Young Paragons of Freedom

[Avenger Assembled]

PARAGONS-WANDER

Some people might say that Erin White has led a charmed life, but that's not really the case. It's true she's gotten some lucky breaks, she's the first to admit that. Born into an upper-middle-class family in Seattle, she has always had a very supportive and loving family, not to mention an excellent early education. And then there are the superpowers, of course. Erin was only nine years old when the al-Khayal attack and the subsequent eruption of superheroes rocked the entire world, but she didn't feel its effects until later. As Erin moved into puberty, she discovered that not only was she getting taller and prettier, she was getting stronger, faster, and more resilient as well. Testing revealed that she was developing superpowers, and that her potential was very strong. After a great deal of discussion, her parents sent her off to the Claremont Academy in Freedom City to be trained along with other young paragons. That was a lucky break, too. Though Erin missed her friends from home, she found it easy to find common ground with many of the other heroes in training, and soon was at the center of a close-knit group of friends, just like at home. Some of her friends eventually joined together to form Young Freedom, where Erin naturally moved into more and more of a leadership role as her powers grew stronger. It seemed like it was just meant to happen that way.

Under the surface, though, Erin has worked very hard to achieve the success she has today. Her power potential was just that, potential, until she released it through hundreds of hours of training and practice, then honed it in the field. Despite her friendly demeanor, she is an intensely focused and goal-oriented young woman who keeps her eyes on the prize. In this case, that prize is a coveted spot on the Freedom League. It's what she's wanted since she was fifteen years old, and now she's so close she can taste it. She knows she deserves it, and that she will be ready. At this point, it's just a matter of catching and holding the attention of the right people. This occasionally leads to some hotdogging behavior in the field, mostly stepping in and taking hits for her teammates when she doesn't need to, or ensuring that her uniforms get damaged in just the right places. Occasionally that causes tensions with her peers, but her Q-score is high despite her forgettable features, and that's important for a paragon who wants to go places.

[Avenger Assembled]

PARAGONS-COBALT TEMPLAR

Just days before he was to go on an incredible trip to the Middle East, Corbin Hughes' life changed forever. It was that day that a small gang of thieves, ones who specifically targeted the wealthy, broke into the home the Hughes had just moved into in Freedom City. They quickly herded the family into a sitting room, leaving two of them guarding the family while the other two started ransacking the house.

When one of the "guards" started making over threats towards Sarah Hughes, Corbin's rage, fear, and desire to protect his family coalesced into his life-changing moment: he experienced his Breakout. Blue energy wrapped itself around his body, incinerating the bonds holding him still, while leaving his family and home untouched. The criminals were not so lucky; the one threatening his mother lost his right hand to major fire damage, and took notable burns across his body. The other thugs were not as badly injured, but all were left unconscious and burned.

Of course, now Corbin was wreathed in strange blue fire, and had to exert constant control not to burn anything. Thankfully, he gained much more control in just a few hours. In the meantime, some frantic calls to friends of friends helped make sure the events of the day would stay "hush-hush", and that Corbin would be put somewhere to help him further control his powers.

That placed turned out to be Claremont Academy. While they didn't like the arrangement. both Corbin and his folks knew he needed to get a handle on his breakout powers, and this was the only logical place. They got to work on figuring out what was going on, and how to best help Corbin train his abilities.

Testing revealed something interesting: Corbin had developed incredible mental powers, mainly tapping into the energies of the Imageria. But for the moment, he needed a sort of "focus device", a subconscious "gateway" to send his powers through while his mind and body adjusted to them. Strangely enough, it ended up being his school ring, one with a white gold band and a dark blue gem. This of course meant that the manifestations of his powers were blue.

The teachers and other lab techs theorized that, in time, Corbin would manifest his powers without a need for the ring. For now, though, he shaped reality via a simple piece of jewelry. Thankfully, his spirits didn't seem to flag any, and he soon took on a heroic name to suit the heroic costume he created for himself: Cobalt Templar! He even started hero work with Young Freedom, the team based out of Claremont Academy itself, composed of fellow teenage heroes.

