Name: Jan Sorok
Age: 19
Gender: M
Race: Virgil
Appearance (pics if possible): 5'5", 52 kg.
Young Blood?: No
Bio: Jan was born to Jozef and Katrina Soroks, a family of middle class, deeply religious public servants in Warsaw, the capital city of Poland - not really thrown into complete poverty, but far from a wealthy family, either, especially since it's still Poland we're talking about and not, say, Western Europe. The boy's early life went pretty inconsequentially - the nation was in the midst of an economic boom, the Great Recession came and went without leaving any lasting impact, and though the country's political development was... not necessarily for the best, but since Jan's parents were PiS supporters and voters, they kept their seats in administrative office fairly smoothly. Jan himself spent his childhood immersed in comic books, Western television, and hoping to one day follow the steps of his morther and father and help make the lives of others better by fighting for them in public office.
Until he turned around 14 years old, which is when everything started going to crap. You see... Poland, much like the rest of Eastern Europe, coping with their Communist past and, unlike their Western peers, only seeing the establishment of superhero teams after the fall of the Iron Curtain, had a bit of a supervillain terrorism problem. And often not even in villains acting solo, but entire teams and organizations of villains, operating in a similar fashion to the Mafia, dividing up territory and employing whatever ideology they were united under with little competition. After the expansion of the EU to Eastern Europe, the Confederation of Heroes began working on ensuring stability in the former communist states, but this problem remains amok to this day. Anyway. After a harsh law enforcement action against one of their rings in the countryside, one of these supervillain rings in Poland opted to make a show of force, by committing a mass act of terrorism - and the target they chose was Poland's Ministry of Internal Affairs, where several squads of mercenaries alongside a few villains were sent to infiltrate the complex and slaughter everything standing on two legs which isn't one of their own or an ironing board. And, unfortunately, this was also the ministry in which Jozef and Katrina were working, and just so happened to bring their son to their place that day...
The faint sounds of screams and gunfire echoing from the corridors was enough of a hint that nobody with a sane mind would wish to stay in their office for too long - however, the Soroks, stuck in a crowd of fleeing public servants, did not manage to escape in time, and as soon as the first of the armed terrorists caught up to them, both Jozef and Katrina were gunned down in seconds, while their son barely leapt to the side in the nick of time. Enraged, Jan stretched his arms forward and, alongside screams of anger, bent the barrels of the weapons of the assaulters and tossed several tables, drawers and cabinets without touching any one of them, knocking out half of the assailants and forcing the rest to step back in surprise and confusion at the boy unlocking his innate powers at this very instant, giving him enough of a window to flee and escape the complex without any further incidents.
Jan was tossed into the world with a shellshocked mind, still failing to grasp the terror he witnessed in front of him, no parents or guardians - his parents' home was inherited by his uncle, who lived in Norway and had zero interest in taking in a nephew, and the rest of his extended family were either too distant or already dead - and freshly unlocked psionic abilities. Fearing (unreasonably so) that he might still be targeted, the boy offered to not offer himself to any authorities, say, child protection services, and instead began living all by himself, becoming a vagabond, falling to the lowest underbelly of Polish society - living off what he could gather, scraps and the occasional short-term job, witnessing rampant crime, violence and suffering he had never even heard of back during his comfortable middle class life, and getting into incidents with thugs or even police almost every single day. Faced with malnutrition at the point in his life when he should be having his teenage growth spur, Jan was left frail and shorter than his peers - but still refused to give in.
He hated it, he hated it all - and he was so close to breaking and becoming like the rest, too. However, he found solace in a few things. The first one was God, which had been a major presence throughout his whole life regardless thanks to his parental upbringing. The second... was something so odd that Jan could only interpret it as a message from God.
