PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Jimmy
CONTACT: PM
HOW YOU FOUND US: Telepathy
OTHER CHARACTERS ON THE SITE Sean, Serafina
RULES CODE: Xavier
CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE: http://www.alphaflight.net/alphanex/index.php?title=Radiushttp://www.ted.com/talks/elliot_krane_the_...ronic_pain.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllodyniaCHARACTER INFORMATION
Jake Gyllenhaal
Canon
AFFILIATION: Others (soon to join the HFC via the ruins of X)
FULL NAME: Jared Corbo (born Clarke)
CODENAME: Radius
NICKNAMES: Douchebag
CURRENT AGE: 23
DATE OF BIRTH: 6 February 1988
MARITAL STATUS: Single
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Straight
BASE OF OPERATIONS: None
TIME AT INSTITUTE: None
REGISTERED WITH SHIELD? No
HOMETOWN: Orloo, Ontario
KNOWN RELATIVES: Adrian Clarke, half-brother
Charlize Corbo, mother
Gen. Jeremy Clarke, father
PHYSICAL APPEARANCEHEIGHT: 6'0"
BUILD: Toned
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Brown
DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Other than the vague surrounding aura of mist that is sometimes visible thanks to his mutant ability, there is nothing distinct about him.
CLOTHING STYLE: When not in combat, Jared wears lots of loose cottons and polyester fibers beneath his force-field so as not to aggravate his condition (see below). He can usually be found wandering barefoot in a loose V-neck tee-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
UNIFORM: Radius will come to wear a black leather suit with white piped trim, lined on the inside with thick soft cotton to minimize pain of contact with such stiff materials. The uniform is basically a variation on his 616 X-Corps outfit with white trimming, the other exceptions being that the upper half is actually a zip-up leather jacket and he omits the gloves.
POWERSGENERAL DESCRIPTION: Jared's mutation is more of a condition than a gift; more curse than blessing. Such has been said of many mutants, but the degree to which Radius' life is effected - nay, dictated - by the side-effects of his abilities makes him a unique and tragic case. Jared couldn't possibly have understood being shunned by his father in infancy, well before his powers manifested; but once they had, a part of him finally comprehended his father's fear and hatred, even if he thought him all the more a coward for that fear. In basic terms, Jared's mutation generates a permanent and personal force-field around his immediate form (that is, roughly an inch from his epidermis). This is often invisible, but in certain lights shows up as a vague mist of energy particles that move like dust in the 'atmosphere' immediately surrounding him. There is no 'off' switch, as far as Jared is aware, for his powers, and this reality has made Jared who he is today, with issues that are both psychosomatic/psychoneural (see below) and social (manifesting in his personality, how he interacts with other people) in nature. Jared's forcefield has two basic 'settings' or intensities: its default or 'low' mode is more than capable of defending him from harm against any force-based attack, i.e. in close combat or indirect assault i.e. objects (from bullet- to truck-sized).
His force-field absorbs rather than deflects energy, which means that if you does in fact throw a truck at him, you won't find him simply standing his ground. He can, however, withstand large amounts of energy: a concussive blast will effectively dissipate upon contact with his force-field. That said, it can only absorb so much energy before becoming redundant; an intensive and sustained blast will eventually shift him (yet, because of the permanent nature of the force field, he wouldn't be harmed by the ensuing impact). In other words: a forceful enough attack with displace him, but cannot harm him. At its strongest, his force-field is impervious to everything except small particles, thus permitting him to cleanse in the shower and leaving him susceptible to ultraviolet rays (though even photons cannot penetrate the field at full strength). This latter 'high' mode is triggered at moments of heightened stress, i.e. when facing a threat, and it makes Jared physically indestructible, resistant as he is even to null darts, though he remains susceptible to telepathy (which operates on the astral plane, regardless of physical barriers). Radius' power, though predominantly defensive in nature, also provides offensive options:
Particle Vibration (AKA the 'Nutcracker Special' when employed versus machines): By extending his force-field, which he can push - with some strain - to a distance of roughly one foot (circa 0.3m), Jared can simulate an offensive attack by vibrating the particles in the field and stripping away any matter he comes into contact with. In a living being, this would commonly result in serious tissue damage; in machinery, which typically features many nuts and bolts, it could effect total deconstruction.
