Sparkler
Power Level: 10 [12] (236/250PP) Trade-Offs: None Unspent Power Points: 14
In Brief: A young pyrokinetic witch whose comfortable world was shattered by the revelation of her parents' horrific crimes. She is determined never to be taken advantage of by anyone again.
Residence: Claremont Academy Base of Operations: Claremont Academy Catchphrase: None
Alternate Identity: Raina Sanderson Identity: Secret Birthplace: Angel Mounds, Indiana Occupation: High School Student Affiliations: None Family: Eric Sanderson (father), Rochelle (Miller) Sanderson (mother), Maxwell Miller (grandfather), Margaret Miller (grandmother)
Description: Age: 21 (DoB: 08/28/1999) Apparent Age: 16, unless she wants to look older Gender: Female Ethnicity: Caucasian Height: 5'10 Weight: 135 Eyes: Blue Hair: Blonde
Aside from being unusually tall for her age, Raina in the wild doesn't have a lot of distinguishing features. She can use makeup to make herself look considerably older and more attractive, when the right tools are available. She has honey-blonde hair that she currently wears shoulder length, and her clothes are an odd mixture of Walmart shapeless specials and a few designer pieces.
Power Descriptions:
Sparkler's powers are all of the Magic descriptor, and when she uses them, she is obviously casting spells with words and hand gestures. (Some of them are more subtle than others.) Some of her spells require props or components, which she carries with her in her purse or in a pouch on her uniform. Fire being controlled by her power tends to burn unnatural colors, sickly yellow or bright red mostly, but will revert to normal color when she releases control.
History:
Growing up, Raina always believed she was special. Not only was she an only child, she was one of the very few children at all in her tiny hometown of Angel Mounds, Indiana, so there wasn't much competition for adult attention. And not only that, but her parents were Very Important People, which made her that much specialer by proxy. Dad was the mayor of Angel Mounds, and had been since long before Raina was born (surprisingly long, though she didn't notice that till it was too late), while Mom was the most beautiful woman in Spencer County, and one of the most socially active. Their big house was always full of people and parties, and even before she was old enough to stay up past nine pm, Raina had a polished set of social manners and a wardrobe large enough to need an entire second bedroom. She went to an exclusive private school in Evanston and got excellent grades, partially because she was smart and partially because her family were Important Donors. Grownups fawned over her, other children wanted to be her friends.
But that wasn't why Raina believed she was special. Raina always knew she was special because of the magic. Down beneath the ballroom and the formal dining room and all the fancy landscaping, there was another wing to the Sanderson home, one that was shrouded in grown-up mystery and thus endlessly fascinating. After the fancy parties were over, Dad and Mom and some of their good friends would slip down to those rooms and not come out till morning, usually looking exhausted, dirt-smeared and very pleased with themselves. Raina was only seven years old the first time she palmed a key from her mother's wardrobe and made her way down the secret stairs to find rooms filled with old, stinky books, weird jars of herbs and animal parts and different kinds of stones, and big iron cauldrons hanging over cold firepits, waiting to be used. She understood right away what it was all for, of course. She wasn't stupid. She'd already read the first Harry Potter book! Everybody knew that magic was real, but now it was really-real, and it was inside her own house.
Having parents who were a witch and wizard (they preferred “practitioners,” but Raina knew better) wasn't always all it was cracked up to be. She'd barely been in the basement five minutes before her mother and father were racing down the stairs, looking scarier than Raina had ever seen them before, their faces hard and mean and ready for a fight. She hid behind one of the cauldrons, but not before her dad caught sight of her. He rolled his eyes, the scary look dissolving away as he caught Raina by the arm and swung her up into the air like she was a little kid, making her giggle helplessly. “We've got an intruder all right,” he told Raina's mom, “and she's a menace! A menace!” Both parents laughed, and then Dad tickled Raina until she nearly wet her pants and completely forgot that she'd been scared.
After that, though, she had to explain how she'd gotten down there, which had led to the dreadful punishment of an entire weekend not being able to ride her pony or go out and play among the many strange mounds that gave her little town its name. But it was all worth it when her parents decided she was ready to learn magic herself. It was almost better than getting a letter from Hogwarts (even if she continued to hold out secret hope for several more years.) Dad explained to her that she would not be ready for “initiation into the mysteries” until she was sixteen, but there were things she could learn beforehand. They taught her useful little bits of magic to make life easier and more fun. A translation spell made foreign language classes a breeze, while a lockpick spell made pranks on classmates so much more satisfying. Learning to fly when she was fourteen was, of course, amazing, even if she could only do it while invisible. But her favorite, favorite spell of all was the fire control. Sure, it made lighting the ritual candles easy, which was what it was for, but it could do so much more. One too many mishaps with the curtains got her a stern injunction to only practice that spell outdoors, but that did nothing to dampen Raina's enthusiasm.
