Barrie shields
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Barrie Shields | |
| Player: @Resurection Mary | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 40 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Beryl Stone |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 22 |
| Height: | 5'9" |
| Weight: | 135lbs. |
| Eye Color: | Blue |
| Hair Color: | Black (dyed blue) |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | College student |
| Place of Birth: | Galaxy City |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon |
| Marital Status: | Engaged |
| Known Relatives: | Jimmy Jones (fiancee; close enough, right?), Claire Stone (mother), Galena Stone (grandmother), Sarah Jones (future daughter), Jet James Jones (T.J.)(future son) |
| Known Powers | |
| None | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Heightened senses of hearing and touch, skilled martial artist, and musical prodigy. | |
| Equipment | |
| Katars | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
Personality
Barrie is very laid back and level-headed, rarely getting flustered or upset. This is in part due to her "Flow," (see Abilities) which allows her to take things as they come to her with little to no fear of the results. While she has her humorous side, it's much less energetic than her friends. She is not ashamed of her body, and is often more comfortable in revealing tops and slacks. She's even taken her tops off in public on more than one occassion. She is also very artistic, being capable of creating music, cover art for personal CDs, sewing, among other things. If it can be conidered an "art," Barrie can do it.
She maintains that she is a civilian at all times, even though she seems drawn to the superpowered community. She rarely fights, and if she does it is only in defense of herself or another. She does not like taking charge, though fully capable if necessary. She prefers to be the moral support on the sidelines.
Project Stonemason
The government funded eugenics program known as Project Stonemason was created nearly 75 years ago as a means of breeding better, stronger humans that could keep up with metahumans. As such, all of the original 1,000 volunteers, called Generation Zero, were carefully screened for any history of mutations, genetic diseases, or post-birth scientific enhancements. Magic, being unrelated to genetics, was permittable. Psionics were as well, provided they were not the result of a mutation. Race, nationality, hair/eye color were unimportant. All that was required was a good bill of health and desirable traits that could produce better offspring.
Galena Stone was one of the first produced by this program. The trait they desired first was longevity, which they had no problem producing. She grew up in a lab, completely unaware of how real families work, and trained as a hero for a time. She was quite successful, as were her "cousins." After a fight that led to the loss of her left eye Galena was retired and bred, producing seven children. She was never truely a mother to them; she didn't know how to be. But there was some small part of her that cared for her offspring. After her youngest, Jet, was taken away for evaluation and training, Galena threw herself into studying and school, determined to make her way onto the Board of Directors to better the living situation for the experiment "results." She was marginally successful; the Second Generation was allowed to live outside the lab, though still making frequent trips for checkups and tests. With the Third Generation, Galena managed to get them the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do with their lives, minus reproductive freedom of course.
It is strictly forbidden to reproduce with someone who doesn't fit the requirements set forth by the Board of Directors. Project Stonemason was meant to be secretive, and they wished a tight control over all their "results" to make sure the abilities they so worked for weren't copied and used against them. Only once has this rule been broken, and the child was nearly terminated because of it. Only due to the arguement set forth by Galena was it allowed to continue, even if the perpetrator was forcibly sterilized to prevent it happening again.
Stone Hierarchy
The Board of Directors lay down the law of the family, of course, but there's more to it than that. The family is broken down into Generations, and the closer one is to Generation Zero the more authority one has. In addition, there are jobs within the Generations: Officials, heroes, and civilians. The officials oversee the application of resources and information, while the heroes normally act upon what the officials provide them. Civilian responsibilities vary greatly, depending on what their day-to-day jobs are like and how it can be best used to support the family; for the most part, civilians make up the majority of breeding stock for the program as they usually have the least important duties to perform. The program is also broken down into Branches, representing the various traits that the Board wanted to breed them for. The more prominent Branch of the family is in response to various super soldier programs throughout the world. Then you have Branches dedicated to psionics, magic, and a less known one about producing powers similar to that of mutants. No one is entirely sure how this is possible, as it is one of the highly classified secrets the Board of Directors has.
