Fume

James Bailey, also known as Fume, was an alt who was an on-off enemy of Volt during his early years; acting as a spy for Darren Edmunds during his school days in an effort to drive Volt and Blades apart and eventually kill the duo; James, however was never sure about Darren's intentions and in the end refused to kill the two.

James was the son of Boise Bailey CEO of Bailey Industries who used his billions and connections to secret biomedical research to try to cure James of a rare form of hereditary lung cancer; the result accidently altered the boy. He later became the CEO of Bailey himself but has since been finding maintaining his solid form more and more difficult.

### **History**

Born in West Brompton in London to Bailey Industries CEO Boise Bailey and councilwoman Judith Bailey in 1986, James led a privileged childhood, although one that was mixed with hardships; when he was 10 his parents split in a messy divorce and his older brother Boise Bailey II was arrested for stealing medicine and biochemicals for various organised crime gangs. Judith claimed that Boise Senior was part of a coverup and he too was involved in an effort to fund more sinister fringe-science research in secret. Judith, however couldn't prove anything and Boise made sure both his wife and eldest son were excommunicated from Bailey Industries utterly, and sued her for invasion of privacy, slander and sabotage, leaving her almost penniless.

During this time James began hanging around more underprivileged members of his school and got himself into a lot of trouble, involving himself in hooliganism, much to the anger and disproval of his father; nevertheless he actually studied hard, and wanted the responsibility of running Bailey Industries, and took a keen interest to business.

James grew close to a young Darren Edmunds and his sister Hannah who were living in London at the time before moving down to Hastings, with Andrew, Darren's son working for Boise in both an official and non-official capacity, delivering illegal chemicals and drugs to Bailey Industries to perform more underground research; but when a police investigation cropped up, Boise suggested Andrew move away from the city to Hastings, a smaller town on the Southeast coast of England where several important drug and chemical resources came from; that way Andrew could keep close to said resources once the investigation was over.

Whilst in Hastings Andrew and his wife Layla smuggled drugs from the coast from Europe and increased their profits, but when Layla left Andrew, his son Darren helped him.

Meanwhile by the time he was 14, James had fallen ill, a rare form of lung cancer, passed from his grandfather began to grow, and not wanting his only worthy heir to Bailey Industries die so young, and he culminated and personally saw to a project that was to administer experimental drugs and chemicals to James in an effort to utterly cure him of this cancer; The project would take many months and he would have to go regular chemical stabilising injections and inhalations of an experimental hot gas known as "pyracine" developed by Moore Industria and Bailey by mixing liquid Nixmid with hot, slightly radioactive isotopes of caesium and heating it to a gaseous form with cannabinoid oils and small amounts of methamphetamine. Believed to activate an increased healing rate in humans, the project, however the chemical had an unusual effect on James.

Aside from almost killing him, the pyracine treatment and nixmid agent combined with other chemicals in the gas and already injected into James' system, triggered an unforeseen mutation centred around the cancer itself; the lung cancer began to act as a biochemical sponge to itself and feed off the gas being administered; doing so seemed to settle the cancer and cure James of his symptoms at first, though the cancer was still there, it remained benign.

Calling it a success and feeling great, James was ordered to stay within Bailey Industries underground facility so that he could be monitored, but after the third day James began to crave that gas, or at least something similar, in a shaking frenzy James tried to find the gas in the lab he was supposedly "cured" in, only to find empty vials and complex machines.

He began to feel terrible again, worse than before, and his skin began turning grey.

When James came across a packet of cigarettes and a lighter in a lab coat he smoked one; inhaling the cigarette seemed to stabilise him once more; but keeping the packet of cigarettes James didn't tell his father, secretly smoking one every so often to ease his pain; it was unknown to James why this was happening, but his unusual ailments got stranger still.

After finishing the packet of cigarettes James noticed his need to inhale more noxious fumes was growing, and took to smoking a cigar he stole from his father, inhaling it almost at once down a side-alley on his way home from school. During his inhale, James was attacked by a four-man gang of ex-drug runners who Boise had thrown under the bus during the earlier police investigation, disrupting a major drug chain, and had managed to find and target James,

However when the men attacked, James' body exploded in a hot cloud of smoke and ash, leaving the men with severe burns on the outside and lungs, eventually all four men died, two at the scene and two later in hospital.

When he reformed James hid, panicking but not wanting to reveal what he could do or what just happened to anyone, not least his father; and with time he learned to control his smoke form, under the condition that he regally inhaled noxious smoke so that his mutated lung cancer didn't kill him.

Later James met with Darren Edmunds in London again and he explained his issues with a young Volt and Blades putting his father in hospital and himself getting expelled from school; this was an issue for them both as Andrew not only supplied Boise secret medical facility with various drugs and chemicals usually illegal, but kept a supply chain going and deflect investigations and suspicion from gangsters who had previously tried to steal Bailey Industries secrets for money.

Andrew, however had lost his memory during the battle when Volt overloaded a microwave backpack he was using to defeat the boys, and Bailey Industries secret knowledge was safe.

Nevertheless, Darren asked James to watch the boys, and try to break their friendship so Darren could target Blades without Volt interfering; James' mother lived near Hastings and in an effort to re-connect with her, James convinced his father to move schools and live with her for a while. Darren was to make his time worth it by divulging in a share of money and drugs for himself.

When Darren's connections kidnapped Brendan for his own leverage Volt and Fume fought, but when the opportunity arose, Fume refused to kill Volt and told him Blades' location.