As she got older, Raina started noticing her parents getting busier and busier. Her father often went on trips for days at a time, while her mother was frequently away from dawn till dusk, with people over at night as well, downstairs in the ritual rooms and never letting her so much as watch. Raina might have worried that something bad was happening with them, except that they were so embarrassingly affectionate with each other when they were both home. She was fairly certain she was scarred for life just by watching a couple of their reunions after her dad had been away for a long weekend. And it wasn't as though she were a neglected child. There were summer camp trips that were more like resorts, vacations with friends, new clothes, shoes and hair for every new season. She knew there were bad things in the world. At school they talked about how the unsolved murder rate in the city was at an all-time high, and the teachers warned them not to go places on their own. People told stories about weird lights in the sky sometimes, and places near the river where plants died and animals wouldn't set foot. A lot of those places seemed to be near Angel Mounds, which had some of the only undisturbed forest left in the area. But none of that stuff really had any impact on Raina, so she pretty much ignored it.
Life was good for Raina at fourteen, but it was also somewhat lonely. Her friends from school lived in Evanston, and there were no kids her age nearby. When her parents were busy, she had nothing but the internet, which bored her. When she pestered her mother one too many times about it, Mom had snapped at her to get a familiar already, but not that damned smelly pony, and shut her out of her bedroom. Raina pouted, but went down to the basement and did her homework. She learned about familiars, learned how to create the bond, and had only to decide what animal she wanted. Black cats were definitely out, what could be more boring and obvious? Though she might have done it just to spite her mother, the pony was just too big (and kind of stupid, even though she still loved him). Birds were too noisy, dogs too obnoxious, snakes and lizards too icky. She was stuck for ideas until one day at school when her one vegan friend all but burst into tears while giving an oral report about the local research facility and their animal testing experiments. She gulped and sniffled her way through horror stories about fuzzy little mice and sweet bunny rabbits and even tiny little baby monkeys, and suddenly Raina had an idea.
Breaking into the research facility was hardly Raina's first foray into breaking and entering, but it was the first time she'd done it for more than practice or harmless pranking. Silent and invisible, she'd snuck through the facility till she'd found the animal testing labs, quiet and dark in the nighttime. She'd turned on the lights, had a look around, barfed into a trash can, then gotten down to business. As promised, among the cages of other animals was one small capuchin monkey, scared to death and with some kind of paint smeared over his fur, but otherwise apparently unharmed. He had a clever face, Raina decided. “You wanna get out of here?” she asked him, and he indicated that yes indeed, he would very much like to get out of this place. She opened his cage, and all the other cages for good measure, and after a heart-pounding and really entertaining chase through the corridors, got her new prize safely out of captivity and home with her. She gave him a bath, named him Merlin, and performed the familiar spell, greatly pleased with her own cunning and daring.
Merlin took to being a familiar extremely well. Like, extremely well. Like, all familiars got some measure of their human companion's intelligence, but sometimes Raina wondered if the monkey might not be just a little bit smarter than her. He was certainly smart in different ways. When she had to leave him home and go to school, she taught him how to use the computer and the internet to keep himself entertained. By the end of the second week, he'd started ordering parts off Amazon and building himself a new computer system because hers was too old and slow for video games. After a couple of months, he was winning tournaments and using a voice synthesizer to randomly swear at other players in order to throw off suspicion. He loved Raina, and the feeling was mutual, but she'd really kind of hoped to have a little more in common with her familiar. She might have been better off with something a little dumber. But then he showed her how he'd hacked into the files at her school and changed the faculty page of her least favorite teacher to include a number of extremely unflattering descriptions he must have learned while gaming, and Raina was sure she'd made the exact right choice. Her parents had been surprisingly unperturbed by the story of how she'd gotten her new friend, and even when Raina took him into town or the city with her, nobody ever asked a single question.
