Player Information
User Name: tinpra
Email Address: tinpra@gmail.com
IM: prindlei (AIM)
Player's age: post-grad
Character Information
Name: Anne Pryde Schauer, aka Carmen Schauer and Katherine Kitty Samantha Pryde
Code Name: Shadow
Gender: F
Age: 26
Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian
General Appearance: At 51, 100 lbs, Kitty is short with a slimly athletic build. Although her hair is naturally nearly black, she lightens it just enough to make it a true brown that matches her eyes. With her casual sense of style and slender build, she often passes for much younger than she is. However her professional lifestyle is starting to influence her everyday wardrobe.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Kitty has a tattoo of a purple medieval dragon along her upper back. Its head comes over her right shoulder, along her collarbone, where a wide-strapped tank-top can cover it. Most of the neck, wings and body cover her upper back. The tail snakes around under her left shoulder blade.
Uniformed Appearance: Kitty wears a standard Brotherhood uniform: a simple jumpsuit of black or charcoal gray leather and vinyl, strategically reinforced with Kevlar.
Affiliation: Brotherhood
Desired Hellfire Club Status: none
Family: Carmen Pryde (father, legally declared deceased), Theresa Schauer (mother), Samuel Schauer (grandfather, deceased), Elizabeth Schauer (grandmother)
Personality: So used to being everything to everyone, there are days when Kitty herself doesnt know what shes really like. It is safe to say, however, that she is generally easygoing and undemanding. Of the very few things on which she has a firm opinion she is virtually immovable.
Kitty neither appreciates nor seeks out attention and truly prefers to be out of the limelight. She doesnt like being taken advantage of and walked all over, but she doesnt do take action to be seen or recognized. She does them because she personally believes she ought to, because it will make someone else happy, or because it just needs doing. Though utterly confident in her abilities whether they be hacking, dancing, or anything academic a spotlight will instantly turn her soft-voiced and shy. Over the years she has developed a thick skin, but underneath is, somehow still, a soft heart. She is a serial survivor and figures that if shes made it this far, she might as well keep going. She has learned to have no problem with bending and breaking rules to protect herself and will lie, cheat and steal to keep the focus off herliterally if thats what it takes.
Powers: Kitty has the mutant ability to shift the atoms of her body out of alignment with the atoms around her, called phasing. She can pass through objects, or allow objects to pass through her, at will. Kitty also has total control over the extent of how out of phase, or out of alignment, her body becomes and in what way. Any one part of her body can be solid or not, while other parts of her are solid or not. Generally speaking its difficult to tell when she is out of phase because she appears to be solid at all times. However the more out of phase she has to become to pass through denser objects, the more transparent she appears to be. For example, she would appear to be solid while walking through a standard wooden door, but would appear to be nearly transparent if she tried walking through one made of or lined with ademantium. The more out of phase she becomes, the more distorted she appears to be. She can remain in these states indefinitely so long as she has enough oxygen.
Her ability can be temporarily shared with other objects or individuals if she touches them up to at least a six foot tall man weighing approximately two hundred pounds. Any loss of contact will mean instant solidity for the person/object.
One fun side benefit is the ability to literally walk on air. When Kitty is in phase she is at no time touching any object despite appearances to the contrary. When she is sitting, she is sitting on air; when she is standing, she is standing on air, etc. As such, she likes to pick up feet and float. To Kitty things that should feel solid, like the ground, do because her mind tells her that they should.
Because her phased atoms interfere with the regular motion of the excited electrons at work in electricity, Kitty can disrupt, disable and potentially destroy electronic devices while in phase.
Weaknesses: Phasing anything other than herself drains Kittys internal resources. Because she hasnt tested her power extensively she isnt sure of her limits. Certainly trying to phase a very large object or more than a few people at once for any length of time would take much more concentration than she's ever used. Any loss of contact means instant solidity for the person/object.
Kitty can only stay phased within a solid object for as long as she can hold her breath. Because her lungs are more efficient in phase than out, she should be able to remain in phase longer in something porous like loose soil but its not something shes been will to test.
The more out of phase Kitty becomes, the more loosely her atoms are held together and becomes more vulnerable to a broad-based force like a strong wind. Her mass doesnt change, but because its more diffuse and the bonds between her atoms stretched thin, she could possibly be dispersed by such a force.
Kitty cannot handle functioning electronic objects while in phase. Her phased atoms interfere with the regular motion of excited electrons. Similarly she is susceptible to energy based attacks but it takes a sustained amount of energy to do worthwhile damage, so as a prolonged energy blast, prolonged exposure to fire (although the smoke would probably kill her first), etc. She is also susceptible to mental attack. Her mind is harder to find in phase, but its not impossible.
While out of phase, Kitty has all the normal liabilities and weaknesses as other human woman of her age, height and weight.
Other Abilities: Kitty is interested in electronics of all sorts, particularly computers. She is a skilled hacker although she keeps her jobs small. Shes also a very good dancer, and picks up new styles easily. She has some ability with a fiddle, emphasis on some.
Detailed History:
By the time Ann Schauer was out of kindergarten she already knew a few things about herself: that she didnt like too much tongue in her kisses and that her father was someone she should know. An only child, she lived with her mother and maternal grandparents and she didnt know why.
About a month into first grade she learned something about human nature: that people didnt like anything different even if they were beyond your control like being the new kid, or having a birthday that feel at the end of the calendar year, or not having been taught how to read in kindergarten. Luckily for her, she quickly ingratiated herself with her classmates and picked up reading and everything else the way a fish picked up swimming. And once the other kids realized that birthday cake season would now start in November they got over that, too. Still those were the worst of her problems until middle and high school.
As middle school loomed Anns mother worried that her daughter wasnt growing socially, despite her test scores being off the charts, and so enrolled her in The Danan School of the Arts to study dance, music appreciation and any other class that might catch Anns fancy. The dance instructors in particular, with their blunt criticism, broke down much of Anns insecurities and helped her build a thicker skin. They also opened her up to a world of men. Boys had been her best friends in kindergarten and grade school, and her grandfather was her favorite person in the whole wide world. They were straightforward, easygoing and clear cut in all things. Plus they were cute to boot. Then in middle school they had all seemed to change their minds, throwing her to the wolves: Girls. At Danan, however, the world had re-righted itself. Boys, men, were her teachers, her dance partners, her compatriots, and confidants. And were even cuter at twice her age.
