You're in a public park. It's beautiful, and the weather is pleasant. You can't help but look around and observe the people around you. Horrified by your own words, you ask yourself, how can no one else see what you do?
There are so many people. So many weird, interesting people. You're listening to a girl talk about her art hobby, and you saw a boy who makes bracelets. There was a trio of people talking about video games, and many couples talking about their workdays. Lots of parents talking about their children, too, over sandwiches and sodas. Idle small talk. You've heard it all before.
So what exactly is the difference between the world you know, and the people you've touched, and the way the people in this city look at each other? The way they look at you, as though they're pitying you?
In your heart, you know the answer. In your soul, you can tell the difference. But there are no words to explain it.
Maybe you're being delusional. Maybe they are just harmless. So why is it that every time you've given up on wanting to understand them, their eyes begin to follow you?
It's like a curse.
Original Characters
Interested in meeting some of my original characters and learning about their roles in my original stories? I'll have short descriptions of each of them here. Be aware the list is 50+ long, so this page is heavily under construction!
SECRET Agents
Advancements in medical nanotechnology allowed humanity to inject themselves with performance-enhancing symbiotic nanobots, giving birth to the very first superheroes within Rubicon City. Two decades later, superheroes and mad science have become a fact of life.
Five years before the present day, the supervillain Dark Angel, who kidnapped children and killed their parents, appeared in Rubicon City. However, the superhero organization SECRET noticed that for some reason, he was afraid of harming children, leading them to assemble the Agents- five symbot-enhanced teenagers who were brave enough to take him on. Meanwhile, technology corporation Kronus Tech hires the CEO's teenage son as an anti-SECRET mercenary, despite the protests of his mentor, the Dark Angel's alter ego.
These individuals navigate their double lives as ordinary people and symbot-enhanced persons, each seeking to destroy their respective enemies. But there is more to all of their stories. There are some wounds that symbots can't heal.
NAME
DESCRIPTION
POWER
Valentin Defae / Booster
Val is a high school sophomore and a SECRET Agent, codename Booster. Four years ago, the Dark Angel murdered his parents and kidnapped him, but Val managed to escape to Rubicon City, where he lives now. He has an angry, sardonic, and abrasive personality that is more of a wall to keep would-be bullies and annoyances away from him. In truth, he deeply cares for his friends and will do anything to take down the Dark Angel.
Valentin's symbots contain matter from another timeline, allowing him to connect to centers of Earth's gravity from other timelines. This lets him "fall" to anywhere, at any speed, and even float without gravity weighing him down. He fights with a collapsible quarterstaff.
Bridget Shao / Peace Dove
Bridget is a high school sophomore and a SECRET Agent, codename Peace Dove. She joined up with the Ducklings after preventing Angel from kidnapping a small group of children alongside her childhood friend Allie. She has a dutiful but kind personality which she puts towards studying, though she's learning to make friends with others. Her dream is to become an engineer who can change the world for the better. For now, she works at her parents' convenience store at night.
Bridget's symbots allow her to turn invisible, and her suit allows her to fly on a pair of wing gliders. Her weapon is a standing cannon (a giant rifle on a tripod) that doubles as a lance.
Allie Finch / Cathode
Allie is a high school sophomore and a SECRET Agent, codename Cathode. She joined up with the Ducklings after preventing Angel from kidnapping a small group of children alongside her childhood friend Bridget. She has a friendly and sociable personality, but she always makes time for her best friend Bridget. When she's not at home, caring for her two younger brothers, she's working at GM Cafe and pursuing her interest in coffee.
Allie's symbots increase the speed and strength of her joints, giving her super speed and super parkour skills. Her weapon is a plasma pulse pistol.
Jake Alesmith / Cormelion
Jake is a high school sophomore and a SECRET Agent, codename Cormelion. His younger brother Chris was kidnapped by the Dark Angel, which destroyed his family. His greatest desire is to rescue Chris to repair it. He has an outgoing and excitable personality, and would protect his four friends, and the people of Rubicon City, with his life if he had to.
Jake's symbots harden his skin and muscles, making them virtually impenetrable. This allows him to survive heavy blows and gives him super strength.
