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Aww, c'mon! What could possibly go wrong? |
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— Himself |
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In the world of Superia, Sol-Z'En isn't very well-known. In his native reality, Earth H', he is best known as Zenith, a renowned superhero affiliated with Unity. Also known as Seth Alen, he is the adopted younger brother of Skyboy, who is publicly known as Knick Alen.
Seth's Kryptonian name, Sol-Z'En (which reflects his birth family, House Zen, as well as his adopted family, House En), is not widely known, but neither is it a particular secret. He has only limited fame in Superia.
Personality
Seth is something of a kid at heart. That isn't to say that he has the mind of a child, but in many ways he's never progressed past the more reckless side of adolescence, despite having cognitive development years beyond an Earth teenager. He tends to be impulsive, a bit overconfident, and seems to expect to take on the world and always come out on top and unscathed. He's very curious about anything that strikes his fancy and sometimes has a tendency to goof around when he should really be tending to serious matters. Despite his brashness and relative immaturity, Zenith has an endlessly good heart and a tremendous compassion for others. He generally strives very hard to live up to the standard set by his peers, especially Skyboy and the Super-family, and will risk his life without a moment's hesitation if it means helping someone in need.
Background
It's an old story, now. Everyone knows the tale of Krypton and how it died, knows that the Last Son of Krypton was sent hurtling through space to find a new home. This tale has been true across many iterations, across timelines, across Hypertime, across whole dimensions and multiverses. In one dimension, in one timeline, a boy was born on Krypton some ten years before it was destroyed. That boy was Sol-Zen, who grew up happily on an island in Krypton's western ocean. He grew up a happy child, though he never knew his father Shin-Zen very well. He died in an accident when Seth was very young. His mother, Mia Shin-Zen, was a renowned artist, and working from her home studio allowed her to be an attentive single parent. It was a good way to grow up.
Until the day Krypton died. Sol-Zen was not placed in a rocket and sent to safety, but his latent magical talent -- a rare gift among Kryptonians -- activated and cast him into a pocket realm. For him time stood still within that world, though his mind and body grew and matured over some fair number of Kryptonian years. This was a world where nothing could hurt him, where all was created by his whim and imagination. If he was lonely, he would find a friend. If he was hungry, there would be food. He found safety and security there, and he buried his mourning for his mother and Krypton deep within himself.
Eventually he drew near a rift in Hypertime, centered on another reality's planet Earth over the Azores islands. His pocket reality was ruptured, and he was cast out into this new, strange world. There he met the team called Unity and was effectively adopted by them. He came to idolize the team's de facto leader, Skyboy, and the two grew so close that eventually Knick chose to adopt Sol-Zen, who had chosen the Earth name Seth Olsen, as his little brother. Seth later changed the rendering of his Kryptonian name to Sol-Z'En and his Earth name to Seth Olsen Alen (with Olsen becoming a middle name) to reflect his membership in both houses. They have had many adventures together since, and now Seth has chosen to come to the world of Superia along with his adopted brother, curious to see what the world will hold.
SKILLS
Acrobatics - Competent Level
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Having never had to rely on his raw physical skills, Seth has never fully honed his acrobatic prowess. However, he does train often, and as such even without his powers he is a competent athlete and acrobat.
Charisma - Competent Level
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While Seth is far from a diplomat or public relations guru, he has a natural knack for charisma and strong personal presence. As a result, people often tend to at least pay attention to him, even listening to what he says, and are often more well-disposed to like him than not.
Still new to the science of deduction, Seth is still fairly good at spotting clues, interpreting information, and otherwise coming to logical conclusions as a detective. He is definitely still learning in this area, but he shows fair promise.
Expression - Competent Level
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Untrained in any focused area, Seth is generally capable in the realm of art and expression. He can draw, has excellent fine motor skills, can play a few instruments reasonably well, and he has a strong speaking or singing voice. With good looks and middling artistic talent, he could probably be in a successful boy band.