Anns grades began to slip as she neared high school. Even after her mother felt forced to pull her from all extracurricular activity including her dance and music classes, her grades did not improve. Her freshman year in high school was turning into a disaster. Meeting with her mother and guidance counselor, Anns homeroom teacher suggested that it was more likely that Ann was bored, not simply lazy as her teachers were beginning to describe her as. It was an excellent school for the average child, but Ann was brilliant. It was decided that Ann should take the test given to juniors that allowed them to take classes at the local campus of the state university. And if Ann did well with the one or two courses she got from the university as well as bring her regular grades up, her mother decided that she could re-enroll at Danan.
Ann loved the university courses and her grades improved accordingly. Re-enrollment in Danan followed. By the middle of her sophomore year Anns high school classes had been reduced to chemistry, art, gym and the daily roll call in homeroom. Her mother wasnt pleased with her attending classes with kids so much older than she was but, because she spent most of her time with adults, Ann felt comfortable with the older students. Both schools had promised that young Ann would have a student chaperone with her while attending college classes.
Around the same time Anns grandfather, her favorite person in the whole wide world, began having heart trouble. No one was willing to give her many more details than that. She knew that he was taking more time off work and that there was a sudden cornucopia of pills on the kitchen counter, but never exactly what they were for. Though everyone said things were fine there was a steady level of tension in the Schauer household. When Ann began to complain about chronic headaches their family doctor cited the strain on the family and Anns unusual school schedule as causes since there didnt seem to be anything else wrong with her. If they worsened or became more frequent he would run tests, but he advised trying to minimize some of Anns activities.
Anns mother insisted that she cut back on her dance and music classes. Ann herself would have been upset if school hadnt been so all consuming. Having quickly fallen in with the geeks and engineers, Ann found herself spending more of her free time in the computer labs with them which suited her student chaperone just fine. What could happen to a sixteen year old in a computer lab with a bunch of guys who hadnt showered in a week other than a severe case of noseblindness? Computers fascinated Ann the way few things did. Just as she had quickly taken to reading despite starting later than her peers, she took to computers as if her first words had been spoken in C. If she hadnt loved dance and music so much, she would have given them up entirely for computers. And as her grandfathers condition worsened until by the end of her sophomore year he had been hospitalized several times they became a safe haven from which to hide from the world.
The headaches didnt get better. Twice during that year Ann stayed home, unable to leave her bed. They were always better the next day but never gone. With her grandfathers decline (partly due to his unwillingness to follow his doctors instructions) and Anns problems seeming to worsen as well, her mother and grandmother struggled to keep things together. Tests run by Anns doctor were inconclusive and the medication he prescribed dulled the pain at best. Ann went to school and kept up with her independent computer work but dropped t classes at Danan entirely. Watching her struggle to concentrate one afternoon, one of her fellow computer geeks introduced her to an even better way to goof off than writing and playing with code: the internet. Ann became utterly fascinated with everything internet related. She learned html faster than she had learned C and java. She quickly convinced one of the guys to use his ID to get her a laptop from the Computer Science department so she could mess around at home. Staying up late didnt helping her headaches, but Ann pressed on.
One night Ann fell asleep from pure exhaustion with the laptop jacked in and the internet up and running, a headache blazing like a fiery vice behind her eyes. The next morning Anns grandmother, the first person to leave for the day, was surprised to see her granddaughter sleeping peacefully on the couch. Ann had no idea what had happened and didnt care. She was pain free for the first time in months. When she went back upstairs, though, the laptop was fried. That she cared about it. Ann busily set about reprogramming the laptop and completely forgot about waking up downstairs. That summer, Ann returned to Danan.
Odd things began to happen, however. Ann would find herself in the middle of classrooms and not know how she had gotten there. One time a couple of students wandering from room to room putting up fliers accidentally tossed a handful of thumbtacks in Anns direction. Two of them embedded themselves in the wall behind her head. Three of them landed harmlessly under her desk. A few days later a boy in Finkles Fiddlers apologized profusely for jabbing her in the side with his bow until Ann him that he had missed, she was fine.
As Anns grandfathers health worsened, and her mother and grandmother devoted more and more of their time to overseeing his health concerns, Ann found herself spending still more time in computer labs and on the borrowed laptop. While other kids her age drowned their problems in alcohol and drugs, Ann drowned hers in the online world. She wanted to forget, not lose control. Sex, however, was an option that she might have considered if she had been interested in anyone happy to oblige her, or was able to attract anyone she was interested in. Ann had always been fascinated by and curious about sex and often snuck into her mothers room to read her romance novels.
And so chat rooms became her second, or maybe third, home. In them she found fellow geeks, dancers, and music enthusiasts with more passion than talent. And impersonal sex. She didnt know at what point shed stopped reading for plot and skipped straight to the sex scenes, or when her random internet searches began including the terms that led her to erotic fiction and then outright porn. Which led her back to chat rooms, and adult rooms. And then the 18 and over rooms. For a while Ann was happy to watch what went on in the rooms, ignoring all private invitations sent her way.
Danan introduced a computer arts class around the same time. Ann jumped at the chance to take it, especially since there was literally no one at home anymore. With her already considerable knowledge of programming she quickly became Mr. Hodges prized student. She regularly stayed behind to discuss aspects of computers and programming that would never come up during class. More than that, Mr. Hodge reminded Ann of her grandfather, who was now so far removed from the robust man that he had been it was hard to imagine that the person in her memories and the one in the hospital were the same.
