[attr="class","hopelovetitle"]APPEARANCE

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HAIR // brown [break]
EYES // blue [break]
SKIN // pale [break][break]

ATTIRE[break][break]
Not exactly someone who follows the height of fashion, much of Kiran’s outfit is worn and tattered. Since running away she’s had to make due with whatever clothes she has available, stealing them off shelves or out of dumpsters. Right now her usual outfit is a pair of torn jeans, blue hoodie, and falling-apart backpack. She often wears a bandana over her hair.
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GENERAL[break][break]
At this point, Kiran is a thin and dirty teenage girl with greasy hair and poor clothes. Her face has a perpetually stubborn expression, one that is (perhaps desperately) giving off the vibe that she not to be messed with. When she walks, it’s usually fast, with her head down, only making eye contact for glares.

[attr="class","hopelovetitle"]PERSONALITY

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Kiran is a girl who wants to appear tough. She’s foul-mouthed, has a stubborn streak a mile wide, and rarely admits she was wrong. She makes decisions quickly (maybe too quickly), sticks by them, and punishes people who she thinks have wronged her with extreme prejudice. She has a bit of a chip on her shoulder, seeing a lot of the world as a plot to get her personally and being especially suspicious of authority figures.
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That said, while she’s legitimately tough in many ways, a lot of it is an act. When you get down to it, Kiran is a deeply insecure girl. She sees herself as fundamentally undeserving of love and in many ways is desperate for approval. Left alone she’ll often spiral into a depressed mood, lashing out in anger at anyone who tries to help her. Appearing independent is extremely important to her, even when she really needs help.
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Still, she definitely has some positive characteristics as well. In particular, she deeply admires superheroes, most notably Paladin. She wants to be like them. Desperately. Not only because they help others, but because they’re liked and admired. What else can you ask for in this world? Kiran wants to be a hero more than anything else. Deep down inside, she believes she really can help people… although good luck getting her to admit it.

[attr="class","hopelovetitle"]HISTORY

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Kiran never knew her parents. Her mother was poor, unwed, and judged unsuited to raising a child after ending up in the hospital after an overdose. A second overdose later took her life. Kiran’s early years were spent at a children’s home and in foster care, where she quickly gained a reputation as an angry and problematic child. Prone to outbursts of violence at perceived slights, she was mistrustful, secretive, and often lied to adults for no apparent reason. However, she was also noted to be highly protective of younger children, albeit violent in how she chose to do so.
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On the whole, Kiran hated her life. She had very few friends, the adults disliked her, and she was a target for bullying by the other children (one reason she cultivated the “wild and dangerous” persona- it made her less of a target). She didn't do well in school and didn’t particularly care to. She had only one way of escape: her imagination. During the day, she say alone and dreamed of going somewhere else, somewhere where people loved and cared for her. She imagined crowds of people cheering for her- it didn’t matter over what. What mattered was that in the worlds she made she was more than a forgotten orphan; she significant, known, beloved.
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Somehow or other, she made a friend, a girl named Rachel. The two would talk for hours about what they would do if they ever got out. It was Kiran who first suggested the fantasy could be made real. Over long nights and stolen moments during the day, they constructed a beautiful plan: Kiran would sneak out of her bed late at night, signal Rachel, and the two of them would leave to escape into the wider world. They were both eleven. Finally the day came when the plan was to be executed. Kiran sneaked from her bunk as planned, but when she found Rachel she found the other girl had had a change of heart- or had regarded it all as a game to begin with. In any event, Rachel refused to go, no matter how much Kiran begged her. Kiran fled alone, eyes wet with bitter tears.
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It went about as well as you would probably expect for an eleven year old girl who was all alone. It wasn’t long before she met an old man with a rough face driving a truck who offered to take her where she wanted to go. She shouldn’t have. But she was tired and she got in. He asked her where she was going. She made something up. He gave her a long look and suggested they stop at his house first. She agreed. He offered her a sandwich, which she ate. When she asked when they would go, he said he was tired and they would go later. She didn't argue.
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You can probably guess how it went after that.A nap before leaving turned into staying for dinner, which turned into staying for the night, which turned into staying for days. By the time she figured out what he really wanted from her, it was too late.
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The police came a few weeks later and found her and returned her to the children’s home and took the old man off to jail. For some days afterwards Kiran sat almost insensible, staring out the window and not talking. When at last she recovered, she was angrier than ever and Rachel would no longer speak to her.
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Her behavior problems increased, leading to serious discussion of her being moved to long-term psychiatric care. Kiran was aware of the discussion and managed to modulate herself enough to avoid this fate. However, the knowledge spurred her to plan another escape attempt, armed with the knowledge and experience of her first one.
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It was about this time that the Event happened. Kiran remembers the day as one of confusion, with everyone huddled around the TV and the adults whispering things that stopped whenever she drew near. Bit by bit, she pieced together what was happening- how the world was changing. It let her understand what was happening to her when her ability manifested several weeks later.
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She was outside with one of the other girls, and, as often happened, the girl dropped a cruel word. And, was often happened, Kiran grabbed the other girl to make her apologize. When she grabbed, she felt a sudden thrill go through her, and the girl she held began screaming. Kiran let go almost instantly. The other girl lay still for a moment, then got up and ran to report that Kiran had hurt her. Kiran was pretty sure she hadn’t. Well, she’d meant to, but she hadn’t actually gotten to that part yet. Over the next days and weeks she began to experiment, and her abilities began to grow, until at last she felt she had a good handle on her power. After that first incident, she did her best not to hurt people, catching small animals to test her powers on, generally with fatal results. This went over exactly as well as you might expect when it was discovered she was killing animals, though they didn't know she did it with a power.
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Sometimes kids in the foster system got adopted, but Kiran knew her chances were slim given her age and behavioral problems. Not content to simply wait until she aged out, she made plans to run away a second time, this time with the help of her ability to support her. Where would she go? The answer was obvious. She would go to San Francisco, home of Paladin, her favorite hero. She would stay there, and she would learn to become a superhero herself. She wasn't just an orphan any more. She was special.