Katarina Novikova / Thunderpunch
Kat is a high school sophomore and a SECRET Agent, codename Thunderpunch. One year ago she was expelled from her public school due to punching one of the students to defend her friend from bullying. Now she attends a high-class private school. Because of this she doesn't show much emotion, but she cares for her friends deeply. She has a lot of physical strength and is one of the best players on her school's wrestling team.
Kat's symbots allow her body to store and conduct electricity, which her added gauntlets help her control and direct into powerful electric punches.
Oliver Perch / Dark Angel
Oliver is the CTO of Kronus Technologies, as well as the Dark Angel who terrorizes Rubicon City. His greatest love is children- particularly Nick Kronus, who he considers to be his son. His second greatest love is coating his blade with the blood of those who get in his way. Though his true motivations are unknown, it's clear that he desires total control over anyone who faces him- and if he can't control them with words, threats, or force, he'll break their minds instead.
Angel is a prodigious engineer, giving him the ability to modify his own abilities. At the start of the story, he has a pair of jet-powered wings which he uses to fly at incredible speeds, as well as symbots which enhance his physical strength and healing ability. He also has a pair of eye contacts which can hypnotize anyone he makes eye contact with into doing his bidding. He fights with a massive sword.
Nick Kronus / Cybrr
Nick is a high school sophomore and the son of Kronus Technologies' CEO, Marvin Kronus. Nick has been burdened with heavy expectations since he was young, the most recent being a directive from his own father to become a symbot-infused mercenary to defend the company. Despite his father's influence, he was raised to be kind by Oliver Perch. For now, Nick intends to use his superpowers for whatever good things he can- starting by discovering the true identity of the Dark Angel.
Nick's symbots can hack other symbots, forcing them to use their powers as he sees fit, or not use them at all. His hacking abilities also spread to anything that he can send electric signals to with his skin, allowing him to control any electronic device with his mind.
Titania Turner
The leader of SECRET's Rubicon City branch. The leader of the Ducklings team works under her, and she's like an aunt to the crew, always wanting the best for them even if she is forced to put them in danger by her own superiors. Though many think she has a nonviolent demeanor, she once served in the military and has pure hatred for villains who try to corrupt heroes.
Titania rarely uses her powers on account of her current position, but she can use them to heal the wounds of others without symbots via soft-robotic injectors that are connected to her own reserve of cell-replication and repair symbots. A more extreme use of her powers is the ability to overload a person's body with cell-replication symbots, resulting in symbot-induced cancer.
Mr. Vandham
A detective serving as an advisor to SECRET. He comes to visit Rubicon City after a break in the Kronus Technologies case. As the conspiracy grows and begins entangling even the Ducklings, he leads the investigation into the root cause of it all, even teaming up with an unexpected ally to do so. He has fun telling stories to the Ducklings, trying to do what he can to ease their silent suffering.
He doesn't have any symbots, but he's nonetheless extremely powerful in his own right. He seems to be a mind-reader, good at interpreting others' feelings by examining the things they touch and create, which means he's good at understanding the motives of killers just by examining murder scenes. Unsurprisingly, he can also interpret the trauma of suffering teenagers like the Ducklings.
TMX: The City of Hands
College student and misanthrope Brooke Malone is struck by a speeding semi one day and wakes up on a train to the paradise Elysium. Everyone there has a soul-bound "guardian angel" who manipulates reality for the sake of their human soulmate. However, there are strict norms surrounding human relationships in Elysium- angels do not even allow humans to converse with each other, and any pre-existing romantic relationships or friendships are rendered null and void there.
Resentful of her circumstances and her guardian angel Grey, Brooke escapes to a free human city, Stronghold Mars, where humans can live and love as they please. The angels want to destroy the city and take their humans back, a fate Brooke and her new friends want to prevent at all costs. Furthermore, things get more complicated when Grey begins leading the opposition against Stronghold Mars, and proves himself a capable military tactician. However, he does not believe the military is acting in everyone's best interest.
In this strange new world, Brooke must reckon with the tenuous relationship between humans and angels, as well as her own hatred of humanity, if she is ever going to change the world for the better.
NAME
DESCRIPTION
POWER
Brooke Malone
Brooke is a former ecology major living in New York City, turned hunter for XERO. She has a quiet, bitter, and misanthropic personality, and prefers time spent alone to the company of other people. She ran away from her angelic soulmate, Grey, due to their differing personalities- she craved adventure, while he prefered the comforts of home. She is honing her abilities as a hunter while searching for a chance to kill the invading angels. One day, she may even lead the Stronghold to war.