In his home reality, Seth is a budding occult expert. In this reality, where the rules work a bit differently, he's suffered some effective setbacks. However, he is still a capable ritualist and has a variety of occult knowledge to draw on. Perhaps most importantly, he knows his way around a grimoire or other arcane text, and he can generally put these to effective use as needed.
In a generalized sense, Seth can be considered a scientific expert. This is largely because of his Kryptonian education, which taught science beyond Earth norms by the time he was in primary school. Continued exposure to advanced science means that Seth is generally conversant in science of this level, but he is a "generalized expert" rather than having focused knowledge in any specific field. However, he does have something of an edge where Kryptonian science is concerned.
Subtlety and stealth are certainly not Seth's typical mode of operation, but when one enjoys making mischief, one will learn to be at least occasionally sneaky. As a result, he is passingly capable in the various methods of stealthy movement and maneuvering, though he is by no means a candidate for ninja school.
Technology - Expert Level
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As with science, Seth has been exposed to a wide variety of technology in his life. As a result, he is an expert user of technology, from contemporary Earth devices to obscure alien gadgetry. He is much less capable of designing or repairing such devices, but in terms of general use he is certainly an expert.
Vehicles are a form of technology, and Seth tries to keep well up on his use of all kinds of tech. However, when one can fly, vehicles can easily become a bit dull. As a result, Seth is a qualified novice at driving or piloting most forms of craft, but he lacks great experience or expertise.
ABILITIES
Power: Awareness - Enhanced Level
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As a born magic-user of significant power, Seth is quite sensitive to magic and other mystical forces. He can generally detect the presence of spells, enchantments, or supernatural creatures nearby without difficulty, and he can in most cases identify the nature of such when observed with only moderate effort. It is difficult to fool him with illusions or other deceptions.
Power: Breath - Enhanced Level
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Seth can create a number of effects by expelling air through his lips. He can cause heat dissipation, super-cooling the air like an arctic wind, able to rapidly freeze objects up to the size of a large armored vehicle. The air can be released at normal temperature or in rapid gusts or blasts, akin to gale force winds. Seth's tremendous breath control also allows him to pull in oxygen through his nose while cycling it back out through his mouth, thus keeping up a sustained breath effect, or to hold his breath for nearly an entire day before needing to take in additional oxygen. This allows him to travel through space or underwater for extended periods.
Power: Flight - Supreme Level
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Seth is able to fly by manipulating kinetic force around his body, allowing him to attain hypersonic speeds within an atmosphere. Outside of an atmosphere, he can attain much greater speeds.
Power: Heat Vision - Enhanced Level
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Seth can utilize stored solar energy to affect heat diffusion. While his breath can dissipate heat, his eyes can focus it, allowing him to expel beams of heat at any target in his line of sight.
Power: Invulnerability - Supreme Level
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Seth's molecular density is greater than that of a normal human, but even more key to his invulnerability is a micro-thin force field that encloses his body. The field does not prohibit Seth from touching, tasting, or otherwise interacting with the world, but it does filter out harmful effects, antigens, and nearly anything that might damage him physically. With access to solar radiation from a star of yellow or greater intensity, Seth also heals very rapidly and completely, allowing him to regenerate from nearly any harm, even many "fatal" injuries. The force field can also be projected a short distance outside his body, protecting anything held very close to him, such as his clothing or a person or object held close against his body.
Power: Kryptonian - Basic Level
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Zenith's unique Kryptonian physiology empowers him in many ways. Most of these abilities are granted by the presence of solar energy from what he often refers to casually as a "yellow sun." Technically, stars of the ideal class are G-type in the blue-white through yellow spectrum. This is bolstered by his increased molecular density, making him mildly more durable than a human being even when de-powered. Seth's Kryptonian brain also makes him vastly more intelligent than most humans, and most of his powers are psychokinetically focused by that specialized Kryptonian brain. When empowered by solar radiation, Seth is also immune to all known forms of illness or disease, and only requires an average of two hours of sleep per night to function at peak efficiency.
