Application: Mask Or Menace

[helpdesk_hero]

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Churby
AGE: 18+
JOURNAL: N/A
IM / EMAIL: On Discord Churby#4290
PLURK: churbooseanon

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: David Alleyne, A.K.A. Prodigy
CHARACTER AGE: 20
SERIES: Marvel Comics (Universe 616)
CHRONOLOGY: Post Young Avengers (2013), New Year's Day 2014.
CLASS: Hero

BACKGROUND: David’s History in Marvel-616

David was just your normal sort of smart kid for a while. He was born in the Hyde Park area of Chicago, to two absolutely loving and supportive parents. Even had a nice little sister that he adored. Okay, maybe ‘normal’ is overshooting it, because David was always smart, right from when he was a little kid. Frankly, he was meant for good things, and his parents always had an eye on him going to a good school like Harvard and being a lawyer or a doctor or something.

But for him, things changed when his mutation kicked in. No one could have seen just what he was going to be coming. David, after all, was born a mutant with a rare gift waiting to manifest: psychomimetic powers. One day it just started unexpectedly in school. He found that when the teacher was in the room he knew how to do everything, answer every question, solve every problem, even jump to high end discussion even when he hadn’t touched the textbook in preparation. Yet when he was away from those same teachers, everything was gone. Gym class? Suddenly amazing at basketball. Outside of gym class? Back down to ‘what even is a pick-and-roll’?

It didn’t take long for someone as smart as David to come to the right conclusion. He was a mutant, and his gift was a subconscious, passive, and telepathic ability, allowing him to absorb the knowledge and skills of those around him. As convenient as that was in a classroom setting, he was actually more troublesome than helpful. All of a sudden David was going from being a budding genius with a great work ethic to someone who had all the answers. Feeling like this was not only hurting his learning but also cheating, David found himself working twice as hard to learn everything he needed before it came up, so he knew the knowledge was his own. Of course, he had to keep his mutation a secret, not only because the world wasn’t exactly friendly toward mutants, but because of the implications of cheating that would be faced if he let anyone know what he could do.

His drive and skill was recognized and with permission from his parents, David started taking college level courses while still only a sophomore in high school on top of his current school load, and passing them. Somehow he continued to hide what he was, or so he thought. The university’s library just so happened to be staffed by a former member of the X-Men’s New Mutants team, and she at least recognized David for what he was. In his defense, she was a proper telepath, unlike him. At the same time, it made him lucky, because Xi’an Coy Manh had had the foresight to call an old classmate of hers, Dani Moonstar, to talk to David about attending the Xavier Institute. The timing was fortuitous, because Dani arrived just about in time to help Xi’an protect David from an anti-mutant hate group called Purity, that threatened him and his family over his gift. Within days, and only for the protection of his family, David agreed to go to Xavier’s school for mutants in upstate New York.

From there things only got more complicated. More than once David found himself involved in a variety of conflicts thanks to going to the school. The friends he developed would soon become even more of a support network as Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Emma Frost took over the school, dividing the older portion of the student body into training squads to better foster their powers---and subtly encourage even more reluctant students like David to become X-Men in the future. David was assigned to Dani Moonstar’s squad, called the (new) New Mutants, and given the codename Prodigy. Immediately he turned down the offer to be team leader, not wanting the role because of not wanting to be a hero, just wanting to get through school and go to college. Of course this caused tension between him and the actual team leader, Sofia Mantega. Over time, though, he was convinced to co-lead the team with her.

After some time at the school David came to the conclusion that it was time to figure out why he couldn’t retain the information his powers granted him. For this he turned to Emma Frost and found that that his subconscious was actively blocking him from accessing the information. Emma suggested that it was because he might need it to protect himself, but David wanted to remove the block anyway to be more useful. Emma, assisted by Dani Moonstar, instead granted David a vision of a possible future created by his own subconscious fears of what might happen if he could access all he knew, if he could make use of his seemingly unlimited potential. To say the future was grim, involving the deaths of his closest friends, him becoming President, taking over the world and looking to stage a sudden nuclear strike on China to bring the last country of the world under the unified rule of America… Well, David definitely backed out, deciding that he was going to wait until he truly could accept what his powers made him naturally.

