Living Lightning
Contents
Living Lightning[edit]
Hector "Heck" Aloysius Carter
PL10[edit]
Abilities[edit]
Strength 2, Stamina 5, Agility 5, Dexterity 4, Fighting 3, Intellect 0, Awareness 2, Presence 1
Powers[edit]
- Balls of Lightning [Electricity Attacks]:** Blast 10 [Electricity] Alt: Stun (Daze/Stun/Paralyze): Affliction 10 [Electricity; Increased Range] Alt: Autofire Blast: Blast 6 [Electricity; Multi-Attack; Accurate 2 (+4)] Alt: Ground Ball: Damage 6 [Electricity; Area: Burst, Selective] (23 points)
- Fast as Lightning [Super Speed]:** Quickness 5 [Blinding Speed], Blinding Speed: Speed 9, Fast Reactions: Enhanced Advantages 5 [Enhanced Initiative], Movement Powers: Movement 3 [Sure-footed 2, Water Walking, Wall-Crawling; Wall-Crawling, Water Walking: only while running], Faster Reactions: Enhanced Parry 8, Fastest Reactions: Enhanced Dodge 8 (39 points)
- Living Lightning:** Formed by Lightning: Immunity 5 [immune to Electricity (Damage)], Living Lightning: Immunity 2 [Immune to Suffocation (All)] (7 points)
Equipment[edit]
Advantages[edit]
Takedown, //Instant Up//, Luck 2, Precise Attack 1 [Ranged: Cover], Move-by Action, Ranged Attack 2, //Uncanny Dodge//, //Improved Initiative 3//
Skills[edit]
Acrobatics 4 (+9), Athletics 8 (+10), Close Combat: Unarmed 4 (+7), Deception (+1), Expertise: Baseball 4 (+4), Insight 2 (+4), Intimidation (+1), Perception 7 (+9), Persuasion (+1), Ranged Combat: Lightning 4 (+10), Ranged Combat: Thrown 0 (+6), Ranged Combat: Guns 0 (+6), Stealth (+5), Vehicles 1 (+5)
Offense[edit]
Initiative +17 Unarmed +7, Damage 2 Blast/Stun +10, Damage 10 Autofire +14, Damage 6 Ground Ball +3, Damage 6, Burst, Selective
Defense[edit]
Dodge 15, Parry 13 Toughness 5 (Def Roll 0), Fortitude 8, Will 8
Power Points[edit]
Point Breakdown[edit]
Abilities 44 + Powers 69 + Advantages 7 + Skills 17 + Defenses 13 = Total 150
Complications[edit]
Patriotism: Loves the USA
Power Loss: Self-Esteem (Note: Although playing an African-American character in 1940's, steering away from taking Prejudice as a Complication).
Background[edit]
Missouri, 1941
Another cloud of steam erupted from under the open hood of the St Louis Lightning-bolts bus. The driver, sweat-streaked, jumped clear, coughing.
"We ain't going to reach Cape Girardeau in time for the game, at this rate!" The driver, the only one of them in a suit, instead of a pinstripe baseball uniform, wiped his brow with a handkerchief.
The dirt road stretched out in either direction, as far as anyone could see. Sitting in the tall grass trying to find shade in the 80o heat, fanning themselves with magazines, newspapers, and hats, the team-members of the Lightning-bots groaned. Members of the American Mid-West Negro Baseball League, they couldn't afford to miss a game. Another game.
"Maybe one of these folks can help?"
Remote from the road, small farms dotted the low rolling hills. Sharecroppers, for the most part, poor, and even if the colour of the players' skin didn't matter, who among them would have a phone, way out here? Or take the time to tow the team's beat-up and broken down old bus all the way to Cape G? No one answered their team-mate.
Heck lay stretched out in the grass, a newspaper placed over his head like a tent. It sure was hot, one of them hot, cloudy days were the sun seems to punch through the clouds, even though you can't see it. A heavy day, with the promise of rain -- a promise kept just like Lawrence Fuller, the team owner and manager, the fellow driving the bus, promised to get the bus fixed up proper.
Patience, his momma had taught him, was a virtue. But Hector Aloysius Carter didn't ever get the hang of patience. Removing the paper, he forced himself up, and walked to the road.
"Well Lawry, I ain't sitting in the grass no more. And it's too hot on the bus." That was a fact, only the dusty wind coming through the open windows made the long ride from St Louis to Cape Girardeau tolerable. And when the bus wasn't moving? It had to be almost one hundred in there.
"I'm walkin' to the Cape."
"You idiot! It's gotta be fifteen more miles!"
"Reckon I can make it in a few hours. Send a tow-truck. Something. Get myself a sandwich and a haircut waiting for you all." Several other team-mate looked like they were considering it. But patience? That wasn't anything that Heck was any good at. He turned away from the bus and started down the road.
