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rebelarrow〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Kaitie
AGE: Over 21
JOURNAL:redconfession
IM / EMAIL: Kaitie#0107 on Discord
PLURK:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
redconfession
RETURNING: Current (Midnighter, Roland Crane, Kirk Langstrom)
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Judd Lauren
CHARACTER AGE: 29/30
SERIES: Psy-Changeling
CHRONOLOGY: The end of Allegiance of Honor
CLASS: Despite formerly being an assassin, he's a hero
HOUSING: No Preference
BACKGROUND:
In Judd's world, it's the year 2082, and unlike our world where just one human race inhabits it, there are three: Humans, Changelings, and Psy. As such, though the history of their Earth runs mostly parallel to our own, there are some minor differences, the most major being that email and the internet was a commonly used tool going back as far as at least the 1970s, with one character remarking that it was thanks to Psy minds that they were able to create it as early as they did. For hundreds of years, the three races lived in relative harmony, with the biggest skiff prior to 1979 between them being the Changeling Territorial Wars in the mid-1800s, where violence between the fighting Changelings packs would often spill over onto the human and Psy communities. It was famously a human, Adrian Kenner who was able to finally garner peace between them, as Adrian was able to work out a compromise the fighting parties absolutely would not have been able to agree to were the solution created amongst one of them.
What happened in 1979, you ask, that changed all that? The Psy, who in their desperation to curb the excessive amounts of their kind that would snap from the weight of the mental abilities and turn on their family and friends, instituted a policy known as Silence, where all emotion, which they believed to be the cause of such breaks, would be conditioned out of all Psy from birth. Over a hundred years has passed since then, and the ramifications of this desperate act are finally (mostly) known. But before we go into the consequences, a bit more about the three races:
Changelings
Psy. As stated, all Psy require biofeedback to stay alive, they must receive it from a psychic network of similar minds. For most Psy, it's The PsyNet, but if enough minds sever their connections at the same time, they can form a smaller network. If a Psy were mated to a Changeling, that link would also be sufficient to allow them to receive the necessary biofeedback for life. Any Psy removed from their biofeedback network would die within minutes, and it's been shown that, at least on the PsyNet, any sort of significant change in the Net can cause a ripple effect that would rip a low gradient Psy mind from the PsyNet and cause death.
Additionally, in order to protect their minds in both the physical and psychic planes, Psy are adept at building mental shields that not only protect their minds from outside thoughts but protects their own thoughts from being projected outward. Shield techniques vary from person to person, to best suit their own needs, though exceptionally skilled shield builders will share their techniques (if they are so inclined), or someone clever enough can copy the technique by watching said shield in practice.
There is a secret subgroup to the Psy known as The Forgotten, who were Psy who defected the PsyNet at the start of Silence, as they opposed the measure. As they have intermingled with Humans and Changelings for the past hundred years, the Forgotten are beginning to show abilities previously unseen in the world.
Finally, there are Humans, who are similar in every way to humans everywhere else and possess no innate abilities that would be considered superhuman in other universes. Often overlooked by the other two races, humans, especially in the past hundred years, Humans have come to consider themselves the underdogs. Some might be weary of their powerful Changeling brethren, but most have gotten extremely wary of or outright hate their Psy neighbors. This is due to the fact that unlike Changelings, who have naturally nigh-impenetrable shields, humans typically have no mental shields at all, allowing unscrupulous Psy to dig into human minds and steal sensitive data or, worse, use humans as puppets to do their bidding. Most humans know someone who was violated by one Psy or another, and as such they try to keep their distance.
In an effort to put Humans back on a level playing field with the other two races, the Human Alliance, a business network of various human families and corporations, has been steadily building power in order to do just that. In addition to try and create an implant that will create an impenetrable mental shield around a human mind, the Alliance has been forming alliances with various Changeling packs across the world.
Judd, in a very short amount of time, has found himself smack in the middle of the triumvirate and their shifting power struggles. Born into the Walker family group, he remained a part of their family unit until the age of 10, when he accidentally killed a friend of his named Paul with his powerful telekinetic abilities. He was immediately signed over to the Arrow Squad, a group of some of the deadliest Psy on the planet, who were originally formed at the dawn of Silence to protect Silence at all costs.
