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FREAKSHOW

Dawson, Alex (Secret Identity) FC
Nickname(s): Freak, Freaky, Lex

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

HEIGHT:		6'
WEIGHT:		176 lbs.
EYE COLOR:		Blue
HAIR COLOR:		Blond
ETHNICITY:		Caucasian
BIRTHDATE:		Apr 21, 1992
AGE:		18
GENDER:		Male
APPEARANCE:		Sporting a moderately athletic frame, Alex looks no different than your average high-school student. He stands just over six-feet tall and has medium-long, dirty blond hair. His eyes are a bright shade of blue. Alex's clothes are rarely bright or flamboyant since he prefers dark and somber tones to bright ones. Often, he'll wear silver rings, simple necklaces, and sometimes a number of different bracelets. His clothes will sometimes have studs on them, and are usually loose (or at least easily removed) to accommodate for a need to change form. Besides the usual, Alex’s physical appearance can vary quite a bit. At times he can have scales, claws, fangs, or any number of strange physical qualities. Tails, wings, and other extra appendages can sometimes find their way onto the teen’s body. He tries, usually, to maintain a ‘regular’ appearance, but at times finds it significantly easier to just let things be.
MODEL:		Garrett Hedlund
THEME SONG:		A Heat Rash In The Shape of the Show Me State; Or, Letters From Me To Charlotte - Los Campesinos!

LEGAL INFO

CITIZENSHIP: US Citizen, Minor
PLACE OF BIRTH: Seattle, WA, US
MARITAL STATUS: Single
AFFILIATION: Xavier Institute

INSTITUTE INFO

EDUCATION:		GRD 12 - Senior
ROOM:		BD309
SCHOOL CLUB:		Art

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE

CHARACTER CONCEPT:		One-Man Freak-Show
ORIENTATION:		Straight
DEMEANOR:		Monster
NATURE:		Misguided Villian
PERSONALITY:		Alex finds an almost perverse pleasure in making people feel a large spectrum of negative emotions. Fear, anger, doubt, sadness, you name it, he'd like to inflict it on someone. In some ways, it stems from his own feelings of inadequacy regarding his control over his powers. He enjoys digging into parts of other peoples' personalities that they'd rather keep hidden or secret. He relishes opportunities to make people feel bad or doubt their own abilities. Not content with simply insulting people, he will attempt to cause long-lasting issues that can haunt a person for long periods of time. The thing is, if anybody had the strength of character to ignore the things that Alex said, he wouldn't know what to do. He thrives on causing some sort of suffering in others, and an inability to do it would confuse him. Perhaps all it'll take is someone willing to ignore what he's saying to hear what he's not.
GOALS:		Quite simply, Alex wants to get his power(s) under control. It's hard enough being a teenager, let alone a mutant one. The last thing he needs is random, painful, unexplained Jekyll-and-Hyde moments. Also, though he'd never admit it (even to himself), Alex wants someone to accept him for what he is. Not in the superficial hallmark sort of way, but truly and sincerely.

CHARACTER STATS

CLASSIFICATION:		EPSILON-PRIME - Ep3
POWER SOURCE:		Mutation: Random
POWER RANK:		EX - 20
SKILL LEVEL:		Minimal training or innate ability
APTITUDE:		Operate current technology: computers, electronics
WEALTH:		Freelance, lower middle class, students

