Post by Seren Harrier on May 9, 2020 1:44:29 GMT
 | SEREN HARRIER "Never again." |
THE BASICS
| REAL NAME: | Seren Harrier |
| HERO/VILLAIN/VIGILANTE ALIAS: | Purity/Revenant |
| GROUP: | Pro Hero/Questionable |
| RANK: | B- |
| BIRTHDAY + AGE: | May 1; 20 |
| GENDER: | male (he/him/his) |
| SEXUALITY: | Haiiro-sexual/Plotsexual |
| NATIONALITY: | Canadian |
| AFFILIATION: | Heroic Voices Agency |
| POSITION/CLASS: | Idol/Hero; Inactive: Compassionate Leave |
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
| HEIGHT: | 5’8” |
| WEIGHT: | 170 lbs |
| HAIR COLOR | Bleached white; naturally pale ash blond |
| EYE COLOR: | Deep, vivid orange |
| SKIN COLOR: | Fair, tans noticeably in summer with a distinct reddish tint |
| BLOOD TYPE: | O+ |
| CHARACTERISTICS: | Recent, raised scar coiling from his left cheek to his left ankle and looping around both upper arms. Tattooed back (details below). Single piercing in upper left ear; small iridescent blue-green stone. Often cloaked in a faint pink aura |
| FC NAME (SERIES): | Shion (No. 6) |
A childhood in a remote farming community with more bears than public transit, coupled with recent years maintaining his physique for work purposes, has left Seren well-muscled despite his body’s default inclination toward softness. That inclination, however, has taken advantage of the changes in his daily habits since losing his fiancé, Haiiro, and the definition of his muscles has begun to fade under a little extra insulation. No more six-pack for bird-brain dust boy, especially if he keeps on with the daily ice cream and chicken wings drowning in ranch. His face has also begun to round out, making him look like a fanboy of himself and at least making it less likely that he will be recognized by passersby.
Seren’s body is wrapped in recent scars, raised and red and often angry-looking, although they’re old enough to deepen to purple when they’re exposed to cold air. These scars are due to several fire snakes, created by a villain’s Quirk, used to restrain him when he and Haiiro were caught up in a bank robbery as civilians. The most obvious of these scars wraps from his left cheek and around his throat, though others wrap around his shoulders and arms, torso, and left leg. The scars on his leg are much lighter and less severe, but show the path that several snakes used to reach the rest of his body. The scars on his back have interrupted some parts of the tattoos there.
Seren’s tattooed back is the product of several years’ work and represents his homeland in remote northwestern Canada. A silver-morph northern harrier, the bird of his family, spreads its black-tipped wings across his shoulder blades. Behind and below the bird, shimmering green panels of the aurora borealis weave down his spine, at times almost reaching his sides, until they disappear behind the sleek shoulders of a prowling black bear. Here and there, little raven silhouettes dance among the lights and the lines of his back.
Seren’s body is wrapped in recent scars, raised and red and often angry-looking, although they’re old enough to deepen to purple when they’re exposed to cold air. These scars are due to several fire snakes, created by a villain’s Quirk, used to restrain him when he and Haiiro were caught up in a bank robbery as civilians. The most obvious of these scars wraps from his left cheek and around his throat, though others wrap around his shoulders and arms, torso, and left leg. The scars on his leg are much lighter and less severe, but show the path that several snakes used to reach the rest of his body. The scars on his back have interrupted some parts of the tattoos there.
Seren’s tattooed back is the product of several years’ work and represents his homeland in remote northwestern Canada. A silver-morph northern harrier, the bird of his family, spreads its black-tipped wings across his shoulder blades. Behind and below the bird, shimmering green panels of the aurora borealis weave down his spine, at times almost reaching his sides, until they disappear behind the sleek shoulders of a prowling black bear. Here and there, little raven silhouettes dance among the lights and the lines of his back.
PERSONALITY
LIKES Haiiro | DISLIKES SNAKES.Hostage killing Injustice Bananas |
| RUMOURS: | Rumour is that someone’s been going around investigating villains and vigilantes. Something about snakes? Have you seen that guy who goes around cosplaying the Rescue Idol? He needs to get a life. What do you call someone who hunts both vigilantes and villains from outside the law? |
Seren has a soft soul. He grew up surrounded by siblings and extended family and clan and community, and while there were challenges and gossip and family drama, there was always support. If someone struggled, everyone pitched in to help. Once, someone’s barn caught fire. Not only was that when Seren learned that he could filter smoke from the air, but the entire community turned out to haul water, move animals, relocate fuel sources, and feed the volunteers.
That is the sort of work that has always drawn Seren. Working to support others during a crisis, to protect as best he may, and to mitigate the harm that comes from disaster. That is what led him to apply a hero school, and to specialize in rescue work.
When he isn’t working, once upon a time Seren would have spent his free time with his fiancé, Haiiro, with such shared hobbies as hiking, foraging, and skipping stones across calm water. He led to considerable improvements in his almost-inlaws’ townhouse’s gardens, and had a good start into those in front of the neighbouring townhouse he shared with Haiiro. He hasn’t touched those gardens in months, and the only remaining living plants indoors are those capable of surviving months without water or fertilizer. Those that have died remain where they are, dry and yellow.
Before, Seren could and would smile at anything and everything, especially when Haiiro dragged him along on some harebrained adventure to the most mundane of places. Haiiro could make a trip to the grocery store romantic (and not get them kicked out for indecency).
Now, Seren spends most of his time floating from one room to another, sometimes blankly playing music he barely hears, sometimes forgetting to eat altogether. He can hold a conversation, now, if it doesn’t last too long or touch on anything too personal, but there are times when he just slips away.
Sometimes he slips away physically as well, drifting through streets like a ghost, restless and searching for something he can’t name. Sometimes he remembers the masks of the villains who killed Haiiro. Sometimes he can’t forget them. Sometimes he sees something resembling a snake, and finds himself dozens of kilometres away with blood on his clothes and only the memory of pain in his chest.
Sometimes he sleeps all day. Sometimes it even almost matters.
That is the sort of work that has always drawn Seren. Working to support others during a crisis, to protect as best he may, and to mitigate the harm that comes from disaster. That is what led him to apply a hero school, and to specialize in rescue work.
When he isn’t working, once upon a time Seren would have spent his free time with his fiancé, Haiiro, with such shared hobbies as hiking, foraging, and skipping stones across calm water. He led to considerable improvements in his almost-inlaws’ townhouse’s gardens, and had a good start into those in front of the neighbouring townhouse he shared with Haiiro. He hasn’t touched those gardens in months, and the only remaining living plants indoors are those capable of surviving months without water or fertilizer. Those that have died remain where they are, dry and yellow.
Before, Seren could and would smile at anything and everything, especially when Haiiro dragged him along on some harebrained adventure to the most mundane of places. Haiiro could make a trip to the grocery store romantic (and not get them kicked out for indecency).
