hermit-world-of-power-au

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Assigning powers is hard but it can also be the most fun part!

Once again remind that I really like superhero aus. I do not know how i keep forgetting this fact about my self lol.

Assigning powers is hard though I have so many good ideas

-🏹⌚

superhero aus 💞

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

E

Civilian name: Etho Laban

Affiliation: nHo

Power: Teleportation

Etho is the reason I started these papers, in a way. I knew the nHo had a teleporter on their team - which meant that they can't have protection against teleportation on anything they want him to be able to access quickly. Could they have still protected their secret files and data banks? Probably. Their scout would have no reason to need those in a hurry, and I'm sure the nHo has plenty of funds for a room or two lined with anti-teleport mesh. But I took a gamble, signed on as an innocent “ordinary” worker... and found that as a teleporter myself, I could sneak into a surprising number of otherwise high-security nHo spaces. I wouldn’t call it easy, but remembering and copying the information there (I didn’t take the files, obviously, or they would have noticed something missing) was a more achievable task than I thought, and that got me curious about the other supers in town.

But back to Etho. He's a teleporter, obviously, which is generally not a complicated power to explain. He's here and now he's there. While no two (unrelated) supers’ powers work exactly the same, generally, I would guess his maximum range is about a mile, because that's what mine is. Similarly, evidence and personal experience both suggest that he has to know where he's going. That means that if he can recall a spot exactly - or has seen it clearly on a live camera - and knows exactly where it is, he can teleport blindly; otherwise, he has to be able to see where he's going. (It is possible to make short jumps, say from one side of a wall to another if one knows roughly how thick the wall is, hence one main utility of anti-teleport materials - the other big use being making places that can be seen through but not traveled through.)

Etho also works as a postman. Given his nHo connection and his semi-frequent route changes, I have a feeling the job goes along with his role in the nHo. While Bdubs can look at data from the greenery after the fact, Etho can spot or overhear things as they happen, or otherwise scout people and places in a boots-on-ground way that you can't get from a tree. Despite his somewhat unique appearance, his demeanor makes him easy to overlook, and his power lets him vanish as soon as you suspect he's there.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Doc

Civilian name: ???

Affiliation: nHo

Power: Electrical manipulation

I cannot find Doc’s original legal name. So maybe I'm a little biased and tried a little harder with this one than I did with Hypno, but mostly just because Doc has been incredibly thorough in scrubbing it from the records, and I'm not even fully sure why apart from maintaining a specific image as the threateningly nameless leader of the nHo. I found one newspaper from very soon after he became the leader that calls him Doctor M, but nothing else even says that.

There is a lot of intimidation in his image. This is not to say that the nHo isn't a powerful organization, because it very much is, but Doc leans into his role as the face of it. The rest of them work in the shadows, but for Doc it's not so easy, with his extensive prosthetic work - the left side of his face being particularly recognizable and hard to hide - so he's chosen the opposite direction. His suits even largely have one sleeve ripped off of them, to show the metal arm underneath.  Doc’s superpower? He can control electricity. He can't generate it, like Super Volt, but he can direct it, in dramatic bursts or in subtle shifts, to blow out a server room or to “pick” an electronic lock. Apparently, this power synergizes with his prosthetics, at least his arm; the arm is charged with its own power supply, but once it's on him, Doc uses his abilities to power the mechanisms just so and allow for much finer motor control than one could expect from even an arm that detailed. I imagine he could even draw power from his arm if he needed it, but he's rarely in direct combat enough for that to matter.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Metronome

Civilian name: Skizz Lemann

Affiliation: HHH

Power: Rhythm control

Metronome is the newest member of the HHH and a valuable part of the medical team working under Sol Star. For any rhythm he can hear, he can tap out a new rhythm with his hands and what he hears will shift to match what he plays. If you catch a glimpse of someone in the field medic uniform who just seems to be drumming out a beat on his leg or next to a patient, that's him probably keeping someone's heart rate steady. Occasionally he'll use his power for other things - a common trick of his is tripping up a walking or running threat by syncopating their footsteps - but for the most part he prefers to focus on helping and healing.

