| Hope |
 |
| Name: | Hope Summers |
| Gender: | Female |
| Place of Birth: | Cooperstown Memorial Hospital, Cooperstown, Alaska |
| Age: | 19 |
| Aliases: | Hope |
| Origin: | Mutant |
| Origin Earth: | 613 |
| Present Location: | New York |
| Occupation: | Messiah |
| Team: | None |
| Alignment: | Hero |
| Significant Other(s): | None |
| Powers and Abilities: | Pluripotent Echopraxia, Power Stabilization, Former Phoenix |
| Portrayed by: | None |
Hope was in trouble even before she was born. Prophesied to be either the mutant messiah or the antichrist (depending on who you talk to), her birth - the birth of the first mutant since M Day - brought the wrath of Purifiers down on the small Alaska town where it happened. Hope would have died too, except that Cable showed up to save the infant.
Her first days and weeks of life were chaos as others fought over whether she should live or die, over who would control her. Ultimately, though, Cyclops agreed to send her into the future under Cable's protection where she could be raised in safety. Bishop, certain she would bring about his own future, disagreed violently, pursuing the pair. Cable's chronal regulator was damaged so that he could only jump to the future.
Cable's goal was the fabled town of New Liberty, a safe hold from the ravages of the apocalypse. For a few years, they were safe there. That is until Bishop's attempts to manipulate the future bore fruit. He'd destroyed the world (large swaths of it, at least), and the insectoid survivors who'd genetically altered themselves for the ravages of the future found New Liberty. They killed the woman Hope saw as her mother, the woman Cable had loved.
They fled again into the future, this time into dangerous times controlled by Stryfe. X-Force, assembled by Cyclops, came to aid them, but while they were able to save the girl from Stryfe and Apocalypse, they were forced to time travel again. Hope objected, wanting to go with X-Force, and struggled against Cable. As a result, she fell out of the time stream two years before him. She would spend those next years scavenging for herself in one of two cities built there until Cable found her again.
Bishop found them too, though. He pursued them into space itself, where they were all attacked by the Brood. Hope and Cable fled in escape pods. Bishop caught a ride in an Acanti. Eventually he found them again. This time, though, they were able to fight back. They stole part of Bishop's time traveling device, and after a back and forth chase through time, were able to return to their present and the Xavier Institute.
Arriving back to the present wasn't the end of the fight, though. Purifiers and other enemies were still waiting. Battle followed, but Hope was able to use her newly discovered ability to mimic powers to help defeat the enemies of the X-Men. Still, that wasn't what she was meant to do. Shortly after, new mutants began to appear. Five of them - the lights.
The first mutants to appear since Hope herself, their powers were unstable - at least until Hope touched them. They all seemed bonded to her to various degrees. As time passed, though, Hope began to display other powers. Powers the X-Men and others had seen before.
The Phoenix force was returning, and it was coming for Hope. She'd brushed its power, but no one was willing to tell her what it meant. The Avengers and the X-Men fought over what should be done with her, over how the Phoenix force should be dealt with. No one asked Hope. So she did what she'd always done best - she ran.
She planned to meet the Phoenix on the moon, where no one would be hurt if she failed. Instead, the X-Men and the Avengers met it. Attacked it. And the Phoenix force was shattered into five X-Man hosts instead.
Hope ran with the Avengers. She trained in K'un-Lun, under the tutelage of Iron Fist and (oddly enough) Spider-Man. When Cyclops, under the influence of the Dark Phoenix, came, she fought. Using the Scarlet Witches borrowed powers and Shou-lao kung fu, Hope defeated Cyclops, claiming the power of the Phoenix.
For a moment, she held it. She saw what it could do. But she remembered what else it had done. And instead of holding the power, with Wanda's help she made her decision: No More Phoenix.
In the aftermath, Hope was…lost. She'd brought back mutants. She'd survived. And after a life of being on the run so that she could be the messiah, she was nineteen years and her mission was accomplished. At least as far as she could see. For a short time, she attended the Jean Grey school. She tried to live a normal life. It wasn't for her.
In short order, she turned her attention instead to hunting down her father, who was decidedly more alive and less comatose than she'd last seen him and yet hadn't taken the time to come and talk with her. When she found him, she found out he'd been having visions of the future, of futures that needed to be prevented.
While investigating the source of the visions, Hope was brought into the future - a future, at least. One where she spoke with an older version of herself. They agreed she would go back, help her father.
Except when she landed…she was here instead. And things seem to be just slightly off here…
Hope has spent her life scraping to get by. Hunting for food, recycling water, repurposing old and broken technology to make things work. She's not one to give up, and she's almost always got a way to get through.
Part of Hope's survival has always been being on the run. When trouble shows up, she'll fight first, but when she sees a losing fight, she runs. Always better to live to fight another day than to die.
Hope has been told her entire life that she's special, that she has a purpose. Now it looks like that's been accomplished, and yet Hope herself feels like she had almost nothing to do with any of it. She's been something that other people fought over, other people died for. So for all the people that have died, she wants to live to be a hero. She wants to make the world a better place. She wants the title that everyone else gave her to mean something.