Power: Senses - Supreme Level
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Seth's senses are psychokinetically augmented by the solar energies within him. This allows him to see as far as the curvature of the Earth allows, to pick out sounds miles away and both hear and see in wavelengths far beyond the human perceptible range. This includes the ability to hear the entire range of audible sound and to see along the entire infrared spectrum. The clarity of his vision is also microscopic as well as telescopic, allowing him to see the structure of matter down to the atomic level.
Power: Solar Battery - Supreme Level
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As a Kryptonian, Seth absorbs solar energy from stars of yellow intensity or greater, such as Earth's sun. This energy is stored within his body, serving as a power source for his race's latent psychokinetic abilities. Unlike a true psychic, Kryptonian powers operate by instinct and physical focus, taking the form if such abilities as are described throughout these traits. If Seth's solar energies are depleted, he can be rendered nearly as powerless as an ordinary human, though his molecular density still grants him modestly enhanced strength and toughness.
Power: Sorcery - Enhanced Level
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Born in a distant alternate reality with the extremely gift of Kryptonian sorcery, Seth has learned to make practical use of his craft in recent years. He can potentially accomplish at least some degree of essentially any feat of magic, from common offensive spells or command over the elements to barriers or wardings, the summoning or banishment of various spirits or creatures, transmutation of matter or energy from one form to another, mystic travel between locations or realms, and many other effects. Notably, the more power he uses at once, spread out over the number and potency of active effects, the more focus and energy he must have. In terms of what he can do, Seth's abilities are conceptually almost endless, but they're limited by how he can adapt them to fit each situation, as well as his power and focus. Obviously, some applications of this power are heavily governed by consent.
In practical terms, Seth is generally limited to sorcery at the Enhanced power level, and it requires a great deal of concentration and focus. This does not always come easily to him, especially since magic in this reality is quite different from what he's used to, so in many cases his magic can be a bit unpredictable if he doesn't keep very careful focus whenever he uses sorcery.
Power: Strength - Supreme Level
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Seth's strength is enhanced via a tactile telekinetic field that extends to any object he touches. This field grants the vast majority of his invulnerability to damage, and it also allows him to exert much greater physical force than most other beings. In addition, this field grants stability to whatever he touches, allowing him to perform such feats as picking up an airplane by an otherwise fragile wing or to use a lamp pole as a viable weapon, where it would otherwise shatter in his hands if he forcefully swung it at anything. Seth's solar reserves also grant him effectively limitless stamina and sustenance, allowing him to subsist with minimal rest or nutrition for weeks at a time.
Note: While Seth is in the Supreme strength class, he is at the lower end of that spectrum. He is considerably less physically powerful than, say, Superman.
Power: Super Speed - Enhanced Level
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Though his speed is modest by the standards of a Speed Force user, Seth is still capable of moving at supersonic land speeds within the Earth's atmosphere. He is able to perform various physical tasks at roughly one hundred times the speed of a human in optimal physical condition.
Note: Apart from increased speed in thinking, super speed does not in any way affect Seth's ability to use or cast magic via rituals or sorcery.
ADVANTAGES
Acme was originally a ferret from Earth H', but in the confluence of mystical and dimensional energies that accompanied Seth's arrival on that world, a young ferret was imbued with a profoundly transformative burst of energy. As a result, Seth's reality partially overwrote the ferret's own, and the ferret was imbued with all the powers of a Kryptonian, including proportionately increased physique, senses, intellect, reflexes, and speed, as well as flight, heat vision, and so forth. He also shares Seth's vulnerabilities, such as to red solar energy and kryptonite.
