Difference between revisions of "Human Shield"
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"Doctor." | "Doctor." | ||
"Matthew." The old man sighed. "I knew you'd come back. I knew you'd want answers. Why is nothing ever simple?" | "Matthew." The old man sighed. "I knew you'd come back. I knew you'd want answers. Why is nothing ever simple?" | ||
| − | A more emotionally stable young man would have advanced suspiciously on the doctor, demanding all he knew. | + | A more emotionally stable young man would have advanced suspiciously on the doctor, demanding all he knew. Matthew stayed where he was, knowing that the doctor wouldn't bring this up if he didn't mean to tell. |
"What did you do to me?" It wasn't an accusation. Merely a question. | "What did you do to me?" It wasn't an accusation. Merely a question. | ||
| − | Doctor Portly sighed and removed his glasses, polishing them on his white coat. "Before all of... this, I wasn't your average man with a medical license. I was a man who dreamed big, | + | Doctor Portly sighed and removed his glasses, polishing them on his white coat. "Before all of... this, I wasn't your average man with a medical license. I was a man who dreamed big, Matthew, bigger than you can imagine. You see this room, this town, this country. I see this tiny world, in a tiny universe, with a tiny tiny part of a much grander whole. As a younger man I wanted to be more than a man. I wanted to be a god. I wanted to be the creator of all!" |
| − | + | Matthew didn't react. "Answer my question." | |
"I was a super-villain in my younger days. A scientist of brilliant scope and unparalleled vision, or at least that's what I thought of myself. A man who would enlighten all the world and bring humanity kicking and screaming into the age of galactic supremacy. I was a fool." | "I was a super-villain in my younger days. A scientist of brilliant scope and unparalleled vision, or at least that's what I thought of myself. A man who would enlighten all the world and bring humanity kicking and screaming into the age of galactic supremacy. I was a fool." | ||
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(From there, Matthew got into a university where he spent a few years working at getting his qualifications to become a professor. That completed, he proceeded to become a lecturer much desired by various places of education, including the burgeoning Academia Society in Millennium City. Once he'd formally moved there, he designed a costume and took up protecting the innocent as a means of self-discovery, going under the name of The Human Shield.) | (From there, Matthew got into a university where he spent a few years working at getting his qualifications to become a professor. That completed, he proceeded to become a lecturer much desired by various places of education, including the burgeoning Academia Society in Millennium City. Once he'd formally moved there, he designed a costume and took up protecting the innocent as a means of self-discovery, going under the name of The Human Shield.) | ||
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==<div valign="bottom" style="background: #006999; color: #FFFFFF; text-align: center; margin:0 auto 0 auto; font-size:125%; height:25px; border: solid 5px #003969;">'''Powers, Skills, and Attributes'''</div>== | ==<div valign="bottom" style="background: #006999; color: #FFFFFF; text-align: center; margin:0 auto 0 auto; font-size:125%; height:25px; border: solid 5px #003969;">'''Powers, Skills, and Attributes'''</div>== | ||
===<div style="background: #0089B9; color: #000000; text-align: center; width:300px; margin: 0 auto 0 auto; border: 3px solid #003969; font-size: 100%;">'''Powers'''</div>=== | ===<div style="background: #0089B9; color: #000000; text-align: center; width:300px; margin: 0 auto 0 auto; border: 3px solid #003969; font-size: 100%;">'''Powers'''</div>=== | ||
Revision as of 10:30, 3 September 2015
| (The) Human Shield | ||||||||||
| Player: @Mawthrough | ||||||||||
| [[Image:|300px|]] | ||||||||||
| Biographical Data | ||||||||||
| Real Name: | Matthew Adam Noble | |||||||||
| Known Aliases: | Mr Deathwish | |||||||||
| Gender: | Male | |||||||||
| Species: | Human | |||||||||
| Ethnicity: | White | |||||||||
| Place of Birth: | Huffington | |||||||||
| Base of Operations: | Millennium City | |||||||||
| Relatives: | None of relevance. | |||||||||
| Characteristics | ||||||||||
| Age: | 24 | |||||||||
| Height: | 6 feet, 4 inches | |||||||||
| Weight: | 130 kg | |||||||||
| Eyes: | Blue | |||||||||
| Hair: | Brown | |||||||||
| Complexion: | Fair with a few freckles. | |||||||||
| Physical Build: | Athletic. | |||||||||
| Physical Features: | Scar on the eyebrow, as well as one on the chin. | |||||||||
| Status | ||||||||||
| Fame: |
Unknown | |||||||||
| Alignment: |
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| Identity: | Professor Matthew Noble. | |||||||||
| Years Active: | 3 | |||||||||
| Citizenship: | Britain, American Work Visa. | |||||||||
| Occupation: | Professor and trained lecturer on history and the humanities. | |||||||||
| Education: | Masters Degree in English and a Doctorate in History. | |||||||||
| Marital Status: | Dating. | |||||||||
| Known Powers and Abilities | ||||||||||
| Enhanced strength, enhanced inertia, limited invulnerability whilst immobile. | ||||||||||
| Equipment and Paraphernalia | ||||||||||
| Comm link to UNTIL, to gain information or advice as needed. | ||||||||||
| Physical Attributes | |||||||||
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| Durability |
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Armor |
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| Speed |
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Reflexes |
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| Resistance |
