Bette Sans Souci

Sergeant **Bette Sans Souci** (died February 2023), nicknamed **Plastique,** was a military bombs specialist. While she was in Central City undergoing surgery to remove shrapnel from her body after an explosion, Bette became a Meta-human with the ability to spontaneously combust objects upon physical contact.

## Biography

### Time in the military

Bette Sans Souci was a sergeant for the United States Army as a bombs specialist (EOD, Explosive Ordnance Disposal). She was RTU'd from Afghanistan after a bomb went off and shrapnel was lodged into her body. Bette was in Central City undergoing surgery to remove the shrapnel fragments. She later gained the power to inflict spontaneous combustion on anything or anyone she touched. As a result, General Wade Eiling began performing experiments on Bette to study her powers.

### After the accident

About 10 months after, Bette stole a file from an office building and turned a duffel bag she had into a bomb in order to escape, though she didn't mean any harm. Barry Allen/The Flash chased her down and Bette accidentally turned his suit into a bomb. Bette urged Barry to take off his suit and his suit explodes soon after, though Barry got out in time.

Bette later confronted Dr. Hadley, yet Eiling quickly intervened and attempted to capture her; she was merely wounded and saved by The Flash. While alone with Wally West, she was told to go out and eliminate Eiling. Bette had herself found by Eiling where Eiling knew she wasn't surrendering herself. She quickly attacked Eiling and his men with bombs though The Flash arrived soon after. Bette was then shot by Eiling and tried to tell Barry that she acted on the order from Wells, but died before she could finish the sentence. The fragments in her DNA turned her entire body into a bomb and she was minutes away from unleashing a catastrophic explosion, but Barry managed to drop Bette's body into the river far away enough from Central City before she detonated.

## Powers and abilities

### Powers

* **Meta-human physiology:** After Bette was exposed to fragements, this altered her DNA and supercharged her cells, augmenting her physiology to access her new powers.
	+ **Fragokinesis:** After being hit, the shrapnel bomb fragments Bette had inside her body combined with her physiology on a cellular level, giving her the ability create powerful explosions upon tactile contact. Specifically, her cells generate a self-exploding compound in the form of purple energy, and she unleashes it onto any solid matter with the mere touch from the palms of her hands. Once the purple energy has infected an object, it spreads like fungus and explodes in seconds. The mass of the object determines the magnitude of the explosion. For instance, a frisbee would be nothing more than a fireworks show. An empty duffel bag can blow a hole in a skyscraper. But when she exploded, the magnitude was equal to a nuclear bomb. However, a theory dictates that her explosive compound cannot infect living matter, seeing as how she had to be dead for the compound to spread to the rest of her body.

### Abilities

* **Military training/Explosives expert:** Bette was a regarded sergeant of the United States Army. Having been trained by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal, she was also an expert at defusing bombs.

### Weaknesses

* **Involuntary combustion:** After Bette was shot and killed by Wade Eiling, her body started to manifest signs of detonation; when she exploded, the size of the explosion was that of a nuclear explosion.
* **Involuntary control:** Unlike most meta-humans, Bette has no control her powers at all. Anything and everything she touches with the palm of her hand is contaminated with combustible energy and guaranteeing its explosion. The only remedy for this is the bandaid solution of specially designed gloves that can resist the exploding compound.

## Behind the scenes

* In the DC comics, Plastique is a red-headed Canadian terrorist who started off with planting actual bombs, later becoming a meta-human with explosive powers and debuted as a villain of Firestorm.