Iridium
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Iridium | |
| Player: Shadowstar | |
| Origin: | Mutant |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Server: | Confidential |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | April Beckwith |
| Known Aliases: | Iridium the Unbroken |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 20 |
| Height: | 4'9" |
| Weight: | 389lbs avg. (varies significantly) |
| Eye Color: | blue |
| Hair Color: | brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | United States |
| Occupation: | Crime Fighter |
| Place of Birth: | Steamboat Springs, CO |
| Base of Operations: | Paradise Valley, CA |
| Marital Status: | single |
| Known Relatives: | Aphrodite, Nyx, adoptive parents (in protective custody) |
| Known Powers | |
| Regeneration, Martial Arts | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Strength, Agility, Unique Fighting Styles | |
| Equipment | |
| Schiavona, Modified Revolver | |
| ' | |
Once a relatively ordinary girl, April realized she was special when she stopped getting sick, never seemed to get hurt, and could lift increasing amounts of weight despite a lack of muscle building exercises. At the age of fourteen, she "accidentally" busted a kidnapping ring operating in her hometown while attempting to rescue her niece after a police raid on the compound was foiled due to bad intel. It was clear at this point that she had superhuman powers. Genetic tests revealed a prominent mutant genome and a team was dispatched by the government, under the command of Dr. Alan Stone, to determine her viability for medical research. Some regeneration mutants participate in research programs aimed at synthesizing portions of their powers for use in the medical sciences, and it was felt that April might be a candidate for such a program. Oftentimes, medicines derived from mutant regeneration genomes are incompatible with many patients, despite helping others. It was hoped that April's genome would fill some of those gaps. Initial tests showed some promise and Project Iridium was organized to begin proper testing and development. April was cooperative, agreeable to the idea of using her abilities to help others, but despite having superhuman abilities, she was far from comparable to other mutants at this stage. Despite her earlier success against the kidnappers, who had been thrown into disarray by the police raid already, her abilities at this time were rated fairly low, and her young age meant that care had to be taken with her handling. As such, the project did not attract the attention of any prestigious personnel and was assigned a relatively inexperienced staff and limited funding. Doctor Samuel Salazar, a marginally successful geneticist on the FBSA payroll, was appointed director of the project mainly because of his enthusiasm and the fact that he didn't have much in the way of competition for the role.
Project Iridium was set up as a government-funded research corporation with the intended goal of synthesizing April's regenerative abilities as a medical serum to help patients who were resistant to medicines derived from other sources. Initially, April was content to spend her after-school time at the lab participating in the testing, but as she grew older she developed a desire to use her abilities more proactively. She made multiple requests to be allowed to pursue a crime fighting career, but each request was denied by the board of directors who were unwilling to risk their primary asset. After several years, the Project had yet to produce a viable medical solution and Salazar was determined to be incompetent. Despite his insistence that they were "close to a breakthrough", discussions of financial withdrawal became more prominent and the Project's future was in jeopardy. Unbeknownst to the other directors, and allegedly unbeknownst to Director Salazar, April had begun secretly fighting crime during this period, using the alias "Iridium", and a cheap costume she had assembled from cosplay materials. She was doing this without a license and technically operating as a vigilante, but was clever enough to be able to get away with it for as much as a year. Also, during this time, the prominent young supergenius Dr. Quinn Patrick reached out to Project Iridium, having downloaded some of the Project's public data and done her own research on it. While her results were promising, the board of directors had already more-or-less written off the Project and it was felt that her research was not compelling enough to stave off the expected demise of the Project, despite Salazar's willingness to entertain it. The Fund was also not willing to hire a scientist as prestigious as Dr. Patrick. She responded, offering to work for the Project alongside her other projects on a voluntary basis, free of charge. Still, the board was not moved, and eventually funding was pulled and the project was shut down, with Salazar reassigned.
At this point, April "borrowed" some of the equipment from the Project before the government could repossess it, at least what she could manage to move with the help of some other staff members who had decided to help her at the risk of their own careers. She continued to operate as a vigilante and crime fighter, using the misappropriated Project Iridium equipment to continue the research on her own, despite having no formal scientific experience (other than her work with the Project). She used seized money and loot from her crime fighting to fund her research, though had even less success this way than the Project had. Eventually, Dr. Patrick tracked her down and made her the same offer she had previously made to Salazar. April excitedly accepted Dr. Patrick's offer and together they continued the work. Dr. Patrick's research proved to be the start of a turn of fortune for the successful synthesis of April's genome and by the time the police finally tracked the vigilante crime fighter down, Dr. Patrick had developed a rudimentary serum which could be administered to a wide variety of patients and produced real, compelling results. In light of this, and April's cooperation with law enforcement, the FBSA elected to allow her to keep possession of the equipment she had stolen, and continue her research legitimately, especially since she was funding it herself at this point. However, she had to agree to turn over any recovered stolen goods to the police, obtain her official hero license, and cooperate with FBSA oversight. At Dr. Patrick's insistence, she agreed to all of these terms and re-established Project Iridium under her own leadership, using her own funding. Fortunately, with Dr. Patrick's success, she no longer needed to rely on legally questionable funding methods and the project began to attract other prominent scientists and persons of interest, including a number of other supers.