That pattern continued through Winter Break when he invited a few of his best students to his house to do work on his more sophisticated computers. Once again Ann stayed behind to discuss, and now play. She hardly noticed when the other students left for the evening. It wasnt until Mr. Hodge began kneading her shoulders that she realized just how late it was, and just how close Mr. Hodge was. She actually found herself at a momentary loss when she felt his hands slipping from her shoulders into her boat neck sweater. He was old. His hands had slipped. He wasnt paying attention. But if that were true then it was the most deliberate non-attentive move shed ever felt. Jumping up suddenly, she quickly backpedaled away from him. And right out the back wall of the house, startling them both. As she stared in disbelief, Mr. Hodge ran out the back door. What are you? And what did you do to my equipment? Ann had no idea, but she knew she didnt want to be anywhere near Mr. Hodge anymore. Running back inside and through the wall again she grabbed her stuff and made for the bus stop half a mile away. Usually Mr. Hodge drove her, but all things considered
Home that night, Ann answered her first private chat message. What had Mr. Hodge seen in her that made him think that she would want to screw him, of all people? Was it the same thing all those people online had seen? Or was he, were they, just being opportunists? Ann soon forgot all her questions as she delved seriously into playing.
The rest of her junior year passed in a hyper-caffeinated blur of classes, computers and dance rehearsals except for one thing. Disturbed by the threats Mr. Hodge had hurled after her, Ann decided to look into his public records. Then his not so public records. Mr. Hodge had a history of criminal sexual assault. Not in her native Illinois, but still it existed. Ann decided to bring that to surface and, in doing so, brought herself to the attention of local hackers (many of them the geeks she hung out with in the computer labs) who liked her work but not her lack of subtlety. Impressed by her raw talent they quickly took her in, as much out of curiosity as a desire to keep themselves from getting swept up in whatever trouble she might inadvertently cause. They helped her change Mr. Hodges record and bring him to the attention of local police who arrested the man within days of the updates.
Using her regular handle, HelloKitty81, Ann quickly became known for her small, unobtrusive yet utterly elegant hacks, as well as someone who could be called on for piecemeal work. As she began to understand the full extent of her ability, she felt more confident about sneaking out late at night and on weekends to meet up with fellow hackers in odd locations to work and discuss. This, in turn, cut into her play time so that the only chatting she had time for was with friends and her regular suitors, so long as they didnt mind coming in second to her work.
The summer before her senior year, Ann began an online relationship with one of these suitors, Rob. The whole thing felt silly when she thought about it shed never met him after all but when she started doodling his name in the margins of her class assignments she knew that, unconventional though it might be, her feelings were genuine. At the same time she changed her hacking handle to KittyPride, after a banner made in congratulations of her first solo hack, at the suggestion of her friend Diogenes (Diggy) so as to divorce her regular and hacker personas from each other. Just about everything in her life was turning up roses. And though Rob didnt press her, Ann wanted to meet him.
Anns grandfather died the weekend while she was away with Rob, when she was supposed to have been at a conference with her dance class. Though her family had for the most part eschewed all Jewish traditions for years, the larger part of their family insisted that they properly observe shiva for him. Overwhelmed by guilt, frustration and stress, being forced to do nothing hurt in an almost physical way. She wanted Rob. Theyd had one perfect weekend together and she wanted to be held by him. The first two days were the worst. But after the longing passed her mind began to work overtime, making plans, putting things into motion. What Ann wanted to do most of all was get on her computer. Work. The very antithesis of sitting shiva. So she planned. Thought. Considered and reconsidered.
By the time summer rolled around again, Ann was ready to make a permanent move to be with Rob in Minnesota. The subsequent fight was spectacular. Neither Anns mother nor grandmother had any idea of the kind of life Ann had been leading in the shadows. They refused to support her.
When, almost a year later, Ann woke up alone in the bed shed shared with Rob, everything but his heavy equipment gone, she wished she hadnt burned the bridge to her family quite so thoroughly. She was eighteen, nearly broke, bewildered and very alone. With no money saved and a crappy job at the local burger joint there was no way she could hold on to the apartment let alone pay for utilities. Turning to the only family she had left, Ann sought help from hackers and her online acquaintances. The hackers, particularly her friend Diggy offered her to put her up but it wasnt until one of her regular lovers offered to take her in and fly her out to Seattle, Washington (he was a pilot after all) that she impulsively took the chance. In the end she did ask her friends to help her with a new identity. She might not have been on speaking terms with her mother and grandmother, but if something happened she didnt want them involved in any way, shape or form. She also wanted a clean life to go back to if things went wrong in some unforeseeable way.
Things with the pilot worked out until they didnt. Handcuff kink aside, he was a nice enough man but he had been expecting a relationship and Ann was still too deeply scarred by the incomprehensibility of Robs abandonment to even consider one. She broke it off with him within a few monthsthen turned to the next lover. And the next, and the next. Ann ignored all attempts by her hacker friends to take her in, knowing full well that she could literally walk out of any relationship if she needed to. She even ignored advice from ThatGuy, a hacker so mysterious, and thus cool, that no one could even remember his actual handle. Ann didnt know what she was looking for, exactly, but she knew she wanted as few strings attached to her as she could manage.
As Carmen Schauer, and later Kitty Pryde, she crossed and crisscrossed the country in that way for several years, staying with a lover for a few months, sometimes nearly a year, once for almost two years, before moving on to the next e-suitor or whomever had struck her fancy at a club. Though she didnt analyze her relationships too closely, or at all, she quickly developed three rules: (1) Never be the other woman. (2) If she was in a relationship, she was in a relationship. If it was about sex, then it was just about sex. Should one or both parties fall in love, the party that could walk through walls was obligated to do so. (3) Never sleep with the boss while hes still the boss. She learned the hard way that those rules had to be enforced at all costs.
She had been man-free for almost six months when she ran into Douglas Cheval, whom she knew better as Convert, working as a receptionist in New York City. He had been on of her regular e-lovers, but shed broken it off when she found out about the wife and two young children. They had clicked, however, and so had kept up a regular rapport. Surprisingly it was Cheval who recognized her as he waited for her to buzz him in to see a client. Their chemistry turned out to be even better in person. Kitty, as she was going by at that point, soon became a regular sight at office lunches or to drop off gifts for his family. The story they put out was that she was the daughter of a family friend. Kitty never intended it to go any further, but while she was skilled at a very many things seduction wasnt one of them. She had never even heard of an emotional affair, but before she knew it all the feelings shed thought were long buried bubbled to the surface. When his personal secretary called her because he had gotten too drunk to drive home after the holiday party, she didnt wonder why someone hadnt just put him in a taxi. And when he came in to work Saturdays and asked her to keep him company, she didnt think it was strange at all. So when she stood on tiptoe over to kiss him goodbye before he took the weekend commuter train back home, it was with a mixture of pent-up longing and guilt. Cheval was much better at the game, however, and rarely let Kitty dwell on guilt.
