Byleth
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
This hero is a member of The Zenvious Foundation.
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Real Name: Zoey Walkers
Contents |
Hearing
This part tends to throw people. Zoey is deaf, but can hear in a rather odd, indirect way. When a person attempts to communicate, usually with words, they naturally emit a certain level of projected thought toward the target of their speech. It's a communication that occurs when trying to speak to another individual, quite normally. Yes, Byleth is plenty strong enough to read minds, but instead all she chooses to do is pick up those naturally projected emissions. She was raised polite, and a few other issues get into her not wanting into people's heads, but she really DOES need to be able to communicate, so she compromised with this form of mind-reading.
Comm
Zoey's communicator is not your standard com unit. The auditory functions have been turned off due to her being deaf, for one. The screen shows up on either wrist, one at a time depending on which is in her direct vision. She has excellent vision, making this a reasonable substitute for hearing what folk are saying, and she is a speed-reader from years of practice. Another addition is the recent Psi-Pod, an invention by Mike Mars (Hero Prime). The new part allows for the com to link directly to her kirlian aura, and if turned on will allow her to hear anything transmitted over the com with her psychic senses instead of ears, transmitted to her auditory center of her brain and perceived as sound. There is a projected light-keyboard that's barely visible unless you know what to look for, if her fingers enter the right area to activate it, and the com holds up to 40 gig of memory. At the moment, it holds a basic writeup of all the major heroes and villains, a selection of various books that she finds to be useful reference material, and 1 gig of music files including the complete works of Billy Joel.
History
Youth
Zoey Walkers grew up psychic. She was the odd kid in school who made things happen when she got angry and you could never catch, because she knew what would happen before it actually occurred. Needless to say, she had to shift schools a lot. Her parents were kind of creeped out by it too; odd things happening around her made them downright afraid at times. Recently she was brought into the Zenvious Foundation and lives there, since her parents didn't react well to Zoey's reading their minds at dinner. She's also gotten an aversion to the idea of sex due to having grown up with everyone's fantasies intruding on her thoughts at a very young age, and already knows far more about it than any kid should have inflicted on them.
Panic
So, anyway. One day, in the bar, a 'master mentalist' decides to take little growing psychic Zoey under his wing. ((Actually happened IC, so I had to put in the logical followup to this ...event.)) See, he decided, let's jam open all her mental ports at once, so to speak, and show her what she can really do. Mister Mentalist had no idea who he was dealing with. He overrode all her mental barriers and threw her mind open to all the minds in the bar, which was packed at the time. Effectively raised her level to 50 for a few seconds, in regards to telepathy. She was twelve, and suddenly having to deal with a bar full of horny off-duty heroes and villains' innermost thoughts. Even if you were prepared for it, ouch.
She had level 50 power? She used it on herself, making the voices stop. She put up mental blocks so strong she couldn't get past them until she hit level 50 again naturally. She could still read minds, but only with skin contact enhancing the link, and it was still weak.
CoT
At this point, Zoey came to the awareness of the Circle of Thorns, a magical group trying to (gasp!) take over the world! They started influencing her subtly and cast a spell on her, since she was psychic but not well defended against magic, to start draining her energy to fuel a spell of their own. Zoey named her super-hero identity after a demon in a book she was reading at this point, unaware consciously of the problem but feeling like she had a little darkness inside her and took on the name Byleth. (For reference, see Tanya Huff, The Second Summoning)
After three years, Zoey was unable to take a walk without feelign as if she'd been on a marathon. She tended to look drained and white, and the fact that her main abilities were to lend her strength to others was NOT helping. Some friends in the Foundation saw problems and sent her to a doctor, who diagnosed her with depression and put her on some drugs to counteract it...which made her less able to defend herself from the magical attack.
The Sacrifice
Byleth was drawn in, finally, and sacrificed to summon a greater demon. Lanara was able to track her magically, and a large group of extremely angry Foundation members went after Byleth. They confronted the Circle of Thorns, finding Zoey with a knife in her heart, and a demon holding her soul. Daria led a team to heal and prepare the body, while Jet led the rest to blow the living snot out of the demon until it was willing to let her soul go back where it belonged. Zoey, no longer Byleth, arose, but someone behind the scenes escaped that day, the death mage Pharason being behind the attack, who had stolen Zoey's powers for nefarious reasons.
