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I want to inspire people. I want someone to look at me and say 'Because of you, I didn't give up.' |
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— Himself |
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Lance Anderson is a South Carolina golden boy, and a true gentleman, an honest to goodness hand kissing, door holding, please-and-thank-you, yes-ma'am-no-sir gentleman. He is outgoing, sweet, charming and helpful to those who are in need, and what's more than that, he is an agent of The Presence, able to perform miracles that save lives and turn the tides. As Savior, he uses his divine gifts to right wrongs, at the cost of his own lifeforce, but it is a sacrifice he is almost always willing to make.
Personality
Lance is summed up as your picture perfect Golden Boy. He comes from a rich Southern family and has broken away from the privilege of his roots to make his own way. He emerged unspoiled by his upbringing and is a truly good person to his core. He tends to be a friendly and positive person to a fault without being overly naive or ignorant. Most tend to describe him as a breath of fresh air. The world tries to eat up and crush guys like Lance, yet the shining young man deflects with a high emotional intelligence and critical thinking. He never has anything to prove, and he treats everyone as equally as they will allow him to. Self-awareness and self knowledge make him outgoing and confident in his actions, and he always has a smile for a stranger.
In addition to his general likability, Lance tries to enrich, uplift and help anyone he can. He strives to make others lives more fulfilled without taking from another's save his own. He will give the shirt off of his back, or the skin if it is to save another. He is the type to carry around a little extra cash in case he runs into someone. If he has any personal issues or problems, no one would be the wiser. He keeps it to himself, not allowing his problems to become someone else's problems. Courageous and a bit pacifistic, Lance doesn't go through life questioning who he is, just how he can help.
Background
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Lance was orphaned as a newborn, left to a rich family down in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The family was large but the woman who would be his mother was unable to have children, and Lance was the gift from Heaven that she had been praying for. He was such a beautiful baby boy and anyone that looked at him fell deeply in love, not just with him but life in general. He was already a part of a prodigious family and became the talk of the parish. He grew into a good little boy wanting for nothing, but well above selfish ways. Sometimes he would have asked for something knowing it would be given to him, just to give it to someone who needed it. He never started out or ended up very materialistic. Throughout maturity Lance remained consistently ideal, keeping up with his grades, sports and social relations. Only later on was his life altered when he perform his first miracle.
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While at the hospital to visit an aunt who had just given birth, a man was rushed in having an unfortunate run-in with a forming machine, leg badly mangled and his blood loss fatal. The hospital did all they could, but a wound that severe was sending him into shock. Lance was compelled to act, and it became the first time his wings were manifested when he restored the man's leg with great surprise to his family and the hospital staff. Such a miracle took a heavy price upon him, and the young man collapsed with injuries appearing on him as mysterious as the miracle he had performed. In his unconscious state he felt the Presence and heard the Voice. He was told that he had been born with great gifts, which he was charged to use and faith that he would be blessed. It was all so vague and cryptic, yet Lance didn't question a thing and didn't make any kind of request, not even to mend his injured body at the moment.
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Time in the hospital eventually got Lance back into health, and his town and family were there to support him. He told them about God speaking to him and, being religious folk having witnessed what he had done, oh, this was a blessing from the Lord. It also wasn't unusual as there were metahumans just about everywhere. Lance himself went on about his new existence with acceptance and unquestionable belief that in his life things would be what they would be, no matter what. What he went into faithfully is that he was an answer to the mass of prayers, a manifestation of the Presence, His hand and a trial. Lance was to go about doing miracles, and if the world did not kill him with their need for divine intervention, then perhaps people were deserving of a new Paradise, which Lance would mature and work to create if he survived past the ordained time.
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His family initially had certain issues about certain aspects of his life that changed the day he went celestial, and he also learned that many of his close friends were actually angels that had been watching over him until he matured, but after that he was on his own. His adjustment to the change was surprising to the humans he knew. While he did not act like he knew or that he had some special destiny, he was assured of his place even with no knowledge of the deeper truth and continued his mortal life with the addition of his purpose attached. He graduated high school and went on to college, attaining his degree in fitness and health education, moving on to become a fitness coach and personal trainer in the hospital rehab center performing his miracles wherever needed.
SKILLS
ATHLETICISM - Competent: Southern Golden Boy that he is, Lance had encouragement put upon him to play sports. Baseball, football, basketball, he has had a shot at many sports, picking up the basics, but only played on a couple teams in school. He can still enjoy a good friendly game every now and then.
CRITICAL-THINKING - Competent: Most might not consider this a skill, and the folks at home would say that he's just got real good sense. But critical thinking can be difficult to have and not everyone does. But Lance has it in spades and is not the type for knee-jerk reactions. He knows the difference between "that lady needs help" and "does that lady need help? It looks like she might, I'll go check."
FITNESS - Expert: Lance is in incredibly excellent shape. He assures that he is in prime physical condition to make sure that he can be as durable as possible against the toll on his body that his miracles cause. He set his career up on his fitness and makes sure his diet is correct.