[attr="class","hopelovetitle"]POWER

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Life Force Manipulation[break][break]
Well, there’s not actually any such thing as life force. That’s just what Kiran calls it, lacking a better terminology. Kiran’s powers are diverse, but all are branches of a base ability to manipulate the body systems of others, especially the nervous system. Kiran has a touch-based ability to inflict pain and weakness on others and strengthen herself- or, with more difficulty, reverse the process.
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When this power is active, Kiran’s touch has a paralyzing effect on the victim, preventing them from moving voluntarily for as long as her power is active. Kiran then can do either what she describes as a “push” or a “pull”. Pulling is easier. When Kiran does this, the target experiences extreme pain and Kiran feels intense pleasure. At the same time, Kiran becomes stronger, and injuries that she has begin to heal. An observer might note cuts that Kiran has healing over, tiredness or weakness washing away. When Kiran finishes, the target is left lethargic and weak in proportion to how long Kiran’s power was applied, with longer exposure possibly inducing a coma or death. However, if Kiran’s power is not fatal then all effects can be recovered from given time, rest, and nutrition. Additionally, the target may be unable to access any metahuman abilities for a period following Kiran’s ability being used on them, generally about equal to how long Kiran held them. The process appears to be somewhat end-positive; that is, it ultimately benefits Kiran more than it hurts the victim.
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How much benefit Kiran can extract from a victim depends on the victim. Sick or old people cannot survive as long under the under the effects of Kiran’s power, and humans last longer than other animals. Kiran has a kind of innate sense of how much she can take from creatures within a hundred meters or so without killing them. The benefits Kiran can gain are healing, a boost of physical characteristics towards peak human status, awake and alertness, and the ability to live without food or drink as long as she has victims. Boosts to physical characteristics generally last about 60 times longer than Kiran used her power on the victim.
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Pushing is much like pulling, except that it’s Kiran that feels the pain and is tired and the target who gains the benefits. Kiran is less exhausted by this than a victim would be, but conversely her target benefits less. This lets her perform some feats of healing- albeit more painfully than someone with an innate healing power.
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Puppetry

Kiran pulling energy from another person has a second effect besides the immediate benefit: If Kiran is able pull from someone for a few minutes or more, she will gain the ability to control their body. This ability appears to be an offshoot of the paralyzing effect of her touch, her power encircling the target for a longer-term effect.
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This effect gives Kiran almost total control over the voluntary muscles of of her target. She can make them move, take action, or even speak at will. The person is conscious throughout this entire process and fully aware of what is happening to them, but unable to control their own body. She can also leave part of their body free while controlling the rest, such as allowing a person to speak while still holding the rest of them. She can even make them use or prevent them from using a power, if they have one and she knows it.
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Once she’s pulled on a person, Kiran can establish control of them as long as she’s within a hundred meters or so and can see them. Her range of control is then about 300 meters. She technically doesn't need to see a victim to control them, but since she doesn't get any special sensory data from her victims being able to see them certainly helps. She can control up to three people this way. After pulling on someone, Kiran will be able to control that person for up to a week afterwards; if she doesn't take advantage of it, the opportunity is lost until she drains them again. If she ever goes a week or so without controlling someone she’s previously controlled, she has to drain them again to control them.
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LIMITS[break][break]


First of all, Kiran needs skin to skin contact for life force manipulation to work. Clothes or gloves can prevent the transfer. She also needs a moment of focus to make the transfer happen; a grip which is broken an instant later isn’t enough for her. Kiran’s power can bring her or a target to a state of peak human health and conditioning, but no further, not to anything superhuman. In general, an average person can survive between twenty minutes and an hour under her touch; this would be enough to take Kiran from near death to perfectly healthy at the cost of the target’s life. If she’s healing, she can generally heal about three people before needing a rest; pushing herself may leave her unconscious. Her healing roughly parallels the body’s natural healing abilities (it’s faster is all), so it can’t regrow limbs or anything like that.
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Kiran can control up to three people and at a range of about 300 hundred meters. She can vaguely sense where her victims are at a given point in time, but otherwise has to rely on her normal senses to know where they are. Her victims also lose some fine control while in her grip; she can’t duplicate their normal handwriting, and sometimes facial expressions slip past her control. If Kiran is startled, she may lose her grip on her targets. She has no ability to read minds and therefore can’t do things like force a person to enter a password they know; she’d have to persuade them to tell by other means.

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WEAKNESSES[break][break]
If someone dies while Kiran is pulling from them or has them under control as a puppet, Kiran experiences a painful backlash that can result in ringing ears, a migraine, or even unconsciousness. Kiran does not have perfect control of her life force ability, and may accidentally activate it at times, especially when stressed. Also, drawing from other people gives a buzz similar to using nicotine and is similarly addicting.
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If she’s controlling someone, and there’s a sudden distraction (loud noise, pain, etc) her control may be broken.
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PLAYED BY TWO MCMILLION

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