Zoey was weak as a kitten, but Lady Liberty called her and informed her that her powers would return, but there was a problem. She had no control, only sheer brute psychic power on absolutely amazing levels. She'd achieved Hero of the City without any idea how to really use her powers, and was dangerous to everyone around her now that her telepathy and other abilities were beginning to make themselves evident, so she revoked all of Zoey's security ratings and ordered her to report to Sister Psyche for training immediately.
Sister Psyche
Sister Psyche and Aurora Borealis trained Zoey for about two weeks in mental theory and proper grounding techniques. She gained a proper background in psionic discipline from them, and continues to go back for regular training. Sister Psyche has her reading a new book every few days on mental research and the most up to date techniques on psychic and psionic study. One thing that Sister Psyche revealed to Zoey was that the girl had, at some point, accidentally written herself out of her parents' memories. She'd done it unconsciously, to protect them from an awful future that she foresaw for them. There was another reason though. She still resented waking up one morning to realize that her parents were terrified of her.
Friends
Bobby Thistle Cute, and he thinks she's hot. Probably one of the only guys that Zoey has a bit of a crush on, because he's so blasted honest with his emotions. He is Little Zoe's boyfriend though, and Zoey is happy for them. Honestly happy, since she knows that she may never be emotionally capable of a relationship herself. He's very protective of her though.
Little Zoe is Byleth's best friend in the world and adopted sister. She's something special, and a founding member of the foundation.
Little Miss Vagary Gree for short, to her better friends. Gree is a dynamo of love and friendship, and Zoey feels a bit jealous of the attention the girl gets, but really honestly cares for the kid an awful lot.
Lanara One hot cat, Zoey thinks that she's amazing because she's fluffy. She thinks that the woman exists to tempt her into petting. Also got Zoey hooked on some anime, which she can be found watching in the Lair.
Wynter Maiden A nice lady that's seen around the Foundation a lot, magically gifted, who always seems to have time for a friendly word or two with a kid who seems down. Daria recently helped revive Zoey from the dead, when she had been sacrificed to a demon.
Saint Helen The woman who introduced Zoey to music. She remembered the experience of 'Princes of the Universe' by Queen while Zoey was in telepathic contact with her, opening her to the realm of music for the first time in her life. It probably had such a massive impact not because it was music, which she had no concept of, having never heard it before, but because of the remembered adolescent memories and emotions that came along with Helen's experience of the music.
Young Maki Fun to hang around, Maki is a scientific creation of power and swordsmanship encased in an eight year old's body and mind, who tends to look up to Zoey with some admiration. And Zoey needs all the friends she can get.
Zarp Draken Vagary's father figure and someone who shows continued concern for Zoey.
Abilities
Future Reading - This is up to you. It's something I came up with to offer plot hooks to people. If you want a source of information and there's no logical way to get that information, come to me. I'll make a reading including it, from the past or future. Probably using tarot cards, or palm reading. We'll come up with something.
Telepathy - Zoey has awesome telepathic potential, and is moving toward becoming a psychic surgeon with amazing speed.
Telekinesis - This is probably the most developed of her abilities, though she's rarely shown it off and doesn't pick up things for play. She's rarely really exerted it, only to enhance other's abilities, since she's rarely had a time in her life when her own abilities were something she had confidence in. She can enhance the movement of others around her on a level that is nearly legendary.
Psychometry - Commonly referred to as object reading, Zoey is slowly developing the ability to touch objects with strong emotional histories and read the events surrounding those imprinted emotions. Having developed this a fair bit, she is now able to actually read objects and gain useful information from them in many cases.
Empathy - Zoey is only a very weak empath, and will never develop much along those lines.
Pyrokinesis - Yes, Zoey IS a firestarter, but that frightens the stink out of her.
Astral Travel - She can travel outside her own body and has done so on some occasions. Her astral form has improved with practice and study; she can now track people astrally and has been in at least one astral combat.
Lip Reading She's deaf. Basic survival skill. She can also use sign language.
Speedreading She reads fast. A page in five seconds is fairly normal, unless she's really focusing down on important information.
| The Zenvious Foundation | |
| Axioms | |
| Mr. Zen | Kaijitsu | |
| Directors | |
| Jade Ohm | Jet Falcon | Mechanizm | |
| Field Officers | |
| Bobby Thistle | Hero Prime | Lanara | Zarp Draken | Zeal Drain | |
| More Info | |
| Virtueverse Page | Website |
