Daniel Seeklaw

Daniel "Dan" Seeklaw is a metahuman who was once service to the Federal Office of the Abnormal. Gifted with the ability to sense people's fears, and bring said fears to life, he is able to manifest them into physical reality. Currently, he is mistakenly classified by Argus, FOAs subdivision, as a Delta level threat, as the full extent of his powers have not been put on display.

## Biography

Born to Nathan and Katherine Seeklaw, a pair of FOA agents, in his youth Dan was provided with an acceptable government-standard level of education and living conditions courtesy of the benefits package provided with the employment of his parents. At a young age, he was dosed with the I-3 formula in the hopes that - along with many other peers - he would become a public servant, wielding unimaginable powers in the employ of the FOA and Argus, blazing a trail across the Earth as a paragon of justice, government propaganda, and glory.

Yeah, that didn't exactly go to plan. Especially in Dan's case, but also in general.

As Dan grew older and more learned, as he worried about grades and homework and the occasional extracurricular, the world around him grew more and more fearful about monsters, villains, terrorists, and especially metahumans, who wielded powers unimaginable for the purpose of spreading evil, destruction, their own selfish agenda, and so on and so forth. In the back of his mind, an unobtrusive buzzing grew louder and louder with each passing day, until Dan wept blood (mysteriously vanishing) each morning and boogeymen began to crawl out from under beds and behind closets until they vanished in the sun, until serpents with fire-breath and lightning-hands crawled from door to door until they withered under the stars. Terror bloomed in the world, and Dan was its conduit. And so, he was sent to the Day Care, for the training of superhumans, and charged with the protection of the world.

Now, one can't exactly rise as a paragon of justice and government propaganda when one feasts on nightmares and conjures terrors. Reliant on fear, Dan became the Nightmare Tyrant, who seized his psychic power by the throat and made it kneel before him. Adorned in a bloody iron crown and a full iron face mask weeping more blood, the Tyrant arose, and so began his reign of terror.

[1:28 AM]

Thus was the plan, the modus operandi for a few years: A vigilante of great threat and collateral damage, a misguided fool too self-centered to realize their own evildoing, was to be the target. At dusk the Tyrant intruded upon their territory, drowning their allies in night terrors and conjuring fiends from the dark to strike at them - pain is in the mind, of course, so no wound was left. But they dared not sleep. Until their 'hero' arose to save them, striking at the mysterious interloper - and vanished, never to be seen again, for the Tyrant and the FOA have dragged them to a darkest doom. (Well, sometimes. They also did recruitment.) And so long as the so-called hero broke buildings with their might, and upheld foolish and wicked ideals, and fought viciously over territory - Dan could tolerate this. Until the target was him.

The New York Knight, a true paragon of ideals (at least in Dan's eyes, and the eyes of many around the world) was selected to be the next target. Kyle Reuben caused no collateral damage, upheld ideals much like those Dan had once aspired to serve, and fought not for turf but for justice and to protect others. Counted among his allies were even those that served the FOA and government - those who fought for justice and occasionally government propaganda - who saw him as an equal to be aided rather than a foe to be bested. Each one, tasked with his capture, had 'forgotten', and now in place of a hero the FOA sent a villain. It was not a task Dan could refuse.

And there the story ends but a few days ago. Dan, the FOA, and a fellow metahuman named Alexander James Caine swarmed the city, incapacitated the Knight, and dragged him into the deep. Except somewhere along the line, a long-bubbling rebellion boiled over, and now Dan will never go back to that job he hated so much - never, save in the wings of a mighty force of liberation, or save when it is his turn to face the deep dark to which he condemned so many others.

## Physical Appearance

A bespectacled, youthful and unremarkable individual in plain clothing. Well, at least when they're not appearing as a shadowed figure with an iron mask and crown, weeping blood and spitting nightmares.

## Personality

Dan is an unscrupulous but ultimately kind-hearted soul with a sharp sense of justice (often suppressed). Though he often revels in displays of power, and is quite fond of showing off, he dislikes the widespread use of destructive and terrifying metahuman powers, even his own - sometimes especially his own - and has dedicated himself to minimizing the harm they can do. He's well aware of his own shortcomings - and how they've led him to shady activities, sometimes - and his self-doubt leads him to follow the examples of others, even those who are perhaps not the best role models. Oh, he's also a massive troll.

## Relationships

- Parents: Dan is distant from his parents, who as FOA agents were often away on missions and usually had other priorities. Though he aimed to follow in their footsteps, over time they've grown estranged as Dan has grown increasingly disillusioned with the FOA and Argus culminating in breaking out the New York Knight from their custody, an act which he presumes - as his parents are loyal and not too informed about the shady parts of the FOA - will cause them to cut ties.

- Kyle Reuben: Though their initial encounter was as foes - namely, Dan terrorising parts of his protected turf to lure him into capture - Dan *did* break him out afterwards. Hopefully they can get along and Dan can get a gig as an assistant or something.

## Abilities

Metahuman Physiology: Dan possesses a number of superhuman abilities derived from his exposure to the I-3 ichor formula, rendering him superior to any ordinary human. Whilst Argus classifies him as a Delta Level Threat, Dan has yet to unleash the full extent of his abilities, and is in actuality equivalent to a Beta Level Threat.

* Telepathy: Dan's base power is telepathy. He is able to read surface thoughts and scan memories, as well as project his own thoughts into the minds of others for the purpose of psychic communication.
* Illusion: Dan is able to psychically distort the perceptions and senses of those he is able to make telepathic contact with. Dan's illusions are extremely advanced, and he is able to completely fool all five senses, distorting a target's image of their environment or conjuring creatures and objects within their view. He is even able to accurately simulate pain from all manner of source.
* Psychic Energy Consumption: Dan is able to feed on the psychic energy which is produced in the minds of living creatures, specifically, the energy of fear, within his telepathic range. He is most effectively able to consume power from fear that is directed towards himself, but any ambient fear will do.
	+ Physical Empowerment: Dan is able to draw upon the energy of fear to strengthen his body. The more power he is able to draw upon, the further the potency of his augmentations.
		- Regeneration: Through an effort of will, Dan is able to concentrate fear based psychic energy and use it to repair damage to his body. If he is able to call upon enough, such healing can take place automatically.
		- Super Durability: By draining psychic energy from fear, Dan can toughen his own body against harm.
		- Super Strength: Dan is able to enhance his physical prowess through the absorption of psychic energy, allowing him to exert inhuman levels of force.
	+ Psychic Empowerment: By absorbing energies from psychic fear, Dan is able to strengthen the range and potency of his psychic abilities, allowing him to contact more minds and invade thoughts with greater ease and expediency.
	+ Psychic Manifestation: With access to sufficient levels of fear, Dan is able to grant his illusory conjurations true substance. Any illusion he makes can be substantiated, and he can even create entire environments if he has sufficient power to draw upon (though he is unable to remove physical environments that are already present. It is easiest for Dan to manifest things that are either feared throughout the subconscious of living beings, such as fire or predators, or things that a specific individual fears. Dan's psychic manifestations continue to persists only for so long as he continues to maintain them, and has access to sufficient fear levels to do so. Said manifestations remain completely under his control, and any creatures he creates have no true consciousness.

## Skills

Partially owing to his former cover as a librarian and partially owing to his true employment as a FOA-sponsored villain, Dan has an excellent head for letters, numbers, sorting systems, computers, futuristic tech, the Dewey Decimal System, dealing with impolite patrons and figuring out how to get a printer to do what you want it to do.