Simulated Super Strength: By bracing objects against his force-field, which is effectively an ultra-high-density layer of impenetrable particles, Radius can replicate super strength. He does this by expanding the mass of his force-field (as above) to whatever degree necessary, the maximum limit being around one foot (circa 0.3m). In terms of weight, he can brace between 300 lbs and 1 ton (the absolute upper limit), relative to the expansion of his field.
WEAKNESS: As stated, Jared is susceptible to all forms of telepathic manipulation or intrusion in spite of his ability. If small enough, microscopic spores and nanoviruses can still breach his default 'low' shields, meaning his immune system is susceptible to illness just like an ordinary human, though his defences are obviously far greater, especially to larger bacteria. The biggest side-effect of Jared's powers is the hypersensitivity of his skin in those brief moments when he activates his null cuff. For this reason, coupled with his psychological justifications, Jared only ever uses his cuff when dressing himself in the mornings - and even this is an excruciating process. This acute allodynia - that is, the misfiring of nerve fibres in representing the lightest of touches as searing pain - prevents him from showering with a null cuff, and even results in digestive complications, which means that Jared has to take all of his meals in liquid form. To this end, he keeps a refrigerator fully stocked with a week's worth of supplies, one sachet per day of high protein, vitamin-enriched food blends, which he has to suck through the tiny pores in his 'low' shield, the same pores that allow him to shower (with some difficulty). The chronic nerve feedback that causes Jared acute pain from physical contact and digestion has led to Jared's pathological fear of human contact or intimacy. In many ways, his allodynia is a biological glitch associated with the trauma of his mutant powers, which result effectively in total isolation. Radius' powers and their side-effects have effectively sentenced him to a life of perpetual solitary confinement.
PERSONALITYJared has never been the patient sort; he's not a thinker but a doer, and if something needs doing he's the first one to step up to the plate. He has never known reliance or dependence on anybody, and for that reason wouldn't trust a soul to take care of anything that might directly effect him. A classic hothead, Jared is quick to anger, the type of person who boils rather than simmers, which is a result of both his abandonment at the hands of his own father and the emergence of the curse that is his mutant power. If challenged, he will rarely if ever back down, and as such has a formidable violent streak in him: a fact that he tries to make clear to all through his trademark arrogance. Which is to say that, as a side-effect of his abilities - invulnerability - Radius often acts as if he is in some way superior to everybody else around him. Being untouchable physically also makes him act as if he is untouchable in general; in all walks. It is hard to deny, however, that Jared possesses a keen intellect and a brilliant scientific mind, though many would be forgiven for ignorance of it: it is the one positive attribute that he keeps hidden, protected. The sense of entitlement that he carries around prevented him from ever rising to the hopes or expectations of others: he refuses to 'prove' anything to anyone, as if people should be willing to acknowledge his brilliance without any first-hand evidence; though he isn't above being somewhat duplicitous if it will serve him.
Most importantly, Jared is in many ways a loner: marginalized by his powers and alienated from his peer group because of his subsequent personality and sense of entitlement, Radius soon realized that keeping people at a safe distance was, ultimately, in everybody's interests. He can never know intimacy with a woman, and so he often swears off relationships full stop. In reality, however, he suffers from acute loneliness - a fact that he would never openly admit. Having been abandoned by his father and having lost his mother to a stroke-induced vegetative state, Jared has nobody; except, of course, his half-brother Adrian. Radius has stopped believing that anybody else could genuinely care about him, hence why he treats other people with such disdain and contempt. His cocksure disposition is, in many ways, offset by a surprising degree of protectiveness and a desire to serve that might surprise some. Though this is limited to the few people that he allows to get close to him - i.e. his mother Charlize and now his half-brother Adrian - he would trade places with them if it could take away the suffering they've gone through. In this sense, he is loathe to let Adrian out of his sight, and regularly makes the pilgrimage back to Ontario to visit his mother in Hull House Convalescent Home.
