Golden Age Glowstick

* Casual
* Costume

## Personality

To put it nicely, Denise is an asshole with a heart of gold. Beneath her cold, brutish exterior, is someone who finds herself wanting deep connections and people to care for. This motherly instinct is hard to dig out however, and requires enough motivation or a good enough incentive to have her come out of her own defensive shell.

With a cockney accent, flippant attitude, blank eyes and punk style, she doesn’t come off as the most friendly of individuals. A resting bitch face doesn’t help her case either, but looking closer at her habits and speaking manner reveals a much softer side of her. If you do manage to succeed getting past her initial barrier, you meet a much more dazzling woman, with a glowing smile and compassion in the strangest of ways, or smallest of things.

Fuelled by a drive to grow stronger despite her impairments and show the little shits in her life that she’s better than them, she kicks down anyone who tries to get in her way, and appreciates those that make her journey easier, or at the least provide some entertainment for the long road.

## Backstory

Denise’s birth and childhood was spent in the posher areas of London, where she lived an honestly mediocre life. Her father was a doctor and the breadwinner for the family, whilst her mother would take care of her. She wasn’t spoilt but lived well, the family stashing away most of their money for necessities and rainy days.

Her quirk manifested at the age of 3, where she’d realised she could make hands glow brightly. The other children at school grew fascinated with her, and she was treated well throughout her nursery, reception and early primary school years, earning the endearing name ‘Glowstick’. But with time, the kids grew restless with their inability to use their quirk, starting small fights in class and taunting each other to a fight behind the bike sheds after school. Denise stayed away from most of the boisterous students, but they saw her bright lights, and grew jealous. A handful of classmates approached her one day, ordering her to meet them after school.

To anyone who was older than a teenager, they would simply brush off the threat, but fear for the unknown followed the 9 year old to the meeting place, where kids watched her with a hateful glare. A fight broke out and being outnumbered, she used her quirk, and she abused herself to win the fight, left bleeding and blind.

A trip to the hospital confirmed she was blind due to quirk misuse.

Left to wallow in her own misery, her parents grew fitful about these turn of events, trying their best to restore her vision in any way they could, but to no avail. Dropping out of her school to go to one for those with special educational needs, she grew resentful, closing herself off from her peers. In her solitude, she tried to learn what went wrong, and how to live with this new development. Sightless self defense classes filled her empty afternoons, learning to fight without her quirk - after all, the stupid thing had already done enough harm. Regret and spite drove her forward, until one day, her father got a job offer in the States.

At the time, the NHS were having troubles with funding and the expenses of failing treatments grew to become a strain on the family. At 13, she moved to the States with her parents, expected to adjust to the new environments.

It went quite well actually; if by “quite well”, you meant like absolutely shit.

Living in the south as a young black girl with a bitey attitude, cane and unfocused eyes only brought scorn and hatred onto her and her family. Again, she shrunk away from her surroundings, finding that people only exploited her weaknesses and kind nature. Denise only grew harsher and trained harder, trying to bridge the gap between her and her associates. At the same time, her parents were upset with the change in their daughter, and thus ensued a series of relocations across America.

A few years later, the three settled in WayHaven. Enrolling late into the Academy, she went through the rest of her school years with a bitey attitude and no mercy when it came to sparring, earning a scary reputation. The respect and safety through fear was appreciated, but at the same time, she was left isolated from her peers, feeling a sense of detachment. It hurt her heart, and that sickened her to her core. Friendships and connections were hard to fathom, and only those who treated her well for years on end learnt her true, kind nature.

*Okay. Letting some people in is okay.*

Once she’d earned her license, Denise kept to the shadows and the Glowstick faded into obscurity, working in the background to clean up crime at the heart of the problem. While the citizens and daytimers didn’t know much of her heroics, small gangs and rookie villains did. She prided herself in her work, and used her weaknesses to strengthen herself - she was used to being blind. Her enemies weren’t. The ‘Luminous Hero’ found solace in the cover of night; in the dark, there was only her and the villains, and she sure wasn’t going to be the one getting knocked out.

Years later, Denise’s life came to a brief halt after her father was killed during the WayHaven Hospital blast, her distraught mother moving back to England where the rest of her family and relatives lived to be cared for during her mourning. Grief only harshened the woman, and she stayed in WayHaven to teach the villains in the darkness that she wasn’t afraid of them. She worked better in the dark, anyway.

## Resources

A steel foldable cane. The blind woman may have learnt how to navigate most of the city, but she still needed some help from time to time.

A small apartment on Linden street - the apartment is fitted out with text-to-speech functions for ease of access.

Money stolen from shady businesses and villains she takes down, and a paycheck from the government for her hero work.