SPECIAL ABILITIES

ADVANTAGES:		CURIOSITY - Getting this guy to sit still and not know is difficult. In almost all situations, he will try to glean some sort of information, often sticking his nose in places it doesn't belong. He despises being kept in the dark, and has been known to demand explanations forcefully. PRESENCE - Sometimes because of his powers, and sometimes because of his personality, Alex is pretty hard to miss. If he's not the one with dragon-wings and dagger-like teeth, he's the one sitting in the back, throwing mocking remarks across the room. READING (People) - Alex is extremely capable of figuring out the weakest parts of a person's proverbial armor. Sometimes it's their pride, an irrational fear, or just something that makes them insecure. Whatever it is, Alex has a knack for finding it and exploiting it.
POWERS:		MONSTROUS TRANSFORMATION - Put quite simply, Freakshow can turn himself into a monster. At this point, he can only consciously cause a single change at a time, such as scales, extra limbs, claws, etc. Attempts to do more can result in a number of adverse side-effects, ranging from extreme pain to unconsciousness and/or long-term damage to his body. Alex's powers are concentrated on causing the change. Once his body has been altered, it will stay that way until he uses his abilities to change it. So, it takes no effort to maintain an transformation, though the act itself in unbelievably painful. The pain is caused, no doubt, by the need to re-arrange his bones and muscles rather quickly. The more Alex uses his powers, the more painful the transformations become, until he either falls unconscious or causes some sort of serious injury to himself. Presently, he needs at least twenty minutes between transformations to stay safe, though a smaller transformation will shorten the time, just as a larger transformation will lengthen it. The alterations that Freakshow applies to himself are always organic. He cannot change parts of his body into metal or any sort of mineral. As his powers develop, Alex's body will occasionally be unable to handle them. There are times when his powers get away from him, causing involuntary alterations to his appearance. When this happens, the changes are at their most unstable and most painful. These fits can sometimes be destructive.
FIGHTING SKILLS:		ART - Alex is quite good at creating works of art- his strongest medium being paint. A paintbrush in hand, the teen has been known to create works that evoke any number of emotions. His pieces often incorporate strange creatures, usually only describable as 'monsters'. COMBAT STYLE (Brawling) - If he's in a fight, Freakshow pulls out all the stops. He's not above a low blow, and will claim any advantage he can find. He believes that if he's going to fight, he might as well win. Why hold back when the point of a fight is to win? DISGUISE - When your mutant power focuses on changing your body, looking like someone/something else isn't very difficult. Thing is, the only thing he can disguise himself as is something out of a horror movie. INTIMIDATION - Faced with a mouth full of fangs, two clawed hands, and eyes that glow like they were forged in the fires of hell, people seem to lose their nerve.
DISADVANTAGES:		AGGRESSION - Though it's not an easy feat to achieve, Alex has a breaking point. Once reached, he is known to lash out, verbally and physically, using anything and everything at his disposal to cause any and all pain manageable. When he gets to this point, it is near-impossible to reason with him, and the only thing short of incapacitation or restraint that will calm him is time and space. Most people don't want to see this, let alone have it directed at them. LIMITED USE - Alex is only able to use his powers as long as he can stand to. This can cause numerous problems, especially if he needs to use his abilities in a hurry. MORTAL - Alex is a human. He can get sick, he can get hurt, and he will die. UNCONTROLLABLE POWER - Because his powers are still developing, Alex sometimes becomes subject to fits during which he transforms uncontrollably. These transformations are more painful than usual, and sometimes reveal new extents of his powers. Because of his inability to completely contain his powers, Alex feels a certain level of shame. Constantly surrounded by examples of people with what he sees as 'flawless' control over their mutancy, his fits hurt more than just his body. What's wrong with him? Why can't he stop them?

EQUIPMENT

UNIFORM:

Standard uniform with numerous zippers added to accommodate changes in physiology.

CONTACTS

CONTACTS:

Parents

Xavier Institute

RELATIVES:

James Dawson - Father

Laila Dawson - Mother

HISTORY

Late in the month of April in the year 1992, the Dawson family was graced with twins; Alex and Tristan, two beautiful baby boys. They weren’t identical, but the relation was obvious. The two were inseparable, even as newborns. Their first steps were taken holding onto one another- James and Laila never had to break up sibling squabbles. They were like a gift from heaven, save when they went off and caused the sort of mischief that only two long-time partners in crime could conceive. It was a wonderful, happy story, and it didn’t last too long.

The twins were starting a new school year. They’d just had their first couple of classes, and were now free for a little while. As they walked down the hall, waving to a group of their friends, Alex felt something. It started as a minor annoyance- a strong itching sensation at the tip of his right shoulder. Ignoring it, he went on with his day. The itching got stronger, though, and started to spread across his back. The more he scratched at it, the worse it got, the more it spread, until he couldn’t handle it any more. Asking to go to the bathroom, Alex left the room. Alone in the bathroom, he pulled off his shirt and turned his back to the mirror and screamed.

Starting at his shoulder and working its way down his back in a zigzag pattern were hundreds of glistening, green scales. Getting worked up, the boy tried with all his might to rub the things off, to pull of whatever it was that was growing on him- only to find the things embedded in his skin. He began to panic, not sure what to do, or even what was happening. Tears almost running down his face, he continued to rub at the scales until something miraculous happened. Burning like they were made of hot coals, the scales dug themselves into Alex’s skin and left nothing behind but flawless skin.

After a time, Alex made his way back to class, shaken. When Tristan asked his brother what was wrong, he got no response- the boy didn’t know what was happening, and had actually managed to convince himself he’d imagined the little episode. It was… impossible- that sort of thing didn’t happen. Still, the memory of those scales haunted Alex, and his unwillingness to explain anything to his brother drove something between them. They’d never had secrets before.

Life went on though, and Alex displayed no other signs of strangeness- soon everything had been forgotten. That is, for a short while. Soon, it had only been a couple of months since the scale-incident, Alex’s powers began to manifest themselves in more… violent ways.

