Scoria

Scoria
Author	/u/Shadeshadow227
Pronouns	She/Her
Civilian name	Samantha Dawson
Alignment	Hero
Affiliation	Noncanon (Devilfish)
PRT Classification	Trump/Striker
Born	(2006-03-07) March 7, 2006 Devilfish, USA
Status	Noncanon

A new hero's on the loose. Drug dealers, and only drug dealers, found beaten and restrained for the police to find, broken bones and burn scars a fairly common sight, though there haven't been any deaths. Other, rarer scenes that point to this cape's involvement have a noticeably lighter touch, equally-serious criminals merely restrained until the cuffs are brought out, hands sealed together behind them by red-hot ropes or stone casts.

Clearly someone with a grudge choosing to crack down on certain types of crooks, dangerous and seeming to enjoy hurting those who piss her off.

Character Sheet

Appearance

Civ: Samantha's a tired-looking teenage girl, brown hair perpetually in disarray and bags under her brown eyes, usually seen wearing a red hoodie and jeans.

Cape: As Scoria, she wears a black jacket and dark jeans stylized and accentuated with bits of polished metal sewn in and lines of orange spray-paint snaking across her clothing. Her mask is similar, a blank metal one spray-painted black, orange lines radiating out from around the eyeholes and similarly-colored lenses put in.

Equipment and Resources

Wealth Level: 2

• Terrible phone

• Zip-ties, for restraining more targets than she has available powers

• A couple of clearly handmade knives made using pieces of her stone, not the most well-made, yet effective when she needs to cut something without burning it

Skills and Specializations

• Can sew and knit

• Used to play volleyball at her high school pre-trigger, left the team after getting powers

• Has experience with brute powers in a general fashion, and knows how to leverage what she can do to seem threatening, despite only recently becoming a cape herself.

Mentality

Out of costume, Samantha's a fairly cheerful girl, prone to crude language and jokes.

In costume, her identity as Scoria is her outlet. Serious, focused, and prone to anger against those that set her off. A vigilante with a grudge against certain "acceptable" targets.

Utterly despises capes who grant powers or otherwise enhance others, seeing most of them as having some hidden agenda in most circumstances, extending that hatred towards drug dealers and whoever else may cross her path that uses fear or a negative incentive to pressure others.

Power

Scoria is an Alexandria package with a suite of decently strong abilities:

• Flight, capping out at around 30 miles per hour, with the ability to stop or change direction (not counting continuous movement in a single direction or along a single path, so any actual turning or spinning is unaffected, but she can switch from moving at maximum speed upwards immediately into moving down or to one side without needing to slow down or stop) instantly, though it takes around 12 seconds to accelerate to max speed from a standstil. Due to the power involving sudden massive shifts in momentum and speed, Scoria is effectively immune to the effects of high G-Forces on the human body.
• The ability to encase up to two parts of her body (head, torso, each arm and leg individually, etc.) in a thick layer of lightweight yet durable stone (taking about a second to fully generate, faster to move it to another area, but Scoria's still limited by her ability to react in time to an attack), black and glassy, capable of withstanding small-arms fire (roughly equivalent to IIIA body armor, standing up to a single rifle shot or around a dozen pistol shots, depending on the force behind each shot) and taking around six seconds to restore itself when shattered, though any fragments broken off persist, acting as pieces of normal stone. Typically, this is a single unbroken patch (except for on the head, where there are gaps for the eyes, mouth, etc.) that seals any parts this is used on in place, though she can choose to weaken it around the knees and elbows to allow for some movement in those areas. She can throw a punch with fists of stone, harden herself against harm, but can’t perform anything requiring fine dexterity or movement of her hands, feet, etc. The rock the armor is made of doesn't conduct electricity, has a high melting point and conducts heat well (though manton protections likely make that a moot point in most circumstances), becomes more brittle when frozen (though again, probably a moot point since Scoria has her whip), acting like normal stone under most other circumstances.
• The ability to generate and freely control a whiplike tendril of molten (roughly 300°C) rock, thirty feet long, cutting through flesh and wood, setting flammable objects on fire, and heating up materials like metal or stone. It always originates from one of her limbs (palm of each hand, or the heel of her foot, taking around a second to grow to full length), but she can control how it moves enough to twist it around, tie it in knots, or even safely restrain people and manipulate small objects. The whip itself is fairly durable, but can be cut or torn with enough force as it'd take to cut a normal rope, severed sections rapidly losing cohesion and acting like normal stone would at that temperature, taking around a second to restore itself when damaged. Comes with a general resistance to heat, and complete immunity to the effects of her own weapon.

