The Shadowboy, Narrows Nightguard
 |
You belong to the city, You belong to the night
Living in a river of darkness, Beneath the neon light
You were born in the city, Concrete under your feet
It's in your blood, it's in your moves, You're a man of the streets |
 |
|
— Glenn Frey, "You Belong To The City" |
|
Young mutant surviving the streets when his secondary mutation kicks in and makes things a little more complicated.
Personality
Vinnie is a gentle soul who's been through the ringer and seen some things. Generally he's cool guy who just wants to get by. His very unstable home life has left him with a bit of a rebellious streak, his life on the streets has left him a bit crude and sometimes often rude and mouthy.
Background
Street Rat
Kory and his sister Katrin, in the wake of a botched bank robbery operation, fled to the Narrows. There they settled down and realized Katrin was pregnant. Kory took very good care of his sister during this time, including delivering his nephew in front of their apartment building when the child decided it couldn't wait for a more convenient spot than a street to be born. Ekaterine Kirillovna Vorontsova named the boy after her brother Korvin Mstislavovich Vorontsov, giving us little Korvin Demyanovich Vorontsov.
The birth took its toll on Katrin, and Kory had to step up to take care of his nephew. He adored the little boy and became essentially a single dad when his sister took off with a charismatic young man. So little Korvin was raised by his namesake and trained in the ways of a thief, a robber, a con man.
The older the boy got, though, the more Kory treated him more as an asset than the beloved nephew, but the younger Korvin continued to adore his uncle, looked up to him.
In the Shadows
Young Korvin (going by Vinya to differentiate himself from Uncle Kory, which quickly turned into Vinnie among the English-speaking majority of his fellow Narrows kids) became another street rat, playing around with other kids in the day and called home at night to help his uncle with his illicit activities. But as Vinnie aged from child to teen, his uncle got more and more reckless, something even the boy recognized. One night, Vinnie wasn't called home. His uncle had disappeared. Vinnie was alone. Vinnie, though devastated at his uncle's absense, was determined to find him. The boy survived, through whatever means he could.
As he grew from child toward manhood, Vinnie developed a strange new ability. He's still wrapping his mind around his erebokinesis, but has taken to protecting his fellow street kids from what dangers he can. By day he's become something of their big brother. After nightfall, in the darkness of the Twin Cities, he becomes something more.
SKILLS
Sensuality - Competent Level
Vinnie often finds it necessary to trade services for resources and the easiest services to provide include using his body in a pruriant manner.
Street Fighting - Competent Level
Vinnie often finds it necessary to trade services for resources and the easiest services to provide include pitting his body against another in street fights. He knows how to use most common melee weapons, including those improvised from tools or the environment. He can fight unarmed fairly well. He's even skilled in throwing knives and stones.
Theft - Expert Level
Vinnie has been taught the finer aspects of illicitly acquiring resources all his life. Whether it's con games, picking pockets, five finger discounts, breaking and entering, stripping a vehicle, smash and grab... He's very skilled despite his young age.
Urban Survival - Expert Level
Vinnie knows how to survive on the streets. He knows how to find food, even if it's less than savory. He knows how to find shelter, and which 'shelters' to avoid. He knows how to figure out who is buying what and whether it's a scam. Same with who has what for sale.
ABILITIES
Mutation: Dark Health - Enhanced Level
As a denizen of darkness and shadow, Vinnie completely regenerates any wound very quickly when he's in near complete darkness or if he's in the Shadowlands. If he's in the dark or shadows, the healing gets progressively slower the more light is present. Direct light from the sun or equivalent completely negates his enhanced healing factor. For reference: In complete darkness or in the Shadowlands, a knife slash will close up almost immediately. In the dark, it may take a minute, in low-light or shadows it may take about ten. In the shade when the sun is out, it may take an hour.
Note: The darkness and shadow needs to be natural or generated by someone other than Vinnie, he can't hide in his own erebogenic darkness and heal there.
Mutation: Dark Sense - Enhanced Level
As a denizen of darkness and shadow, Vinnie doesn't need any light at all to see.