Cheval had once joked that if he made just a little more money he would have set Kitty up as his mistress. She got a taste of what that might have been like the week his wife took their kids to visit her parents out West for a week. Kitty enjoyed not having to wake him up in the middle of the night to get him home before dawn, but found that she had gotten used to the odd hours. Spying his laptop one night, she decided to indulge her curiosity and finally see what he had on there. While his hard drive and that of his remotely connected office computer proved to be almost boring since she wasnt interested in his Wall Street endeavors, his home computer was a firewalled mystery. So much so that she changed to her laptop so that she could hack in. When she found files linking Cheval to a child slave ring, specializing in mutants she actually backed up and did the hack again. But it was real.
Disgusted, Kitty immediately took what she had found to the hacking community wanting to stop Cheval without exposing herself or them. After they got over their own voluminous disgust suggestions came rolling in. Even ThatGuy offered his two cents. What they settled on was simple and would keep Kitty out of the limelight, but would mean sticking things out with Cheval for a while. Profits from Chevals clients were slowly filtered out of their own accounts into private accounts created by the hackers in Chevals name, in such a way that the transfers wouldnt draw suspicion at first. Parts of Chevals records would simultaneously be seeded into less restricted parts of his computer so that when the SEC finally investigated him on embezzlement they would find the child slavery ring as well.
It took a year for their plans to come to fruition. For the first time since shed first been abandoned by Rob, eight years before, she called on the hackers to protect her. There was no reason why Kitty Pryde should be caught up in either the nascent SEC investigation or the federal one that would follow, but she wasnt ready to go back to being Ann Schauer yet.
She had a list about two columns long in her notebook of potential people to stay with when she ran across the posting from ThatGuy. Simply: We should talk. Kitty almost fell out of her chair. When the feeling came back to her fingers and she could think again she sent him a note. It was almost too impossible to believe that ThatGuy was offering to put her up. Maybe he just had more plan for her, or was going to give her his opinion on who to stay with. No one knew who ThatGuy was. And no one was more shocked to get a return note with instructions to meet him in the lobby of Magnus Towers in two days. Diggy squealed like a little girl.
She couldnt have stood out more if she hadnt had her Hello Kitty weekend bag slung over her shoulders (she couldnt resist). Certainly no one standing around looking for a girl with the Hello Kitty weekend bag shed promised to be wearing. When she went to the security desk to ask him if hed seen anyone hanging either around the lobby or outside, he demanded her name and scanned his list.
Here you are, Miss Pryde. Elevators are over there. Shocked almost out of her skin, Kitty turned on the security guard only to have him lean over and pin a visitors tag to her lapel. By the time she was chewing on her inner cheek to keep the popping feeling at bay she had gotten over her surprise.
The elevator stopped, letting on a man looking just about as out of place as she did. Kitty noted that he was going higher than she was as she kept to her side of the elevator.
Funny bag that.
Kitty glanced over at him, nodding. Kinda my signature.
That so, Kitty Pryde?
She could have peed her pants. A breathy Uh huh, was all she could manage. Nodding he turned back to the doors. Youre not a suit! she burst out suddenly. He laughed at her as they skipped her floor and kept riding up.
Kitty was still blushing and calling herself all kinds of stupid when he led her out of the elevator and down a hall. They were about to step inside an office when she finally noticed her surroundings. Too late because ThatGuy (whose name she still didnt know!) was ushering her inside. Between the office decor and the man standing up to greet her, Kitty felt even more out of place than she had down in the lobby. Then she remembered ThatGuy standing behind her and didnt feel quite so grungy.
Ann Schauer
Kittys heart stopped and her throat closed. Shed never had asthma or a panic attack, but she imagined they both felt something like this. Or maybe exactly like this. She was just about to wonder if she looked as stricken as she felt when he led her to a chair, reassuring her that, yes, they knew exactly who she was. And what she was. Which nearly sent her through the chair and out the door. Until she thought about it. Unless they had gotten to Benjamin, the only ex shed ever revealed herself to, or she had been more careless than shed thought, they had no proof. And ThatGuy! ThatGuy had hacked her! She didnt know whether to feel honored or betrayed.
It turned out she hadnt been as careful as shed thought. Part of Chevals files had been a listing of potential mutant children that could be exploited, because of the nature of their power, their family situation or some combination thereof. Perusing the list, Kitty had found herself. Apparently her old computer teacher, Mr. Hodge, had talked to someone and her name and a description of her power had crossed Chevals path. Kitty had made the mistake of erasing the file, figuring that no one would notice something so small. But someone had. ThatGuy and Eric Magnus to be exact. His name had burst on her with the same overpowering sensation of her throat as she listening to him explain everything. She wondered that it hadnt occurred to her sooner, but between the shock of hearing her real name for the first time in years, of being exposed as a mutant by someone shed never even met before and just, well, him shed been just a little distracted.
And Erik Magnus wanted her to work for him? She just needed a place to lie low for a little while, not a whole new job. Once he understood her confusion he made it clear that he wasnt exactly offering her a new secretarial position. Men like Cheval were a pestilence to mutantkind. They had to be stopped. And if she agreed, then maybe there was a place for her in his organization.
Kitty wasnt sure whether she thought he wasnt crazy because she agreed with him or because she found him personally enthralling, but before she knew it ThatGuy was leading her back down the hall, HelloKitty bag once again slung across her chest, toward the elevator and a place where she could stay for a couple of weeks. She had become a member of the Brotherhood.
Extraneous Information: Jag was my official Kitty sounding board and offered me the use of her characters. Or was that offering Kitty to her characters? Anywho, she also officially expanded my horizons re Kittys ability. Diogenes is modeled on the poor friend I used as my beta, and my brother also let me run this by him.
