Chains
Name: Diane Chao/ChainsIs your identity public or secret?: Secret
Age: 22
Gender/sexuality: Female/Lesbian
Appearance (general): A punkish looking young Hmong woman with a number of scars, short, spikey, dyed hair, and a cynical expression. She's very skinny and rather short-- about 5'2"-- but she's corded with lean muscle. Her eyes are metallic grey, and crackle with blue sparks when she uses her powers. Her voice is harsh and scratchy; a scar on her throat suggests the reason for this.
Costume: A ragged mask over her face, combined with a sleeveless denim jacket covered in metal spikes and studs, a dark bodysuit that covers a well-made mail shirt, spiked leather arm guards and shin guards, steel-toed boots, fingerless gloves with spiked knuckles, and a very large collection of heavy metal chains wrapped around her shoulders, waist, and so on. In any given situation, the chains are usually not merely draped on her body but instead are in motion, moving and weaving like tentacles or serpents, seemingly under their own control.
Personality: Diane is cynical and often sarcastic, especially when she's nervous or stressed. She claims to see the worst in people, and displays reluctance to trust others.
A great deal of this is a front. Diane needs people, badly, and wants the acceptance and approval of her peers-- but she's also been manipulated and lied to a great deal, and doesn't want to get hurt again, creating a situation where she claims to be independent but nevertheless wants to be near other people constantly.
Interests/hobbies/likes/dislikes/pet peeves: Diane is very interested in metalworking, and plays around with making sculpture, especially made of wire. (She is embarrassed about this hobby, and won't discuss it or show her sculptures to a stranger.) A side part of this is a keen interest in bladesmithing, and she's experimenting with using her powers for this purpose. She's very fond of loud hard rock, punk and metal music, and will blast it or listen to it on headphones when circumstances allow, but her powers often interfere with her ability to do so. She has a profound dislike of anyone she considers to be a moral hypocrite, has bad associations with country music, and will not drink beer under any circumstances. She does not like people touching her without her permission, especially near her neck. She's unreasonably fond of cats and dogs, but does not want to reveal this to anyone. She now instinctively mistrusts anyone who is too friendly to her upon first meeting her. She intensely dislikes anyone who asks "where she's from" unless they accept "St. Paul" as a complete answer.
Background: Diane was born in poverty in St. Paul, Minnesota; struggling to find a way to survive and get small luxuries, she turned to car theft and burglary at a young age. In so doing, her mutant powers eventually began to manifest, and before she was 17, she had gained considerable control of them, which aided her life of crime considerably, and earned her the nickname "Chains" after she began using bicycle chains to deal with violent threats.
It was shortly thereafter that she was recruited for the criminal organization called "The Youngbloods" run by the infamous Black Claw; she considered the Youngbloods to be a new family for her, peers who understood what she'd been through, who would support her in life. This proved to be a tremendous mistake, and she was abandoned in the field as a sacrifice on two occasions. When she confronted the others after the second time (the first time, she'd been told that it was an accident, despite clear evidence otherwise), they decided they had no further use for her, and very nearly killed her, only failing because they misjudged an attempt to slit her throat.
She drifted briefly as a solo criminal again, but her heart wasn't in it; her past contacts with the mysterious Crowfeeder ultimately lead her into contact with Ghost Bat, and she wound up assisting Ghost Bat in the defeat of the terrifying Soviet lycanthrope cyborg called Laser Wolf, the Butcher of Anatevka. That, in turn, lead to Ghost Bat suggesting that she consider a career change, and she's since let herself 'reluctantly' be recruited to be a hero.
Powers/abilities (general): Magnetism/Ferrokinesis. Diana can generate and control powerful magnetic fields within about 15' of her body; in that radius, she can control metals containing iron, cobalt or nickel (or certain rare earths), reshaping them, moving them, or abruptly heating them to tremendous temperatures through magnetic induction. She can create enough magnetic force to protect herself from attacks with magnetic metal components (like steel-jacketed slugs) as well as from many energy attacks; she can also create electromagnetic pulses that can disrupt electrical devices and wipe out magnetic storage. She is capable of accelerating projectiles made of suitable materials to supersonic speeds, but prefers to not do so as she feels that the poor aim she has is too unreliable. She normally fights by using the chains wrapped around her body as auxiliary limbs of tremendous power; she can also move around quickly by extending them and using them to grab suitable objects. She's currently experimenting with magnetic levitation for flight, but has found it unstable as a rule.
She does not have any control at all over human blood or hemoglobin; the iron in it is in a molecule that is nonmagnetic, and it can't be influenced by magnetic fields.
Other: Diane still maintains contact with a few people from her past, including Crowfeeder. She knows she shouldn't, but she's unwilling to give up the few good contacts that she's had.