The Sensational Flame
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| "When life pushes hard, you gotta push back." | |
| The Sensational Flame | |
| Player: @Nyen | |
| Origin: | Mutant |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Julie Stephens |
| Known Aliases: | Flame |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 18 |
| Height: | 5'9" |
| Weight: | Secret! >:O! |
| Eye Color: | Blue |
| Hair Color: | Purple (dyed, naturally black) |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Japanese/American |
| Occupation: | Jobless! ;_; |
| Place of Birth: | Albany, NY |
| Base of Operations: | The Teen League Base |
| Marital Status: | None |
| Known Relatives: | None surviving |
| Known Powers | |
| Confidential | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Confidential | |
| Equipment | |
| Confidential | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
Personality
"I guess you should know something about me before we go on..." -- The Sensational Flame Issue #4: The Big Top
Flame would have you believe she's a normal teenage girl trying to make it through life by making the grade and still having time between a job, homework and boys, but she's much more complex. Though she doesn't look it, it's part of the facade she puts on so well. She's a very happy girl for the most part, hanging out with some of her best friends and keeping up with her physics work at Croatoa U. She doesn't let her powers get in the way sometimes, but if she gets really mad, it's pretty explosive.
Character History
"If we're going to work together, I guess you should know a bit about me." -- The Sensational Flame Issue #31: A New League
The Early Days
Born into a well off family was the beginning of a wonderful time for Julie. Robert and Melinda Stephens loved their baby daughter with all of their heart, though the girl was rather active even at an early age. She grew up in a nice house in a suburban development. Everything seemed to be within walking distance. The schools, the shops, and even friends houses. It was a great place to grow up for her.
When she turned six however, something began to change inside of her she felt. She started getting very bad headaches and fevers began to occur more frequently. Soon, Julie was in and out of hospitals several times for almost two years. Doctors couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening to the poor girl until one day she got up from her bed and began to be able to move around normally. The doctors at the hospital called it a miracle and claimed the disease cured inside of her, but they would soon come to find out that they were quite wrong.
A Raging Inferno
Julie carried on her life without there being any reactions and the fevers that plagued her childhood slowly faded into memory. She was troubled by nightmares occasionally, though they were few and far between. She continued on with going to high school, getting decent grades until one morning she woke up from a nightmare that seemed much too real. She had a headache from the experience but went to school anyway. She found she couldn't concentrate well at all, and was picked first to read a report she'd only had half finished in front of the class. She stood before her peers with head throbbing and suddenly the plant in the back of the room caught fire. Julie collapsed and was rushed to the nurses station.
She woke up several hours later to the nurse sitting in a chair by her bedside. She was told what happened and told that her parents were waiting to take her home. That very night, she had another nightmare more violent and worse than the last one. Days went by as her grades slumped and Julie found herself talking to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist however could find no signs of insanity in Julie, and simply diagnosed the nightmares as adolescent fears manifesting themselves as dreams. Julie's grades picked up a little bit after that, but the nightmares continued and accidents involving fire became more frequent.
One night Julie was coming home from a party at a friends house and came upon her house. The front door was wide open but all the lights were still out. Julie ran into her home to find her mother holding her father crying and an armed man holding a weapon to her head. The criminal suddenly caught fire but, unfortunately so did everything else around him and her mother. Julie blacked out only waking up to see the house on fire and no sign of her mother. Distraught she ran away before the fire department could get there. She was now alone in the world.
The Big Top
Julie wandered around for days living off of whatever cash she had left in her pockets. She soon wandered into a circus that had stopped into the town and saw the strong man do something amazing. The strong man lit himself on fire and demonstrated great feats of resistance to it and his own strength. She was amazed by his display and after the show she soon came to him. His name was Vivandi and she asked about his abilities. He explained to her that he found out he was a mutant, and that he could light himself on fire and that helped him pick things up and move faster than he normally could. It was then that Julie showed him her own power. Vivandi then took her to their ringleader The Magnificent Fernando and see what he thought of her powers. Fernando quickly caught on and placed Vivandi and Julie as a double act.
Julie quickly because The Sensational Flame in the circus and crowds loved her as she would catch Vivandi on fire and form fire out of no where to dazzle crowds. While in the circus, she learned certain things such as agility and the ability to control her fire powers better and not have them be so spontaneous. She was soon a star attraction for the Magnifi Circus and traveled around the country before coming to Paragon City. It was there that she would find herself alone again.