Thing was, the vision made some other things awkward, in proper teenaged fashion. Through it David came to realize he had feelings for another teammate, Noriko Ashida, and found the whole thing so weird that he grew distant from her. He did share the secrets of the vision with his roommate and best friend, Joshua Foley, though, and when other teenaged drama came up that formed a deeper rift between him and Josh, Josh turned around and told Nori what he knew. For a while the whole New Mutant Squad was broken up over teenaged tensions and drama, until finally Sofia tricked the team into a camp-out and helped resolve the tension, and David started dating Nori.

After that, things got bad. M-Day. The Decimation. Heavy words in the mutant community. The morning that everyone woke up and the vast majority of mutants had been depowered. David, sadly, was among them. With the school turned instead into a mutant sanctuary, those students that were now only human, David included, were asked to leave. David, luckily, wasn’t on one of the first buses. The ones that got blown up by an anti-mutant organization called the Purifiers. No, instead he got to see so many people who were important to him die in fire and pain and that sticks with him to this day. In the face of that David worked hard to convince Scott and Emma, along with the help of his parents, to let him stay at the mansion, for his own safety.

With nothing to do and no powers left, David did what he could to support the X-Men, namely building a new Danger Room in a cave under the school complex, intending to help his friends and other young mutants keep training. Soon after there was a Purifier attack on the mansion itself, trying to capture and kill more mutants. David took a bullet to protect a set of triplets called the Stepford Cuckoos, a powerful telepathic team. After this David basically said ‘fuck it’ and decided it didn’t matter that he was human, he was going to help. David became a pivotal part of the fight against Nimrod and the Purifiers.

There were other repercussions to M-Day that no one foresaw, of course. Due to a temporarily created alternate reality David was among a group of Xavier’s students pulled into the Limbo hell dimension by a demon called Belasco. The demon wanted to know where a mutant called Magik, who was dead and had been for a while, was located. When the interrogation of David led to answers the demon didn’t want, Belasco tore David’s heart out, killing him. Don’t worry, he got better. Josh was around and rushed to David to grow him a new heart, but not before word had reached Nori that David was dead. By the time David helped defeat Belasco and returned to the normal world, Nori had resolved that to protect David she was going to drive him away from Xavier’s and the X-Men. She did this by kissing another former student of the school. David, heartbroken metaphorically now, resolved to leave the school, but was stopped by the Cuckoos. To return the favor for saving his life twice, they unblocked his memories and David had access to all he had ever gained as a mutant. He proceeded to prove to Nori that he didn’t need protecting and, at the suggestion of Scott Summers, stayed on at Xavier’s as a junior instructor and responsible for training of the New X-Men team when the older X-Men were away.

One of the biggest shaping events for David was still to come, though: Utopia. When a large portion of the surviving mutant population of the US moved to San Francisco, the X-Men included, David of course went with. He served as a right hand and effectively mission control and technical genius (alongside Beast of course) to fight the invading Skrull forces. When humans, manipulated by another version of Nimrod called Bastion, started staging more obvious protests and attacks against mutants, David stood with the X-Men and moved to a new island nation called Utopia. The place was supposed to be an independent nation for mutants, by mutants, with mutants. David helped with a number of things, until conflict arose between the X-Men in the form of Wolverine and Cyclops starting to disagree more heavily about the direction mutants were moving in. David stood with Cyclops, saying that he wanted to work for the future of mutant kind, and ultimately being appointed the head of the youth division for Utopia, effectively in charge of all mutants below a certain age. This was a lovely little thing that got im branded as a terrorist in the eyes of certain branches of the US government, which would come back and bite him in the ass in the future.

