Leo attends Sky High, but he's not super happy about it. School isn't his favorite thing. He does participate in some powered athletic teams, particularly where his own powers are useful, like in swimming or track and field. Otherwise, he's not especially social around school, tending to take a similar attitude to his brother, Gio, that sleeping in and staying out late is more fun than attending class.
He does differ from his brother in that he actually likes being a superhero more than just seeing it as something to do on a lark. Sure, he tends to have fun with it, but he also tries to actually do a good job. He's a little better at teaming up than Slingshot, which is his brother's heroic alter ego, is, since he doesn't necessarily tend to be as chaotic... no all the time, anyway.
Personality
Around those he knows and is comfortable with, Leo tends to be very playful and mischievous, but he is also easygoing and relaxed, willing to accept almost anyone who accepts him. With those he distrusts or for other reasons does not feel comfortable around, he may be more reserved and quiet.
Otherwise, he's high-spirited and tends to leap before he looks. Often "leaping" headlong into danger, Leo is often forced to rely on quick wits to save his neck. This is partially due to a reckless nature, but mostly it's simply an excess of enthusiasm coupled with a dose of impatience.
As the Puck once said, "those things do best please me that befall preposterously." Leo can be a bit of a prankster. He loves to play tricks, usually the kind that make their target look silly, and are designed to make everyone laugh, but nothing that would do anyone real harm.
Oddly enough, despite all of his other qualities, he tends to be very good at focusing on a job or task, taking it seriously, and getting it done. Somehow, his cocky, playful nature almost seems to bolster his abilities in this regard.
Quite the curious sort, Leo is always quick to look in upon a scene of interest or investigate an odd sight or noise. His eye is easily caught, as is his fancy, and one may find him hanging around with an undesired interest at the most inopportune times.
Notably, his whimsy is matched by a particular kind of gallantry, and he's as fierce and true a friend as one could hope to find.
Background
Leo Visconti is from an Italian family of old wealth and lineage with roots tracing back to the island of Sardinia before it became part of Italy. Like his brother before him, he had a pretty easy life in his early years, pampered and privileged, especially as he was the younger son. Having had less family expectation placed on him than his brother has, as well as being younger, Leo tends to get away with flying under the family radar a great deal more, so he's been kept innocent of most of their more illicit dealings. (Being something of a mama's boy in his younger days may have played a role in this, too.) His older brother, whether intentionally or not, gave the family someone to focus on, which left Leo free to pursue his own interests. Unfortunately, he's never been able to settle on anything much. He might have stayed quietly mediocre, in fact, were it not for his tendency to hero-worship his brother and follow him around. For, one fateful night in Venice, Leo followed his brother to a Carnivale celebration.
Unlike Gio, Leo was unable to make it far into the party, so he had nowhere near as much fun. He was picked up by security for being underage, then deposited in a makeshift holding area until they could get in touch with a family member to take him home. Because of this isolation, Leo was spared the nastier parts of the experience when the energy attack hit, but he was still caught in the blast. He never had the kind of dramatic moment that Gio had with his powers, but instead he discovered them gradually and began to follow his brother out at night. Slingshot may have never wanted a junior partner, but Javelin came along anyway. Leo's been very stubborn about having his own way about it, and even when Gio has literally grounded him, exploiting an odd interaction between their powers, Leo has refused to quit. The compromise, as it turns out, is that Leo has to attend Sky High and learn to control his powers. As a result, Gio isn't stopping him from acting out as Javelin completely, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the elder Visconti has accepted his younger brother's role, either. To be honest, Leo just doesn't know yet. One can assume that, as he continues to explore this new role, time will tell...
SKILLS
ACADEMICS - Competent: Leo does well in school across all subjects, though as yet he has not found any area of particular focus.
ARTS - Competent: Leo is reasonably talented in the area of expressive arts, such as dance and music. He's decent at drawing, sculpture, and other visual arts, and he can even cook quite well. Again, as with his academics, it's more of a general aptitude and having tried and been pretty good at a lot of things than being focused exceptionally in any one area.
ATHLETICS - Competent: Leo is a practiced athlete, especially good at movement-based athletics, such as running, climbing, tumbling, swimming, jumping, and so forth.
CHARISMA - Competent: Leo is charming and has strong people skills. He also has enough personal presence and magnetism to get most people, such as crowds of bystanders, to listen to him and generally cooperate if he does something to get their attention, such as dressing in a superhero costume and demonstrating his powers.