Unfortunately for Judd, by the time he became a member, leadership had been corrupted under a man named Ming LeBon, a former Arrow himself who had risen to power as a member of the Psy Council and had come to view the squad as his personal death squad. As a young adult, he had been put on a drug called Jax, which was designed to strip him of his free will and execute commands to the letter, under the guise of a strength boost. When Judd discovered what was happening, he began to act erratically, not significantly, but just enough to make his trainers consider the possibility his ability to perform his duties was compromised under the drug. He would learn years later that fellow Arrows caught on to what he was doing, and followed suit. Jax was phased out of the Squad.
The only thing that kept him from breaking entirely was his brother, Walker. Walker, who had a vague insight into the horrific conditions of the Arrow training facility as a former teacher of the various telepaths but powerless to stop it, managed to keep Judd a part of the family as best he could. As part of Judd's abilities allowed him to teleport, he would occasionally slip his trainer's psychic leash on him and visit his brother to remind himself he had family and wasn't alone.
Things changed drastically for Judd and the other Laurens when the Psy Council signed a rehabilitation order (an order which the "rehabilitated" has their mind wiped, rendering them incapable of doing anything but menial tasks) for the entire Lauren line, including his his young niece, Marlee, his young nephew, Toby, and his teenage niece Sienna. As an Arrow, he technically was excluded from this order, but chose to follow Walker through with his plan in an attempt to protect the children.
Shortly before the order was to be executed, the Lauren brothers whisked the kids into the Sienna Nevada woods in California, home to the largest pack in North America, the SnowDancer wolves. They had chosen SnowDancer to defect because of their rumored motto of "shoot first and ask questions of the corpses" and their seeming willingness to do whatever it took to protect their young. Both Walker and Judd fully intended to die shortly adter stepping into SnowDancer land, but did so in a last-ditch effort to save the other three.
Luckily for the older Laurens, SnowDancer alpha, Hawke Snow, didn't have them killed on sight, and allowed the entire family unit to live in their den. The Lauren's cut their ties to the PsyNet, and together formed a small network they dubbed the LaurenNet that allowed for their survival. It took them a while to integrate themselves into the pack, with the children adapting quicker than the adults. For a while their was mutual wariness on both sides, though over time, and Judd proving his loyalty to the pack by saving a dying packmate by psychically repairing a shattered heart, they came to become respected members of the pack, with Walker mating the pack's main healer, Lara Knight, and becoming the main teacher of the 9 to 12s, and Judd mating a SnowDancer comm tech, Brenna Kincaid, and becoming one of Hawke's 10 lieutenants.
While the Lauren's settled into SnowDancer, the landscape on the PsyNet was beginning to change. Following major defections two cardinal Psy--the daughter of a Psy Councilor, and one of the most powerful foreseer's on the planet--to SnowDancer ally DarkRiver, the Psy started to debate silently, then more openly, about the validity of Silence imposed upon them many years ago. It led to the rise of a group of Psy fanatics known as Pure Psy, who believed that for the Psy race's continued superiority, they must not only maintain Silence but distance themselves from the "emotional" races.
As Pure Psy's fanaticism grew, so too did the violence they would inflict. Though there were other targets, DarkRiver and, by proximity and alliance, SnowDancer, were frequently targets, with the two packs stopping multiple bomb attempts and covert attacks. The culmination of smaller skirmishes turned into a large battle in both San Francisco and the Sierra Nevada woods. While Judd helped DarkRiver turn the tides in San Francisco by deflecting missiles with his telekinesis (and accidentally becoming a local celebrity in the process), his packmates fought Pure Psy's most fanatical, with his niece, Sienna, ending the fight in one burst of her cold fire Psy abilities.
The general public's views on Pure Psy had been shifting towards the negative from the beginning, but the larger the displays of violence, the more the public tended to shift against them. If that weren't bad enough for the zealots, their actions actually wound up having consequences they never desired. For starters, bringing the three races together in a way they hadn't been in over a hundred years, forced to talk to one another in an attempt to keep their loved ones safe. Realizing a need for more formal communications, the three races drafted up the Trinity Accord, a document signed by major players of the three races, promising a new era of cooperation.