Mutation: Erebokinesis - Enhanced Level
Erebebokinesis: At its most basic, Vinnie's erebokinesis allows him to control darkness. He can increase the presense of shadows, shroud an area in darkness, or even banish the darkness if there's light available to rush into its place.
Erebogenesis: He can project blasts or sustained beams of dark energy. The opposite of light, this energy is cold. He can also shroud himself with dark energy or infuse this energy into physical attacks. He can solidify darkness into either a crude crystalline matter, a hard metal-like matter, or a thick rubbery material. Any such matter must retain his constant attention or he loses control and it dissipates back into dark energy. Commonly used to create melee or throwing weapons, tendrils and tentacles, temporary furniture or structural support, or protective gear.
Mutation: Obsidian Skin - Supreme Level
Vinnie can cover his skin with a layer of metal-like darkness that absorbs most physical and energy damage. Unlike his standard erebogenesis, this skin doesn't require concentration to maintain and will persist even if he's knocked unconscious. It does require brief concentration to call or dismiss.
Mutation: Shadow Traversal - Enhanced Level
Vinnie can use his connection with the darkness to shadowstep. To shadowstep he must step into darkness and emerge out of another well of darkness within line of sight or somewhere he is familiar with. Vinnie can't take anything with him unless it's made of erebogenic matter. He can 'trick' the shadow barrier by covering small items (piercings, bracelets, wallet) with a skin of erebogenic matter, but he can only take a small amount of matter with him this way.
Through his shadow traversal, Vinnie can access a transitive plane called the Shadowlands. Overlapping the various worlds of the Multiverse, Vinnie is able to access the modern ones like Superia and Sangria.
Mutation: Somatosensory Manipulation - Enhanced Level
Vinnie is able to manipulate the sensations of the flesh of others through bare physical contact.
He can amplify sensations of the flesh. The warm sun becomes warmer, a cool breeze cooler. A slap more painful, a shoulder rub more pleasurable. When he does this, he doesn't get to pick and choose, all sensations are amplified equally. He is also able to completely numb another's sense of touch.
He can cause overwhelming pain, decrease pain, or even dull it entirely. He can cause ecstatic pleasure, decrease pleasure, or even dull it entirely.
ADVANTAGES
Languages
Aside from English, Vinnie can communicate in Russian and Ukrainian, as well as a pidgin of all three. He has a distinct low-class Gotham accent.
The Narrows
Vinnie was born and raised in the Narrows. The Narrows is in his blood and his blood is in the Narrows. He has a very strong home field advantage in the Narrows. He knows many of the more prominant personalities, leaders, criminals, street folk, shop owners of the Narrows, some of them personally. He knows the streets, alleys, buildings, crawl spaces, nooks, crannies, tunnels, like the back of his hand.
WEAKNESSES
Bright Light
Vinnie is a denizen of the darkness and sunlight and its equivalents are unpleasant to his eyes. His eyes never adjust to lights that bright.
Direct sunlight, or any light of equivalent brightness, is able to burn through Vinnie's control of darkness, pushing the shadows back, disintegrating solid darkness, and nullifying dark energy.
Notably, this does not disintegrate his Obsidian Skin, which seems to have a component to it other than the erebokinetic power, but it does reduce its effectiveness to Enhanced and it loses its dark sheen, making it look more like steel. It also requires him to be conscious if the sun has burned the shadows away, reverting back to normal flesh if he is knocked out or falls asleep.
Uncle
Vinnie's Uncle Kory has gone missing. Vinnie looked up to the man and saw him as a father figure. While he has largely accepted his uncle's absense, the slightest glimmer of a hope of finding the man will be latched onto and every lead exhausted until he finds Uncle Kory or the trails go cold.
Undocumented
Vinnie was literally born on the street to a mother who was on the run from the law. Neither her nor her brother thought it was necessary to get the child processed into the government system. Vinnie has no birth certificate, social security number, or any number of other documentation most people accrue in their lives. At least none that are genuine.
Unschooled
Vinnie never went to school. He was largely taught by his uncle, whose idea of an education was questionable at best.
