SunFall
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| SunFall in The Talons of Freedom uniform. | |
| SunFall | |
| Player: @SunGryphon | |
| Origin: | Science |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 23 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Jonathan Soaring Hawk |
| Known Aliases: | Hawk, Qsi |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 29 - August 21, 1978 |
| Height: | 6'4" |
| Weight: | 200 |
| Eye Color: | Black |
| Hair Color: | Black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Native American (Chumash) |
| Occupation: | Firefighter |
| Place of Birth: | Santa Ynez, CA |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon City, RI |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | None living |
| Known Powers | |
| Can commune with spirit world and employ trance-healing | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Basketweaving | |
| Equipment | |
| Fire extinguisher | |
| Holographic projector | |
Contents |
Overview
SunFall is one of my first characters on Virtue. His original costume drew a lot of compliments from people, and to date is still one of my favorites. Like many of my other characters, SunFall came into being with only a vague backstory. Through roleplaying, his personality and story solidified. He is a tribute character, dedicated to the Hotshots, those brave men and women who tackle the kind of forest fires that burn thousands upon thousands of acres. I grew up in Los Padres National Forest, and luckily got to know a couple members of the Los Padres Hotshots quite well.
Affiliations
Officer, The Talons of Freedom.
Personality
Jonathan is a very spiritual individual. While he doesn't believe in the Christian God, he spends enough time communing with his ancestors to know that yes, there IS an afterlife, and yes, it DOES matter what you do in life to get there. He can speak Chumash, Spanish and English, and in fact, English is his third language. Because of this, he often thinks very carefully before he speaks, and tends to be overly cautious about his word usage. However, still waters run deep, and the heart of this firefighter is as turbulent as the forest fires he once battled. He feels very passionately about some subjects, and although the fuse is slow to burn, once it reaches ignition, the resulting explosion of emotion is sometimes more than people can handle. He is an avid book reader, and although he is a registered hero, he can't help but assist with the frequent arson fires that break out in Steel Canyon, often dropping everything to help with one.
Powers
Jonathan's constant communication with his ancestors have given him the ability to tap into the spirit world for both defense and offense.
Netherworld Manipulation
By concentrating, Jonathan can summon one of his spirit guides to assist him during a fight. The spirit takes the form of a blackish smoke around his hands, and is so cold it often does extra damage to his targets.
Trance Healing
Jonathan can also perform feats of mind over body, healing his wounds faster than normal and using only a fraction of the energy spent by most heroes. He can also make himself more resilient to attacks, as well as give himself a burst of adrenaline when needed.
Travel
Although his name is Soaring Hawk, Jonathan doesn't actually fly. What he can do, however, is jump for long distances, close to 300 yards at a time. When asked about this particular ability, his only words are, "Coyote is not the only trickster."
Additional Powers
At this time, Jonathan does not have any other recorded powers.
Skills
Firefighting/Survival Skills
Jonathan was a Hotshot for 5 years before coming to Paragon City. He has extensive knowledge of fire control techniques and equipment, and also an acute survival sense that comes from his time spent in the mountains. He is able to live off the land indefinitely, if he is in familiar territory.
Trade Skills
Although he doesn't make a big deal of it, Jonathan owns a small business that sells traditional Chumash jewelry and artwork, including baskets. He makes the jewelry and baskets himself, though he often claims his family does it. He uses this income to supplement his hero lifestyle.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Although in touch with his spiritual self, Jonathan is only human. If he loses concentration in a fight, he goes down quickly. He is also very sensitive about his appearance, due to the extensive chemical burns he received before arriving in Paragon City. His face is horribly scarred, and he actually uses a small holographic generator to give himself the semblance of normalcy when he is not wearing his mask.
Equipment
Jonathan wears a small holographic device that generates the appearance of normal skin. The image is his own face, based on a picture taken shortly after he joined the Hotshots. He uses this whenever he is not in his concealing uniform.
Character History
Timeline
August 21, 1978 - Born to Greg and Martina Soaring Hawk on the Santa Ynez Chumash Indian Reservation.
June 27, 1990 - The Painted Cave fire erupts in Santa Barbara county. For 5 days, Jonathan remains glued to the TV. He decides to become a firefighter.
June 6, 1995 - Jonathan graduates from Santa Ynez Senior High School
December 15, 1995 - Jonathan graduates from Alan Hancock Fire Academy.
February 14, 1996 - Jonathan is hired by the Los Padres Hotshots.
August 11, 2002 - The Bryant Fire breaks out in Yucaipa, CA. Jonathan is part of the team sent to assist.
August 12, 2002 - Jonathan is officially missing, presumed dead.
