| Serenity |
 |
| Name: | Serenity Monroe |
| Gender: | Female |
| Place of Birth: | Brooklyn, New York |
| Age: | 19 |
| Aliases: | None |
| Origin: | Mutant |
| Origin Earth: | 616 |
| Present Location: | New York |
| Occupation: | Singer |
| Team: | X-Men student |
| Alignment: | None |
| Significant Other(s): | None |
| Powers and Abilities: | Vocal Mimicry, Phonographic memory, Super-charged Immune System |
| Portrayed by: | Katherine Heigl (young) |
There are videos of Serenity singing on youtube. In addition, promotional materials are beginning to hit the internet regarding her upcoming single release. She performs under the stage name Serenity without acknowledging a surname. She has been identified as having been a busker in various parts of the city.
- Serenity was born July 24, 1998 at 1:32 PM in a hospital in Brooklyn, New York to Kingston Lee Monroe and his wife, Bethany St. Claire Monroe. Kingston was a successful businessman. Bethany was an heiress who married for love.
- On December 22, 2000, Serenity was in Owl's Head Park in Brooklyn with her father. She was picked up by a man infected by a virus engineered to be resistant to all known anti-viral medications. Though the virus was spread through fluid transfer, Serenity had a scratch on her arm that allowed the virus inside after some of his spittle got on her arm.
- In less than 24 hours, Serenity was running a high fever. A trip to the ER resulted in her being quarantined for the contagion in her blood. Unbeknownst to anyone, the contagion activated Serenity's latent mutant physiology which is the only thing that allows her to survive.
- A month of hell followed for the Monroe family. Serenity remained in the hospital. With no anti-virals that would work, the hospital merely kept her comfortable on support while her body and its super-charged immune system worked to keep her alive and kill off the super virus.
- Watching her daughter suffer, Bethany Kingston fell into the trap of blaming her husband for what happened. By the time that Serenity's immune system managed to eliminate the threat, the trust between Bethany and Kingston had been irreparably shattered.
- Though Kingston wanted to let Serenity's blood be tested so the immunity factors that allowed her to survive could be identified, Bethany insisted that her baby could not be made to suffer any further. Because no further testing was done, it was not discovered that Serenity was a mutant.
- Serenity discovered that she could not forget anything she heard nor the visuals associated with those sounds. Unfortunately this meant she could remember all her parents terrible arguments with perfect clarity. At first, she thought this was normal, that everyone could do it. Later she discovered it was a talent unique to her but she dismissed it as something like normal photographic memory rather than something more complicated.
- When the Fantastic Four went public, it changed the world. There were super-powered people in the world and this made Serenity feel even more normal in comparison. It allowed her to dismiss her strangeness as normal that she was not something fantastic.
- As she grew and her parents' marriage continued to slip into a shambles, Serenity began to blame herself for what was happening to her parents and her family. Though she wanted to talk to someone about what was happening, She found she could not tell anyone the truth because of her embarrassment.
- Since she did not want to focus on her home life, Serenity attempted to bury herself in her schoolwork. She quickly discovered that if she read to herself aloud, she didn't have to study and the work went too quickly to keep her focus. Instead she turned to her music for solace and to drown out the noise of the arguments.
- With her talents for rhythm, music and singing, her hobbies naturally turned to music. She learned the piano through formal lessons and guitar from her father. In addition she talked her way into lessons in ventriloquism.
- More altered humans or superheroes became known to the public: The Hulk, Spider-man, Thor, Iron Man, The Avengers. By this time, Serenity had begun to avoid the news so she only heard what happened third hand from other people's descriptions of what the supers had done.
- Then mutants became known to the world when the X-Men stop Magneto from firing off the missiles. This served to further divide Bethany and Kingston. Bethany thought the idea of mutants was horrible while Kingston found the notion compelling. If their marriage had been strained before, now it became a thing ragged and tattered.
- Still in love with his wife, Kingston made attempts at romance, but more and more frequently they were rebuffed with excuses to avoid her husband and all the painful memories now associated with him.
- After the Kree-Skrull War the "Alien Activities Commission" is formed but Serenity largely missed this since she has been avoiding the news and her school mates do not talk about politics particularly not with her. As the girl who always blows the curve, Serenity is not terribly popular.
