About Siphon_Siphon - PL 6
Advantages
Skills
Powers
Offense
Complications
Languages
Defense
Power Points
Masks:
___________________ Hero ___________________ Hero Name: Siphon Real Name (if different): Valerie Tepe Abilities: Vitality Absorption Look: Female, dark hair, eastern European, shadowy eyes, expensive fashion, sleek costume. ___________________ Labels ___________________ Danger : +2
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___________________ Have Influence on:
When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, ask them what they would do something dark for and gain Influence over them. ___________________
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• Who mentored you in supervillainy? Dr. Sange, initially. After that, she worked as a mercenary with a variety of villains • Who first showed you that you could do good?
• What was your goal as a villain?
• What caused you to switch sides?
• Why do you care about the team?
___________________ I’ve earned the (tentative) trust of Manifest, and I follow their example of what a hero should be.
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Friends in Low Places _Mr. Cane___ Specialty: weapons, Obligation: __Lovelace___ Specialty: Obligation: __Dr. Cutler_ Specialty: Obligation: ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏ When you create your character, mark two obligations on one villain, and mark one obligation on another.
Reformed Moves Wrong side of the tracks:
Blowing off steam:
Seeing Things:
Faces, unrecognized, floated across her vision. They were smiling, laughing -- or are they crying? Sometimes in pain, sometimes comforting. Sometimes scared, sometimes brave. There was warmth, a touch, a kiss... Siphon blinked and the vision was gone, but she still had to reach out to grab a wall to steady herself. This was crazy; she'd never been so out of whack by snaring someone's power before. But this was different. This was -- Faces, again, but different ones. These were harder, meaner. But often full of fear, and sometimes hate. She saw hunger, lust, greed in their eyes. They were familiar to her. She'd seen the same looks all her life, cold and calculating. She stumbled, clutching a chair to keep from falling to the floor. "What's wrong?" Despite the question, the voice had no compassion. Siphon looked at the demon-masked figure with a scowl. She straightened, trying to cover her momentary weakness. She wasn't sure how long she would be plagued by these visions, but she wasn't going to let them think she couldn't handle them. "Nothing. Flashes of the power, that's all. You hired me to get them, remember?" The figure leaned forward, menace radiating off him. "I hired you to get the information, girl. Now you will use the power to know where it is. Then you will tell us." She tried to glare back, but another vision struck just then. She felt she was in a carnival mirror funhouse, seeing hundreds of variations of the cultist before her, stretching on to infinity. She glanced down at her hands. Like a trippy music video of the 1970s, hazy afterimages repeated themselves over and over. However, she could detect subtle variations -- a different colored nail polish, a bandage, a cut, a scar. Looking at the rest of herself, she could see even more images and variations. Always her, but in a million different permutations. "SIPHON!" her mother screeched at her over the video phone. At some point during her vision, the cultist had apparently connected and set it in front of her. "You do what you are told! You are coming dangerously close to damaging your reputation! Do you know what that will cost us if you fail??" She pinched her brow to try to regain focus. "Yes, mother. It's... different. But I'll--" "I don't want to hear about different! I want to hear that you got results!" Siphon submitted, and let her mother begin negotiations with the cultist over the disappearance of Lucidity. She wasn't sure how she could be blamed for that, but somehow she was. She stumbled over to a table and lowered herself into a chair. On the table was a grainy, black-and-white picture of what looked like a couple European explorers holding a thick, leather-bound book. She tried to focus on just the book, willing the power to see where it was now, or somehow trace its path from the Codex Maleficarum to the present day. The best guess about Lucidity's power was that she could see... everything. But that's a lot to sort through. Another vision hits. Siphon is standing on a path, like the one she saw when she first touched the seer. She tries to think about the book, but the path suddenly grows dark and twisted; branches tangling and looming over the ground, roots twisting and coiling. Though a current of fear runs through her, she pushes on ahead, forcing away visions -- her father being shot execution-style in front of her; her mother lying in a tiled bathroom dead of an overdose; the clanging of doors with thick bars slamming closed in front of her face; someone bleeding in an alley (is it her?); hands holding a dead child; people screaming; people begging prostrate in front of her; crowds fleeing in terror from her; a blade sticking into her chest -- She pushed herself hard away from the table, sending it crashing on its side as she fell backwards as well. Feeling moisture on her face, she hastily turned away from the cultist and tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks without being obvious. Get a grip! she chided herself as she stood. She slowly returned the table to its legs and gathered the papers from the floor, ignoring the stares of the cultist. She sifted through the papers, tossing aside various Celtic symbols and a drawing of a black dog with what looked like burning eyes -- hard to tell in the black-and-white drawing. Again