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— risen from the ashes ❚ information. —
PLAYER
NAME: Nessy
CONTACT: PM
ARE YOU 18 OR OLDER: yea
CHARACTER
NAME:Addison Elise Martelli-Parker
CANON: Original
AGE: 25
CANON POINT: After finding a piece of meteor.
WORLD
When in 2029 a meteor hit Earth, nobody expected it to change the course of the world as we know it. Pushed into the planet's trajectory by a supernova explosion, the meteor hit the heart of the Amazonian Forest, decimating thousands of life forms. The Brazilian government dispatched a team of scientists. It grew as the alien meteor continued to puzzled minds. They called it “Akasha Amrita”. It wasn't until many years later, that it was discovered to be an alien parasite which fed on the human body, turning people into monsters. But long before that, human life had changed.
As the skies turned dark, they split open, bringing down a massive monster from space - only after the discovery of it being a parasite was it pinpointed as the surviving astronaut of the a mission to Mars that had collided with the meteor. The monster, before this, was what became to be known as a Colossus, a creature so powerful that no military could stop it. But soon it would be proven to be defeatable, when out of the mess were born the metahumans, people exposed to the Akasha Amrita that gained super powers. It started with Paola Craveiro, a simple social worker from São Paulo, who had the strength of a nuclear strike at the palm of her hands. The world watched as every news channel broadcast live their new path, an era of heroes, and a new political game.
While in the beginning these metahumans were sent to mandatory registration for safety reasons and scientific advancements, these super heroes soon began fighting for their rights. Protesters gathered in the streets and people joined forces against the government's lack of tact regarding these “super humans”, the most important becoming ADEPT (Association for Defence of Extraordinary People), led by Peter Nowick, an ethics teacher from Ohio.
Advocating for the greater good, Nowick headed the first legislative bill to protect the identify of the metahumans, provided that they would use their powers to serve the people against the threat of the Colossus. While some fought for world peace, others tried to undermine it. With only the metahumans capable of effectively defending the world against each other, they soon grew as a powerful organisation and work force. Their influence became important in the dangerous game of politics. Peter Nowick was elected President of the United States of America in 2064.
It was during this time that Aegis Corps was founded, a government-funded operation that served much like an agency for super heroes working closely with the UN and USA Military. Away from the public eye, underground organisations harboured corpses of super heroes to study, while some others took younger metahumans to test on them. As discoveries were unveiled about the nature of the meteor and its parasitic role, Nowick buried these projects even further to establish a stronger presence.
The destruction the Colossus created forced people forward into thinking of new ways to protect the cities. Paid heavily, the superheroes signed on with different agencies, arguing the need of a full time job but one that could feed them and their loved ones. Aegis Corps cemented this by passing another bill ensuring the right to a full-time employment and life savings for serving metahumans. Many other governments began adapting this model.
With the secret still locked, the scale of power tilted towards the metahumans. They became celebrities bigger than any Hollywood superstar. Sovereignty belonged to the favoured few. In 2076, Republican candidate and metahuman general Thomas Dunbar Jr, took over the presidency. By then, metahumans were well off. Advertising companies paid big bucks to have these superheroes associate with their products and use their logos on their capes or costumes, to star on their ads or be printed on huge billboards, endorse movements and lead new trends. Technology became better, bigger, faster. It was not all about flycrafts, hovercars and advanced medicine: the biggest advancement were the Colossus Defence System (CDS). The best services to cities that could pay the cost and generate power to sustain the engineered shields, while the outskirts got the cheaper mechanisms. Some cities were rebuilt to embrace this new process and taxes increased across the globe. The richest continued to go about their lives, but the population not able to afford the taxes were sent to the slums, where the CDS shields did not reach.
The separation of classes grew an uglier gap, but many continued the same. For some to be on the top, many must remain at the bottom. If you were born into money or with powers, a life of privilege in the Upper Cities surrounded by the CDS shields were handed to you on a silver platter. Those not as lucky had to stick to the slums. The new world economy almost wiped out the struggling middle class.
Along with the CDS, governments gave their soldiers a sample of the powers the superheroes had by engineering what became known as EXOSKELETONs, although the high rate of body rejection and low success rate buried most of these tests. The few that survived surgery would end up sick and, although hidden, these soldiers became Colossus. The EXOSKELETONs were built by infusing some of the remaining akasha amrita organism into bio-mechanical tendons and wires. Only one known survivor is still alive to this day, but she does not fight for the metahumans, and yet against them.
The world was not a better place, only made more comfortable to the rich and the powerful. From this sense of injustice was born a revolution, painted as rioters and terrorists across the world, that fight against the secrets the metahumans hide to continue their place at the top and their self-righteous sense of justice. The Resistance rose up against the lies, to bring the truth. They tried once, led by Arthur Vinson, before they were apprehended and destroyed under the certainty of treason and threat. But rumours stuck when they were reported to have infiltrated secret bases of Aegis Corps and found answers about the nature of the Colossus. Their supremacy, however, had far tighter tentacles that they imagined. With Arthur dead and the Resistance reduced to the first daughter of Liana Martelli, Meta-General in the Military and senior member of the Board of Directors of the CDS, these rumours were never confirmed.