PIANO - Expert: From piano lessons since he was young, Lance has become a talented pianist. He doesn't just play the instrument, he has emotion and passion across the keys, able to convey and even sway artistic emotion with the notes alone.
REFLEXES - Competent: Lance has reflexes that are pretty impressive to the average person. His reaction time is fast enough to smack something out of the air he just dropped before it hits the ground, and he is great at catching things that are thrown in his direction.
SKETCHING - Competent: With the medium of a charcoal pencil, Lance can make a beautiful sketch of what he sees within a couple of minutes. He enjoys sketching things that emit or cast deep emotions or emotional responses.
POWERS
MIRACLES - Supreme: Lance possesses the ability to alter reality in response to negative stimuli. He can create a pocket of reality-disrupting quasi psionic force that causes miracles to occur. His miracles create order from chaos, correcting the negative forces of destruction, entropy, catastrophe, etc. He cannot simply make things happen on a whim, though, there has to be a great need for him to be able to activate this power. It is emotionally dependent as well in that living beings need to be under some kind of intense stress. Feelings of fear, turmoil, depression, violence, malice, hatred, pain and so forth act as the catalysts needed to spark his ability. It usually takes a group of people under stress to allow him to lay down a miracle. The stronger the emotions, the easier it is for him to create and the bigger the miracle he can cause. A single person would be a difficult catalyst to initiate, but it is not impossible.
Lance also has no control over exactly what will occur. He sets his intent such as "I must save these people from X," or "I must protect this person from the gunfire," or "I have to get everyone to safety," and something would occur from him, like a reflex or primal instinct, as if they had a mind of their own. The effects are often surprising and usually not something that might have been done in the same situation before. Thick roots could grow and shield innocents once, another time the ground could rupture and reform to create a wall, or an innocent could miraculously become temporarily intangible on a separate occasion. His power rights wrongs, answers prayers, or turns the tide. He can use his miracle ability to power up or aid allies against a powerful foe, or power down or hinder powerful foes as long as the emotion is there to allow him activation.
Most of his miracles are temporary, especially the ones that augment individuals. Once the intention is satisfied, the miracle ends and things return to the state they were before he altered things, though healing and mending or exceptions to this. Lance cannot use his miracle power to save himself or for personal gain.
SOUL-LINK - Supreme: Lance can forge emotional connections with certain people he has gotten close to. This soul link has some benefits: it can eliminate distance or proximity as a factor in his abilities and communication. Either Lance or his loved ones can sense when the other is injured or endangered, regardless of the distance, and Lance could perform a miracle upon them without being in their proximity. This often requires severe life-or-death circumstances and is far more dangerous and costly than a regular miracle for him. The rapport actually allows Lance to shift pain and damage around between himself and those soul-linked. They can share pain, or Lance can take theirs or give his, though giving his pain in any capacity is something that goes against his personal conduct. He keeps it very secret that he can share pain, only letting on that he can take pain from them onto himself. These links are not something he can forge avidly. It takes a very heavy and mutual connection to establish and maintain them: family members, lovers, close friends.
WINGS OF LIGHT - Basic: Lance has a pair of large, luminescent wings of white and silver light that manifest during power use at will. In fact, these appendages must be present for him to perform miracles. They can actually cause a created miracle to shatter if his wings are somehow disrupted. The wings are not a true physical part of him, as they are more of a manifestation of his power, so disrupting or destroying them does not cause him lasting harm, just a bit of psychic feedback. They can be re-manifested just as easily as they were disrupted, but any miracle he had going would break, the toll unchanging. He can utilize them for very short range flight, up to about 50 feet, and also float down from heights almost as light as a feather.
ADVANTAGES
FAMILY Lance has his independence yet if there were ever anything he actually needed, his family is an old southern rooted family of old money, oil tycoons and plantation owners. Lance would likely need to be in an emergency situation where Lance could not be responsive, but they are always an emergency contact as far as resources go.
WEAKNESSES
PRICE OF SALVATION Creating miracles is not without consequences. Altering reality the way Lance does comes with a heavy personal price of his own life force. He has to be very careful how many he performs in a time frame and how large each miracle is. The trade-off is very similar to the effects of palsy and radiation poisoning. It can cause parts of him to wither or internal bleeding, stroke, and even death in severe cases. Large, epic miracles run the chance of killing him and will almost always put him out of commission for a time. Exposure to positive spiritual energies will allow him to rejuvenate, otherwise he will have to recover normally. All miracles cause him great pain that he does his best to conceal, while healing people and mending things cause actual physical damage to him, and he often takes their injuries on to himself. Lance's personality makes this drawback very dangerous, because he would rarely hesitate to give his life for the salvation of another's.
UNHOLY Lance's abilities and very being is connected to the Presence. Forces and beings that are in direct opposition to this entity can be Troublesome for him. He feels uneasy and their present and heavily defiled or desecrated ground can cause them discomfort and make the use of his powers very cumbersome. Lance also cannot heal in the presence of this defiled ground or land.