The school day had just ended, and Alex was standing with his brother and group of friends outside the school. They were just about to part ways when Alex cried out. It wasn’t exactly loud, just unexpected. Brows furrowed in pain and eyes clenched shut, Alex was holding out his hand, groaning and yelping in unmistakable pain. Before anyone had the chance to ask what was wrong, he yelled louder. When they looked at Alex’s hand, they saw it start to morph, twist and contort in inhuman ways. The fingers became long like spider-legs, though his skin was being replaced slowly by a dark-purple shell that resembled a beetle’s shell. The end of each of his fingers came to wicked point.

Alex’s legs buckled, bringing him to the ground as he continued to scream, tears running down his face. Everyone just stood there, watching in horror as their friend’s arm turned into something foreign, alien, and unfamiliar. Even when the change had finished, nobody dared move. Alex, laying on the ground, cradling his mutant hand with tears in his eyes, was alone in the middle of a crowd of onlookers.

As any sensible parents would, James and Laila took their son to the hospital where they could do nothing. They were trained to deal with humans they were told, and humans didn’t have arms like that. The Dawsons were checked out with undue haste.

Alex didn’t return to school, and Tristan had distanced himself from his brother, unsure what to do or say. For a couple of weeks, the family tried to function somewhat normally, though tension in the Dawson household was high.

That’s when he came.

A bald man in a wheelchair claiming that he knew what they were going through, that they weren’t alone, and that there were ways of dealing with it. He painted a fantastical picture- a place full of people like Alex, people that could relate to him, and that could support him. What was happening was a gift, not a curse. Truthfully, though, all that Alex heard was a single thing, the word control. This was his, something that belonged to his body- he could control it, he could fix it. When the man left, the family seemed to avoid eye-contact. He said that he’d be back the next day for their decision.

While his parents had trouble sleeping, Alex was simply incapable, the idea of control intoxicating him. Like prodigal son, the memory of the scales, and the way they’d receded, filled Alex’s head. He looked down at his ghastly hand- he could make it go away. An hour later, there was a large amount of screaming coming from Alex’s bathroom, the sound of shattering glass, and finally, the unmistakable sound of laughter. When they finally coerced Alex into opening the door, the other Dawsons found their son as he’d been before- two hands, both human.

When the man, named Professor Xavier, returned the next day, the Dawsons were happy to turn down his offer. They had it under control. Unconvinced, he left them his contact information- just in case they need it.

The sad thing is, Alex’s troubles were only beginning.

The moment he’d arrived back and school, the mutant could feel the strange atmosphere. With all the screaming the transformation had cause, there was hardly a single person in the student-body that didn’t know about Alex. He got strange looks and averted glances- people whispered to one another when he passed. Throughout the day, he felt strangely alone amongst all the others. They’d move their seats inches further from him and either refuse to look at him or stare at him with unnerving intensity. After school, Alex found his brother, surrounded by their friends, and approached. The others left, leaving Tristan with his brother. Alex confronted him- why was everyone, especially Tristan, avoiding him?

“You’re… you’re a freak. I don’t know how to say it, you’re not normal. I- you-… Ugh, could you just go? I mean, it’s bad enough that I’m the freak-show’s brother...”

The bigger they are, the harder they fall; and Alex's fall fractured him. For a little while he became a recluse, avoiding everyone as he submerged himself in music, books, and art. He drifted away from his usual bright and sunny self, developing a more gothic persona. The fits continued, and Alex continued to fight against them with everything he could manage. When he asked to be excused from class, the teachers never argued for fear he’d have one of his fits in their room.

As time passed, Alex’s classmates gained some courage. Instead of gossiping about him in dark hallways or in whispers, they’d start letting him know what they thought of him, how much of a freak he was. Slowly, like drops of water on a boulder, they wore away any restraint he’d had until there were… incidents. The first occurred while Alex was having a fit. He’d been on his way outside, having found that the school’s field was an ideal place to keep from damaging anything or hurting anyone. Also, it afforded him a certain level of privacy. This time, however, he’d been followed by a group of four of his male classmates. They waited until he’d fallen to his knees, arms digging into the ground as he groaned in pain. Laughing, they crooned and taunted him, even tossing small stones as his body re-arranged itself against his will. Soon, one of them felt especially brave and walked forward, ready to kick the freak-boy. Before his foot left the ground, Alex had jumped on him. To the boys’ horror, they saw their companion scratched and mauled by the mutant. His arms had become flawlessly coated in dull, gray scales up until his elbows, fingers replaced by sharp claws. He tore into the boy’s leg, chest, arm, and face, rage fueling his swipes and burning in his eyes.

He was expelled later that day.

Left with no alternatives, they called the man that’d approached them earlier, Xavier. Before boarding the plane, Alex looked at his assembled family. His mother, tears in her eyes, father holding her hands with a strong look in his eyes, and his brother, looking off into the distance with forced disinterest on his face.

He didn't say a word when he turned around and boarded the plane.