Hope's goal is to protect the future without sacrificing the present. She's seen the lengths people will go to - Bishop was willing to burn the world to get to her. She understands what they want to protect. But she also understands what it is they're sacrificing when they're willing to go to any length. She wants to keep the world safe, and she wants to do it in a way that means everyone still gets to be decent people.
Hope is a practical creature. When faced with a problem, she looks for the practical solution first. Yes, she also considers other things, like the ethical implications, but pragmatism is the first instinct.
Hope has a knack for leadership. Her time with the lights built on this, and even though they were inclined to agree with her through other means, she has a solid head on her shoulders. She knows how to read people, and she knows how to get the best out of them.
Hope grew up with no one to rely on but Cable and herself, and even then she was still on her own for a solid portion of that time. She doesn't need anyone's approval or support to do what she knows is right, and she's capable of getting by on her own without any assistance.
Yes, it's on the nose. But when it comes down to it, Hope has hope. She believes in people. In their ability to do good, in their strength, in their courage. She sees the good in people, even if she knows all about the bad as well.
If you don't run, then you fight. Hope doesn't know the meaning of the word quit, and she doesn't believe in giving up. When she finds herself in a bad situation, she'll struggle against it and do what she can to change the situation.
Hope fought her whole life to get back to this world, to get back to people who were willing to give their lives to keep her safe. So in return, she's willing to do almost anything to protect them as well. More than that, she's seen what people can do when they're willing to work together for a common goal. She hates seeing differences (physical, species, or philosophical) drive people apart, so she always works to bring them together instead, to see each other's point of view.
Hope is able to mimic the powers of any mutants her proximity. Doing so does not deplete the mutant's power, and in fact, Hope manifests it at its ideal level for herself. She also has conscious control of her absorption - for example, simply being in the presence of a mutant with wings would not cause her to sprout wings herself unless she chose to. There is no limit to the number of powers she can mimic (even concurrently), but her ability to mimic them is limited by proximity, time, and usage.
Generally speaking, she needs to be within 1-3 blocks of a mutant to absorb their power, though a mutant she's familiar with or one with greater power can be absorbed from up to a mile away. Absorbed powers, when unused, can lie dormant and available for up to a week. How long absorbed powers last once out of range of the original source depends on usage. Even with a "full tank" of absorption, Hope can only last 10-15 minutes of continuous, high-powered use or exertion of the powers once outside the range of the source. Lighter use lasts proportionately longer.
Hope is able, through physical contact, to stabilize mutant powers that have gone out of control. This isn't a conscious power for her. All she knows is that if things are out of control, touching the person seems to put it back into order.
For a brief moment, Hope was one with the Phoenix Force. She understood it, what it was, how to use it. But she let it go. Not only did she let it go, she willed it out of existence so far as she's aware. It's uncertain just how the Phoenix force that still remains in this universe will feel about that.
Hope's older self sent her back with a shiny new jetpack to replace the battered one she'd been using since Utopia. It's nothing too fancy, but it allows her to fly from one place to another. Since she doesn't naturally have any flight powers and it's no self-contained suit, she's limited by altitude, g forces, and air traffic in general. It's showier than she'd like, too. But hey, jetpack!
Hope is (or was) a member of the X-Men. Even if she's not from around here, she's used to meeting people who are slightly different from what she's heard or remembers and good at making connections. She can call on the team for help and has access to technology and resources available to the X-Men.
Hope has a gauntlet she cobbled together from a pattern Cable showed her to help hide her from things that sense mutants, from Sentinels to Cerebro. It disguises her power signature, allowing her to pass unnoticed.
Hope has a reputation. She was supposed to be the mutant messiah. There was a veritable war over whether or not she should even be allowed to try to handle the Phoenix force. She's come out alive on the other side of it, and with a relatively good reputation, but it's still a lot of weight to carry. It means people may listen to her. But if they're listening, then she has to be careful about what she says and where it leads.
For better or worse, Hope was at one point joined with the Phoenix Force. So far as she's aware, she used that power and the Scarlet Witches to will it out of existence, but that doesn't mean she's right about it. And there's no telling how it may feel about her choices.
Hope's entire life has been scavenging and working with the bare minimum to get things done. Not a great way to live, but it means that she's developed the skills to make do with very little in the way of raw materials.
Hiding is an important part of running, and so is the ability to move quietly. Hope knows how to keep hidden, how to hide her tracks, how to avoid leaving evidence of herself, how to get into a place unnoticed…Basically, she's spent her entire life on the run and knows how to avoid being caught when she doesn't want to be.
Though Hope knows more about futuristic weapons than flintlocks, she knows how to maintain, repair, and fire various sorts of weapons.
