Birth Name: Marci Peppin

Nova Name: Iron Angel, Silverhawk, Steel Angel, Steel Wind, Silverwind, Argent, etc
Series:

Eruption:

Nature: Follower

Allegiance: Coleman University

Strength: 2, Brawl 1

Dexterity: 5, Athletics 5, Martial Arts 3, Melee 1, Stealth 2

Stamina: 3, Endurance 3, Resistance 3

Perception: 5, Awareness 5, Investigation 1

Intelligence: 3, Academics 1, Medicine 1, Science 2, Survival 3

Wits: 4, Rapport 1

Appearance: 2, Style 1

Manipulation: 2

Charisma: 2

Backgrounds: Eufiber 1, Allies 4, Node 2

Willpower: 8

Taint: 2

Aberrations: Skin appears grayish and shiny, as if wet, even when not armored, Has no shadow

Quantum: 3 (two levels bought Tainted, 8 Freebies)

Quantum Pool: 26

Initiative: +1 from Freebies (10)

Movement:

Mega-Attributes: Strength 1 (Thunderclap), Dexterity 1 (Multitasking), Stamina 1 (Regeneration)

Quantum Powers: Bodymorph 3 (Flight 1, Claws 1 (Armor-Piercing Extra), Armor 1), Armor 2, Body Modification: Chromatophores, Body Modification: Extra Limbs (wings)

9 NP in Mega-Attributes

17 NP in Quantum Powers

1 NP in +3 Attribute dots

1 NP in +6 Ability dots

2 NP in +2 Willpower

8 Freebies in +2 Quantum (Tainted)

1 Freebie in +1 Initiative

6 Freebies in +3 Willpower

Marci is a freshman, studying climatology and environmental science. Someday she wants to be a meteorologist, but probably doesn’t have the looks to pull it off (additionally she is a bit awkward socially).  Personality-wise (and in appearance) is best summed up as Buffy's roommate Kathy from Living Conditions. She is outgoing, chirpy and likes to listen to music by fem-rock 'divas' like Madonna, No Doubt, the Cranberries, Sheryl Crow, Meredith Brooks, Garbage and Cher, while ironing her jeans and organizing and labeling everything in sight. She has a 'system' for everything, which leaves her very little time to take advantage of all the time she is saving in the process... Marci was raised by her divorced father, a high school science teacher who was also raising his two older sons. (Her feminist streak could be a reaction to growing up in such a testosterone heavy setting.) Having no patience with the educational standards at the baptist school where he taught, he ended up home schooling his children (allowing them to sit in on his classes during the day, and then teaching them at nights and on the weekends, generally by taking them hiking and using these camping trips as a sort of living laboratory to teach them about the natural world). As a result of being the home-schooled teachers kid, she didn’t have a lot of close friends growing up, and often is somewhat clueless about social interaction, just assuming that everyone is going to act like the adults and family members she did tend to associate with and be accepting and easygoing, and she will tend to avoid anyone who reacts poorly to her clumsy and blunt conversational gambits as being ‘weird,’ rude and / or high-strung.

She went on a month long hiking and caving expedition with some members of a local expeditionary club over the summer between high school and college, and found a water-smoothed oval of silvery stone or metal (probably hematite, she thinks) that she pocketed (against the ‘take nothing out’ rule) and has had made into a pendent that she wears around her neck to remember the expedition and her first time away from her family for any length of time (which she immensely enjoyed). Until she swiped this rock, she was considered a stickler for rules, and never seemed to defy authority. It was holding this silvery pebble, away from her father and his classrooms, the various authorities that she had followed all of her young life, that she finally realized that she could do whatever she wanted now, that she was the one who would make her own rules. Taking the stone from the cave was her first act of teenage rebellion, however timid by comparison to some, and she keeps it to remind her that she must now make her own rules to live by, instead of blindly accepting those of church or state or family. She has just discovered the concepts of philosophy, ethics and moral relativism, which were somewhat lacking in her fathers hard-science-centric curriculum… No doubt her freshman Intro to Philosophy class will expand her views considerably, if it doesn’t derail her from her hard scientific goals entirely and end up side-tracking her life.

