Wilberforce
Wilberforce.jpg
Mr. Stretchy
Real Name: Wilberforce Rupert Fotheringay-Phipps IV
Age: 15
Identity: Secret
Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
Date of Birth: March 11th
Known Relatives: Father (The III), Mother (Eugenia Allison Cheesewright), Sister (age 12, Alicia Merryweather F-P)
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 150 Lbs
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Sandy
Grade: Sophomore
Dorm: Jones

Background

Family:

The Fotheringay-Phipps are old money Bostonians, with a family line that goes back to the Mayflower, though not the first Fotheringay-Phipps, that patriarch was on 'one of the boats in the next few years'. Now in this family's case 'old money' means that the actual cash is rather thin. Just the income from his parents actual jobs and forms the cash flow that the family must use to continue forward. That isn't too bad though, one ancestor several generations back had the foresight to take some of the real cash and put it into a multi-generational trust to cover upkeep and taxes on the family properties. So while he didn't grow up with a lot of things bought for him, the family did have the winter house in Florida, the mountain cabin retreat, the Boston townhouse and of course the family estate in the Massachusetts countryside. His father and mother still live a good life though, with his father in finance (and he claims he had absolutely nothing to do with credit default options) and his mother having managed to get three novels published over the last twenty years.

Early Life:

Wilberforce was a slight lad growing up in grade school. It was a source of no little irritation that he was bullied by more than a few of the large boys, primarily because of his unusual name. The only saving grace is that the only pig jokes aimed at him were to be called the 'runt' more than a few times, as he was hardly the porcine type. He was a talented student, but his focus wasn't quite as steady. He earned good grades, and he was placed in the more challenging classes. However, he was not considered the top of the class, there were always a few stars that shined brighter than his. There was one area where he excelled though. From an early age he was physically gifted, able to excel in tumbling exercises and in grade school he skipped playing in the soccer league or piano lessons for gymnastic classes and lessons. By age ten it was clear that he had enough talent that with coaching and the effort he seemed to want to put into the tasks that he would easily be able to parley it into at least a college athletic scholarship and quite possibly a shot at the national team. Indeed, as he progressed over the next two years to the point that he was given a spot in one of the regional training groups for the junior national team, with vault, high-bar, and floor exercise being his strongest events.

The Change:

Disaster struck in his budding competitive career at age thirteen. He started having difficulty performing and his flexibility was degrading. It was quite normal for a young man's flexibility to degrade some as they start to enter puberty, it was to be expected. But he was showing more marked change than normal. It was troubling enough that his parents arranged (most likely because testing was cheaper in the long run than loosing that full college scholarship) for specialized testing to determine if there was some abnormality causing the change. Results showed that he had a genetic predisposition to create more of a certain peptide chain that led to less flexibility in tendons and ligaments. Not enough of a difference that it would be all that noticeable to the average person, but for a competitive gymnast, it was going to be a showstopper. That would have been that, if it weren't for a combination of factors lining up. A series of circumstances involving a small biotech firm wanting to push new products closer to market, a doctor willing to take a little money on the side to make a connection, and parents that were willing to overlook a few legal niceties to see that their son didn't have to give up on the one goal that he really worked hard at. All those factors put together created a case where he was the first human trial of a drug intended for strengthening and restoring flexibility to elderly ligaments and tendons. It was supposed to be a very mild form of gene therapy to add elasticity to those connective tissues, but the alterations made to convert it from the rodent test sample to human… well, they were a little to generic. And so the peptide altering sequences were not just inserted into the codes for ligaments and tendons, but into all sorts of other places that additional elasticity just had no right to be.

The Recovery:

It's a fortunate thing that some biotech firms will go to any length to avoid a scandal. In Wilberforce's case it was nearly 24 hour medical care. The changes wrought by the treatment were so severe that it was very nearly fatal, and it was weeks before he was able to breath without artificial aid, and months before he was working on walking, talking and eating solid food again. A year after the treatment he was just about back to being 'normal' or at least able to act like a normal young man, even though his body was far from normal at that point. It was clear as he started to gain more and more control over his form that what the biotech firm had actually done was something quite remarkable. Sadly for them, in their rush to purge anything that could be used in a legal action against them should Wilberforce die, or their illegal experiments come to light. So the exact processes they used to prepare his dosing of the drug treatment, binding and transfer mechanisms, all were lost. Even the scientist that created most of the elements for the test couldn't recall them all, the shock at how it had gone so horribly wrong had scarred his memory of the time leading up to the test, filled with wild second guessing on if he'd done something incorrectly to cause the results or not.

