the bare minimum of effort. He was more interested in being the class clown and making friends than he was in learning, and thanks to the relatively bad neighbourhood where he grew up, the friends he made were, for the most part, just bad influences.

Milo fell into the party scene before he left highschool, drinking and smoking like a college student, and picking up bad habits left and right. He moved out as soon as he could afford to, into a house-share with some similarly irresponsible friends, and has switched from coasting by in school to coasting by in life. Something of an adrenaline-junkie, he works just enough to pay the bills and finance his habits, while spending his free time street-racing, partying, and generally being a menace to society.

Despite the bad crowd he tends to hang around, and a loud-mothed and brash personality, Milo isn't a bad guy. He's an irresponsible, mouthy slob, but he's more interested in making people laugh and cultivating 'good vibes' than he is in causing trouble. Trouble just tends to follow him, is all.

The difficulties he has working hard sometimes lead to him getting involved in things he shouldn't in order to make a quick buck - whether that's drug running, petty theft or whatever else. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone it's fine, right? Right.

Relationships:

• Leah Wilson » Mother: After the divorce, Leah was the one who retained primary custody of Milo. Never much of a hard worker, Leah pretty much fell straight out of highschool into motherhood, and hasn't built much of a career beyond that. She now works checkouts at a supermarket, and has had several boyfriends since divorcing Milo's dad - none of whom have lasted long. Leah cares for her son a lot, but was never really sure how to deal with him, and that hasn't changed since he grew into an adult. Leah has an unfortunate bad habit of blaming anyone and everyone other than herself for her problems, and a reliance on wine to ignore them. For Milo's part, he loves his mom, but finds it hard to be in the same room as her for more than ten minutes without arguing with her over both of their life choices.
• Andy Kelly » Father: Andy was kind of a 'bro' in school, and it wasn't until a while after having Milo that he grew out of that mindset. Since leaving Leah, Andy's grown into a much better man, remarrying and having two other children as well as finding work he enjoys as a cook. His and Milo's relationship is a little stilted - Andy recognises the poor job he and Leah did with his first son, and isn't sure how to mend their relationship. Milo quietly resents how 'perfect' his dad's new family is, in ways that their own family never was. Andy's family moved to Casticor from Australia when he was in his teens, and it's from him that Milo gets his accent.
• Caitlyn Kelly » Stepmother: Andy's new wife, Caitlyn is a waitress at the restaurant where Andy works. An energetic and sunny woman, Caitlyn has done her best to foster a good relationship with Milo, with limited success. Milo doesn't actually have any real problems with her, but his resentment towards his dad's new life has made it difficult for him to get along with her.
• Jack Kelly » Younger Half-Brother: Eight years old, Jack is the elder of Milo's half-siblings. Jack thinks Milo is super cool, Milo is happy to indulge that viewpoint. Though jealous of the life that his half-siblings have had, Milo nonetheless gets on well with them - even if he doesn't see them very often thanks to the strained relationship he has with his dad.
• Hannah Kelly » Younger Half-Sister: At five, Hannah is still growing into her personality, but Milo is happy to play 'cool big brother' to her as well.
• Shay Estrada » Childhood Friend: Shay was Milo's next door neighbour until he moved out, and he had a friendly relationship with the awkward half-dragon boy, alternating between teasing him relentlessly and sticking up for him when it counted. Milo sees Shay as something of a little-brother figure, and the two still keep in touch. Now that he's gotten into Casticor University, Milo also sees Shay as an opportunity to get in on some wild frat parties, if he plays his cards right.