Now, Seren spends most of his time floating from one room to another, sometimes blankly playing music he barely hears, sometimes forgetting to eat altogether. He can hold a conversation, now, if it doesn’t last too long or touch on anything too personal, but there are times when he just slips away.
Sometimes he slips away physically as well, drifting through streets like a ghost, restless and searching for something he can’t name. Sometimes he remembers the masks of the villains who killed Haiiro. Sometimes he can’t forget them. Sometimes he sees something resembling a snake, and finds himself dozens of kilometres away with blood on his clothes and only the memory of pain in his chest.
Sometimes he sleeps all day. Sometimes it even almost matters.
BACKGROUND HISTORY
| PLACE OF BIRTH/HOMETOWN: | Fort St John, BC, Canada |
| PARENTS: | Asher and Spira Harrier; Garrett Sevastian, deceased |
| SIBLINGS: | Aspen Harrier (F, 26) Boreal Harrier (2S, 23) Aster Harrier-Whitehead (F, 22) Blaize Harrier (M, 16) |
| SIGNIFICANT OTHER: | Haiiro Chuuhi (M, 20), deceased Haru Chuuhi (Haiiro’s father) Shizue Chuuhi (Haiiro’s mother) Nagisa Chuuhi (Haiiro’s brother, 24) Sukai Chuuhi (Haiiro’s brother, 17, deceased) |
| OTHER: | a broken, bitter heart |
Trigger Warning: Trauma, Character Death
Seren was born Serene, in a place of rolling fields, deep scrub-filled gullies, black and grizzly bears, and a whole world’s variety of birds. His mother’s family had lived amongst the alternating snow banks and intense sun since time out of mind, especially after most of their stories were lost between traumatized generations. They do know, however, that the name Harrier, in one language or another, predates the family’s true-breeding Quirk centred upon birds of prey. His mother’s Quirk, Spirit Harrier, is a beautiful but pale shadow of her mother’s ability to fully or partially transform into their namesake bird at any size she desired (and apparently still take flight). His father, Asher, hails from a lesser local family but with the quiet ability to gradually enhance the Quirks of those around him.
Seren is the fourth of five children, and the only one without an avian Quirk. His eldest sister, Aspen, may not be a harrier but a merlin, sharp and fast and vibrant; his two-spirit sibling, Boreal, flies as a harrier from autumnal to vernal equinox, and walks as a human through the summer; Aster also transforms, though randomly into whichever raptor happens to be nearest in the skies; and Blaize, the baby of the family, simply is a physical hybrid between harrier and human. When Seren’s Quirk first manifested, a silvery aura stretching out from the then-girlchild, everyone assumed that it would be much like Spira’s Spirit Harrier.
It was easier for the community to accept that Seren was not a girl than that his Quirk had nothing to do with either of his parents’ Quirks. Even if he didn’t choose to carry the term two-spirit, there was space in their culture for him, just as there was for Boreal’s wandering between very different worlds.
The rumours of Seren’s potential mystery parentage almost drove his family apart, and Seren lived with the uncertainty, stigma, fights, and isolation until his eleventh birthday, when his mother revealed that she had spent a short time involuntarily in hospital over a decade before, returning home shortly before his father returned from camp work, and discovered her pregnancy several weeks later. She had always believed that the child, Seren, had been Asher’s, and he looked so much like her that no one else had initially questioned it either. Now, however…
At fifteen, Seren chose to take a paternity test, and followed the result’s trail across the world over the next two years, leveraging a local scholarship for a Canadian hero school with international co-op placements. He spent his summers in France, in Sweden, in Australia, wherever he found mention of this Garrett Sevastian. There were always traces, conflicting reports of a man who might be villain, might be genius, might be mysterious hero, but Garrett Sevastian always vanished like dust on the wind long before Seren arrived.
Instead, while on his last school co-op, in Australia, he met a tourist with black hair, carelessly tied back with a red string, who caught sight of Seren’s then-partially-tattooed back and dropped his drink on the dusty ground.
The tourist’s name meant Marsh Harrier, and he recognized the bird spreading its wings across Seren’s shoulder blades. Seren bought Haiiro a replacement drink, they chatted, and went their separate ways.
A week later, Haiiro lost his wallet – honestly unintentionally – to a villain Seren was tailing. Haiiro got his wallet back, and a picture of Seren in uniform.
The day after next, Seren walked into a café on a whim at the same time Haiiro came out of its bathroom. They traded phone numbers.
Over the next month, the increasing rate of coincidental encounters gave way to intentional ones. When Seren’s co-op ended, he briefly returned to Canada to start work as a pro hero. Haiiro sent job openings in his home country of Japan. Seren sent openings in Canada to Haiiro. Haiiro sent a recording of Seren singing to himself (well, to Haiiro over the phone) while at work to a Japanese idol agency specializing in pro hero idols.
Seren moved to Japan less than six months after returning to Canada. He initially lived with Haiiro and his family (two adults, three young adults, and a teenager in a much smaller townhouse than Seren was used to). Once Seren had his Japanese license and had debuted, splitting his very busy schedule between the two very different worlds, he surprised Haiiro with a keychain. It held the keys to the townhouse next to the one where they currently lived with the rest of Haiiro’s family.
It also held a ring, silver with an inlay of aurora-shaded opal.
Six months later, they were in a bank, waiting to talk to their financial advisor about wedding budgets. It was a rare day off for Seren, and thus far his casual clothes, hat, and clear glasses had kept anyone from recognizing him. He had enough fussing from Haiiro, having injured his wrist earlier in the week, and his fiancé was, once again, good-naturedly chastising him while taking the joint through a series of rehab exercises. The bank was calm and quiet, they had tea in little disposable paper cups, and their afternoon was free for anything they wanted to do withor to each other.
The quiet deepened abruptly when a small group walked in, nonchalant in their featureless white masks, and dispersed around the room. The last member of the group tossed a small object into the air, and everyone looking in their direction froze. This included both Seren and Haiiro, with Seren’s free hand wrapped around the work phone in his pocket.
The villains spent a few minutes, none of them so much as coughing, going to every customer and staff member in the bank and tying their hands. Half of the group dispersed into the bank’s back rooms once this was underway, though there had been no signal Seren could detect. A telepathy quirk, or simply well planned and executed?
Seren and Haiiro were some of the last customers to be restrained, and with the strange object still in effect, couldn’t even tense his muscles to resist when they unpeeled Haiiro’s hands from his, and then pulled his other hand from his pocket. He also couldn’t release the phone, emblazoned with his agency’s logo and not very subtle as far as hero communication devices went.
The villain tossed the phone to a comrade, shaking their head, and gestured a third over. This villain was perhaps a tad shorter, perhaps a few pounds heavier, though the thick white cloaks masked most information.