Freshman year of high school kept Raina super-busy. She was at a new school, every bit as elite and exclusive as the last, but she was suddenly having more trouble than she'd ever had before. For one thing, she was getting tall. Like, really tall. Unfortunately, freakishly tall, especially compared to the tiny little freshman boys in her class. She was developing proportionately, at least, so she got some hips and breasts to go with the monstrous tallness, but that was only slight consolation. Merlin, ever pragmatic, pointed out that with her birthday being what it was, she was already older than most of the other kids in her class. She might as well hang out with older students. Some YouTube tutorials and a lot of shopping acquired her makeup and clothes to meet the challenge, and with her family's money and a few words from her mom into the right ears (Raina suspected), she was soon back on top again. She got herself a boyfriend who was a junior and had a nice car, arranged her lunch table to suit herself, and shamelessly exploited her familiar to keep herself from failing math. All of this, though, was really just killing time. She was going to be sixteen next year, and sixteen was Old Enough. When she was sixteen, she would be inducted into the true mysteries of magic. She would know exactly what her parents and their friends did down in the basement when she wasn't allowed. She would finally get a taste of real power!
Raina's entire world came crashing down three weeks before Christmas. One night she was awakened from sleep by her mother shaking her roughly and telling her to get to the basement and hide, and not to say anything to anybody or make a single noise. Raina would've whined on general principle, but the look of fear on her mother's face wasn't something she'd ever seen before. Barefoot and in her nightgown, Merlin on her shoulder, she'd raced into the basement, where Dad and a half-dozen of her parents' closest friends were dressed in black robes, dark stuff smeared all over their faces. They seemed scared too, even after Mom had rejoined them and they'd all begun chanting around the largest cauldron. Raina didn't recognize any of the words, but she could feel the weight of magic in the air. It didn't feel good and comfortable and exciting the way magic usually felt, though. It felt... evil. Were they under attack? Were her parents trying to fight off some huge evil force bearing down on them? She thought about trying to help, but then the walls began to shake, and terror handily overwhelmed any heroic impulse. Cuddling Merlin like a stuffed animal, she hid her face against her knees and cowered behind the bookshelves while the chanting increased and the walls shuddered and the air grew almost too heavy with magic to breathe. She didn't even notice when the superheroes started to appear, not until the fighting started.
It wasn't a very long fight. The practitioners in Mom and Dad's coven were intellectuals, not hand-to-hand fighters, and they obviously hadn't expected to be teleported in on. Raina didn't understand what was going on, but she saw that people were attacking her parents, so she rushed to help, wielding underpowered fireballs for all she was worth, not even remembering she was still in her pajamas. She was subdued almost instantly, frozen in place and hoisted into the air, Merlin still clinging to her neck and just as immobilized. Within ten minutes, the entire coven was under arrest, Raina included, and being dragged off to... she didn't even know where. She'd never been more indignant and frightened in her entire life. What right had anybody to do this to her and her family? Indignation had dissolved into hysteria when a man in green and gold had tried to take Merlin away from her, and he'd finally been allowed to stay when she was put into an empty interrogation room. Raina had thought to ask for a lawyer, or at least a grownup, but when the superheroes came to talk to her, it was more like an intervention than an interrogation. They wanted to know about the plot to end the world, but in the face of her genuine bafflement and fear, they realized quickly she had no idea what was going on. So they told her.
It wasn't an easy story to believe. Raina's parents weren't evil! They were wealthy and powerful and well-connected, people liked them! They donated to charities all over the county! But that money, according to the heroes, was blood money, acquired through dark rituals and horrifying exploitation. Half the civic leaders of Evanston, and a few of Indiana, were trapped under the magical influence of the coven, willing to give them anything they wanted. Huge spells had been in place for decades to cloak and shield the practitioners of Angel Mounds while they used black magic to build their fortunes and eradicate their enemies. People who had crossed the Sandersons and their friends had been ending up missing for decades, with nobody willing to talk about it. Raina remembered hearing whispers like that, but who would believe something like that? It was crazy! The coven had used forbidden rituals to suck the lives out of animals, patches of land, even people, creating magically and psychically dead spaces near Angel Mounds, which was itself a deep well of dark power. They had kidnapped more than a dozen people in Evanston, brought them to the ritual space underneath the mansion, and ritually murdered them in an attempt to turn themselves into powerful lower beings. At that point, Raina had needed a little break from all the explaining, and had taken it with her head between her knees and a woman in white encouraging her to breathe a little more slowly. Raina hadn't wanted to believe any of it, but there was evidence, so much evidence. And there were things she'd seen, things she had noticed and just hadn't ever really paid attention to. But how could her parents be evil?