But Addison Parker was never one to give up. Too many had given their lives for the truth to be buried. The Resistance would be heard again, like a phoenix cry from the ashes of its dead members. It was never too late to fight for the silenced ones.
HISTORY
The first child of Bryson and Liana Martelli-Parker, America's favourite power couple, Parker was in the front cover of every as soon as she was born, heralded to become the face of the greatest generation of superheroes. If only she had been born with powers.
When there was no signs of superpowers, she was withdrawn from the public eye: the baby wonder had been a fluke. The second child, Marius, took over the mantle. Not much after, so did Benjamin.
Addison needed a new path. Her parents decided she should become the General of Aegis Elite Task Force. But she would never be good enough, no matter what - she didn't have powers, forever a disappointment. She would never achieve the greatness Marius and Benjamin could. While her siblings were set to lead the greatest generation of metahumans, Addison was sent to military school, which clashed with her rebellious spirit. During a Colossus attack, she fled to the slums. She had never been without a CDS shield during an attack. Addison felt for the first time what it was like outside the safety of privilege. A man named Arthur rescued her. She began to go to him often and soon became involved with the underground Resistance.
After that, she began to learn about what the media did not broadcast, missing on her AETF training. She was punished for it, but never gave up. For once in her life, she had found purpose. On library cleaning duty, Parker accessed old files and found reports of KIA metahumans bodies being "lost". Planning with the Resistance, Parker got into the restricted archives and recovered information about experiments being conducted during Nowick time in a facility in Atlanta. With the help of Resistance members Jamal and his sister Anne, she escaped for the last time.
In the Resistance's hideout, Parker's presence was met with distrust and discontent. She was a danger due to her high-profile as the daughter of Liana, an increasing influential figure in the United Nations. Arthur fought for Parker and his loyalty influenced her own sense of it. She had great adoration for him and became his right arm later in life. Her views and morals were shaped strongly in the Resistance. There, she became involved with another member, Calvin.
Two years later, the Resistance was found by AETF after Kevin Holt snitched. Only nine survived the raid, and Parker was shot during the escape. The group split up, one led by Arthur and the other by his then right arm, Maxine Kitt. Against Calvin's advice, Arthur took the team to Atlanta while Parker recovered.
They infiltrated it, but someone had tipped off AETF and the base was abandoned. There was an ambush; in it, Parker killed Kevin Holt. She kept this accident a secret. Calvin ended up discovering about a facility operating in Lisbon.
They met with Maxine in Maine and took a cargo ship to cross the Atlantic. During their journey, Jamal and Parker grew closer, but being with Calvin at the time she decided not to pursue it.
They got as far as Azores when a Colossus attacked. AETF sent out a Strike Team led by Marius. He didn't pursue the group, which made Parker think something was off, but she didn't question it. They travelled to Morocco, but Maxine was arrested while they escaped to Rabat. Jamal got them to Gibraltar and then Badajoz.
AETF ambushed them after a border guard betrayed Arthur. Parker diverted the ambush and was captured. Handed over to an anti-terrorist group, she was interrogated and tortured by an AETF agent.
Kept in a cell next to Selena Voss-Cortez, former Aegis surgeon working for the Resistance and an old friend of Maxine's, they made use of her knowledge of the place to escape. They did so and met up in Selena's hideout two days later. In there, Parker found an EXO-8 and decided to get it- It was met with refusal at first, but Parker got her way. She nearly died on the table and then again throughout the weeks that followed.
December 2100, they made it to Lisbon. Parker tracked down Arthur's contact, Francisco Sousa. Arthur had been captured, Anne and Jamal were missing in action, Calvin had revealed himself to be a AETF spy and was long gone. Set out to find them all, Parker was aided by Francisco's daughter and nephew, Beatriz and "Jonny". During the following months, Parker and Selena became involved.
Jamal and Anne were found and they went to rescue Arthur. Benjamin trapped the group, but he was only interested in Parker. He blamed her for their parents divorce (which she was unaware of). While Benjamin was powerful, Jamal managed to knock him unconscious before he ripped out Parker's new spine. With Arthur back, he told them about Project Rise, some secret Aegis experiment, hiding somewhere in China.
Francisco introduced them to Xavier O'Neill, a freelance reporter who was investigating Aegis, and he joined the Resistance. They got Maxine out of prison and began their travel to China. It wasn't fun, with tensions high between everyone. The Resistance was taking a spotlight in the media as terrorists and AETF was gaining more influence within the United Nations. Parker's unresolved issues with Jamal drove a wedge between her and Anne and Selena. During one night, it went to unresolved to complicated. That didn't help.