Things truly came to a head when Phoenix Force, a powerful and highly destructive cosmic entity, started to approach Earth. Once it had done terrible damage in possessing Jean Grey. Now it was coming for a young mutant named Hope. Cyclops believed that by taking this force the mutant species could be reborn and grow anew. The Avengers? Well, they were the sensible ones, trying to stop the Phoenix Force from approaching as it would likely annihilate life on the planet. Things got complicated there, with the two hero forces fighting, the Phoenix Force possessing a number of X-Men, Scott Summers getting possessed and going a bit crazy, and finally Hope taking the powers and destroying them with the help of the Scarlet Witch. And David?

David had lost all faith in the X-Men, their opinions, their movements. He wasn’t a mutant, he didn’t have a place there, and he had come to realize just how much he and younger mutants had been used by the X-Men. He refused an offer to attend the Jean Grey School as well. EVen refused association with any and all X-teams, feeling that he and the others had only ever been used for their own goals and aspirations. He had started all of this not wanting to be a hero, and David was falling back on it hard. Unfortunately, given that pesky ‘terrorist’ thing, well, the only work he could get was with a temp company that hired superhumans for odds and ends, leaving him working a dead end job he hated where he did the work of a five person department. And that job? Hotline consultant for exotic, and sometimes heroic, situations. And there he learned there is never any helping ninjas, they are too stupid to live.

It was while working here that David met Tommy Shepherd, the retro-reincarnated son of the Scarlet Witch, the same woman who had, with three little words, stripped David of his powers. After knowing Tommy for all of two days he found himself dragged into a whole new mess, as Tommy was the hero known as Speed, and volunteered them for monitoring a robbery situation where they worked because the perp was wearing the costume of one of Tommy’s old teammates. Together they staked the place out, and Tommy ended up kidnapped or disappeared somewhere by the fake-Patriot, leaving David to try and rescue his new friend. This situation led to David teaming up with the Young Avengers in a trip across the multiverse, trying to recover Tommy. This turned into joining them in a fight against a multi-dimensional parasite called Mother, assisting in defeating her after embarrassing himself horribly by kissing the wrong man while certain he was about to die, again.

In the end he managed to use his contacts in the young hero world to gather mutants, superpowered, and just talented teens from around the country to help face some of the threats gathered by Mother, and when victory was achieved, enjoyed a nice New Year’s Eve party with them. Where he proceeded to save Tommy by kissing the cosmic horror of the fake-Patriot.

Several hours later here he is, pulled into yet another new world, and very tired. Life has been a bit too exciting recently and he’d been almost eager to go back to the job search. Instead… well, that’s a story yet to be written, isn’t it?

PERSONALITY:

Perhaps the best way to describe David Alleyne is as a reluctant genius, heavy on the reluctant. This wasn't the life he wanted to live. All David wanted was to get through school, get to college, figure out what he wanted to be, and throw himself at whatever he wanted to learn. He never wanted to be a hero, he never wanted to lead, he never wanted to come to see his identity as a mutant as a powerful, guiding factor in his life. In fact, David tried very hard for a few years to hide the fact that he was a mutant. Of course his specific powers means he developed a habit of working three times as hard as anyone else around him, in part because that was what it took to retain information when his powers just naturally picked it out of the people around him.

Things changed with time, with people around him, with responsibilities thrust upon him. David didn't want to lead his squad, the New Mutants, when he was given that chance by Dani Moonstar. That led to internal conflict. He didn't want to get involved in being a hero, and yet he came to be a leader even among his age group. He didn't want to lose his powers as he was finally coming to terms with them and being happy that he was a mutant, that this was his new identity. And he definitely hadn't wanted to let his parents down when, after he lost his powers, he actually had a shot at Harvard, which was previously rejecting him because of those same powers. He had lost so much of his future when he gained his mutation and it made him a quiet, distant young man. What he lost when his powers were taken from him was a disconnect between who he was and who he wanted to be. Instead of fleeing responsibility David stepped up for all those who no longer could of their own accord. He became something of a leader among his age group at times, but he was no longer let out in the field with them, he wasn't good enough, he wasn't a mutant. It led to a serious need to prove himself.