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Stamina |
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| Dexterity |
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Agility |
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| Combat |
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Regen |
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| Non-Physical Attributes | |||||||||
| Energy |
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Psionics |
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| Telepathy |
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Willpower |
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| Sorcery |
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Tech. |
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| Intel. |
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Knowledge |
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| Charisma |
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Bravery |
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| MaekadaBoxSlim created by @Maekada | |||||||||
Contents
Background and Origin
Born as a Stranger
Matthew said nothing at the age of four. By the age of five, when his family enrolled him in nursery, he remained silent even as he played with toy blocks and made sand castles in the play-pit. When he hit the age of six, he was described by his mother as being "a statue made of flesh". He would lie silently in his bed, or silently in front of the TV, and if not for his breathing, you wouldn't know he was even alive. Doctor Portly was called in and he reached the conclusion that Matthew COULD talk, but did not have anything of import to say. When someone asked Matthew this, he confirmed it without hesitation using perfectly formed language that was far more advanced than any child of his age had any right to use. It was at this age - about the same time as it was discovered Matthew was capable of opening a locked door by nearly ripping it off its hinges - that Matthew's parents started becoming afraid of him. The other children at school - as sadly children are wont to do - teased him remorselessly, and his refusal to retaliate only spurred their abuse. Matthew's parents fled from school to school, darting all across the country, but Matthew's refusal to conform constantly singled him out as a target. His parents, fearing what their child was developing into, cut themselves off from him as much as possible, denying him the emotional connection most people are given without regret. For a while it seemed as though he was doomed to a life of bullying and isolation.
At the age of twelve, when boys start their growth into the men they will become, he met a young man at a secondary school named Darius Williams. Darius was not very physically gifted, and while talented at mathematics and learning in general was shorter than most other children. This detriment, combined with similar years of teasing and backstabbing by so-called "friends" had made Darius a barbed and vicious individual, never showing weakness and never backing down, shunning contact and rebuffing all attempts at friendship with bitter retorts. Nonetheless, something about him earned Matthew's interest, and against all odds the quiet and solitary found a first friend in the short and clever. These two would remain firm friends even into their adulthood, because of an event that occurred in the later years of their school lives.
In their year was a notorious bully, a thuggish brute called Jonathan, who seemed to delight in abusing the weak and defenceless. Matthew was a target of his abuse year after year, but no matter what Jonathan did, from verbal insults, to physical shoving and pushing, to damaging his school-books and ruining his uniform on a regular basis, Matthew would silently shrug it off and move on with his day. One day, Jonathan decided to step up his game and finally crack Matthew's stoic visage. He cornered Darius at the end of a class and with his cronies beat him mercilessly, before tearing up all his books and leaving him crumpled against the lockers. Matthew's reaction upon finding him - everyone else just laughed - was getting him to the school's medical office, sitting with him until the end of the day and decided to help him get home that evening. That same evening, Jonathan and his cronies thought it would be hilarious to try and run them off the pavement with his new car his parents had bought him for his birthday. Matthew promptly put the still injured Darius behind him without a word and place himself between the vehicle and his friend. Jonathan stomped on the pedal, the car roared forwards, passers-by screamed and stopped in shock, and the look on Jonathan's face when the front of his vehicle buckled inwards completely destroying the engine block when it collided with Matthew's knees was priceless. Matthew then flipped the entire car upside down, dragged out Jonathan and his cronies one by one, and systematically hospitalized each and every single one of them. To this day, Jonathan still has to use a wheelchair.
The aftermath of this incident was swift and brutal. Matthew was arrested and charged with aggravated assault. Almost a year later after repeated appeals by outraged people - including Darius's parents - he was finally exonerated, but the experience had changed him. Whilst before he had seemed stoic, now he seemed prone to outbursts of happiness and almost disturbing levels of affection as well as crippling bouts of dark musings and self-hatred which simply drove the wedge between him and his parents (and society as a whole) even further. Distressed and depressed, still clueless as to how he acquired his powers and hateful of both the world and himself, Matthew sank into a dark place in his life.