After a series of favours and taking down Aegis bases in Russia, they got to Kashgar where they fought a power-hungry metahuman. During the fight, the EXO-8's biowires became "alive", tendons overtaking from the inside out and ripping through Parker's flesh and bone. The group managed to defeat the metahuman, but Parker's wounds were life threatening. They waited until she recovered, but the situation led to Arthur to questioning Selena about the EXO-8. She confessed that Parker was the only who had managed to reject the alien organism for this long.
When Parker woke up, she cut off ties with Selena. Her, Maxine and O'Neill went up North and the rest headed to to Chengdu's Aegis base. They infiltrated it and got hold of information on Project Rise, confirming its existence since Nowick's time. They then headed to Guangzhou, where they discovered that Aegis was using live humans as test subjects for a cure. With powers only symptoms of a disease, Colossus were ex-metahumans and human-hosts that had succumbed to the parasite akasha amrita. With the necessary proof to take Aegis down, the Resistance planned to use O'Neill to expose the lies. But Liana, the new Director of Aegis Corps, found them before they did. O'Neill was shot down and Selena was detained in Hong Kong - she would later take her own life to avoid having any information extracted. Unfortunately, a group of mind-readers got to the rest of them. Liana blamed Arthur for having taken away a "brilliant future as the General of AETF" from Parker.
The Resistance was over, and Liana made sure to cement that: when they had everything they needed, all of them were executed. It destroyed Parker. Guilt had corroded a hole in her chest. While her friends suffered, Parker was sent off to New York and she knew this was all because she had happened to be born into this powerful family.
Isolated from the world in a high-security room, Liana tried to bring Parker back to "the side of the good guys", the side of those that were right. It wasn't too late, she could still become the new face of AETF, a General, someone worth something. The power, the influence. Change the world? Then change it for the best. If she would just listen!
Parker went silent. Marius brought her books, kept her company. He made a close friend of his, Woo-Jun Lee, as her private guard. As she learned to trust them, she told Marius about Project Rise.
In 2105, they found Maxine was alive. The three managed to break out and Maxine took them to a secret hut in the mountains in Canada. Project Rise evidence had been destroyed, so they needed a new angle. Parker rebuilt the Resistance with Maxine and took over as the leader. They brought in Jonny as their informant. Marius's parasitic host was approaching maturity and with it came what he called "the Pulse". He could "hear" something calling out for him.
Armed with knowledge, the Resistance began to plan to find the remaining akasha amrita's pieces and destroy them while digging deeper into the cure and lies told by Aegis. ( detailed history )
PERSONALITY
Since the beginning, Parker has never been an easy person to get along. A rock would probably have more social skills than her, and that has not changed over the years. Loss, guilt and PTSD has made her shy away further from connections to others, but her life experience has made her more agreeable to listen, although she is still known to hold her ground. She isn't as hot headed as she was when younger, now more calculating, but Parker has always worn her heart on her sleeve.
Of course, the impact the death of her close ones has deeply affected her. Parker has become paranoid and riddled with self-doubt, but one she suppress to take her leadership responsibilities as she heads the Resistance. She listens close to her allies, but she has also learned to listen more to her enemies. She has become more effective in the art of listening. On the other hand, she has also become colder and less prone to give second chances to forgiveness and trust. She deflects with silence, and masks her insecurity and uncertainty in the face of others.
She remains stubborn and hard to connect with, even when her heart is in the right place. But she is only deeply human, and not always will she be right. She is relentless, a survivor, and as she grows older, someone willing to do the things not everyone is. And while she likes to be right, she has learned to back down - if only for the people she trusts. And trust does not mean she has to like them.
In part, this side of hers, to be always moving, is led by the sense of always having to do something. She doesn't know what to do with idle hands and so she always has to find a purpose, something she can set her mind to so she can hide or at least postpone having to face her vulnerability. Dwelling in the past is only good to avoid future mistakes, and so she keeps her eyes set on the future. The present is too slow for her - Parker likes to be a step ahead of everyone else. She's an intelligent woman, but it can be a drawback when she finds herself smarter than others. She likes to think herself a realist, but she tends to see all that can go wrong with a situation rather than the most possible outcome. Observant, Parker knows how to figure people out, but the other way around is difficult. Because of her abrasive personality, it's hard for people to empathise with her, regardless of what is on the table. She also has a way of speaking that makes her sound like she's always upset, and her brutal honesty and not sugar-coating her words tend to make her look unsympathetic. She isn't manipulative, so she fights for what she believes. She doesn't try to bend others to her will (she would be no better than the government she fights against), but will show a different path worth taking. Parker is willing to die for the truth, but not so much willing to kill.
Verbally skilled and well-read, Parker is a studious person that doesn't mind biding her time, but also knows when she has to take a chance and strike. Her inquisitive nature pushes her to experience things herself rather than being told. She can be inconsistent and unpredictable (maybe even a little eccentric), but her opinions and ideals are her own. She isn't afraid to go to extremes.