- Demons invaded New York City after freeing themselves from Limbo. During this Serenity acquired a pair of very good ear plugs and wore them whenever possible to avoid the sounds that might lock the events permanently into her mind.
- Despite attempting to avoid hearing anything during the events of Inferno, Serenity began having nightmares on a regular basis after Inferno as memories linger of things she saw even when she could not hear.
- On September 5, 2010, Serenity's maternal grandmother passed away. Bethany withdrew from her family somewhat into the comfort of Howard Kildaire, the trustee of the St. Claire Fund and an old family friend. Though they were truly just friends, Kingston was incredibly jealous of Howard.
- News of the Genoshan government falling reaches New York, but by this time Serenity was actively asking people not to talk to her about politics.
- On August 12, 2012, Kingston Monroe was arrested for embezzling from his company. Though he was innocent, Bethany could not bring herself to believe it.
- Instead of standing by Kingston as he attempted to prove his innocence, Bethany decide to leave Brooklyn and take Serenity to the St. Claire House in upstate New York.
- Bethany did not explain things in detail to Serenity, but out of fear that Serenity would choose Kingston instead of Bethany, she intentionally attempted to make Serenity afraid of her father. She painted a horror story of what would happen to Serenity if she went back to her father.
- When Serenity tried to pry more details from her mother, her mother briefly took her eyes from the road to look at Serenity. Unfortunately it was horribly timed. Bethany drove off the rain slicked road. Serenity was thrown from the car and struck her head. Bethany was trapped in the car which rolled down the embankment then caught fire. Bethany Monroe was burned beyond all recognition as was her vehicle.
- Serenity woke up in a hospital alone. Instead of telling the doctors who came her real name, Serenity gave them a false name. Unfortunately no real investigation of this information was done. Since Serenity was thought to be with her mother, there was no missing report to tell authorities who she was. So instead of going home, she was turned over to the foster care system as Marie.
- Busy with trying to defend himself and assuming Serenity was with her mother, Kingston did not search for her. Howard Kildaire respected his friend's privacy and did not investigate her whereabouts. Onslaught's activities in Manhattan made quite sure than no one would be looking for her any time soon, but she was spared most of the details since she was already outside of New York City.
- Serenity was placed with a good foster family, but she was afraid and withdrawn. The loss of her mother and her father both made her draw away from her guardians. Eventually their attempts to get her to talk made her snap and get into a fight with her foster mother. The cruelty she showed in that brief incident, made her foster father worry she might become violent. As a result, she was moved to another foster home.
- It was around this time that the news that Xavier's schools was a refuge for mutants became public knowledge. Though mutants began to gain more acceptance then, it really didn't apply to Serenity since she had never learned she was a mutant. The possibility never even occurred to her despite her abilities.
- Serenity's second foster mother was wonderful, but her husband was a cruel man who hid his cruelty from his wife, inflicting that cruelty only on their foster children.
- Tiny cruelties like restricting her ability to play music moved on to bigger ones along with inappropriate and mean touches and pinches.
- Another girl, Michelle, was placed with the same foster family. The crying she could hear from Michelle at night prompted Serenity to action. She attempted to convince Michelle to come forward with her, but Michelle's real father had been so abusive she swore to Serenity that if Serenity tried to involve her, she would deny anything was going on.
- Serenity's foster father, Kyle, came into her room in the night and attempted to rape her. By using her ventriloquism and mimicry, she convinced him his wife was looking for him. While he was distracted by trying to find out what his wife wanted, Serenity escaped out the window with only the clothes that she had hastily donned.
- Serenity begin hiking and hitching her way back to Manhattan. Meanwhile, friends of Kingston Monroe managed to find evidence that he had been framed. The guilty party was brought to justice. As a result Kingston was released from prison. He proceeded to rebuild his business with the intention of finding his wife and daughter as soon as he was back on his feet again.
- By the time she reached Manhattan, Serenity was so dirty she no longer looked like a girl born to privilege. She was afraid she would be sent back to her foster father if she was found so she diligently went about avoiding the police and any other source of the help she could have used.