Skizz works at Tek Industries and is part of the group who moved into the otherwise barely-used penthouse atop the building. He's not exactly the youngest member of the HHH, and of course anyone can choose to be a hero at any age, but considering his close friend Super Volt has been with the HHH for years, it's a little curious that Skizz has only just recently found his calling there.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Watchfrog

Civilian name: Barry “Big B” Statz

Affiliation: Vigilante

Power: Frog traits

Our friendly neighborhood Watchfrog is most often seen patrolling the urban residential districts of Hermiton. With his high-jump and wall-climbing capabilities and the “frog-whip” he wears that doubles as a grappling gun, he spends a lot of time on or near the rooftops as he looks for trouble. I have heard rumors that his goggles help him spot trouble, but there's no real confirmation of that and they could easily be thematic identity hiding and eye protection. 

Although he's friendly with the HHH and sometimes aids the heroes on missions in his “territory”, Watchfrog is not a member of the HHH, apparently preferring to work alone. BigB pays the bills with his job at a locally-owned bakery; the employees and managers there are also quite friendly with him as Watchfrog, which makes me wonder if any of them know his identity and simply keep it to themselves, as communities often do.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

The Knight

Civilian name: Wels Knight

Affiliation: Vigilante

Power: Carapace Creation

I don't know how he gets away with being The Knight and also having his full name on billboards advertising his legal services without being found out. For that matter, a fair few of the cases that Wels loses fairly quickly get resolved (or sometimes, “resolved”) by The Knight. He hasn't made it hard to spot the pattern. Although as a vigilante he deals with more than just his own cases - but his targets are almost always those to whom the legal system failed to mete out the proper justice. He also protects people who won their case and may be facing retaliation.

The Knight has a very defensive superpower: in the span of a moment or two, he can morph large areas of his skin into metal (or something metallic) and back again. He can block a lot this way, including bullets to an extent, but anyone who's ever seen a shot-up car could guess that this superpower does not make him completely bulletproof. (Getting shot probably still hurts, too, even if it doesn't do much damage.) Of course, each area becomes only as flexible as the metal it's made of, which is why he doesn't just turn himself into a metal statue every time he goes out to do his thing - he wouldn't be able to move that way. He also can't change his eyes, because eyes aren't skin - so the very thematic bulky visor that's part of his costume actually does have a practical use beyond hiding his identity!

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Worm Man

Civilian name: Zedaph Plaise

Affiliation: Vigilante

Power: Talking to animals

One of the most well-known but oft-underestimated heroes, Worm Man is the type of vigilante to focus on the small scale: friends, family, neighborhood. His power to communicate with animals lends itself to things like the stereotypical rescuing cats from trees and the like... until you consider just how many animals there are in the city of Hermiton. Soon after he and his roommates moved into the Tek penthouse, I noticed a dovecote appear on the roof. The pigeons, I'm sure, keep him well-informed of what's happening in the city. There's even the possibility that he could easily pass important intel along to Super Volt and Metronome if it looks like HHH business, even though Worm Man has shown no interest in joining the HHH himself.

You'll recognize Zedaph's name if you watch a lot of game shows, as he hosts a popular one, out of a studio near the Tek Industries building. Being a public figure, he has also gotten publicly kidnapped by villains more than once, but he often seems to rescue himself before any other help can arrive. I suspect his animal friends might actually be the ones doing the rescuing.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

V

Civilian name: Beef Vinter

Affiliation: nHo

Power: Super strength

The downside of using single-letter monikers is that not everyone's can match their first name, I guess. As V, Beef is the brawn of the nHo. I'm not sure what the upper limits of his strength are, but there is footage of him picking up and throwing cars, at least. He could easily kill the average person, and nearly has killed heroes a few times, but he usually backs off before actually dealing a killing blow. Usually. I get the feeling his goal is usually more to dissuade and intimidate, but some folks turn out to be too hard to get rid of...

You may recognize his civilian name if you have a pet; he's a veterinarian at the main animal hospital. He actually has a background in treating livestock, which I imagine isn't the most useful specialty in the big city, but he'll treat house pets just as well.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Councilman Joe Hills

Affiliation: Civilian

Power: Intangibility

Super or not, Joe Hills is possibly one of the most important members of the Hermiton city council. He's a strong advocate for all sorts of things that make the city better, from cultural tolerance to having efficient utilities. Every Tuesday and every Saturday he can be found in the library coffee shop or in a board game café for most of the day, and he'll gladly talk with anyone who wants to talk to him. He's not afraid to shut down people who operate on bad faith, though, and that's largely where the more public use of his power comes in. If someone is annoying him, Joe has been known to just leave conversations through a wall if he has to. I remember seeing a livestreamed city council meeting once where the topic of discussion pissed him off so much that he got up out of his chair just so it was more noticeable when he dropped through the floor. Intangibility necessitates a certain amount of hovering, but as far as I know Joe can't fly, and going back up to the meeting room would have been a lot more effort than re-entering from a wall would be. 