Parker doesn't forgive and neither does she forget, unless it is good for "the cause". Betraying her will a sure way to get her on the path of revenge, and she is one vengeful dog. The reverse means, however, that she is a fiercely loyal person to her own. Her trust is never given lightly.
There is a softer side to her under that hard shell, a good friend and a gentle person that will fight for those that can't. A person that doesn't hesitate in protecting her own, even if this self-sacrificing steams from a darker side of hers, a path of self-destruction. Parker wants the truth, but it would be a lie to say she doesn't want to be remembered - to leave a mark. A desire to be important, to prove herself to the world and be acknowledged, a product of a childhood crippling to her self-esteem. Parker will always take bites bigger than what she can chew, but that is what makes her so resolute.
She strives to do what she believes to be right - which can be wrong.
POWERS
Growing up, Parker managed to find ways to compensate the gap of being born into a family of super heroes. While it is not a power, Parker has trained to become physically resilient, with discipline and stamina that came from both a childhood of exhausting practice and military school. She jogs and swims to keep herself moving, but what she excels at is parkour. As a way to use the urban jungles of her world to escape authorities, Parker has always been a fan of exercising her skill in parkour. She knows how to handle herself, but hand-to-hand combat is not her forte. She tends to use her opponents flaws in her favour than to strongarm her position. Any seasoned fighter could overpower her.
Her education was privileged. Parker is well-read and can hold a conversation in Spanish and some Portuguese and French.
Under Arthur, Parker learned survival skills and specialises in reconnaissance. She is good at tracking and could get some sweet scout badges from other wilderness skills (except the "help people across the road" one).
Parker is skilled at marksmanship, knowing how to handle a gun and can take sniper point with no hesitation. Since military school, and then while in the Resistance, Parker became a good driver. Fast reflexes and good spatial notion are fit to high speed chases rather than following a target quietly; she favour motorcycles.
When it comes to "powers", she has a metallic implant on her spine, an EXO-8. A faulty product made out of cyber-enhancements and biowires from the parasitic meteor, it adds about 3kgs to her weight. It's not a full replacement spine (exoskeleton around the cervical and sacral, cybernetic "bones" between the thoracic and lumbar with the exception of the L5 vertebrae). It connects to her organism via biowires, which "live" independently. It has the power to absorb kinetic force and store it. When active, the biowires "wake up". The longer she uses them, the more the organic material will try to grow and push against the the failsafe installed in the TH1 vertebrae. This failsafe shuts down the biowires from overgrowing. Electrical equipment can interfere with it (EMP blasts, powerful microwaves, etc). The EXO-8 transform force in energy that can distributed through the body. There is a 25% failure rate, 13% possibility of a painful shock and a 2% chance of rendering itself offline. The average ratio is 1:4, meaning that it stores a fourth of the strength of the collision. Bones can and will break, but impacts won't cause them harm. She is able to endure impacts that could be lethal for the average human. It absorbs the brunt of the force, but doesn't null it - she will be bruised, sore and feel the pain if the impact is strong enough to do so. The EXO-8 is a test model. Some impacts will loosen the metal bones and have to be readjusted.
The only other thing Parker has going for her is some practice in forcing telepaths out of her mind - both from years of her terrible relationship with Marius and later on as she practised with him when he joined the Resistance. This does not mean she is able to force people out, but rather that she has practice in attempting it.
FLAWS
Like detailed above in her personality section, Parker is not a person that takes heed to others easily. She is paranoid and that makes it hard to trust most people, which often leads to a rift in any potential relationship. She is stubborn, the type that makes you feel like you are talking to an unreasonable person and playing ball with her is a herculean effort.
She has a lot of occasions where she does think she is smarter than others, regardless of whether it is true or not. Parker doesn't believe most people until they prove themselves, placing some sort of importance in her opinion above others. People she doesn't trust (read, most) often won't be able to make her listen to them - this is not some kind of proof that she is the voice of reason, but rather that she is unmoving in giving a chance to others. She is rather unforgiving and prefers to have things her way. She doesn't work well within a team unless she trusts them.
She is also not shy from revenge, and won't give second thought about sabotaging someone that she doesn't agree with. Often, the means justify the ends. She isn't willing to give leeway in her ideals to accept others.
She is known to harbour disdain for powered people, although nowhere near the outright hate she had towards them when she was younger.
In terms of powers, she has downfalls of a EXOSKELETON that is faulty, as pointed above, often causing her both pain and trouble, not to mention a low success rate. Parker's spine also causes her pain when there is not a relief for the pressure in her spine.
SAMPLES
1ST PERSON: Weapons for the blind ( 7+ )
3rd PERSON:
MISC
PLANS: Likely to be an antagonistic figure.
ITEM: A polaroid of her old team.
CHARACTER @ID SUGGESTIONS: Something simple will do, but no preferences here.
HOW DID YOUR CHARACTER JOIN COST? She has retained her memories after joining willingly. Her joining was mostly out of a selfish attempt to find a way to maybe go back in time and save Arthur as she doesn't have a lot of deep investment in anything but her own cause. She will keep this to herself.