Lost, and with no way forward that he could see, he decided in a fit of clarity to try and see where it all started to go wrong. With that goal in mind, he left his home and secretly relieved parents to return to Huffington, the place of his birth, to see if he could find any answers.
Reborn as a Purpose
"What am I?" he asked the air. "Why can I do these things?" The air said nothing. Hardly surprising in retrospect. He pressed his hand against the table edge, and started to squeeze. As though it was made of plastic rather than steel, the material started to warp and scrunch. "Could you leave that please?" The request made him turn. Doctor Portly, the same old kindly plump gentleman still clad in medical garb was hanging up a stethoscope at the end of the room. "I don't have an unlimited budget." "Doctor." "Matthew." The old man sighed. "I knew you'd come back. I knew you'd want answers. Why is nothing ever simple?" A more emotionally stable young man would have advanced suspiciously on the doctor, demanding all he knew. Matthew stayed where he was, knowing that the doctor wouldn't bring this up if he didn't mean to tell. "What did you do to me?" It wasn't an accusation. Merely a question.
Doctor Portly sighed and removed his glasses, polishing them on his white coat. "Before all of... this, I wasn't your average man with a medical license. I was a man who dreamed big, Matthew, bigger than you can imagine. You see this room, this town, this country. I see this tiny world, in a tiny universe, with a tiny tiny part of a much grander whole. As a younger man I wanted to be more than a man. I wanted to be a god. I wanted to be the creator of all!" Matthew didn't react. "Answer my question."
"I was a super-villain in my younger days. A scientist of brilliant scope and unparalleled vision, or at least that's what I thought of myself. A man who would enlighten all the world and bring humanity kicking and screaming into the age of galactic supremacy. I was a fool." He saw the look on Matthew's face and hastily moved up his narrative. "It is my life's work. Was, my life's work. A serum that activated latent mutant DNA in pre-natal life forms." "So you mutated me. I'm... a mutant." "No, no, no... it's not that simplistic. The serum doesn't automatically mutate life forms, it enables the possibility of mutation and enhances the effects of the results. You were always going to be born differently from the others, I just had no way of knowing how deeply you'd be affected -"
"Why?" The word was short, sharp. "Because I wanted to give something back to the world. I wanted to apologize for all the chaos I caused."
"Is ruining my life your apology?"
"Ruining it?" Doctor Portly looked flabbergasted. "Is this what you call a ruined life? You have powers men would kill to have, powers that have enabled you to protect those you care about. Indestructibility, super strength, and god knows what other abilities - you could do anything with your gifts." Matthew turned to leave. "I never asked for this."
"DO YOU THINK ANYONE ASKS FOR ANYTHING IN THEIR LIVES!?" Doctor Portly exploded, and Matthew looked back at him. "Do you think children ask to be born to poor families, or to monsters and tyrants? Do you think people ask to die of disease, or of a tragic accident, or through the machinations of others? Hate me if you want, Matthew, Lord knows you're entitled to, but don't go down the road of thinking that what I did to you is a curse. It is not what you can do, Matthew - but what you CHOOSE to do." Mickey stood there for a long time thinking about what the doctor had said. Then without a word of goodbye, he walked out of the room.
Doctor Portly sat back in his office chair and the ghost of a smile played about his lips. "Not bad, for an old fool."
(From there, Matthew got into a university where he spent a few years working at getting his qualifications to become a professor. That completed, he proceeded to become a lecturer much desired by various places of education, including the burgeoning Academia Society in Millennium City. Once he'd formally moved there, he designed a costume and took up protecting the innocent as a means of self-discovery, going under the name of The Human Shield.)
Powers, Skills, and Attributes
Powers
Inert Invulnerability - This is by far the Human Shield's most powerful ability and in many cases how people recognize him in conflicts involving multiple super-powered individuals. Whenever the Human Shield does not move (with the exceptions of involuntary body functions such as breathing and very slight movements such as talking) his body begins a chain reaction on a genetic level.