For another, the Psy realized that they needed emotion within the PsyNet in order for their continued survival. The lack thereof for the past 100 years had caused the system to start to decay, and without assistance from the hidden E, or Empath, designation, it would have collapsed by the end of the year.
PERSONALITY:
At first glance, Judd has a tendency to give off the aura of cold. His voice is on the flat side and he has a stare that could freeze a fire. And though it's true it's part of who he is, growing up as a member of a shadowy black ops team, it's also a byproduct of living in Silence for 20+ years, and now he's been able to learn to smile and laugh freely, which he does... around those he cares about.
Because at his core, Judd Lauren is a protector. While an Arrow, he did what he could to protect himself and other Arrows from Jax, as well as other people from the Psy race's more destructive aims as a rebel. Upon defecting, he fiercely protected his family among the SnowDancer wolves, even as they settled in as he (initially) purposefully stayed on the fringes. Once becoming a SnowDancer lieutenant, however, that protection extended to the entire den, where he would lay down his life in a second for any member of his pack.
He is especially protective over children in his care. Judd would murder a million people in order to protect the child or children in his care, and he would be sure to hide the carnage from them in the process. He firmly believes that children should be able to grow up in happiness in a way that he wasn't, and does what he can to foster said happiness, becoming a popular playmate for cubs of all ages, performing telekinetic "tricks" he would have only considered for meting out death a few years prior to their delight.
As a byproduct of his deadly telekinetic abilities, he's extremely conscious of his surroundings and his mental state, meditating and practicing martial arts in order to keep a firm grip on his abilities. That isn't to say he keeps a stranglehold on his abilities and emotions, as he's found, a bit paradoxically, that letting his hold go slightly actually helps, but that doesn't stop him from maintaining vigilance.
Finally, Judd is fiercely loyal to his last breath to anyone that earns his trust, but after multiple betrayals, his trust isn't that simple to gain, and should it ever be lost, it would be almost impossible to get it back. People that he considers brothers now it took him years to be comfortable enough to admit the full extent of his abilities to, and on the flipside, he went to great lengths to conceal the identity of his best friend, the leader of the PsyNet rebellion back when the fall of Silence was still a dream.
POWER:
Telepathy - registering at 9.4 on the gradient, Judd can clearly broadcast his thoughts to another across large distances, and as part of his training can utilize his telepathy offensively to smash into another person's mind, or, if they have one, smash through a mental shield, severely injuring the person in the process. For those without shields, or without strong shielding, Judd can enter their minds and pluck out thoughts, but the idea of doing so without an insanely damn good reason for it is repugnant to him.
As a result of being such a strong Telepath, he needs to maintain strong shields to keep other people's thoughts, either stray or intentional, from entering his mind. Too many stray thoughts could lead to a mental breakdown.
Telekinesis - registering a 9.9 on the gradient, Judd's tk is the highest possible grade without tipping him into Cardinal status. He has the ability and training to manipulate objects with his mind, from something as mundane as creating a telekinetic field around his body to keep himself dry or warm, to something as powerful as stopping missiles mid-flight, mid-air, and turning them on a dime to hit the planes they came from instead.
As some Tks are, Judd is teleport-capable, meaning that, with a clear visual lock on a specific place, he can travel to it. Further, if they are close enough to him, he can 'port them as well. The longer the distance (or the more passengers he has), the more energy it takes to travel there, and as such he tries not to 'port unless it's short distances or absolutely necessary. Additionally, the visual lock must be specific and it must be (relatively speaking) unique; a picture of a group of trees alone won't do it, one or more of them must have a specific trunk, or knot, or perhaps a scarf tied around a branch. Additionally, should Judd have a visual lock on a location, something as simple as rearranging the furniture in a room would do the trick to making it unusable, as a teleporter's abilities naturally prevent someone from potentially 'porting into an unknown wall or piece of furniture.
