Name:
Axion Lucien
Nicknames:
None, yet
Age:
17
Hometown:
San Jose, California
Sexuality:
Unknown/Unexplored
Power:
Emotion Manipulation
Axion is best at manipulating the intensity of a person's emotions, from making them completely unfeeling to a devastated hysterical state, but the degree of the effect and the effort it takes varies from person to person. The effectiveness of his powers are determined by the target's logical thinking abilities and emotional stability at the time. Someone who is extremely stable might take him more time and effort to control while a person who is already in a frenzy of uncontrollable emotions will fall prey to him easily. In addition to manipulating the intensity, Axion can also change the emotions that the target in feeling, but doing that requires a "hook" such as a taunt, threat or praise in order for an opening to be breached. He can also exchange the emotions of multiple people onto each other or even himself, but he dislikes doing that due to his pride not wanting his own mind to be tainted by the "uncivilized, impulsive feral instincts of humanity." The effects of his powers fade slowly if he is away from the target for too long, it takes about 1-3 days for the effects to disappear completely depending on how much control he attempted to put on said target. That said, there is repercussions for overusing the ability. The emotional intensity and willful resistance of the target reflects on him by giving him debilitating migraines, and it is also physically exhausting to keep the brain in a constant stimulated state. Theoretically he has the ability to take away all of a person's feelings, rendering them essential a vegetable without a motivation to eat, sleep socialize or even live, he calls this the 0th stage, Total Shutdown, the other extreme is to drive one insane by letting them feel multiple uncontrollable emotions at once, which he calls the 12th stage, Total Meltdown. These are only his own estimates, he has never actually carried it out in concern of the physical and mental consequences that may rebound to him. Although in his “trainwreck” years when he first started high school he did developed a grading system for his ability, it involves 31 unique emotional branches with 12 levels each that can be combined.
Secrets:
-His older brother's suicide, as well as a series of suicides at his first high-school were all caused by him either directly or indirectly
-He keeps a journal about the people he meets, and writes down his day to day interactions with them in every entry, using it to judge how easily manipulated each individual around him is and from what angle are they the most vulnerable
-He thinks he is an unlikable person without his abilities, as he has always made friends by making people happy with his power
Skills:
- Observational Skills: In order to fully utilize his ability, Axion developed very sharp sense. He can see tiny body movements, facial expressions and tenseness of muscles, he is also sensitive to motion and smells such as shaking limbs and scents of certain surroundings. These skills actually help him flourish in social situations, along with his powers to intensify happiness in others.
- Absolute Parallel Thought Processing: With the power to control multiple people at once, it came with the perk of parallel thinking as he can work out multiple problems and assets many aspects of one situation simultaneously
-Philosophy and History: Interestingly enough he knows a lot about world history and different philosophical ideologies, he often use these facts as a way to deteriorate a target's psychological defenses and manipulate them.
-Mathematics and Theoretical Physics: He believes at it's core math and philosophy is essentially the same thing, so he took up an interest in abstract theoretical sciences as well.
Deficits:
- Insecurity: Having seen the worse of humanity being brought out by emotions, Axion is distrusting of most people due to his belief that humans are uncontrollable, unpredictable and dangerous at their core
- Chronic Insomnia and Medication Abuse: His paranoia as well as the nature of his abilities often over stimulates his brain, causing restlessness and eventually hallucinations from sleep deprivation. During those times he curles up and refuses to do anything or meet anyone while continuously apologizing for his past actions, which he actually unaware of. He takes sleeping medication almost everyday and can barely sleep properly without them, even with that he averages 3-5 hours of sleep a day.
- Albinism: His grey-white hair and skin are cause by achromasia, or albinism, which makes him very prone to sunburns and is unable to stay in sunlight for extended amounts of time, along with photosensitive eyes.
- Risk Management: He tends to be the "all or nothing" type of strategist, with an almost unhealthy amount of nihilism when it comes to fighting style, often he'll put himself at risk for others or for no reason, not out of compassion but just because he is so uncaring for himself.
- Physical Abilities: While ok when compared to an average civilian, his stamina and other physical abilities are just not great for some secret agent in training, he can barely keep up with other students, male and female when it comes to physical activity related classes.
Likes:
-The outdoors but only on overcast days
-Hypothetical Situations
-Word play and jokes
-Comments with a sadistic edge, sometimes down right insults towards others
-Being in control of the situation
-Math, history, philosophy and study of some religions
-Maintaining his hair
-Cleanliness
Dislikes:
- Warm days, humidity and bright sunlight
-Physical contact, especially if it's not for combat purposes
-Alcohol, he has an impossibility low alcohol tolerance, almost any alcohol can easily make him throw up then put him out for a whole day
-Tobacco, especially the smell
-Things of a sexual nature
-Strong scents
-Anything that clouds rationality
-People that he can't understand or see through
-People who have a problem with his long hair
Personality:
With a general glance, Axion is a well-educated, well-mannered, elegant and sometimes soft spoke young man. He enjoys spending time alone but never turns down socialization without a reasonable ,polite excuse, and is always open to helping others and new relationships. But once in awhile he would lash out at others, ranging from sarcasm to down right insulting, it’s usually for his own amusement and curiosity of the person’s reactions. He is likeable enough, but only if it’s a haphazard relationship.