### Equipment / Weaponry

- *5 Flashbangs:* when she needs a more sudden blind, this works out. Of course, the deafening noise affects her too, but the lack of vision gives her an edge over the opponent.

- *5 Smoke Bombs:* Heat vision works very nicely through smoke. Also, it impairs the enemy’s sight more than it does her own.

- *3 Tactical Knives:* Strapped on her thigh, bicep and on her hip, these knives are great for short distance lethality, working very well with her blind.

- *1 Grenade Belt:* she just uses this to hold the smoke bombs and flashbangs.

- *1 Steel Foldable Cane:* don’t underestimate a woman’s walking stick; Denise has broken quite a few kneecaps and bones with her trusty aid.

### Specialisations

- *Improved hearing:* the rewiring of her brain and a more intent focus on her surroundings means that Denise’s hearing is better than most individuals, being able to hear quiet noises, and gauge the distance of objects depending on the volume and pitch. This can be used to her advantage in controntations, where she needs to gauge where the enemy is. Her auditory time is increased to 0.15.

- *Sightless Self Defense:* an amalgamation of Jujutsu, 1Touch, Cane Fu and personal techniques - as weird as they may sound, they work together to help the woman battle through her weaknesses, and still kick ass.

- *Memory:* Denise is better adjusted to gauging distances and differentiating noises than most people. Her auditory memory is well-developed, meaning she can remember voices fairly easily, and keep them in her memory for later use.

## Quirk

**Illumination.**

The user is able to illuminate their body parts with a blinding light. She can also use the light to attack, shooting out blasts of pure light to damage opponents. She can illuminate up to two limbs (head included), or her torso. Within this limit, she can control how much she wants to illuminate, (e.g: half her arm, just a finger, or create patterns using the light). The user can also leave behind luminescent marks, by touching a surface with a glowing body part. It lasts for 3 turns, and can be toggled. It does not blind.

By lighting up at least half a limb, the user can blind anyone who stares at the light for at least 1 turn. The blind lasts for 3 turns, and is effective in a 15m radius. Alternatively, she can light up just her eyes, which grants her temporary heat vision (as well as being able to blind as well) in a 10m radius. her Her eyes count as 1 limb.

When she illuminates a limb, it lasts for 6 turns, with a 1 turn CD before reuse. She cannot relight the same limb for 1 more turn. She can shut off the illumination early, but the cooldown stays the same. The light can still glow through clothes, but unless the cloth is transparent / translucent, the light will not be strong enough to blind unless half a limb is showing, or the whole limb is lit up. Also, she is able to conceal the illumination to fool opponents into thinking the ability is on cooldown for as long as she wants, but it still only has a 6 turn duration.

The user can also shoot out lasers instead of blinding. After a 0.5s charge, she can shoot out a beam of light with a 0.5m diameter, moving at 30m/s and dealing 10kN on impact. She can shoot out two (one for each body part), or combine them into one bigger laser that does 15kN and moves at 20m/s. The larger blasts have an additional 1 turn CD.

Only the blinding or the laser can be active at once, on both limbs. She cannot have one limb blinding and the other activating a laser.

*Scorch:* The user's glowing body can now deal significant damage to non-biological objects. Burning objects passively at 400C, the heat adds on every turn by 400C, maxing out at 2000C. She must be touching the object for the scorch to take effect. It can be activated at any time during quirk use and only works through direct contact. She scorches everything that she touches as long as it's not biological. Quirks that affect a person by making it technically "non-biological" (like turning skin to steel) are not affected. The byproducts of her scorching (i.e: burning wood and starting a fire) are not affected. However, her own clothes and anything she is wearing will be affected by the scorch.

### Versatility

Blinding her opponents is usually her go-to move. With heat vision, and acting oblivious, she can use this to her advantage to take out the other person as fast as she can. Not only that, but her scorch can help her out of bad situations lickety split, whilst also keeping others safe from harm.

### Example

“Hand over your money, bitch!”

“... Pardon?”

Eyeing the man over the rim of her sunglasses, the Luminous Hero fixes him with a scathing glare.

“Uh… your money? I’m over here, dumbass, to the left.”

*Fuck. Stupid eyes.*

With barely a fleeting thought, her eyes light up with the light of a burning fire. Heat signatures register all around her, and she can see the man’s core now, cowering from her fierce glare yet unable to break eye contact. Well, hopefully.

“Fuck off, mate.”

Seconds later he cries out, clutching his eyes as they burn; retard. Staring straight at the sun was never a good idea, but Icarus was always a greedy bastard. A good few kicks, and the thief was left bruised, floored and probably had his leg broken.

*Whatever.*

Stepping over the useless git, Denise walks away, cane tapping against the ground and sunglasses shoved back over blind eyes.