Joe can also control how visible he is when he's intangible, so he can almost completely fade from view without ever moving, which has its own dramatic effect that he'll often use more subtly - like when other people are talking or arguing and he wants to see how long it will take them to notice what he's doing, or make a point of how long they've been at it. He doesn't use his power for traditional superheroing, but one could argue (although Joe himself wouldn't) that he's using it for even more important work in the city.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Time Field Captain

Civilian name: Ted F. Cook

Affiliation: HHH (retired from active duty) 

Power: Time manipulation bubbles

The Time Field Captain, or TFC for short, was a powerful super in his heyday. He still is, as far as I know, but he had to retire from active duty a few years ago due to age and sustaining a major leg injury. He still works at the HHH as a mentor, particularly in providing practical experience for new supers to spar with. 

TFC can create “bubbles” of time around himself and his immediate surroundings - I believe the most area he's covered on record was an entire car with room to spare. Within this bubble, time can move at whatever speed he wants it to, relative to the outside world. Slowing time inside the bubble would help to catch rogues and other criminals, while speeding up time would make the outside world seem to act in slow motion. Things traveling into or out of the bubble tend to deflect as well, I think; there's footage of TFC apparently using his power to shield himself and others from bullets.

I honestly cannot, at the time of writing this, tell you what TFC did or does in his civilian life. His name is on his HHH file, and he's listed as formerly part-time, so he had a civilian job. But none of the business records I could get hold of made any mention of him, and there were no leads that I could find anywhere. There was one guy at a pizza place who recognized the name, but it's not an uncommon name and it was from before his time. Since TFC I think spends his retirement at the HHH fairly exclusively, knowing his former job isn't really important - but the mystery is bothering and intriguing me now, so I feel like I have to figure this out someday.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

K

Civilian name: Keralis Wan

Affiliation: nHo

Power: Mind control/suggestion

Keralis is one of the nHo's most powerful assets. His hypnotizing gaze can bend any unsuspecting challenger to his - and the nHo's - will. The full extent of his influence is a well-kept secret... but if any high-ranking official or businessperson is seen to have been called to meet peacefully with Doc, and comes away with a strangely positive opinion of his business, it's not hard to imagine an encounter with K being the reason why. I'm sure many of the disappearances associated with the nHo are his doing as well, although if his power works like most suggestion powers do, he wouldn't be able to lead a victim to direct harm. But all the people speaking out and then suddenly falling to temporary “fits of insanity”, or the stories of people who mysteriously forgot their names or found themselves beset by debilitating fear that only one other person in town could undo... They're the ones who have met K face to face, eye to eye.

I've been told that his eyes are enchanting, emphasized behind his favorite pair of round glasses, and once he tells you to look, it's hard to look away. If you meet him, whatever you do, don't look into his eyes.

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

X-Morph

Civilian name: Xisuma Void 

Affiliation: HHH

Power: Power suit (animal mimicry)

X-Morph is a rare example of a super with no biological superpowers. He uses technology instead, in the form of his power suit. The suit also serves as full-body armor, but its primary use is to mimic the abilities of animals. My limited understanding is that X does not manually program most of what the suit does; instead, the suit takes information about and DNA from the animal in question, analyzes that, and makes its own program. Which is how Exion happened. 

In most cases, X will also make extra attachments to the suits to fully utilize the programs and the animal abilities: horns for the charging bull, fins for aquatic animals, insectoid wings and a narrow stinger spike for the bee, most of the shell shape of the turtle, etc. Apparently some of these attachments can retract into the suit for convenience or switching on the fly, but I can't imagine they're all in there at once or the suit would be too big and heavy to walk in!

