InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "and You're a one nut frisbee!"

taliajo (taliajo) wrote,
@ 2010-08-15 17:39:00

time_mod

[PLAYER]

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[CHARACTER]
Name: X-29.09 ('Talia')
Codename: X-29
Alias: Talia Josephine Ross, 'Talia Jo,' 'TJ,' 'Teej.'
Age: 18
Character Base: Nocturne
Home Reality: Earth-514. In 1998, Charles Xavier and his X-Men fought a group called 'the Brotherhood of Mutants.' At the climax of the battle, Xavier shut down the Brotherhood leader's brain. The leader, Magneto, fell into a coma and Xavier was imprisoned for his crime. It was the first that the world as a whole had heard of 'mutants,' but the truth is that secret projects utilizing mutants had been underway for quite some time.

Weapon-X was one of them. The clandestine operation pirated research from earlier super-soldier projects, appropriated bright up-and-coming scientists from other divisions, and drew its test subjects primarily from the lost and desperate. Some mutants volunteered because they had nowhere else to go, but most of the early test subjects were abducted. Under the direction of Dr. Cornelius, Weapon-X conducted medical and psychological experimentation upon the superhumans they'd managed to lure in. As one might expect, the heavily brainwashed test subjects were traumatized and unstable. They were effective but not particularly trustworthy; any handler worth his stripes knew that a psychotic break was always potentially just around the corner.

Thus, in 1990, Dr. Cornelius turned to genetic engineering. Instead of trying to mold adults into loyal, capable soldiers, the Project began utilizing the genetic samples it had collected over the decades. The first viable embryo was implanted into a surrogate mother early the next year. Others followed. By 1994, six healthy children had been born. These children were kept separate from the adult soldiers and were raised in a carefully controlled environment. In addition to military and athletic training, they attended school and were well-educated in the standard academic subjects. They are Weapon-X's crowning success, the culmination of the project's work, and they are only the beginning.

What did this person do wrong to be pulled out by the Timebroker? The Weapon-X children are very young, very powerful, and very unaware of the consequences of their actions. They've been sheltered and manipulated by their Weapon-X handlers all of their lives; they're on a path to becoming incredibly dangerous weapons who don't question orders and don't have empathy for anyone but each other. The Timebroker pulled Talia in the hopes of socializing her without a handler breathing down her neck. If she can learn that the people outside her little group are not toys there for her amusement, she might be able to go back and influence the others. The kids need to break free and right now they have no reason to do so.

Appearance: Talia is humanoid in shape, but with a number of obvious physical mutations. She's blue, she's covered in a soft fuzz, and her ears taper to slight points. She has a retractable prehensile tail and yellowish eyes. She has a thumb and two fingers on each hand, and two large toes on each foot. In other words? She can't really blend in on the street. As for clothes? Until very recently, her options were incredibly limited. Weapon-X provided the children with uniforms and that was pretty much it. As a result? She's turned into a huge clothes-horse. Talia prefers to go barefoot because she can't wall-crawl in shoes, but otherwise she adores fashion and overindulges when given an opportunity.

PB: Olivia Thirlby

Powers: The X-29 genetic group is derived from Nightcrawler's DNA, with just enough of a genetic 'mother' grafted on to correct for a few undesirable genetic traits and to ensure early activation of powers. (In the case of the X-29 genetic group, the 'mother' is another teleporter, a member of the main Weapon-X team codenamed 'Locus.') Talia is X-29.09, the ninth embryo of the group and the most 'successful.' She was the only child of the group that was carried to term. (This was the case for most genetic groups: Weapon-X produced a lot of embryos and hand-selected those with the best mix of traits. The exception is group X-18. A twin boy and girl - Rachel and Nate - were created from Jean Grey's DNA.)

As Nightcrawler's biological 'daughter,' Talia has inherited his powers.

Agility and Dexterity: TJ has an incredibly flexible spine, which allows her to crouch and bend into positions that would be downright impossible for normal people. She also possesses enhanced agility - it's only barely superhuman, but it's enough to be noticeable. She's fast and she has a really good sense of what her body is doing at all times. She can also cling to surfaces using her hands (and feet, if they're bare), which allows her to scale walls without hand-holds. She is ambidextrous and can use her prehensile tail as a fifth limb.

Teleportation: Talia has the ability to teleport herself from one location to another. Heightened spacial awareness keeps her from teleporting into solid objects, though it also helps if she can see where she's going. (She doesn't need to see the destination to be able to teleport, but the spacial awareness only works if she has a good sense of the location into which she's teleporting. Also, that space needs to be the same as she remembers it. So, if Talia's blind-teleporting, she prefers to do it into a location that she's recently visited. That way, she knows where to reappear because she remembers the way the room was laid out, and knows that she won't accidentally wind up inside a chair.)

She displaces gases and liquids when she teleports into a space that they occupy, but if she were to accidentally teleport into a solid, it would kill her.

Her extreme limit on a teleportation is two miles, though pushing that far tires her quickly. She can also carry additional mass with her, but there are conditions. For one, it's exhausting, and if the additional mass is a person the experience is downright unpleasant for the passenger. Talia's had a long time to get used to her abilities; most passengers aren't prepared and are dramatically weakened after a few quick 'ports.