NAME: Nessy
CONTACT: PM
ARE YOU 18 OR OLDER: yea
CHARACTER
NAME:
CANON: Original
AGE: 25
CANON POINT: After finding a piece of meteor.
WORLD
When in 2029 a meteor hit Earth, nobody expected it to change the course of the world as we know it. Pushed into the planet's trajectory by a supernova explosion, the meteor hit the heart of the Amazonian Forest, decimating thousands of life forms. The Brazilian government dispatched a team of scientists. It grew as the alien meteor continued to puzzled minds. They called it “Akasha Amrita”. It wasn't until many years later, that it was discovered to be an alien parasite which fed on the human body, turning people into monsters. But long before that, human life had changed.
As the skies turned dark, they split open, bringing down a massive monster from space - only after the discovery of it being a parasite was it pinpointed as the surviving astronaut of the a mission to Mars that had collided with the meteor. The monster, before this, was what became to be known as a Colossus, a creature so powerful that no military could stop it. But soon it would be proven to be defeatable, when out of the mess were born the metahumans, people exposed to the Akasha Amrita that gained super powers. It started with Paola Craveiro, a simple social worker from São Paulo, who had the strength of a nuclear strike at the palm of her hands. The world watched as every news channel broadcast live their new path, an era of heroes, and a new political game.
While in the beginning these metahumans were sent to mandatory registration for safety reasons and scientific advancements, these super heroes soon began fighting for their rights. Protesters gathered in the streets and people joined forces against the government's lack of tact regarding these “super humans”, the most important becoming ADEPT (Association for Defence of Extraordinary People), led by Peter Nowick, an ethics teacher from Ohio.
Advocating for the greater good, Nowick headed the first legislative bill to protect the identify of the metahumans, provided that they would use their powers to serve the people against the threat of the Colossus. While some fought for world peace, others tried to undermine it. With only the metahumans capable of effectively defending the world against each other, they soon grew as a powerful organisation and work force. Their influence became important in the dangerous game of politics. Peter Nowick was elected President of the United States of America in 2064.
It was during this time that Aegis Corps was founded, a government-funded operation that served much like an agency for super heroes working closely with the UN and USA Military. Away from the public eye, underground organisations harboured corpses of super heroes to study, while some others took younger metahumans to test on them. As discoveries were unveiled about the nature of the meteor and its parasitic role, Nowick buried these projects even further to establish a stronger presence.
The destruction the Colossus created forced people forward into thinking of new ways to protect the cities. Paid heavily, the superheroes signed on with different agencies, arguing the need of a full time job but one that could feed them and their loved ones. Aegis Corps cemented this by passing another bill ensuring the right to a full-time employment and life savings for serving metahumans. Many other governments began adapting this model.
With the secret still locked, the scale of power tilted towards the metahumans. They became celebrities bigger than any Hollywood superstar. Sovereignty belonged to the favoured few. In 2076, Republican candidate and metahuman general Thomas Dunbar Jr, took over the presidency. By then, metahumans were well off. Advertising companies paid big bucks to have these superheroes associate with their products and use their logos on their capes or costumes, to star on their ads or be printed on huge billboards, endorse movements and lead new trends. Technology became better, bigger, faster. It was not all about flycrafts, hovercars and advanced medicine: the biggest advancement were the Colossus Defence System (CDS). The best services to cities that could pay the cost and generate power to sustain the engineered shields, while the outskirts got the cheaper mechanisms. Some cities were rebuilt to embrace this new process and taxes increased across the globe. The richest continued to go about their lives, but the population not able to afford the taxes were sent to the slums, where the CDS shields did not reach.
The separation of classes grew an uglier gap, but many continued the same. For some to be on the top, many must remain at the bottom. If you were born into money or with powers, a life of privilege in the Upper Cities surrounded by the CDS shields were handed to you on a silver platter. Those not as lucky had to stick to the slums. The new world economy almost wiped out the struggling middle class.
Along with the CDS, governments gave their soldiers a sample of the powers the superheroes had by engineering what became known as EXOSKELETONs, although the high rate of body rejection and low success rate buried most of these tests. The few that survived surgery would end up sick and, although hidden, these soldiers became Colossus. The EXOSKELETONs were built by infusing some of the remaining akasha amrita organism into bio-mechanical tendons and wires. Only one known survivor is still alive to this day, but she does not fight for the metahumans, and yet against them.
The world was not a better place, only made more comfortable to the rich and the powerful. From this sense of injustice was born a revolution, painted as rioters and terrorists across the world, that fight against the secrets the metahumans hide to continue their place at the top and their self-righteous sense of justice. The Resistance rose up against the lies, to bring the truth. They tried once, led by Arthur Vinson, before they were apprehended and destroyed under the certainty of treason and threat. But rumours stuck when they were reported to have infiltrated secret bases of Aegis Corps and found answers about the nature of the Colossus. Their supremacy, however, had far tighter tentacles that they imagined. With Arthur dead and the Resistance reduced to the first daughter of Liana Martelli, Meta-General in the Military and senior member of the Board of Directors of the CDS, these rumours were never confirmed.