Brooke is a skilled hunter, stalker, archer, and combatant with a compound bow; however, her tendency to get in over her head often gets her in trouble. She is a spiritcraft user who can manipulate fire and wind spirits which augment her archery skills.
Grey de Aur
Grey is the angelic soulmate of Brooke Malone, split off from her at birth. He was a meditative soul who preferred books to adventure- a position which put him at odds with Brooke. Grey never thought of Brooke as anything other than a little sister, and he was heartbroken when she ran away from his home. Upon learning that Brooke could fulfill a prophecy that could overturn the order of Elysium, Grey volunteered as a general and proved capable of commanding legions of angels to successfully siege Stronghold Mars. However, he resents the army's goal of subjugating humans- he only desires to prove to Brooke that humans and angels can coexist.
Grey's Gift is the ability to weave illusions. These can be illusory doubles, projected dreams, and even mind-numbing, hypnotic dreamscapes which he can use to manipulate a person. As an angel, he can fly with wings and turn into an owl. However, he is physically weak.
Julien Kashira
Julien is a florist who died of an apparent poisoning. Being a friendly and outgoing person, they came into conflict with their angel who distrusted humanity. After they escaped to Stronghold Mars, they formed a romantic relationship with Brooke. With their newfound friends and the power of a friendly snake demon, they will do anything to liberate humanity.
Julien has contracted a two-headed snake from another lower plane, making them a Daemonic Witch. Their pure-black powers of destruction can manifest like lightning, tentacles, or ink. Though they rarely use a weapon, they are also skilled with the katana.
Amelia Victoria
Amelia is the angelic soulmate of Julien Kashira, split off from them at birth. She has a natural distrust and dislike of humanity, disobedience, and "new things". She thought Julien would end their ceaseless chase for new things once they died, but was proven wrong. Now she's forced to ally with Grey to get them back.
Amelia's Gift allows her to absorb and fuse the genetic material of any animal she touches, augmenting her appearance and physical abilities for about 24 hours. This includes large and powerful dinosaurs. As an angel, she can fly with wings and turn into a panther, though she can't mix her animal form with the animals absorbed by her Gift.
Arthur James Mink
Arthur is a college student who died under mysterious circumstances. His studious and curious nature didn't mesh well with the hedonistic nature of his own angel. After he escaped to Stronghold Mars, he was able to harness his angel's shapeshifting ability, and uses it to protect his friends from anyone who sought to harm them. Unlike his friends, however, he is a little more sympathetic to the angels and believes that they too are victims of the war.
Arthur can harness Shifter magic, a rare subset of Celestial Spellcraft, allowing him to shapeshift into a lion with the same level of power as most angels' shapeshifted forms. When he prefers to take the backline, he uses a sniper rifle.
Livia Constantineau
Livia is the angelic soulmate of Arthur James Mink, split off from him at birth. She is naturally quite lazy and lethargic, constantly eating fruits and demanding pleasure. She even floats around instead of walking. Her nature drove away her soulmate Arthur, and she's willing to destroy an entire stronghold in order to get him back, if only for her eternity of bliss.
Livia's Gift gives her control over wind and air. The wind and tornadoes she creates can be targeted with pinpoint precision to buffet away at an enemy's weak points from a long distance away. As an angel, she can fly with wings and turn into a white hawk.
Samuel Dayze
Sam Dayze is a band singer and bassist who drowned in the ocean. Being the sort of person who loves everyone around him, he didn't mesh well with his angel who wanted his full devotion. He escaped to Stronghold Mars a long time ago and protects it with his life alongside his partner August. His love, and sometimes tough love, for everyone turned him into a proud Block leader and defender of the weak.
Sam does not use any form of magic. However, as a Block leader and a naturally strong person, he is able to lead his own Block into battle as well as fight off angels with a heavy hammer.
Tommy Fairchild
Tommy is the angelic soulmate of Sam Dayze, split off from him at birth. He is never satisfied unless he has the full attention of the one he loves, and will even kill to get it. He couldn't accept that Sam didn't want to stay in his cage, and he'll destroy everything he loves to get him back.
Tommy's Gift gives him control over water in all three of its phases- solid ice, liquid water, and water vapor. He can unleash torrents, freeze the ground, shoot ice knives, and even sense bodies through water vapor temperature. The range on his ability is incredibly wide.