The Villain and the Hero
The circus had come to Paragon, and it was there that Julie really made her mark as she dazzled the crowds with her fire mastery. The show was quickly put on hold however as the area was attacked by a group known as the Carnival of Shadows. The circus was over, and many of the performers were taken by them, only Julie and Vivandi managed to escape. Vivandi vowed to get them back and ran off, leaving Julie alone. She stood in a dank alley listening to the sounds of screams of people being taken by the Carnival. She ran away once more, lost in a city she was unfamiliar with. She soon found herself falling into a group of former Hellions trying to fend for themselves. She rescued them and for helping, they helped her get money and food and find a spot in King's Row to hide out where she met her first villain named Mezmo. He helped the group along by giving them a place to stay and jobs to do for him.
Soon she was just another punk living on the streets trying to make a dishonest living. It wasn't until one day she was on a job at a bank, holding it up to get a little bit of money that the whole thing was thwarted by a hero named Colonel Valiance. Her gang abandoned her and she fruitlessly tried to fight back. The Colonel took her down and asked her why she didn't use her powers for good. She explained her story and in exchange for not sending her to jail, she joined his group known then as The Justice Guild. She joined Boy Blur, Stone Skin and Colonel Valiance and soon became a registered hero in Paragon City.
She took up odd missions occasionally, mostly fighting alongside her new found teammates. They took down many criminals and gained several arch-villains along the way, one of whom became Julie's arch-nemesis. Radical Ice, a hoodlum who one day found himself able to control ice. He and Julie fought endlessly until he was finally brought to justice after Julie tricked him into icing himself over and getting himself stuck to the floor. Soon she would find herself in a much darker situation though as another villain would face off with the Justice Guild.
One Minute to Midnight
The Justice Guild was called into a criminal investigation involving several homocides that seemed of a superhuman nature. The scenes were all brutal and all involving psychics. When heroes became targets however, the police mounted a strike force against several villain groups including one Donovan Scarsbaugh who's company in preserving artifacts was coming under scrutiny for stealing. It wasn't until later that the investigation on Donovan blew wide open and it was found that he had been stealing artifacts from museums and killing any psychic that found out this information. He himself, having strong mental powers took on the Justice Guild in his own mansion upon Cap Au Diable.
The Guild was torn asunder from the mental ability of the man. They lay defeated, Donovan showing each of them the worst moment of their lives one by one and making them relive it one by one, reducing them to cower. However, when he came upon Julie, he was overwhelmed by the pain she felt, it was too much for Donovan and her memories came into his mind, causing him to writhe in anguish. This caused him to go mad and start to enjoy he pain of others. But it was also because of this, he could be taken in and tried.
During the trial however, nothing could be found against Donovan however. Finally, a decisive piece of evidence was found within his home when an artifact that had been stolen recently still had a museum stamp upon it. Donovan was sent to prison but not before causing the prosecution to lose everything. The evidence was considered to be falsified and the heroes involved were charged with attacking an innocent man. Donovan was free, and Colonel Valiance took the full legal brunt. However, in doing so, he had to quit being a hero. Boy Blur and Stone Skin both quit as well. Julie was the only one who kept her moniker and continued to fight crime. She later came to find that Donovan was linked to the psychic's deaths by Sister Psyche and sent away to the Zig where he serves a life sentence.
The Alpha-Teens
Julie continued her career as a hero and brought quite a lot of fame to herself. She teamed with several heroes to bring down the villains that plagued Paragon and became something to be talked about among the city. Soon she met a masked teenager named Dreamscape Lad who introduced her to a group known as the Alpha-Teens. She joined almost instantly and became a member of their ranks, tired of fighting alone all the time. She became fast friends with Dreamscape Lad otherwise known as Pete and another hero who she claimed as her best friend, Winter Flux otherwise known as Laurie. The three of them were close during the time in which they were members. However soon it seemed all was not as it was going to be.
The Alpha Teens were starting to fall apart, the three of them were staying as close as possible. However, soon it was not to be as the Alpha Teens crumbled. Julie, while under stress of seeing some of her friends go, found herself also trying to make it into college. She couldn't raise enough money to go, however she soon found her way out. With the Alpha-Teens gone, she was once again free. She was going to go with her friends to the Teen League but the opportunity came up to work with Mezmo once more in the Rouge Islands and make money to go to college. Julie jumped at the opportunity without another word to her friends, all but disappearing into thin air without a word to them.