And that need to prove himself drove David until he found himself let down by the whole Utopia and Phoenix Force situation. There David was, a young adult who had lost his school, his friends, his found family. He lost his home, and he lost the ability to look up to the man who had been his boss and who had elevated him onto the level of an assistant instructor, basically giving him more authority than he'd ever wanted in his life. David was, in a lot of ways, broken by it. Broken enough to withdraw into himself. He didn't go home to Chicago, he went to the east coast. He took up a job with an accounting agency and let his life dwindle away to the same hollow ache and futile emptiness that his heart had come to possess. There was no joy in his life, no real driving force between making ends meet and hoping someday to retire so he could finally just have the space he wanted.

Which was of course when things changed again. Because nothing ever stays the same. In the last several months David's found that old energy back. Sure, he doesn't want to lead, but he sees a purpose in helping other again, and that's led to a serious recall to his past. He's gotten more confident, more willing to speak up of his own accord. His brain has jumped back to thinking about twenty plans through before deciding on one, he has tried to become more flexible with seeing the world and people in new ways. And he's still a genius. All in all it's a good time for David, when you put aside the insidious nightmares about the smell of burning flash, or the agony of having your heart ripped out, or the knowledge that your identity and the value you had placed on it could be wiped out with three little words.

Still, David is confident about the future, curious about what this place is, and stubborn enough to keep going even though he's so badly broken inside that a stiff breeze could easily bring it all crumbling down around his head.

POWER:

-Touch-Based Skill/Knowledge Absorption (Non-Canon): Through skin to skin contact, David can temporarily absorb the skills and knowledge of those people he touches. This is not something he controls beyond initiating the touch, so he would not only get something useful like how to repair a car if he’s touching a mechanic, but also all the person useless trivia knowledge of sports, their favorite video games, even how they like to kiss. Mostly he’s able to filter out the useless junk and focus on what he’s actively trying to gain from someone. This does not mean he can absorb people’s plans, their opinions, or their aspirations. Just things that are known and so deeply engrained that they could be listed off by a person by rote, things that are truly learned.

This power is temporary, and scales based on length of contact. A simple brush of skin might give David a minute or two of knowledge. Extended contact can lead to a maximum of half an hour of knowledge or skill. This can be refreshed through repeated contact with the subject. Theoretically enough repetition of contact could lead to a more permanent retention of knowledge, but David will be leery to try this because he would still have to retain everything else he could pick up from a person and that’s just a headache.

Frequent use of this power in short periods of time can lead to migraines.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

[The video turns on to the image of a young man that, quite frankly, looks about done with the world. Which, in his defense, isn’t exactly a bad description of David at the moment. If there was a universal expression of the customer service worker who was done with the world, it was be his face. It’s like he has tapped into the universal consciousness of all put upon members of the tech support community of this world and all other worlds. Is there a ‘Pained Tech Support Worker’ Force out there somewhere in the multiverse? Perhaps there is. Perhaps David is the damn avatar of it.]

Listen, I’m going to be frank here. I really respect that some people are having problems recently with a variety of computing items. I know that there are fixes being pushed through a number of service providers, licensing software companies, and even manufacturers. And I absolutely understand that not everyone here is exactly tech savvy.

However [and oh does that word come with such weight] if you want me to help you get it fixed sooner rather than later, you’re going to need to offer me a lot more than a ‘fix this David’ or a ‘come on, you like computers, right?’

Pay me, bribe me, offer me your first born child, I don’t care. I have already done enough tech support work in my life to know that I’m not doing this out of the kindness of my heart when you’re going to be frustrated over the fact that it takes time, I’m not magic, and I’m not doing this for my own health. Pay me, pay me with something of value that we agree on, and we’ll be cool.