First, the tissue all across his body hardens to a degree more compact and dense than solid steel within a second. As a few more seconds pass, he begins to generate a natural energy that has been determined to be a potent magical dissipation agent, meaning that even magic ceases to work properly when directed at him or at the immediate area surrounding him. After what has been confirmed to be about fifteen seconds of inactivity, his entire physiological structure increases in density over a thousandfold, making him borderline impossible to budge or even injure. On top of this, the natural energy he generates gathers enough residual density to become palpable, allowing him to physically grasp and direct magic as though it is a physical substance without compromising his defence. Matthew has discovered that he can more than halve the amount of time required to reach this state by holding his breath, with the drawback of limiting his invulnerability to how long he can successfully hold his breath. His invulnerability is not negated by movements from falling, being knocked backwards or jumping, meaning that he can effectively leap into the air and land weighing more than ten tonnes on his target. More often than not, it is this durability that permits him to combat villains far above his power level - as an example, though he cannot do much to Grond in terms of damage beyond perhaps annoyance, even Grond has to put proper effort into actually hurting him back.
Superhuman Strength - The Human Shield possesses super-human musculature across his body. Whilst not to the extent of other heroes and villains who are far more physically powerful than him (examples range from Ironclad to Grond) it is sufficient to allow him to fight against villains of a superior calibre to himself at least to a degree. It also allows him to propel his own weight far above the ground, permitting superhuman leaps that allow for quite fast travel. He can flip cars with impunity and throw them with considerable difficulty, and can punch a being weighing almost 5 tons across a street.
Absolute Stamina - The Human Shield does not technically rely on food and water to survive. Instead, he survives off solar and thermal energy, which his body absorbs whenever he remains stationary. While this does not constitute a healing factor, meaning whatever damage the Human Shield takes has to heal at a slightly accelerated human pace, it does mean that even a few seconds of rest, even while taking an enemy's attack, recharges the Human Shield to the effect of his having seemingly unlimited stamina. Seeing as this "recharging" also takes place while jumping, the Human Shield can take off from the ground exhausted, and land fully refreshed.
Skills
Basic Combat Training - Matthew took various martial art classes at university, and through them gained a crucial understanding of how to defend oneself. He is most proficient in restraint and hold techniques, in order to either cripple or more gently incapacitate foes.
Expert Knowledge on English Literature/Language and Ancient to Modern History - He has expansive knowledge on world history, being able to recount the dates and significant events in the last five centuries of any country on Earth. Additionally, he is also a recognized expert in the field of English and has a near-fathomless wealth of information regarding classic English literature, as well as having a vocabulary so elaborate that occasionally even super-powered geniuses have difficulty understanding what he is saying.
Psycho-Empathy - His own nature as, by his own admission, a "conscientious psychopath", has given him a psychological grasp on the mannerisms and behaviours of the criminally insane that comes off as unsettling to most heroes. He is able to aptly communicate with beings too far mentally gone for normal conversation and can predict what other psychopaths are going to do next based off of their past actions.
Attributes
Unbreakable Willpower - Matthew's will to live, tested and tried, forced into growing stronger over years and years of mental abuse has combined with his own superhuman constitution and evolved to the point where, combined with his indomitable desire to make sure no-one gets hurt as long as he can still stand, he has managed to defeat villains far above his supposed level of power through simply refusing to go down despite getting beaten so badly that he shouldn't be able to move, let alone get back up and fight (albeit at a greatly reduced level of power). This manifests as the Human Shield taking extraordinary amounts of damage that should prove fatal to almost any other being but ignoring the damage done to his body through both his inert invulnerability lessening the damage done and his raw resolution to never stop fighting.
"I'm... not going... to stop... getting up... because that's... all...I... know... how... to... DO!"
Emotionally Compromised - Matthew is very emotionally damaged, having had a childhood featuring constant emotional trauma and isolation both from his school life and his parents that both feared him and kept him so emotionally distant he occasionally has trouble both connecting with humanity and controlling his emotions. This can take the form of him seeming very socially awkward at times, yet being perfectly and naturally capable of commanding a situation at others. He also treats humanity as a lesser race, though this is not meant maliciously - he simply naturally observes their emotions as flaws in their systems, acknowledging his own emotional outbursts as evidence of his own flaws. However, he also subverts this view by claiming that their emotions make them more pure and valuable than himself who cannot control them properly, and as a result of this psychosis believes every other human to be far more important than himself.
Multiple Personalities - Matthew's lack of emotional control combined with his mental haemorrhaging have resulted in his emotions actually manifesting as separate personalities, each one representing a different part of Matthew's psyche.
The first and most common one is the Stoic persona. This personality has controlled and restrained reactions to everything, and while it will prioritize the saving of innocents above all else, it can seem quite cold and aloof as well as not understanding when people are insulted. It has been observed that different parts of Matthew's personality being in control seem to influence his powers to a degree - when the Stoic persona is in command, Matthew's ability to withstand attacks and spells is enhanced to the degree where he only has to stop for a few seconds to gain the maximum efficiency of his natural protection even without holding his breath.
