Mercy
Contents
Appearance
Charity is a short, thin girl with pale skin and reddish pink hair. Her eyes are also pink and she has long, pointed ears. Charity has recently started going by Mercy and has had a uniform made. It's a dark burgundy colored and blue body suit with white accents. On her left wrist she wears a micro computer made by her friend Alex Henderson.
Background
A young mutant who has recently gained mastery over her powers. Charity has the ability to heal others, soothe them with her presence and even read emotions. Though initially she was very concerned about what she saw as the more negative aspects of her powers, she has recently come to terms with them and adapted them, feeling this has made her stronger as a person. Since becoming a hero she has struggled to aid the city and it's heroes and has overcome many challenges in her short career. Along with her friend Samantha Edwards (Galactigal) she formed a team of young heroes to help both herself and others grow to be responsible and useful within the hero community.
Charity's greatest challenges have come in the form of dealing with a powerful psionic entity known as The Presence. This being has attempted to steal her body and warp her mind twice. She was able to escape its power both times with the help of her friends and allies, but the incidents have not left her unscarred. She learned from her time under its influence and from the hardships it put her through, making her stronger... and more dangerous.
Personality
Charity used to be quite meek and nervous, always second guessing herself and deferring to others. Her time as the leader of a teen super group and under the influence of the Presence has changed her some, however. Though still not terribly bold, Charity has learned to be more authoritative and sure of herself when needed and no longer fears the use of her powers.
Despite this she is still high strung and easily becomes stressed, has trouble relaxing and a tendency to take everything too seriously. Mercy takes every failure and injury on her team and allies very personally and blames herself for failures, often blowing even minor losses out of proportion.
She has also shown on numerous occasions that she will not hesitate to use her mental powers in borderline immoral ways to help her friends, using them to lock out dangerous or undesirable abilities and remove memories from peoples minds.
Powers and Abilities
-Empathy: Charity can use her powers to sense emotions. She can also calm others, sometimes to the point of putting them to sleep. This power has developed to the point she can delve into peoples minds and dull or enhance traumatic feelings and memories. She can also edit or overwrite people's emotions, making them feel how she wants them to.
The effects of her powers generally don't linger, but she's getting better at making them last. She has also learned how to read imprints of memories using resonant emotion, getting a general impression of events. This allows her to put enough strain on parts of the mind to erase memories, lock out certain emotional responses long term and even cause powers tied to emotional responses to malfunction or become less effective.
-Healing: Charity can bolster them with healing energy. This unusual psionic healing is partly a rush of positive energy that fixes injuries and partly a strong suggestion for the subjects body to regenerate that accelerates the effects of the energy. There is a limit to what she can heal and using her powers too often or healing serious wounds can make her tired. Older wounds are harder to restore and those older than a few days are completely beyond her ability to heal.
-Psychokinetics: Mercy has mastered the 'dark' aspect of her powers, learning she can use more than negative emotion to fuel them. She can manifest emotional energy physically, creating simple shapes and weapons that she can control at a distance. These manifestations are limited, only existing for short periods of time before crumbling away but they can be incredibly dangerous, exerting impressive levels of force, causing burns, cuts and painful mental trauma.
Weaknesses
-Anxiety: Stress and nerves play a big part in holding Charity back. Though she has shown tremendous willpower, these problems still plague her can affect her ability to concentrate and remain effective.
-Fragile: Charity is a skinny, pale little girl. As such, she's not exactly suited for being in the front lines. If she can't use her emotion control to affect targets (such as robots and other constructs) she loses a big part of her defense and offense.
Important NPCs
-Lina Garren: One of Charity's friends from the Bracen Institute. Thought they both graduated recently, they still keep in touch. Lina was a big help through her senior year, lending support and reassurances.
-Quickbolt and Plaything: Kelly Preston and Veronica Forth were both under the control of the Presence at one time, but since breaking free they have proved to be a valuable resource (especially Preston).
-Professor Lobdell: One of the teachers at the Bracen Institute and a specialist in psionics. He taught Charity a lot during her time at the school and has pledged to help her out if she ever needs it in dealing with her powers or her abundant stress issues.