- Serenity spent a good deal of time on the streets alone avoiding assaults from bigger and stronger people who wanted to take advantage of or harm her.
- It was during one of these encounters when Serenity met Josiah. Josiah was homeless as well, but Serenity reminded him of his little sister so he ran off the guys who were attacking her.
- Serenity tried to leave after that but Josiah followed her. When she was attacked again a few days later, Josiah once again intervened. Once more she attempted to flee his company but Josiah followed her and protected her until finally Serenity decided that she would be safer letting him stay with her than trying to leave.
- With Serenity not fleeing from him, Josiah was able to teach her how to survive on the streets. He helped her find food and learn how to stay warm on the streets. He provided strong arms to hold her when she screamed at night from her nightmares.
- When he learned that Serenity could both sing and play the guitar, Josiah arranged to provide her with a guitar. She played the guitar to earn a little money so they could buy food occasionally instead of digging through dumpsters behind restaurants.
- After several months together, an investigator sent by Josiah's mother managed to locate him. He was informed that his little sister was sick and needed a transplant. He went home to try and be matched as a donor. He invited Serenity to come with him but that was too much scrutiny and she declined saying she would see him when he returned to the city.
Serenity wants to be loved and to give love in return. She would do almost anything to feel loved again.
Serenity wants to find somewhere that feels safe. It's hard to believe there's any such place available, but she keeps looking anyway.
Though she has learned on the streets that it is dangerous to intervene on someone else's behalf, the fact that someone has intervened for her makes it easier for Serenity to give in to her instinct to help people. While she will not sacrifice her life to protect a stranger, where she can give aid to someone without risking herself, Serenity will do so.
The one thing that Serenity feels has been absent for the majority of her life is real love. Her parents loved her but they were too busy being angry at each other for her to feel it. She craves to be loved which is directly at odds with her suspicious nature. Until she finds someone to love her properly, there will be a hole in her that nothing else can fill. If someone could convince her she is getting love from them, it would make a very good way to manipulate her.
Serenity is highly creative. She often funnels this creativity into her music. She can improvise off the cuff when she plays and manage to get back on track. This can be applied to other artistic pursuits as well.
Serenity has music in her blood. She has been singing since she was able to talk and cannot contemplate the thought of going through a day without singing. Were she forced to do so it would be a significant blow to her mood and mental well-being. The right music can bring back the best memories of her childhood, those moments when she was happy. Music helps Serenity to make her days bearable and calm herself from the stress of living on the streets. Luckily she can playback her favorite songs in her head any time she likes without having to find the song of the radio or a CD.
Loyalty is defined as an unswerving allegiance to a cause or person. Serenity does not have much experience with people giving her their loyalty. She has never had much cause to trust in someone, but that does not mean that Serenity cannot give loyalty when she decides to. When she decides to support someone, she supports them regardless of what her suspicions whisper into her mind about whether or not they would give her the same loyalty in return. Regardless of her distrusting nature, Serenity can be trusted to stay the course once she has decided (for whatever reason) to support a person or cause.
Though life has made her cautious, Serenity still has a basic need to excel at the things she does. She is hesitant in taking up new hobbies because she does not want anyone to see her fail. It makes her very angry when someone tries to force her into doing something she might not be good at.
Serenity has long been susceptible to night terrors. These dreams are never exact copies of her bad memories. Instead they are far worse that what really happened as her innately creative mind expounds on the possibilities of what could have been. She finds it impossible to wake from these on her own. It takes both physical and auditory intervention from the outside to break her out of one.
Serenity has definite opinions on most subjects and tends to be very outspoken with those opinions unless sharing them could harm her chances of surviving.
Thanks to the large number of negative experiences in her life, Serenity has developed a deep sense of suspicion. She is naturally questions the motives of anyone who offers her help and tends to run from obvious authority figures when she cannot hide from them.
Serenity has learned the hard way over the years to keep her secrets close to her chest. She rarely volunteers any information about her past. If forced to tell something about her past, she will often lie to cover up the truth rather than be honest.
Serenity is not quick to anger but once she does get angry, the fires burn cold. She is cruel and caustic even to those she cares for when angry. She tends to use whatever weapon is at her disposal to lash out until her anger has run its course. This makes her feel horrible afterwards and forces her to give an apology which she hates doing.