But Addison Parker was never one to give up. Too many had given their lives for the truth to be buried. The Resistance would be heard again, like a phoenix cry from the ashes of its dead members. It was never too late to fight for the silenced ones.
HISTORY
The first child of Bryson and Liana Martelli-Parker, America's favourite power couple, Parker was in the front cover of every as soon as she was born, heralded to become the face of the greatest generation of superheroes. If only she had been born with powers.
When there was no signs of superpowers, she was withdrawn from the public eye: the baby wonder had been a fluke. The second child, Marius, took over the mantle. Not much after, so did Benjamin.
Addison needed a new path. Her parents decided she should become the General of Aegis Elite Task Force. But she would never be good enough, no matter what - she didn't have powers, forever a disappointment. She would never achieve the greatness Marius and Benjamin could. While her siblings were set to lead the greatest generation of metahumans, Addison was sent to military school, which clashed with her rebellious spirit. During a Colossus attack, she fled to the slums. She had never been without a CDS shield during an attack. Addison felt for the first time what it was like outside the safety of privilege. A man named Arthur rescued her. She began to go to him often and soon became involved with the underground Resistance.
After that, she began to learn about what the media did not broadcast, missing on her AETF training. She was punished for it, but never gave up. For once in her life, she had found purpose. On library cleaning duty, Parker accessed old files and found reports of KIA metahumans bodies being "lost". Planning with the Resistance, Parker got into the restricted archives and recovered information about experiments being conducted during Nowick time in a facility in Atlanta. With the help of Resistance members Jamal and his sister Anne, she escaped for the last time.
In the Resistance's hideout, Parker's presence was met with distrust and discontent. She was a danger due to her high-profile as the daughter of Liana, an increasing influential figure in the United Nations. Arthur fought for Parker and his loyalty influenced her own sense of it. She had great adoration for him and became his right arm later in life. Her views and morals were shaped strongly in the Resistance. There, she became involved with another member, Calvin.
Two years later, the Resistance was found by AETF after Kevin Holt snitched. Only nine survived the raid, and Parker was shot during the escape. The group split up, one led by Arthur and the other by his then right arm, Maxine Kitt. Against Calvin's advice, Arthur took the team to Atlanta while Parker recovered.
They infiltrated it, but someone had tipped off AETF and the base was abandoned. There was an ambush; in it, Parker killed Kevin Holt. She kept this accident a secret. Calvin ended up discovering about a facility operating in Lisbon.
They met with Maxine in Maine and took a cargo ship to cross the Atlantic. During their journey, Jamal and Parker grew closer, but being with Calvin at the time she decided not to pursue it.
They got as far as Azores when a Colossus attacked. AETF sent out a Strike Team led by Marius. He didn't pursue the group, which made Parker think something was off, but she didn't question it. They travelled to Morocco, but Maxine was arrested while they escaped to Rabat. Jamal got them to Gibraltar and then Badajoz.
AETF ambushed them after a border guard betrayed Arthur. Parker diverted the ambush and was captured. Handed over to an anti-terrorist group, she was interrogated and tortured by an AETF agent.
Kept in a cell next to Selena Voss-Cortez, former Aegis surgeon working for the Resistance and an old friend of Maxine's, they made use of her knowledge of the place to escape. They did so and met up in Selena's hideout two days later. In there, Parker found an EXO-8 and decided to get it- It was met with refusal at first, but Parker got her way. She nearly died on the table and then again throughout the weeks that followed.
December 2100, they made it to Lisbon. Parker tracked down Arthur's contact, Francisco Sousa. Arthur had been captured, Anne and Jamal were missing in action, Calvin had revealed himself to be a AETF spy and was long gone. Set out to find them all, Parker was aided by Francisco's daughter and nephew, Beatriz and "Jonny". During the following months, Parker and Selena became involved.
Jamal and Anne were found and they went to rescue Arthur. Benjamin trapped the group, but he was only interested in Parker. He blamed her for their parents divorce (which she was unaware of). While Benjamin was powerful, Jamal managed to knock him unconscious before he ripped out Parker's new spine. With Arthur back, he told them about Project Rise, some secret Aegis experiment, hiding somewhere in China.
Francisco introduced them to Xavier O'Neill, a freelance reporter who was investigating Aegis, and he joined the Resistance. They got Maxine out of prison and began their travel to China. It wasn't fun, with tensions high between everyone. The Resistance was taking a spotlight in the media as terrorists and AETF was gaining more influence within the United Nations. Parker's unresolved issues with Jamal drove a wedge between her and Anne and Selena. During one night, it went to unresolved to complicated. That didn't help.