Specifically speaking, Judd isn't merely a Tk, he is a specific sub-designation known as TK-Cell. This incredibly deadly ability allows him to rearrange living matter on a cellular level. Under the arrow squad, he utilized this ability to stop people's hearts with a thought, but now can use that same skill to heal catastrophic wounds that could otherwise not be treated, such as a re-creating a packmate's heart that had been shredded to pieces due to an assassin's gun utilizing the pieces of his heart still around the heart, and moving small pieces of flesh from other parts of his body to the heart.
And not specifically a power, but more of a side-effect of being a Tk, Judd is considered extremely graceful and fluid in his movements, even among the changelings where grace is usually their thing. This doesn't mean he's graceful enough to dodge bullets or anything, but he can move better and more fluidly than the average person.
[Flameout] - All Psy have a limited amount of psychic power that they can tap into that slowly replenishes throughout the day (think slowly regenerating MP). Marginal psychic use, such as 'pathing a Psy next to them, will barely register as that energy can be quickly replenished. Using more of that power, however, it takes longer for the body to replenish that psychic storehouse, and once those reserves are gone, they begin to flameout. That Psy can no longer access any of their psychic abilities, feel as if they're in a fog or floating underwater, and not long after their bodies tend to shut down to replenish psychic reserves undisturbed.
Additionally, even if intense psychic use doesn't lead to flameout, massive amounts of psychic energy at once can lead to physical weakness and physical thinning of the body. Psy have to be careful about their caloric intake in regards to their psychic strength, and massive amounts of psychic energy require massive amounts of calories to replenish their bodies.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
[Though nothing's wrong about the video broadcast itself--the subject is properly framed, giving nothing away in the background that might betray his location, the focus sharp--the subject is... slightly off-putting. Taken from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, there's nothing wrong there either--he's a classically handsome man with chocolate brown hair and brown eyes flecked with gold, dressed simply in a plain white shirt paired with a black leather synth jacket.
It's his expression, stone-faced, impassive, and icily cold, that's so off as he stares into his communicator's lens.]
I just have one question: Who finds it acceptable to kidnap children from their homes and force them to fight a war that's none of their concern?
[His tone is as arctic as his expression, if not more so, as his look of impassivity transforms into one of ice cold anger.]
Tell me someone knows the answer to this.
[And with that, he cuts the feed.]
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
This place, this... alternate world Judd has found himself in was, among a variety of other things, far too loud. He had never realized how much his shields had been constructed with Psy and Changelings in mind until they were, seemingly, gone. The moment he had entered the populated city the locals called Heropa, he found himself bombarded with stray thoughts. Though he had quickly thrown up rudimentary shields instinctively, it wasn't long before they started to fall apart, the craftsmanship too basic for so much ambient noise.
A short visual scan of the area and Judd has located a relatively quiet alleyway to duck into, and he pressed his body against the brick, pulling his synth leather jacket closer in an attempt to blend better with his surroundings.
Though he never pulled his full attention away from his surroundings on the physical plane, running a steady, surface-level telepathic scan that would alert him to anyone's approaching presence, his eyes become unfocused somewhat as he stepped into the mental plane. While it wasn't necessary to be on the mental plane to construct the type of shield he needed in this new world, it helped to see his work while constructing something so unfamiliar. Unlike home, this plane was cold and barren, the connections to his family, his fellow lieutenants, and, more importantly, Brenna, visible on his end, but fading into obscurity the farther he followed it.
It reminded him of the bond between his brother-in-law, Riley, and his mate, Marcy, two high-ranking members of allied packs firmly rooted in two different psychic networks... Only his seemed to be a network of one. This should mean he should have been dead by now, the loss of the biofeedback necessary for him to survive cut off in a world without psychic connections. He felt it then, a faint feeling of warmth and love and everything that was quintessentially Brenna. The bonds. He was still receiving the biofeedback he needed from the others, despite being unable to reach them through the SnowDancerNet. Sending back a feeling of love, he silently vowed then and there he would find a way to get back home to Brenna quickly.
But first, he had to build better shields.
FINAL NOTES:
I'm so sorry for the novel that is the background section.
