Name:
Mori Widogast Adler.
Alias:
Phoenix.
Species:
Meta-Human.
Age:
19-years old.
Gender:
Male.
Homeland/Town:
Albany, Australia.
Education:
High School Education.
Occupation:
Works as a waiter in a small café.
Mori stands 5 feet 6 inches or 1,70 meters tall and weighs 211 pounds or 96 kilos. He has black hair, that would, in theory, be long enough to barely surpass his shoulders, they were originally brown, however, he decided to dye them black. He has beryl colored eyes, which stick out especially against his skin, that is rather pale despite him being born in Australia. Occasionally he can be seen wearing glasses, but usually, he wears contacts. Both of his ears are pierced, he has two black eight-millimeter discs in them. He also usually paints his nails black or purple and always wears a
necklace with a lopsided crucifix. He is an enthusiast of leather and jeans jackets and is seen wearing one as part of his casual attire at almost any given point in time.
The suit was made by Mori himself. He began making it at age 15, shortly after some progression in his training with his Tephrakinesis began showing and finished it at age 16. He originally began making it, because of the child in him, telling him that he could become a superhero, just like he always wanted to be when he was 7-years old and ... well, because he thought it would look cool. It was made from a rather resistant material that is actually able to resist up to three shots from a simple handgun with near 100% certainty, however, any shot after that only decreases the chance of the material working further and further. The suit can also dampen damage from impacts, for example, damage done by falling or by a blunt object. The suit has safety cushioning in the knuckle area so that Mori does not destroy his knuckles. It also includes small metal plates in the boots and the gloves, so that kicks and punches have a tiny bit more oomph for good measure. If asked about the design, the Mori would say the black is to blend in better with the ash he controls, but that the red really is just for flare and he just liked the colors together.
Mori is very unlike his appearance would suggest. While he will always openly admit that he does have an inner goth and that he can have a bit of edge when he is in the mood, he is usually a nice guy. He is a nerd at heart, loving video games, cartoons and anime and having all kinds of nerdy trivia stored in his mind. He can be a handful at times, thanks to him being born with a slight version of both ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome he can sometimes be a little much to take care off, however he has gone through enough therapy at an early age and was raised in such a way that he usually able to get a hold of himself. Mori is a pretty smart guy, being able to memorize and get a hang off complicated things very quickly, however, this means he often tries a little too hard to understand which then becomes counterproductive which then annoys him and pushes him to try even harder which just starts the circle of frustration anew. Mori loves to be helpful, he enjoys explaining things and he was pretty much raised to enjoy helping wherever he can. He is a rather physical person, enjoying physical contact more than anything. Furthermore, he is a bit of an adrenaline junky, and while he is afraid of many things, he rarely if ever shares fears that are common amongst the wide masses. Mori enjoys caring for others and spoiling them, usually through praise and food, which he, almost assuredly, made himself.
He greatly enjoys many things. He loves video games, cartoons, anime, and books and the more fantasy they have the better and if you manage to sprinkle in a bit of romance in here and there you have him hooked. Mori also enjoys doing sports. He began taking boxing lessons when he was only little and when he was a teen he began visiting the nearest gym whenever he could, even now he can still be found jogging at least every weekend and he has transformed the small basement that came with his flat into somewhat of a training room, covering the floor in training mats and hanging a punching bag from the ceiling.
Despite him being an advocate for a healthy life, he isn't against occasionally visiting his favorite pizza place and he has a massive sweet-tooth. He loves sweets of all kind, biscuits, cookies, cake, any other candy, but especially ice cream and chocolate, aside from these things he loves berries, mainly raspberries, blueberries, strawberries - which he decides to count to his list of berry-addictions despite knowing that it's a nut - and especially currants. This goes so far that he usually carries spare packs of these berries on him, in case he or someone around him would like some.
On the downside, Mori is clingy. He has strong separation issues and barely any confidence to speak off. He has developed to become his own worst critic, almost developing something like perfectionistic antics that are tailored specifically to anything he does, and if he does fail at something, he will beat himself up over it much more than anybody else possibly could. He often seeks validation in other people he cares for, be those friends or family. He has a constant urge to make people proud because his subconscious always feels that they would otherwise leave him. The main reason he enjoys physical contact as much as he does is that he feels like he has someone who is proud of him and that at least a piece of him is left in someone's memories. Often times Mori puts too much pressure on himself for his own good, he is prone to self-destructive behavior and often too scared to tell anyone feeling that others would think of him as a freak.