Infernal Revenge
Julie came to the Rouge Islands and teamed with Mezmo along with Faded Death, Bedlam and Foreshadow. They tore quickly through Mercy Island and pulled off huge jobs such as taking down whole tankers and stopping heroes dead in their tracks. It wasn't all good for Julie however as she slowly started to draw more upon her own inner darkness. Soon, she was planning heists of her own, hurting people on her own, free of Mezmo's subtle control. She was a villain in her own right. No longer The Sensational Flame, she was Infernal Revenge.
She continued her work with Mezmo before one night he tried to molest her while she slept. It was unfortunate for Mezmo, he woke her in the middle of a nightmare. Julie was unaware, but she set Mezmo ablaze and burned him along with the hideout. The other three villains soon joined Julie, looking up to her as the new leader for doing what they desperately wanted to do. She lead them for months on end crusading through the Islands, taking down banks and killing all who stood in their path. She became very dark hearted, however the only thing that kept her from turning purely evil were thoughts of her old life. Soon memories of Laurie and Pete would invade her mind and guilt would start to wrack her mind.
On a bank heist, she burned a hole into the vault and immolated several guards. On her way out with the money, she stopped, seeing a familiar face in the crowd of people that were cowering. Standing before them was a very haggard looking Colonel Valiance. She stopped and stared at him, the guilt starting to become overwhelming and the goodness in her she once felt coming back like a flood. She dropped the money and ran outside to a police perimeter. She burned through half of them, sustaining several bullet wounds but killing most of the officers on duty to protect the bank. She was then chased through the Rouge Islands, trying to find a ferry going to Paragon. She was hunted for three days, assassins after her along with bounty hunters and police officers. She sustained more injuries trying to hide out until finally she found a ferry leaving for Paragon. She hopped aboard and smuggled her way back to Paragon.
Road to Recovery and the Teen League
Julie woke up on a cot in the basement of Croatoa University after having blacked out. She'd made it to Paragon, but now she knew she would not be welcomed back in so simply. Days passed where she was treated for her wounds by a doctor named Stephen Jericho that would come in from the hospital to help her, and she was kept company by the students often times. She spent days wallowing in pain from both her wounds and how terrible she felt for coming back to Paragon as though it were nothing but a fall back plan. Soon she was able to walk around and move under her own power. The doctor brought in a healer to take away the scars from her body, and soon it was just students that would come visit her and the people in her rehab.
One night however, beaten and nearly destroyed, her communicator from back when she was with the Teen League would go off. It was a messaged, delivered a year too late from Pete about the merger of the Teen League and the Alpha-Teens. It went off without a hitch and he wanted Julie to join up. Emotion overflowed and without thinking she sent her reply to meet Pete. She then fell into a deep depression, not realizing that it was possible her friends too were gone. She found herself not going back to her rehab and locking herself away in the basement.
Days drug on until she received a letter slid beneath her door. It was from Pete, saying he wanted to see her again. Immediately Julie ran out to contact her old friend. Her communicator was beaten up and battered, but it contacted him and he came flying. Finally reunited, she told him everything that happened to her. Despite her past, he allowed her into the ranks of the Teen League where she quickly became reunited with old friend Laurie as well. Since then, she's been fighting along side her new friends, vowing to never return to her life of crime.
Flames of Fury
After a few months of being in the League, Julie found herself receiving letters from her old master Vivandi. Setting out, she would go on to attempt to find out where these letters were coming from. She soon found out they were originating in St. Marshal from where the Carnies kept their tents. She moved on shortly after hearing the news and investigated. After finding her old master still alive, Julie then recruited the help of two of her old compatriots, Bedlam and Foreshadow. With the two of them in tow, Julie watched the compound for a few days before moving in to take them down. Julie was not surprised to find an ambushed, but she was surprised when Vivandi attacked her. Her old master was brain washed, and after a fierce fight, finally came to his senses. However, the building in which they fought was collapsing.
Vivandi, in his moments of clarity, held on to the structure so that Julie could escape. When the building collapsed, only Julie was left. With a letter in hand she found amidst the rubble, she found it was the last letter Vivandi had written her. Taking this letter, she moved away from the scene with a tear in her eye. She'd lost three good people in a matter of ten minutes. Returning to base, she locked herself away.
Darkness Returns
Julie continued her studies of her own powers while helping another young League members get hers under control. With Cindy by her side, Julie found herself becoming more and more at peace. That peace however, would soon be shattered. Reports would come to her telling her that Donovan Scarsbaugh was now back on the streets. His powers had grown also, no longer content with being just another psychic, he could now raise the dead and bring them to serve his cause. He continually tormented Julie, Miya, Jon and other members of the League. He was a force that didn't seem like it could be stopped. With his return however, came another being much more terrible and powerful. From within Julie came The Atranoch. The terrible manifestation of Julie's hatred and anger finally bore form from Julie.