The villain lifted a black-gloved hand and pointed at Seren. At first, nothing happened.
Then the snakes began to emerge from the villain’s sleeve, sleek red-scaled serpents with black eyes, each perhaps three feet long and no more than an inch wide. They dropped to the floor and made their way to him, the short carpet smouldering in their wake. One, two, three...
He lost count when the first snake sprang at him. He was still unable to move. He couldn’t even close his eyes as the red flashed toward him, but could only watch as it landed on his shoulder, shirt and snake both darkening as its heat sank through the civilian fabric and into his flesh.
Seren had been burned before. Much of his work involved fire-related rescue operations. He had always relied on nearby healing, and while it wasn’t enjoyable, it had been part of the job. It also hadn’t been nearly as bad as this, unable to stop it, to protest, to scream, to close his eyes, to look at Haiiro just there at the edge of his vision as it flickered with black and red, to spread his aura and do anything.
Snakes wrapped around him, securing his limbs and torso and throat with more force than any ropes, as well as the heat that blackened his flesh until the snakes faded to still-moving coals, scales and muscles digging into his blisters. The snake on his throat rubbed its head against his cheek, almost affectionately, before turning to watch its master.
That master took one of Haiiro’s arms, Seren’s fiancé’s hands tied behind his back, while the villain who had found Seren’s phone took the other, and the two villains dragged Haiiro across the room.
They left him squarely in Seren’s frozen line of sight as the other villains went about their work. Distant sirens didn’t seem to change their behaviour at all. Nothing seemed to shake their plan, or even be worth a comment from one to another. And the mysterious object still hung in the air, and Seren still could not move. Only his sweat, and his blood, and severed bits of hair and clothing. Those trickled and tickled and collected on the comfortable, smoking chair around him.
The sirens didn’t seem to get any closer, or was perhaps time moving slower? The pain didn’t fade but became less new, less consuming, and it almost became easier, though still not easy, to breathe. Haiiro hadn’t been hurt, had been bound only with rope. As far as he could see, Seren was the only one deemed worthy of restraint by fire.
His fingers twitched, and the snakes dug in tighter. The one by his face hissed, more like escaping steam than an animal. But if they could twitch, did that mean the first effect was wearing off? They wouldn’t have bothered to tie everyone if they expected it to last as long as they needed. He could control his breathing more too, now, and though the snakes wrapped around chest and abdomen were tight and so incredibly painful, he made himself breathe as deeply as he could. The snakes didn’t seem to care about that.
His eyes burned with the need to blink, but instead he slowly let his aura expand. Fragments of dust slid away from his clothing and rose from the floor, but the carpet was clean and he didn’t couldn’t open the packet of glitter he always stashed in his pocket. He had nothing to work with.
Across the room, Haiiro’s eyes were desperate but refused to tear. His fiancé was strong, and stubborn, and fierce, and kind. He was the most resilient person Seren had ever met. A different kind of hero. A hero of hospitals, not battlegrounds.
The villains began to return from the back, gradually reconvening in the bank’s front room. One of them hopped over the counter, swinging a sack behind them like a cartoon bank robber. While one of the other villains shook their masked face at them, either disappointed or entertained, a sudden crack announced a dark-robed figure suddenly perched atop the cartoonish villain, a jagged knife protruding from the white-robed chest. Blood soaked through slowly, though the villain didn’t move, and the newcomer slowly stood atop the corpse.
The villains immediately spread out evenly, and finally one spoke, electronic and artificial. ”Surrender, or the hostages die. Beginning with...” The villain trailed off, slowly turning to survey the scattered options. They lifted one arm to indicate the black-haired man alone at the front, hands bound behind his back and hair casually tied back with a bit of string. Black string. Haiiro had grabbed black string today, hadn’t he? Neither of them had thought anything of it. It was rare for Haiiro’s Quirk to predict anything significant.
Rare, but not unheard of, and Seren tried to scream against the snakes and the strange inhibition and the exploding panic in his throat as the villain pointed to Haiiro. ”Beginning with one of our dear lovebirds.”
Seren couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, couldn’t stop to feel as anything other than who he was in the situation he and Haiiro were in. Disaster was always different when he was at work. He chose to be there, and Haiiro wasn’t caught up in it. Haiiro wasn’t the price for some wanna-be hero’s obedience. Not even a hero, masked and anonymous like that. Nondescript.
Grinning like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. ”Go ahead. I’m going to kill you all anyway.”
Somewhere, something exploded, like a gun firing or a balloon popping. It rang in Seren’s ears. Haiiro’s dark shirt was darker. Wasn’t it? Was it his burning, faded eyes playing tricks on him? It had to be.
A glint of silver spilled down Haiiro’s cheek.
His eyes darkened. Emptied.
And still he sat there, propped like a doll.
And Seren couldn’t scream. Couldn’t go to him. Couldn’t move more than his fingertips, and his hands were bound, and the snakes hissed and tightened and he couldn’t breathe, but he couldn’t breathe anyway, and there was movement all around that he ought to pay attention to but he couldn’t, he could barely see Haiiro
———————————————
He woke up in the hospital. He didn’t need to be told, and couldn’t feel when they told him anyway. People visited. He knew who they were and didn’t care. Someone from the police tried to get a statement but he didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t care enough to try.
Haiiro was dead.
Nurses who weren’t Haiiro, who probably worked with Haiiro, changed the dressings on his burns. He screamed then, he supposed, but it didn’t matter. Someone tried to convince him to let someone heal it. He spoke then. Couldn’t hear the words.
People he didn’t know tried to talk to him. He took medication when asked. Slept. Screamed again when they changed his dressings again. It wasn’t just the burns. Everything hurt.
Eventually, he realized that doctors and students crowded his doorway every morning. Talking. So much talking. Even though his aura couldn’t so much as touch them, they scattered when it swept shapelessly toward them, and then his mornings were quieter.
He slept more often after that. They tried to get him to move, to get up, to eat. Sometimes he would, until the marks of his uselessness, the visible reminders that Haiiro was gone and there had been nothing he could do but watch, split and bled through the bandages.
At some point, he moved often enough to be sent home. A nurse came every day to the empty townhouse to continue to change his dressings. People kept coming to talk to him. Talk at him. Left him food. The nurse heated it up. Threw it out the next day. He couldn’t sleep in his bed. Their bed. Couldn’t look at it. Slept on the couch.
And it continued. Eventually the nurse didn’t need to change his dressings anymore. He never learned her name. A different person came instead, to check on him and tell him to get up, to eat, to walk around the block with her. He didn’t learn her name either.
After spring had finished stretching through the untended gardens and the city at large, it was a little easier. The not-nurse stopped coming. Haiiro’s parents came instead, cleaning one day, cooking another, putting tea beside him and sitting in the room until he drank it. And talking. Always talking. Sometimes Seren understood what they said. Sometimes they tried English, and he understood less.