 

[Script]

NAME: Kaiden "Kai" Lawson
ALIAS: Verity
AGE: 19
PRONOUNS: he/him
SEXUALITY: Homosexual
CLASSIFICATION: Mystokinetic Dweller

MYSTOKINETIC ABILITY:

• 'Ghost In the Machine' - Kai takes Diving to the next level. Where most Divers simply project their consciousness into the network, Kai's powers allow him to choose to digitise himself entirely, becoming a literal ghost in the machine. He can use this power to travel between access points, escape danger, or even possess robotics and take control of them from inside. It makes him incredibly hard to pin down, and is part of what's kept him alive despite his brazen campaign against the authorities. While in the digital world he can project himself to other devices. While within a device he can access and manipulate all aspects of it like a highly advanced virus.
• 'Processing Power' - The ability to process information and knowledge at beyond the rate of a supercomputer processor -- even the most powerful computers’ computing power pales in the comparison to the theoretical processing power of the human brain (it took the 4th fastest supercomputer in the world 40 minutes to crunch the calculations for a single second of brain activity), and so by being able to directly apply his brain in a similar way to a computer, Kai can perform some incredible feats.
• 'Connected Mind' - The ability to interact with and access signals and data from his brain, including accessing the internet and the information available therein using his own visual senses as a ‘screen’.

TRAITS: super-genius, driven, resourceful / prideful, irresponsible, invasive

APPEARANCE: A shock of messy, ill-maintained hair bleached white by his powers; bright blue eyes that at times flicker with digital code. Pale, slight of build and standing at 5' 7", he's physically unimposing. Tends to dress in hoodies and t-shirts with nerd-culture references on, otherwise lacks fashion sense.

HISTORY: Kai's story was not an unusual one in Meropis. He was born to Dweller parents, and raised with the expectation of a life of toil and subservience to the elite. Where his story begins to differ from the others is with his father, Andrew. Andrew was never satisfied with simply fulfilling his role in society. He had friends and contacts in criminal circles, those who worked against the authorities, who he provided computing and engineering expertise to in secret. He used to tell Kai stories that his own father told him of the days before the fall of the globe, when life was - even if not perfectly so - more equal. When even the poor could see the sun rise. He filled Kai's head with thoughts of a world that could be better.

And so, when Kai's powers developed in his early teens, here - he thought - was a way he could make things better. At first, the young teen used his powers to mess around. He learned to ride the waves and signals of the city, to break into secure systems for the hell of it, and watch banned content on the internet. The city's great firewall became a joke to him, as he slipped through its cracks on a daily basis. Sometimes, he would even transmit himself up to the upper city, to gaze upon the sun and feel its warmth. Perhaps, had all else continued in this way, he might have been content to be little more than a confusing pest in the system- an occasional security failure, and a source of pirated content for his friends.

But when his father's connections to criminal parties were uncovered, the corporation showed no mercy. Their home was raided. His parents were to be taken prisoner and 're-educated'. Andrew knew the kind of suffering that meant, and refused to go quietly. Both he and Kai's mother died resisting arrest, and Kai fled into the networks. Since that day, the fire of his hatred for the system has burned with a new intensity. He went to ground, spending the next few years building the groundwork for his own personal rebellion. He gathered data, funds and equipment to build himself a bunker hidden deep in the city's heart, connected-but-separate to the corporate-monitored grid. When he was finally ready, he struck.

Three years ago, the city's viewing systems were hijacked by an anonymous hacker who introduced themselves as 'Verity'. Masked and voice-modulated, the figure stated their mission: to spread the truth. To release information from the corporation's most hidden places, and arm people with information. Access codes, identities, banking details- nothing would be safe from him until the people's demands were met.

Kai remained himself in many respects - a nerdy, cocky teenager with more power than he knew what to do with. But now he had a mission. To bring down the corporation and its cronies, whatever the cost. He was willing to watch the city burn to do it if he had to.

For several months after making his public debut, Verity assisted Phoenix remotely - never committing entirely to their cause but willing to exploit them as a resource to make moves in realspace that he could not. In return, he provided the rebellion valuable intel and access to corporation data. Over time, however, despite only interacting with the rebels from the far end of a network connection, he grew to consider some of them friends. He was not a boy with a great many personal connections, and so he came to value these few that he had despite his intentions to stay far removed.

At the same time, he grew close with a Zen boy named Callum, who had inadvertently discovered his true identity. When the boy didn't turn him in and instead wanted to get to know him, Kai - against his better judgement - let him. The boy seemed harmless, and it was all too nice to have someone in the 'real world' he could interact with, and even act like a normal teen with. Their friendship grew quickly, with Kai helping Callum discover the extent of his mystokinetic abilities, and Callum keeping Kai more grounded in his humanity than he might otherwise have been. Eventually, it was destined to become more than friendship.

