Blur

Blur is a mutant power-armored superhero and member of the Paragons.

## Biography

By unspoken agreement and explicit governing policy, the Netherlands has always been a safe haven for supervillains. This policy has cost the country dearly on the international stage, particularly as pressure to sign the UNTIL charter mounts year after year. Hoping to regain some good will in the EU, the Netherlands government eagerly volunteered to take part in the formation of the Paragons. Since their population had not a single superhero, however, they were obliged to manufacture one. Scouring the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces yielded a single mutant, a young medic named Elizabeth Poel who possessed some marginal metahuman abilities. Lieutenant Poel was eager to serve and intrigued at the idea of becoming a superhero, so she readily agreed.

Calling on favors garnered from their resident branch of the Temeraire Club, the parliament sent Elizabeth to meet with Waylon Talos. Although the old genius immediately loathed the sprightly young prospective heroine, he owed favors of his own and set about arming her. Taking advantage of what little mutation she possessed, Talos designed a customized suit of power armor equipped with powerful artificial muscles and covered by frictionless force-fields. This prototype design allowed its wearer to achieve incredible speeds, provided they had the swift reaction time to avoid a deadly crash. The suit's capabilities matched Elizabeth's powers perfectly, and when she returned home she debuted as Blur, the world's first artificially created speedster.

Since the inception of the Paragons, Blur has defied expectations to prove herself a valuable addition to the team. Her time in the military has given her determination and courage, which along with her preternaturally quick mind makes her a skilled and reliable ally. Vagabond frequently calls on her to execute dangerous maneuvers in the heat of battle and she has never failed to perform in a crisis.

## Personality

Blur has the least actual superheroic experience of all the Paragons, which combines with her youth and cheerful demeanor to make her come across as foolish or naïve. But having been raised in the Netherlands, where supervillains routinely get away with murder, she is under no illusions about the dangers of the Paragons' mission. Blur's good humor masks a hardened interior and she has no sympathy for metahuman criminals whatsoever. She privately despises the current Netherlands' government for harboring supervillains and longs to drive both groups out of her country.

In spite of this view, Blur is still the most friendly, approachable, and socially connected member of her team. Although Joules may be slightly younger, his striving to fit in among older heroes leaves Blur as the team's "kid" and she fully enjoys the position. Blur loves to travel and maintains a robust social media presence, though much of her content is censored by her EU handlers.

## Powers

Blur's natural mutant powers are very minor. She can process information from her nerves much faster than a normal human, but this doesn't translate into the ability to *act* on the information. The bulk of Blur's power comes from her 'speed suit,' a lightweight power armor jumpsuit that gives her artificial musculature. With the aid of this suit she becomes a true speedster, moving with the speed of the machine's servos and controlling the mechanism with her incredibly fast reactions.

The speed suit's primary weapon and defense are small forcefield projectors on the arms, legs, and torso. These allow Blur to slam into enemies at top speed, inflicting heavy impact damage while the field itself suffers the brunt of the recoil. These forcefields are made of a number of smaller, overlapping fields of minimal strength, meant to collapse in order to dissipate kinetic force away from Blur's body. Blur can also retune the field generators on her arms to project bolts of force outward from her fists, giving her a crude but potent ranged energy attack.

The suit's material offers some minimal armor protection as well, though most of that weight has been sacrificed for greater velocity. The speed suit has a small but powerful sensor & communications package built into Blur's aerodynamic visor making her a highly capable scout. This visor was designed specifically for Blur's use and delivers a huge amount of information at speeds only she can utilize.

Blur was trained as a medic in the Royal Netherlands Army and can competently diagnose most injuries. She often ferries her wounded teammates to safety or administers a number of combat stims she keeps in a small case on her hip. These provide emergency healing and can counteract poisons, flashes, burns, and other battlefield hazards. She is also a relatively skilled marksman though she doesn't include firearms in her usual combat strategy.

## Weaknesses

Blur's mutated nervous system has a serious drawback: she is more sensitive to pain than is normal and can suffer significant sensory overload from killing attacks that penetrate her defenses.

The speed suit is the product of Waylon Talos' singular genius, and Blure can only repair it to a limited extent. If the suit suffers severe damage, she must take it back to Talos for retrofitting, and while he is obligated to help her he will likely take as much time as possible in order to obstruct the Paragons' work.