Two hot hours later, sweat-streaked and foot-sore, Heck was beginning to regret his choice. But the bus still hadn't passed him, no traffic had. Still, he could see the church spires of the distant river-side town. It wasn't more than four, five miles away. Heck reached into his pocket, where two dimes and a quarter clinked. He could get himself a soda. No, two sodas! And he'd still have enough for a sandwich, and a phone-call to... ...someone who might help the team out of their predicament. Heck really didn't know who to call.
The sky rumbled and flashed ominously, and with little warning warm summer rain began to fall.
"Well don't that just beat it all?" Heck looked around for somewhere he could find cover. The only place near-by was an old oak tree near a dirt cross-roads. Picking up the pace, his worn leather shoes slapped the dusty road as rain-drops turned yellow dust into dark mud around him. Laughing, and soaked, he vaulted a split-rail fence and ran up the slope. Leaning against the trunk, he smiled. The edge of town was just over the next rise.
A black Ford Prefect, the only car he'd seen all afternoon, rolled along the side-road, the plume of dust it kicked up being beaten down by the rain.
Sheriff's Report Martin Troyer, Travelling Salesman
"I was driving along the Scott County line when I saw a man in a baseball uniform. He was distant, at the time. Then I was scared nearly out of my skin as before my eyes a lightning bolt struck the man, like a bolt out of heaven! Well, I expected that to be the end, but not seconds later a second bolt struck the man! And he was still upright, as I live and breathe! And then a third bolt struck, like the Lord's own vengeance. At that moment my car died."
"Seeing as how the rain had stopped, and the clouds were clearing up, I approached the man. I took him to be burnt, at first. But as I drew closer, I saw that he was a coloured gentleman, dressed in his birthday suit, and a few scraps of burned cloth."
"Well, I puzzled what to do, and was about to drive into town to get the Sheriff, when a bus came up from the north towards Cape Girardeau. And as it happened to be a bus full of coloured gentlemen I waved them down, they took the man with them, to the hospital, I reckon."
"But here's the thing. I saw that man lit by lightning three times, as sure as I can see the sun at noon. And he was conscious, confused, asking for help the entire time. Something about not being late for the game?"
"This happened at August the seventh, at 4:11pm. I know that, because that's when my watch stopped, the same time as my car."
Somewhere, 1942
Heck opened and closed his fist. He was always lean, his vascularity visible, but he never used to be able to see flicking white blue light race though his veins when his muscles worked. Lighting, he thought. And of course in the following year he'd given blood enough to know what was inside him: it was bright and blue, nearly actinic white. But no matter how many vials they took, minutes later it was dark blue, the flickering hot energy gone. It was lifeless.
Once again, he wish he'd stayed with the bus.
His hospital room, faded paint over metal walls, the thick door, a sagging mattress on a rusty cot, a table, a basin, and a pot in the corner. No windows. A single light. Nothing to read, nothing to do. It was for his own safety. He was sick. It was bad. He didn't want to get anyone else sick. That could happen, he'd been told. But there was nothing in here. Not even a bible to read.
The door latch rattled. It opened, revealing the slim, diminutive Dr Franklin.
"How are you today, Patient 1941C?"
Never a name. Not once. Patient 1941C. Franklin was cold, he probably had to work here because his bed-side manner was the worst thing Heck could imagine.
"Good Doc. Hey, hey you think I could get some magazines? Something? Even a comic book?"
It wasn't the first time he'd asked for things. A walk in the fresh air. A radio so he could listen to some games. Even a puzzle.
"Are you going to be difficult, Patient 1941C?"
"Ah, no Doc, of course not." Heck sat in the heavy chair the interns brought in, and waited to be strapped in. Another needle. Another jar of blood. At least that meant a cookie added to his dinner, and some identifiable meat, for a couple days. The cooks here were as awful as the doctor was, though. Boiled, everything boiled except the toast, and that was burned. Heck's momma sure could have taught them a thing or two about the kitchen.
"Work your arm, Patient 1941C. Flex, let us hope we can keep the electroplaxes alive in your blood a little longer this time."
The what?
Somewhere else, 1943.
The bus ride was strange. Long, eight hours without stopping. There was only one bench, and all the windows had been blacked out. Heck had sat in heavy chains between two burly interns the entire way. They were taking him to help with the war effort. That's all they'd told him. Something about his disease. If he even had a disease, and Heck had long ago assumed that he didn't. It was about his blue blood. That's what they wanted.
And The war? Heck had heard guards talking. Europe. Hitler. Pearl Harbour and the Japanese. But it was like a radio show in the neighbour's apartment -- you could hear it, but you couldn't really make much sense of it. They never really answered questions.