Then he thought about the people who had attacked the bank, and the person who had attacked them. Not as the people who had killed Haiiro, though that thought overwhelmed him several times before the first thought could continue, but as criminals. He called the number the police had left him. He didn’t recognize the name at the other end, or the voice. No, no arrests had been made. They had very little evidence. No, no corpse had been left behind except that of Seren’s fiancé and several other hostages. There had been signs of a fight when police and pro heroes had arrived, but the perpetrators themselves were all gone. A signal had gone out when Seren’s work phone had been destroyed, crushed by something during in the fight. No other information had come out of the bank.
Seren didn’t remember the end of the conversation. He also didn’t remember leaving the house afterwards, just a flash of staring at a white oval in some store, and then waking up on the couch with a white mask on the coffee table.
Seren was born Serene, in a place of rolling fields, deep scrub-filled gullies, black and grizzly bears, and a whole world’s variety of birds. His mother’s family had lived amongst the alternating snow banks and intense sun since time out of mind, especially after most of their stories were lost between traumatized generations. They do know, however, that the name Harrier, in one language or another, predates the family’s true-breeding Quirk centred upon birds of prey. His mother’s Quirk, Spirit Harrier, is a beautiful but pale shadow of her mother’s ability to fully or partially transform into their namesake bird at any size she desired (and apparently still take flight). His father, Asher, hails from a lesser local family but with the quiet ability to gradually enhance the Quirks of those around him.
Seren is the fourth of five children, and the only one without an avian Quirk. His eldest sister, Aspen, may not be a harrier but a merlin, sharp and fast and vibrant; his two-spirit sibling, Boreal, flies as a harrier from autumnal to vernal equinox, and walks as a human through the summer; Aster also transforms, though randomly into whichever raptor happens to be nearest in the skies; and Blaize, the baby of the family, simply is a physical hybrid between harrier and human. When Seren’s Quirk first manifested, a silvery aura stretching out from the then-girlchild, everyone assumed that it would be much like Spira’s Spirit Harrier.
It was easier for the community to accept that Seren was not a girl than that his Quirk had nothing to do with either of his parents’ Quirks. Even if he didn’t choose to carry the term two-spirit, there was space in their culture for him, just as there was for Boreal’s wandering between very different worlds.
The rumours of Seren’s potential mystery parentage almost drove his family apart, and Seren lived with the uncertainty, stigma, fights, and isolation until his eleventh birthday, when his mother revealed that she had spent a short time involuntarily in hospital over a decade before, returning home shortly before his father returned from camp work, and discovered her pregnancy several weeks later. She had always believed that the child, Seren, had been Asher’s, and he looked so much like her that no one else had initially questioned it either. Now, however…
At fifteen, Seren chose to take a paternity test, and followed the result’s trail across the world over the next two years, leveraging a local scholarship for a Canadian hero school with international co-op placements. He spent his summers in France, in Sweden, in Australia, wherever he found mention of this Garrett Sevastian. There were always traces, conflicting reports of a man who might be villain, might be genius, might be mysterious hero, but Garrett Sevastian always vanished like dust on the wind long before Seren arrived.
Instead, while on his last school co-op, in Australia, he met a tourist with black hair, carelessly tied back with a red string, who caught sight of Seren’s then-partially-tattooed back and dropped his drink on the dusty ground.
The tourist’s name meant Marsh Harrier, and he recognized the bird spreading its wings across Seren’s shoulder blades. Seren bought Haiiro a replacement drink, they chatted, and went their separate ways.
A week later, Haiiro lost his wallet – honestly unintentionally – to a villain Seren was tailing. Haiiro got his wallet back, and a picture of Seren in uniform.
The day after next, Seren walked into a café on a whim at the same time Haiiro came out of its bathroom. They traded phone numbers.
Over the next month, the increasing rate of coincidental encounters gave way to intentional ones. When Seren’s co-op ended, he briefly returned to Canada to start work as a pro hero. Haiiro sent job openings in his home country of Japan. Seren sent openings in Canada to Haiiro. Haiiro sent a recording of Seren singing to himself (well, to Haiiro over the phone) while at work to a Japanese idol agency specializing in pro hero idols.
Seren moved to Japan less than six months after returning to Canada. He initially lived with Haiiro and his family (two adults, three young adults, and a teenager in a much smaller townhouse than Seren was used to). Once Seren had his Japanese license and had debuted, splitting his very busy schedule between the two very different worlds, he surprised Haiiro with a keychain. It held the keys to the townhouse next to the one where they currently lived with the rest of Haiiro’s family.
It also held a ring, silver with an inlay of aurora-shaded opal.
Six months later, they were in a bank, waiting to talk to their financial advisor about wedding budgets. It was a rare day off for Seren, and thus far his casual clothes, hat, and clear glasses had kept anyone from recognizing him. He had enough fussing from Haiiro, having injured his wrist earlier in the week, and his fiancé was, once again, good-naturedly chastising him while taking the joint through a series of rehab exercises. The bank was calm and quiet, they had tea in little disposable paper cups, and their afternoon was free for anything they wanted to do with
The quiet deepened abruptly when a small group walked in, nonchalant in their featureless white masks, and dispersed around the room. The last member of the group tossed a small object into the air, and everyone looking in their direction froze. This included both Seren and Haiiro, with Seren’s free hand wrapped around the work phone in his pocket.
The villains spent a few minutes, none of them so much as coughing, going to every customer and staff member in the bank and tying their hands. Half of the group dispersed into the bank’s back rooms once this was underway, though there had been no signal Seren could detect. A telepathy quirk, or simply well planned and executed?
Seren and Haiiro were some of the last customers to be restrained, and with the strange object still in effect, couldn’t even tense his muscles to resist when they unpeeled Haiiro’s hands from his, and then pulled his other hand from his pocket. He also couldn’t release the phone, emblazoned with his agency’s logo and not very subtle as far as hero communication devices went.
The villain tossed the phone to a comrade, shaking their head, and gestured a third over. This villain was perhaps a tad shorter, perhaps a few pounds heavier, though the thick white cloaks masked most information.
The villain lifted a black-gloved hand and pointed at Seren. At first, nothing happened.
Then the snakes began to emerge from the villain’s sleeve, sleek red-scaled serpents with black eyes, each perhaps three feet long and no more than an inch wide. They dropped to the floor and made their way to him, the short carpet smouldering in their wake. One, two, three...
He lost count when the first snake sprang at him. He was still unable to move. He couldn’t even close his eyes as the red flashed toward him, but could only watch as it landed on his shoulder, shirt and snake both darkening as its heat sank through the civilian fabric and into his flesh.