COMBAT - Competent: Having been trained in self-defense and the use of his powers at school, Leo is a competent fighter when he needs to be.
LANGUAGES - Competent: Leo is fully fluent in both English and Italian.
POWERS
ENHANCED REFLEXES - Enhanced: Much like his brother, Gio, Leo is able to sense and react to stimuli at an accelerated rate. In his case, his reactions actually have accelerated speed, too, making his reactions superhuman. This seems to play a significant role in helping him maintain control of his powers, which require very fast reactions in order to keep up with all the kinetic stimuli.
KINETIC CONTROL - Enhanced: Much like his brother, Gio, Leo displays a kind of control over kinetic energy. Where Gio manipulates inertia around him, however, Leo can manipulate the kinetic energy within his own body. This allows him to do things like flying, projecting himself like a rocket, or even just giving himself bursts of super-speed for up to a few seconds at a time. He can also project this power outside himself to a limited degree, creating a force field around himself (and up to the mass of about one other person that's held very close to him), or projecting simple "force bolts" of kinetic energy, usually from his hands or feet. He can also perceive motion around him pretty strongly, which (when coupled with his enhanced reflexes) makes him very good at reacting near-instantly to even the smallest motion around him.
SELF-ALTERATION - Enhanced: Leo's form is fundamentally somewhat mutable. He can heal injuries, and his body has limited shapeshifting ability. He can alter the size and structure of his body, in whole or in part, though he must take in extra matter (by consuming calories) if he wants to gain mass overall. He cannot add or remove appendages, cannot alter his skin (or eyes) significantly or change colors, and while he can regulate his hair growth, he can't change his hair color or type, either.
He can shift bone structure, alter the configuration or density of tissue--such as enhancing his muscles by shifting mass into them, but in doing so he will tend to become slower, too. Alternatively, he can make his reflexes faster, but he may lose strength. His body also subconsciously absorbs injury to a very high degree, which (coupled with his rapid healing) makes it very difficult to cause him any lasting injury.
Some alterations tend to last, while others stop as soon as he stops concentrating, mostly based on how "natural" or "familiar" to his body the shifted form might seem. However, even with "lasting" alterations, his body snaps back to its normal form when he sleeps, as if "resetting" itself. He seems to return to perfect homeostasis every time he does this, which seems to allow him to heal nearly any injury or ailment, including entropy and the effects of time (such as aging), just by getting a night's sleep and having enough energy (calories consumed) to fuel his body's "reboot" process.
ADVANTAGES
BROTHER Leo has an older brother, Gio, whom he can depend on in most cases. This is especially important when he gets into a situation that other family members might not understand, as Gio tends to be pretty laid back. However, as indicated in Leo's weaknesses, his brother also has unusual levels of influence over him.
RESOURCES His family comes from very old money, and they also own an extremely successful international shipping business. Leo has an impressive trust fund, as well as a share in the family business. As a result, he's quite wealthy and does not have to worry much about money, though as young as he is, his expenditures are subject to scrutiny from the family unless he gets someone like his brother to vouch for them.
WEAKNESSES
BROTHER Much to Leo's occasional frustration, his brother's ability to manipulate inertia also allows him to manipulate the kinetic energy that Leo produces. Most others cannot do so, but perhaps because they're brothers, Gio has a special "in" there. Essentially, if Gio wants, he can sideline his brother at any time by "tugging the leash" on Leo's kinetic powers. Apart from this, Leo does look up to his brother and admire him, though sometimes, as can be the case with brothers, they may have friction and disagreements.
ENERGY NEEDS Leo's powers require a lot of energy to fuel them, but he's also very sensitive to what he puts into his body. As a result, he not only has to eat a lot of food to fuel his powers, it also has to be certain types of food. Amongst other things, his special dietary needs make it completely impossible for him to ingest meat of any kind, and if he gets his nutrition out of balance, his powers can become unstable and unreliable until he evens things out again.
VULNERABILITIES Leo's powers are very good at protecting him from many things, but he is vulnerable to attacks on his mind or spirit. He tends to be very resistant to compulsion and mind control, perhaps due to his malleable being, but mental blasts or direct spiritual attacks have a high chance of cutting through his defenses and, depending on their strength, either quickly exhausting him or outright incapacitating him.