[The video ends there, with the man looking truly frustrated. A frustration that only doubles moments after it ends and David realizes that, given there are issues going on with computers and the like, a good number of the people who know he is great with computers can’t access online communications and won’t see his little rant. Just… just shoot him now.]

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

Prose Sample from MoM TDM

FINAL NOTES:

David will retain some, but only some of the knowledge/skills he previously acquired from his mutation and it’s knowledge being unlocked for him by the Cuckoos. This is limited to only the following including who he gained it from

-Two degrees in Psychology Charles Xavier
-An MD in internal medicine and experience as both trauma surgeon and neurosurgeon Beast and Dr. Strange
-Graduate level mathematics Iceman
-Strategic planning and battlefield command Cyclops
-Computer programming and hacking Shadowcat
-Electrical engineering Forge
-Israeli Special Forces Combat Training Wolverine
-All the skills of a 5 star culinary chef His father
-Guitarist Icarus
-A variety of languages including but not limited to: English, Spanish, German, French (several dialects, including Quebec French, Creol, and the sort they teach you in high school), Japanese, and while he's never been able to pin down where he got it from or why, Basque. Various X-Men and teachers he had growing up


In addition to this, David will arrive with one pair of black glasses with yellow lenses. At first glance they seem to be little more than sunglasses or perhaps fancy prescription lenses. In fact they are tech-glasses, serving as a communication headset and digital display for computer access, data analysis, and all that good stuff. Happy to have this short out upon entry, be unable to connect to network systems, or actually interface with the Internet here at mod discretion.

Comments

Canon Update as of 10/31

[helpdesk_hero]

I updated David to after the ‘Original Sin’ story arc. This is only a few months for him. In this time the Young Avengers have sort of split up again, meaning he has lost another team, but he still has them as friends. The important detail here is that David will have returned to life at home and new work (he did try and get a job with Tony Stark as Head of Security and lost out to Ant-Man) before going to spend the day with a friend. In the course of that particular day a powerful being called The Watcher will be assassinated in New York City and one of its eyes blown up. This causes a lot of the knowledge of this being to be scattered, filtering into the minds of one apartment building in particular. The Watcher monitors all important events, decisions, and visions of Seers around Earth and the cosmos in real time, and because of this the knowledge spread into the residents of the building is destroying their minds.

David teams up with Hulkling and Noh-Varr to see what is going on and get detoured to this apartment building by a villain known as the Hood, who wants to use David’s knowledge and skills to pull all this knowledge from he heads of the residents using David’s knowledge of Charles Xavier’s Cerebro. The group is convinced of this because the people could die from the foreign knowledge, and because the Hood claims he wants he knowledge public ally released rather than going to SHIELD or the government, so it can be used for medical and tech advances.

David sees through this deception, knowing Hood is in it for his own ends. The team agrees to help and David puts together a low end version of Cerebro (referred to as Cerebrat) with spare computer parts and a colander. He pulls all of the information and secretly encrypts it before sending it out publicly before Hood can manage to double cross them. Hood gets away by threatening the residents and knocking the team out, but David’s quick thinking and hacking the computer code Hood had put together keeps the information out of Hood’s hands. He even claims to Hulkling and Noh-Varr that even he can’t access it. Secretly David not only has the files in a place online where he can get to them, but has memorized the one time encryption key, leaving him as the only person capable of accessing vast quantas of information. This ranges from medical and technological and secrets of the highest degree to knowledge about the future of his world.

He has not had the chance to start reading or sorting any of this information yet.

How this will affect David? Well, he has a canon history of fear of trusting himself with too much knowledge and expresses concern to himself that he has done this. There will be a bit of concern and distrust over his decisions, and pride over how he managed it. Shame as well, for lying to his team.