NAME: Kaitie
AGE: Over 21
JOURNAL:
redconfessionIM / EMAIL: Kaitie#0107 on Discord
PLURK:
RETURNING: Current (Midnighter, Roland Crane, Kirk Langstrom)
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Judd Lauren
CHARACTER AGE: 29/30
SERIES: Psy-Changeling
CHRONOLOGY: The end of Allegiance of Honor
CLASS: Despite formerly being an assassin, he's a hero
HOUSING: No Preference
BACKGROUND:
In Judd's world, it's the year 2082, and unlike our world where just one human race inhabits it, there are three: Humans, Changelings, and Psy. As such, though the history of their Earth runs mostly parallel to our own, there are some minor differences, the most major being that email and the internet was a commonly used tool going back as far as at least the 1970s, with one character remarking that it was thanks to Psy minds that they were able to create it as early as they did. For hundreds of years, the three races lived in relative harmony, with the biggest skiff prior to 1979 between them being the Changeling Territorial Wars in the mid-1800s, where violence between the fighting Changelings packs would often spill over onto the human and Psy communities. It was famously a human, Adrian Kenner who was able to finally garner peace between them, as Adrian was able to work out a compromise the fighting parties absolutely would not have been able to agree to were the solution created amongst one of them.
What happened in 1979, you ask, that changed all that? The Psy, who in their desperation to curb the excessive amounts of their kind that would snap from the weight of the mental abilities and turn on their family and friends, instituted a policy known as Silence, where all emotion, which they believed to be the cause of such breaks, would be conditioned out of all Psy from birth. Over a hundred years has passed since then, and the ramifications of this desperate act are finally (mostly) known. But before we go into the consequences, a bit more about the three races:
Changelings
Psy. As stated, all Psy require biofeedback to stay alive, they must receive it from a psychic network of similar minds. For most Psy, it's The PsyNet, but if enough minds sever their connections at the same time, they can form a smaller network. If a Psy were mated to a Changeling, that link would also be sufficient to allow them to receive the necessary biofeedback for life. Any Psy removed from their biofeedback network would die within minutes, and it's been shown that, at least on the PsyNet, any sort of significant change in the Net can cause a ripple effect that would rip a low gradient Psy mind from the PsyNet and cause death.
Additionally, in order to protect their minds in both the physical and psychic planes, Psy are adept at building mental shields that not only protect their minds from outside thoughts but protects their own thoughts from being projected outward. Shield techniques vary from person to person, to best suit their own needs, though exceptionally skilled shield builders will share their techniques (if they are so inclined), or someone clever enough can copy the technique by watching said shield in practice.
There is a secret subgroup to the Psy known as The Forgotten, who were Psy who defected the PsyNet at the start of Silence, as they opposed the measure. As they have intermingled with Humans and Changelings for the past hundred years, the Forgotten are beginning to show abilities previously unseen in the world.
Finally, there are Humans, who are similar in every way to humans everywhere else and possess no innate abilities that would be considered superhuman in other universes. Often overlooked by the other two races, humans, especially in the past hundred years, Humans have come to consider themselves the underdogs. Some might be weary of their powerful Changeling brethren, but most have gotten extremely wary of or outright hate their Psy neighbors. This is due to the fact that unlike Changelings, who have naturally nigh-impenetrable shields, humans typically have no mental shields at all, allowing unscrupulous Psy to dig into human minds and steal sensitive data or, worse, use humans as puppets to do their bidding. Most humans know someone who was violated by one Psy or another, and as such they try to keep their distance.
In an effort to put Humans back on a level playing field with the other two races, the Human Alliance, a business network of various human families and corporations, has been steadily building power in order to do just that. In addition to try and create an implant that will create an impenetrable mental shield around a human mind, the Alliance has been forming alliances with various Changeling packs across the world.
Judd, in a very short amount of time, has found himself smack in the middle of the triumvirate and their shifting power struggles. Born into the Walker family group, he remained a part of their family unit until the age of 10, when he accidentally killed a friend of his named Paul with his powerful telekinetic abilities. He was immediately signed over to the Arrow Squad, a group of some of the deadliest Psy on the planet, who were originally formed at the dawn of Silence to protect Silence at all costs.