After a series of favours and taking down Aegis bases in Russia, they got to Kashgar where they fought a power-hungry metahuman. During the fight, the EXO-8's biowires became "alive", tendons overtaking from the inside out and ripping through Parker's flesh and bone. The group managed to defeat the metahuman, but Parker's wounds were life threatening. They waited until she recovered, but the situation led to Arthur to questioning Selena about the EXO-8. She confessed that Parker was the only who had managed to reject the alien organism for this long.
When Parker woke up, she cut off ties with Selena. Her, Maxine and O'Neill went up North and the rest headed to to Chengdu's Aegis base. They infiltrated it and got hold of information on Project Rise, confirming its existence since Nowick's time. They then headed to Guangzhou, where they discovered that Aegis was using live humans as test subjects for a cure. With powers only symptoms of a disease, Colossus were ex-metahumans and human-hosts that had succumbed to the parasite akasha amrita. With the necessary proof to take Aegis down, the Resistance planned to use O'Neill to expose the lies. But Liana, the new Director of Aegis Corps, found them before they did. O'Neill was shot down and Selena was detained in Hong Kong - she would later take her own life to avoid having any information extracted. Unfortunately, a group of mind-readers got to the rest of them. Liana blamed Arthur for having taken away a "brilliant future as the General of AETF" from Parker.
The Resistance was over, and Liana made sure to cement that: when they had everything they needed, all of them were executed. It destroyed Parker. Guilt had corroded a hole in her chest. While her friends suffered, Parker was sent off to New York and she knew this was all because she had happened to be born into this powerful family.
Isolated from the world in a high-security room, Liana tried to bring Parker back to "the side of the good guys", the side of those that were right. It wasn't too late, she could still become the new face of AETF, a General, someone worth something. The power, the influence. Change the world? Then change it for the best. If she would just listen!
Parker went silent. Marius brought her books, kept her company. He made a close friend of his, Woo-Jun Lee, as her private guard. As she learned to trust them, she told Marius about Project Rise.
In 2105, they found Maxine was alive. The three managed to break out and Maxine took them to a secret hut in the mountains in Canada. Project Rise evidence had been destroyed, so they needed a new angle. Parker rebuilt the Resistance with Maxine and took over as the leader. They brought in Jonny as their informant. Marius's parasitic host was approaching maturity and with it came what he called "the Pulse". He could "hear" something calling out for him.
Armed with knowledge, the Resistance began to plan to find the remaining akasha amrita's pieces and destroy them while digging deeper into the cure and lies told by Aegis. ( detailed history )
PERSONALITY
Since the beginning, Parker has never been an easy person to get along. A rock would probably have more social skills than her, and that has not changed over the years. Loss, guilt and PTSD has made her shy away further from connections to others, but her life experience has made her more agreeable to listen, although she is still known to hold her ground. She isn't as hot headed as she was when younger, now more calculating, but Parker has always worn her heart on her sleeve.
Of course, the impact the death of her close ones has deeply affected her. Parker has become paranoid and riddled with self-doubt, but one she suppress to take her leadership responsibilities as she heads the Resistance. She listens close to her allies, but she has also learned to listen more to her enemies. She has become more effective in the art of listening. On the other hand, she has also become colder and less prone to give second chances to forgiveness and trust. She deflects with silence, and masks her insecurity and uncertainty in the face of others.
She remains stubborn and hard to connect with, even when her heart is in the right place. But she is only deeply human, and not always will she be right. She is relentless, a survivor, and as she grows older, someone willing to do the things not everyone is. And while she likes to be right, she has learned to back down - if only for the people she trusts. And trust does not mean she has to like them.
In part, this side of hers, to be always moving, is led by the sense of always having to do something. She doesn't know what to do with idle hands and so she always has to find a purpose, something she can set her mind to so she can hide or at least postpone having to face her vulnerability. Dwelling in the past is only good to avoid future mistakes, and so she keeps her eyes set on the future. The present is too slow for her - Parker likes to be a step ahead of everyone else. She's an intelligent woman, but it can be a drawback when she finds herself smarter than others. She likes to think herself a realist, but she tends to see all that can go wrong with a situation rather than the most possible outcome. Observant, Parker knows how to figure people out, but the other way around is difficult. Because of her abrasive personality, it's hard for people to empathise with her, regardless of what is on the table. She also has a way of speaking that makes her sound like she's always upset, and her brutal honesty and not sugar-coating her words tend to make her look unsympathetic. She isn't manipulative, so she fights for what she believes. She doesn't try to bend others to her will (she would be no better than the government she fights against), but will show a different path worth taking. Parker is willing to die for the truth, but not so much willing to kill.
Verbally skilled and well-read, Parker is a studious person that doesn't mind biding her time, but also knows when she has to take a chance and strike. Her inquisitive nature pushes her to experience things herself rather than being told. She can be inconsistent and unpredictable (maybe even a little eccentric), but her opinions and ideals are her own. She isn't afraid to go to extremes.
Parker doesn't forgive and neither does she forget, unless it is good for "the cause". Betraying her will a sure way to get her on the path of revenge, and she is one vengeful dog. The reverse means, however, that she is a fiercely loyal person to her own. Her trust is never given lightly.