Lost Gods of the Holy City
In the year 2274, a weapon landed in the heart of the United States and exploded, reducing the entire country to an endless, harsh desert. Soon after, angels flew down from the sky and founded cities where humans could live in peace without worrying about food, water, and safety.
Tawny Khandelwal lives a peaceful life in the angel-city of Sancoline as a hydroponics farmer. When a gang tries to launch a coup to overthrow the angel-regent Lyra, he and his friends are struck with a revelation: everyone in the city is trapped in a Lucid Reality simulation. None of the history they learned is true, their memories were rewritten to make them forget their tragic pasts, and "Old America" is alive and well (albeit embroiled in a violent civil war). Somehow, the realization also gives them superpowers, making them "Lost Gods".
Regent Lyra knows the full truth of their existence. Tawny's group plans to confront the regent and ask him to let them leave the holy city. But the horrifying truth behind Tawny's life story is one that might drag him into hell before he even gets there- if Lyra's loyal Lost Gods don't get to him first.
NAME
DESCRIPTION
POWER
Tawny Khandelwal
Tawny is a farmer who creates colorful artwork and music for the love of the craft. He lives a happy life in the angel-city of Sancoline with his parents and his girlfriend Maya. When Sancoline is almost taken over by a gang of vampires, he realizes that Sancoline is a virtual simulation. After seeing how Lyra distorted his memories, he runs away from home to pursue the truth. Of course, he's not the only one. As Tawny's memories slowly trickle back to his brain, he begins to experience strange visions of his own dark past.
As a Lost God, Tawny can project his will into spectral arms and hands which do his bidding, as well as power up his own limbs. This allows him to perform astonishing physical feats, as well as launch strong punching and grappling attacks against his enemies.
Maya Angulo
Maya Angulo is an engineer who works at her family's repair shop. She's incredibly friendly, and she wants to live a comfortable life doing what she loves (playing music). Alongside her friends, she defends Sancoline against the Vamps, becoming a Lost God in the process. The truth of her memories turns her world upside down and strains her relationship with the others, but she's determined to not let them keep her down.
As a Lost God, Maya has the ability to absorb, convert, and expel different types of energy as a yellow mass. She can absorb electricity and turn it into kinetic blades or plasma beams, or absorb the kinetic energy of a flying object and return it back to the sender with the same level of force.
Sidney Montgomery
Sidney Montgomery is a monk who has spent her adult life working at the Temple to Lyra, an organization that follows the word of the Regent and supports the city through volunteer work. Though she is surrounded by friends, she constantly wishes for a more romantic relationship. When she becomes a Lost God, the invisible ties binding her are undone, and it is only a matter of time before she is forced to battle the one who bound her and make the ultimate choice.
As a Lost God, Sidney has the power to manipulate Sancoline's terrain. She can pull pillars out of the earth, crush terrain to sand, and even manipulate any building or masonry construction she can see. She is also adept at fighting by throwing rocks at her opponents.
Rex Parekh
Rex is the true identity of Ratking, a hacker and blogger who wants to expose the information that the regent tries to hide from the public. He's friendly and hardworking, and always tries to stand up for the weak, including fighting with the Lost Gods against Lyra. However, his "cool hacker" persona and his propensity to blog about everything he does makes his identity obvious. When he's not out gathering information, he's pulling his weight at home for the sake of his disabled grandmother and only remaining family, Aditi.
Rex is adept at parkour and running, as well as hacking and gathering information through social engineering. His quartet of pet rats are all trained to aid him in his work of gathering information. He fights using a very heavy plasma cannon. Is he really a Lost God, though...?
Lyra
Lyra is the mysterious angel-regent of Sancoline, and one of very few people aware that Sancoline is a simulation. Being the "administrator", he has near complete control over the city, its human residents, and its NPCs. He loves all of his "lambs", and used his powers to poach them from Old America before they became casualties of the civil war. He was also the one who altered their memories to keep them from learning the truth. However, he has deeper, darker motivations, and he doesn't mind playing the long game to ensure that the world drowns in a sea of blood.
As the administrator of Sancoline, Lyra has the decision-making speed of a supercomputer and near complete control over the city's terrain, affairs, NPCs, lore, and memories. He too has a Lost God power- the ability to unwind his own body into prehensile metal threads, and do the same to any metal he touches. He usually uses that power to create a sword from his own body or dodge attacks with practiced precision.