Personality: Essentially the same as his Earth-Prime self, though with less strife with his parents about his powers. He slots well into Young Freedom, though at times his somewhat Type-A self can cause minor issues when they try to plan what to do.

Power Description: Corbin's mind and body store, focus, and release enormous amounts of telekinetic energy, laced with the unique energies of the Imageria. This allows him to not only manifest basic protective and enhancing abilities, but to create semi-real objects. Already, his body is "processing" parts of his powers, making him extraordinarily tough even without his ring; with it, he's a human tank. Certainly his ability to fire blasts of energy from unique "weaponry, or form hand weaponry from the same mixed energies make him a powerful combatant who's only just begun to realize his potential.

He has found that those who wield powers more directly connected to the Imageria, or that otherwise involved shifting dimensions around, can be unusually harmful to him, though it's certainly not the sort of thing that instantly wins a fight for an opponent.

Appearance: Only change from Earth-Prim is the removal of the cape from the costume, and replacing all the red trim with gold, to fit the Claremont/Young Freedom color scheme.

[Avenger Assembled]

PARAGONS-EDGE

Mark Lucas is a Freedom City boy, born and bred. He's always been a comic book geek, devouring stories of fictional heroes and villains, but luckily his strong personality and near-manic energy kept him from the social consequences of that fixiation when he got older. His addiction was greatly assisted by his father Rick, a retired Freedom City police officer who owned the city's largest comic book shop and small-press independent publisher, located on the 89th floor of the Pyramid Plaza's West Tower.

Mark was just nine years old on 9/11, and he watched in horror from his suburban home as the tower where his father worked crumbled twenty minutes after the first plane hit. He and his mother watched, eyes pressed to the TV, as rescue workers went into action, only to have the horror of that day taken away by the shock and awe of the very first paragons! It was Captain Thunder himself who rescued Rick Lucas from the stairwell where he and a group of schoolchildren had taken shelter, and the moment his father shook hands with the future Lady Liberty as the cameras caught Beth Walton-Wright's face for the first time, Mark knew that all his dreams had come true: the superheroes had come to save the day!

Rick Lucas got a job doing publicity with the Freedom League after that, and Mark grew up alongside the nascent League, hoping and praying that one day he'd be a paragon too! Sure enough, when he was sixteen, a check at the Albright Institute required for families of League employees revealed the paranormal gene, and Mark Lucas became a student at the Claremont Academy. He worked hard and he trained hard, developing his paranormal abilities as best he could. He wasn't the smartest student, but his incredible probability powers made him very succesful: his nascent gift let him manipulate quantum reality at the smallest level.

He was a natural fit for Young Freedom, his good looks and flashy powers making him the perfect cheerleader for the team, and the perfect boyfriend for Wander, the team leader. They don't spend a lot of time together off-camera or when they're not training, but he doesnt mind; Mark's never been one to examine the world where he lives too closely, and he's not one to look into Wander's feelings too much either. They enjoy each other's company, go to bed when he's been really good, and they share a mutual drive to succeed: what could be the matter with that?

Everything was great until just a few months ago, when Rick Lucas unexpectedly left his work with the Freedom League and went to work for the Seven Thunders, a viciously anti-paragon Baptist sect in Texas, a public breach that has made him a fixture on talk shows to talk about the inner corruption of the League. He's written letters home to tell Mark that it's all a plan by the League, that the breach with his wife and employers was part of a long-term undercover operation. But deep down, Mark doesn't really believe it. He thinks his dad got tired of being around superheroes and having no powers of his own, so he left to try and tear them down and rebuild the world in his own image.

