Alias: Aegis
Age: 12
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Straight
Appearance and Attributes: Still a young girl just after hitting puberty, she stands at a rather tall for her age 5 foot 2 inches, hazel brown eyes that always seem to have a constant spark in them making them feel as if they have a life of their own, long blonde hair down to her bum that she in turn wears loose or woven in braids, pigtails or in a bun (mood dependent). Just like her hair, her outfits are purely based on what mood she is in at the time. Should she be in a good mood she will often be seen in some sort of dress and high heel as when she is having a bad day she will cover herself in multiple layers of t-shirts, hoodies and cardigans with simplistic shoes depending on the weather. She wears clips in the front of her hair that were given to her by her mother as a child that she felt she could not part with, one is a sunflower and the other is a moonflower worn left to right respectively. Although she is twelve, most people seem to always believe she is younger than she is, she is already beginning to grow into a fine young woman but from her powers, her demeanour and her somewhat childish nature she is often mistake for an eight year old. She is a carefree and social person by nature and somewhat off a tomboy at times as she has a flirtacious nature for slightly older boys about her age. She is not afraid to speak her mind and has deeply ingrained morals that keep her on the straight and narrow path that she got from her mother. She will not falter or fail if she puts herself up to the task but she can be somewhat distracted at times and a little vain as she is still a young woman growing and only just recently beginning to understand the new changes going on in her body which at times makes her more unpredictable and also irritable.
History: Jennifer Swanston was born the only daughter of Sam and Jessica Swanston. A simple family with no great stories to tell off past glories or future great deeds. They were happy and lived a simple life on the outskirts off the new city that was once only in planning and would one day rise up as Novum Aurora. They had a modest house and made modest wages as a family, her dad was a car salesman and her mother was a part time care assistant and provider for the disabled. They lived humble lives as a close knit family that took great joy from each other. Jennifer was their first child and from a young age she was spoilt for anything she wanted, her grandparents would look after her regularly when her mother and father were at work and she was content. She had a rather uneventful childhood before her school life. She was a normal child that showed no sign of what she would become as a teenager through her powers.
When she started school, around her second or third year she was bullied by a fatter and more aggressive girl that was a year older than her again that took a dislike to her long flowing hair that she would constantly pull and yank on to torment little Jennifer. It was one day when she had had enough and came home crying to her mother that her mother gave her the solution to her hair pulling problem. Her mother gave her two hair clips for her hair that would go on either side and slide her hair back out of her face. Her mother told her she was so pretty now that all the girls would love her like her mother did and oddly her mother was not far wrong. The new look seemed to influence the other children around her to an extent that they stuck up for the little girl and made the bully leave her alone. From then on Jennifer never removed her hair clips as she believed them a source of good luck and protection that kept her mum forever in her heart.
It wasn't until she was around nine or ten that her powers began to manifest themselves but in a subtle manner to start with. Soon she could sense that when she talked to people or listened to them talking to others she could feel a presence that came from within them, their aura would betray the emotion and thoughts within the person. She could at first use it to tell if a person was lying, whether through omission or intentful deception, Jennifer could tell that there was a hidden truth. Soon she began to realise that with this ability within her she could sense the aggression off others and their intentions. If there was someone who was a bully she could almost feel the very essence of their malice and who the victim would be before it had even occurred. Once she had even used it to hide from a boy who had tried to kiss her but her senses had interpreted it as a threat to her and she fled before he could even come close to her. Her gift was one of knowing a person from the inside, to see the light or darkness within a person's heart and mind, it was an added sense of risk perception.
When her passive powers took hold it was like people's emotions gave off lightwaves that only her eyes could see, each lightwave would be a different colour or create different patterns depending on the emotion, sometimes using both colour and frequency. It happened naturally so Jennifer never sensed that something was wrong as it was an optical power within her eyes but she never knew any different or that she was the sole benefactor of this power. Her powers were never shared with anyone, not even her parents as a young child she could not fathom what it was or that no one else had the same kind of empathy as she did, in fact she thought it was normal and that she was simply better at picking it up than others and that was what made her so good at avoiding trouble. She was a brilliant student even as a child, in fact she was smarter than most kids her own age and was at one stage in the running to be sent for testing on just how smart she was, even from a young age she showed signs of intelligence only available at adulthood but when the time came for her to undergo the tests she was scared and begged not to go for the tests.