Because of her miserly streak, she tends to improvise things, and use things in unusual ways (a coffeemaker, for instance, serves as her hotplate, since she doesn’t drink coffee, but uses it to cook Ramen noodles, boil eggs and heat water for her hot cereal). She similarly tends to wear clothes that were gifts (and that no fashion-conscious person would be caught dead wearing), have a cheap steel neck-chain for her rock pendant, etc. She has a mountain bike instead of a car, and buys her books and CDs at the used racks of local stores. When she figures out how to rip CDs into MP3s, she will no doubt pillage all of her friends music collections, rather than buy them herself… Fortunately, her scholarship includes access to the cafeteria, and while she doesn’t overtly steal from it, she does squirrel away plenty of granola, apples, bagels and trail mix-type stuff to munch during her classes, as she prefers nibbling all day to eating big meals at any particular time (she fills up after a few bites).

Marci will develop wings that resemble liquid quicksilver, and that allow her to fly, protect her from damage to a limited extent, and strike out with razor edged pinions to slice at her foes. Liquid metal seems to flow over her body in a seconds time, although once it is generated, she can mute the color to a subtle shiny pallor just makes her look somewhat sickly (sweaty and pale). The metal seems to react with supernatural speed to danger, so that an attack approaching her, even one as fast as a bullet or bolt of energy, will cause it to grow into a bulky protective sheath of metal, in a strangely organic scaled motif, with spines and crests and intricate whorls. Once the attack has ended, the armor will fade back as quickly into her skin, leaving only the barely noticeable grayish sheen. While so prepared, her skin will feel cool to the touch, and slightly greasy (although there is no secreted residue, it’s just a sensation). The wings, once called forth, remain until dismissed, and react to her thoughts, lashing out to defend or attack as readily as to hold her aloft. They appear as long spars of metal that jut from her back, a sort of V-shaped backpack of silvery metal that rises a meter above each shoulder initially, resembling the sorts of things seen on giant robots in Japanese animation. A secondary spar, also a meter long, switchblades from this primary strut, and from these support arms, long blades of flexible razor-thin metal protrude like feathers, seeming to pour forth like liquid, and overlapped by an additional set of shorter vanes. The wings end up being a total of six feet in length each, at full extension, and the ‘V-shaped backpack’ is flexible as well, the two central support spars being able to flex and extend to point straight up, straight back or almost straight down (only 60 degrees of separation will remain on the ‘backbeat’). Their ‘resting’ position is the opposite, approximately 60 degrees apart, facing up and to the sides (and a few degrees back, so that they do not impair her shoulder movements). The ‘feathers’ may or may not be deployed at any given time, and extrude instantly from the ‘wingbones,’ which can fold up and sink back into her flesh at any time. Once the supports extend, additional metal ‘armor’ appears around her body, helping to provide support when she is airborne, and any pretense at looking ‘normal’ can be dispensed with, even if she somehow hides her wings (behind a curtain, or leaning out from behind a doorway, for instance). While armored up, or winged, her eyes become reflective silver, and she has taken to wearing sunglasses to hide this effect, as she prefers to keep the very basic level of ‘armor’ active at all times now, which also requires her to use a powder base to cut down the shine from her skin and make it a little pinker (despite her dislike of cosmetics). Even her hair will tend to appear greasy in this form, and when she is fully armored, the individual hairs will no longer be discernable, the entire mass being covered as one spiky wavy unit.

Her pendent disappeared during her initial Eruption as a Nova, leaving behind the chain and setting, the ‘stone’ having vanished, seemingly absorbed into the strange metallic shell can now extrude from her skin. Regardless, the quicksilver-like metal that covers her flesh does not show any of the properties of traditional metals, and does not conduct electricity, magnetism or heat as some metals do (although it does seem to interact with local radio signals, and she sometimes has trouble with cell-phones).