Name: Adelyn Aspen Gender: Female (she/her) Alias: Genesis Power Level: Medium Alignment: Light Gray (much more hero than villain, partly undecided) Age: 15 Height: 5'6", variable within 2-3" Scent Profile: Animal, fresh dirt, leather, faint spice and campfire smoke
Appearance: A long-limbed young woman with blank white eyes that tend to catch and reflect light like a cat's. There is a faint scar through her lip, though it's clear the injury has long since healed. She tends to dress in concealing clothing, and it's rare for her to have anything that isn't ripped, patched, or dirtied in some way as she cares more about running free than looking nice.
The only constants are her leather boots and gloves, and her sunglasses, which she dons whenever she has to go out in public. There is a certain gawkiness about her, as though not quite comfortable in her own skin, though she's slowly moving past it and into something distinctly animal the more she embraces her Shifts.
In her current form, she has sleek black hair that tends to fluff out when she's stressed, and her ears are rounded cat's ears, though on the side of her head rather than the top.
Powers:
Partial Shapeshifting - she can shift parts of her body into the corresponding body part of an animal. However, once a part of her is shifted she cannot turn it human again - only to other animals. All of the shifted parts of her change to the same animal at once.
The Shift, as she calls it, seems to know what she needs to adapt to a given environment, and will offer her the choice to Shift if it senses that she might need it. She must accept or decline its offer of her own free will.
Current Shift: Black Panther
Left arm (shoulder down)
Left hand
Legs and feet (shin down)
Ears
Hair patterning (unconscious shift)
Natural Weapons - Adelyn tends to choose animals that have claws, and though there was an early learning curve she now knows how to use them. She also selects animals that are strong, supplementing her own strength in small but noticeable ways; she hits harder with her paws than her fist, and runs faster when she can dig her claws into the earth. It doesn't help her as much when she's wearing her unwieldy boots, but she was never meant to flourish in the city. It was always the forest or nowhere at all, in her mind.
Animal Instinct - Her animal side has instincts of its own, guiding her when her human half fails. When she tunes in to those instincts, she is able to tell if someone poses a current threat to her, cutting through any posturing and sniffing out their dangerous intentions. Passively, her instincts make it a little easier for her to adjust to a new Shift, filling in for muscle memory she hasn't yet developed.
Endurance - Adelyn doesn't tire easily; her body is on her side, after all, and it keeps her going even when others would be exhausted. She still has to sleep, as all things must, but she can put it off for longer than most people would be able to without any lasting effects. Because of this, her sleep schedule doesn't seem to align with that of the city, or really with anyone outside of her family. She doesn't mind.
Fresh Blood - When she shifts to a new form, her shifted parts are refreshed and rejuvenated, healing from any pre-existing damage and giving her a brief boost in energy.
The Shift seems to delight in being used, and it never hurts her, but still she turns her eyes backwards and the doubt creeps in. If she continues on the path she has set for herself, there will be a day, she knows, where she is more animal than girl. Already the instincts of her animal side seem to supersede her own, at times, and the more she gives away the less she can override them. What will she do, when that tipping point is reached? What will she be?
Words spoken over a cradle, pressed into her mind since before she was old enough to comprehend them.
You mustn’t stray too far. You mustn’t look people in the eye for too long, or speak to strangers without us present, or unleash your claws.
The warnings came from a place of love and understanding, but Adelyn still found them terribly confusing. Her instincts told her one thing, and her family told her another.
Regardless, she loved her family and she didn’t want to cause trouble for them, so she put in the colored contacts they bought for her and she ignored the itching under her skin and she explored only the woods around their house and not the nearby town.
In the woods, she could run as wild as she liked. The adults whispered about old photographs and new recording devices and the dangers of curiosity, but they melted under her eager smile every time without fail. And so she grew up amid the Oregon wilderness, with streams to splash in and trees to climb and flowers to pick, and for a while everything was good.
Her family got a little smaller when her uncles finally found their own place to live, somewhere south and secluded and not too far to visit. It was a good change for them, but it drew attention, and attention drew scrutiny, and scrutiny brought that man to their doorstep. The one who knocked on their door and pointed a gun in her momma’s face when he looked her right in the eyes and saw the misalignment where the contacts didn’t quite sit right.
Her momma’s powers were too deeply buried to call upon; she’d suppressed them for so long that she could not and would not change. Adelyn had no such barrier. When she reached for the power that was waiting just under her skin, she found it eager to respond. It gave her legs that were fast enough to spring forward and claws that were sharp enough to rake across that man’s arm, making him drop the gun in shock and pain.
He left still cursing them, and her momma shut the door quickly. When she saw her daughter with blood still on her claws, she started crying. Adelyn didn’t understand at the time what she was so upset about - she’d protected her family, which was all that mattered.
So what if the claws never went away? Her mother was safe, and so was her father, and they all crowded into the car and headed east, hastily packed boxes crammed into the trunk and piled high in the empty seat beside her in the back.
So what if she scratched her lip in her sleep, and the scar never quite faded all the way? She learned to live with it eventually, learned to walk slow and measured instead of springing around on all fours like her body now wanted her to. She gave herself better ears, so that she could listen for threats. So that she wouldn’t be taken by surprise again.
That was the real talent of the Aspen family - they adapted like no other.
So what if she never got to go to school like the other kids, and had to wear long sleeves and pinchy boots? She could… she could live with it.
Until, all of a sudden, she couldn’t. She knew, deep down, that there had to be other people like herself and her family. She wanted to help them. She didn’t want anyone to have to hide anymore. All the resentment and the fear could’ve turned her heart cold and black, but she staunchly refused to go that route. She would help people, not hurt them unless she had to.
But, in order to make a difference, she had to get out there and try. Leaving hurt, but her parents understood. Or they pretended to understand. Either way, they let her go, and that’s all she could ask for.
Her grandparents welcomed her with open arms, and, even if they didn't understand her entirely, they at least gave her a place to stay in the city. She had to know the ways of the world if she wanted to change them, after all.
As she looked for a good place to start building a better world, she added a new declaration for herself to follow.
You mustn’t ignore someone in need. You mustn’t give up, or turn back, or wait for someone else to take action when you can do it yourself. You must be strong.
Description: She has white hair with dark markings in it, particularly near the ends. Her ears, when uncovered, are similar to a cat's, though at the sides of her head rather than the top. She has large, fluffy paws instead of feet, and her left hand seems the same. She wears shapeless clothing to hide herself, large boots and oversized gloves that she struggles to operate around.
Komodo Dragon
Description: She has dark hair, black with a slight sheen to it in certain lights, which she keeps loose as an extra layer of insulation. Her ears are completely covered, even when her hair shifts around. Her scales have spread to encompass her entire left arm from the shoulder down, and she seems unable to ever get quite warm enough when venturing outside. Her clothing seems to fit better, though, and she wears many layers of it to compensate for her mutable body temperature.