Writing Sample:
User Name: tinpra
Email Address: tinpra@gmail.com
IM: prindlei (AIM)
Player's age: post-grad
Character Information
Name: Anne Pryde Schauer, aka Carmen Schauer and Katherine Kitty Samantha Pryde
Code Name: Shadow
Gender: F
Age: 26
Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian
General Appearance: At 51, 100 lbs, Kitty is short with a slimly athletic build. Although her hair is naturally nearly black, she lightens it just enough to make it a true brown that matches her eyes. With her casual sense of style and slender build, she often passes for much younger than she is. However her professional lifestyle is starting to influence her everyday wardrobe.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Kitty has a tattoo of a purple medieval dragon along her upper back. Its head comes over her right shoulder, along her collarbone, where a wide-strapped tank-top can cover it. Most of the neck, wings and body cover her upper back. The tail snakes around under her left shoulder blade.
Uniformed Appearance: Kitty wears a standard Brotherhood uniform: a simple jumpsuit of black or charcoal gray leather and vinyl, strategically reinforced with Kevlar.
Affiliation: Brotherhood
Desired Hellfire Club Status: none
Family: Carmen Pryde (father, legally declared deceased), Theresa Schauer (mother), Samuel Schauer (grandfather, deceased), Elizabeth Schauer (grandmother)
Personality: So used to being everything to everyone, there are days when Kitty herself doesnt know what shes really like. It is safe to say, however, that she is generally easygoing and undemanding. Of the very few things on which she has a firm opinion she is virtually immovable.
Kitty neither appreciates nor seeks out attention and truly prefers to be out of the limelight. She doesnt like being taken advantage of and walked all over, but she doesnt do take action to be seen or recognized. She does them because she personally believes she ought to, because it will make someone else happy, or because it just needs doing. Though utterly confident in her abilities whether they be hacking, dancing, or anything academic a spotlight will instantly turn her soft-voiced and shy. Over the years she has developed a thick skin, but underneath is, somehow still, a soft heart. She is a serial survivor and figures that if shes made it this far, she might as well keep going. She has learned to have no problem with bending and breaking rules to protect herself and will lie, cheat and steal to keep the focus off herliterally if thats what it takes.
Powers: Kitty has the mutant ability to shift the atoms of her body out of alignment with the atoms around her, called phasing. She can pass through objects, or allow objects to pass through her, at will. Kitty also has total control over the extent of how out of phase, or out of alignment, her body becomes and in what way. Any one part of her body can be solid or not, while other parts of her are solid or not. Generally speaking its difficult to tell when she is out of phase because she appears to be solid at all times. However the more out of phase she has to become to pass through denser objects, the more transparent she appears to be. For example, she would appear to be solid while walking through a standard wooden door, but would appear to be nearly transparent if she tried walking through one made of or lined with ademantium. The more out of phase she becomes, the more distorted she appears to be. She can remain in these states indefinitely so long as she has enough oxygen.
Her ability can be temporarily shared with other objects or individuals if she touches them up to at least a six foot tall man weighing approximately two hundred pounds. Any loss of contact will mean instant solidity for the person/object.
One fun side benefit is the ability to literally walk on air. When Kitty is in phase she is at no time touching any object despite appearances to the contrary. When she is sitting, she is sitting on air; when she is standing, she is standing on air, etc. As such, she likes to pick up feet and float. To Kitty things that should feel solid, like the ground, do because her mind tells her that they should.
Because her phased atoms interfere with the regular motion of the excited electrons at work in electricity, Kitty can disrupt, disable and potentially destroy electronic devices while in phase.
Weaknesses: Phasing anything other than herself drains Kittys internal resources. Because she hasnt tested her power extensively she isnt sure of her limits. Certainly trying to phase a very large object or more than a few people at once for any length of time would take much more concentration than she's ever used. Any loss of contact means instant solidity for the person/object.
Kitty can only stay phased within a solid object for as long as she can hold her breath. Because her lungs are more efficient in phase than out, she should be able to remain in phase longer in something porous like loose soil but its not something shes been will to test.
The more out of phase Kitty becomes, the more loosely her atoms are held together and becomes more vulnerable to a broad-based force like a strong wind. Her mass doesnt change, but because its more diffuse and the bonds between her atoms stretched thin, she could possibly be dispersed by such a force.
Kitty cannot handle functioning electronic objects while in phase. Her phased atoms interfere with the regular motion of excited electrons. Similarly she is susceptible to energy based attacks but it takes a sustained amount of energy to do worthwhile damage, so as a prolonged energy blast, prolonged exposure to fire (although the smoke would probably kill her first), etc. She is also susceptible to mental attack. Her mind is harder to find in phase, but its not impossible.
While out of phase, Kitty has all the normal liabilities and weaknesses as other human woman of her age, height and weight.
Other Abilities: Kitty is interested in electronics of all sorts, particularly computers. She is a skilled hacker although she keeps her jobs small. Shes also a very good dancer, and picks up new styles easily. She has some ability with a fiddle, emphasis on some.
Detailed History:
By the time Ann Schauer was out of kindergarten she already knew a few things about herself: that she didnt like too much tongue in her kisses and that her father was someone she should know. An only child, she lived with her mother and maternal grandparents and she didnt know why.
About a month into first grade she learned something about human nature: that people didnt like anything different even if they were beyond your control like being the new kid, or having a birthday that feel at the end of the calendar year, or not having been taught how to read in kindergarten. Luckily for her, she quickly ingratiated herself with her classmates and picked up reading and everything else the way a fish picked up swimming. And once the other kids realized that birthday cake season would now start in November they got over that, too. Still those were the worst of her problems until middle and high school.
As middle school loomed Anns mother worried that her daughter wasnt growing socially, despite her test scores being off the charts, and so enrolled her in The Danan School of the Arts to study dance, music appreciation and any other class that might catch Anns fancy. The dance instructors in particular, with their blunt criticism, broke down much of Anns insecurities and helped her build a thicker skin. They also opened her up to a world of men. Boys had been her best friends in kindergarten and grade school, and her grandfather was her favorite person in the whole wide world. They were straightforward, easygoing and clear cut in all things. Plus they were cute to boot. Then in middle school they had all seemed to change their minds, throwing her to the wolves: Girls. At Danan, however, the world had re-righted itself. Boys, men, were her teachers, her dance partners, her compatriots, and confidants. And were even cuter at twice her age.