Seren had been burned before. Much of his work involved fire-related rescue operations. He had always relied on nearby healing, and while it wasn’t enjoyable, it had been part of the job. It also hadn’t been nearly as bad as this, unable to stop it, to protest, to scream, to close his eyes, to look at Haiiro just there at the edge of his vision as it flickered with black and red, to spread his aura and do anything.
Snakes wrapped around him, securing his limbs and torso and throat with more force than any ropes, as well as the heat that blackened his flesh until the snakes faded to still-moving coals, scales and muscles digging into his blisters. The snake on his throat rubbed its head against his cheek, almost affectionately, before turning to watch its master.
That master took one of Haiiro’s arms, Seren’s fiancé’s hands tied behind his back, while the villain who had found Seren’s phone took the other, and the two villains dragged Haiiro across the room.
They left him squarely in Seren’s frozen line of sight as the other villains went about their work. Distant sirens didn’t seem to change their behaviour at all. Nothing seemed to shake their plan, or even be worth a comment from one to another. And the mysterious object still hung in the air, and Seren still could not move. Only his sweat, and his blood, and severed bits of hair and clothing. Those trickled and tickled and collected on the comfortable, smoking chair around him.
The sirens didn’t seem to get any closer, or was perhaps time moving slower? The pain didn’t fade but became less new, less consuming, and it almost became easier, though still not easy, to breathe. Haiiro hadn’t been hurt, had been bound only with rope. As far as he could see, Seren was the only one deemed worthy of restraint by fire.
His fingers twitched, and the snakes dug in tighter. The one by his face hissed, more like escaping steam than an animal. But if they could twitch, did that mean the first effect was wearing off? They wouldn’t have bothered to tie everyone if they expected it to last as long as they needed. He could control his breathing more too, now, and though the snakes wrapped around chest and abdomen were tight and so incredibly painful, he made himself breathe as deeply as he could. The snakes didn’t seem to care about that.
His eyes burned with the need to blink, but instead he slowly let his aura expand. Fragments of dust slid away from his clothing and rose from the floor, but the carpet was clean and he didn’t couldn’t open the packet of glitter he always stashed in his pocket. He had nothing to work with.
Across the room, Haiiro’s eyes were desperate but refused to tear. His fiancé was strong, and stubborn, and fierce, and kind. He was the most resilient person Seren had ever met. A different kind of hero. A hero of hospitals, not battlegrounds.
The villains began to return from the back, gradually reconvening in the bank’s front room. One of them hopped over the counter, swinging a sack behind them like a cartoon bank robber. While one of the other villains shook their masked face at them, either disappointed or entertained, a sudden crack announced a dark-robed figure suddenly perched atop the cartoonish villain, a jagged knife protruding from the white-robed chest. Blood soaked through slowly, though the villain didn’t move, and the newcomer slowly stood atop the corpse.
The villains immediately spread out evenly, and finally one spoke, electronic and artificial. ”Surrender, or the hostages die. Beginning with...” The villain trailed off, slowly turning to survey the scattered options. They lifted one arm to indicate the black-haired man alone at the front, hands bound behind his back and hair casually tied back with a bit of string. Black string. Haiiro had grabbed black string today, hadn’t he? Neither of them had thought anything of it. It was rare for Haiiro’s Quirk to predict anything significant.
Rare, but not unheard of, and Seren tried to scream against the snakes and the strange inhibition and the exploding panic in his throat as the villain pointed to Haiiro. ”Beginning with one of our dear lovebirds.”
Seren couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, couldn’t stop to feel as anything other than who he was in the situation he and Haiiro were in. Disaster was always different when he was at work. He chose to be there, and Haiiro wasn’t caught up in it. Haiiro wasn’t the price for some wanna-be hero’s obedience. Not even a hero, masked and anonymous like that. Nondescript.
Grinning like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. ”Go ahead. I’m going to kill you all anyway.”
Somewhere, something exploded, like a gun firing or a balloon popping. It rang in Seren’s ears. Haiiro’s dark shirt was darker. Wasn’t it? Was it his burning, faded eyes playing tricks on him? It had to be.
A glint of silver spilled down Haiiro’s cheek.
His eyes darkened. Emptied.
And still he sat there, propped like a doll.
And Seren couldn’t scream. Couldn’t go to him. Couldn’t move more than his fingertips, and his hands were bound, and the snakes hissed and tightened and he couldn’t breathe, but he couldn’t breathe anyway, and there was movement all around that he ought to pay attention to but he couldn’t, he could barely see Haiiro
———————————————
He woke up in the hospital. He didn’t need to be told, and couldn’t feel when they told him anyway. People visited. He knew who they were and didn’t care. Someone from the police tried to get a statement but he didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t care enough to try.
Haiiro was dead.
Nurses who weren’t Haiiro, who probably worked with Haiiro, changed the dressings on his burns. He screamed then, he supposed, but it didn’t matter. Someone tried to convince him to let someone heal it. He spoke then. Couldn’t hear the words.
People he didn’t know tried to talk to him. He took medication when asked. Slept. Screamed again when they changed his dressings again. It wasn’t just the burns. Everything hurt.
Eventually, he realized that doctors and students crowded his doorway every morning. Talking. So much talking. Even though his aura couldn’t so much as touch them, they scattered when it swept shapelessly toward them, and then his mornings were quieter.
He slept more often after that. They tried to get him to move, to get up, to eat. Sometimes he would, until the marks of his uselessness, the visible reminders that Haiiro was gone and there had been nothing he could do but watch, split and bled through the bandages.
At some point, he moved often enough to be sent home. A nurse came every day to the empty townhouse to continue to change his dressings. People kept coming to talk to him. Talk at him. Left him food. The nurse heated it up. Threw it out the next day. He couldn’t sleep in his bed. Their bed. Couldn’t look at it. Slept on the couch.
And it continued. Eventually the nurse didn’t need to change his dressings anymore. He never learned her name. A different person came instead, to check on him and tell him to get up, to eat, to walk around the block with her. He didn’t learn her name either.
After spring had finished stretching through the untended gardens and the city at large, it was a little easier. The not-nurse stopped coming. Haiiro’s parents came instead, cleaning one day, cooking another, putting tea beside him and sitting in the room until he drank it. And talking. Always talking. Sometimes Seren understood what they said. Sometimes they tried English, and he understood less.
Then he thought about the people who had attacked the bank, and the person who had attacked them. Not as the people who had killed Haiiro, though that thought overwhelmed him several times before the first thought could continue, but as criminals. He called the number the police had left him. He didn’t recognize the name at the other end, or the voice. No, no arrests had been made. They had very little evidence. No, no corpse had been left behind except that of Seren’s fiancé and several other hostages. There had been signs of a fight when police and pro heroes had arrived, but the perpetrators themselves were all gone. A signal had gone out when Seren’s work phone had been destroyed, crushed by something during in the fight. No other information had come out of the bank.