But he smiles and waves, and keeps his relationships up, trying to stay sane even as one of the foundations of his world crumbles away. If he wishes hard, and hopes hard, maybe the bad things will stop. Maybe his dad will come back, maybe he'll be there to see Edge get into the League. He can hope, can't he?

[Avenger Assembled]

PARAGONS-SAGE

Largely unchanged background. Still gymnast, psychic, had breakout at a meet.

Differences.

Martel family isn't as sweet and wholesome as Prime-Martels are. They use their money and power to influence policy in France (and beyond). Like you said in the chat. Imagine if one of the Kennedy's or Rockefeller's developed super powers. The Family wants to use her for industrial espionage and as a lever to influence policy in some areas.

Unknown to the family though is that Sage knows, and she's not too comfortable with that. She adores her family and all, it's brought her a lot of things, but she's still a kid and her moral compass isn't completely screwed up.

[Avenger Assembled]

PARAGONS-MIDNIGHT

Acclaimed chemist Travis Hunter was one of the scientist tapped by the American government during the second World War to study the Centurion Process and its unquantified 'X-Factor'. Although neither he nor the rest of the team were ultimately successful, Hunter was exposed to variety of compounds and radiations, minute quantities which built up in his system, but were certainly no more dangerous than the cigarettes he famously chain smoked. It was the latter that would catch up with him, sadly, passing away shortly after the birth of his grandson, Trevor Hunter.

Trevor's father Ted shared neither Travis' love of science or extravagant parties, instead instead funneling the drive inherent in all the Hunter men into business, turning a modest fortune built on chemical patents into one of the notable inclusions in the list of Freedom City's extravagantly wealthy. An outgoing woman with a sincere passion for the finer things in life, Janet Pryce-Hunter was an equally extreme personality, something which drew the pair together initially but ultimately made for a difficult marriage. Trevor's birth was in large part an attempt to remedy those problems. Not surprisingly, it was not terribly successful, leading to a divorce when he was still quite young.

Splitting his time between his family estate in Freedom and whichever country his globetrotting mother was staying in at the time, Trevor was raised largely by nannies and aides but at least received a singular education. An intensely quiet child, he was a keen listener, absorbing knowledge and skills like a sponge and noticing detail most others missed. More obvious were his physical gifts, as he grew into a physically imposing young man with a talent and passion for athletics - or at least challenging himself personally. An eerie calm punctuated by bursts of anger and resentment made team sports difficult, with the former attracting provocation and the latter earning him a reputation among the private school circuit as volatile. It wasn't long before he decided to play into the stereotype, arriving to school each day on a custom built motorcycle and taking a dark satisfaction in finally living up to someone's expectations.

Making frequent trips into the seedier parts of the city and getting into fights gave Trevor the perfect opportunity to learn just how gifted he really was. He was fast and strong, perhaps even a little more than his athletic form should have accounted for, and his night vision was well beyond anything that could be considered normal. When a nasty cut from a beer bottle smoked and bled a soot-hued black before mending almost before his eyes, there was no question that Trevor Hunter was something not entirely human. Rather than dwell on the repercussions, he began testing himself by challenging larger and larger threats, changing his training regimen to focus on martial arts and tactics. It wasn't long before the next logical step was donning a pitch black uniform of the best ripping edge body armor and stealth tech money could buy and establishing the persona of Midnight, a figure of half urban legend who struck from the shadows.

Paragons!Midnight lacks his Earth-Prime counterparts' signature midnight mist, but retains his astounding night vision, his eyes appearing normal except when he's angry, turning to ebony and smoldering red. He also relies less on gadgets thanks to physical abilities pushed just past ordinary human peak levels. Even so, he favours stealth and has so far managed to remain largely 'off the grid' in terms of media attention, despite a few encounters with the current senior class at the Claremont Academy. Although coming across as terse and dismissive, Midnight is ultimately surprisingly empathic, genuinely wanting to help people. Even so, resentment toward his parents makes working with anyone looking to cash in on their powers through wealth and fame difficult.