History
Born Beryl Stone on May 7th, 1988 to her loving parents, Jet and Claire Stone. It was a miracle the Stone family allowed for her to be born, considering the rules and regulations that it has in place for reproduction. Jet was a hero; a natural born supersoldier due to the eugenics program that produced the whole Stone family. Claire, on the other hand, was a normal civilian with a quite a few healh issues. It's still unclear how these two met and produced their daughter. Regardless, the two managed to keep her with the intervention of Jet's mother and loved her all the more. Jet was sterilized after Barrie was born as punishment for breaking the experiment's rules, and Claire wasn't aware of the program.
Her parents never kept what her father did for a living a secret from her. She always knew her father was a hero; she even inherited a trait he possessed. Jet often said that Barrie was a star in his eyes, as even back then she was a very music-oriented person; this was most likely due to her connection to sound, in that her hearing was greater than average. The family lived happily; Claire unaware of the program that Galena Stone, Jet's mother, was already drilling into her young daughter's mind, and the other two just basking in the joy of having a family.
When Barrie turned five, she lost her father to a sonic powered supervillain, named Shriek, that had discovered his identity. Shriek exchanged blows with Jet, also known as Omniscient, several times and simply had enough of the interruptions. Jet's heightened senses might have provided something for Shriek to exploit in direct combat, but it was difficult catching him off guard to get close enough for that. Somehow, with careful planning, Shriek managed to do it. Jet died protecting his family, while Claire was badly injured and received scars from the incident; Barrie was struck deaf by Shriek's sonic weapons. Time spent mourning was short. Galena Stone quickly swept in after her son's death and set Barrie and her mother on the best path for safety. The two entered into protective custody and moved away from Paragon to the midwest, in a small podunk town that no one would bother looking at, in which they would live for years.
Back to Paragon
Over time Barrie's skin adapted to replace the function of her ears. Her sense of touch becamed heightened enough that she could literally feel sound vibrations. She didn't need hearing aids any longer, or to read sign language. She could still pursue her love of music, which ultimately lead her back to Paragon for college. Sure, there were plenty of colleges around the U.S. that had music programs, but she couldn't help but go back. She was drawn there. Her mother worried for her safety, but Barrie reassured Claire by reminding her of the self defense training she received. Barrie even took more lessons during the three-year downtime she planned to have before accepting a scholarship to Paragon University in Steel Canyon.
It took her a while to settle in properly; the noise of the city was greater than what she was used to, and her skin often felt like it was on fire before she finally adjused to it. Once that was over with, she started classes regularly and even began re-exploring the city of her youth. She over-"felt" someone speaking about an interdimensional nightclub for heroes and villains called Pocket D, and decided to take a look. There she met several colorful characters, though the first one to become friends with her was a vampire named Kaz Sadique. He was a curious one; bored almost with everything, every other thing out of his mouth nothing more than a joke. They became pretty close fast, and even planned to visit Mars at some point. (Barrie still isn't sure if he was joking. Probably not.) However Kaz just dropped off the face of the Earth one day, which Barrie wouldn't find out what happened to him until months later.
As time passed after Kaz's disappearance, Barrie kept frequenting the D. She met Robin Fenix as he was getting his ass handed to him by a demonic-looking creature. Robin was a funny guy, despite being covered in his own blood. So she stuck with him for a while, eventually meeting some of his other friends. Lia MacKay, Jordan Murphy, among others. It was also at this point that Barrie met Jimmy Jones, a.k.a. Vocal Vagrant, whom she got off to a rocky start with. Jimmy's powers were sonic based, and unfortunately Barrie didn't realize this until he screamed in pain from a broken leg. Causing Barrie a great deal of pain, Jimmy had this idea in his head he wasn't any good. It was then she told him about how her "hearing" worked, the first person to know since her arrival. Days went by as she became closer and closer with the group known as the Midnight Refuge; she was even invited to join it. Barrie accepted, as it didn't make her a hero and it meant being able to see her friends more often.