Unfortunately for Judd, by the time he became a member, leadership had been corrupted under a man named Ming LeBon, a former Arrow himself who had risen to power as a member of the Psy Council and had come to view the squad as his personal death squad. As a young adult, he had been put on a drug called Jax, which was designed to strip him of his free will and execute commands to the letter, under the guise of a strength boost. When Judd discovered what was happening, he began to act erratically, not significantly, but just enough to make his trainers consider the possibility his ability to perform his duties was compromised under the drug. He would learn years later that fellow Arrows caught on to what he was doing, and followed suit. Jax was phased out of the Squad.
The only thing that kept him from breaking entirely was his brother, Walker. Walker, who had a vague insight into the horrific conditions of the Arrow training facility as a former teacher of the various telepaths but powerless to stop it, managed to keep Judd a part of the family as best he could. As part of Judd's abilities allowed him to teleport, he would occasionally slip his trainer's psychic leash on him and visit his brother to remind himself he had family and wasn't alone.
Things changed drastically for Judd and the other Laurens when the Psy Council signed a rehabilitation order (an order which the "rehabilitated" has their mind wiped, rendering them incapable of doing anything but menial tasks) for the entire Lauren line, including his his young niece, Marlee, his young nephew, Toby, and his teenage niece Sienna. As an Arrow, he technically was excluded from this order, but chose to follow Walker through with his plan in an attempt to protect the children.
Shortly before the order was to be executed, the Lauren brothers whisked the kids into the Sienna Nevada woods in California, home to the largest pack in North America, the SnowDancer wolves. They had chosen SnowDancer to defect because of their rumored motto of "shoot first and ask questions of the corpses" and their seeming willingness to do whatever it took to protect their young. Both Walker and Judd fully intended to die shortly adter stepping into SnowDancer land, but did so in a last-ditch effort to save the other three.
Luckily for the older Laurens, SnowDancer alpha, Hawke Snow, didn't have them killed on sight, and allowed the entire family unit to live in their den. The Lauren's cut their ties to the PsyNet, and together formed a small network they dubbed the LaurenNet that allowed for their survival. It took them a while to integrate themselves into the pack, with the children adapting quicker than the adults. For a while their was mutual wariness on both sides, though over time, and Judd proving his loyalty to the pack by saving a dying packmate by psychically repairing a shattered heart, they came to become respected members of the pack, with Walker mating the pack's main healer, Lara Knight, and becoming the main teacher of the 9 to 12s, and Judd mating a SnowDancer comm tech, Brenna Kincaid, and becoming one of Hawke's 10 lieutenants.
While the Lauren's settled into SnowDancer, the landscape on the PsyNet was beginning to change. Following major defections two cardinal Psy--the daughter of a Psy Councilor, and one of the most powerful foreseer's on the planet--to SnowDancer ally DarkRiver, the Psy started to debate silently, then more openly, about the validity of Silence imposed upon them many years ago. It led to the rise of a group of Psy fanatics known as Pure Psy, who believed that for the Psy race's continued superiority, they must not only maintain Silence but distance themselves from the "emotional" races.
As Pure Psy's fanaticism grew, so too did the violence they would inflict. Though there were other targets, DarkRiver and, by proximity and alliance, SnowDancer, were frequently targets, with the two packs stopping multiple bomb attempts and covert attacks. The culmination of smaller skirmishes turned into a large battle in both San Francisco and the Sierra Nevada woods. While Judd helped DarkRiver turn the tides in San Francisco by deflecting missiles with his telekinesis (and accidentally becoming a local celebrity in the process), his packmates fought Pure Psy's most fanatical, with his niece, Sienna, ending the fight in one burst of her cold fire Psy abilities.
The general public's views on Pure Psy had been shifting towards the negative from the beginning, but the larger the displays of violence, the more the public tended to shift against them. If that weren't bad enough for the zealots, their actions actually wound up having consequences they never desired. For starters, bringing the three races together in a way they hadn't been in over a hundred years, forced to talk to one another in an attempt to keep their loved ones safe. Realizing a need for more formal communications, the three races drafted up the Trinity Accord, a document signed by major players of the three races, promising a new era of cooperation.
