Ramjet (Robert Blair)
PL 6 (95 pp)

Abilities: Str 12, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12 [16 pp]

Attack: Melee +4, Ranged +4, +6 with hand to hand [8 pp]
Defense: +2 (+1 flat-footed or flying) [4 pp]
Initiative: +6
Damage +1 hand to hand, +2 in costume, +8 with Flyby Strike
Saves: Toughness +2 / +8 (6 Impervious) when flying, additional +3 from padded costume, Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +1 [0 pp]

Skills: Bluff 0 (+1), Climb 0 (+1), Computers 2 (+3), Concentration 0 (+1), Craft (mechanical) 4 (+5), Craft (electronic) 1 (+2), Craft (artistic) 1 (+2), Craft (structural) 1 (+2), Diplomacy 0 (+1), Disable Device 2 (+3), Disguise 0 (+1), Drive 2 (+4), Escape Artist 0 (+0), Gather Information 0 (+1), Handle Animal 0 (+1), Intimidate 0 (+1), Knowledge (technology) 2 (+3), Knowledge (popular culture) 2 (+3), Knowledge (physical sciences) 1 (+2), Language (English, native), Notice 0 (+1), Pilot 1 (+3), Search 0 (+1), Sense Motive 0 (+1), Stealth 0 (+2), Survival 0 (+1), Swim 1 (+2) [5 pp, 20 ranks in skills]

Feats: Fast Overrun, Improved Overrun, Improved Initiative 1, Move-by Action
[5 pp]

Powers:
Flight 5 (250 MPH, Extra: Link +0 to Force Field & Immovable, Flaw: Distracting), [5]
Force Field 6 (Extras: Impervious, Link +0 to Flight & Immovable), [12]
Immovable 3 (Extra: Unstoppable, Link +0 to Flight & Force Field), [6]
Sonic Boom 6 (Effect: Blast 6 (Extras: Area (explosive), Knockback, Link +0 to auditory Dazzle, Flaw: Range 1 (touch) + Dazzle (auditory) 6 (Extras: Area (explosive), Link +0 to Blast, Flaw: Range 1 (touch)), Power Feat:
Alternate Power - Flyby Attack 6 (Effect: Strike 6 (Extras: Selective Damage, Area (trail), Power Feat: Mighty))) [25]
Device 2 (padded costume, hard to lose, +3 Toughness, +1 Mighty Strike, Immunity 1 (environmental cold), Sensory Shield 1, Immunity 3 (falling / collision damage, Flaw: Limited (half-effect)) [8]
[56 pp]

Abilities 16 + Combat 12 + Saves 0 + Skills 5 + Feats 6 + Powers 56 = 95 pp

Bobby is a NASCAR nut, spending his childhood running the circuit with his father, who worked as a ‘stable mechanic’ for one of the teams. He grew up around the smell of grease and nitrous, which he equated with time with his dad. His mother had never really been a part of his life, and his father home-schooled him, unwilling (and unable, financially) to shuttle him off to a school while he was running all over the country doing races and car shows.

Bobby ended up with a dozen ‘dads,’ as the various members of his fathers crew considered him their unofficial mascot and gopher, grading up from fetching drinks, to holding tools, to sitting in the car, pushing the pedals as they tinkered under the hood. Small wonder he dreamed of being a driver, and not just a mechanic, but everything changed after the accident. A disastrous and ill-advised attempt at helping someone construct a ‘nitro-burning funny car’ left him overcome with fumes in a burning garage, abandoned by his so-called friend, and when the heat started to blister his skin, the pain forced him awake, to find the world around him a scene from hell. Suddenly, everything exploded, and he was hurtling through the air. At first, he thought he’d been thrown by the explosion, but things just kept hurtling past him, like some surreal out of control dream, until the flight ended in a grove of trees.