The Atranoch would attack without mercy, draining those around it of their power. Julie was put into isolation and Donovan seemed to fade out of memory with other threats. Soon, Julie would return to action without anything seeming to be wrong. The Atranoch however would often times resurface, and Donovan would still appear if only to torment the League.
Fall
Julie would suddenly begin to feel weakness of her powers. Slowly but surely she would start to feel her powers fading. Cindy's training would be complete however, and it would mean Julie could concentrate on her powers fading. Despite her best efforts, however, she could not figure it out. As the days drew on, her powers continued to fade. She soon found the doctor that helped her get back to fighting strength when she returned. He cooked up a few injections for her to take to bring her powers back. With this in hand, she could use them when she would need to fight, though often she found herself moving around on a cane.
Soon, she would trace the source of her power's disappearance. Another dimension would lead her to the answer and a doppelganger. With a Praetorian copy of herself running around, sapping her energy, Julie had only one choice, to go in and stop her. In the other dimension, Julie could feel her powers coming back to her, however she would be captured by her double. While confined, Julie soon found herself fusing with the Atranoch and causing the destruction of her double. In doing so though, her double would also kill her. As Julie slipped away from life, she spoke her final words with Saito and Zefie.
Rise of the Phoenix
Julie found herself waking up in a realm unlike any other. She found herself next to the Atranoch who advised her that the only way out was to follow it. So, she traveled for twenty years through the spirit realm, finding herself seeing the best and worst of all humanity before finally she arrived at what she believed to be the realm back into her own world. In a ring of fire, Julie came back up from the dead in the middle of the League's lab where she left the world.
Death
Shortly after while, Julie started experiencing a break down in her powers. She could no longer move like she used to and her fire was going out. Scared, she searched for answers while her friend Cammie was trying to be brought back to the Protectorate. She soon collaborated with Magi after helping in Cammie's rescue and found herself building a machine along side Azuria's magic that would help get a team into her head to find out what was causing her to lose her powers.
The team was set to go and they entered her mind. Going through various staged of Julie's psyche, they discovered that the Atranoch was in fact the cause of all her pain. Donovan, long ago seeing such pain, attempted to place a block on her mind. The pain caused by the Atranoch made him go insane however. Taking out the Atranoch was the final step in saving Julie, however doing so would ruin her mind and kill her. With no other choice, the team took out the creature and came back to say their final goodbyes to her. It was in that moment that The Sensational Flame, Julie Stephens took her final breath and said her final goodbyes as she passed away.
Powers
"Well, I guess I can show you...but please don't freak out!" -- The Sensational Flame Issue #4: The Big Top
Fire
The most obvious power of Julie's is her command of fire that she discovered that fateful day in class when she set the plant aflame. She was once unstable, but thanks to constant training she is now better with her powers than before being able to shape her fire into anything she needs such as a sword. She can also use it when angered to bring herself back up into a fight after being knocked out to once again help out with the fight. She continues to train however, to try to be able to more effectively use her fire abilities.
Agility
Her years spent in the circus taught her how to be agile and be able to keep her balance well. She tries not to show it off too much, but she can walk on a tightrope and can leap considerable distances for a hero without superior leaping a ability. She is also able to dodge slightly better than most people thanks to this added agility.
Speed
One of the things Vivandi taught Julie in the days before the circus collapsed was the ability to move faster than other people. He taught her how to apply it to her movements and her running. By burning the air around her and cutting the resistance, she can move at super speeds. Her average speed is around 85 MPH, however under certain circumstances it's reached over 150 MPH depending on how hot the fire she emits burns.
Science
Julie has always had a knack for the sciences, her chief subject now in college being physics. She's also a bit of an inventor, having invented a jump-pack and jet-pack before. She has used her abilities to also come up with concoctions for different drink mixes at parties, making her quite the bartender of choice.
Affiliations
Trivia
- Flame became something out of nothing. Originally she was a character named The Winter Inferno over on the City of Heroes server Freedom. She was deleted and brought over Virtue for RP purposes, however the name was taken. She was originally a cold/fire controller.
- Fire was chosen to go with the emotions of a teenage girl and how unstable they can be.
- Julie was originally supposed to be a very shy girl, but that quickly changed mainly because of how brightly she dressed.
- The characters name was originally Sarah, however that changed due to the name being much too commonly found.