For another, the Psy realized that they needed emotion within the PsyNet in order for their continued survival. The lack thereof for the past 100 years had caused the system to start to decay, and without assistance from the hidden E, or Empath, designation, it would have collapsed by the end of the year.
PERSONALITY:
At first glance, Judd has a tendency to give off the aura of cold. His voice is on the flat side and he has a stare that could freeze a fire. And though it's true it's part of who he is, growing up as a member of a shadowy black ops team, it's also a byproduct of living in Silence for 20+ years, and now he's been able to learn to smile and laugh freely, which he does... around those he cares about.
Because at his core, Judd Lauren is a protector. While an Arrow, he did what he could to protect himself and other Arrows from Jax, as well as other people from the Psy race's more destructive aims as a rebel. Upon defecting, he fiercely protected his family among the SnowDancer wolves, even as they settled in as he (initially) purposefully stayed on the fringes. Once becoming a SnowDancer lieutenant, however, that protection extended to the entire den, where he would lay down his life in a second for any member of his pack.
He is especially protective over children in his care. Judd would murder a million people in order to protect the child or children in his care, and he would be sure to hide the carnage from them in the process. He firmly believes that children should be able to grow up in happiness in a way that he wasn't, and does what he can to foster said happiness, becoming a popular playmate for cubs of all ages, performing telekinetic "tricks" he would have only considered for meting out death a few years prior to their delight.
As a byproduct of his deadly telekinetic abilities, he's extremely conscious of his surroundings and his mental state, meditating and practicing martial arts in order to keep a firm grip on his abilities. That isn't to say he keeps a stranglehold on his abilities and emotions, as he's found, a bit paradoxically, that letting his hold go slightly actually helps, but that doesn't stop him from maintaining vigilance.
Finally, Judd is fiercely loyal to his last breath to anyone that earns his trust, but after multiple betrayals, his trust isn't that simple to gain, and should it ever be lost, it would be almost impossible to get it back. People that he considers brothers now it took him years to be comfortable enough to admit the full extent of his abilities to, and on the flipside, he went to great lengths to conceal the identity of his best friend, the leader of the PsyNet rebellion back when the fall of Silence was still a dream.
POWER:
Telepathy - registering at 9.4 on the gradient, Judd can clearly broadcast his thoughts to another across large distances, and as part of his training can utilize his telepathy offensively to smash into another person's mind, or, if they have one, smash through a mental shield, severely injuring the person in the process. For those without shields, or without strong shielding, Judd can enter their minds and pluck out thoughts, but the idea of doing so without an insanely damn good reason for it is repugnant to him.
As a result of being such a strong Telepath, he needs to maintain strong shields to keep other people's thoughts, either stray or intentional, from entering his mind. Too many stray thoughts could lead to a mental breakdown.
Telekinesis - registering a 9.9 on the gradient, Judd's tk is the highest possible grade without tipping him into Cardinal status. He has the ability and training to manipulate objects with his mind, from something as mundane as creating a telekinetic field around his body to keep himself dry or warm, to something as powerful as stopping missiles mid-flight, mid-air, and turning them on a dime to hit the planes they came from instead.
As some Tks are, Judd is teleport-capable, meaning that, with a clear visual lock on a specific place, he can travel to it. Further, if they are close enough to him, he can 'port them as well. The longer the distance (or the more passengers he has), the more energy it takes to travel there, and as such he tries not to 'port unless it's short distances or absolutely necessary. Additionally, the visual lock must be specific and it must be (relatively speaking) unique; a picture of a group of trees alone won't do it, one or more of them must have a specific trunk, or knot, or perhaps a scarf tied around a branch. Additionally, should Judd have a visual lock on a location, something as simple as rearranging the furniture in a room would do the trick to making it unusable, as a teleporter's abilities naturally prevent someone from potentially 'porting into an unknown wall or piece of furniture.
