Post by Damien Schwartz on Jul 10, 2006 20:49:32 GMT
Name:
Damien Schwartz
Codename:
Phantom
Age:
18
Mutation:
Transportation
Damien is capable of teleporting in an instant to any place he knows, has seen, or has collected the knowledge of (explained later). To teleport, he usually needs to perform a quick move, such as blinking, snapping his fingers, clapping etc. Once he does this, he disappears from the place he was at, simply vanishing, with not "special effects", so to say.
He can use this power to transport other objects and creatures, and it is not necessary for him to travel with them, or to even touch them. The more complicated the object is, however, the harder it is for him to teleport it. So, for instance, he can easily teleport a crate, or book, but to teleport a living creature is extremely hard, and it requires allot of concentration on his side.
When teleporting something or someone from somewhere to his direct presence, he doesn't have to see them, just think of them, but this can easily create uneasy situations, as it is very possible that the target person is taking a shower in the moment, for example. The same thing goes for items (not the shower example, though), so if he wishes to get a baked potato in his tray, that could either be a freshly baked one, or something someone else has already taken a bite of. For this reason, Damien tends to get extremely specific when teleporting things to his vicinity (i.e. Three scoops of chocolate ice cream in the glass dishes they serve it at that ice cream shop across the street from my school, the scoops taken from the containers), and never transports people unless he can see them somehow, or they contact him through telepathy.
Knowledge Harvesting
Damien is also capable of extracting information out of people, but it is limited to locations and general knowledge (such as definitions of terms, theory of different sciences, good pizza places in town, etc.). He cannot, in any way, collect memories, emotions, or skills from other people.
It works by touch. If he has just a moment touch with a person (bumping into them on the street, accidentally rubbing off, etc), he gains the knowledge of one single location they have been to, and can use it as a teleportation destination. A handshake, and any other longer contact, gives him full information on all the places the person has been to, knows of, or has seen in pictures. A touch to the head of the other person, such as his hand placed on their face, kissing, or even his head on their hair (as long as it's on the skull) gives him the full academic knowledge of that person.
In case of a handshake, or short hug, he is capable of keeping this information in his mind for a day or two. In case of a long hug, or holding hands, he remembers for a week. And in case of a kiss or other touch to the head, he remembers the locations permanently, and the academic knowledge is kept according to the length of the touch.
He cannot control this ability, and he doesn't really like having it in the first place- it confuses him. If he harvests some information permanently, he can't harvest from the same person again, not even for academic knowledge. Usage of this ability also fatigues him for a short while after he is done. Harvesting merely copies the knowledge from people's minds into his own, and therefore has absolutely no effect on those whom he touches.
Physical Description:
Damien has a rather lean body, but there are some muscles on it, as he is involved in many martial arts and swimming. His hair is naturally blond, but he dies it back, since he utterly hates having blond hair, and it is usually styled into spikes with the help of generous amounts of gel. His eyes are a very dark shade of green, but it's still obvious that it is green, not a muddy black or brown. They turn purple as he harvests information from others, but only for the duration of the harvest. And while he personally thinks that his face looks like it had a very close encounter with a truck, it is quite smooth, and he is good-looking. The second (and probably last) thing he likes about his appearance is his skin, which is a slightly dark tone, as if he had been spending time on the beach, getting a tan.
As for clothing, his preferred colors are black and purple, and he rarely deviates from these two choices. Only black combat boots are a constant, and the fact that he will be wearing jeans, although they vary between black and dark purple. As for his torso, it is usually covered by a tank top and unbuttoned shirt, a sweater, or a buttoned shirt. A thin, black scarf covers his neck all the time, hiding the scars he got when he first teleported. Even though he can't touch people without Harvesting, he doesn't wear gloves, as he knows it doesn't hurt them.
Personality:
Damien is, most of all, quiet and shy. He does not know how to start conversations, so therefore doesn't. If he, however, falls into the unlucky event of having to start one, his mouth will most likely just open up and start blabbering endlessly, mainly about his name and his reasons for starting the conversation, and all that in a very apologetic tone (which he somehow has managed to bring to a perfection and inserts it even when mad and yelling at someone). He is afraid of rejection, and therefore stays away from crowds, groups, and even people who are by themselves at the moment. This fear also comes from the fact that he is a mutant, and people don't seem to understand that, at least not in the proper way. As though all of this wasn't enough, his greatest fear needs yet to come into the game, and that is the fear that he will unintentionally hurt someone with his powers, even though he has them under good control.
For all these reasons, the boy had never had any friends, and feels very alone, and has thought of suicide more than once, but has never even tried committing it. Most of the time, he is depressed and he would most likely be found sitting in a corner, reading a book.