Skills: Talia's a skilled hand-to-hand combatant and is proficient with firearms. She does not carry a gun and would not think to locate one - she prefers using her powers and her martial arts ability to handle opponents - but her trainers thought it important that she learn how guns work. She's also had a basic education (in academics and in military strategy and history), but she's no genius; a stupid soldier is an ineffective soldier, but it wasn't as if Talia were going off to become a doctor or college professor.

Weaknesses: Easily cowed by authority figures. Unquestioning, quick to take orders and slow to resist people she perceives as having power over her. Poorly socialized; she doesn't understand things like personal boundaries, since she was never allowed any of her own, and doesn't pick up on normal social cues. She doesn't blend in well, both because of her behavior and lack of social experience, and because of her physical appearance, when she regards as perfectly normal and does not try to conceal.

Personality:
Obedient. First and foremost, Talia is obedient. Despite the conditions in which she was brought up, she was never physically harmed. The doctors were fully aware of how valuable their little test-children were and they were very careful not to damage them. However, it was drilled into her from a very young age that she was to do as she was told. Punishments were just unpleasant enough to condition her into wanting to avoid them. The result? As a young woman, she has absolute respect for those she perceives as having power and authority over her. To date, she has never disobeyed a direct order.

Loyal. Specifically, to the other genetically engineered children in her peer group and to Weapon-X. She views the other kids as siblings and is quick to take up for them - if you've harmed them, you've harmed her. To date, her loyalty hasn't transferred to anyone outside of Weapon-X, but again, she hasn't had much of a chance to get to know anyone outside of Weapon-X.

Callous. When it comes to outsiders, she's indifferent. She's spent most of her life in an incredibly confined social circle. It makes new people seem unreal; they're interesting, but they don't matter because they'll be gone in the blink of an eye. Talia can be callous because she doesn't know any better - there have never before been consequences for snubbing strangers, nor have there been rewards for making friends. The only group that has mattered is the group within Weapon-X.

Content. In general, the genetically engineered children are far better-adjusted than the adult members of Weapon-X. You won't find a lot of angst in Talia, in spite of the fact that her entire reason for being is 'to be used by others.' It's not as if she knows anything different. She just accepts her situation as natural, and is fairly happy because she doesn't realize she shouldn't be.

Playful. She likes to tease, she's playful, she's outgoing. Perhaps a little sarcastic, but she can take what she dishes out. She's occasionally a little mean, not intentionally but because her personal sphere of experience has been so unusual. Her best friends include a pair of telepath-telekinetics and a girl with enhanced senses. All of her assumptions about people come from what the other Project kids can handle, so when other people can't handle it too, her automatic reaction is disdain and passing of blame. 'It's not my fault you wound up with a bowl of pudding on your head. Rachel would've caught it.' In Talia's mind, she's not being cruel. She's behaving normally, and other people are just lame.

Overview:

→ 1990. A genetic pool of approximately 35 DNA donors is narrowed down to five: Jean Grey (embryo designation X-18), Wolverine (embryo designation X-23), Magneto (embryo designation X-25), Nightcrawler (embryo designation X-29), and Colossus (embryo designation X-31). The name 'donor' is misleading, as many of the genetic 'parents' had samples taken surreptitiously, without their knowledge or consent. Work on cloning and genetic engineering projects begin.
→ 1991. The first viable embryo of the Weapon-X genetic engineering project is implanted into a surrogate mother.
→ 1992. X-29.09 is born. She is given the name 'Talia' after one of the doctors who delivered her: Talia Josephine Harper.
→ 1994. All six children have been born. In addition to Talia, they are X-18.06 ('Rachel'), X-18.09 ('Nate'), X-23.14 ('Laura'), X-25.06 ('Joey'), and X-31.05 ('Peter').
→ 1999. The children have been genetically engineered to manifest powers early. Talia has possessed her physical mutations and wall-clinging talents since birth. In June of 1999, her teleportation manifests. She is seven years old.
→ 2001. Talia has her first experience with a child from the outside world. Her name is Allison and she has been captured for use in the main Weapon-X experiments. She is twelve and collateral damage; she'd been hiding out with an adult mutant and he, not the preteen, had been the initial target. In the span of ten minutes in the cafeteria, Talia accidentally (and thoroughly) frightens the girl. This teaches Talia that outsiders are 'fragile and whiny.' The seeds of contempt are planted.
→ 2008. The children, now in their teens, are sent out on their first mission. It is low-risk and they are heavily monitored. They perform admirably and cooperate well as a unit.
→ 2009; February. The doctors begin to become concerned about the socialization of the children. They are respectful of authority and take orders, but they do not do well on missions that require them to cooperate with outsiders. As they are useless if they cannot work alongside other soldiers, the psychologists begin working on a remediation plan.
→ 2009; August. The children are placed into foster homes, both to improve their socialization and to teach them to operate covertly among 'ordinary' people. Talia is settled into a foster home under the identity of Talia Josephine Ross. She is very cautious about maintaining the cover her handlers have set up for her, and she's constantly aware that she's being watched. This is incentive enough to make her behave herself, but it does not do much to change how she views the outside world. Her foster parents are nice people, but they're temporary. She does not get emotionally attached.
→ 2010; August. Weapon-X is content with her ability to blend in and function around other people, in spite of the fact that her underlying attitude has not changed. They are preparing to pull her back when she is taken by the Timebroker.

[SAMPLES]
As Steve: 1 and 2. As Wanda: 1.