Today, Project Iridium is a small but successful and well funded supergroup and research organization operating out of their signature airship which is capable of travelling all over the world. They are the developers and distributors of the Iridium Compound, a fundamental component of many modern medicines, and are one of the most established crime fighting organizations in the world. Iridium and her friends at the project work tirelessly to improve healthcare and the quality of life and security for thousands of people every day, and Dr. Patrick operates primarily from the sophisticated lab aboard the airship, producing medical panaceas and helping to cure many diseases and afflictions brought about by the ever-increasing population of mad scientists threatening world peace. Recently, Iridium and her friends have discovered, through their adventures, that her true parents are actually the ancient goddesses Aphrodite and Nyx, of Greek legend. These goddesses apparently took human form to create her, despite both being female. Our sources at M.A.G.I. assure us that, as divinities, gender is hardly any kind of restriction for such beings. As a demigoddess, April's status as a mutant is debated, with many arcane scholars insisting that she be reclassified as a magical origin, however Dr. Patrick and other prominent scientists point to the breadth of genetic studies which clearly show that Iridium is, indeed, a mutant human. April's adoptive parents are in protective custody so as to deter any attempts by villains to target them, while she has been assigned a "false family" by the FBSA, consisting of high level operatives who act as her family for the purposes of acting as a "honeypot" tactic. This tactic has already allowed the FBSA to apprehend a number of high profile criminals who sought to attack Iridium's family out of revenge, instead finding themselves drawn into a trap.
Recently, it is known that Iridium has unlocked the hidden potential of her divine origin and harnessed Incarnate power. This makes her one of the most powerful beings on the planet and has put to shame all those who underestimated her abilities during Project Iridium's early difficult period. Dr. Quinn Patrick, while already prominent before joining the Project, has herself gained tremendous fame and success on top of her existing prestige for her contribution and faith in Iridium's potential. Dr. Patrick is the Head of Research for Project Iridium and Iridium's second-in-command, though in truth, Dr. Patrick handles more of the management of the group than Iridium does, as Iridium spends most of her time fighting crime at the highest level and adventuring through the multiverse with her friends. Dr. Patrick occasionally accompanies Iridium and friends on their adventures, but is usually content to spend her time in the lab, furthering the boundaries of ethical science.
Throughout her adventures, Iridium has acquired a number of items she has grown fond of. One of these is a heavily modified revolver which makes use of QuinnTech gadgets to help bring down the toughest of criminals, as well as a restored 18th Century Schiavona, an Italian mercenary sword, enchanted with Shadow Magic by Audrey Thompson, a magical hero and friend of Iridium. This sword is capable of cutting through magical defenses and dealing with malevolent spirits quite handily, though now Iridium is capable of channelling raw divine energy into her kicks and punches to achieve a similar effect. She still carries the sword from time to time when fighting arcane and spiritual threats as it extends her reach in combat. Her fighting style is fairly unusual, incorporating a mix of traditional martial arts with high-flying jumps, flips, and bounces that take advantage of her natural abilities. Her muscles are extremely dense and her greatly accelerated metabolism allows her to bounce all over a battlefield, projecting tremendous force despite her small size. This is also responsible for her remarkable weight, which is not visually apparent. One of her attacks was named "The Cannonball" as it literally involves her leaping high in the air, tucking into a tight ball, and slamming into her opponent with the full force of her weight and divine power behind it. This is usually enough to do quite a lot of damage as well as knock the target flying. This mixture of mobility and her natural regeneration makes her very difficult to deal with. Enemies that can manage to land a hit on her find that the damage is undone rapidly as she heals so quickly and has so much stamina that she can simply outlast any significant threat. Her only real weakness is alpha strikes, ie: taking a trememndous amount of concentrated damage at the same time, however, as this is a known weakness, she has taken steps to counter it, and with the help of her other friends, has developed techniques that allow her to deal with alpha strikes quite effectively. Add to this the fact that the majority of her being actually seems to be shifted into the fourth dimension, as discovered when she was completely destroyed in a huge explosion at one point, she is effectively unkillable. During that incident, her body within the three-dimensional continuum was completely destroyed, but as the rest of her was safely within the fourth dimension, her consciousness was therefore shunted in that direction. Though her perceptions were still three-dimensional, she was able to, after about a day in this state, to determine how to move fourth-dimensionally in a limited manner, enough that she could re-enter the three-dimensional continuum that we are familiar with, with a new body identical to her old one, albeit completely naked, which was a bit of a surprise to those who witnessed the event.
Most of this information regarding her fourth-dimensional nature comes from the studies of Dr. Patrick. This nature is still not well understood, as most things involving N-Dimensional physics are. Dr. Patrick continues to work toward furthering our understanding of this ill-explored realm of physics, though many arcane scholars have their own conflicting theories regarding this aspect of reality. For sake of illustration, Dr. Patrick suggests that it be thought of similarly to sticking one's finger into a pool of water. If the pool of water is our familiar three-dimensional continuum, then what Iridium does is "stick her finger" into that pool, and with that fingertip, she is able to fight crime and be everything she is known to be to us. But if something in that pool blows off that fingertip, it's no longer in the pool. Her regenerative abilities restore the fingertip, and then all she has to do is stick it back into the pool again, or another fingertip while the first one is regenerating. If something were able to attack her in the fourth dimension, her life could then be in significant danger, but even then, Dr. Patrick believes her regenerative abilities work just as well there and so she would still be quite formidable. Audrey Thompson and Tabitha Halliwell, Iridium's magical advisors, believe there may be an evil divinity seeking to find a way to challenge Iridium in the fourth dimension, but so far their research has not turned up any significant leads.