In his personal life he is actually extremely chaotic, he is obsessively stubborn with certain aspects of his life,a little vibe of a perfectionist and clean freak. Sometimes he has sever hallucinations due to his non-eixistent circadian rhythm. Most of it is due to his ability, over the years of using it and experimenting it has effectively desensitized him to human emotion. Thus, even though he is capable of handling social situations very well, to him it is more of a science that he’s mastered than something intuitive. To him the science of socialization and emotions is the most important study, due to this he treates most of his relations as useful tools or learning opportunities. This caused his untrusting nature, he is constantly paranoid about whether the people around him have enough self control to remain emotionally stable. He is also capable of genuinely enjoying another person’s emotion turmoil and suffering if the situation interests him, as he does tend to put his self interest and curiosity above wellbeing of others. But in the end Axion tries to not let his personal problems show, even if he is sometimes desperate for outlets he will use his own abilities to surpress the desire while stubbornly ignoring potential consequences, since his own insecurities and pride doesn’t allow him to hand his issues to other people.
History:
Born to two theoretical physicists at Stanford University, who were big enough nerds to name their two kids after subatomic particles, Axion Lucien, and his older brother Lepton Lucien. Axion almost died right out of the womb, born prematurely and staying in an incubator for weeks after birth. Though luckily, as time went on he had a fairly normal early childhood, and had all the usual children issues, including being constantly bullied for his sickly white skin and hair. This was upsetting to any child, but his family was a loving and supportive one, especially his brother. Lepton constantly told him that his unusual coloring was a sign that he was special, that he was a superhero like the ones on television, who is destine to save the world one day. As time went on Axion gained friends in school, clubs and in the neighborhood, he was happy but was puzzled by one thing. Everyone of his friends, when asked why they were his friend, answered that being with him made them feel strangely happy. He dismissed it at first, he wanted his friends to be happy, who wouldn’t? Soon more strange things started to happen, when a teacher was mad at him, or a school bully was wanting to hit him, they would calm down and turn away, simply because he hoped that they would calm down.
Even at a young aged it was beginning to concern Axion, it appears that he seems to have a mind controlling superpower that can change how people felt. He kept this a secret, only telling the person he trusted the most, his older brother. Lepton was first suspicious and dismissed it as a child’s imagination, but told Axion that if he truly had abilities like that, he should try to do good in the world. And to a child, the world is black and white. After that Axion set off on a quest to make everyone around him happy, his friends, family and himself. Naturally, it backfired at some point. It began when his parents had their research thesis plagerized and stolen, the couple was preparing lawsuits, and got into constant angry arguments with lawyers, coworkers and each other. This always terrified the child, and he actively tried to calm them down. It worked, his parents called off the lawsuit, and had their lifelong research stolen. His father was also jailed on a false accusation of removing government funds. He didn’t calm his parents down, he mellowed them down, making them lose their ambitions and motivations.
After the events, his single mother’s career deteriated, but she still worked hard to support her two sons. Time went on as Axion stopped consciously using his abilities, until the summer before high school, he found out from his middle school friend group that many of them has came down with depression, or are just plain sad after graduation. Axion worries that his existence itself may be effecting people, and his worries were confirmed. Once started high school he lost contact with his brother who went to New York for university, in three months news was brought that his brother committed suicide. This was devastating, as it wasn’t only a loss for Axion, but the realization that his very existence caused people around him to suffer. Since he was so close to his brother, he had always subconsciously repressed his negative emotions, his mental state couldn’t bear the influx of regular emotions after he was separated from Axion and the effects faded. After his brother’s death, Axion was determined to gain full control of this dangerous ability he had, for himself and for everyone else.
His starting point was great, but to tame a monster, one may need to become a monster themselves. First, under the orders of his school’s mental health counseling department, Axion was placed in a support group for those who recently suffered emotional turmoil. It was here that he realized the full extend of his abilities. Against someone who is in extreme grief, anger or any other emotion, he could freely take control of their feelings like puppets on a string, at some points even predicting what they are going to do when put under a certain emotion. As a child born to a science orientated family, he began to use a scientific process to study his own power. Hypothesize, find materials, experiment, summarize, repeat. Slowly he found out more and more, how he could manipulate the type and intensity of people’s emotions. This also brought him to the conclusion that he did indeed ruin the life of his parents and drove his older brother to suicide.
But at this point, he couldn’t grief anymore. His experiments, targeted at people with different personalities, backgrounds and recent experiences had already caused enough chaos. There were three more suicides at his high school, as well as cases of students coming down with psychological disorders, all from the long term exposure to his ability. Repeating this process, and obsessively training himself in emotional manipulation has desensitized Axion, he constantly kept notes on human behavior, read psychology papers and carrying out planned tests with people around him. After many times, his relationships to him devolved to nothing but sets of descriptions, variables and experimental processes.
It was too long before he recieved a letter from Tenebris. Of course, Axion took no interest in becoming a government agent or having someone else train his ability, but his mother almost begged him to go, after seeing her son slowly waste away with his bizarre researches, even telling him that it was what his father and brother would’ve wanted him to do. After days of not sleeping the mention of his long gone family clicked some sort of button in his head and put him out in a long deep slumber for two days, when he woke up more letters arrived, this time it’s detail evidence of the suffering he’s caused to others during these years, and a threat of being charged with these crime legally. Eventually he gave in and went, under the threat of legal action, but also a genuine wish to be helped by those who’s walked this path before.
Other:
-He still has no interest in being a government agent
-His hair reaches down to almost his thighs, it haven’t been shortened since middle school, this is because of his paranoia about absolutely everything, including people poking sharp things around his head
-He is terrified of anesthetics and anything that will dull his senses, and has endured multiple stitched wounds without any, giving proper medical treatment to him requires knocking him unconscious first