He is incredibly impatient and cannot just sit still and do nothing. He is contempt when he sits and just drinks tea, eats something, watches something or if he is talking to someone, but he cannot hold still, he goes crazy when he does. Even when he is just talking to himself in his head - which he also occasionally does aloud - he is usually pacing back and forth, furthermore, Mori loves to have noise in the background, just silence usually drives him just as crazy as sitting around and doing nothing does, so he often has music playing on some headphones when it doesn't interject with another source of sound, like a TV-Show for example. When he is out he usually has headphones in the same pocket as his phone so he can pull them out quickly and put on some music for himself. The reason he pretty much always wears headphones is that he has discovered that many people don't share his very "metal" music taste.
His perfectionist nature and the fact that he always sees himself as not good enough has given him a weird outlook on life. When it comes to others trying to succeed at something, he is usually very optimistic, but when it comes to him, he is the exact opposite. This also means that he often would rather not try new things because he is of the opinion that he could never do it and that he would be no good at it. In a similar vein this pessimistic outlook also easily discourages him from doing something he is usually good at when he sees someone around who can do it better than he can, he then gets a feeling similar to stagefright.
Despite all this, Mori always tries his absolute best to be a good person and a genuine sweetheart.
Mori's story is a little different from the many other stories people like him tell, it is much more grounded, no bloodshed and loss, just a boy trying his best and always coming just a little bit short.
Mori was born with both ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome as well as a comparably high IQ and to top it off, both of his parents were Metahumans, his mother having pyrokinetic abilities and his father being able to cool anything he touches down to almost Absolute Zero at will. Especially the latter two could usually be considered as something good, but Mori had never had much luck with it and it usually never did him much good. One of the earliest memories he has and that he can still vividly recall was from Kindergarten when he was four or five years old. He could already speak and had already picked up on writing, because of that and because he was the only one who wore glasses in his group he was the odd one out, this childish differentiating between him and the others led to a few of the children stealing forks from the cupboards to scratch his face with.
In school, things were not much better. He was so weird and alien to many parents, that most of them forbid their children from interacting with him, leaving Mori the odd one out again. As the years flew by he only made few friends and even in his small circle of friends he was the one that was least interesting to the others and the one that was always the last pick.
His almost eternal loneliness combined with a rather harsh upbringing. Both his parents were comparably old when he was born, his mother and father being 40- and 41-years old respectively at the time of his birth. He did have an older half-sister, who was born 12-years before he was, they both share the same mother. His sister was pretty successful at everything she did. She was smart, got good grades and eventually met and married a very nice man who she went on to have children with. And Mori had to follow in her footsteps. The age of his parents only meant that he was raised like the children of an entirely different generation, learning things much differently from others around him.
His parents always expected a lot of him, pushing him to become incredibly harsh on himself as well. They, even though unintentionally, always made him feel like he was just not enough and that he had to work harder and harder, and that when it felt like it was too hard he just had to push himself further, no matter what. When they discovered that he began developing Tephrakinetic abilities the two of them immediately got to work and tried to teach him how to use his powers, to the same effect that his parents had always had on him. He felt like he just couldn't get it right and almost went crazy over it.
His mother had her second divorce when he was 7-years old and he now lived with her. His mother had rheumatism and every motion hurt her more and more as time progressed, so Mori had to quickly learn how to keep a house, cook and so on. All that coupled with the harsh raising his mother insisted on and her high expectations that Mori felt he could never meet put the boy in a continuously unhappy mood, not unhappy because of the way he had to grow up, but unhappy because he, too, did not meet his own high expectations.
Mori was always in love with sports, and luckily his mother always allowed him to do the things he genuinely enjoyed. Mori took boxing lessons and often visited the local gym, doing more and more sports, training harder and harder, for what he did not know, the only thing that seemed to matter was he gave his all and pushed himself further even on things he did because he enjoyed doing them.
When Mori was 16-years old, his mother called in a favor with a friend of hers. A man called Andrew Nash, who she knew through her former work as a tourist guide in the USA. Andrew was a good ten years younger than his mother was and had a small Café in Los Angeles. She asked him if he could take in her son for a couple of weeks so he could see something different than his hometown in Australia in exchange for him helping out in the café. Andrew quickly agreed and Mori was sent off during summer vacation to spend his vacation days in Los Angeles, although before he was sent off he protested that his mother would have to do all the work herself and that it would be painful to her, which she simply brushed off.
In LA, Mori quickly became friends with Andrew, who had originally offered Mori to not work only to hear that the boy insisted to work as payback for him being allowed to stay. Andrew was impressed by the work ethic of the young boy and when he was sent back off to Australia they promised they would keep in touch, which they did, and Andrew jokingly said: "If you get old enough you can come over and work in the café if you'd like, who knows, I may even let you run it after I get too old!"
