Flash Effect
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Flash Effect is a character of mine that was created out of a need for a deeper personality than another Silver or Golden Age hero. Taking heavy influences from Iron Man and Batman, I decided that a rich, intelligent, socialite who has suffered personal tragedies in her past and overcome them would make an interesting character. From there it was just choosing everything else, and designing a costume to fit the theme.
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| Player: @lasair | |
| Status | |
| Origin: | Mutant |
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| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 27 |
| Base of Operations: | New York, New York |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Ashley Reynolds |
| Birthplace: | Sherrill, New York |
| Occupation: | Heiress, scientist |
| Known Aliases: | Flash |
| Species: | Human |
| Nationality: | American |
| Age: | 21 |
| Height: | 5'6" |
| Weight: | 124lbs |
| Eye Color: | Blue with a brown spot |
| Hair Color: | Black |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Henry Reynolds (father, deceased), Alison Reynolds (mother, deceased) |
| Powers | |
| Psychic Manipulation, telekinesis | |
| Abilities | |
| Gifted scientific mind | |
| Equipment | |
| STARtek Power Suit | |
| Footnotes | |
| Identity is currently secret. | |
Contents |
Personality
A rich socialite who is both in the spotlight and incredibly withdrawn at the same time, Ashley Reynolds managed to shy away from the public eye and work on her own personal projects for her company ReyTek Enterprises. After the death of her mother, she furthered into her reclusive state and turned to alcohol as a solution to her problems.
Eventually, through pressure from colleagues and friends, Ashley underwent rehab and has since came back more social and outgoing than ever before. The sudden change of attitude surprised and shocked everyone close to her. It is assumed that, while in rehab, Ashley finally came to terms with the death of her mother.
Of recent, Ashley has taken a more leadership role. An incredibly driven individual, she can often be seen as arrogant and controlling. This often puts her at ends with people, but her stubbornness to stick to her plans and her way of doing things seems to come out in the end.
Powers and Abilities
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| Speed |
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| Melee |
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| Blasts |
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| Support |
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| Control |
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Powers
Psychic Manipulation
A naturally born metahuman, Ashley first learned she could control minds through force when she entered puberty. With enough concentration on an individual's mind, she can cause them to see images that don't exist, or slow down their synaptic processes. This manipulation of the mind can even go so far as to momentarily rend an individual under her command.
Telekinesis
Through intense focus, and training, Ashley has been able to manipulate objects, or hold objects in place with her mind. This has also lead to her ability to set up a small field around her entire body that can absorb bullets and other dangers, and is more powerful than Kevlar.
Abilities
Gifted Scientific Mind
Every bit the brilliant inventor her father was, Ashley has proven time and time again that no matter how much she parties with the celebrities, she can still meet design schedules in half the time of anyone on her research and development team. It is also rumoured that the design for ReyTek's newest self fueling jet engine was designed while Ashley was being driven from her loft to ReyTek Tower in under thirty minutes, and all on a cocktail napkin.
Equipment
The STARtek Power Suit
The STARtek Power Suit, or Solar Trapping Alternating Ring Power Suit, is a personal innovation of Ashley's. At first intended to be a design for a perpetual source of power, the project was long abandoned due to the realisation that it could be used as a weapon and the death of Alison Reynolds.
After her rehabilitation, something caused Ashley to pick up her project where she left off, and turning it into a powerful weapon system. Using her own personal funds to complete the project, she has managed to keep the entire suit a secret known only to herself and her personal assistant Amanda.
Energy Blasts
One of the key abilities of the suit is that it can draw power directly from the super-generator core into the gauntlet and fire powerful blasts of energy which can hit with concussive force as well as intense solar energy. This energy is powerful enough to both blast open solid steel doors, or soft enough to push a friend out of the way of danger.
Flight
By constantly firing the STAR system's weapons from both the gauntlets and the boots, and through use of a specially made gravitationally aligned belt to maintain balance in the event Ashley loses concentration, the suit and it's user can maintain a state of flight.
Visual Scanner
A creature comfort to the suit's design, the visual scanner allows Ashley to see in normal light, infrared, and night vision. It also has limited x-ray vision.
Other devices in the visual scanner are a communications system that allows Ashley to remotely talk to any frequency she has on hand. It also comes equipped with a rebreather, allowing Ashley to maintain oxygen underwater.
The most important aspect of the visual scanner is that it helps keep Ashley's identity a secret, through both hiding her face and changing her voice.
Background
Supernatural Beginnings
When Alison found herself thrown back in time to 1969, and having been stripped of her Kheldian, she did what anyone without superpowers would have done. She settled down.
Moving far away from Paragon City, Alison lived quietly in the small town of Sherrill, New York, and ended up meeting and falling in love with an inventor named Henry Reynolds. It was not long after this that one of Henry's environmentally safe inventions finally paid off, a fuel efficient 8 cylinder motor that consumed half the fuel of any other engine out at the time. Selling his plans off, Henry founded Reynold Technologies and made his life goal to see all fossil fuels done away with. Five years later on April 13, 1987, Ashley Reynolds was born.
A Silver Spoon in her Mouth
With Henry Reynold's success with his business, Ashley never quite lived a normal life. She was sent to prestigious schools, and waited on hand and foot.
Whatever she wanted, she could have. And if she didn't have it, she could have it bought. Even when it was discovered that she had genetic mutations, she had a special tutor to teach her how to use them.
But even though she was living in the lap of luxury, Ashley was never allowed to lax in her education, and not that she wanted to. From a young age she had shown an aptitude for inventing, and making things and in general trying to understand how things worked. She had done so well in school over the years that she even managed to graduate two years ahead of her class at only sixteen years old.
Life's Changes
After graduating from Caltech in 2006, Ashley Reynolds took over her father's business. Having lost her father to cancer only a year before, and the business having taken a serious blow during the Rikti Invasion and competitors such as Crey Industries coming up, Ashley began work on her father's dream to build a perpetual fuel source. In only a year she had developed a crude version of what would later become the STAR project.
In 2007, Ashley's mother passed away leaving the young woman stricken with grief and soon becoming an alcoholic. Her work began to slide, and others more eager to continue the business took over ReyTek Industries. Colleagues and friends urged Ashley to seek rehab, but it wasn't until Ashley's assistant Amanda gave her a letter from her mother that Ashley would enter rehabilitation.
The New You
When Ashley Reynold's came back into the spotlight, she made no attempts to go unnoticed. The first thing on her agenda was buying the majourity stock in her father's company, making herself the owner.
After cleaning out all the board members that had taken over the business, Ashley immediately set projects in line to use a recyclable fuel system, and secretly began her work on the STAR power suit. In little under a year, Ashley had finished her suit and had began a secret double life of heroism.