Shortly after that, Jimmy made an off-hand comment in response to dating Barrie. He thought for some reason that she wasn't interested in him. Cue Barrie's "Flow." (See Abilities) Before she even stopped to consider what she was saying, she asked him why he thought that and mentioned she thought he wasn't interested. After some initial confusion, the two agreed to start dating. She hasn't regretted it once since.
Days turned into weeks, and her friends had more problems than they could shake a stick at. Still, she helped as much as she could without crossing that line into superhero status. Fights, clones, kidnappings, and at some point Robin Fenix appeared to have committed suicide. He wouldn't reappear until quite a while later.
Neugen
After a while Jimmy's problems got bigger than what Barrie had seen in the past. He had dealt with his old family, the Brood, and accepted his new one among the Refuge. Still, he wasn't entirely free. A shadow organization had their eyes on Jimmy; they wanted him since his birth. They wanted him to work for their goals of world domination. Neugen kidnapped and brainwashed Jimmy, making him into a completely different person and even made him forget about Barrie. It took a while to get him back, and longer still for him to talk to Barrie again after an attempt to kill her in his compromised state. Barrie did the only thing she knew to do; she called in her relatives, the Stones, to help fight Neugen.
Neugen would get their hands on Jimmy a second time, but not before he set things up for Barrie to infiltrate their ranks. It was against her will, as she knew her relatives would be upset at a civilian getting that close to danger; Jimmy had to mind-wipe her, using his hypnotic voice to overpower her thoughts and program what he needed her to do. After his rescue, Barrie told him to never do that again. He agreed. Neugen continues to be a thorn in their side, but so far neither Jimmy nor Barrie has been kidnapped again.
Beautiful Sounds
One day in the D, while Barrie was enjoying a drink, she was approached by a man. He was all smiles and polite, but something told Barrie something was wrong. He was moving odd, and getting too close for comfort. Backed into a corner, the stranger used a syringe to pump a strange chemical into Barrie. She lost consciousness as her skin slowly melted off and the chemical mutated her into a monster. After a short fight to restrain her and the others she infected in her madness, a cure was administered to her. Barrie returned to normal...almost. The trauma her skin suffered deadened her sense of touch. She was now completely cut off from sound of any sort.
She stayed this way for a few days before one of her friends, Jacob Walters, offered to heal her ears. It worked, though Jacob needed a trip to the medbay in the D due to overexertion. Barrie could hear normally again, even if she couldn't feel. Which that would be taken care of much later, by Justice Advocate. Much to his discomfort, he got a few free gropes in as he healed her skin. Both senses are now above human average.
Abilities
- Heigtened sense of hearing, now that her ears have been fixed, in addition to a heightened sense of touch. She mostly uses this for music projects. She's also lived around sound all her life, even when all she could do was feel it. She's very adept at identifying voices, sometimes even if they're being masked, or distinguishing someone merely imitating another's voice.
- Martial arts training. Barrie's fighting style is unique; she's mostly reactionary and prefers the use of katars in a fight. It was difficult getting a license for them, as it isn't a typical weapon for a civilian.
- "Flow." Barrie can't explain this ability very well. It wasn't something any of her relatives have ever had before so she has no frame of reference to describe it. In reality, it's a vague awareness of the flow of time and her various potential fates within it.
Friends and IC Comments
Please leave a name and message after the beep. Beep!
- "Barrie... Y'know, she's just one of those people who's always right there when you need someone to turn to. And damn, if she isn't one of the best people to talk to when you got somethin' on your mind. Sometimes, I wish I could just put her in my pocket, but alas, tis a no-go, so Jimmy gets dibs for talking privileges and all that, but Barrie remains on my awesome list. Forever." Sylvia
- "Barrie? Oh, she's great. One of those great laid-back people who still manage to be fun and intimidating at the same time. Yeah, she's also one of those people I'd do anything for and would in return trust enough to talk to about things I am dealing with. There's only a handful of people I would say that about. I love her, future pseudo-sister and all." Jo
((WIP, I'll add moar later. Also, I'm aware there's a lot of stuff that happened since Barrie joined the Refuge. I can't remember it all. If you do, feel free to put it in under the Back to Paragon section. =3))
