Ember (Miranda Mendes)
Contents
Appearance
Miranda is an attractive girl with striking red hair that changes to a glowing orange color when she reaches higher temperatures with her powers. Her eyes are unusual, orange with black schlera. Her hero uniform is a blue unitard with dark leggings made from a sturdy, heat resistant material that provides limited protection. She also wears boots and gloves that help her limit and control her powers.
Background
Early in their marriage, Jose and Aldana Mendes were desperate for money. They were a young couple, with Aldana barely out of high school and Jose struggling to balance a job and college. Despite assurances from Jose's family that they could always return home to live with them if things got too rough, they worried and wanted to make it on their own. They both started participating clinical trials to supplement their meager income.
Before too long, they were approached by a group called the Dynamic Research Institute. This group, while a bit shady, also paid better and had less restrictions. Unfortunately, the deal was much too good to be true. DRI started becoming a bit pushy, invasive and threatening. When they learned that Aldana was pregnant, they made an offer that the couple couldn't refuse. In return for allowing them to test an experimental series of genetic augmentations meant to promote health, they would not only make sure their child was free of any serious or deadly complications but they would also cover for the expenses related to the child's birth. Despite their misgivings, they agreed and became one of ten families that participated in the groups experiments.
Unknown to any of the families, DRI's experiments were actually designed to create superhumans by altering them before birth. When Miranda was born, she had intense orange eyes and bright red hair! The 'subjects' of the experiments quickly learned that the other children were showing odd physical traits as well. DRI did their best to placate with promises, threats and money, but one of the families ended up alerting the authorities, which caused DRI to go underground and abandon their subjects and caused a lot of trouble for those involved.
The Mendes family escaped relatively unscathed but quickly found themselves moving to avoid closer scrutiny or the judgement of their peers. They chose Millennium City as they felt it would be the best place to raise a daughter with physical mutations. Of course, the physical mutation was the least of their worries. Early on, Miranda's power to generate heat and fire was a serious problem for the young girl. It made her dangerous, unpredictable and left her feeling isolated at times. Her parents, loaded down with hush money from DRI, did what they could to help but were often frustrated with their daughter, who they quickly found was quite clumsy and not especially bright.
Miranda gained some control over time, eventually attending The Bracen Institute. The school really helped her get a handle on her abilities and also ended up inspiring her! She ended up making friends with several other students who were superheroes and despite being discouraged from taking such a dangerous path decided that she was going to become one herself! She is currently partners with the mighty Lionfish (a fellow student) and together they're going to show everyone that they have what it takes to be heroes!
Personality
Miranda is cheerful, bubbly and very, very silly. She often comes off as a bit of a dunce and is terminally klutzy, known for breaking or burning things, often at the same time. She has an annoying habit of just nodding along with what people say, even when she doesn't actually know what they mean and can be somewhat frustrating to talk to thanks to a very short attention span.
She loves having friends and holds very tight to the friends she has, loving them unconditionally. She doesn't like people to be mad at her and can become very upset when she thinks someone doesn't like her. The early manifestation of her powers left her with an intense fear of being alone and unwanted.
Powers and Abilities
-Pyrokinesis: Miranda can generate intense heat and flames from her body. Testing has shown she can raise the temperature around her to over two thousand degrees with enough effort and can generate blasts of fire capable of melting steel.
Though she doesn't realize it yet, she can also remove heat from objects (or people), dramatically lowering their temperature.
-Heat Resistant: Miranda is seemingly almost completely immune to the effects of high temperatures and fire.
-Perfect Health: DRI's experiments also gave Miranda a boosted immune system. In addition to her naturally high body temperature, viruses and bacteria often have a difficult time taking hold for her.
-The Basics: Miranda is a high school senior with no noteworthy skills. She is passably accurate with her fire slinging and knows a little bit of self defense thanks to limited training at her school from helpful teachers.
Equipment
-Power Control Gear: Gabby Gizmo has crafted a pair of boots and gloves for Miranda that help her channel her powers in more effective ways. This prevents her from putting out dangerous levels of heat while she's stressed out and causing too much damage to her surroundings.