Serenity has very little use for trust in her fellow man. Trusting others has rarely been a good move on her part. Even those she decides she likes are never trusted entirely.
Serenity has a perfect phonographic memory. Though she is not always consciously aware of all her memories, she never truly forgets anything she has heard. In addition, she does not forget any of the sense memories that are linked to the things she has heard. Her record of such events extends back to when her latent mutant powers were sparked awake by her fight to survive at the age of two.
There are two primary ways that Serenity accesses this information. The first is based on relevance or need. Play a unique snippet of music she has heard before and her internal index will bring up the entire song without effort. Say a phrase she's heard before and she is forced to push down the memories it summons up. The other is desire. She can sort through those memories even when she does not need one specific memory, but finding it on her own without a sound triggering it takes far longer since she has to sort through the clutter.
The greater her need for the information, the more quickly she can pull it up; the more recent the information, the closer it will be to the surface already. Something heard when she was two can take as much as half an hour of searching to find though the memory remains perfectly intact when she finally recalls it as though she were playing a recording of the event in her mind. Because she remembers every sound, even the ones she was not focused on, she can play back such memories and focus on different things than she did originally.
Serenity does not get sick. The only time in her life she ever has was when she was infected with a genetically-enhanced super virus at the age of two. That encounter triggered her latent mutant immune system. Mundane foreign infections, even benign ones, do not stand a chance. The only exception to this are the bacteria colonies that were already in Serenity's system at the time when her immune system became supercharged. Those are treated as a normal part of her system.
Serenity can accurately mimic any sound a human female is capable of making. As a result of this ability, Serenity can mimic almost anyone's speaking voice well enough to fool voice recognition software after speaking with them for as few as five minutes. Her ability to mimic the voice accurately grows with longer exposure to the person's accent and vocal patterns. After half an hour of conversation, the duplication is good enough it could even fool the person being mimicked. She can also mimic voices from recordings of the person speaking, but that mimicry might include any vocal distortions caused by the process of recording the voice.
Serenity's father was sent to jail after being framed for embezzling funds from his company. New evidence came to light proving Kingston's innocence of the charges and he has been released from prison. Though his release came too late for him to locate Serenity before she fled from her foster home, he would welcome her back with open arms and help her in any way he could.
Serenity has a natural gift for rhythm. This helps in her music. She never drags the beat or sings a part too fast. She can identify a song based on its rhythms as readily as by its melody. In addition she can mentally match the rhythms of the activities going on around her. This gives her an almost uncanny grace when moving. She can judge the speeds of people around her at a glance and move down a crowded street without bumping anyone. This also gives her an ability to dance. If she knows the steps, she can probably do them accurately.
After hearing her sing, Peter Parker has arranged for Parker Industries to sign Serenity Monroe to a recording contract. In addition to an advance of spending money, Serenity has been given a car and an intern has been assigned to drive her where she needs to go. Parker Industries has also bought her a full wardrobe. Have to look the part of a star, right?
Serenity can look at a note printed on a page and know precisely what tone it represents. She can distinguish between on-key and off-key without the help of an instrument. She can distinguish notes so well that she can even tell when someone is a quarter-tone off-key.
With her mother dead, Serenity is the heir to the St. Clair Fund, a living trust set up by her mother's father for her grandmother to control his estate and let it pass to her without estate taxes. The St. Clair Fund owns her grandmother's house in upstate New York as well as an apartment in Brooklyn and a house in the Hamptons. In addition the fund controls a stable of thoroughbred horses and a multi-million dollar investment portfolio that supports the properties and the St. Clair descendant who owns the fund.
The fund is managed by Howard Kildaire who was a good friend of Serenity's mother and even dated her before she married Kingston. Serenity was never introduced to him because Kingston was jealous of him, but he was given pictures of her right up until Bethany died. Though Bethany and Serenity are both presumed dead, Howard still holds out hope that both women will return and would take a personal interest in her life if he could locate her.
Serenity learned to play the guitar from her father. She can accompany herself on the guitar while she is singing. She is familiar with classical guitar music as well as the more contemporary styles.