Back home everything went its usual course and Mori felt miserable again. However, a big change was coming.
When he was 17-years old, he had to phone his mother to pick him up from boxing lessons, someone had stolen his bike. She said she would be there in a bit and would pick him up. After 15 minutes, she did not arrive. After 30 minutes, she did not arrive. And just as Mori had decided he had waited long enough for his mother he got a call. From the hospital. They had to tell him that his mother had suffered a heart attack while driving and was involved in a car crash. Something totally natural, just at a bad time. A few days later his mother died in the hospital.
With his mother now dead and his father having moved to lord knows where shortly after the divorce, Mori had no one to turn to. His mother had no siblings and his grandmother had long since passed away. So Mori remembered an offer he got from a nice American when he left the country. Mori called Andrew, who, without batting an eye agreed to give Mori a place to stay and paid for the flight, as well as putting Mori on the payroll of his café where he still works today. However, he isn't living with Andrew anymore. He got himself a small flat for cheap, a lucky catch. Only a little after he turned 18-years old.
Regular Skills:
- Mori is a very good cook and he enjoys cooking a lot.
- He has taken drumming classes ever since third grade and has become a quite decent percussionist.
- Mori had been fascinated with and practiced boxing ever since he was eight years old and he has gotten quite good at it.
- As part of the pressure his parents put on Mori, he always did a lot of sports, taking lessons as well as working out in the gym by himself, turning him into someone who has got quite the amount of physical strength, endurance, good reflexes and the knowledge of how to fight to back it up.
Regular Weaknesses:
- Incredibly indecisive, he is much more comfortable letting others call shots.
- When the right buttons are pushed on him, be it intentionally or unintentionally, he is prone to lashing out in anger.
- Built incredibly close to the water, if he is feeling bad he usually needs his 10 to 15 minutes to cry his heart out.
- Prone to locking up when confronted with uncomfortable topics.
- Terrible at baking.
Supernatural Abilities:
- Tephrakinesis - Mori can control ash.
- Ash Creation - Mori can create ash out of thin air.
- Ash Absorbtion - Mori can absorb ashes into his body.
- Ash Constructs - Mori can create constructs, such as shields from ash.
- Ash Attacks - Mori can use ash to launch attacks at enemies.
- Ash Solidification - Mori can solidify ash, often by making it denser and harder to break
- Ash Screen - Mori can create curtains of ash to obscure vision.
- Ignition - Mori can ignite the ash he creates and any ash in contact with it into an explosion like short-lived fire.
- Capture/Constrain - Mori can use ash to trap and pin others.
- Asphyxiation - Mori can use ash as a pseudo asphyxiation gas by forcing others to breathe in ash, by surrounding them with it.
- Particle Resistance - Mori's lungs have resistance against particles, for example breathing in ash does not seem to harm him.
- Fire Resistance - Mori has developed a light resistance to heat, however, he can still be harmed by it.
- Burn Resistance - Mori cannot be burnt, for example, he cannot get a sunburn, however, as stated above heat can still harm him.
Weaknesses:
- Similarly to sand, when ash comes into contact with water, or any comparable liquid it is rendered useless.
- While Mori can generate a large amount of ash, it is not infinite and he has to reuse ashes in the area when he cannot generate anymore.
- Mori cannot see through the ash screens he can create himself.
- Ashes can be carried away or rendered useless by wind like abilities, although natural winds are rarely enough to really hamper Mori.
- Mori can only control a certain amount of ash at once, exceeding this limit puts him under a lot of strain.
- Mori can only control ashes within a certain radius of himself and he must know where the ash is to control it.
- When Mori creates a construct out of ash there are two clauses he has to fulfill, the first is, of course, that he as enough ash at hand to create the construct and the second is that he has to always stay in contact with it, either physically or with a tether of ash between him and the construct, if he fails to stay in contact with a construct it just falls to regular ashes.
- Solidified ash can only take so much damage and/or force before it disperses into regular ash again.
- Ashes are a generally weak thing to use in combat and it cannot cause a lot of significant physical damage.
- Mori has to be able to at least move his fingers to control ash.
- While Mori can breathe in things such as ash without having it damage him, this does not count for toxins such as sleeping gas.
- Mori can easily harm innocents or allies through his ash screens, by having them inadvertently breathe the ash in as well.
- His Ignition can cause great amounts of collateral damage, simply because Mori cannot control the explosion. Any ash connected to the ash he currently touches just lights up, end of story.