Lightning

**Lightning** (Otherwise known as: **Kasey Lane-Jones**) Is a superhero in Diegen City.

## Personality

Honestly? Hmm, I suppose to start I'm a huge people person. I tend to be empathetic towards others. On the other hand? I'm a bit too smug sometimes and I'm fully aware of it. But going back a little, I am trustworthy. I'm very loyal too, though I suppose I don't let people get any deeper than the charisma front. Nobody seems to mind, though. And-- I'm a little controlling. Not of people but, If something happens in my life and I didn't have any say in it I feel a little-- really anxious, you know? But I do try to keep it together, since I know that realistically nobody can control everything that happens to them or others.

### Power Description

Oh, yes. My powers. Hm. Well, I'm fairly advanced in normal things like acrobatics. I've got great control over my balance and things like that, nothing inhuman but... My powers allow me to fall from high places and survive, to scale immense obstacles. And as my name states, I have control over the element of electricity. More specifically, lightning. I can induce strikes of it by slashing my sword or moving my hands, but I certainly don't have to yell or anything like that. It might be fun once and a while, but I need to be taken seriously in a fight so perhaps it's best I leave it as is. My sword is part of my power, and is infused with my electric ability-- What? No, you can't look at it. It's like... Thor's hammer. It only responds to my presence.

(Here's the twist. Kasey has no superpowers whatsoever. Unless you count being a certified super-genius from birth. She's a vigilante, but every superhero, civillian, and villain that has come across her as 'Lightning' would beg to differ. She's found ways to falsely engineer incredible power. Her sword is a type of hyper powerful taser/lightning rod like weapon that is engineered to only operate the lightning when her specific fingerprints are on the hilt. She's also engineered her suits to be very powerful (but not impenetrable) against attacks and projectiles, and has given reinforcements into her boots to soften a landing from high up. Her gloves also have something in them that conduct and can reroute the electric pulses from her sword, giving off the impression of being able to control lightning. Nobody has figured out her secret as of now.)

## Backstory

You can't tell a single soul any of this. It could ruin everything I've built up, do you understand? Alright, here goes.

My life could have been really normal, but I sort of screwed that whole thing up. I had the ideal family. The family dog, my mom and dad, my little brother and older sister, and I all had a nice townhouse a couple of cities over. I did normal kid things with my siblings for a while, growing up and getting into just the right amount trouble for it to be fun and not dangerous. Sledding, going to the fair, playing videogames and drawing-- I loved drawing. But when school came around for me, that's when things got reeeaalllly out of hand. Certified genius with an IQ of a rocket scientist at age eight. School? Done by age nine. I got bored, went to engineering college for a year in my home town and then quit because it was too easy. I got all kinds of media attention for a while, websites, news, interviews. Even a book deal that I graciously declined. Either way I was making money enough for my family to live off of for decades.

As with any scenario where a kid has nothing left to do, I got bored. That's about it. Me and my family in our happy little storybook home, with our garden and massive funding from the government. I won't complain, my family is still the closest thing to me, and my siblings are my best friends. I loved those years but I wasn't doing anything. It was driving me stir crazy. Age eleven was when things started getting really good. My IQ had continued to increase even after the fact, I am one of the twenty smartest people alive at this moment. Not sure what number I am, since I never bothered to check but I'm in that rank.

So Anyway, by chance one afternoon while I was tinkering away on my homemade rocket-- No that wasn't a joke, if I was joking I would have said something like 'time machine', right? But moving on! I overheard some stuff about Diegen. I mean, I always knew about this place and it's interesting patrons. Everyone does. But it never struck me what a true anomaly superpowers even were until the broadcast. I guess I had some conviction or other but I found myself sitting starry eyed in front of that TV watching the broadcasts from the city almost eight hours a day, studying and admiring. There was even some hero I saw on TV who was young like I was-- he was around my age. I don't remember his name or anything but I totally crushed on him for a while, it's really sad. Come to think of it, I wonder where he is now--

Right, sorry. I was messing with you that time. Haha, don't sweat it. Anyway, I realized that I was sort of... jealous? I'm definitely not the coveting type and I certainly hadn't ever felt like I wasn't special before because being a genius is the epitome of privilege in this day and age. But-- I felt so unremarkable compared to these guys flying around and punching trouble in the face. They weren't noodly and pale and awkward like I was. A nerd kid with glasses half the size of my face. So long story short I made a resolve to join the ranks-- I wanted to change to be someone who could help the effort. Civilians can't do much to help against super-powered forces of malevolence-- but what if there was a way to fabricate an ability? Let me tell you, there sure as hell is a way to. And I trained my butt off. Day and night I did exercises, I jogged and lifted and did sit ups. And when I rested in between I worked and worked and worked on formulas and concepts, learning engineering here and there and using the government investment money to buy myself a garage and start making these prototypes.

Think about it for a minute, a thirteen year old kid with huge glasses and videogame T-shirt welding a sword that could fry anything it came into contact with in a huge concrete warehouse by myself, playing nothing but house music over a speaker I nicked from my older brothers room. It took my parents some getting used to but, they were incredibly lenient and understanding and accepting to the fact that I was a freak. Not to speak poorly of myself, I meant it in a neutral way. I was a total weirdo and I owned it!

But obviously my media presence was already too large, right? So in order to blend in, I continued training until I was seventeen. Then I moved to Diegen with the blessing of my family and the requirement that I visit once every few months. Now that I was older, I blended-- or should I say blend, right in to the college. I decided to major in the one thing I care the most for but never managed to figure out an algorithm for. Arts. You cant math a painting, you have to feel it. I love that feeling more than any-- okay well almost more than anything.

I sure do ramble a lot, huh? So what I'm saying is too long didn't read. I was a mega-nerd who wanted to become a superhero, so I basically became one using science and math. Now I'm one before my last year of art college, and I intern at DCHQ as a police sketch artist. Though they treat me more like a coffee girl-- it's fine because unpaid internships are very humbling. At night I moonlight in local clubs as a renowned and avant garde DJ, wearing so much crazy makeup under the lights that nobody can really tell who I am. I live in a studio apartment downtown that also serves as my painting studio. Then of course, I go out when there's trouble and convince everyone most nights that I'm someone I'm definitely not. Lightning some nights-- A nerd with a paintbrush every other night. I'm perfectly happy being either, and I do all the good I can as either too.

## Likes & Dislikes

* + Rain and Storms
* + Nighttime in the City
* + Writing Music
* + Painting
* + Training
* - Being called a Liar
* - Powerlessness
* - Paparazzi
* - Drama

### Trivia

While she wears generic 'nerd' or 'hipster' glasses during the day, she does wear a mask at night as Lightning. She also does moonlight often at clubs around Diegen as a DJ called D34DL1GHT. She also currently works in the daytime at DCHQ as a sketch artist and file organizer/ mail runner while she's working on wrapping up her time at Art College. Kasey is also signed up to three different local dating sites, but has never been on a date before in her life.