Character Information
Character Name: Hero
Played By: Benicio Del Toro
Age: Unknown, assumed to be around 50
Mutation: Pyromancer
Pryromancers are human torches in every sense of the word. While the power that they have is great, it comes with constant pain. Pyromancers burn from the inside out. The core fire in their bodies never goes out. This means that Hero's core body temperature never sits at anything under 100 degrees. Touching him is like touching someone with an extremely high fever and he constantly smells of burning.
The angrier he gets, the more like charcoal he smells; by contrast, when he is happy, Hero smells like a bonfire. Hero's voice has a rasp to it because of his constantly burning vocal chords. His mood can affect the crackle in his voice as well. When Hero's temper gets out of control he will catch fire completely. As this is painful, he tries to not ever lose it.
When Hero has a handle on his emotions, he has expert control of his powers. He can throw fireballs as projectiles and precision burn with a touch. He's an extremely proficient fighter with his abilities and is not afraid to use them. While the balls of fire don't have an exact mass to them, it's still nothing that you'd want to come in contact with anything flammable.
Price: As mentioned above in the mutation section, Hero's voice is always raspy because his throat is scarred by the constant fire. There are days where it just hurts to talk at all and days where swallowing is nearly impossible. His vocal chords are not the only things that are negatively affected by his physical condition. Any soft tissue on his body will smolder, crackle, or burn if he gets angry enough. For example, his eyes smoldering can leave him blind for a short period of time. He is also fairly easy to smell coming as he's always somewhat smokey.
Hero is always thirsty and has to drink a lot of water to feel hydrated. The first glass or two usually just turn to steam in his throat. Even though he can't be burnt, Hero feels a dull, constant pain from his own personal inferno. Lighting himself on fire would hurt just as much as it would anyone else and he tries to avoid that if possible.
He also does not enjoy cold temperatures at all. Snow is especially difficult for him to handle. The extreme changes in temperature between the ambient weather and his skin hurt if it gets cold enough. He usually wears long sleeves even in climate weather.
Personality: Deep down inside Hero feels a pull to right the wrongs of the City but he lacks the balance to do so. A sense of responsibility pulls him to make efforts to stop Alpha before he gets out of control again. However, he's become pledged to Chance in a way that means nothing is ever totally deliberate. He likes to think that he was personally touched by the struggles of the common people he saw when he first awoke at Ground Zero 10 years ago. In reality, it was Alpha that drove him in a way that he can't explain. He launched himself into the fray and earned the name Hero rather quickly. However, 5 years into his rebellion, Hero realized that the people he wanted to help were falling victims to the violence.
The fighting only got worse and while he had many people rallied under his banner, Hero saw too much loss. One particularly bloody engagement was only him and a Soulless. The two warred in the streets to the point where people simply fled. In the end, Hero won out and became more of a legend than he'd ever intended. No one ever killed Soulless. To this day, he's the only person to manage it. Hero's learned that he is raw power; a highly destructive force.
It was the understanding that he was more destruction than savior that caused him to pull back. Hero has started to understand that if you are a destructive force, you cannot actually build anything. Despite how badly he wanted to go at Alpha, his whole purpose was supposed to be justice. To protect the people of the city, Hero needs to learn how to use the forge to build something. Hero changed up his rebellion.
He's taken a more laid-back approach to fighting Alpha's people. He's still considered a fugitive, he's still considered dangerous, but he's been good for a long time. Moving to a more subversive manner of fighting the oppressive regime in many ways feels stagnant to Hero. He knows that there are circles of more violent rebels that talk about him like he's a neutered dog. He also knows that none of them are willing to say that to his face.
His reputation as a violent firebrand (pun intended) has garnered him enough respect by those in the underworld that he can move around the darkest parts of the City without any problem. The market and well-patrolled areas of the City are entirely different matters. He spends a good amount of time ducking Alpha's troops.
Hero is aloof and disconnected from other people. This is in part because he wants to keep control of his power and in part because he's kind of a jackass. He'd rather seem dismissive and piss people off than light himself on fire. As time has gone on, he's become more accustomed to the aloof behavior. In general, he's rarely outwardly affected by the events of the City.
One person that he is seen with often is Fortuna, the young woman that owns the casino. She will call him her Knight in public with a tone that carries from cruel to teasing. He flinches the same way when she says it every time regardless of tone. Hero's carriage is heavy from a duty that he doesn't quite seem to be able to understand.
If asked about his relationship with Fortuna, Hero will call himself her Knight and imply all of the capital letters. When asked what that means, he will sigh and say that he is subjected to the whims of Chance and there's little he can do about it. He'll also explain that it isn't an excuse for his behavior, just his nature.
Non-Mutation Skills/Powers: Hero's a powerhouse of a fighter. He leads battles from the front and has no fear throwing himself into harm's way. It's one of the reasons he's been able to go against Alpha so many times. He's able to take a beating and more than able to dish it out. He's also been known to be almost inspiring sometimes, but he thinks that those times are gone.
Memory: Major plot-line will be revealed later.
Network Sample: If anyone's seen Fortuna, tell her to knock whatever shit she's doing off. I've bounced three people from the Casino in the past hour. Either that or stop drinking so goddamn much. [He lights a cigarette by running a finger under it and sucking in. After a drag he sighs.] It's like people want me to get pissed off tonight or something.
Oh, and as an aside, anyone read the paper? What's with the stays of execution all of a sudden. Has our Overlord gone soft? [His face says quite clearly that he's being a sarcastic ass. It's more than one part challenge.]
You know, on second thought. Act up as much as you guys want. I'm in the mood for a fight.
Log Sample: Hero didn't expect any problems walking home from working the Casino door that morning. The mood in the City was somewhat more tense than usual. The hanging tensions that knitted around every transaction were just slightly tighter. Alpha had changed enough up to make people worry. Plus whatever new mutations the Transfigurations Shop was cranking out were not working. Who wanted their privates to light up anyway?
He lit a cigarette and took a long drag. The City Center's safer core gave way to darker and less comfortable alleyways as he got closer to Ground Zero. It wasn't a base, really. Hero just felt better in the old laboratory than he would at an apartment in Fortuna's. Being a public enemy had its downfalls.
Not that any of Alpha's people seemed overly concerned with hunting him down lately. Hero turned down another alley and thought about going down to get a cup of coffee before he went home. He probably should just go to bed. Closing the world off sounded damn good right about now.
((OOC: Feel free to throw yourself at him, invent a fight, or otherwise get in his way))
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