Background:
Born in Germany, Damien was raised as any other child in Berlin would have been. He went to school, his grades were always somewhere at mid-level, but he didn't hang out with any friends, nor did he come home until late in the night. This was because he usually went to the outskirts of the city, where there was more wilderness and nature around. Here he would think for long periods of time, sometimes about the big questions of life, sometimes about trivial matters, such as which clothes he would buy.
It wasn't until he was 14, however, that he discovered his gifts as a mutant. It happened twice, once for each gift. The first occasion was when the principle of a private high school came to talk to Damien's parents about admitting him in their institution. The man had shook hands with Damien, and the teen suddenly wasn't looking at the short, fat man in his hallway, but rather at a beach in Miami, and then the Colosseum in Rome, and then the Louvre in Paris. When his normal sight returned, he noticed that the man was staring at him like he was crazy. The man packed up and left, not saying a word, never to be seen by them again.
The second occasion was when Damien was at a lake, all by himself, trying to relax during summer break. This was a year after his first Harvest. He climbed a nearby cliff and hopped off, jumping into the water. However, on his trip though the air, he saw a fox run through some bushes. He started thinking about the fox, for some reason, and suddenly there was no water bellow him. Instead, there were the sharp branches of the trees that lay around the lake, making a small forest. He tried to do something to prevent him from falling, but he was a 15-year old boy in mid-air hurling towards the ground through hundreds of sharp branches, what in earth could he do? He managed to turn on his back, which didn't help at all. As he fell, the branches seemed to be blades instead, cutting all of his body and producing agony on every single bit of it. Finally, when he fell, he blacked out, only vaguely aware of some shouting and some strange, warm, wet puddle he was in. He woke up in the hospital to find himself covered in various forms of bandages, but none seemed to be treating serious wounds. That was until he tried to lift his head and found out, in a very agonizing moment, that he had very thick layers of bandages and other medicines strapped to the right side of his neck.
Once he was fully healed, a scar remained going from his right shoulder up to nearly the top of his neck, reminding him of what could happen if he didn't control his powers.
After this occurrence, his parents went on pretending that it never happened, and Damien dared not use his powers in front of them. When he was near the end of his 17th year of life, Damien accidentally teleported a cup across the table at dinner. It was now that his parents started asking around, and found out about Xavier's Institute in America, so they immediately bought their son a ticket and provided all other documents needed for the trip. They didn't say anything to Damien, until the day came for him to board the plane. At that point, they explained that he was to go there and find a cure for his disease, and even then not to come back to them, as they have no son any more.
So Damien came to the USA and sought out and enrolled in Xavier's Institute for gifted children. He kept sending letters back home, but none got a reply. He still persists in sending them, hoping that one day a reply would come. No friends have appeared in his life still, but this is another hope of his, that he will finally meet a person who can be his friend.
Current Affiliation
Xavier Institute Student
Sample:
[[I'll write the sample when he first arrived in the US]]
Exiting the airport, Damien looks around. There is no taxi, but since he has only a light load in his backpack, the only luggage he had brought, he decides to take a walk around the city and perhaps get to know it. There is no one waiting for him, or at least he doesn't see anyone.
Crossing the street proves to be more of a task than it was back home, but he manages to catch the green light in time, and runs over to the other side. His eyes are filled with glee, and there is a wide grin on his face as he turns in circles looking at all the buildings and people. After a second or two, he realizes that someone is shouting at him. He seeks the source and finds down, in an old, but obviously very unpleasant old lady, who seems right about ready to swing her heavy purse at him. He seems to be blocking the way for people on the crossing. Of course! He forgot to move away from the traffic light once he was across the street. But wait, look at the width of the crossing, why and how would he be blocking the way. "Sorry..." he mutters and quickly steps away, and walks into a small alley.
He goes on through it until he emerges on another wide street. No, wait, there are no cars here, it's a pedestrian zone. His eyes scan the shops, people, cafes, animals, and all other wonderful additions. Damien is like a kid in an amusement park. Berlin was great too, but he never saw much of it, as his was a poor family. So the first thing he does is walk into a cafe and ask for work. What luck, there is a job opening for a waiter! He takes it after having a brief discussion with the manager, who seems to only be interested if he's good at balancing things and if he knows English well enough. Both requirements are fulfilled, and Damien is told to come to work the next day. He then uses what little money he has to find a cheap room in a hotel, and he gets unpacked.
Laying down on the bed, opening a book written by Terry Pratchett, he is still grinning. After work tomorrow, he will seek out this school. "This is going to be great." he says, and his thoughts are lost deep inside the book, his mind closed for outside events.