August 13, 2002 - Jonathan is discovered just outside a destroyed building, with horrific chemical burns covering most of his body. His rescuers are amazed he is still alive. Due to the severity of his wounds, he is sent to Paragon City for intensive care.
February 14, 2002 - Six years after he was hired as a Hotshot, Jonathan registers under the hero name "SunFall".
Origin
The day I became a hero is the day I died. How many people do you know that can say that? By rights, I was gone. Should have been gone ten times over. There was barely enough of me left to make a leg. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
My name is Jonathan Soaring Hawk. I'm Native American, Chumash to be exact. I grew up in Santa Ynez, California. When I was about 12, I decided I wanted to be a firefighter after seeing a blaze decimate 5,000 acres of Santa Barbara. It took them 5 days to control it, and it burned close to 700 homes.
When I was 18, after graduating from the Fire Academy at Alan Hancock College, I was hired by the Los Padres Hotshots. I spent 5 years with them. Five years of ash and glory, and they were some of the best of my life.
I'll never forget the Bryant Fire. It was started by some "disturbed" kid, a 16-year-old. Maybe he should have been on meds. Anyway, it was hot and dry, a common thing in California. The fire took hold quickly. We actually didn't have too much trouble beating it back. It was during the hotspot check that ... that I died.
It's a routine thing. You go back through where a fire has burned and put out the little fires smoldering in the underbrush. A fire can smolder for hours, sometimes days underground, and then all of a sudden it'll flare up again. I was poking around a ruined building, when the ground gave way beneath me.
I landed in a burned-out basement. My entry was too high above me to climb out, but I found a door and kicked it open. To this day, I'm not sure where I was or who was running the place, but I was definitely in a lab of some kind. Smoke and fire damage everywhere, but I could tell that some of this stuff had been started intentionally in the lab. You know... burn the top secret work kind of stuff. Definitely put a chill up my back.
The more I moved in, the fresher the burns got. The smoke was acrid, paper and plastic and who knows what else burning and smoldering. The particles were so fine it started to get into my respirator. Pretty soon I was tasting the stuff, and it was getting harder to breath. I had to take the thing off. If I'd kept it on... well, no... the way the stuff burned... But I'm getting ahead of myself again.
I finally came to a room that was still burning. It wasn't burning much, but fire was active. Suddenly something exploded and the room filled up with smoke. I immediately lost my bearings and started stumbling around. The smoke was making me light-headed. I tripped and tried to catch myself...
Have you ever accidentally touched the edge of a hot pan? Maybe the cookie sheet you took out of the oven a few minutes ago wasn't quite cooled down yet. You brush against it and yelp, then laugh a little to yourself while you run your hand under cold water, how clumsy of me, ha ha.
Now take it up a step. You make hot chocolate and spill a little on your arm. You run it under cold water but it still stings, and you have a red mark for a few days, maybe even a blister or two, but you can still laugh it off. Ha ha, how clumsy of me.
Now imagine you can't pull away, you can't rinse off, and you can't laugh it off.
The boiling hot chemicals that were in the barrel I pulled on top of me during my fall clung to my skin like liquid latex. It covered my face, my chest, my arms and hands. It covered my lower body all the way down to my knees. And it started to eat through my fire suit like it was water through a piece of tissue paper. Pretty soon it was eating me. I can't describe the agony of it, but I will say that I blacked out pretty quickly, after screaming myself hoarse.
They say that when they found me, most of the muscle was gone where the stuff had been. In some places they could see bone. But I was still alive, somehow. Maybe the ancestors had already blessed me, I don't know.
But during the time between when I fell and when I awoke in Paragon City's Phoenix Medical Center, I walked in a world of shadows and mist. My ancestors came to me. My spirit guides came to me. Crow. Coyote. Puma. They came to me and they taught me. I don't know why they chose me. Maybe I have a higher purpose I haven't discovered yet. They taught me how to fight, how to use the spirit world for myself. They taught me how to heal myself and make my body do things above and beyond any normal man. Then, they woke me up.
They say that my eyes were gone, but when I woke up, I could see just fine. Everything else about me, though... Scar tissue, pink and white, everywhere like badly-molded wax. It took me several weeks just to learn to walk again, but I did it. I started paying more attention to the city itself, and I realized that Paragon City was a place of troubles. I thought about everything that had happened to me while I was spirit walking, and I knew I could make a difference. I began to train in earnest, though I knew that my appearance would be more of a hindrance than anything. Finally I managed to put together a costume that completely covered my body except for my eyes and hair.
After that, I went and registered as a hero. The rest, as they say, is history.