Canon Update as of 10/1/2020

[helpdesk_hero]

CHARACTER NAME: David Alleyne
JOURNAL: helpdesk_hero
CANON: Marvel
OLD CANON POINT: Post Original Sins #5
NEW CANON POINT: Post X-Factor (2020) #3 / Empyre: Aftermath Avengers

ALTERATION:

-Went to and finished college, leading to a deeper friendship with America Chavez even as he once again found himself more isolated from most of his previous teams/friends. This led to a greater confidence in his own abilities, given he literally built a time machine (X-Men never learn), helped stop a hostile takeover, and even got a degree.

-Started dating speedster former teammate Tommy Shepherd. This led to more confidence in who he was and being open in his identity. David also became even closer friends with Teddy Altman because of this, meaning he started to develop a better emotional support network and grow through that.

-Was invited to come to the mutant nation of Krakoa where he not only reconnected with formerly deceased and missing classmates, but was also given a chance to regain his powers. This happened through David having to die and be resurrected. Because of this and the nature of Krakoan society David finally felt like he belonged once more. The belonging and welcome made him happier and led to a more positive outlook on life as he would never be alone again.

-Shortly after his revival and regaining of his psychomimetry, David was brought on to assist in a missing persons investigation. This process led to the reformation of X-Factor, a mutant investigations team that David was invited to be a member of. Now he once again had a purpose, a team, and with that a family/friends he could depend on.

-David is coming back older (now ~23ish), with a lot more self-confidence. For the first time in five to six years he is ‘whole’ in his own vision and has a place to call home. This leads to a lot more happiness, jokes, and friendliness, and a lot less need to prove himself.

Powers as of 10/1/2020

[helpdesk_hero]

NEW POWERS:

POWER #1: Tactile Knowledge

DESCRIPTION:

When touching things with his bare skin, David gains some form of awareness of the history of the touched thing. This works under one of two sub-powers (that can in the circumstances of artificial life forms, work together): Psychometry or Psychomimetry.

Psychometry

Psychometry is the psychic reading of the history of an object. With a skin-to-surface touch of any object David can read the history surrounding that object. He receives this information as if experiencing the 'life' of an object. Any solid object can convey to him its history from the moment of 'completion'. Objects have some degree of personality and so he has different experiences when touching different things, such as stones being slow and thoughtful so not hard to interact with despite long period of existence. He can use this ability to see events around objects as well, such as being able to touch a knife and know it was used as a murder weapon and possibly even some details around that murder, as far as the knife was involved.

The deepest knowledge and experiences of the item touched fade once David puts it down, leaving him only with impressions. To retain deeper information he must write it down or dictate his experiences to some manner of recording device. It also works on plant-based matter, but not-plants or plant-matter that are sentient in a 'personhood' sense. In this way he can learn the history of a tree, but not a tree-person.

Psychomimetry

Psychomimetry is the telepathic 'copying' of knowledge and/or skills of another lifeform. To activate this ability David has to touch a person or animal skin-to-skin. In touching someone David becomes aware of anything they know by education, practice, memorization, or rote. This can easily be abused because things that people learn through rote can include their signature, passwords, pin numbers, and the like. Through practice since arriving in MoM and this update, David can now touch people without taking this knowledge against his own will, so consent has become an option. He also learns anything people can do that isn't based in powers: if he touches someone who can surf, David himself can surf. This does not mean that he necessarily has the specific fitness for any skill he picks up this way, but he can choose to train his body to do so.

Knowledge and skills gained through a touch are retained and accessible to David for a period of time related to how long he has touched the person in question. This works on a 1:1 ratio of one second of touch equates to one minute of knowledge. The maximum stored knowledge period is two hours through two minutes of touch. Beyond that he has to renew the contact to renew the knowledge. Once the period of time through the touch has faded, the knowledges gained this way fade as well. David only retains an impression of what he would know if he touched someone. For instance if he touches someone who knows how to play piano for a second, he will have a minute of that knowledge, and once the knowledge fades loses it but will know touching that person again will let him play the piano.