Seren didn’t remember the end of the conversation. He also didn’t remember leaving the house afterwards, just a flash of staring at a white oval in some store, and then waking up on the couch with a white mask on the coffee table.
THE ARMORY
Seren’s hero suit, as Purity, resembles a slimmed-down firefighter’s jacket, in white with a sunburst trim in silver. The surface is an odd texture, designed to passively break up dirt and other contaminants into small enough particles for Seren’s aura to pick up. If he’s going to go by Purity, he’d better be able to keep his gear pure white!
The silver trim is highly reflective, and the suit in general provides good visibility in low lighting. The jacket hangs to mid thigh, with integrated pockets along both arms as well as the front and rear surfaces. The material is non-flammable and impermeable to liquids and oils (unfortunately, it can get a little toasty inside). It is also resistant to tearing and provides cushioning against impact similar to leather.
Underneath the jacket, Seren usually wears a plain navy athletic t-shirt, to offset the temperature insulation of the jacket. His pants are utilitarian cargo pants, slightly darker grey than the trim on his jacket, of a similar tough, oddly fuzzy material. Though a belt is not necessary to keep the pants up, he has a dozen feet of rescue rope wrapped through the belt loops in case of emergency, and removable climbing-grade carabiners fastened inside each of the main pockets on either thigh. A climbing harness is incorporated into the pants, with a non-removeable anchor point as a ‘belt buckle.’
Seren also wears tough, Kevlar-reinforced gloves, which are resistant to piercing, slicing, and loss of grip. His boots are similar, bulky with thick treads, with Kevlar toe caps and sole plates; his boots are also non-conductive to electricity.
To finish the suit, Seren has a simple white helmet with a visor and integrated radio system, which can connect to most other communication networks with permission. A white canvas flap hangs from the back of the helmet to protect his neck, and tucks into the jacket’s collar.
Rescue equipment stocked: field first aid kit (tourniquets, dressings, wound-clot powder, six doses of single-use field painkillers); rescue rope (rated to 1000 lbs, three lengths (12, 20, 20)); climbing-grade carabiners x2; flatfold N95 masks x20; flares x3; high-calorie electrolyte drink packs x4; several stashes of candy, granola bars, and snacksthat are totally for disaster victims, not himself; approximately ten pounds worth of glitter (multicolour, red, and white) and sand in assorted pockets.
——————————
When out as Revenant, Seren instead wears a tan leather jacket with buckles across the chest, along with a featureless white mask taken from the villains who killed his fiancé. He also carries approximately fifteen pounds of sand in his pockets. He wears an older pair of gloves and boots from a previous version of his hero suit, and have the same qualities but show more signs of wear.
The silver trim is highly reflective, and the suit in general provides good visibility in low lighting. The jacket hangs to mid thigh, with integrated pockets along both arms as well as the front and rear surfaces. The material is non-flammable and impermeable to liquids and oils (unfortunately, it can get a little toasty inside). It is also resistant to tearing and provides cushioning against impact similar to leather.
Underneath the jacket, Seren usually wears a plain navy athletic t-shirt, to offset the temperature insulation of the jacket. His pants are utilitarian cargo pants, slightly darker grey than the trim on his jacket, of a similar tough, oddly fuzzy material. Though a belt is not necessary to keep the pants up, he has a dozen feet of rescue rope wrapped through the belt loops in case of emergency, and removable climbing-grade carabiners fastened inside each of the main pockets on either thigh. A climbing harness is incorporated into the pants, with a non-removeable anchor point as a ‘belt buckle.’
Seren also wears tough, Kevlar-reinforced gloves, which are resistant to piercing, slicing, and loss of grip. His boots are similar, bulky with thick treads, with Kevlar toe caps and sole plates; his boots are also non-conductive to electricity.
To finish the suit, Seren has a simple white helmet with a visor and integrated radio system, which can connect to most other communication networks with permission. A white canvas flap hangs from the back of the helmet to protect his neck, and tucks into the jacket’s collar.
Rescue equipment stocked: field first aid kit (tourniquets, dressings, wound-clot powder, six doses of single-use field painkillers); rescue rope (rated to 1000 lbs, three lengths (12, 20, 20)); climbing-grade carabiners x2; flatfold N95 masks x20; flares x3; high-calorie electrolyte drink packs x4; several stashes of candy, granola bars, and snacks
——————————
When out as Revenant, Seren instead wears a tan leather jacket with buckles across the chest, along with a featureless white mask taken from the villains who killed his fiancé. He also carries approximately fifteen pounds of sand in his pockets. He wears an older pair of gloves and boots from a previous version of his hero suit, and have the same qualities but show more signs of wear.
QUIRK & SKILLS
PARTICLE MANIPULATION AURA
TYPE: Emitter
RANK/LEVEL: B
SUMMARY:
Seren, unlike the rest of his (known) family, possesses the ability to emit an aura that has nothing to do with birds. This aura is naturally faintly visible and is a pale pink, though the limited visibility can make it hard to notice if he isn’t against something solid-coloured for contrast. The aura has no intrinsic shape but can be given (visual) form on a whim. The aura can only interact with fine particulate matter: if it is bacterial or smaller, or larger than a cubic millimetre, the aura passes through it with absolutely no effect to either the object or the aura.
Now, if the aura contacts an appropriate-sized material, some interesting stuff can happen. First, the particle (most often dust) automatically sticks to the surface of the aura. The particle moves with the aura, and interacts with other objects as usual. If the aura passes through a large object, surface particles on the opposite side will be pushed off the aura, and particles on the surface that first contacts the object will be pushed into the aura.
Particles within the aura are more readily manipulated by the aura, as long as they continue to be of appropriate size. They can be condensed (Make it Rain) or, with much more effort, suspended without contacting each other (Solid Aura), as well as moved throughout the aura, or to the surface. Seren can expel particles from his aura by accelerating their move to the surface with concentrated force (Glitter Cannon).
Seren can perceive particles within his aura, though he is no more able to see tiny particles, much less, say, count them, than anyone else without Quirk-enhanced eyes or a microscope. This perception functions similarly to his own body’s proprioception, with a general sense of location relative to each other. Electrically and magnetically charged particles are generally easier to detect, though particles that easily merge (i.e. aerosolized liquids, anything damp) are very difficult to maintain in suspension, since they readily clump and become too large for his aura to manipulate. He cannot otherwise perceive his aura without looking at it. The greater the density of particulate matter in part of his aura, the greater his sensitivity: at peak density without unintentional condensation of particles, he can use his Quirk like feeling surfaces with thin gloves on his hands. Holding particles in his aura allows it to indirectly interact with other objects.
Make it Rain: Air Purifying Aura
Seren collects particles in his aura and condenses him until they clump too much for his aura to interact with them, resulting in a passive shower of one-cubic-millimetre pellets falling to the ground. This process is effective at purifying air of contaminants like smoke and pollen (but not airborne diseases). He can clear a single room of moderate smoke in one post.
Solid Aura
It requires substantial effort to keep an almost-imperceptible aura in between particles too small to see, but Seren has practiced enough to pull it off most of the time. It is more difficult, but also more useful, when the particles normally interact with each other (aerosols with static charges, etc) due to the increased ease of perception. With complete concentration, Seren can resist movement in suspended particles against a 10 km/hr breeze or support up to 10 lbs of solid material (half density; 20 lbs max density in the appropriate area).
Glitter Cannon
Seren forces particles in his aura to accelerate toward the aura’s surface and erupt out of it. If he does this with a maximum-density aura across the entire surface, the particles travel up to three feet before losing speed, and sting bare skin near the surface of the aura; this empties his aura instantly. If the same density of particles in concentrated through a square centimetre of surface area, he can produce a stream up to twenty feet long, with enough force at the surface to bruise unprotected skin and push a person of up to 200 lbs back a few steps; by twenty feet, it has the force of a five year old child punching someone in the thigh. If he somehow packed his aura with high-mass particles, it would have more force… but dust and glitter and pollen are so much easier to come by. His most concentrated stream of debris will drain his most dense aura in two posts of sustained concentration.
Dust Mirage
Seren manipulates the particles in his aura to give the impression of distinct shapes. This can be used to communicate, such as through written words and symbols, or to distract and confuse in combat. If he has access to multiple colours of particles, and a full post to concentrate, he can arrange a multi-coloured image with simple shading. All of his images are as solid as they appear (that is, usually as solid as thick dust hanging in the air) and move with his aura. He cannot create convincing doubles of people, but with the right materials could imitate signs, recreate a hazy scenario from memory, or disguise a doorway.
WEAKNESSES/LIMITATIONS:
Let’s be honest. Seren has developed some good utility beyond dusting difficult-to-reach crevices, but the combat applications are minimal. He cannot maintain particle suspension in his aura against any significant physical force, so any attempt to physically attack with it will immediately lose all of its effective strength (although 20 pounds of loose sugar to the face will feel like 20 pounds of loose sugar to the face). Glitter Cannon is his most directly dangerous move, and if he wants to actually do damage, he’d better aim for someone’s eyes. Or other especially vulnerable areas with lots of nerve endings.
If Seren fills his aura with dust, he can visually shroud himself, but dust is often flammable when suspended in air (unfortunately, most particles are flammable when suspended in air…) and he cannot detach the aura from himself. So he’s a really bad match against fire anything, although he is very good at clearing away smoke and other such pollutants. If he fills his aura with glitter, he is fabulous, but that’s about it.
Sand, salt, and sugar are a bit more useful, if they’re fine enough for his aura to notice in the first place. A little bit denser, a little bit heavier (and he can pack up to half his weight into the aura without feeling heavy, and his full weight if he doesn’t have to swing it around much), and packs more of a wallop. Unfortunately, just smacking things around, as previously mentioned, results in knocking the particles out of his aura, so he has to reload before hitting again.
Seren can extend his aura to a maximum of 20 feet in up to two directions at once, or up to ten feet in a sphere with absolute effort. He primarily operates within the self-inflicted constraint of shaping his aura into wings; he will occasionally shape it into hands for utility purposes, or leave it amorphous. There is no time limit to extending his aura, only to maintaining particles within it. He can consciously withdraw his aura into his body to hide it (and usually get dust all over himself); if he isn’t paying attention, it often sways faintly around him, either faintly shaped like folded wings or simply shimmering around him for a vague inch or two.
Seren can sustain up to five pounds of assorted particles in his aura for as long as he wants, which is rarely more than an hour (but could be all day). He can suspend 40 pounds loosely distributed, or 30 pounds densely packed, for 10 posts before earning a headache. He can suspend 90 pounds loose (70 pounds dense) for 4 posts, and 170 pounds loose (130 pounds dense) for 2 posts, with the same consequence. To move past a headache and into blurred vision and vertigo, Seren can swing:
Continuing to use his Quirk on more than five pounds of particulate matter for a single additional post beyond this point will result in fainting and the immediate retraction of his aura, which is likely to bury Seren in whatever had been in his aura up until that point.
Also, Seren is allergic to dust.
RANK/LEVEL: B
SUMMARY:
Seren, unlike the rest of his (known) family, possesses the ability to emit an aura that has nothing to do with birds. This aura is naturally faintly visible and is a pale pink, though the limited visibility can make it hard to notice if he isn’t against something solid-coloured for contrast. The aura has no intrinsic shape but can be given (visual) form on a whim. The aura can only interact with fine particulate matter: if it is bacterial or smaller, or larger than a cubic millimetre, the aura passes through it with absolutely no effect to either the object or the aura.
Now, if the aura contacts an appropriate-sized material, some interesting stuff can happen. First, the particle (most often dust) automatically sticks to the surface of the aura. The particle moves with the aura, and interacts with other objects as usual. If the aura passes through a large object, surface particles on the opposite side will be pushed off the aura, and particles on the surface that first contacts the object will be pushed into the aura.
Particles within the aura are more readily manipulated by the aura, as long as they continue to be of appropriate size. They can be condensed (Make it Rain) or, with much more effort, suspended without contacting each other (Solid Aura), as well as moved throughout the aura, or to the surface. Seren can expel particles from his aura by accelerating their move to the surface with concentrated force (Glitter Cannon).
Seren can perceive particles within his aura, though he is no more able to see tiny particles, much less, say, count them, than anyone else without Quirk-enhanced eyes or a microscope. This perception functions similarly to his own body’s proprioception, with a general sense of location relative to each other. Electrically and magnetically charged particles are generally easier to detect, though particles that easily merge (i.e. aerosolized liquids, anything damp) are very difficult to maintain in suspension, since they readily clump and become too large for his aura to manipulate. He cannot otherwise perceive his aura without looking at it. The greater the density of particulate matter in part of his aura, the greater his sensitivity: at peak density without unintentional condensation of particles, he can use his Quirk like feeling surfaces with thin gloves on his hands. Holding particles in his aura allows it to indirectly interact with other objects.
Make it Rain: Air Purifying Aura
Seren collects particles in his aura and condenses him until they clump too much for his aura to interact with them, resulting in a passive shower of one-cubic-millimetre pellets falling to the ground. This process is effective at purifying air of contaminants like smoke and pollen (but not airborne diseases). He can clear a single room of moderate smoke in one post.
Solid Aura
It requires substantial effort to keep an almost-imperceptible aura in between particles too small to see, but Seren has practiced enough to pull it off most of the time. It is more difficult, but also more useful, when the particles normally interact with each other (aerosols with static charges, etc) due to the increased ease of perception. With complete concentration, Seren can resist movement in suspended particles against a 10 km/hr breeze or support up to 10 lbs of solid material (half density; 20 lbs max density in the appropriate area).
Glitter Cannon
Seren forces particles in his aura to accelerate toward the aura’s surface and erupt out of it. If he does this with a maximum-density aura across the entire surface, the particles travel up to three feet before losing speed, and sting bare skin near the surface of the aura; this empties his aura instantly. If the same density of particles in concentrated through a square centimetre of surface area, he can produce a stream up to twenty feet long, with enough force at the surface to bruise unprotected skin and push a person of up to 200 lbs back a few steps; by twenty feet, it has the force of a five year old child punching someone in the thigh. If he somehow packed his aura with high-mass particles, it would have more force… but dust and glitter and pollen are so much easier to come by. His most concentrated stream of debris will drain his most dense aura in two posts of sustained concentration.
Dust Mirage
Seren manipulates the particles in his aura to give the impression of distinct shapes. This can be used to communicate, such as through written words and symbols, or to distract and confuse in combat. If he has access to multiple colours of particles, and a full post to concentrate, he can arrange a multi-coloured image with simple shading. All of his images are as solid as they appear (that is, usually as solid as thick dust hanging in the air) and move with his aura. He cannot create convincing doubles of people, but with the right materials could imitate signs, recreate a hazy scenario from memory, or disguise a doorway.
WEAKNESSES/LIMITATIONS:
Let’s be honest. Seren has developed some good utility beyond dusting difficult-to-reach crevices, but the combat applications are minimal. He cannot maintain particle suspension in his aura against any significant physical force, so any attempt to physically attack with it will immediately lose all of its effective strength (although 20 pounds of loose sugar to the face will feel like 20 pounds of loose sugar to the face). Glitter Cannon is his most directly dangerous move, and if he wants to actually do damage, he’d better aim for someone’s eyes. Or other especially vulnerable areas with lots of nerve endings.
If Seren fills his aura with dust, he can visually shroud himself, but dust is often flammable when suspended in air (unfortunately, most particles are flammable when suspended in air…) and he cannot detach the aura from himself. So he’s a really bad match against fire anything, although he is very good at clearing away smoke and other such pollutants. If he fills his aura with glitter, he is fabulous, but that’s about it.
Sand, salt, and sugar are a bit more useful, if they’re fine enough for his aura to notice in the first place. A little bit denser, a little bit heavier (and he can pack up to half his weight into the aura without feeling heavy, and his full weight if he doesn’t have to swing it around much), and packs more of a wallop. Unfortunately, just smacking things around, as previously mentioned, results in knocking the particles out of his aura, so he has to reload before hitting again.
Seren can extend his aura to a maximum of 20 feet in up to two directions at once, or up to ten feet in a sphere with absolute effort. He primarily operates within the self-inflicted constraint of shaping his aura into wings; he will occasionally shape it into hands for utility purposes, or leave it amorphous. There is no time limit to extending his aura, only to maintaining particles within it. He can consciously withdraw his aura into his body to hide it (and usually get dust all over himself); if he isn’t paying attention, it often sways faintly around him, either faintly shaped like folded wings or simply shimmering around him for a vague inch or two.
Seren can sustain up to five pounds of assorted particles in his aura for as long as he wants, which is rarely more than an hour (but could be all day). He can suspend 40 pounds loosely distributed, or 30 pounds densely packed, for 10 posts before earning a headache. He can suspend 90 pounds loose (70 pounds dense) for 4 posts, and 170 pounds loose (130 pounds dense) for 2 posts, with the same consequence. To move past a headache and into blurred vision and vertigo, Seren can swing:
| Pounds, Loose | | Pounds, Dense | | Additional Posts |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | 30 | 4 |
| 90 | 70 | 2 |
| 170 | 130 | 1 |
Continuing to use his Quirk on more than five pounds of particulate matter for a single additional post beyond this point will result in fainting and the immediate retraction of his aura, which is likely to bury Seren in whatever had been in his aura up until that point.
Also, Seren is allergic to dust.
Defensive Close Combat
RANK/LEVEL: C
SUMMARY:
In lieu of concrete combat applications for his Quirk, and even though he is a rescue and natural disaster specialist, Seren has trained in hand-to-hand combat in preparation for emergencies involving villains, whether instrumental or opportunistic. He is not a master of any particular style, and his goal is largely to buy time for a more offensive hero to arrive. He can throw a few punches and kicks, but he is much better at blocking and dodging another’s attacks.
Environmental Mobility
RANK/LEVEL: B-
SUMMARY:
Work in unstable, post-disaster environments long enough, and you’d be quick on your feet too. Seren is agile and familiar with assessing the stability of both his footing and local terrain in general. He may not be up to Quirk-level jumping from one piece of falling debris to another, but he can cross piled debris (safely) at close to full speed, and he will usually detect precariously balanced material (including many traps) with sufficient time to respond. As part of this mobility, he has also trained in horizontal and vertical leaps.
Emergency Operations Control
RANK/LEVEL: C+
SUMMARY:
Through training and field experience, Seren has the know-how to set up and manage a base of operations during an emergency (assuming he is in his right mind to begin with, anyway...). He has the skills to mitigate emotional crises in others, direct efforts, keep track of a wide variety of moving parts, and adapt to changing situations. Now, while Seren is capable of and willing to do all of this, he would prefer to support the EOC through his own front-line rescue efforts.
Rescue Operations
RANK/LEVEL: B+
SUMMARY:
Seren is comfortable with a wide variety of rescue equipment and its applications in a wide variety of settings. If it’s about getting someone out of someplace, he has a strategy and a list of things that need to be done to accomplish it.
He also has the experience to, when necessary, be able to make a judgement call when not everyone can be saved (and not just yell and do it anyway like some people with plot armour).
Firearms
RANK/LEVEL: C
SUMMARY:
Limited combat capacity and a background in rural Canada come together with some hands-on experience with firearms, despite their rarity in Japan. Seren is a decent shot with a shotgun, having spent time skeet shooting as a teenager, and trained more formally with handguns during one of his work co-ops, under a hero who firmly believed that everyone near combat needed a variety of ways to fight (and that Seren didn’t inherently have enough, and needed some outside help).
Seren gave up his licensed 9mm when he moved to Japan, but has visited a shooting range monthly since then to maintain his skills. His accuracy is about that of an experienced police officer once he’s comfortable with a given weapon.
Emergency First Aid
RANK/LEVEL: C
SUMMARY:
As part of his rescue work, Seren is familiar with a wide variety of injures and how to stabilize them in the field. Since Haiiro happened to be a nurse, he’s also reasonably familiar with what hospital staff hate to see patients come in with (or without). He is also experienced with the medical supplies he carries as part of his hero suit, and with emergency triage procedures.
Vhexxen
vhexxen#1649 | PST | he/him/his
