Optix

## Origins

**Alexandra Lang** was born in **Greenpoint**, a suburban town in the commuter belt of **Union City** to **Professor Monica Lang**, a brilliant particle physicist, and **David Lang**, the owner of a small independent music label. From an early age she displayed a high intellect, likely inherited from her mother, and yet struggled in school as she felt her body was working much slower than her brain.

Nonetheless, she was an energetic and enthusiastic child, prone to speaking quickly and leaving other people bobbing about in her wake: one of her teachers described her as a ‘force of nature’ akin to a hurricane, a label she wore with pride.

As she grew up, Lex developed an aptitude for science with a focus on particle physics, encouraged but not forced upon her by Monica. Constantly tinkering, she caused problems when she built her own particle beam projector and blew a hole in the side of her school building. In detention she met fellow student **Rachel Morrison**, an aspiring artist who was being punished for creating a mural on the side of a school building - in her defence, she used water-soluble materials, but the school didn’t seem to have a sense of humour about it. The pair hit it off immediately, and it didn’t take long for the friendship to blossom into a romantic relationship. Lex introduced Rachel to her parents a few months later, and they welcomed her into the family with open arms.

In her late teens Lex was accepted into the **Union City College of Applied Sciences** on a full scholarship to study particle physics, and at age eighteen she moved into an apartment in the city which she shared with Rachel, who had been accepted into **Union City Academy of Arts** and took various waitressing jobs to help pay the bills. This arrangement also helped Lex and her mother to remain close, as Monica worked at **MacOne Laboratories** in the city and Lex had plenty of opportunities to visit her at work.

### Emergence

During one of these late night visits, Lex became alerted to a safety malfunction in one of the quiet laboratories, and as she realised that it was her mother's lab that was affected, she ran to find her. However, she was too late to save her as the experimental particle reactor she had been working on melted down and exploded, sending out a shockwave of unknown extra-dimensional energy which tore Lex's body apart on a molecular level.

A few moments later, through sheer force of will Lex was able to reconstitute herself and try to rescue her mother but she was too late and found Monica had been killed in the blast. She was found with her mother's body as the emergency services arrived, and was taken in for debriefing by the **UNION** operatives who had arrived on the scene.

However thorough her interviews had been, Lex was still able to hide something from them, wanting to understand it better before revealing it to anyone, particularly someone in a position of authority. She had discovered that her physiology had been irrevocably changed by the explosion, and she was now able to transmute the particles in her body into photons and turn herself into a streak of neon-pink light energy. Finally her body was able to keep up with her mind, but it came at the cost of the person she loved most in the world.

She ultimately chose to reveal these new abilities to Rachel, who was shocked but also kind of amazed and even a little thrilled. She helped Lex to run some basic tests on these abilities, keeping them secret until she knew more about them, but ultimately discovered that their ability to gather data was severely limited, and they needed to think about a live testing environment.

Rachel suggested that Lex try to help people while she was working to understand her newfound powers, and soon she started operating as a street-level superhero, using her speed and energy abilities to help people in her local community while gathering data to try and ascertain the full scope of her capabilities. **The Daily Icon** began to pick up stories of her activities and started referring to this mysterious new hero as **The Pink Streak**.

### Optix

A few weeks into this new arrangement, Lex was alerted to some strange activity occurring in the now-vacant branch of MacOne Laboratories in which the particle reactor accident had occurred, specifically in her mother's former research facility. Upon arriving, she discovered that the small contingent of security guards in the building had been frozen in place, still and unmoving as though they had been put into stasis.

Further investigation led her into a confrontation with **Noah Grayson Near**, one of her mother's research assistants who had been present on the night of the accident and similarly affected by the particle reactor explosion. However, where Lex had been given the ability to move quickly, Grayson had discovered he could now stop things from moving at all, and he planned to use his abilities to destroy MacOne Enterprises as revenge for the accident.

Ultimately Lex was able to convince Grayson to leave her mother's lab alone, reminding him of his respect and admiration for her when she was still alive. He left the scene, promising to leave this branch of the organisation alone, but also to never stop going after them. Lex promised in return that she would never stop preventing him from hurting people, and she had officially gained a nemesis.

As she returned home, Rachel told her that she needed a superhero name as 'The Pink Streak' was terrible. Taking inspiration from Monica's title as 'Head of Optics', Lex made the decision to refer to herself by the moniker **Optix**.

Since then she has continued to operate as a low-level superhero, using each part of her life to inform the other: she used her abilities to gather vast amounts of data about the strange new energies that emanated from her body and in turn used her research to develop new ways of utilising her abilities to help people.

## Personality

Lex is a fast-talking and quick-thinking young woman, always seemingly three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. Before her powers emerged, she used to get annoyed that her body was unable to keep up with her brain, but now she has found a perfect synergy between the two which allows her to accomplish a great deal more than she ever used to be able to.

She also maintains a sarcastic, quippy attitude and frequently employs the 'irritation' tactic on her opponents: namely, using her quick wit and quicker mouth to make jokes and irritate her opponent to the point that they become distracted and disoriented, allowing her to gain the upper hand even though she may not by physically stronger than them.

Outside of her superhero persona, Lex is a bundle of love and optimism, having great loyalty for her friends and family. They will always come first to her, and she is lucky that those closest to her, namely Rachel and her dad, are fully supportive of her whole lifestyle, superheroics and all.

## Superhuman Abilities

Since the particle reactor explosion which granted her superhuman abilities, Lex has had the ability to transmute the particles in her entire body into light-based energy particles, allowing her to move at extraordinary speeds and generate vast amounts of energy from her body. She can use these powers offensively, to create blinding flashes of light or even focused beams of energy to blast her opponents, but mostly she uses them to run so fast she is almost at the point of teleporting from one spot to another.

In terms of physiology, it is unclear at this point whether Lex can be considered fully human, as it seems that her body is now composed of this light-based energy and she unconsciously shapes it into a recognisable human form. However, it is ultimately something of a moot point as she can still use all five senses as a normal human would, and her brain still works in the same way so for all intents and purposes she is still the same person she always was, even if her actual physiology doesn't match.

One drawback of her powers is that she requires a great deal of energy to replenish her strength whenever she uses her abilities. Essentially what this means is that she requires a near constant intake of calories to keep her strength up, meaning she eats an inordinate amount of food for someone of her age, height and weight. She has also found that caffeine can take the edge off when her energy levels dip, and so she is rarely found without a cup of strong coffee in her hand.

## Weapons and Equipment

Lex chooses not to use any weapons when she is patrolling in her superhuman guise, as she rarely wants to hurt anyone and definitely doesn't want to kill them.

However, she does always wear her watch which includes a range of scanners and monitors to allow her to track her vital signs and energy outputs at all times. The original model was given to her by her dad soon after he discovered her abilities, and she has tinkered with it since then to give her a wider range of data to work from.