She never really told anybody why she wouldn't go but in the end her parents stopped trying to get her to go and she continued on at the school she was currently situated and was always top of her entire year, from start to finish off her academic career. Her happiness as a kid would soon be cut short as during her summer holidays before she was due to start into her high school years there was a tragic accident that would shake her very foundations. She was in the family car with her mum and dad one summer day when the sun was shinning on high and the car they traveled in was roasting them. They had driven along a country road that a train track passed through and before they could make it to the other side the warning lights went off and the barriers came down. The car was the first at the gate and they patiently waited for the train to go by. Jennifer was in the back of the car when suddenly images off the last time she was sick and vomiting came hurtling into her head making her feel sick all over again but a deep sense of fear came with it. She panicked and called for her mother, suddenly it came flashing through her mind again, it would happen three times before Jennifer could take it no more and she throw herself out of the car and up against the side of the grass bank at the side of the road. Her father lingered in the driver seat watching through his rear view mirror as his daughter was sick on the grass leaving his wife to go get her.
Her mother came to her and somewhat startled began to question her daughter on what was wrong, Jennifer just babbled, her words made no sense and her head swam with fear and dread. Jennifer picked herself up and began to walk back further down the road away from the car, her mother thinking she was just acting up shouted and called to her to come back this instant but the blood kept pounding in her ears and her mother's shouts were lost in the drone. When she was finally a short distance away when things cleared up and she began to feel fine again. She turned to her mother who stood with her hands on her hips still calling her to come back. Her mother smiled when she had stopped and turned back to face her, calling her child to come back, tenderness in her voice and warmth in her expression. That was the last thing Jennifer ever heard from her mother as the sound of metal on metal, grinding and scrapping, the heaving and groaning off a fully laden train that buckled and hurtled off the tracks. Her mother and father had been so close that the train came swamping over the top of them and when one second Jennifer could see her mother in front of her, the next it was broken metal train carriages and the sound of screams. Jessica and Sam were both killed instantly that day, the freak train crash that left one hundred and fifty people seriously injured or killed.
Only seven people from the train and the front car at the barriers survived, Jennifer was one and she lived because she was special. The debris and flying shrapnel rained down upon where she stood but frozen by fear she called forth everything from within herself and before she even knew she had done, a shield of almost invisible energy enveloped her and the flying iron, rock and mud only slammed hard against the barrier and she remained unharmed. Panting and alone, she lay on the grass bank nearby and stared in total disbelief at how she had survived when others were not so lucky. Shaking and afraid, the car that had been her family's was nothing but broken fragments and there in the wreckage was a crumpled body, it looked so fair and beautiful but the chill that ran through Jennifer's blood as the red that stained that perfect person dripped and stained everything it touched. She screamed for how long she didn't know, only when a man picked her up wailing and thrashing at him did she finally stop as she was placed in the back off an ambulance some time later. She never spoke a word to anyone of that day, she was unharmed physically but inside she was dying. Hours later she gave them her name and they found her only remaining family.
Jennifer was then forced to live with her granny Elizabeth who lived only a few miles away at the quiet suburban far south western side of Novum Aurora. Her granny loved her and cared for her from she was ten but she was not her mother. Her life felt hollow for some time, she joined a new school and at first nothing seemed to happen, she frozen in place in her life. Her world had gone all wrong, she didn't understand, why was she alive and her parents dead, why didn't she help them? There was never any answers to her many questions. She came home one day and found her granny alone in the kitchen baking, she didn't know what was going on but she inquired as to what the occasion was. Her granny smiled and replied that it was her birthday and had she forgotten it so easily. In truth she had forgotten, the joy of birthdays, of presents, and family time had faded. For the first time in almost a year she smiled... meekly. Her granny made her two cakes this year and made the icing on top especially for this day. The two cakes she made were of the clips in Jennifer's hair. She told her grandchild that day that though those around us may pass away, they leave parts of themselves behind with us, in our hearts and for Jennifer, in our hair. Jennifer cried long and hard at that point but it was tears of thankfulness and off slow acceptance that her life had to move on.
She continued in school and was always highly ranked, finding kids in her new school that were also equally gifted and their intelligence helped her to thrive with them. She was becoming a young woman and soon found her interest in boys, or more her interest in teasing them. She was happier now, her powers, both passive and active seemed to disappear for a time leaving her feeling normal again. It was around this time that Jennifer began to sense an unease in the air and the feeling off not being able to shake the sensation that someone was watching her. A dark shadow always seemed to lurk around the corner of the school gate and sometimes she caught odd shadows moving around in the distance were no one was. She couldn't tell if what she imagined was real but she kept feeling it around her. She no longer walked home alone from school, always bringing her friends along and watching her back. When she was alone it seemed to creep ever closer but when her friends were around the shadow always passed. After this she began to notice she could begin to see the incoming dangers and feel peoples emotions once more, the danger seeming to be the catalyst for her strength. In her school a new turn of events has changed things, the school roof only built a few years ago that was passed by the inspectors that were due to check it has suddenly been considered dangerous and the school is currently closed until the new roof can be put on and get the children back to their studies. With this, Jennifer is free from school, leaving her time to herself. She has decided to wander into Novum Aurora to see if she can confront the shadow that haunts her. The shadow that scares her is far more than she can even comprehend but as the saying goes, it was curiosity that killed the cat.