she found the picture of the book, and tried again. The vision returned. She saw the path again, but resolved to focus on the book later. The path stretched, with many forks and branches leading off into unseen distances. She realizes that she can see off in the distance of many of them, though before too long most of the paths veer out of sight. The faces return, shimmering and dancing with their myriad expressions in the different directions of the path. She sees moments, too. In one, she is playing a video game, but it looks like she is in the game. Another has her digging through a pile of sand trying to find someone buried. Choosing one of the branching paths which seemed to have more positive than negative, she follows that path for a while, seeing people and places that are comforting and nurturing. Once safely along the path and surrounded by loved ones, she concentrates on the book. It took Siphon several minutes before realizing that she had been the one screaming. The plague of nightmarish visions faded mercifully from her mind, but the impression they left -- horror, pain, loss, regret -- gnawed viciously on her mind. Trying to sit up, she realized she was tied to a stinking mattress. Worse, her parents were standing over her. "What. the. Hell." her mother stated imperiously. Her father rubbed his wife's shoulders. "Now, honey. She's clearly been through a lot. Sweetie? How are you feeling?" She wriggled out of the straps that had apparently been holding her down and rubbed her eyes. "Okay, I guess." "Good," her father said. "So, did you find where the book is?" Siphon tried her hardest not to flinch at being reminded of the Codex. Her mother picked up on it. "Don't tell me we went through all that, had to come all the way here through morning traffic, and you didn't get it?" she chided. "Mom, it's different, it's--" "No excuses!" her father shouted, slashing the air with his hand. "We already had to pay them back a third of the price for this delay. You will get them the location!" He loomed over her, causing her to pull her knees up to her chest as she scooted back to the wall. Her mom slid in between Valerie and her father, and placed a soothing hand on her forehead. "Now, dear, remember: you're Siphon. At just seventeen, you've made millions with your power. There's no do-gooder in Panurgic who can withstand your touch. Are you going to let that spaced-out b&%@$ get the better of you?" A surge of wounded pride ran through her. Valerie shook her head. "No. She won't. I'm Siphon. I take their powers the path and I use them the path better than they ever could! I just need to the path, um, focus some more." Her father straightened. "That's my girl. But this setback is coming out of your allowance." Shoving that concern aside for the moment, Siphon sat up on the mattress and crossed her legs. She caught the presence of the cultist hanging around nearby, but she ignored him, too. She closed her eyes, and willed the visions back. The path reappeared. She retreated from it, pulling back. I won't go that way. She laid a trap for me. That's all she did. Remembering the hall of mirrors effect, she willed the infinite images to appear around her. Seeing all the different realities and possibilities within herself, she began concentrating on the Codex. Reality trembled. She saw variations of herself, with blackened clawlike hands groping and grasping at some leathery pages. Fearing a reaction similar to before, she pulled farther out, mixing the infinite mirrors to the path, and suddenly she saw it: a web, stretching out into infinity. It wasn't a perfect spider's web, having twists and tangles and snapped threads, but it was beautiful. She again concentrated on the Codex Maleficarum. The gossamer threads began to blacken and grow taut. She saw -- no, felt -- several threads snap -- branches of her life doomed the more she let the grimoire affect it. She recoiled again in fear, but the vision held her fast. She needed a way out, the web had trapped her. She pulled and tugged at the strands herself, seeing strange, unfamiliar faces. Wait, she'd seen them before. She pulled herself out of the twists, away from the infected black strands and onto a new thread. She could see the faces on it vaguely, but saw that the strand led to a nearly intact web. Fearing the fraying, infected web behind her, she seized the strand desperately. She pulled, tugged, but the dead threads clung to her hard. It was as if she was being pulled in two. It was excruciating, and she had to scream once more. ================ Siphon woke up again on the dirty mattress. She saw her parents in a heated debate with several of the cultists, and one large... thing... in heavy armor with spikes and horns. Oh, yeah. Him. The DaemoKnight. All heads turned to look at her when she stirred. The look on her parents told her that they had lost more money, probably wouldn't get as much for the next job or three, and that they were going to take it out of her hide. The visions were gone, she realized with a jolt of relief that was suddenly replaced with fear when the implication struck her that she wouldn't have anything for them. She wondered if she could make a break for it. Something moved next to her, and suddenly she saw a psychotic-looking mime staring at her with its crazed eyes. Great. Just great. They brought in Moxie. She wasn't going to be able to run, so she was as good as dead. Wait. There was something, something clear within the haze of the fading visions. A name. Salvo. Henry Salvo. But she couldn't say what it meant. But she could bluff. Before anyone could say anything to her, she blurted out, "The book's too well protected. It has some kind of defense mechanism. But I found the name of someone who knows. Henry Salvo. "He's where it all begins." |