It was during a paticularly dangerous mission that Kai was forced to emerge from the network physically in order to save the lives of Jace and Keiji, two Phoenix members, by accessing a security system that was entirely cut off from the net. Before he could escape back into digital form, though, he was shot by a security guard. He barely made it back through the network in one piece, spilling out of Cal's computer with a gunshot wound and not a lot of time left. Cal was able to get him to help, but the only people he could trust with taking care of the city's most wanted cyberterrorist were the rebels themselves.

With his true identity now revealed to Phoenix, and Cal forced to align with them after being branded a wanted criminal for hijacking a car and skipping several checkpoints to get Kai to them, Verity joined Phoenix in full and put himself at their disposal. He remained something of an unpredictable wildcard, but no longer recoiled at the idea of following any orders at all.

Verity's help was ultimately integral to uncovering the truth behind Meropis and CHIREN, and in the end he faced off against the AI in a way that only he could: pitting his mystokinetic abilities against the supercomputer and coming out on top. Not without cost, however, as the AI was able to dismantle his digital form in turn. As far as all involved could tell, Verity died that day, never emerging from the AI's network.

But some people are just too stubborn to stay dead.

When CHIREN was defeated, a number of the wormholes that it had maintained collapsed catastrophically. In those final moments, Kai was linked into and jettisoned through the portal at the same time as Jace and the other unfortunates in the lower city, landing in Nexus disoriented and confused by his transition from death, to briefly being aware of every facet of the multiverse as his consciousness interfaced directly with the wormhole, to suddenly being in an unfamiliar city and very much alive.

Furious at this turn of events, Kai has devoted himself wholeheartedly to trying to seek out a way home - back to the city he fought for, that he sacrificed for, and that he spent his whole life trying to change, as well as back to the friends and the love he found there.

 

[Script]

Guild Member Dossier

View attachment 11875Basic Information
Name: Kalei "Lei" Akana
Ancestry: Human
Age: 21
Pronouns: he/him

Homeland: Kanateka
Profession: None
Role: Hero
Specialisation: martial arts, spiritualism, elementalism
Guild Rank: Prospect

Appearance

Description: Kalei is a slender young man with a lithe but athletic frame. He typically wears his long blonde hair in a messy, short ponytail and favours loose-fitting and light clothes that do not inhibit his movements. He doesn't strike an imposing figure by any means, his youth as apparent in his body language and energy as it is in his physical form. His aqua-green eyes are typically bright with a mix of warmth and inquiry, and he usually sports a friendly smile to match his positive demeanour.

Height: 5' 7"
Weight: 141lbs
Eye Colour: Blue-Green
Hair Colour: Golden Blonde
Distinctive Features: A long, faded scar on the left side of his torso.
Armour/Clothing Style: Kalei does not wear armour. He tends to wear clothes in traditional Kanateka style, or similar. These generally consist of loose-fitting tops and trousers that reach just below the knee. He prefers bright colours, typically blues and greens, though oranges and reds also feature in his wardrobe. His hair is usually tied up with a simple red cord. His footwear is typically simple slip-ons or sandals. To aid his elemental abilities, he almost always carries more than one waterskin.

Equipment

Primary Weapon: Kalei usually fights hand-to-hand, but he possesses a wood-and-bone spear designed both for melee combat and throwing.
Secondary Weapon/Tools: Fishing rod
Special Artifacts: None
Mounts/Pets: None

Capabilities

Skills: Kalei is a talented martial artist, specialising in hand-to-hand combat and preferring to subdue enemies nonlethally. He is phenomenally light-footed, acrobatic and flexible, and startlingly fast in a sprint. Though slender, he is also surprisingly strong for his size -- he won't be beating any blacksmiths in an arm wrestling match, but he knows how to use his strength where it matters, and his strikes pack a lot more force behind them than you'd expect. Some of this can be attributed to his spiritual prowess, but some is simply practice and technique.