Powers:
Active; Shield and Barrier creation, enforcement, destruction and removal.
Jennifer's main ability is to create a protective barrier around her and anyone around her and within range. Her barrier is a physical construct, meaning it can block physical attacks, kinetic force, extreme heat or cold and low level mental attacks that cannot pass through solid objects. Natural barriers within our own world such as walls, dams or even force fields can be "coated over" by her powers to amplify both the natural object and her own barrier by using one to power the other beyond its own natural strength. With her ability she can also use this power to bring down other defensive shields like forcefields or even those barriers put around a mind to protect from mental assault or invasion and even to shatter enemy barriers blocking her path whether physical, illusional or conjured. Jennifer is young so her barriers are not as strong as those more seasoned or more practiced but they will still stand many varieties of attack. Through training she will one day be able to make more barriers but currently she is limited to one at a time and cannot preform complex tasks without breaking her concentration and the shield at the same time. With these powers she is also able to create a special kind of barrier known as a seal. Literally creating a blockage in mental pathways, targeted at stopping certain thoughts or emotions and even closing off parts of the mind from manipulation or corruption. These seals can even manifest themselves as physical clots in the airways and the blood, potentially fatal if left in place for too long without removal. Jennifer has never used it for this purpose intentionally however as causing harm with her power usually comes from accidentally attempting to seal the wrong thing or her concentration being broken when attempting to seal something else. She can release the blockage in the physical being easier than she can remove any mental barrier she has put in place within someone's mind.
Passive; Precognitive risk detection and emotional sensory awareness.
Jennifer was gifted with the ability to foresee the subtle changes in a persons brain waves and emotional receptors as they happen. With this she can detect hostility and danger from any person with ten feet whether she is looking at them or not, however her perception of them is different for visual confirmation as opposed to perceived confirmation. Visual confirmation is when she sees the lightwaves off a person's aura change or twist if a sudden impulse or reaction to a certain circumstance changes the person's mind. Perceived confirmation is when her mind begins to flash through traumatic images in her mind perceiving risk or danger from a nearby source, her mind uses already gained negative images in the mind to use as the threat detection, in her case her parents deaths always flashes before her eyes. Using this kind of detection is sometimes more or less useful, you detect the danger just as early allowing you to flee or defend from trouble but it does not reveal the source off the threat without visually seeing who is the aggressor. For her emotional awareness it comes from her seeing things in colours and wave patterns. Most colours have their own meaning for instance, red lightwaves showed anger or frustration, blue for sadness or depression, yellow waves showed happiness, green light waves showed troubled emotions, often mixed feelings of doubt or anxiety. Intentions of good faith and selflessness were simply white lightwaves that pass her eyes without being seen but dark intentions and envy left a lightwave of tinted black, shown like an undercurrent in their speech. Using these patterns, Jennifer can detect changes in emotion and mood. The change in patterns from simple up and down wave patterns that show calmness and restrain can turn into straight lines when someone lies due to the person's response being made up and not actually flowing correctly to jagged lines showing increased aggression, hostility and sometimes for haphazard and broken wave patterns showing signs of psychosis and the intent to kill.
Character Specific Weaknesses; Jennifer's weaknesses are rooted within her own powers. She is so aware of emotions and mood changes that she has difficulty trusting people as she has seen for herself first hand just how often people lie or hide their true selves away. She spends so much time within the minds off others and her own that she can sometimes feel run down and even in extreme cases leading to exhaustion and depression. She isn't physically strong and has no real power to fight back at an aggressor, she can only defend and the only thing she can do after that is attempt to seal away parts off a person to stop them being a threat. Her sealing powers are nowhere near perfect, having no effect on certain strong willed or peak conditioned people and with to much force she can be lethal by accidentally creating a barrier blocking air into a person's lungs or cutting blood flow off by sealing an artery. She needs complete concentration on that task and while doing this she cannot put up a barrier leaving her both vulnerable and likely to create the wrong seal or simply fail to create a seal at all if she is interrupted half way through.
Team Position: Full time junior member
Colour: Pink
