Codename (What we'll list you under in the cast list): Howl
Character Name: Anahera Manu
Character Aliases (if applicable):
Gender: Female
Age (Students should be between 13-16 years old): 16

Physical Description: Anahera is a young Maori girl of 16. She has blue eyes speaking to some distant Pākehā ancestry. Her black hair is worn straight and down to her waist. She refused to have it cut.

Personality: Gregarious, outgoing, fun, funny, and fiercely proud of her heritage. She's smart and has a sharp tongue with friends that lends itself well to puns and jokes. She is often the life of any party and loves to sing.

Mutant Powers: Acoustikinesis.

Sonic Scream: Howl can cause her vocal cords to vibrate over a wide range of sonic frequencies and produce a volume of sound ranging up to at least 220 decibels. Shriek has thus the ability to shatter solid objects with a sonic scream.

Flight: Howl can use the sonic vibrations of her scream to fly at the speed of sound.

Sonic Lance: By focusing her sonic vibrations while screaming into an intense beam. This is used as a sort of "battering ram" with great concussive force that can liquefy and disintegrate targets.

Sonar: She can use her sonic powers as a form of sonar. By sending out a precise, pure note and listening to the returning, altered wavefront of the note, she can evaluate her surroundings in total darkness with varying degrees of resolution.

Sonic Shield: She generates a psionic field that protects her from the detrimental effects of her powers. However, she can still be injured if pushed beyond certain limits.

Vocal Disorientation: The ability to change someone’s balance, by affecting their equilibrium using her sonic scream.

Vocal Trance: The ability to subtly influence people's subconscious mind by changing the tones and vibrations of her voice using sonics, the effects tend towards blatant hypnosis.

Vocal Unconsciousness: The ability to affect the fluid in someone’s ear causing the person to go unconscious.

Selective Hearing: Howl can focus on or completely block any given sound in her environment. This not only allows her to be unaffected by her own powers, but also to be extremely good in surveillance situations.

Superhuman Vocal Stamina: Her vocal cords are tremendously strong, so that she can produce sonic effects through screaming constantly for hours at a time without noticeably tiring or injuring her vocal apparatus. Howl's vocal cords and the interiors of her throat and mouth are also superhumanly tough, so that the intense pressures and constrictions that she produces do not cause her any injury.


Other Skills: She has perfect pitch and a divine singing voice. She's studied traditional Maori martial arts and weapons for almost eight years.

Weaknesses: Pure sensory (sound deprivation) can drive her into panic. Given her powers are sound-based she finds the lack of sound to be disconcerting. She has trouble sleeping without music or white noise to help.

Previous History: Anahera's powers manifested rather spectacularly and in a very public fashion. She was with her school troupe, performing a Haka for visiting international dignitaries when her powers made themselves known. Every window within several square blocks shattered under the force of her uncontrolled sonic assault. Knowing how public sentiment was about mutants, her parents took her and ran. The only saving grace for her public display was it made international news which meant the right people saw it and came for her before other, less benevolent parties could find her. Now safe with the X-Men, she is learning to control her abilities.


Writing Sample (topic of your choice, should be from your character's POV):

"Are you sure?" She asked her music teacher she stood in the centre of the room. "I love music but my control isn't the best. I could shatter the glass of the control room with the wrong note."

"This room is designed for exactly this kind of testing, Ana. The glass isn't glass but a high-tech acrylic that can resist well in excess of what you've displayed so far. We need to keep testing to help you control and, once we do that, you can sing without fear of hurting anyone else."

She nodded and closed her eyes for a moment. "Right...so...Ava Maria?"

"Yep. Start in D# Maj then slowly step up until you're in A5 or C6 without going into falsetto. We'll see what you can do with a good head voice before figuring out your abilities in falsetto."

The sound engineer started the song and nodded to the young woman in the booth. "On you, Ana."

Anahera took a deep breath, steadied herself, and begin to sing the lovely, soaring notes of Ava Maria in a clear, ringing soprano. The room, as promised, withstood everything she brought to bare.