HISTORY: PRE-APOCALYPSEGeneral Jeremy Clarke, a man married predominantly to his work as the Pentagon-appointed liaison to a mysterious military science division known only as Department L in Virginia, wanted his wife Charlize to produce an heir to his legacy, another military man who would one day meet his father's high standards and play an equally important part in keeping America safe - not just from external threats, but also from those within its own borders. His part in the Department's studies into the detection and possible eradication of the mutant gene led to a deep-seated prejudice against
homo sapiens superior, and the violence of early test subjects fuelled his growing belief that mutants were simply miscarriages of evolutionary science. Imagine his horror when his own infant son Jared tested positive for the mutant gene in early detection tests that the General had volunteered him for in the Department. So it was that at just two years old, Jared and his mother - Clarke's childhood sweetheart and wife of six years - were abandoned and exiled from the United States, with no reason stipulated, as the General called in all his favors within the Pentagon. Jared and Charlize Corbo (after she was forced to revert to her maiden name) were thus relocated to a tiny bedsit in the small town of Orloo in Ontario, Canada with two suitcases and a cheque to cover simple provisions.
Unaware of his father's very existence and the new wife who had borne the General a replacement son within a year of their betrothal, Jared grew into an industrious young boy who showed a flare for learning and a great love for his mother, who went from one gentleman visitor to another, arousing some innate jealousy in Jared. But before long he was attracting attention from the members of the fairer sex that not long ago were his play partners in school. So it was that, at the tender age of twelve, his mutant power manifested in a treehouse in Wendy Forster's house, at the very moment that the young blonde was about to give him his first kiss. Her lips rebounded off his with a jolt, as if the very air in front of him had begun to vibrate. Jared, suddenly, felt nothing at all. Suddenly anathema amongst his circle of friends as soon as word got around regarding the bizarre incident, he retreated inwards, finding himself alienated by his peers. His teachers, however, considered him the brightest of his whole age group, and started encouraging him to think about a college education focusing on the sciences. Before long, though, his academic prowess was matched by his sudden propensity for fighting. Knowing he couldn't be hurt, Jared started taking exception to the insults of his peers.
It was at this point that Charlize chose to reveal to her son his father's identity and the reasons for their exile; but this only served to fuel the fire within Jared, and became the bellows that kept it raging. With all his second chances used up in school, he was called to account for his behavior by the principal, who told Jared that the Dean was recommending his expulsion; fortunately, the wily teen managed to strike a deal whereby he would teach himself the syllabus at home and only attend the school for examination purposes, thus restoring peace to the generally well-behaved student populace. Jared knew the truth: talk of his strange invulnerability and emerging strength had reached the powers that be, but what the school needed to protect was its own reputation, not the student body - and so he predicted correctly that they would be willing to keep him on, thus retaining the glory of producing a potential genius alumnus without the attention that a 'mutant incident' would bring. Having aced his SATs, Jared looked like fulfilling his potential as a prodigy and was coveted by several universities, but he decided to disavow his obvious scientific prowess (chemistry, in particular) for a seasonal job on an arable farm in Kingston, Ontario, miles from his home.
DURING APOCALYPSE (April 5th through April 12th, 2009) Safe in Canada, Jared wasn't directly effected by Apocalypse, but returned home to be with his mother in the event that the carnage moved north. Luckily, an end was put to the Horsemen's reign of terror before they managed to threaten the northern territories. Seemingly disturbed by the havoc being wrought on the world by the advent of the mutant era, Jared's mother suffered a massive stroke, leaving her a sullen, crazed, babbling mess. Caring for her suddenly took precedence in Jared's life, but given that his powers made physical contact somewhat difficult, it soon emerged that Charlize, who was still rapidly deteriorating, needed better care than he could offer. Jared committed her to a state-run convalescent home called Hull House that dealt specifically with cases of dementia and other problematic conditions. During Jared's frequent visits, she would babble about Clarke and rats in cages, but the meaning of her abstract thoughts eluded him, and before long she was a mute vegetable who might as well have been comatose for her near-total lack of awareness and understanding.
POST-APOCALYPSEGrowing frustrated with his mother's condition, both in terms of its constraints upon him and the emotional wrench (though he wouldn't admit to the latter), Jared made some failed attempts to contact his father. When he identified himself as Clarke's son to the switchboard lady in Virginia, she patched him through immediately; as it happened, the man on the other end of the line was not his father, but a colleague of his, primed to pass on a message if ever he called: 'the General has no interest in indulging the fantasies of the mentally unstable'. If the calls persisted, Jared was told, he would be prosecuted for fraud and wouldn't see sunlight again for a long time. It was mere months later when General Clarke took to the podium for a televised news conference where he announced to the world his horrible secret: his son was a mutant. Jared froze, but soon learned that he was not the subject of Clarke's speech, but somebody called Adrian. Around the same time a package arrived for him, complete with a short note from a woman called 'Lilith', identifying the contents as documents pertaining to 'your half-brother Adrian'.
The methods used on the captive Adrian went beyond the mere necessary inquiries of science: to Jared, it sounded like torture. Suddenly his mother's abstract rants made sense: she had been trying to tell him that his father was experimenting on people like him; experimented on his own son. Incensed, Jared purchased a one-way ticket to Virginia to free his half-brother from their father's machinations. Waltzing through the gunfire and null darts of Department L security and tearing through the reinforced compound walls, Jared freed Adrian and escaped with his help. The latter, who had heard talk in the compound of a school in New York that served as a refuge for young mutants, advised that they should set off for Salem, in search of sanctuary and protection from the reach of the authorities. Tragically, they were fated to arrive late by a matter of days, unaware that an army of Purifiers had in fact set upon Xavier's School for the Gifted while the two brothers were en route and razed the building to the ground...
SAMPLE RP POST:Virginia, seven miles from Langley.
30th August, 5:10pm.
Jared cracked his knuckles. A bad habit, his mother had always said, and in all honesty he knew she was right. Not that the release of gas into the synovial fluid of the knuckle joint posed any great risk: the alleged connection with arthritis was as yet unproven, and the claim that repeated cracking can cause tendon trouble over time is also without supporting evidence. Still, Jared knew that it could be quite the irritating pastime; and it was for this very reason that he did it once every five seconds in the company of his half-brother Adrian. A few short hours in and he was already sick of him.
"Try to act cool here, for Christ's sake. I thought you were gonna piss your pants when that
Walmart girl poked fun at your lab rat scrubs," he said, with no consideration for the fact that Adrian had been stuck in a research facility for four years and couldn't possibly know when a girl was trying to flirt with him. That afternoon, when they had tried to buy some new clothes that would help Adrian to blend in and not look quite so like the fugitive he was, Adrian's innate shyness had almost blown their cover.
Cracking his neck this time, Jared approached the desk, casually fondling a bus timetable with feigned interest while he waited for the clerk to finish counting coins. Innate impatience began simmering just under his surface, but he knew he had to stay controlled if they were to go undetected. Even still, he breathed a long and heavy sigh. The man finally finished counting dimes just as Jared saw the freshly-printed notice that had been left on his desk some time earlier in the day. It had his face on it, and Adrian's. It was a wanted poster. The clerk was staring at him. "I said, can I help you?"
Jared resisted the urge to bolt for the exit, examining the man's gaze for a moment. He hadn't recognized him... yet. "Um. No, actually... I just realized I missed the five o' clock Chicago service. I think the next one'll be too late, but I'll touch base with my folks and come back." The clerk shook his head in frustration and called the next customer forward as Jared stepped away.
Averting his eyes from any onlookers and grabbing his brother from he was sat waiting, Jared said: "Keep your head down. We won't be getting the Greyhound today."
Ten minutes later, and after purchasing a beanie from the local gas station under which to hide his distinguishably long hair, Jared was stood on the side of the road trying to hitch a ride. "I hope you're right about this place in Salem," he said to Adrian. "I have no fucking idea why I'm trusting your hunch, but it seems you're an expensive investment so we really need to find a safe house somewhere. Seriously, if this just turns out to be some special needs school, I'm beating the shit out of you, I swear." Jared wanted Adrian to know early on that he was in charge; as far as he was concerned, his half-brother now owed him his life.
It had been mere weeks since U.S. General Jeremy Clarke had revealed to the public his own private shame: his son Adrian was a mutant, and only a number of days since Jared had received the journal of one Lilith DeAngelo, spilling Clarke's dirty secrets. Jared had almost vomited upon reading those files; and to think that he could so easily have been in Adrian's place... The only thing more shocking than his father's public declaration was the revelation that, indeed, Jared had a brother, but it was Lilith's information - further fueling Jared's innate resentment of his father - that had compelled him to act.
And now, after the true miracle that was their escape from Langley, they were trying to find their way out of the fire; but all the brothers really wanted, for the moment, was sanctuary.
Help
Search
Members
Calendar