Damien Schwartz
Codename:
Phantom
Age:
18
Mutation:
Transportation
Damien is capable of teleporting in an instant to any place he knows, has seen, or has collected the knowledge of (explained later). To teleport, he usually needs to perform a quick move, such as blinking, snapping his fingers, clapping etc. Once he does this, he disappears from the place he was at, simply vanishing, with not "special effects", so to say.
He can use this power to transport other objects and creatures, and it is not necessary for him to travel with them, or to even touch them. The more complicated the object is, however, the harder it is for him to teleport it. So, for instance, he can easily teleport a crate, or book, but to teleport a living creature is extremely hard, and it requires allot of concentration on his side.
When teleporting something or someone from somewhere to his direct presence, he doesn't have to see them, just think of them, but this can easily create uneasy situations, as it is very possible that the target person is taking a shower in the moment, for example. The same thing goes for items (not the shower example, though), so if he wishes to get a baked potato in his tray, that could either be a freshly baked one, or something someone else has already taken a bite of. For this reason, Damien tends to get extremely specific when teleporting things to his vicinity (i.e. Three scoops of chocolate ice cream in the glass dishes they serve it at that ice cream shop across the street from my school, the scoops taken from the containers), and never transports people unless he can see them somehow, or they contact him through telepathy.
Knowledge Harvesting
Damien is also capable of extracting information out of people, but it is limited to locations and general knowledge (such as definitions of terms, theory of different sciences, good pizza places in town, etc.). He cannot, in any way, collect memories, emotions, or skills from other people.
It works by touch. If he has just a moment touch with a person (bumping into them on the street, accidentally rubbing off, etc), he gains the knowledge of one single location they have been to, and can use it as a teleportation destination. A handshake, and any other longer contact, gives him full information on all the places the person has been to, knows of, or has seen in pictures. A touch to the head of the other person, such as his hand placed on their face, kissing, or even his head on their hair (as long as it's on the skull) gives him the full academic knowledge of that person.
In case of a handshake, or short hug, he is capable of keeping this information in his mind for a day or two. In case of a long hug, or holding hands, he remembers for a week. And in case of a kiss or other touch to the head, he remembers the locations permanently, and the academic knowledge is kept according to the length of the touch.
He cannot control this ability, and he doesn't really like having it in the first place- it confuses him. If he harvests some information permanently, he can't harvest from the same person again, not even for academic knowledge. Usage of this ability also fatigues him for a short while after he is done. Harvesting merely copies the knowledge from people's minds into his own, and therefore has absolutely no effect on those whom he touches.
Physical Description:
Damien has a rather lean body, but there are some muscles on it, as he is involved in many martial arts and swimming. His hair is naturally blond, but he dies it back, since he utterly hates having blond hair, and it is usually styled into spikes with the help of generous amounts of gel. His eyes are a very dark shade of green, but it's still obvious that it is green, not a muddy black or brown. They turn purple as he harvests information from others, but only for the duration of the harvest. And while he personally thinks that his face looks like it had a very close encounter with a truck, it is quite smooth, and he is good-looking. The second (and probably last) thing he likes about his appearance is his skin, which is a slightly dark tone, as if he had been spending time on the beach, getting a tan.
As for clothing, his preferred colors are black and purple, and he rarely deviates from these two choices. Only black combat boots are a constant, and the fact that he will be wearing jeans, although they vary between black and dark purple. As for his torso, it is usually covered by a tank top and unbuttoned shirt, a sweater, or a buttoned shirt. A thin, black scarf covers his neck all the time, hiding the scars he got when he first teleported. Even though he can't touch people without Harvesting, he doesn't wear gloves, as he knows it doesn't hurt them.
Personality:
Damien is, most of all, quiet and shy. He does not know how to start conversations, so therefore doesn't. If he, however, falls into the unlucky event of having to start one, his mouth will most likely just open up and start blabbering endlessly, mainly about his name and his reasons for starting the conversation, and all that in a very apologetic tone (which he somehow has managed to bring to a perfection and inserts it even when mad and yelling at someone). He is afraid of rejection, and therefore stays away from crowds, groups, and even people who are by themselves at the moment. This fear also comes from the fact that he is a mutant, and people don't seem to understand that, at least not in the proper way. As though all of this wasn't enough, his greatest fear needs yet to come into the game, and that is the fear that he will unintentionally hurt someone with his powers, even though he has them under good control.
For all these reasons, the boy had never had any friends, and feels very alone, and has thought of suicide more than once, but has never even tried committing it. Most of the time, he is depressed and he would most likely be found sitting in a corner, reading a book.