Specifically speaking, Judd isn't merely a Tk, he is a specific sub-designation known as TK-Cell. This incredibly deadly ability allows him to rearrange living matter on a cellular level. Under the arrow squad, he utilized this ability to stop people's hearts with a thought, but now can use that same skill to heal catastrophic wounds that could otherwise not be treated, such as a re-creating a packmate's heart that had been shredded to pieces due to an assassin's gun utilizing the pieces of his heart still around the heart, and moving small pieces of flesh from other parts of his body to the heart.
And not specifically a power, but more of a side-effect of being a Tk, Judd is considered extremely graceful and fluid in his movements, even among the changelings where grace is usually their thing. This doesn't mean he's graceful enough to dodge bullets or anything, but he can move better and more fluidly than the average person.
[Flameout] - All Psy have a limited amount of psychic power that they can tap into that slowly replenishes throughout the day (think slowly regenerating MP). Marginal psychic use, such as 'pathing a Psy next to them, will barely register as that energy can be quickly replenished. Using more of that power, however, it takes longer for the body to replenish that psychic storehouse, and once those reserves are gone, they begin to flameout. That Psy can no longer access any of their psychic abilities, feel as if they're in a fog or floating underwater, and not long after their bodies tend to shut down to replenish psychic reserves undisturbed.
Additionally, even if intense psychic use doesn't lead to flameout, massive amounts of psychic energy at once can lead to physical weakness and physical thinning of the body. Psy have to be careful about their caloric intake in regards to their psychic strength, and massive amounts of psychic energy require massive amounts of calories to replenish their bodies.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
[Though nothing's wrong about the video broadcast itself--the subject is properly framed, giving nothing away in the background that might betray his location, the focus sharp--the subject is... slightly off-putting. Taken from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, there's nothing wrong there either--he's a classically handsome man with chocolate brown hair and brown eyes flecked with gold, dressed simply in a plain white shirt paired with a black leather synth jacket.
It's his expression, stone-faced, impassive, and icily cold, that's so off as he stares into his communicator's lens.]
I just have one question: Who finds it acceptable to kidnap children from their homes and force them to fight a war that's none of their concern?
[His tone is as arctic as his expression, if not more so, as his look of impassivity transforms into one of ice cold anger.]
Tell me someone knows the answer to this.
[And with that, he cuts the feed.]
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
This place, this... alternate world Judd has found himself in was, among a variety of other things, far too loud. He had never realized how much his shields had been constructed with Psy and Changelings in mind until they were, seemingly, gone. The moment he had entered the populated city the locals called Heropa, he found himself bombarded with stray thoughts. Though he had quickly thrown up rudimentary shields instinctively, it wasn't long before they started to fall apart, the craftsmanship too basic for so much ambient noise.
A short visual scan of the area and Judd has located a relatively quiet alleyway to duck into, and he pressed his body against the brick, pulling his synth leather jacket closer in an attempt to blend better with his surroundings.
Though he never pulled his full attention away from his surroundings on the physical plane, running a steady, surface-level telepathic scan that would alert him to anyone's approaching presence, his eyes become unfocused somewhat as he stepped into the mental plane. While it wasn't necessary to be on the mental plane to construct the type of shield he needed in this new world, it helped to see his work while constructing something so unfamiliar. Unlike home, this plane was cold and barren, the connections to his family, his fellow lieutenants, and, more importantly, Brenna, visible on his end, but fading into obscurity the farther he followed it.
It reminded him of the bond between his brother-in-law, Riley, and his mate, Marcy, two high-ranking members of allied packs firmly rooted in two different psychic networks... Only his seemed to be a network of one. This should mean he should have been dead by now, the loss of the biofeedback necessary for him to survive cut off in a world without psychic connections. He felt it then, a faint feeling of warmth and love and everything that was quintessentially Brenna. The bonds. He was still receiving the biofeedback he needed from the others, despite being unable to reach them through the SnowDancerNet. Sending back a feeling of love, he silently vowed then and there he would find a way to get back home to Brenna quickly.
But first, he had to build better shields.
FINAL NOTES:
I'm so sorry for the novel that is the background section.