Firemen had to get the unconscious and badly burned teen down from the tree, two miles from the ferocious garage-fire, baffled at how someone with that many broken bones could have possibly ended up 30 feet up a tree! Bobby’s rehabilitation took the better part of a year, and his ‘friend’ was conspicuously absent from the well-wishers who came by and dropped off cards and gifts. His dad managed to secure him a lap-top, for his time ‘off his feet,’ and he picked it up pretty quickly, his technical know-how transferring quickly to this new medium, and even picked up some skill at drafting, briefly pondering architecture, before realizing that there was no way that he’d ever be able to build something that can’t *move.*

During his rehabilitation, his connection to the garage fire was fairly quickly deduced (as his skin was soaked with the sorts of accelerants that caused the fire) and his ‘friend’ ended up getting in trouble. Once thing that puzzled the doctors was that the accelerants never truly ‘washed off’ of Bobby, and there were always traces in his breath, and even in his bloodwork, which they feared would cause him no end of physical and neurological problems, but, strangely, did neither. Indeed, his reaction speeds actually seemed augmented, and he was able to snatch a falling glass out of the air, as surprised as anyone else in the room at the incident.

A ‘specialist’ was called in, Tesla Atom, who determined that Bobby’s body had been saturated with the experimental fuel they were testing, and had somehow *adapted* to the substance, making him a ‘living rocket.’ Over the next months, as he learned to walk again and regained the use of his left arm, Tesla helped him explore the limits of his new ability, which initially consisted of the power to throw himself screaming through the air uncontrollably as he ‘ignited’ his power. He spent as much time picking himself up out of one of Tesla’s force constructs as trying to find his ‘trigger’ and, vainly, it seemed at first, learn to turn during flight, but eventually he ‘got it,’ and was able to fly at great speed, with very poor control. Bobby is able to break the speed of sound, and has finally managed to make some crude turns, but is completely unable to ‘dodge’ in mid-air, bulling along in an easily-predicted arc. Fortunately, the emissions of his body enter a barely visible high-energy plasmic state as he flies, serving to shield him from incoming attacks, if not adequate to protect him from a full-on collision. Working in the Atom’s laboratory, Bobby had help constructing a special padded suit that would help to protect him from the sort of impact that he could expect if anything went wrong.

Bobby’s father was bewildered by the whole situation. On the one hand, he’d grown accustomed to his boy being a part of his life, but on the other, as a parent, he realized that he wanted more for Bobby than he had managed for himself, and was particularly worried about Bobby’s inability to relate with girls. On the circuit, the only ‘women’ Bobby met were giggling swimsuit-calendar-models who would pose suggestively next to hot rods and / or their drivers, and while his brief marriage to Bobby’s mother hadn’t left him with any desire at all to ‘try again,’ he wanted more for his son.

Meeting Tesla Atom, he thought, ‘now *this* is a woman!* No-nonsense, technically competent, confident and quite attractive, even if she seemed un-self-conscious about it, unlike the bubbly bleach-blondes who tended to fawn and simper around the drivers. Somewhat naively, he failed to consider that Tesla Atom was significantly older than his son, and quite likely horribly out of his league… For his part, Bobby didn’t know what to think of Tesla. She acted completely unlike any woman he had ever known, and he botched up their first meeting when he brushed her off with the same sort of dismissive treatment he would have given a calendar-girl asking him ‘what does *that* do?’ to concentrate instead on her brother Maximus, whom he just ‘assumed’ would know more about technical matters and ‘guy stuff.’

Maximus privately informed him of his mistaken assumptions, and he didn’t have an opportunity to speak with the elder Atom again, which he preferred after their ‘guy talk,’ since he was well and truly intimidated by the older hero.

Once his powers were (reasonably) under control, the Atoms foisted him off on the Claremont Academy, not without some sense of relief, since he seemed to be harboring the beginnings of a crush on Tesla Atom, which she found awkward and not-at-all ‘cute,’ treated Victoria (who thought he was cute, and would occasionally try to get his attention) with bemused indifference, and tip-toed around Maximus. Chase, for his part, didn’t like Bobby after a brief chat about role-playing games and NASCAR verified that they had nothing in common and might as well be from different planets, and both Dr. Atom and Alex have made it perfectly clear that Bobby was not to be allowed near either of them unsupervised, as he’d expressed an interest in ‘fiddling’ with them (upon meeting Alex, he walked around behind him and said, ‘Wow, how does it stay balanced? Some sort of gyros? Or a computer program based on visual cues?’)

At the Academy, little has changed. He’s always been pretty focused in his world-view and goals, and he writes Tesla once a week with updates on how his powers are developing and what he is learning, while blithely ignoring the various young women at the Academy. She’s not amused, but hasn’t yet had the heart to tell him to stop. At some point, Maximus will probably have to step in to administer another ‘course correction’…