Background:
Born in Germany, Damien was raised as any other child in Berlin would have been. He went to school, his grades were always somewhere at mid-level, but he didn't hang out with any friends, nor did he come home until late in the night. This was because he usually went to the outskirts of the city, where there was more wilderness and nature around. Here he would think for long periods of time, sometimes about the big questions of life, sometimes about trivial matters, such as which clothes he would buy.
It wasn't until he was 14, however, that he discovered his gifts as a mutant. It happened twice, once for each gift. The first occasion was when the principle of a private high school came to talk to Damien's parents about admitting him in their institution. The man had shook hands with Damien, and the teen suddenly wasn't looking at the short, fat man in his hallway, but rather at a beach in Miami, and then the Colosseum in Rome, and then the Louvre in Paris. When his normal sight returned, he noticed that the man was staring at him like he was crazy. The man packed up and left, not saying a word, never to be seen by them again.
The second occasion was when Damien was at a lake, all by himself, trying to relax during summer break. This was a year after his first Harvest. He climbed a nearby cliff and hopped off, jumping into the water. However, on his trip though the air, he saw a fox run through some bushes. He started thinking about the fox, for some reason, and suddenly there was no water bellow him. Instead, there were the sharp branches of the trees that lay around the lake, making a small forest. He tried to do something to prevent him from falling, but he was a 15-year old boy in mid-air hurling towards the ground through hundreds of sharp branches, what in earth could he do? He managed to turn on his back, which didn't help at all. As he fell, the branches seemed to be blades instead, cutting all of his body and producing agony on every single bit of it. Finally, when he fell, he blacked out, only vaguely aware of some shouting and some strange, warm, wet puddle he was in. He woke up in the hospital to find himself covered in various forms of bandages, but none seemed to be treating serious wounds. That was until he tried to lift his head and found out, in a very agonizing moment, that he had very thick layers of bandages and other medicines strapped to the right side of his neck.
Once he was fully healed, a scar remained going from his right shoulder up to nearly the top of his neck, reminding him of what could happen if he didn't control his powers.
After this occurrence, his parents went on pretending that it never happened, and Damien dared not use his powers in front of them. When he was near the end of his 17th year of life, Damien accidentally teleported a cup across the table at dinner. It was now that his parents started asking around, and found out about Xavier's Institute in America, so they immediately bought their son a ticket and provided all other documents needed for the trip. They didn't say anything to Damien, until the day came for him to board the plane. At that point, they explained that he was to go there and find a cure for his disease, and even then not to come back to them, as they have no son any more.
So Damien came to the USA and sought out and enrolled in Xavier's Institute for gifted children. He kept sending letters back home, but none got a reply. He still persists in sending them, hoping that one day a reply would come. No friends have appeared in his life still, but this is another hope of his, that he will finally meet a person who can be his friend.
Current Affiliation
Xavier Institute Student
Sample:
[[I'll write the sample when he first arrived in the US]]
Exiting the airport, Damien looks around. There is no taxi, but since he has only a light load in his backpack, the only luggage he had brought, he decides to take a walk around the city and perhaps get to know it. There is no one waiting for him, or at least he doesn't see anyone.
Crossing the street proves to be more of a task than it was back home, but he manages to catch the green light in time, and runs over to the other side. His eyes are filled with glee, and there is a wide grin on his face as he turns in circles looking at all the buildings and people. After a second or two, he realizes that someone is shouting at him. He seeks the source and finds down, in an old, but obviously very unpleasant old lady, who seems right about ready to swing her heavy purse at him. He seems to be blocking the way for people on the crossing. Of course! He forgot to move away from the traffic light once he was across the street. But wait, look at the width of the crossing, why and how would he be blocking the way. "Sorry..." he mutters and quickly steps away, and walks into a small alley.
He goes on through it until he emerges on another wide street. No, wait, there are no cars here, it's a pedestrian zone. His eyes scan the shops, people, cafes, animals, and all other wonderful additions. Damien is like a kid in an amusement park. Berlin was great too, but he never saw much of it, as his was a poor family. So the first thing he does is walk into a cafe and ask for work. What luck, there is a job opening for a waiter! He takes it after having a brief discussion with the manager, who seems to only be interested if he's good at balancing things and if he knows English well enough. Both requirements are fulfilled, and Damien is told to come to work the next day. He then uses what little money he has to find a cheap room in a hotel, and he gets unpacked.
Laying down on the bed, opening a book written by Terry Pratchett, he is still grinning. After work tomorrow, he will seek out this school. "This is going to be great." he says, and his thoughts are lost deep inside the book, his mind closed for outside events.