Off to School:

And now we come to the current day. Wilberforce has had another year in control of his body and has learned more than a bit of what he can do with it now. Of course, he's undergone so much chemical therapy to keep him alive that he knows it'll be years before all the hormone therapy is out of his system. His ideas of still competing shot down by the rather strict drug screening that starts at the junior national level, since that feeds into the national team program at both the Olympic and world championship level. His parents searched high and low, till they caught wind of the Steranko Institute. Once they got in contact with the administrators there about their son, it was clear that a new path was before him and they were all for it, as long as he managed to keep the right proper Fotheringay-Phipps name out of the media.

Personality

Wilberforce is a warm, friendly kid that's just a bit reserved. He's been on the short end of the bullying stick growing up more than a few times in his formative years, which has made him just a bit cautious in opening up to new people. But his inherent optimistic point of view eventually will push him to opening up, and in doing so, getting involved in trying to help out just about anyone with their own problems.

Logs

Wilberforce Moves In
Quad Study Break
Soda Jerks: 6/11/10 A pleasant summer Friday at the Pharmacy and soda shop is disrupted when some hoodlums decide to try to rob the place. They get more than they bargained for when three Steranko students (Adrian, Mariscka, and Wilberforce) step in to save the day. - Emitted by Adrian
It's all in the Cards

Stats


Attr:
Str 10 (+0), Dex 20 (+5), Con 14 (+2), Int 16 (+3), Wis 14 (+2), Cha 14 (+2)

Saves:
Toughness +10 (8 Protection), Fortitude +2 (CON), Reflex +11 (DEX, +6), Will +7 (WIS, +5)

Combat:
Attack +6, Defense +6, Grapple +17, Init +5

Skills:
Acrobatics: 8/+13, Athletics: +3/+3 Computers: 4/+7, Escape Artist: 8/+21, Notice: 2/+4, Search: 4/+7, Sleight of Hand: 6/+11, Stealth: 5/+10

Feats:
Ambidexterity, Accurate Attack, Move-By Action, Improved Grapple, Improved Grab, Improved Pin, Evasion (x2), Grappling Finesse, Instant Up, Takedown Attack (x2), Weapon Bind

Powers:
Elasticity 8 (Power Feats: Alternate Power 4, Telegraphic Punch; Cost: 1/Rank+5, Total: 13PP)

  • AP: Super-Movement 2 ('Cling Wrap'; Wall-Crawling (Full movement, not flat-footed when climbing))
  • AP: Flight 4 ('Parasail''; Flaw: Limited - Gliding)
  • AP: Morph 4 (Any form with the same mass; Flaw: Retains Colors)
  • AP: Leaping 8 ('Springing'; 500x distance, airborne for 4 rounds)

Insubstantial 1 (Fluid body; Cost: 5/Rank, Total: 5PP)
Protection 8 (Cost: 1/Rank, Total: 8PP)
Strike 5 (Cost: 1/Rank, Total: 5PP)
Super Strength 3 (+15 STR lifting, +3 to grapple and break objects, +3 to non-skill based non-damaging STR checks; Cost: 2/Rank, Total: 6PP)

Drawbacks:
Vulnerable (Common, Moderate, DCx1.5; -3PP)

Attributes 28 + Saves 11 + Combat 24 + Skills 10 (40 Ranks) + Feats 13 + Powers 37 - Drawbacks 3 = 120 PP

Complications:
Little Sister gets sent to visit: With jet setting parents sometimes they just send little sister to 'visit' her older brother over a weekend.
Knocked Unconscious: While Wilberforce has mostly mastered his body, it's still not completely controlled by lower brain functions. When he's actually unconscious (not just asleep) either by being clonked on the head or anesthetics, he tends to lose form cohesion and will pool/puddle down and flow into the nearest low spot.
Simple Shapes: Wilberforce is still working on mastering just how flexible his body is now, so while in theory he could morph into just about any shape he could dream up, right now he is limited to rather basic, unmoving objects. Chair, table, ottoman, lamp post…

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License