Her excellent memory for all things audible has made it easy for Serenity to become fluent in several languages though her schooling and personal studies as a young adult, notably French, Latin and Spanish in addition to her native English. However she is only truly literate in two, English and Spanish. Other than that she can only read words whose spoken pronunciation is obvious.
Serenity's ability to remember anything she hears has made book learning easy for her. She reads aloud whatever she wants to recall and the information is hers forever. The ability to apply the knowledge she amasses does not come quite so easily. She needs to practice applying new information to the real world to make it work properly.
Serenity had several years of formal training in playing the piano and reading music. She can look at a piece of music and play it in her head. As she remembers accurately what sounds each key on a piano produces, she has an easier time matching the tones she hears to the keys she should play. This allows her to play by ear as well as from music.
Though she was always more interested in the intellectual side of things, Serenity has had more than her fair share of running. She has practiced the techniques of both short distance and cross country running because when you live on the street sometimes your ability to run faster or longer than the other guy makes the difference between living and dying.
Serenity has a natural talent for singing as well as a small amount of formal training in singing techniques. She both has a pleasing voice in her own right and can mimic the voices of other singers or create a vocal combination of her own voice and another singer's.
Thanks to the teachings of her friend, Josiah, Serenity knows the ins and outs of how things work on the streets. She knows which places to avoid because they are likely drug hangouts. She knows where to find the best leftovers in the trash. She knows how to disappear into the shadows when the heat is on. Through Josiah's teachings and her own experiences she has learned to accurately estimate her chances of coming away from a conflict intact and know when to back down and when backing down would just make her a larger target.
One of the ways Serenity fled the trauma and chaos of her parent's disintegrating relationship was taking lessons in ventriloquism. Though she never mastered the trick of speaking while she was taking a drink of water, she can make her voice seem as though it is coming from as far away as the other side of a moderately sized room, about 20 feet away. She can manage this without visibly moving her lips.
Though the sense memories that are linked directly to sounds are indelible, other images begin to fade which can leave some of her memories dangerously disjointed. As a result Serenity has taught herself a variety of visualization techniques to bring up images from her past that are not linked to a sound trigger. Though it isn't perfect she can usually bring up better than half the details of a purely visual memory in this fashion.
Sometimes Serenity will experience what she calls a memory overload. These are waking fits where instead of being conscious to what is going on around her, she gets submerged into a memory, often a sound only memory. These episodes are always replays of negative memories and prevent her from focusing on the present for anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes depending on the memory. While outside intervention has been known to bring Serenity back to the present, she has no ability to cut the memory short herself.
Though Serenity's immune system has no difficulty in dealing with natural bacteria and viruses, it is possible to engineer a super virus/bacteria that could affect her. Should someone sufficiently dedicated to the cause gain a sample of her blood and study her immune factors, they could create a disease specifically designed to target her that would make her very ill and even kill her should she fail to get hospital level medical care while attempting to fight it off.
Because she cannot forget anything she hears, Serenity's mind is completely cluttered with trivial memories. Her recall works better involuntarily than voluntarily. While hearing a sound again creates a auditory tie between the present and the past and allows instant recall of the attached memories, if Serenity wants to recall something simply for her own use she has to sort through her memories from the present day back to when the original memory occurred. She has to process the content of those memories again as she does this rather than skipping over memories she is not interested it. The older the memory, the more traumatic this can be.
While Serenity has no difficulty mimicking sounds within the mundane range of any human voice regardless of their source, she does not have the ability to mimic sonic powers or sounds outside of the human vocal range.
IC Events
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14 Feb 2017 02:31 (2017-01-13) Mutants in Spaaaace!
13 Oct 2016 03:23 (2016-10-12) Applying for Kitty's Class
02 Oct 2016 00:18 (2016-09-28) Serenity Meets Star-Lord
01 Oct 2016 23:41 (2016-09-17) The Prize for Stumping Serenity
08 Sep 2016 17:37 (2016-09-07) Something Akin To a Brother
05 Sep 2016 00:55 (2016-09-04) Officially a Student
05 Sep 2016 00:12 (2016-09-03) I Wasn't Talking About You Remy
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