Outside of combat, Kalei is an expert sailor, and has a lot of experience at the helm of small vessels, as well as an instinctive knack even when dealing with larger vessels that he hasn't had experience on. He's an incredibly strong swimmer, almost more at home in the water than on land, and can move in the water more like he's flying than anything else. He's also a talented fisherman, working with both a rod and tackle and a spear and net with equal efficiency.

Despite his guileless demeanour, Kalei is also quite good at reading people when he tries to. His habit of being trusting by default limits how useful his insightfulness can be, as he usually overlooks things in favour of giving people the benefit of the doubt, but beyond simply identifying liars or traitors, he is also empathetic and finds it easy to connect with and understand people on a personal level.

Abilities: Kalei's connection to the Source is primarily that of a Resonator. Through his spiritual techniques, he utilises the vibration to enhance his martial arts and perform superhuman feats of agility. He does not typically utilise a great deal of this power, and doesn't even really think of it as 'magic', so much as his own spiritual inner strength, though in practice this is simply due to how he has been taught.

Kalei also wields the source externally to perform elemental techniques; primarily wielding water to accompany his martial arts in the form of whips, waves and similar conjurations, drawing primarily on existing bodies of water to do so. He has also utilised wind and lightning in the past, though this comes less naturally to him.

Personal Information

Personality Traits: Kalei is as sunny and energetic a boy as there ever was, with a bright smile and unbridled enthusiasm always ready to greet anyone who crosses his path. His outlook on life is optimistic to a fault, and even in trying times, he'll search to find the positives -- or else focus on hope for the future instead of regrets. He's always eager to make friends, sometimes bordering on naive in his willingness to forgive others' rudeness or hostility even when given no good reason to. Though more than a little air-headed, Kalei can also be surprisingly wise -- his carefree attitude and solid sense of self lead to him being very in touch with his emotions, and unashamed of them, and thus usually more than happy to help others figure out their own troubles if they aren't quite as in touch with themselves as he is.

Quirks: At home in the water, be it at sea, a lake or a river. Dislikes having to wear clothes that cover himself up, not through any sense of exhibitionism or pride, but simply because he finds them restrictive and constraining. Simultaneously a little too enamoured of alcohol, and a total lightweight.

History: Kalei hails from the Kanateka Archipelago, a series of islands that fall under the loose authority of a collection of disaparate clans that themselves fall under the leadership a united council of elders and chiefs. The Kanateka people are spiritual folk, who live in close harmony with the spirits of the land, sky and sea, and adhere to traditions that have been written in stone and in the minds of their collective culture for generations.

Kalei's childhood was happy enough, but restricted. He did not have all the freedoms he desired, and wanted to see more of the world than his life in the islands permitted. He found their traditions restrictive, and the expectations on him contrary to what he wanted from life. And so, one day, he set off on a small skiff with just a note left behind for his family, riding out into the world to find new adventures and perspectives, and finally let destiny lead him wherever it would.

Goals: See the world, form bonds and friendships, expand his horizons and follow life's currents wherever they take him.

Allies: His family and friends back home might be angry that he ran away, but Kalei still cares for them, and imagines they would still support him in a time of need.

Enemies: None that he's aware of, though the idea of holding a grudge is so foreign to him that he may simply not have realised that he's made them.

Current Status: Initiation
Latest Deeds: Subdued and captured a crew of pirates off the coast close to a nearby port town after they had abducted the daughter of the local mayor for ransom. He rescued the girl and brought the pirates and their ship in to the authorities.
Guild Contributions: None so far.
Guildmaster's Notes: Though as guileless as they come, and not always the sharpest tool in the shed, Kalei is clearly on a deeper level wise beyond his years. His connection with spirits is deep and intriguing, and worthy of keeping an eye on. When asked, he's been transparently vague about what his life in Kanateka was like - perhaps there's more to him than is on the surface, though there's near enough no chance whatsoever that whatever he's hiding is anything malicious. The boy doesn't have an unkind bone in his body.