There is a softer side to her under that hard shell, a good friend and a gentle person that will fight for those that can't. A person that doesn't hesitate in protecting her own, even if this self-sacrificing steams from a darker side of hers, a path of self-destruction. Parker wants the truth, but it would be a lie to say she doesn't want to be remembered - to leave a mark. A desire to be important, to prove herself to the world and be acknowledged, a product of a childhood crippling to her self-esteem. Parker will always take bites bigger than what she can chew, but that is what makes her so resolute.
She strives to do what she believes to be right - which can be wrong.
POWERS
Growing up, Parker managed to find ways to compensate the gap of being born into a family of super heroes. While it is not a power, Parker has trained to become physically resilient, with discipline and stamina that came from both a childhood of exhausting practice and military school. She jogs and swims to keep herself moving, but what she excels at is parkour. As a way to use the urban jungles of her world to escape authorities, Parker has always been a fan of exercising her skill in parkour. She knows how to handle herself, but hand-to-hand combat is not her forte. She tends to use her opponents flaws in her favour than to strongarm her position. Any seasoned fighter could overpower her.
Her education was privileged. Parker is well-read and can hold a conversation in Spanish and some Portuguese and French.
Under Arthur, Parker learned survival skills and specialises in reconnaissance. She is good at tracking and could get some sweet scout badges from other wilderness skills (except the "help people across the road" one).
Parker is skilled at marksmanship, knowing how to handle a gun and can take sniper point with no hesitation. Since military school, and then while in the Resistance, Parker became a good driver. Fast reflexes and good spatial notion are fit to high speed chases rather than following a target quietly; she favour motorcycles.
When it comes to "powers", she has a metallic implant on her spine, an EXO-8. A faulty product made out of cyber-enhancements and biowires from the parasitic meteor, it adds about 3kgs to her weight. It's not a full replacement spine (exoskeleton around the cervical and sacral, cybernetic "bones" between the thoracic and lumbar with the exception of the L5 vertebrae). It connects to her organism via biowires, which "live" independently. It has the power to absorb kinetic force and store it. When active, the biowires "wake up". The longer she uses them, the more the organic material will try to grow and push against the the failsafe installed in the TH1 vertebrae. This failsafe shuts down the biowires from overgrowing. Electrical equipment can interfere with it (EMP blasts, powerful microwaves, etc). The EXO-8 transform force in energy that can distributed through the body. There is a 25% failure rate, 13% possibility of a painful shock and a 2% chance of rendering itself offline. The average ratio is 1:4, meaning that it stores a fourth of the strength of the collision. Bones can and will break, but impacts won't cause them harm. She is able to endure impacts that could be lethal for the average human. It absorbs the brunt of the force, but doesn't null it - she will be bruised, sore and feel the pain if the impact is strong enough to do so. The EXO-8 is a test model. Some impacts will loosen the metal bones and have to be readjusted.
The only other thing Parker has going for her is some practice in forcing telepaths out of her mind - both from years of her terrible relationship with Marius and later on as she practised with him when he joined the Resistance. This does not mean she is able to force people out, but rather that she has practice in attempting it.
FLAWS
Like detailed above in her personality section, Parker is not a person that takes heed to others easily. She is paranoid and that makes it hard to trust most people, which often leads to a rift in any potential relationship. She is stubborn, the type that makes you feel like you are talking to an unreasonable person and playing ball with her is a herculean effort.
She has a lot of occasions where she does think she is smarter than others, regardless of whether it is true or not. Parker doesn't believe most people until they prove themselves, placing some sort of importance in her opinion above others. People she doesn't trust (read, most) often won't be able to make her listen to them - this is not some kind of proof that she is the voice of reason, but rather that she is unmoving in giving a chance to others. She is rather unforgiving and prefers to have things her way. She doesn't work well within a team unless she trusts them.
She is also not shy from revenge, and won't give second thought about sabotaging someone that she doesn't agree with. Often, the means justify the ends. She isn't willing to give leeway in her ideals to accept others.
She is known to harbour disdain for powered people, although nowhere near the outright hate she had towards them when she was younger.
In terms of powers, she has downfalls of a EXOSKELETON that is faulty, as pointed above, often causing her both pain and trouble, not to mention a low success rate. Parker's spine also causes her pain when there is not a relief for the pressure in her spine.
SAMPLES
1ST PERSON: Weapons for the blind ( 7+ )
3rd PERSON:
MISC
PLANS: Likely to be an antagonistic figure.
ITEM: A polaroid of her old team.
CHARACTER @ID SUGGESTIONS: Something simple will do, but no preferences here.
HOW DID YOUR CHARACTER JOIN COST? She has retained her memories after joining willingly. Her joining was mostly out of a selfish attempt to find a way to maybe go back in time and save Arthur as she doesn't have a lot of deep investment in anything but her own cause. She will keep this to herself.