Depending on one's point of view, Seth might be that cute guy in their calculus class who they really want to take to prom, or he might be that adorable kid with the perfect "puppydog" eyes who can't possibly ever be up to no good -- well, not too much of it, anyway, right? Those his own age often find him attractive, while those much older than him tend to find him endearing, easily fitted to a younger sibling sort of relationship.
There's something about Seth that lends him an air of innocence. He can be caught red-handed at something, but with a simple wide-eyed protest that he didn't do it, people often tend to take him at his word. There is a drawback to this, though, in that he knows he has it. As a result, he tends to sometimes gamble too much on this advantage, and it only goes so far.
WEAKNESSES
Call him a joker, a mischief-maker, or even a brat, Seth is an irreverent soul. To him, very little is sacred. Just about anything is open game for teasing or otherwise being made light of. So, the world's going to end -- that doesn't mean he can't get a laugh out of it! Even those things and people he has great respect for are open game for being teased or joked about. That said, there are a fair number of authority figures who Zenith just doesn't necessarily respect much.
When Krypton was destroyed, some of the planet's matter was charged with radioactive energy from its star, Rao, interacting with the crystalline material of Krypton's planetary body. The end result was the gemlike green substance known as "Kryptonite." The molecular and radioactive properties of Kryptonite make it harmful to Kryptonian cells, thus making it harmful and toxic to them. If Seth is struck by a Kryptonite weapon, he will be harmed as a normal mortal would. Even being near Kryptonite causes him to feel physically ill.
However, the rate of recovery once removed from the emissions is as rapid as the rate of damage, and Seth will be back to normal in under an hour after exposure if he can directly absorb enough solar energy. Kryptonite radiation can be blocked by lead or super-dense materials. Upon direct exposure, Seth will rapidly lose consciousness and enter a coma-like state. As a strange side effect of his mystic origins, there is a bit of a trade-off: Kryptonite will not kill him easily, but it incapacitates him even faster than it does most other Kryptonians.
When it comes to other, rarer forms of Kryptonite, such as red Kryptonite, these do not tend to physically affect Seth, but they tend to play havoc with his magic and can make his spellcasting completely unpredictable.
Zenith bases his interactions with the public and criminals on a strict moral code that forces him to uphold truth, justice, and due process. He has vowed to never kill and will often attempt to find the diplomatic solution until it is clear that will not work, or if someone is in imminent harm. Additionally, Seth will do nearly anything for those he cares about. No risk or sacrifice is too great, and he would readily die to protect someone he loves. No matter how invulnerable Seth may become outside, he will always be vulnerable within through his ties to the people he cares about.
Seth has many advantages and considerable power, but he tends to forget that even these have their limits and can run out when he least expects it. For example, on his first outing as a hero, he basically had seen that other heroes fought crime, so he just spontaneously went out and did it. Fortunately, this ended well, but he could very easily have encountered a villain who would have overcome him. He seldom stops to wonder if he can handle a situation, instead tending to charge in wildly, trusting his luck to hold out.
Seth requires solar energy to function at peak capacity, or his powers fade to greatly reduced levels or disappearing entirely if his solar reserves are empty. Seth cannot absorb energy from the lower frequency orange K-type stars, and the radiation from red M-type stars actually disrupts his absorption process. Under the light of such a star, he will begin to lose his power at a slow but steady rate. Within a few hours of such conditions, he will be effectively drained of his powers. Even his sorcery is fueled by his solar battery, so under a red sun he will be limited to casting only ritual magics.
Seth's magic carries a kind of karmic balance to it. If Seth works to serve the greater good and help others, then things tend to go quite well for him. However, anything he does that is undeservedly malicious will be revisited upon him threefold. (Notably, this does not mean acting to please others--it means sincerely acting in their best interests. What a person believes they want is not always the same as what they need, after all. Further, he is always free to act in self-defense or to protect others, but selfish uses of magic that do not aid others or serve the greater good may come back to haunt him later.) The direct result may not be always immediately visible, but misuse of magic always seems to come back to bite him in the ass sooner or later.
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