In addition to all of these abilities, she has one more thing she’s capable of:

Granting these powers to people she touches, losing them in the process but keeping immunity to her own granted abilities, as well as being able to assert control over the powers she gives out at any time. Granted powers also come with the associated Manton protections, resistance to heat for the whip, immunity to intense g-forces for the flight, etc., and Scoria gains a rough proprioception-esque sense of where any materials (or in the case of the flight, the person using it, their position and orientation, etc.) generated by her power are in relation to herself, as well as what position they're in at that distance.

Giving someone her flight and using that to put them through a window, restraining criminals by tying them up in her whip or encasing their bodyparts in stone, etc., are all things she’s capable of.

Granted powers last until taken back, which Scoria can do at-will at any point after giving them out, or until whoever has one leaves a range of roughly a hundred feet around her.

Trigger type: Trump/Striker (Brute, Blaster, Mover)

Backstory

Her family was always an absolute mess.

Almost-always absent father, always working. A mother who insists on doing nothing. A sister, forced to do everything. Two brothers, both too young to realize how fucked up things were.

And then there was her. The one who ran. The one who hid. Never home, always somewhere else. Volleyball, freerunning with friends, after-school clubs and programs, anything that let her be away from home for a few hours or even minutes, work off her nervous energy and come back ready to deal with everything.

This worked well, she was happy…until, one day, her sister vanished. An argument tuened nasty, she stormed out and never came back.

And from there, things got worse.

Samantha was the oldest now. The burden fell on her shoulders to take care of things, now that her sister was out of the picture. She had responsibilities of her own, things she had to do.

Balancing everything was impossible.

Birthdays, holidays, special events, housework, dinner, taking care of her brothers, practice, time with friends…she didn’t have any time for herself, didn’t have the energy to keep up as she had, everyone knew it.

She started lagging behind on the volleyball team, sluggish and tired, sleeping less and less to keep up with it all. Doing poorly in school, forgetting important things, cancelling on her friends time and time again, suffering under the weight of what she was expected to do.

Then, someone approached her at school. A friend of a friend, who noticed her plight and gave her an offer.

He was a cape. One who could enhance other people, make them stronger, faster, better. He could help her, if she helped him.

At first, it was money he asked for, and she obliged. The first few boosts made her feel great, like she was on top of the world. She could handle anything, started doing better at practice and during games, even managing to keep up with her mother’s demands at home. Sure, the crashes sucked, but it was bearable until she could get her next dose.

Until they started getting worse, after about a week. Chills, spasms, nausea. She confronted him, he acted oblivious.

“You must be getting used to it. Haven’t done this much, maybe your body’s accepting this as normal, and that’s why it feels so bad?”

She just grit her teeth, and asked for another dose.

He wouldn’t accept money. She’d get the power, but had to do something afterwards. Nothing too bad, just…put on a mask, threaten some unsavory individuals who had moved in near his home, get them to go away. No need to actually hurt anyone, of course. He’d never make her do that.

Homeless people, squatting in an abandoned building.

She tried bargaining with him. He threatened to cut her off. She agreed, put on the gaudy-looking wrestler mask, walked into the building. Cracked brickwork with her punches, threatened to hurt people, scared them off.

He recorded it all. Blackmail material. People would recognize her voice, he said.

And so, she dug herself deeper, every day. She got the power she needed just to feel normal now, the withdrawals something that sent her reeling every time she had the nerve to refuse. Things were getting worse.

She hurt someone during practice. Complete accident, spiked a ball into someone’s leg, broke it in three places. Put her in the hospital.