In the end, it hadn't mattered what Raina believed. With barely a moment for goodbyes, her parents and their friends were all bundled off to Blackstone Prison in Freedom City to await trial for a shockingly long list of charges. Raina hadn't been arrested and wasn't going with them, but she had nowhere to go. The mansion and all its contents were seized by the police and the superheroes. Raina had been allowed to pack one suitcase of her clothes and diaries and photos, after letting an agent dig through all of it to make sure she wasn't hiding evidence. She didn't even get to keep Merlin's computer. Everything else was just gone, even the pony. And so was all the money. Broke and alone, Raina suddenly found herself enmeshed in a system she had no influence over whatsoever, subject to the whims of people she didn't know, but was supposed to trust to look out for her best interests. But why the hell would she do that, when the people she trusted most had (maybe, surely not) done such horrible things? As the shock wore off she became more defiant, more angry, but it didn't have any more effect than if she'd been pliable. She was shipped off to grandparents she'd only met twice, her mother's parents, who disapproved of magic, money, anything fun, and most especially Raina herself.
Moving in with her grandparents meant not only switching schools but switching states, moving to Ohio and settling in a town far more isolated than Angel Mounds had ever been. It was far enough away that none of her friends would visit (not that it seemed likely anyway, after all that had happened), but close enough that the news had been saturated with coverage of the superbattle and the arrest of the evil demon-consorting coven. Raina quickly found herself a miserable outcast at school, with no way to fix things this time even if she'd had the energy. Home was no better; they treated Merlin like an animal and Raina like a delinquent, as though if she were given the least iota of freedom, she'd start trying to summon demons and murder people as well. Frustration and anger boiled inside Raina, and she welcomed it because it was a lot better than being afraid and lonely all the time.
She began to strain against the rules, sneaking out of the house, getting into fights at school. She set one particularly obnoxious sophomore's brand new car on fire with a wave of her hand, though she'd make sure to do it when it couldn't be pinned on her. Her grades for the year were abysmal, barely passing, but she didn't care. Her grandparents threatened to put her in foster care, but it didn't seem like that could be any worse. When the representative from Claremont Academy showed up, it seemed too good to be true, but Raina jumped on it anyway. Maybe it was a scam, and maybe this was just another group trying to take advantage of her, but at least it meant getting the hell out of Ohio and into a city big enough to get lost in. One thing was for sure, she wasn't going to ever trust anything an adult said to her ever again.
Personality & Motivation:
Raina grew up sheltered and more than a little spoiled, but she was a people-pleaser at heart, happiest in the center of an adoring crowd. She also had a tendency to take things at face value and believe that people had her best interests in mind. All of that bit her very hard on the ass, and now she's in a rebound phase. She is defensive and untrusting, rebellious for the sake of rebelling, unwilling to believe that anybody might have an uncomplicated desire to help her in any way. She wants to learn hero work to distance herself from the crimes of her parents, both in order to silence the people who say she's a villain by nature, and to extend a middle finger to the parents who betrayed her trust. Until she truly believes she can trust someone again, she's going to continue fighting authority just to let herself feel in control.
Powers & Tactics:
Planning is not Sparkler's strong suit; she's never had any training and had very little fighting experience. When she is pushed into combat, she will try and stay at a safe distance, preferably invisible, and launch fireballs at opponents until they fall down or go away. She currently has little capacity for teamwork, since there's nobody she'd trust to watch her back.
Complications: Stray Cat Sitting On A Fence: Raina sits between two worlds, the villainous legacy of her parents and the heroic aspirations of Claremont Academy. Neither is very accepting of her at the moment, villains see her as a quisling and heroes see her as a bad seed.
Ain't Got Enough Dough to Pay the Rent: All of Raina's family assets were frozen and seized when her parents were arrested, leaving her to cope with a much different style of living. Right now she has no income and no savings, not much to her name beyond the clothes on her bck and her monkey.
Strut Right By With My Tail In The Air: Raina is much too proud to ask for help in pretty much any circumstances, which includes trying to beg for friendship from people who are socially better positioned than she. This pride often manifests as aloofness and can be offputting, as well as keeping her from getting help when it would be really useful.
Get Shoes Thrown At Me By A Mean Old Man: Raina's relationship with her family is pretty terrible right now. Her parents are in prison and she can only see them once or twice a month, even if she wants to. Her grandparents basically hate her, and have pawned her off on Claremont with great relief. Of course, if she were to get kicked out of Claremont...
Howling in the Moonlight on a Hot Summer Night: Raina is currently in what might be charitably described as a rebellious phase. Nobody, in her opinion, can be trusted to look after her except herself, so she will make all her own decisions whether or not the rules say she can. In many ways, this makes her even easier to manipulate.
