Amber Morgenstern

"*"It's all right there in front of you if you just look!"*"
—Amber, to just about anyone who will listen

Pictured in hero suit, but without helmet

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**Amber** **Morgenstern** (モルゲンシュテルン アンバー *Morugenshuterun* *Anbaa*) is a freshman at New York City's Kirby-Lee University, training to become a pro hero. Her hero name is **Firebird** (ファイアバード *Faiabaado*)

## Appearance

Amber is a tall, curvy young woman. She has auburn-red hair that curls near their ends just below her shoulders, hazel eyes, and relatively fair skin. Her sense of style is very relaxed and casual, consisting mostly of snarky tee shirts and jeans, occasionally throwing on her favorite purple leather jacket. She has and wears a large collection of wristwatches.

Her hero suit consists of an ivory and orange Kevlar knee-length jacket, black pants, a steel breastplate, hip-guards, pauldrons, knee-high black and orange boots with steel toes and knee guards, and a specially-rigged helmet and bracers. She also carries a blunted steel sword which sheathes in one on her hip guards. The costume was designed to deflect as much physical damage as possible while keeping tight to her skin to soak up and bind and open wounds she may acquire. Her helmet's visor is connected to her phone, and is programmed to follow the movement of heat signatures to assist with her reaction time. The bracers have mechanisms that apply atomic pressure to stored light elements, creating the small stars that she is most known for.

## Personality

Amber is generally nonchalant and carefree with a dry and somewhat nihilistic sense of humor. While she comes across as someone who would resign herself to "fate", she expresses a passion for understanding how and why things are as they are, and her style of heroism is often summarized as "why not try to change the world for the better?" She is an avid conspiracy theorist, and can go on for hours if someone begins to engage her in "connections" through villain activity, news coverage and media activity, and (maybe) the Illuminati. Despite knowing that her theories are generally looked down on by her peers, she persists in making and sharing them, figuring it's important to keep them informed so they can act should they ever run into this web of connections in their work.

Amber is often annoyed by willful ignorance, especially surrounding her quirk. She is quite vocal about her quirk not being tied to the creation of stars, but it's flashiness has turned it into a trademark of hers so complete that most assume that is her natural-born power. While her lineage could help definitively prove otherwise in a public manner, she is hesitant to bring up her family, or even speak of anyone but her brother when directly asked. Instead she grumbles her discontent when her quirk is publicly misidentified, even when it serves to her benefit.

## History

Amber was born in New Rochelle, New York. Her younger was born about 3 years later. Not much is known about her childhood other than her wanting amd training to become a hero from a young age, as well as supporting her brother's dreams of working in support, calling him a "robotics genius". Her parents supported this decision, and helped her both in her early training and in financially supporting her college education and apartment in Clifton, NJ.

## Quirks, Abilities, and Gear

* **Time Lock** (時間ロック *Jikan Rokku*): Amber's quirk allows her to stop time except for herself and up to one other person with which she is in physical contact with by perception and mental force, often by physically smashing one of her watches or stopping the clock in her helmet's interface through ocular command. When time is stopped, she is unable to interact with any electronic device not on her person, including the internet, rendering most of her helmet's functions useless. In addition, the act slowly opens up old wounds, from the most recent chronologically back, until she releases mental force to allow time to move forward again. This process is sped up when allowing another to perceive time when it's stopped. If she loses consciousness or dies, time begins to flow again.
* **Star Inception** (スターの開始 *Suta no Kaishi*): Amber's bracers compress light elements on a small and fast scale to create small stars with which she can utilize for its light, temperature, or small gravitational pull. This was an invention of her brother's, and they were included in her costume and repertoire both to support his dreams and display a power flashy enough to get attention as a new hero. It currently takes about 3 minutes to create a small star of about 7 inches or 18 cm in diameter, though paired with Time Lock, the effect appears instantaneous. The bracers do not yet have a capability to unmake the stars, though given their size, most harmlessly burn out. The more time put into creating the star and the larger it becomes, the larger the chance of a black hole forming as the star is destroyed.
* **Blade**: Named Eos, Amber carries a blunted steel sword for close-combat. Her style has been equated to a Dagohir technique, as she combines European short sword techniques with fencing and street combat.
* **Helmet**: The helmet itself is steel, but has a wireless connection to her phone. Her visor has a semi-transparent GUI display with motion capture on each side. On the inside, it tracks her eye movement to activate certain features like heat detection (using the outside motion capture features) and even a couple of simple video games to assist with training in reflex and response time. At it's most basic, without a connection to her phone, it can tell the date and time. The wireless connection is not operational in stopped time.

## Trivia

* Amber's name comes from the stone-like hardened resin, in which small plants and creatures are frozen exactly as they were first enveloped, in a way stopping time for them. It also means yellowish-brown in color.
* Her hero name, Firebird, is a term for a Phoenix, one of the only creatures in mythology to be associated with the concept of time. It is better known for burning to death and rising from it's own ashes, something Amber admires and hopes to accomplish in a more metaphorical sense, tied once again to her conspiracy theories.
* Morgenstern is not her real surname. It is a German-Jewish surname meaning "Morning Star".
* Amber loves percussive music, and is especially a fan of pieces similar in style to Junkie XL's work. She even learned how to play the basics on a drum set.
* Her favorite foods are spinach artichoke flatbreads and strawberry tea, though she jokes that her real favorite is "the truth".
* General inspiration for Amber has come from the community of online theorists that tackle movies, video games, and other pop culture and media