She couldn’t do it anymore. This had to stop.

She confronted him. Threatened him. He tapped her on the arm and sent her to the ground, everything going hazy as she slowed to a crawl, senses blunted and the strength ripped from her body.

Even so, she still refused. Managed to clean herself up, get home, only to collapse in bed and sleep like the dead. Woke up barely functioning, sweating in December, thoughts running like molasses, almost as if she’d been up all night instead of having just slept for ten hours.

She struggled to her feet, and just being upright nearly sent her to the ground again, a wave of dizziness and nausea threatening to have her collapse and empty her stomach on the floor.

She managed to get to the school, get him alone, reduced to begging for him to give her what she needs, making whatever promises she needs to to have him agree.

The sudden jolt of clarity, of strength, feels like heaven. She feels better than ever, she’s okay again, like flicking a light-switch…and he could take it away whenever he wanted to, if she disobeyed.

She breaks down crying, sobbing quietly as he tries to comfort her.

“Everything’s all better now, yeah? Don’t do that again. Please don’t make me do that again.”

She wanted to hurt him. It would be so easy. Just reach out, grab his head in one hand, and squeeze, bones cracking like eggshells. She didn’t dare.

And so, life continued. His demands became even riskier, consequences more severe…for her, that is. He got off scot-free, forcing her to take the blame herself, as he threatened and coerced others, with her as his weapon of choice. Acquiesce or get beaten bloody. She couldn’t say no.

And then, he got her a costume. A gaudy thing in black and blue. Finally going out, he told her. To use the powers she was granted, earn them.

Her first task? See how powerful she really is. Enter a department store, take out the security, make off with as much as she can carry. She met up with him in a nearby alleyway, disbelieving but unable to refuse.

“Don’t hesitate to break some legs, if you have to.”

She hesitated. Threatening people…she didn’t like it, but sure. But this was too far. Hurting people, innocent people, badly, for money. Not to mention, heroes would undoubtedly show up. She couldn’t fight a fucking cape. He wasn’t serious, right? This was crazy.

She couldn’t move. She had to. Couldn’t get away, couldn’t stay, couldn’t do it. What could she do?

“Useless fucking…go, Sam!”

Her strength left her, drawing even more out with it. His patience had finally run dry, having decided to give her an incentive to obey. Going further than ever, since this was important.

Vomit burned her throat on it’s way out. She couldn’t hold herself up, so she collapsed on her side, body heaving as the nausea hit. She could see blood mixed in with the sick.

“You were so willing to do everything before. Why now? Why do you have to be so stupid now, of all times?!”

His boot hit her stomach, she dry-heaved again, clear fluid and blood coming up.

Again.

Again.

“Why do you never listen? Why do you make me do this? W-”

Reality skips, like a record-scratch on the face of the planet. She blinks, and everything changes.

---

She hears screaming, sees her tormentor on the ground, clutching his hand. Two of his fingers lay charred and smoking in the puddle of vomit she had produced earlier.

Light shines from a red-hot outgrowth on her arm, uncoiled and hanging in the air, looking almost like a strand of honey.

She’s too weak to move, so she floats upright, the feeling of flight like being held in a giant’s fist, power settling into her bones and pinning her in midair. Her chest feels heavy, and she looks down to see her own reflection in it, black glass reflecting the light of her whip. It drags along the ground, pavement heating up beneath it.

She looks like shit, feels even worse…but now? Anger burns where the fear once was, and she forces herself to move towards him.

He swears and scrambles back, back against a wall. She can feel something from him. A void? Something? It’s empty.

She reaches out, hand resting on his cheek, and feels the stone slide into place as she makes contact. Both of his legs petrify, as the covering on her torso disappears.

“I, this–this was just, I, uh, please, don’t–”

Her grip tightens, and she slams his head into the bricks behind him, once, twice.

He’s barely conscious, afterwards.

Her mouth tastes like iron, she spits to the side and leans in, coughing on him before managing to speak.

“…please, don’t make me do that again.”

She smiles, spits on him, and flies away.