Nexus

From Champions MUSH

Nexus
Alignment
Heroes
Secret Identity
Caleb Winters
Affiliation
n/a

Nexus, aka Caleb Winters, is a young dimensional manipulator, artist, and sometimes-superhero.

Contents 1 Description 2 History/Origin 3 Powers 4 Skills 5 Personality 6 Relations

Description

As Nexus: Nexus stands around 5-foot-10 inches, maybe a little bit more. His voice is that of a young man. Other than that, it's hard to discern much through the irridescent rippling of his multi-colored aura. If you pay a _lot_ of attention, you can sometimes notice distorted images appear on his aura, as though someone were projecting arbitrary photographs onto a constantly shifting surface. The only consistent elements are a pair of metal wristbands and legbands.

As Caleb: A young man, somewhere in his late teens or early twenties, with long white hair, unnaturally pale skin and eyes, and a tuft of beard, currently bright red. (He's an albino; he dyes his beard.)

He's 5'10" and about 210 pounds with a wrestler's build.

He wears four small stud earrings in his left ear (ruby, emerald, diamond, and sapphire). The overall effect, though odd, is surprisingly aesthetic.

Less obviously visible, depending on what he's wearing, are a cobalt-blue nipple ring, several rather nasty-looking scars on his torso, right bicep, and left calf, and two tattoos: an anatomically correct heart on his right bicep and a bronze half-mask of a woman's face with an enigmatic smile on his left bicep.

History/Origin

The following is a matter of public record:

• In the late 2030s, Caleb's mother (Norma Winters, a power systems engineer) and father (Alan, a high-energy physicist) worked for Universal Power Systems on an experimental reactor that tapped into another dimension. (The project was scrapped in the early 40s due to UPS's inability to stabilize the interface.)
• On March 27, 2039 Caleb was born with profound birth defects: blindness, autism, albinism. Some years later his younger brother Scott was born, also autistic. The Winters sued UPS, claiming the experimental project exposed Norma to mutagenic radiation; UPS fired and blackballed them. They home-cared Caleb and Scott, with great difficulty.
• In 2047(age 8) a brilliant but unethical physicist/geneticist Dr. Lawrence Furmano on contract to UPS analyzed Caleb's medical records and (rolling a 3) theorized that Caleb's mutations might stabilize the reactor interface. He became Caleb's physician, faked the boy's death, and ran experiments with Caleb and the reactor.
• In 2048 the Winters family won the UPS suit, receiving a multimillion-dollar settlement, and moved to Colonial Bay.
• In 2049 (age 10) Furmano's experiments caused spontaneous remission of Caleb's autism and blindness. To keep him under control, Furmano sent Caleb to a juvenile detention center on fake charges while experiments continued. Caleb spent several years there.
• In 2052 Norma and Alan developed cancer and died. This is blamed on the same reactor exposure that caused their children's birth defects.
• In 2054 (age 15), when Caleb was 15, something attacked detention center, trashing most of the equipment, hospitalizing Furmano, and leaving Caleb profoundly unconscious. Police investigated and discovered what Furmano had done, cleared Caleb's (falsified) criminal record, and reunited Caleb with his brothers. Caleb also received a share of the settlement.
• Between 2054 and 2056 Caleb attended Colonial Bay High School. He had several run-ins with the police and school authorities and was generally considered a delinquent, though he never quite got himself arrested.
• In 2056 (age 17) Caleb left Colonial Bay to attend a little-known art school in France, receiving his GED there.
• In 2058 (age 19) Caleb returned to Colonial Bay and set up shop as a portrait artist.
• The superhero Nexus first appeared in Colonial Bay in mid-2058, though he did not particularly come to any public attention for a while thereafter.