Anns grades began to slip as she neared high school. Even after her mother felt forced to pull her from all extracurricular activity including her dance and music classes, her grades did not improve. Her freshman year in high school was turning into a disaster. Meeting with her mother and guidance counselor, Anns homeroom teacher suggested that it was more likely that Ann was bored, not simply lazy as her teachers were beginning to describe her as. It was an excellent school for the average child, but Ann was brilliant. It was decided that Ann should take the test given to juniors that allowed them to take classes at the local campus of the state university. And if Ann did well with the one or two courses she got from the university as well as bring her regular grades up, her mother decided that she could re-enroll at Danan.
Ann loved the university courses and her grades improved accordingly. Re-enrollment in Danan followed. By the middle of her sophomore year Anns high school classes had been reduced to chemistry, art, gym and the daily roll call in homeroom. Her mother wasnt pleased with her attending classes with kids so much older than she was but, because she spent most of her time with adults, Ann felt comfortable with the older students. Both schools had promised that young Ann would have a student chaperone with her while attending college classes.
Around the same time Anns grandfather, her favorite person in the whole wide world, began having heart trouble. No one was willing to give her many more details than that. She knew that he was taking more time off work and that there was a sudden cornucopia of pills on the kitchen counter, but never exactly what they were for. Though everyone said things were fine there was a steady level of tension in the Schauer household. When Ann began to complain about chronic headaches their family doctor cited the strain on the family and Anns unusual school schedule as causes since there didnt seem to be anything else wrong with her. If they worsened or became more frequent he would run tests, but he advised trying to minimize some of Anns activities.
Anns mother insisted that she cut back on her dance and music classes. Ann herself would have been upset if school hadnt been so all consuming. Having quickly fallen in with the geeks and engineers, Ann found herself spending more of her free time in the computer labs with them which suited her student chaperone just fine. What could happen to a sixteen year old in a computer lab with a bunch of guys who hadnt showered in a week other than a severe case of noseblindness? Computers fascinated Ann the way few things did. Just as she had quickly taken to reading despite starting later than her peers, she took to computers as if her first words had been spoken in C. If she hadnt loved dance and music so much, she would have given them up entirely for computers. And as her grandfathers condition worsened until by the end of her sophomore year he had been hospitalized several times they became a safe haven from which to hide from the world.
The headaches didnt get better. Twice during that year Ann stayed home, unable to leave her bed. They were always better the next day but never gone. With her grandfathers decline (partly due to his unwillingness to follow his doctors instructions) and Anns problems seeming to worsen as well, her mother and grandmother struggled to keep things together. Tests run by Anns doctor were inconclusive and the medication he prescribed dulled the pain at best. Ann went to school and kept up with her independent computer work but dropped t classes at Danan entirely. Watching her struggle to concentrate one afternoon, one of her fellow computer geeks introduced her to an even better way to goof off than writing and playing with code: the internet. Ann became utterly fascinated with everything internet related. She learned html faster than she had learned C and java. She quickly convinced one of the guys to use his ID to get her a laptop from the Computer Science department so she could mess around at home. Staying up late didnt helping her headaches, but Ann pressed on.
One night Ann fell asleep from pure exhaustion with the laptop jacked in and the internet up and running, a headache blazing like a fiery vice behind her eyes. The next morning Anns grandmother, the first person to leave for the day, was surprised to see her granddaughter sleeping peacefully on the couch. Ann had no idea what had happened and didnt care. She was pain free for the first time in months. When she went back upstairs, though, the laptop was fried. That she cared about it. Ann busily set about reprogramming the laptop and completely forgot about waking up downstairs. That summer, Ann returned to Danan.
Odd things began to happen, however. Ann would find herself in the middle of classrooms and not know how she had gotten there. One time a couple of students wandering from room to room putting up fliers accidentally tossed a handful of thumbtacks in Anns direction. Two of them embedded themselves in the wall behind her head. Three of them landed harmlessly under her desk. A few days later a boy in Finkles Fiddlers apologized profusely for jabbing her in the side with his bow until Ann him that he had missed, she was fine.
As Anns grandfathers health worsened, and her mother and grandmother devoted more and more of their time to overseeing his health concerns, Ann found herself spending still more time in computer labs and on the borrowed laptop. While other kids her age drowned their problems in alcohol and drugs, Ann drowned hers in the online world. She wanted to forget, not lose control. Sex, however, was an option that she might have considered if she had been interested in anyone happy to oblige her, or was able to attract anyone she was interested in. Ann had always been fascinated by and curious about sex and often snuck into her mothers room to read her romance novels.
And so chat rooms became her second, or maybe third, home. In them she found fellow geeks, dancers, and music enthusiasts with more passion than talent. And impersonal sex. She didnt know at what point shed stopped reading for plot and skipped straight to the sex scenes, or when her random internet searches began including the terms that led her to erotic fiction and then outright porn. Which led her back to chat rooms, and adult rooms. And then the 18 and over rooms. For a while Ann was happy to watch what went on in the rooms, ignoring all private invitations sent her way.
Danan introduced a computer arts class around the same time. Ann jumped at the chance to take it, especially since there was literally no one at home anymore. With her already considerable knowledge of programming she quickly became Mr. Hodges prized student. She regularly stayed behind to discuss aspects of computers and programming that would never come up during class. More than that, Mr. Hodge reminded Ann of her grandfather, who was now so far removed from the robust man that he had been it was hard to imagine that the person in her memories and the one in the hospital were the same.