While this power will work on animals that aren't fully sentient/sapient, the skills he picks up will be completely useless due to incompatible biology, and the knowledge may be completely useless because he doesn't need to know that 'this tree scratch nice on back'. Still, it can be useful to tell him if a dog knows about a place where things are buried, or a turtle knows that a certain noise means their owner is home. This is a very lose usefulness, but it's still something.

This knowledge can be combined with the Psychometry to pick up the knowledge and skills of inorganic people like transformers, robots, and artificially created lifeforms.

WEAKNESS:

Psychometry

When David touches an object, he knows the WHOLE history of it. If the object is something that has been handled a lot or 'experienced' a large amount of things, this can be highly overwhelming for him. Highly traumatic events, whether the trauma was for the item or something it 'experienced' or 'saw', can knock David on his ass. The psychic trauma will linger after David breaks contact with the item. For instance, if he touches a murder weapon, he will be staggered and have a hard time getting the memory out of his head, even when it's just vague impressions. This can leave him very vulnerable if he's caught off guard or if someone can force him to use his psychometric powers on something they know is traumatizing.

This psychic backlash is also true of high level magical or mystical items such as Thor's Hammer for instance. These items are so steeped in magic and history that even with preparation, limited interaction, and the help of a stronger telepath to strengthen his mental shields, David will still be left weakened and overwhelmed by all he experiences, to the potential point of migraines.

It is also important to note that while David can use this power to interact with something like a computer, it does NOT grant him knowledge of anything the computer did. Effectively he interacts with the hardware side of the experience, as he cannot directly touch the software. It is not possible for David to combine this power with his Technopathy (listed below).

The only exception is when touching an inorganic person, where this power will interface with his psychomimetry, allowing him to read the inorganic person as if they were just another meat-bag individual.

Psychomimetry

The first and most immediate downside of this power is what happens when it's abused. David's upper-limit on contact has increased so he doesn't need to fear this as much, but if he reaches into the knowledge of more than ten different people in an hour, he is overwhelmed by migraines and cannot use this power again for five hours without passing out immediately. He will still have access to all he took, meaning that in an emergency when someone with a large range of skills is needed, he can do this, but he will suffer for the process.

Both

These powers are completely blocked by any level of psychic/telepathic/magical defenses. If David attempts to use this power umbrella on or arround anyone with those powers, even inexperienced, they will immediately know that he has attempted. Both powers leave an open channel into his mind which means he's open to backlash from those with training, his own mental defenses breached by the reaching out for contact. What's more, actual telepaths can completely shut down David's ability against his will, so if a telepath chooses to put telepathic walls up around David's mind, he cannot access these powers at all. The same is true of magical barriers and spells.

There is also a barrier presented by telekinesis, shielding powers, or powers that can manipulate water or air. All of these can be used to create a literal barrier from contact that David cannot read a person or object through. Really anything that keeps him from direct touch means these powers are completely moot.

Finally, if a psychic/telepath/spell tears down David's defenses, he CANNOT keep himself from using these powers. This means that he can effectively be tortured/overwhelmed/burned out if someone cuts through his defenses and then just keeps touching things to his skin.

POWER #2: Technopathy

DESCRIPTION:

Direct control and manipulation of electronic technology. For this, David must be physically touching the item he wishes to manipulate. Once that is achieved he is able to 'talk to' the systems mentally, giving instructions, altering code and functions, and even watching through cameras if they are wired into the same system. He is capable of accessing all things directly wired in to whatever system he is in physical contact with, up to a range of a city block. Beyond that, he cannot muster enough force to change things.

When touching systems plugged into the internet he is able to access and connect with the Internet in its entirety, though he cannot forcibly alter things save through traditional coding/hacking from a traditional terminal. That said, when entering online chat rooms and the like, they manifest differently for David, feeling more like being in an actual room, with digitally simulated individuals he can talk to.