Allies
-Alex Henderson: Charity is very close to Alex. They share a sisterly relationship, with the older woman supporting the anxious young mutant and encouraging her to better herself socially and physcially. They have helped each other on many occasions and Charity feels she can never repay her for all the things she's done.
Alex has also taught Charity how to shoot a rifle... a surprisingly violent pastime for the pacifistic girl.
-Aelith: Met while trying to exorcise a demon, Charity does not care for Aelith. After her experiences with Katrina Mirinova she tends to have a much dimmer view of celestial creatures and it doesn't help that Aelith tried to attack her and Alex to try and prove a point...
-Katrina Mirinova: It all started with an investigation into PSI recruiting psionic children in Westside, specifically their attempts to control a girl named Acuity. From there Charity was caught up in a highly unusual adventure as she and a handful of others ended up chasing the UNTIL officer across the world and beyond...
-Titan-8: Met while searching for Corporal Mirinova, Charity helped him gather information on what could possibly be done and what could have happened to her. She also convinced him not to do anything foolish when things looked grim for Katrina.
-Acuity: Charity has met Acuity a few times, mostly during her time helping out in the search for Katrina. The two psionics get along rather well together.
-The Director: Met while searching for Katrina.
-Skywake: Another person met during the search for Katrina.
-Eldritch: Charity met Eldritch a few times and aided him during the search for Katrina. He offered her a position in his team as a back up and support healer.
-Albert Wagner: Charity doesn't quite know what to think of Wagner. His intensity and cold demeanor unnerves her a little.
-Kyle Foster: When Kyle was trapped in a dream world Charity was one of the heroes that answered his dream based distress signals. She helped Kyle and few times afterwards and he helped her to defend herself against the Presence in return. She hasn't seen him in a while and worries about him. Along with Alex, he has played a big role in bolstering the girl's confidence.
-Tomonari: Charity has helped Tomo in dealing with his unusual, music note creature problem and teamed up with him again when the mad Dio Brando was unleashing corruption on the children in the city.
-Chinook: A chance encounter saw Charity giving the speedster a mental boost to try and get over some trauma she had suffered at the hands of a mind controlling villain. During this time Chinook also got a preview of what's going on in Charity's head.
-Squall Endymion: Charity was around to aid the unusual alien when his mind was being invaded by his wicked brother.
-Liberty's Shield: First met while helping Squall eject an evil personality riding on his mind, Charity has run into LS a few times. Most recently she helped a squad of his men that had been badly injured in an ambush, pushing her powers with the help of another hero and and showing a hint at her unrealized potential.
New Vigil
-Bee: Bee is constantly making Mercy blush. The eccentric helmet enthusiast's carefree attitude and quirks are equally amusing and embarassing to the shy girl. She has become somewhat frustrated with the odd way he acts recently.
-Aivo: He's masked and mysterious. Charity has found him to be someone she can trust and confide in and someone that can help her if she needs support.
-Stopwatch: Fellow shy girl. Charity knows what she's going through and wants to make sure she gets the support she needs.
-Kid Destroyer: Charity doesn't really know what to think of the pint sized tyrant. She wants to believe that he's serious about wanting to change, but in the back of her mind, she's thinking it's better to be safe than sorry.
-Prankenstein: Pranky creeps Charity out. But he's a clown. She feels that he, like many members of the team, isn't taking things seriously enough. But again... clown.
-Lil Goliath: Charity doesn't know much about him. She thinks he's funny and has a good outlook. His constant shirtlessness has a tendency to make her blush.
-Galactigal/Samantha Edwards: Charity is more of a friend to Samantha than Galactigal honestly, seeing her as a kindred spirit of sorts. The two have gotten along rather well since they met on a previous team before they founded New Vigil and Charity considers her one of her closest friends. She has no real problems with Galactigal, but she does find her habit of stirring the pot frustrating at times.
-Black Ice: Ice's attitude on psychics and in general often leaves Charity feeling cold, but she's slowly warming up to him as she gets to know more about him.
-M.E.D.I.C.: MEDIC is adorable. And everyone knows it.