Got Cat Class, Got Cat Style: Unfortunately for someone who grew up in the Midwest, Raina hates cold weather. Hates being cold, hates feeling cold. It makes her fingers numb and messes up her powers, sometimes it feels like it even makes her fire less effective. She enjoys warmth and shuns cold whenever possible.
Wish I could Be As Carefree and Wild: Raina's main offensive power is throwing fireballs, which looks awesome and can be very effective, but it's also a little unpredictable. When she's doing something big with fire, especially if she's stunting with it, the chances of burning herself (or singeing off her hair and eyebrows) goes way up. This has not yet stopped her from playing with matches.
Abilities: 0 + 4 + 4 + 6 + 0 + 14 = 28PP
Strength: 10 (+0)
Dexterity: 14 (+2)
Constitution: 14 (+2)
Intelligence: 16 (+3)
Wisdom: 10 (+0)
Charisma: 24 (+7) Combat: 12 + 12 = 24PP
Initiative: +2
Attack: +6 Base, +10 The Sun, +12 Sick Ninja Moves
Grapple: +6
Defense: +10 (+6 Base, +4 Dodge Focus), +3 Flat-Footed
Knockback: -5/-1 Saving Throws: 4 + 4 + 10 = 18PP
Toughness: +10/+2 (+2 Con, +8 Protection)
Fortitude: +6 (+2 Con, +4)
Reflex: +6 (+2 Dex, +4)
Will: +10 (+0 Wis, +10) Skills: 88R = 22PP
Bluff 17 (+24) SM
Concentration 8 (+8)
Diplomacy 10 (+17) SM
Disable Device 0 (+3/+15) The Fool
Disguise 0 (+5/+25) The Moon
Intimidate 10 (+17) SM
Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 8 (+11) Knowledge (Theology/Philosophy) 6 (+9)
Notice 6 (+6)
Sense Motive 15 (+16)
Stealth 8 (+10) SM
Feats: 43PP
Attack Specialization (Fire Blast) 2
Challenge (Fast Taunt)
Dodge Focus 4
Luck
Quick Change
Ritualist
Sidekick 30
Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Stealth)
Taunt
Uncanny Dodge (Visual)
Enhanced Feats
Second Chance (Disable Device) The Fool
Powers: 10 + 7 + 10 + 4 + 12 + 1 + 8 + 4 + 11 + 34 = 101PP
Comprehend 5 ("The Tower"; Speak to and Understand Animals; Speak, Read and Comprehend Any One Language At a Time) [10PP]
Damage 2 ("Sick Ninja Moves", Feats: Accurate 3, Improved Critical, Innate) [7PP]
Device 2 (Broom, Flaw: Hard to Lose, Feats: Restricted 2 [Raina]) [10PP]
Enhanced Flight 3 (to Flight 7; 1,000mph/10,000fpm; Extra: Affects Others, Feats: Moving Feint) [10DP]
Enhanced Feat 1 (Second Chance [Disable Device]) [1] + Enhanced Skills 12 (Disable Device 12 [+15]) [3] "The Fool" [4PP]
Flight 4 ("The Chariot"; 100mph/1,000fpm; Extra: Affects Others) [12PP]
Immunity 1 (Environmental Heat) [1PP]
Protection 8 (The Empress) [8PP]
Super-Senses 4 ("The Magician"; Magic Awareness 3, Visual, Enhancement: Analytical) [4PP]
The Moon Array 5 (10PP, Sneakiness; Feats: Alternate Powers 1) [11PP]
Base Power: Concealment 4 (All Visual, Feats: Close Range, Selective) {10/10}
Alternate Power: Morph 4 (+20 Disguise; Feats: Covers Scent, Precise) {10/10}
The Sun Array 15 (30PP, Fire; Feats: Affects Insubstantial 2, Alternate Power 2) [34PP]
Base Power: Blast 10 ("Fire, and lots of it!"; Extra: Autofire) {30/30}
Alternate Power: Damage 10 ("Disco Inferno"; Extras: Area [General, Burst, 50-ft. radius], Selective Attack} {30/30}
Alternate Power: Move Object 10 ("hands of flame"; Extra: Damaging) {30/30}
DC Block: ATTACK RANGE SAVE EFFECT
Sick Ninja Moves Touch DC 17 Toughness Damage
Fire Blast Ranged DC 25 Toughness Damage
Totals:
Abilities (28) + Combat (24) + Saving Throws (18) + Skills (22) + Feats (43) + Powers (101) - Drawbacks (0) = 236/249 Power Points