Technopathy also means that David does not have to hand code anything. Programs he wishes to create he can dictate directly into the system from his mind.

Due to the creation and constant presence of David's computer-glasses, he has an unbreakable interface bond with them, making them the ONE item he doesn't need to physically be touching to access, provided they are within ten feet of him, powered on, and charged. However, as he's almost always wearing them, this doesn't do him too much good (except now he can 'watch' online videos in the shower while his glasses are by the sink).

WEAKNESS:

David must be in physical contact with the item he wishes to use his technopathy on to use the power. Wifi does not mean he is granted access to the internet-of-things in people's lives. He can't hack into a phone just because it's around him, he has to directly touch it. Any item with sufficient encryptions will also take anywhere from 2-15 minutes for him to crack through so that he can interact with the system. Any system actively in use by another technopath or other power-based-interface cannot be accessed by David unless the other imPort allows him to. And no, he can't surf the internet with his mind unless he's accessing it through a wired connection, save by accessing through the aforementioned tech-glasses.

Anything that prevents David from physically touching an object renders him unable to access the system. He can push through all wired systems within a building to control it, but he does get hives when he pushes through firewalls and internal security systems.

This power does not, in any way, ever work when touching a mechanical/robotic/cyborg person, save to render David aware that they ARE that. He cannot use it to take control of these individuals under any circumstances.

POWER #3: Psychic Energy Projection

DESCRIPTION:

Through projection of psychic/mental energy, David is capable of creating limited constructs of psychic energy, manifesting in the form of yellow-gold light. These constructs are directly tied to his mental strength and focus, and limited by his creativity alone. Therefore he could make knives, claws, a whip, or even body armor. However energy constructs can take up no more volume than David himself. Therefore the larger something is, the thinner and more vulnerable. Weapons are a preferred use of this power as he can manifest them small and highly dense.

All projections are created at the speed of thought, so appear and disappear quickly. David is capable of no more than three SEPARATE items at one time, and they can manifest no more than three feet away from him. All items are yellow-gold and radiate light to a degree related to how much mental strength David is giving the creation. Anything dropped can still continue to exist, but only if he's focusing on it. All bladed items are as sharp has a razor edge, and can cut through steel. All barriers are as hard as bullet-resistant glass or Kelvar, depending on whether it is is a wall or 'worn'.

WEAKNESS:

As this is a manifestation of psychic energy and David is not a proper telepath, this power can be completely shut off by any telepaths/psychics/magics that would lock David down in his own mind. It also falls under the broader banner of energy projection, so anyone with the ability to manipulate energy can take control of ANY of David's psychic constructs. He is able to counter this by just ending the projection.

Given the strength of this tied entirely into his mental energy, this power is inherently weaker when David is tired, mentally strained, or when his attention is seriously divided. David cannot, for instance, project an entire mobile suit of psychic energy if he is also attempting a psychometric scan, or technopathic control of something. Instead he'd only be able to manifest a, relatively weak, wall. And not even one that could completely surround him. The more places his attention is divided between, the weaker the projections are. This is even obvious to anyone dealing with him because the weaker a projection is, the less light it gives off and the less solid it is.

Constructs cannot act on their own, so he's not making any little minions to serve him without taking up a MASSIVE portion of his own focus to control every bit of them. They can have no more flex points than a suit of medieval plate-armor, so it's not even the best defense on that level.

All defensive manifestations CAN be pierced with sufficient, targeted force. They aren't stopping armor-piercing rounds or, when thinner due to size, fatigue, or other circumstances, even a well aimed knife. They will not bend, though, under blunt force damage.

The Roombas

[helpdesk_hero]

Alpha - Bought by David. Works only in his bedroom. Likes to 'explore'.

Zeta - Given by Kavinsky. HATES hallways. Best girl. Does upstairs areas.

Lambda - Does downstairs areas. Chaotic neutral. Will absolutely avoid dirty areas to spite people.