That pattern continued through Winter Break when he invited a few of his best students to his house to do work on his more sophisticated computers. Once again Ann stayed behind to discuss, and now play. She hardly noticed when the other students left for the evening. It wasnt until Mr. Hodge began kneading her shoulders that she realized just how late it was, and just how close Mr. Hodge was. She actually found herself at a momentary loss when she felt his hands slipping from her shoulders into her boat neck sweater. He was old. His hands had slipped. He wasnt paying attention. But if that were true then it was the most deliberate non-attentive move shed ever felt. Jumping up suddenly, she quickly backpedaled away from him. And right out the back wall of the house, startling them both. As she stared in disbelief, Mr. Hodge ran out the back door. What are you? And what did you do to my equipment? Ann had no idea, but she knew she didnt want to be anywhere near Mr. Hodge anymore. Running back inside and through the wall again she grabbed her stuff and made for the bus stop half a mile away. Usually Mr. Hodge drove her, but all things considered
Home that night, Ann answered her first private chat message. What had Mr. Hodge seen in her that made him think that she would want to screw him, of all people? Was it the same thing all those people online had seen? Or was he, were they, just being opportunists? Ann soon forgot all her questions as she delved seriously into playing.
The rest of her junior year passed in a hyper-caffeinated blur of classes, computers and dance rehearsals except for one thing. Disturbed by the threats Mr. Hodge had hurled after her, Ann decided to look into his public records. Then his not so public records. Mr. Hodge had a history of criminal sexual assault. Not in her native Illinois, but still it existed. Ann decided to bring that to surface and, in doing so, brought herself to the attention of local hackers (many of them the geeks she hung out with in the computer labs) who liked her work but not her lack of subtlety. Impressed by her raw talent they quickly took her in, as much out of curiosity as a desire to keep themselves from getting swept up in whatever trouble she might inadvertently cause. They helped her change Mr. Hodges record and bring him to the attention of local police who arrested the man within days of the updates.
Using her regular handle, HelloKitty81, Ann quickly became known for her small, unobtrusive yet utterly elegant hacks, as well as someone who could be called on for piecemeal work. As she began to understand the full extent of her ability, she felt more confident about sneaking out late at night and on weekends to meet up with fellow hackers in odd locations to work and discuss. This, in turn, cut into her play time so that the only chatting she had time for was with friends and her regular suitors, so long as they didnt mind coming in second to her work.
The summer before her senior year, Ann began an online relationship with one of these suitors, Rob. The whole thing felt silly when she thought about it shed never met him after all but when she started doodling his name in the margins of her class assignments she knew that, unconventional though it might be, her feelings were genuine. At the same time she changed her hacking handle to KittyPride, after a banner made in congratulations of her first solo hack, at the suggestion of her friend Diogenes (Diggy) so as to divorce her regular and hacker personas from each other. Just about everything in her life was turning up roses. And though Rob didnt press her, Ann wanted to meet him.
Anns grandfather died the weekend while she was away with Rob, when she was supposed to have been at a conference with her dance class. Though her family had for the most part eschewed all Jewish traditions for years, the larger part of their family insisted that they properly observe shiva for him. Overwhelmed by guilt, frustration and stress, being forced to do nothing hurt in an almost physical way. She wanted Rob. Theyd had one perfect weekend together and she wanted to be held by him. The first two days were the worst. But after the longing passed her mind began to work overtime, making plans, putting things into motion. What Ann wanted to do most of all was get on her computer. Work. The very antithesis of sitting shiva. So she planned. Thought. Considered and reconsidered.
By the time summer rolled around again, Ann was ready to make a permanent move to be with Rob in Minnesota. The subsequent fight was spectacular. Neither Anns mother nor grandmother had any idea of the kind of life Ann had been leading in the shadows. They refused to support her.
When, almost a year later, Ann woke up alone in the bed shed shared with Rob, everything but his heavy equipment gone, she wished she hadnt burned the bridge to her family quite so thoroughly. She was eighteen, nearly broke, bewildered and very alone. With no money saved and a crappy job at the local burger joint there was no way she could hold on to the apartment let alone pay for utilities. Turning to the only family she had left, Ann sought help from hackers and her online acquaintances. The hackers, particularly her friend Diggy offered her to put her up but it wasnt until one of her regular lovers offered to take her in and fly her out to Seattle, Washington (he was a pilot after all) that she impulsively took the chance. In the end she did ask her friends to help her with a new identity. She might not have been on speaking terms with her mother and grandmother, but if something happened she didnt want them involved in any way, shape or form. She also wanted a clean life to go back to if things went wrong in some unforeseeable way.
Things with the pilot worked out until they didnt. Handcuff kink aside, he was a nice enough man but he had been expecting a relationship and Ann was still too deeply scarred by the incomprehensibility of Robs abandonment to even consider one. She broke it off with him within a few monthsthen turned to the next lover. And the next, and the next. Ann ignored all attempts by her hacker friends to take her in, knowing full well that she could literally walk out of any relationship if she needed to. She even ignored advice from ThatGuy, a hacker so mysterious, and thus cool, that no one could even remember his actual handle. Ann didnt know what she was looking for, exactly, but she knew she wanted as few strings attached to her as she could manage.
As Carmen Schauer, and later Kitty Pryde, she crossed and crisscrossed the country in that way for several years, staying with a lover for a few months, sometimes nearly a year, once for almost two years, before moving on to the next e-suitor or whomever had struck her fancy at a club. Though she didnt analyze her relationships too closely, or at all, she quickly developed three rules: (1) Never be the other woman. (2) If she was in a relationship, she was in a relationship. If it was about sex, then it was just about sex. Should one or both parties fall in love, the party that could walk through walls was obligated to do so. (3) Never sleep with the boss while hes still the boss. She learned the hard way that those rules had to be enforced at all costs.
She had been man-free for almost six months when she ran into Douglas Cheval, whom she knew better as Convert, working as a receptionist in New York City. He had been on of her regular e-lovers, but shed broken it off when she found out about the wife and two young children. They had clicked, however, and so had kept up a regular rapport. Surprisingly it was Cheval who recognized her as he waited for her to buzz him in to see a client. Their chemistry turned out to be even better in person. Kitty, as she was going by at that point, soon became a regular sight at office lunches or to drop off gifts for his family. The story they put out was that she was the daughter of a family friend. Kitty never intended it to go any further, but while she was skilled at a very many things seduction wasnt one of them. She had never even heard of an emotional affair, but before she knew it all the feelings shed thought were long buried bubbled to the surface. When his personal secretary called her because he had gotten too drunk to drive home after the holiday party, she didnt wonder why someone hadnt just put him in a taxi. And when he came in to work Saturdays and asked her to keep him company, she didnt think it was strange at all. So when she stood on tiptoe over to kiss him goodbye before he took the weekend commuter train back home, it was with a mixture of pent-up longing and guilt. Cheval was much better at the game, however, and rarely let Kitty dwell on guilt.
