Birth Name: Manuel Rodriquez

Nova Name: Presence
Series:

Eruption: Emotional Trauma

Nature: Caregiver

Allegiance:

Strength: 2

Dexterity: 3, Athletics 1, Drive 1, Firearms 1, Legerdemain 3, Martial

Arts 1, Stealth 3

Stamina: 3, Endurance 3, Resistance 3

Perception: 3, Awareness 3, Investigation 1

Intelligence: 3, Academics 1, Computer 1, Intrusion 3, Linguistics 1

(Spanish, English), Survival 2

Wits: 4

Appearance: 3

Manipulation: 4, Streetwise 1

Charisma: 2

Backgrounds: Attunement 3, Cipher 5, Eufiber 1, Resources 3

Willpower: 8

Taint:

Aberrations:

Quantum: 1

Quantum Pool: 22

Mega-Attributes: None

Quantum Powers: Invisibility 5 (Psychic, affects all senses, but not cameras or

animals, resisted one for one by Psychic Shield, Always On), Intuition 5

(only effective vs thinking minds, not vs mechanical dangers), Psychic

Shield 5 (he sees, hears, etc himself normally)

Manuel was the second son in his household, and discovered quite young that

shit flowed downhill. His eldest brother would come home from work and have

the crap kicked out of him by their father and then would come upstairs and

take it out on Manny. It got to be second nature to hide or be somewhere else

during these times, but he still caught up in it entirely too often. His eruption

happened when he was only 14 and his father decided to save time and beat

him since his brother hadn’t come home yet (and, unbeknownst to anyone in

the family had run off to join a gang the day before and was never returning).

As his father’s fist rose and fell mechanically as he slurred his outrage to the

world that his sons where such pathetic losers, Manny felt something break in

his head and he thought that his father had finally killed him. He lashed out

during the blinding pain and his father recoiled, wondering what was going on

since he could no longer see where his son had gone and was flailing around

now in an attempt to strike whomever had just hit him. Manny watched him

swiong about harmlessly, screaming, “Where are you! You can’t hide from

me!” and realized that his father had gone completely blind, perhaps as a result

of his cheap booze. He laughed, but his father didn’t seem to hear him and he

taunted the enraged man by poking and slapping him as he staggered around

the room breaking things in a vain attempt to find his son. The rush of being

able to stand up to his father got away from him and soon he found himself

striking him harder and harder, and then kicking him when he was down and

bleeding before he made himself stop. He looked up at his mother in the door,

staring down at her jerking thrashing husband in dismay and realized then that

she couldn’t see him either. He grabbed his mother, but she screamed and

began to thrash around, screaming about ghosts and devils and he realized that

he had to get out of this madhouse.

He prowled the streets for a few years, taking whatever he wanted and just

sneaking into anyones house and sleeping on their couches at night. He read

in a paper about his fathers shooting death a few months later, and he was

certain that his brother had done it, but found himself not caring either way.

The police really had no handle on the crime spree committed by the young

hispanic man recorded on security cameras all over Brooklyn just taking things

and walking out. He was puzzled at first to see his picture in the papers, but he

really didn’t care. The police even searched the house he was sleeping in of

late, since the cameras in the nice parkside apartment building had caught him

entering, but the cops couldn’t find him and it was only the dog that they had

brought with them that could see him, so he cuffed it absently on the way out

the door past the police and milling house residents, causing a near-riot as the

attack dog flipped out and pulled its handler off-balance trying to break its

lead and get to Manny.

By this point Manny had scored a revolver and was prepared to blow the

offending dog away if needs be, although he has taken to carrying mace as

well, as he isn’t sure he could actually kill a dog that wasn’t threatening his

life. He also took to carrying around various other toys he begain to kipe

from police and street life, like handcuffs, figuring that he could just as

easily deal with people who pissed him off without the gun, which he’d

never really used anyway. It was about this time that he came across a

mugging / rape happening in one of his usual jaunts around the city and

decided to intervene, thinking himself pretty much immune to retaliation.

He clocked the principal assailant in the head as hard as he could with his

boot, and while his buddy stared around threateningly, sprayed mace in

his face. A gunshot rang out from one of them, but came nowhere near

him. Still, it was enough for him to realize how close he was to getting

himself killed for some chick he didn’t know and he grabbed up a wooden

board from a broken pallet and slammed the shooter repeatedly in the gun-

hand and then the head until he stopped moving, grabbing the gun away

from his sprawled body. At that point he stopped to kick the first guy a

few times and then noticed that the girl had been stabbed and was not

likely to live if she didn’t get to a hospital soon. He called an ambulance

himself, since he could be heard just fine over the phone, and then held

her to try and control the bleeding until the ambulance arrived. Fitting

into the ambulance with the EMTs seemed impossible until he noticed

that the passenger seat was now open, so he sat in it and rode with them to

the hospital, wanting to see if she would live.

It was at the hospital that Manny met his first other Nova, a woman who

had been sent after the reports from the two thugs had drawn attention.

Manny tried to bolt when he realized that she could somehow see him,

but she moved like lightning and grabbed his hands, his guns and had him

on the ground in a painful judo-hold faster than he could even see. After

two years living unseen and unheard among the elite of New York City,

living on their scraps and crashing in their guest-bedrooms, the ‘Presence,’

as the papers had been calling him, had been caught.

And neither the mysterious Nova who had apprehended him or himself

were available for comment as she whisked him away for training at

a private center, all sins forgiven. To this day, only she and one other

nova on the training staff can see him, but he is a valued member of the

team they are building…