Lily Cao
Lily Cao is a symbot surgeon who conducts research in the Salt District of Sancoline. She has an irritable personality and tends to complain a lot, but always wants to do the right thing by her patients and friends. She became a Lost God long ago, and now works with Lyra to protect Sancoline by hunting down the people who have broken in with the intention of harming the people. However, she also has the privilege of a Lucid Reality lab where she subjects those she has captured to increasingly, impossibly horrifying torture. What could have happened in her past to make her so deranged?
As a Lost God, Lily's all-consuming rage manifests in the form of green fire that burns away anything she wishes to destroy to a pile of ash. She can shoot them from her hands, wreathe them around her body, or start a fire on a point she can see. However, the fire can't destroy anything it doesn't touch, nor can it destroy anything Lily wants to protect.
Ash Lancero
Ash Lancero is a freelancer who currently works as a bouncer and bartender in the Neon District's S Tower. He became a Lost God sometime in the past, and now allies with Lyra in protecting Sancoline out of love for his new home. His power makes him skilled at espionage, and with his help the vampire gang that threatened Sancoline was eradicated. How will he respond to a new group of Lost Gods, and what happened in his past that made him want to protect Sancoline so badly?
As a Lost God, Ash has the ability to absorb another person's blood to disguise himself as them. If they're a Lost God, he can use a weaker version of their power that manifests as a small grenade. He can only use the power of someone he's disguised as, and he can mimic their personality perfectly when disguised.
Leander Araquin
Leander Araquin is an immigrations official who helps immigrants from the Old American Desert integrate into Sancoline. He holds affection for all of Sancoline's people, but especially his wife, who no one has ever met. Upon the eradication of the vampires, certain shackles binding him are unbound. Who will face his wrath first, Old America or the new Lost Gods who roam the city? And what is his connection to Lyra?
It is unknown if Leander is truly a Lost God, and he is secretive about his ability. To anyone watching, it appears as though he is bending reality itself by waving a small pipe he carries around. He also has a home- "a mountain covered in snow"- but such a thing can't exist in the scorching city of Sancoline, right?
Hyeon-jeong Park
Hyeon-jeong is an ordinary man who serves Lyra in an administrative capacity. His desire is to keep the city at peace- and that means keeping the undeserving from harming those who were invited to the city. While he generally handles tasks for the Knights and directs them with great effect, he is also one of the strongest warriors in the city. When new Lost Gods appear, he desperately wishes for them to understand his point of view, as he believes Lyra is doing the right thing by the Sancolinians. But what is the story behind his protectiveness over Sancoline's people?
As a Lost God, Hyeon-jeong has the ability to control wind and the movement of air. He can create torrential gusts, stagnate it, and even use his minute control over the wind to fly through the air. His many-bladed swords can transform into a pair of wing-shaped gliders, as well as break apart entirely into a series of metal shards and reform into a spear- all through his control over wind.
Adrian Spiegel
Adrian Spiegel is the leader of the Onyx Vamps, a 500-strong gang in Sancoline. He likes to throw his weight around and use his gang to feel powerful at the cost of ordinary people. When he starts a coup against Lyra by commanding his gang to attack people all over Sancoline, both Lyra's loyal and the new Lost Gods work to stop him, eventually killing him. However, his actions kick off the story- and a chain of events that could consume the whole world.
As a Lost God, Adrian's blood has special properties. Any ordinary person who ingests Adrian's blood is strengthened if they worship him and agree with his ideals, and weakened if they don't. This feedback loop of power for faith and faith for power is tailor-made for creating a powerful army- the Onyx Vamps. He himself has strength proportional to what he gives out, and is extremely physically strong.
Aditi Parekh
After the rest of her family died in a sandstorm, she traveled to Sancoline carrying her only remaining family member- her grandson, Rex. Twenty years later, she spends her days in the Clay District, watching over her grandson's antics and taking care of his rats. She has a wistful personality, rarely showing any strong emotion, but she can also be quite sassy. Why is she in Sancoline, and who was Rex to her in the real world?
Even though she cannot walk very far without a cane, she has a power that not even the Regent could detect- the power to create, sever, and reroute connections between objects.