Hope was raised by the greatest soldier to ever live (or at least that's how she describes Cable). Always on the run from people who wanted to kill her, she learned how to fight as soon as she was old enough to try. The early education in brawling and no holds barred hand to hand was refined in K'un-Lun under the tutelage of the Iron Fist. Though she's limited by purely human strength unless she's mimicking a power, she knows how to use it and use it well.
Growing up in various parts of the future meant that Hope had a lot of high-tech to work with…it was just mostly damaged and post-apocalyptic. While she's no inventor or designer, Hope has a knack for figuring out how things work and how to make broken things work again. She's good at fixing things up, though she usually has an easier time fixing things that are high tech than things that are low tech.
There aren't a lot of doctors available when you get stranded in the future after a fight. Hope learned how to stitch up a wound and keep someone from bleeding out the hard way - first hand. While she's no surgeon, she can remove a bullet, stitch a wound, or set a bone in the field at need. More than that and someone's going to have to walk her through it.
Combat and firearms mean nothing without tactics. Hope knows how to work alone and how to work as a team. She's excellent at judging where people's skills are best used and at reading how they're doing in the middle of a fight. She can read the terrain, read a room, and knows where the best place to be is to survive.
Leadership is a hard-earned skill for Hope, one she never sought out but ended up with all the same. She's very good at reading people, seeing what they need, and making sure that they feel valued and are prepared and able to work with the team. She's also willing to take a hit for the team, and never one to throw someone else in if she wouldn't do it herself. She sees the big picture and the details, which helps her make the hard decisions.
As similar as this world may be to hers, it isn't truly Hope's. Then again, even Hope's wasn't much like the various worlds and timelines she grew up in. It seems like Hope's always been the outsider, never quite where she belongs, always a step ahead or a step behind.
More specifically, a life of running and fighting just doesn't lend itself to being comfortable in the modern world of normal people. She isn't familiar with pop culture or even much history, missed out on cultural touchstones like school dances and sports teams, and can't imagine why anyone would sit and watch TV for hours at a time. She's always something of a fish out of water.
To some people, Hope was the messiah. To others, she's the antichrist. The worst may be over, but her name and face are well-known, and it's not like everyone decided mutants are great all of a sudden. Her birth and her actions with the Phoenix force brought back the mutant phenomenon. Not everyone is going to be happy about that.
Hope gave up the Phoenix, willed it out of existence. That doesn't mean that everyone believes she did. There may be people who are suspicious as to whether or not it's truly gone and may see her as a threat should it return. The last time practically started a war between the Avengers and the X-Men. Those are the sorts of things that don't die easily. Not to mention the Pheonix Force itself. If it isn't actually gone forever, who knows what kind of grudge it might hold?
Hope spent the majority of her life with a single person: Cable. He is not the best example of social graces. Although she's a fast learner, good at reading people, and has been trying to work on it ever since she made it back to her present, Hope is behind the curve when it comes to basic social niceties like please, thank you, white lies, and occasionally the details of paying for things. She's not the person you want to take to high tea.
Hope is 19 years old, and yet she's already supposedly saved mutantkind from extinction and the world from the Phoenix force. The first was her only purpose in life for as long as she can remember. The second came close on its heels. With both of those over, though, what is she supposed to do with her life? Hope struggles with questions and doubts about who she is when she's separated from her destiny. It can make her vulnerable to someone who can offer an answer, or hesitate when she should act.
Hope has no home of her own, no job, and no money. Granted, this isn't much different from the rest of her life, but here in the real world things like stealing and living in boxes are generally frowned upon. While she can call on the X-Men if she really needs a place to stay, her pride means she's likely to try to figure things out for herself instead.
Hope is from a world very close to 616 (in fact, so close that she's under the impression she's just time-slid into a very slight future jump). She's used to being known as the mutant messiah, but one who's already served her purpose. Now she's as much "Cable's 'daughter'" as anything else.
===========================[ +sheet for Hope (H) ]============================
F: Excellent (20) Health: 56/56
A: Good (10) Karma: 56
S: Typical (6) Resources: (0)
E: Excellent (20) Popularity:
R: Typical (6) Experience: 0
I: Good (10) Initiative: +0
P: Incredible (40) Movement: 2
==================================< POWERS >==================================
Power Duplication…………………………………. Unearthly (100)
X-Gene Stabilization………………………………. Unearthly (100)
=================================< TALENTS >==================================
Acrobatics……………………………………….. Excellent (20)
Edged Weapons…………………………………….. Remarkable (30)
First Aid………………………………………… Excellent (20)
Guns…………………………………………….. Excellent (20)
Martial Arts B E………………………………….. Remarkable (30)
Military Strategy…………………………………. Excellent (20)
Survival…………………………………………. Good (10)
Tumbling…………………………………………. Excellent (20)
==================================< FLAWS >===================================
=================================< CONTACTS >=================================
Cable Rogue
X-Men
ARMOR RATINGS: Energy: 0 Magic: 0 Mental: 0 Physical: 0
IC Events
Logs tagged with "hope-summers" or "re:hope-summers" will be attached below. Logs from before 12/17/2017 are from a previous player of the character.