The second one is the Dog. This persona is so named because of its over-active, excitable nature and complete ignorance of social graces and mannerisms. The Dog seems more self-serving than the Stoic, but if anyone asks for help the Dog will eagerly agree to do whatever is needed, often before the speaker can finish the sentence. This part of him is more happy than any of his other personalities can manage, but is also slightly more dangerous than the Stoic - whenever the Dog is in control, Matthew's physical abilities become far more pronounced to the extent of his becoming acrobatic and his strength becoming even greater. However, the Dog has far less compunctions about using this strength in petty and casual ways in contrast to the Stoic. That said, the reason why the Dog is far more dangerous than the Stoic is because the Dog is the second stage before the Damager.
The third part of Matthew, the part of him full of fear, hatred and anger, is a seemingly independent consciousness that identifies as the Damager. This personality does not care about the suffering of the innocent and cares about one thing only - self-gratification at any cost. This self-gratification is usually to the detriment of the rest of the world, and the various ideas the Damager has had towards this end has been sufficient enough to give curious telepaths nightmares. What makes the Damager so terrifying as a potential threat is that, the few times that the Damager has been released, it appears to utilize Matthew's natural energy absorption powers both without the immobility restriction the other two personalities have to use, and to a much greater degree. The result is a callous, potentially murderous, ruthlessly efficient psychopathic super-villain that would be theoretically impossible to stop as long as he could access solar and thermal energy of any sort, alongside the Human Shield's other powers.
Paranoia - Matthew only has three fears that he is slightly paranoid about - the first being mind control, which is not only the one form of assault he has no natural defences against, but provides a gateway to the other two; hurting the people he actually cares about, and letting the darker side of him who is the darkest of his three personalities, an enigmatic notably cruel and angry mindset he refers to as the Damager, emerge as the dominant psyche. If any of these fears are used are used against him, his Stoic persona breaks down and he becomes a deadly serious combatant for as long as it takes to protect others from himself and his enemy.
Romanticist and Gentleman - Matthew does pride himself on being a first-class gentleman, self-trained in the art of chivalry and etiquette. This, combined with his cold and reserved "bad boy" demeanour alongside a generally warm heart whenever the need for it arises, can make him a devastating flirt without actually intending to woo anyone. Indeed, one of his more sarcastic complaints is that women keep getting into trouble just to give him their phone numbers.
Gear and Equipment
Gear
Comms Link - When the Human Shield came to the attention of UNTIL, the new hero agreed to be a resource they could call upon in exchange for a headpiece that allowed him to contact the UNTIL Database, which would in turn provide the information he needed at any given time. It also allows him to contact any superhero organization whose data is logged into UNTIL's database.
Project S.I.R.E. (Solar Infused Reinforcement Equipment) Armour - This is experimental top-of-the-line armour developed by Doctor Portly/Dr. Abhorrence. This armour particularly takes into account Matthew's natural synthesis ability and is designed around the concept of not only increasing the amount of solar and thermal energy Matthew can absorb into himself at any given time, but channelling the excess energy into the microfibres of the suit, which are techno-organic strands of nano-machinery melded with Matthew's DNA kept at a constant state of inertia within a vacuum, designed to create a hyper-resilient material that is also light as a feather on the body. The resulting absorption by the suit causes the armour to actually become denser as a result, allowing it to complement the Human Shield's existing durability immensely. This armour is knife-proof, conventionally bullet-proof and when worn increases Matthew's overall durability by about one third of his maximum capacity.
Form Centralizer - This device is something the Human Shield picked up from a defeated Qularr leader during the Invasion, and he discovered that as long as he has it in his possession, it prevents the Human Shield from being instantly destroyed by substances or energies that do not physically interact with matter, such as bullets and lasers, but instead erase it without contact, such as subspace and negative energy. This allows him a much wider range of attacks he can defend against.
Relationships
Lover
This section is specifically for a spouse, lover, or some other form of paramour. Feel free to use any of the formatting from 'Friends/Allies' below.
Friends/Allies
Put any friends or allies your character may have in here. You may give them descriptions or simply list them. To make a numbered list, simply place a # at the beginning of each new line:
- This guy
- That guy
- Some chick
For a non-numbered list, put an asterisk instead (the lines are optional. Simply remove the HR tags if you wish to remove them):
- This guy
- That guy
- Some chick
Or, you could even use a smaller sub-header for each person, effectively creating a small section on them, like this:
That Guy I Know
Put info on the friend here.
That Chick I Met
And here.
Some Dude at the Bar
Don't forget this one.
Enemies
Put any rivals or enemies here. You can give descriptions, or simply list them. Same idea as the Allies and Friends.
General Perception
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