Some time later James became good friends with Jay Burgess, whose father David worked directly under Boise Bailey within Bailey Industries, and the two became somewhat dubious friends, although later using Jay to his advantage when he joined the Guild.

TBA

### **Appearance**

James was a boy of average build during his teenage years, with dark hair and brown eyes, he had a slightly chubby face and as he aged became slightly overweight. He often grew his hair long and into a pony tail whilst leaving several bangs, he later grew a full goatee around his chin and mouth and was often seen with dark stubble. James wore whatever made him feel comfortable, but this could vary between black hoodies and jeans to dark shirts with band logos on them. He sometimes wore a grey trenchcoat and several silver rings.

### **Personality**

James was known for his ego and greed, specifically he made sure that he came first above all else; this made him seem selfish and easily prone to treachery for his own benefit, and disguised this by being false, developing a compulsion for lying. However it was known that deep down James did care for a few people and had some morals at least, as demonstrated with his refusal to kill Volt and Blades. Often James felt lonely, especially when his powers began to fluctuate and was combined to a Bailey Industries lab, the very lab where they tried to cure his cancer.

### **Powers and Abilities**

#### **Powers**

James was an Altered Human, accidently granted powers by an effort to cure his hereditary lung cancer by his father's secret Bailey Industry shadow labs:

**Parasitic Fumomorph:** James lung cancer was mutated during the experiment to cure him of it, and it developed the ability to "feed" on toxic gasses, fumes and smoke considered deadly to most. This empowered his cancer and gave James the ability to transform into a hot, ashy, smoke-like form while the cancer at the centre of his chest becomes the hot nucleus of his form. This ability was dependant on how much toxic gasses and fumes he has inhaled and this also seem to affect the consistency and chemical make up of said form.

* **Thermofumic Breath:** He could generate a blast of intensely hot smoke from his mouth in his human form, without transforming into smoke.

* **Partial Fumigate Form:** He could transform partly into a smoke-like form, keeping his humanoid shape and retaining some density and mass, allowing him to physically strike or burn. Though objects such as bullets will pass through him, he will still feel them and may cause him pain, though no physical damage as such.

* **Fumigate Cloud Form:** He can transform into a more distributed, formless cloud of hot smoke and ash where he is immune to physical attacks as they pass through him and may be damaged; in this form he can choke and burn large amounts of people at once.

* **Smoke Golem:** A bigger, monster-like cloud of smoke with burning, dull red eyes, claws and a fanged mouth that has some mass and density to it. He could heat up his claws and could slice though steel, however this form was difficult to maintain and sapped his fume storage quickly.

* **Flight:** In any of his smoke forms he is lighter than air and can propel himself in any direction at around 80 to 150 mph depending on form: the denser the form the more control and stability he has and the less he is susceptible to powerful atmospheric changes such as wind but the heavier and slower he gets.

* **Smoke Absorption:** He was able to physically interact with other sources of fumes and smoke and pull them into him to further empower him, increase his size and ability to control the upper temperature, density and mass of his smoke forms; this ability was directly linked to his respiratory system in his human form and acted through his lungs, letting him breath and absorb toxic gas through inhalation, such as cigarettes or cigars, with no ill effects while storing potential smoke for his transformation.

#### **Abilities**

**Skilled Businessman:** James a was highly astute businessman, from an early age he took note of his father's work and took business studies in school and college, although he had no formal university degree, did home-study to professional levels though out his later teenage years and early twenties.

**Hand-to Hand Fighting:** James never learned to fight to any serious degree, but could throw a punch or two, even without the use of his powers, was well versed in basic hand-to-hand combat, but preferred to use his powers when he could or when he needed and in more than one instance has stood up to multiple superpowered individuals fairly in powered combat.

**Naturally Tactical:** He has a knack for constantly analysing situations, this has made him somewhat of a skilled opponent both on and off the battlefield, despite having limited fighting abilities his understanding of these situations has allowed him to make well-informed decisions that have allowed him positive outcomes.

**High Intellect:** While nowhere near the levels of savants such as Gyzmo, Robin or Aurora, James was nevertheless well-versed in a number of general subjects, including politics and economy, history, classical English studies such as poetry and authors, some sciences such as biology, physics, and was known particularly for his mathematical skills and of course his highly intuitive business skills.

### **Limitations and Weaknesses**

**Water:** His smoke form can be affected by rain or being submerged, finding it hard to transform when wet and is forced back into a solid form if his cloud becomes saturated and cool enough.

**Power Instability:** As with most alts, James' powers were not always stable; while for the most part he demonstrated stable use of his powers for many years, recently he has found it increasingly difficult to control his smoke form, and harder to transform back into a solidified human form, although this fluctuates, causing him pain that may last for a while.

**Morphine Addiction:** He has become somewhat addicted to high-intensity pain killers to subdue the pain created by his unstable powers.

**Smoke Dependency:** The nature of his powers have essentially transformed his cancer into a smoke-eating parasite which gives James in turn the ability to transform into smoke, but denying the cancer of toxic gasses causes it to again become aggressive and has a high chance of killing James.

**Obesity:** He did not exercise regularly and eventually gained a lot of weight, which he struggled to keep off; doing so seemed to effect the control of his powers.

**Limited Combat Skills:** He understood some basic combat skills, and was highly tactical, did not know more complex and intense fighting styles.