The following is NOT public knowledge:

• In 2054 Furmano's experiments traumatically triggered Caleb's latent superpowers. He went berserk, trashed the facility, and beat Furmano to a bloody pulp.
• In 2055 Caleb revealed his powers to his brother Alex (aka Rebound), who convinced him to create Midnight as a superhero identity. The two of them were founding members of the superhero team New Blood.
• In 2058, Caleb was attacked once again by Furmano. In the resulting struggle Caleb was sucked into another dimension and lost his connection both to the darkplane and to Earth. He spent a long time (at least a year subjective, though only a couple of weeks Earth-time) finding his way back. Though he has lost his "darkforce" abilities, his control over dimension-shifting has increased.

Among his adventures during this period, at least according to stories he told Lorelei, were:

• being appointed Court Wizard of a medieval kingdom populated by intelligent lizards
• getting fished out of the continuum by a guy with an advanced dimensional-collector thingie, who later helped him get back to Earth
• visiting several very earthlike dimensions that turned out not to be his own, including one where he already existed as "this unbearably nice clean-shaven guy"

Powers

Caleb's essential power is to manipulate interdimensional barriers.

Previously, he connected with a single dimension (the "darkplane") which allowed him to manifest a wide range of "darkforce" powers. (See Midnight for details.)

He no longer has this connection; however, he retains the essential power and can use it in several ways:

• He is always aware of his precise location in space, in absolute terms (bump of direction); he can also anchor himself in space to some degree (absolute position).
• He can shift his mass out of this dimension while remaining present in a kind of ghost-form. If he does this fully, he cannot affect or be affected by the physical world. If he does this partially, he can affect the physical world normally but remains difficult to detect or touch.
• He can travel entirely out of this dimension for an instant, reappearing at some other location (teleport). He has 5 fixed locations: his room at home, his studio in Paris, right behind Alex, right behind Scott, and a cabin on a practically inaccessible island in the tropics somewhere.
• With difficulty he can perceive events in, and even travel to, other dimensions.
• He can establish an dimensional-interfacing aura around his body that, while not opaque, distorts visual details. This doesn’t interfere with his visibility, but makes him hard to identify, just like an ordinary costume. He can also attune a set of wrist-and-ankle bands to this aura to establish a protective field (dimensional shunt).
• He can put parts of his body partially out of phase while attacking someone, allowing his attack to bypass normal defenses (phase punch).
• He can suppress teleportation (including his own) over a wide region.

Skills

While in juvie Caleb learned about the criminal life: cat burgling, disabling alarm systems, hacking computers, fencing stolen goods, etc. Physical education was emphasized, and Caleb developed a fondness for gymnastics which mutated into an eccentric, highly athletic dance style. During his time as a superhero and away from Earth, his fighting skills improved significantly. His bunkmate in juvie taught him to draw and kindled a fondness for modern art. While at art school he improved and developed those skills significantly.

Personality

In high school Caleb was, to put it bluntly, a punk: rude, boorish, hostile, stubborn, sometimes downright mean, with a profound violent streak and a sometimes-debilitating case of survivor's guilt.

His experiences, both in Paris and during his extradimensional exile, have brought him some level of peace and taken the edge off of that; he’s even developed something of a sense of chivalry.

However, at core he remains the same impulsive, often tactless, fiercely loyal young man he always was. He generally means well, but he tends to talk and act without thinking the consequences through especially carefully.

Relations

Although most of Caleb's family is now dead, he retains two brothers: Alex (aka Rebound) and Scott, to whom he is very close. Even outside his immediate family he takes his friendships very seriously, and is loyal to a fault. Among his closest friends still active in Colonial Bay are Allure, Fist, Amber and Azure.

Before leaving for Paris he was dating Insight, the current status of that relationship is unclear. He also had an odd semi-mentor kind of relationship with Eleven, much to his brother's dismay. Outside of that, pretty much nobody else could stand him... and can you blame them?

Caleb continues to be hunted by Dr. Lawrence Furmano, who wants to use Caleb's interdimensional abilities to power and advance his technologies.