-Jet Girl: Another hero that Charity met before forming New Vigil. She finds herself a bit envious of the other girls incredible levels of cheer and hope, sometimes wishing she could be so optimistic.
-Blue Freedom: Blue is crazy. Charity is constantly worried she's going to kill someone or make a mess for them somehow. At the same time, she's concerned for her and hopes she can help her with her current problems.
-Arcane Squire: James is stalwart, brave and loyal. Charity is very impressed with how heroic and selfless he is and she's a bit ashamed of herself for making him worry about how she uses her powers.
-Quarrel: Despite her secretive nature, Charity has come to trust Quarrel quite a bit. She's proven herself quite capable and has trusted Charity with secret details of her life.
-Lash: Lash is silly, but in a fun way. Charity thinks she's a very sweet girl that probably isn't really cut out for being a superhero, but she's willing to help her out and reach her potential. She finds her obsession with Soldier Boy slightly creepy.
-Luctus: Charity thinks Luctus is a nice guy, even if he can sometimes be a bit rude. Not being able to read him as easily as some others bothers her, but at the same time she doesn't really want to open a window into what he experiences. She's worried about his powers and toll they might be taking on him.
-Witness: An amusing girl that certainly doesn't lack self confidence. Charity finds her attitude somewhat charming and is glad she has such high hopes for her future.
-Bloodline: The thought of having both descendants and ancestors watching over you literally is something that disturbs Charity a bit. She's glad that Eduardo is able to handle the burden and maintain a good attitude.
-Lionfish-: Charity definitely doesn't think Lionfish is cut out for being a hero and she's worried that she's doing it for the wrong reasons. On the other hand, if acting as a superhero helps her gain confidence, it would be hypocritical of Charity to protest too much.
Nemeses
-The Presence (First encountered as Angel Whitt): Old, evil and hungry, the Presence is a psionic entity that feasts on mental energy. It has taken the bodies of promising psionics throughout the ages, twisting and bending them to its will and doing the same to any promising servants it could find. The Presence has been temporarily banished twice now, once by the Wanderer and again by the combined efforts of New Vigil and two of the Presence's former agents... but it's still out there waiting and watching.
Trivia
-Her parents are rather well off and don't really approve of her going out and doing outlandish superhero things. For the most part, they would prefer she stay in school and out of trouble. Her mother would just prefer she didn't use her powers at all and at times seems embarassed to have such an unusual girl for a daughter.
-Even though it would make her life easier, she doesn't like to abuse her emotion control powers to influence others in mundane situations. This made her a very easy target for bullies at the private school she used to attend due to being one of the only mutants, her shyness and her pointy ears. She has few friends in her "normal life" but they are good friends.
-Graduated from the Bracen Institute, a private school focused on meta friendly education. She has plans on returning one day as a teacher.
-Mercy has been possessed by a psionic entity known as the Presence twice now. This makes her naturally suspicious of similar entities. She has also developed a rather strong dislike for outsiders and creatures from other dimensions over time.
-Has a tendency to rub her left ear when she's nervous. This is a bad habit she developed as a child and has a lot of trouble breaking. Her long ears are also very sensitive to touch and very expressive.
-Story Arcs: - Mercyless
Thoughts On Mercy
-What do others have to say about the bashful healer?-
Alex Henderson - "Kid's got a good future - maybe she could be a little less soft though..."
Galactigal/Samantha - "Charity is one of the few...humans...that we have come to trust. She...is very caring and focused, though...she could learn to assert herself better. We...fear for her as well, though. Her...abilities have devastating potential, and...we think that if she is pushed...too far, or if she...loses control...she may do something terrible." / "Charity is one of my best friends, she's like the sister I wish I had. We don't get to hang out much aside from doing the whole hero thing, but she's pretty busy. I think that, if she really tried, there would be nothing that she couldn't do. She just needs to be able to be a little meaner to people sometimes so she doesn't get walked on."
Jet Girl - "Charity's a great friend and leader. She's really nice and tries real hard to keep everyone together. It must be tough on her, with all that responsibility, but I'll be there to support her all the way! Cause that's what friends are for, and I know she'd do the same for me!"
Kid Destroyer - "Not as shamelessly moronic as the majority of her peers."
Stopwatch - "Uh, well, Charity's really nice and all... I mean, she decided to let me into the team even though I've got no experience whatsoever, and... well, she's someone I feel I can count on when I need it. Also, I think her powers are pretty cool and not creepy or otherwise intruding; I find them rather comforting, myself... except for that one time she mind-raped me in the street during training, b-but that's all cool! No hard feelings...!"
Bee - "Leader is kind and friendly, and I believe she really wishes for everyone to get along and be happy. She's definitely a nice flower through and through. Though I bet it's tough being the leader of a group like our's."
Blue Freedom- "She's not bad at what she does....What? Stop looking at me like that."
Anarchy - "What I see in Mercy? Well. She's an honest individual even if she's a bit awkward socially. Then again, given her appearance and the nature of kids these days, I can understand why. She's an aspiring leader to a group of kids her age. Respect is given to her intentions, though I don't think she has the voice of authority to get things going. . .yet. Regardless, she'll go far if she sticks to what she believes in."
'Prankenstein - "If I had to pick any of the lot of us to lead, it'd be Charity and Sam. They have this motherly dynamic-kinda thing, where they are friends, mentors and leaders. Charity just needs to trust herself more."
Natasha Roy - She began by smiling softly, before speaking up her opinion; "I'm going to be frank and go right ahead on my first point. Charity reminds me a lot of myself a few years back. I had very similar personality traits, that of the shyness and all. And we both have pointed ears! Totally a coincidence, but I had to say it." She grins. "But yeah, she's a good person. From my experience in being a healer, many will soon find themselves relying on her, if it's not already happening. And I want to support her, when I can."
Heartbeat - "She was the first person to really befriend me at Bracen, even though she's a few classes ahead of me. She really is very caring and nice, and helped me feel more confident in myself by reaching out to me. She makes a great and caring leader."
Lash- "Super sweet and nice. You don't want to disappoint her."
Quarrel- "I think Pinky's got what it takes to lead this team. Probably. She's smart, at least, and has common sense. And she cares about them - that's the biggest part. She's too anxious, though, and that's something you can't afford to show around people who you're supposed to be leading."
Luctus - "Her hair is awesome. Bright pink! And, uh... Yeah. She needs to relax. Nice girl, though."
M.E.D.I.C. - "So far, Charity has proven to be a capable and reliable leader. But lately I have been noticing an increase in her stress levels. I'm worried about her."
Stegoboy - "An admirable leader with many great qualities. A shame she has taken a step back from the group, but the furthering of education is very important."
Lionfish - "She... Charity was kinda mean about me and Ember wanting to be superheroes. I just hope we don't do anything to prove her right or stuff... I want to show her we have what it takes to make it big!"
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| Heroes: American Witch • Doll • General Freedom • Nightfang • Surova Grimwish Dobergirl • Violet Mask • Mercy • Lorekeeper • Impsblood • Midas • Greymist Wanderer Zee the Zombie • Ada Clover • Whitecloak • Ember • Tartolmec • Ultima King • Crash Fist • Bom-Pom • Aqualung | ||
| Villains: MetaCorp • Death Watch Beetle • Mindleech • Magpie Family • Other Villains • Cerulean Steel | ||
| Places & Things: PsyKiss • The Bracen Institute • The Forever Night | ||
| Groups: New Vigil (Leader) • Protectors of the World (Member) • Frontiersmen (Member) • Gen Prime (Leader) | ||
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| Leaders: Mercy | ||
| Senior Members: Arcane Squire • Bee | ||
| Natural: Temudjin | ||
| Magic: Cheapshot • Jinx • Kid Harrier • Red • Torrent • Virtuoso • Visage • Whitecloak | ||
| Mutant: Bloodline • Boy Wonder • Celerity • Lionfish • Magnetar • Mineshaft • Skips • Turbo • Unstoppable | ||
| Science: Ember • Prankenstein • Xenergy | ||