-Insulated Uniform: Miranda's uniform is specially made to be heat resistant and fire proof to avoid embarrassment and keep her from getting too hot. It is also padded to provide some protection from physical harm.
-Stealth Mask: A special mask that can be worn over her uniform to hide her hair and change her outfits color to a more 'stealthy' one. Of course, the stealhy coloring only goes so far.
Weaknesses
-Clumsy: Despite her love of heels, Miranda can be a bit clumsy. She often makes mistakes when judging distances and the effects her powers will have on objects.
-Goofball: Miranda is somewhat naive and is a not terribly clever. This can often be a hindrance when she's forced to think on her feet or deal with clever bad guys!
-Intense Cold: Though Miranda is generally comfortable in cold weather, extreme cold conditions can sap her of her strength as it's tiring for her to constantly protect herself from it.
Important NPCs
-Uther Crane: The gentle giant is a teacher at the Bracen Institute that has pledged to help Ember and Lionfish learn some basic self defense skills. He works more closely with Lionfish because of her increased strength, but has still been helpful to Ember.
-Professor Lobdell: Another teacher at the school, Lobdell has reluctantly agreed to help Ember and Lionfish out to keep them from getting in too much trouble. He has even provided information in the past, helping them with their research into cases. As a former hero himself, he's given advice on how they should approach certain situations.
-Mysterious Cloaked Man: An unknown individual that has helped the duo on a few occasions, giving them information and rescuing them when they got in over their heads.
-Aaron Chester: A former member of a cult known as the Knights of the Nightmare, Chester is something of a mystic adviser to the clueless duo.
Friends, Allies and Aquaintances
-Charity Corren: Despite Charity discouraging her from being a superhero, Miranda is pretty close to the high strung hero. She met Charity through Lina and made it her goal to get her to get out of her room more often and put down the books. This obviously didn't work, as now that Charity is away at college she's working harder than ever.
-Lina Garren: One of Miranda's long time friends. Even though Lina is often annoyed by Miranda's airheadedness at times, she genuinely enjoys hanging out with her and they're often seen hanging out both in and outside of school.
-Gabriella Smith: Gabby has been Miranda's roommate for the last year at Bracen and has helped her a lot since learning she wants to be a hero, offering to vouch for her in New Vigil if she decides to join and giving her her gauntlets and boots to help her regulate her powers. Miranda willingly volunteers to let Gabby test her powers and abilities in return.
-Lily Garcia: Miranda's best friend and heroing partner! Miranda is eager to get her to be more confident in herself and follow her dreams, even if neither of them really know what those dreams are yet. She considers Lily to be the sister she never had and thinks she's way better than her snot nosed brother.
Nemeses
-Kid Cactus: Possessing plant empathy, and the proportionate strength and spines of a cactus, Kid Cactus is a minor threat with a love of spiny plants. He was first encountered attempting to steal a rare plant that was sent to a local flower shop by mistake.
-Demon of the East: A dork with cyber ninjas. Miranda thought he was kind of silly when they first fought and her clumsiness even managed to give them an advantage for a few seconds.
-Drum and Bass: Dubstep girls with bad hair. Miranda was partially responsible for inciting their fight when she tried out some trash talk on them.
-Grimstone:: A foe that's just a bit over Ember and Lionfishs' heads. Grimstone is a hellfire powered bruiser that has made numerous deals with dark powers to gain his immense strength. He's corrupt and completely twisted.
Trivia
-Is very into clothes and shopping. She's a girly girl and likes to look pretty. She has a fondness for high heels despite her clumsiness.
-Knows nothing about DRI or the process used to give her powers. She believes she gained her powers through a natural genetic mutation.
-Wants to be like Sapphire one day! A singing, globe trotting superhero on a high profile team! The singing part might be hard for her though, as she's not an especially good singer.
-Is not a good photographer. She has a tendency to catch people at awkward times, when they're making dumb faces and often cuts off parts of what she's taking pictures of.
Comments
-What do other people think of the ditzy pyro?
"Miranda is easily my best friend in the entire world. She's always kind to me no matter what and she defends me from bullies and other bad people. Plus, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't even be a superhero! She's like the sister I never had, and I owe so much to her because of that." - Lionfish
Art
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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) | ||