Xisuma works for the HHH full-time, so there's not much of interest to say about his civilian life, apart from noting that he has one and keeps his separate identities. His connection to Doc is also important, as they consider themselves direct rivals, but in their civilian lives have worked together to raise Mumbo Jumbeaux since he was a young teenager.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

I don't know if this would come up when it's Doc's turn for a profile or not(if it does, feel free to ignore this), but I am curious if Doc is just some guy(with cybernetics) or if he has some of that goatyness in the AU

In this au he's just some guy with cybernetics! (And superpowers of course, but the profile post will get into that.) He's not even green, although he does wear green shirts a lot. And he has a few goat-themed figurines and such in his house, more akin to how he was plastering his logo on everything in season 8 :P

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Coast Guardian

Civilian name: Baxter “xB” Craft

Affiliation: HHH

Power: Fish traits 

Coast Guardian is a name that tends to fly under people's radar. He has an official HHH file, which is the only way I realized he was a member. I wonder if they pay him or if they just wanted one less vigilante “liability” in town. He isn't on any of the major HHH squads as far as I'm aware; he mostly works in his civilian guise as a lifeguard at Turtle Beach, actually. I've watched him in action - he's a damn good lifeguard and surprisingly good at hiding that he's a super unless you know what you're looking for.

One might clock onto xB generally being the only lifeguard on the beach who wears a hoodie and closed-toe shoes; he, of course, is hiding webbed feet and folded-back fish fins on his forearms and back. When he goes into the water, he drops the hoodie and shoes and flexes the fins to swim super fast and with precise control. He can also breathe underwater; I don't know if he has visible gill slits anywhere or if it just... works with his lungs. I'm not a metabiologist.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Webstringer

Civilian name: Cleo Zambeigh

Affiliation: Vigilante

Power: Ranged force transfer

If you haven't heard of Webstringer, that's understandable; they don't advertise their existence as much as some supers do, and they aren't the most active vigilante in town. This isn't me judging them - that'd be pretty hypocritical, coming from a super who doesn't use her power for any kind of heroism at all. I'm a firm believer in supers’ right to choose what they do with their powers. Anyway, Cleo has a pretty involved day job as the head editor of the Hermiton Herald, so it makes sense that she wouldn't spend a lot of time doing unpaid hero-ing on the side. Every so often she shows up to break up a fight or stop some minor crime, though. 

Webstringer is so called because she’s able to “catch” targets in her power and push, pull, and manipulate them from afar as if she's tied strings to them. This power does not differentiate between living and nonliving targets, but it is limited by human strength. They can't rip bricks out of a building, but they can yank a gun out of a mugger’s hand and make him punch himself in the face.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

The Grim

Civilian name: Ren Wolfe

Affiliation: nHo

Power: Wolf traits

Interestingly, it seems like either the HHH or someone at the Herald was the first to call the ominous figure at Doc’s side “The Grim”. In the earliest nHo records of Ren that I found, he's usually referred to as just “the guard dog” or “the attack dog”, despite almost always being seen on the field in his black robe with his scythe strapped across his back. (Also, the scythe never seems to get any use - it must be more of an intimidation tactic. I wonder if it's even a viable weapon or if it's only a lightweight prop.)

Ren is one of the “animalistic” subgroup of supers (which sounds demeaning to me but to be fair I can't think of a better term either), sporting wolf-like ears and claws at his fingertips. His claws are his weapon of choice when he enters a fight, but when he's guarding Doc and there is no immediate threat, he prefers to wave the scythe menacingly at heroes who come near.

Ren is somewhat young, compared to much of the nHo inner circle, and he's the only one apart from Doc to go by an alias that isn't just a single letter. He's also the closest to Doc, being his bodyguard. This all makes his position in the nHo kind of unusual, and makes one wonder how he got there. He does have a brother, Jono, who plays music at local establishments but as far as I know hasn't really done any bigger gigs... I wonder if, maybe, Ren was lured into the nHo with the promise of making enough money for the both of them. Or, something like that - I don't know their personal story.

Check the first file

[hermit-world-of-power-au]

Mayor Scar Goodtimes

Affiliation: Civilian

Power: Biokinesis

One should be glad that Mayor Scar is unlikely to have used his superpower to get to the position he's in. My own bit of luck comes from government officials and associates having their own clear set of super-identifying files... though the files don't pick up everyone, as a certain infiltrator from the nHo demonstrates. From there, I learned that Scar has the ability to physically control the movement of living things, with varying degrees of ease. He even has a list of how difficult different things are to affect, with plants being the easiest, up to the almost impossible of humans that are unwilling and know what he's doing. He's done work with Councilman Bdubs before, unsurprisingly. I would almost wonder if Scar knows about Bdubs’ other associations, but I think the mayor is too cozy with the CEO of ConCorp, the nHo’s biggest business rival, to ever knowingly aid or take advice from the nHo.

Check the first file