Cheval had once joked that if he made just a little more money he would have set Kitty up as his mistress. She got a taste of what that might have been like the week his wife took their kids to visit her parents out West for a week. Kitty enjoyed not having to wake him up in the middle of the night to get him home before dawn, but found that she had gotten used to the odd hours. Spying his laptop one night, she decided to indulge her curiosity and finally see what he had on there. While his hard drive and that of his remotely connected office computer proved to be almost boring since she wasnt interested in his Wall Street endeavors, his home computer was a firewalled mystery. So much so that she changed to her laptop so that she could hack in. When she found files linking Cheval to a child slave ring, specializing in mutants she actually backed up and did the hack again. But it was real.
Disgusted, Kitty immediately took what she had found to the hacking community wanting to stop Cheval without exposing herself or them. After they got over their own voluminous disgust suggestions came rolling in. Even ThatGuy offered his two cents. What they settled on was simple and would keep Kitty out of the limelight, but would mean sticking things out with Cheval for a while. Profits from Chevals clients were slowly filtered out of their own accounts into private accounts created by the hackers in Chevals name, in such a way that the transfers wouldnt draw suspicion at first. Parts of Chevals records would simultaneously be seeded into less restricted parts of his computer so that when the SEC finally investigated him on embezzlement they would find the child slavery ring as well.
It took a year for their plans to come to fruition. For the first time since shed first been abandoned by Rob, eight years before, she called on the hackers to protect her. There was no reason why Kitty Pryde should be caught up in either the nascent SEC investigation or the federal one that would follow, but she wasnt ready to go back to being Ann Schauer yet.
She had a list about two columns long in her notebook of potential people to stay with when she ran across the posting from ThatGuy. Simply: We should talk. Kitty almost fell out of her chair. When the feeling came back to her fingers and she could think again she sent him a note. It was almost too impossible to believe that ThatGuy was offering to put her up. Maybe he just had more plan for her, or was going to give her his opinion on who to stay with. No one knew who ThatGuy was. And no one was more shocked to get a return note with instructions to meet him in the lobby of Magnus Towers in two days. Diggy squealed like a little girl.
She couldnt have stood out more if she hadnt had her Hello Kitty weekend bag slung over her shoulders (she couldnt resist). Certainly no one standing around looking for a girl with the Hello Kitty weekend bag shed promised to be wearing. When she went to the security desk to ask him if hed seen anyone hanging either around the lobby or outside, he demanded her name and scanned his list.
Here you are, Miss Pryde. Elevators are over there. Shocked almost out of her skin, Kitty turned on the security guard only to have him lean over and pin a visitors tag to her lapel. By the time she was chewing on her inner cheek to keep the popping feeling at bay she had gotten over her surprise.
The elevator stopped, letting on a man looking just about as out of place as she did. Kitty noted that he was going higher than she was as she kept to her side of the elevator.
Funny bag that.
Kitty glanced over at him, nodding. Kinda my signature.
That so, Kitty Pryde?
She could have peed her pants. A breathy Uh huh, was all she could manage. Nodding he turned back to the doors. Youre not a suit! she burst out suddenly. He laughed at her as they skipped her floor and kept riding up.
Kitty was still blushing and calling herself all kinds of stupid when he led her out of the elevator and down a hall. They were about to step inside an office when she finally noticed her surroundings. Too late because ThatGuy (whose name she still didnt know!) was ushering her inside. Between the office decor and the man standing up to greet her, Kitty felt even more out of place than she had down in the lobby. Then she remembered ThatGuy standing behind her and didnt feel quite so grungy.
Ann Schauer
Kittys heart stopped and her throat closed. Shed never had asthma or a panic attack, but she imagined they both felt something like this. Or maybe exactly like this. She was just about to wonder if she looked as stricken as she felt when he led her to a chair, reassuring her that, yes, they knew exactly who she was. And what she was. Which nearly sent her through the chair and out the door. Until she thought about it. Unless they had gotten to Benjamin, the only ex shed ever revealed herself to, or she had been more careless than shed thought, they had no proof. And ThatGuy! ThatGuy had hacked her! She didnt know whether to feel honored or betrayed.
It turned out she hadnt been as careful as shed thought. Part of Chevals files had been a listing of potential mutant children that could be exploited, because of the nature of their power, their family situation or some combination thereof. Perusing the list, Kitty had found herself. Apparently her old computer teacher, Mr. Hodge, had talked to someone and her name and a description of her power had crossed Chevals path. Kitty had made the mistake of erasing the file, figuring that no one would notice something so small. But someone had. ThatGuy and Eric Magnus to be exact. His name had burst on her with the same overpowering sensation of her throat as she listening to him explain everything. She wondered that it hadnt occurred to her sooner, but between the shock of hearing her real name for the first time in years, of being exposed as a mutant by someone shed never even met before and just, well, him shed been just a little distracted.
And Erik Magnus wanted her to work for him? She just needed a place to lie low for a little while, not a whole new job. Once he understood her confusion he made it clear that he wasnt exactly offering her a new secretarial position. Men like Cheval were a pestilence to mutantkind. They had to be stopped. And if she agreed, then maybe there was a place for her in his organization.
Kitty wasnt sure whether she thought he wasnt crazy because she agreed with him or because she found him personally enthralling, but before she knew it ThatGuy was leading her back down the hall, HelloKitty bag once again slung across her chest, toward the elevator and a place where she could stay for a couple of weeks. She had become a member of the Brotherhood.
Extraneous Information: Jag was my official Kitty sounding board and offered me the use of her characters. Or was that offering Kitty to her characters? Anywho, she also officially expanded my horizons re Kittys ability. Diogenes is modeled on the poor friend I used as my beta, and my brother also let me run this by him.
Writing Sample:
