[Other OPEN] Capes [M] [OOC]

SPLINTER
Derek Gutierrez

Age: 33 // Sex: Male // Alignment: Villain

Appearance: Derek is of average height, at 5'6", and solidly built, packed with muscle. His Mexican heritage is apparent in his tanned skin and dark hair and eyes. His face is rather blockish, with his harsh jawline and thin pointed nose being his most defining features. He keeps his hair short, cropped close in a military fashion. More often than not, when not in costume, Derek can be found wearing camo cargo pants and a tanktop, usually black. More often than not, he also wears a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

His costume, however, is simpler. He wears a fully covered helmet with a blacked out visor to protect not only himself, but also his identity. The rest of his suit is a black bulletproof mesh, reminiscent of a military tactical uniform. More often than not, this is supplemented by several utility belts full of his various weapons and devices, and a large gun of some sort.

Personality: Derek is brunt and callous, even to the small amount of people he knows. He is loath to call anyone a friend, preferring solitude in his line of work. He approaches every job he's given calm and professionally, with the militaristic efficiency that's been instilled in him from many long years serving as a PRT officer. He rarely talks about his past, mainly because he has not found anyone he trusts enough to talk to. His approach to strangers varies widely on the situation, but most often he tries to be polite. While in costume Derek is mainly silent, since he works alone. Derek hates tight spaces, and will avoid them if at all possible, to the point where he has declined jobs if they involve anything like vents or hiding in small enclosures.

Power: To say Derek is a cloner is an understatement. Derek's ability is unique in that all copies he makes of himself (by splitting, as his name suggests) are able to function on their own as him. As such, any one of the clones can take over as being the "host." This does limit the amount of clones Derek can have active at one time, however; he has only had a maximum of 7 out at a time before falling unconscious. Also, if any of his clones get too far separated, they simply disappear, returning to whichever Derek is currently hosting. The one downfall his power has is that if the host falls unconscious or dies, it takes a while before a new host is established among the remaining clones, leaving them rendered useless for that time. So long as at least one clone survives, though, Derek will recuperate his powers, given time.

History/Trigger Event: As a child, Derek was raised in the slums of Fallcliff with a rather bleak looking future ahead of him. His father was an active member of several crime circles, and as such was in and out of jail throughout Derek's childhood. His mother wasn't much better; she was drunk more often than not, and usually ignored young Derek. This left him to his own devices in a mainly hostile environment. It was looking more and more like Derek would be following in his father's footsteps, as food and money became increasingly hard to come by as Derek aged.

That was, until one event that changed everything. He was in a marketplace at the time, buying whatever food was cheapest, and pocketing whatever wasn't bulky and conspicuous. It was a normal day, until a man pulled a gun on the store clerk. Derek didn't even think twice before dropping everything and tackling the man, holding him down until an officer could arrive.

A few days later, that same officer found him and took him back to the station. Derek was sure he was about to be arrested for something or another, maybe the officer had seen the shoplifted food in his pockets? But that was not the case, as this officer actually commended Derek for his bravery, and promised him a spot in the police academy, should he be willing. Derek jumped at the opportunity to escape the life he was trapped in, and within a week was in the police academy.

He graduated within the top 10 of his class, having poured his entire being into what he did. It was only a few short years of service that he was offered a place in the PRT, a position he relished. Everything was going perfectly for Derek.

That was, until one job went sour. His squad had finally tracked a villain calling himself The Professor, who had been abducting and supposedly experimenting on citizens of the city. The breach into the Professor's lab was successful, but how could they have known that it was a trap? Derek was the last to fall victim to the strange gas that had filled the room after they had entered what was in fact an empty building, and woke up he knew not how much longer later.

Derek found himself strapped to a lab table, a blinding lamp trained on him. He could barely move--restraints as he later realized--and could only listen as a man he could only assume was the Professor explained his plight to Derek. Apparently he was researching Trigger Events, how different scenarios produce different powers in newly awakened Capes. And apparently Derek was the next victim of his experiments.

The pain lasted for hours, days, weeks, years, he could not tell. Every few minutes, the relentless pain would ease, only to start all over again. The only thought Derek could muster was, why have they not sent anyone for me yet? It became apparent when the pain did not stop: he had been abandoned. There wasn't anyone coming to save him. He was going to be this Professor's plaything until he died. It was in this moment of realization that it happened, his Trigger Event. Suddenly he felt hands pulling him off of the table, unplugging the devices, unstrapping the restraints. . .and with a start he realized they were his hands. Many pairs of his own hands pulling him off of the table and carrying him towards the door, towards escape. Derek, on the verge of unconsciousness, could only watch on passively. When he finally made it outside and to relative safety, he passed out.

After a few weeks to get somewhere safe and recover, Derek finally realized what had happened, and the extent of his newfound powers. After converting his newfound home, an abandoned apartment pad near the outskirts of town, into a home base of sorts, Derek began advertising himself to the underground as a hired mercenary. He wasn't about to go back to the people that had abandoned him. He could only trust himself, and the only way to do that was to work for himself. He did any job given to him, and used the money to slowly accumulate a rather impressive arsenal of gadgets and nonlethal weapons, along with a costume that hid his identity. Now under the guise of Splinter, he has begun making a name for himself, getting even more dangerous and well-paying jobs.

CHRONO
Alex Jones

Age: 16 // Sex: Female // Alignment: Hero, Wards

Appearance: Alex is quite tomboyish, keeping her golden blonde hair cut down to about two inches, and keeps it wild. She is slender, and taller than average at 6'1". Her facial features are soft, and her white skin only accentuates her many freckles even more. Her ice blue eyes are usually full of life, seeming to drink in every detail of her environment. She often wears average teenage clothing when out of costume: a tee shirt, usually emblazoned with some music group or television show, and a pair of skinny jeans. As her breasts are so small, she rarely wears a bra, though for modesty's sake she has had one sewn into her skin-tight costume.

Her costume is predominantly a one-piece that goes all the way up her neck, accentuated with a loose fitting jacket with a hood, both predominantly sky blue with white accents. She is loath to wear a mask, instead opting for a pair of blue tinted goggles. She wears combat boots over her uniform, the same colors as the costume beneath it. She prefers to keep her hair wild and free, though she will put on her hood if it's chilly out.

Personality: Alex is rather bubbly and social for someone of her experiences, and she usually finds friends wherever she goes. She's a model student as well, though she is having some trouble transferring those skills to the more practical learning of the Wards. Sometimes Chrono unintentionally goes a bit faster than the rest of the world, making it seem like she's rather hyper, but that is only a side effect to her not yet fully understanding how to control her powers. As a lesbian, she does interact with others, especially boys, a bit differently than one would expect, but she is by no means actively looking for romance. She looks up to the heroes of the Protectorate, especially the powerful ones, and aspires to one day be in the Triumvirate, however unlikely that may be. When it comes to street smarts, Alex is a bit naive, and she does not easily discern a person's motives, instead taking everyone she meets at face value. This has landed her in trouble in the past, but nothing she couldn't escape. While in costume and on the job, Alex is much more serious, and will follow orders from her superiors to the letter, so long as she understands them.

Powers: Chrono has control over time, to a certain extent. She can create "pockets" of altered time stream, varying in size as she needs them. The pockets can slow down or speed up time within them, though if Chrono wants to change the time fluctuation she has to essentially create another pocket. Strangely enough, these pockets only affect non-organic matter. Chrono has only been able to make a pocket as large as 20 meters in diameter, and if she uses her power too much, she will exhaust herself and all of her time pockets will collapse.

History/Trigger Event: Alexis Jones was a rather normal girl, living a rather normal life. Every day, she would wake up and go to school, hang out with her friends, come home before dinner, and finally go to bed at a respectable time, ready for the next day. There were certainly some days that were different than others, but Alexis' life followed this pattern day in and day out, and she wouldn't have changed it for the world.

Her father was a theoretical physicist, working at a rather extensive lab in the middle of Upper Fallcliff. While not busy in the lab, he taught classes at a nearby college, and as such was often quite busy. Due to her husband's two jobs, however, Alexis's mother was free to stay home, and while she may go out to do things, she was home most of the time when Alexis was. As such, the two were very close, and all in all they were a happy family of three.

One day, however, Alexis's world was shattered, all in an instant. She was at the bank with her mother, to get a loan for Alexis's first car, in fact, when the gunman started yelling, firing a few bullets into the ceiling for good measure. She could only watch on in horror as the gunman shot a clerk that had tried to stop him, fearing the same fate if she did anything. She huddled to her mother, seated among the other customers of the bank in what could only be described as a classic bank robbery, hostages and all.

Alexis started when she felt her mother rise to her feet, whispering, "stay down." The gunman's back was turned, adnd with a sinking feeling she knew what her mother was going to try. The next few seconds went by in a flash. Yelling. A flash of her mother's blue skirt. A gunshot. Blood. So much blood. Alexis didn't hear anything over the fast beating of her heart, and barely felt the rough hands pulling her over to her mother's corpse. The gunman was yelling about something, but all Alexis could focus on was her mother's face. When her head was yanked away, however, she insteadcame into focus on the gunman's pistol, aimed directly between her eyes.

It is said that when death is inevitable, one's perception of time slows. While this may be true, for Alex time quite literally slowed down to a snail's pace. She wouldn't realize until later what the implications of this awakening of power were, but in that moment, all she felt was joy. Joy that she'd been given a second chance, joy that her mother's sacrifice hadn't been in vain. She couldn't even bring herself to move, save to collapse to the ground as one of the other hostages tackled the gunman. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The last thing she remembered before passing out was the sound of sirens, and someone gently lifting her.

Alexis awoke in an unfamiliar environment, a hospital, she realized as she came fully into consciousness. After checking her vitals, a nurse explained everything that had happened, how she had been asleep for the past four days due to shock, and what their tests had found about her and her new abilities. After healing fully--which happened to be much faster than usual, most likely a side effect of her powers--Alexis found herself entering the Wards, a program that would help her learn to use her powers and apply them to protect others. Deciding her new life needed a new name, Alexis decided to call herself Alex from then on, along with her new hero identity of Chrono.