The bus stopped in a narrow alley. A city, from all the noise, and a big one. St Louis? Chicago? Heck blinked up at the sun, only the second time he'd seen it in... ...really, he'd long since lost count. The old comics and dusty books they had brought him gave no clue to the current date. The hospital had long since stopped pretending that it wasn't a jail, that he was a prisoner first and a patient second. But how to escape? When?
The interior warehouse was like nothing he'd ever seen -- except on the Planet Mongo when for a nickel he'd bought a bag of popcorn and a soda and sat in the back of the dark theatre when he was a teen, watching Flash Gordon save us from Ming.
Dr Franklin watched as Heck was strapped to a copper panel. He struggled, but both burly guards quickly pinned him down and secured him. Heck didn't have a great feeling about this. It didn't seem like they were just going to draw another jar of his blood. They removed his hospital gown, leaving him in just a pair of under-shorts.
"Patient 1941C, you are going to be responsible for the creation of a weapon unlike anything the Allies have ever seen."
"Look Doc. Whatever this is. You've never been straight with me. Well ain't it time?"
As usual the doctor ignored Heck.
A towering blond man in an undershirt and shorts emerged into Heck's visual arc. What kind of joint was this? Men walking around half-naked? Chattering with the Doctor, the blond giant stepped up onto the copper panel that faced the one Heck was secured to. The blonde self-secured restraints, much lighter than the heavy metal clamps around Heck's limbs, with the Doctor securing his remaining arm.
"Patient 1941C, you are an abomination. But your blood presents us a mystery, a potential for power beyond your pitiful imagination. Of course blood transfusion was out of the question."
"However I have created the hyper-dynamo! Using the forces of electricity and magnetism I will seize what makes you special from your body without a drop of your blood passing between you. And I shall lock it into my friend here, unleashing at first one, then an army of fifth columnists unlike any America has ever known. Unlocking the next wave of humanity, who will destroy America from within!"
Heck is puzzled. A fifth what? Still, his dread was real. The doc was going to kill him! He struggled against the clamps that held him, but it was hopeless.
Without further preamble the doctor began to flip toggles and shift switches. And as the hum of the great dynamos that lined the room began, Hector Carter's world became a narrow pin-point of pain. He could see the white-blue light of his blood clearly, like glowing pinstripes across his skin instead of flickering pulses. And across from him, here and there, Heck watch as bright blue lines began to draw themselves under the blond giant's skin.
Still, at least Heck wasn't the only one screaming now.
The doctor worked feverishly, injecting syringes into the blonde man, moving toggles, wheeling dials, and flipping more switches.
Then Heck watched as the man across from him started to smoulder. To burn. Now the doctor's shouts of frustration joined the screams of the two men strapped to panels. Heck watch with rising horror as the blonde man burned like a roman candle, burned through flimsy leather and lambswool restraints, collapsing to the floor.
Power seemed to flow back into Heck, filling him, and overfilling him, like water over the levee during a flood.
Time seemed to slow, and as the sky-light above shattered into thousands of pieces as the grey-caped figurep lunged through it, time almost seemed to stop. Everything was still, each piece of glass hanging in space, the grey-cloaked masked-man frozen in mid air. The two orderlies. The doctor. All frozen. And the pain? Gone.
Heck looked around. What now? His skin was bright with electric traceries of his blood vessels, brighter and more distinct than he'd ever seen before. But the clamps that secured him were still just as strong, just as immobile. Did the doctor do this? Or did I?
Heck tried to sigh. But he hadn't been breathing again. He used to panic when that happened, he'd gotten used to it now. He breathed in and sighed. There. He tried to... ...relax. And glass started spinning, the man started falling, and exploding machinery began to detonate all around. And although it was diminishing, the pain returned.
He blinked in wonder as the masked man straightened up fro his landing and punched -- and even though he was six feet away from the orderlies they both flew away like they'd been hit by a truck. the doctor pulled a pistol. Heck shouted a warning, and as time slowed again the gun fired. Heck winced as the bullet struck the masked man and... ...bounced away?
Time sped up again, and the masked man delivered another wild punch, nowhere near the doctor, but Franklin crashed back into a bank of controls and slumped to the ground.
The masked man looked around, and approached Heck. The heavy clamps around his arms and legs just seemed to open of their own accord.
"What are you?"
Heck looked down. The bright blue-white veins were fading, slowly. A glance at the burnished copper plate showed that his eyes burned with blue fire. That would fade too, he hoped.
Heck moved his mouth. Nothing. Oh. Right. Breath. His voice is a weakened croak.
"I'm a baseball player. I just want to help with the war."
