Leta Blanco
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| I'm sorry, my mistake | |
| Leta Blanco | |
| Player: @A-Muses | |
| Origin: | Science |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Threat Level: | Confidential |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Leta Blanco |
| Known Aliases: | N/A |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 15 |
| Height: | 5' 2" |
| Weight: | 120 lb |
| Eye Color: | Brown |
| Hair Color: | Dark brown/black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Etoilian |
| Occupation: | Student |
| Place of Birth: | Port Oakes |
| Base of Operations: | Port Oakes |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Hector Blanco (father, deceased), Sophia Blanco (mother, deceased), Maricela Blanco (grandmother, deceased) |
| Known Powers | |
| Secretes an oil-like substance that coats her skin and can be shot from her hands and manipulated. This substance deteriorates quickly after leaving contact with Leta | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Rudimentary hand-to-hand combat training | |
| Equipment | |
| N/A | |
| ' | |
Contents |
Personality
Leta doesn't want to be any trouble, really. No, don't open the door for her. Don't save a seat for her. No need to pass the salt. She'll just stay over here, out of the way, and not be a bother.
She doesn't mind.
Really.
And if you insist on being helpful? Well, what do you want? Nobody does something for nothing, not on the street. She's not that kind of girl, so just get lost.
Physical Description
When not using her powers, Leta is a petite girl starting to show the first signs of growing up. Her complexion shows her Puerto Rican heritage, and she keeps her brown hair cut short - usually by taking a knife to it and cutting off chunks she feels are getting too long.
When her powers are activated, Leta's skin is covered first in an oily sheen that quickly turns into a viscous black oil slick. From the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, Leta is covered in dripping black oil.
Powers and Abilities
Leta controls the oily substance her skin began secreting three years ago. While every pore in her skin releases the substance, it often pools in her hands and feet, and Leta is capable of shooting out this extra oil as an offensive maneuver.
Unknown to Leta, a psionic wall keeps others from mind reading anything from her involving the secret of Father Gerard Henri's Home for Wayward Youth.
Weaknesses and Limitations
After the oil leaves her person, it deteriorates in minutes. While this saves the floor from needing extensive clean up where she stands, she must constantly produce more oil to protect herself in dangerous situations. Like most oils, the substance she secretes is also flammable, though it seems to have a much higher fire point than most other oils.
History
Leta Blanco is the only child of Hector and Sophia Blanco. Hector worked on the oil tanker the Cairo Queen, a rough man who had a big heart hidden under the grime and sweat of his work. Sophia worked as an EMT, often the first on the scene of the many violent incidents in Port Oakes. When Sophia was perhaps a little too quick to respond to a shooting report, arriving while the offender was still on the scene, she was shot in cold blood. She died when Leta was four.
After his wife’s death, Hector’s mother, Maricela, moved in with the family. Abuela ran a tight ship, and insisted Leta act like a little lady, including helping with the cleaning and cooking, as much as her little four-year-old-hands could.
About a year after Sophia’s death, Ms. Liberty came to the Etoile Isles, and had her infamous confrontation with Thermonuke on the Cairo Queen. Unlike Thermonuke and many of his own co-workers, Hector survived the devastation, dragging himself home without taking the time to clean himself of the oil and blood from his many superficial injuries. Little Leta was in charge of cleaning up after her father that day, and the days that followed as Hector continued to work in shipyards, cleaning up wreckage.
A life of drudgery continued without incident until shortly after her 13th birthday. Leta began to feel sticky all of the time, and smelling in a way that no amount of deodorant or pilfered perfume could cover. Her father had no explanation for it, and Abuela waved off Leta’s concerns with vague explanations of the “changes” the accompany becoming a woman. When Leta woke up one morning to find her pillow stained with sticky, smelly black goo, she discovered the sticky secretions from her skin had taken on a deep black color, and the smell had intensified - she smelled just like the oil on her father’s clothes after a messy day on the tankers. Leta refused to return to school.
Abuela no longer had any explanations for the changes in her granddaughter, other than the possibility of demonic possession. Hector, too, was at a loss for his daughter’s mysterious mutation. He didn’t think the priests could save her - Sophia’s faith hadn’t saved her after all - but was powerless to stop his mother from dragging Leta from church to church, hoping for divine intervention - the only sort of medical care they could afford.
Stress and old age caught up to Abuela eventually, though. She died when Leta was 14, passing away in her sleep. Leta was heartbroken, convinced somewhere in her mind that it was her freakish abilities that had made life too hard for Abuela. The only item of her grandmother’s that Leta kept was her rosary, and Leta now doesn’t go a day without saying a prayer for her departed grandmother as an apology for never believing enough while Abuela lived.
Now caring for his daughter alone, Hector turned to drinking to numb the pain of daily life. He kept up his job fairly well, until his drunken lumbering around the deck of a ship led him to slip and fall overboard one day. He was unable to swim in his inebriated state and is presumed to have drowned - in the sludge of the harbor, his body was never recovered. Leta was left all alone in the world now.
In the past two years, Leta’s mutation has settled somewhat. She no longer constantly leaks oil or even smells of it most of the time. She can now control when the oil seeps from her pores, coating her in an oil slick that makes her undesirable to most pervs and too slippery to be held by the few who are undeterred. Leta has spent the last year living on the street, running with a few Port Oakes gangs, until she’s unable to hide her mutation and finds herself running. It was after one such narrow escape that she ran into a church, and quite literally ran into Father O’Connely. She dropped before the priest, begging his forgiveness for her rudeness and her appearance, as her oil coating was still evaporating. Recognizing a child in need, with the sort of abilities he needed, Father O’Connely invited Leta back to the Home to discuss how he might be able to help her.