One night, after passing out underneath one of the Warsaw bridges from exhaustion, the teenager received a dream. A dream... where he, after having grown up, decided to pack his stuff and leave for the United Kingdom, where he joined a team of superheroes who call each other "the Syndicate". He saw himself apply for this so-called organization, he became the youngest hero in their ranks and took on the alias "Lech", after the great founder of the Polish people many centuries ago, he joined them in missions to confront dastardly villains and rescue innocent people from hostage situations... and then, out of nowhere, the dream ended. He saw himself get into a heated debate with the fellow hero called Heamet and before they could finish, the dream turned all blurry and bright, and moments later,the boy opened his eyes. It was a dream after all.
But it told him that he should aspire for something greater than being a rat in the mud. It reinforced the innate feeling that despite all that happened, he was still
different from others. He did not see himself as a thug, he never brought himself to steal to survive, he didn't want to act selfish or like a psychopath... and he was where he was exactly because of others acting selfish and like psychopaths. And if so, then the true path to solace is to make sure that what happened to him doesn't happen to others. That he should try to use his powers to prevent what he himself failed to prevent. Starting around 16 years old, Jan would occasionally start to take up on vigilantism - stopping robberies, assaults or muggings with his psionic powers, take down the scum with police nor any other authority ever bothered to touch. With each life saved, with each person's day made just a little better, his conviction grew greater and greater.
Until eventually, this God-given mission to becoming a vigilante, much like what he saw in his dream, led to him leaving his home nation of Poland and ending up in America, the Land of Opportunity. More accurately, the city of San Diego - perhaps it's odd that he decided to start his conquest of the United States from the West rather than the much closer East, but hey, it's 2017, distances are no longer a problem for the average person. And hey, he knows enough English to communicate, it shouldn't be problematic, right?
During the month and a half he spent in the United States, Jan went through a lot. He got arrested by Warwolf and kept in their custody and got to meet Kiris, one of the members of the Young Bloods, whom he took an almost immediate liking of. After the rest of her team broke into the facility to free them both, Jan's fate remained tied to them - he unveiled the entity hiding within Yoshi's mind, the Scarab, and swore to free her from the psionic entity even if it takes his life, and he befriended Casimir, one of the team's members, tagging along with him in missions against Drakon throughout August. Ultimately, however, Jan would achieve his goal of defeating the Scarab, at the cost of his own life - in a final gambit, he imprisoned her within his mindscape and then allowed Red to destroy his own mindscape, killing them both.
However, though he may have died, it was not the end to him. Passing through the gates of Heaven, Jan's soul was soon found by the archangel Michael, who had noticed the pious and virtuous teenager in Warsaw and later in San Diego - his faith and virtue, as well as inherent psionic powers, made him a prime candidate for the Chorus of Virgils. Though reluctant at first - having done all he can do to fight evil during his short life, Jan was considering to put down the torch and consider his debt to society repaid - Jan agreed, and was fashioned into a virgil, one of Heaven's many agents in the afterlife and the living world.
Powers:- Virgil Physiology: A Virgil is a cross between a tour guide and a heavenly knight, recruited from the most virtuous of those who enter Heaven, and serves as an agent of God and the chorus of angels underneath him. Virgils are tasked with escorting lost souls through the afterlife, bringing them to the place where they belong, completing missions in the living world such as warding off demons and agents of other deities, and, if necessary, protecting the afterlife alongside the angels and seraphim from whatever invasion may occur. Many of the most virtuous Christians recorded in history went on to become virgils themselves - and even quite a few non-Christians whose souls ended up in the Christian afterlife for one reason or another, most notably Virgil, the most famous of the Choir of Virgils and whose name stuck as a descriptor for the organization in general. Virgils have been conflated with angels more often than not in historical sources, as they appear to be almost identical - most notably, they are the ones responsible for the Nephilim.
- Flight: Like angels, virgils have a set of bird-like wings on their back which they can use to fly. The speed of a virgil's flight is roughly the same as a running pace.
- Gating: A virgil is able to open portals between Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and the living world, thus able to access all of these dimensions as well as bring others with him. Opening a portal takes about ten seconds of concentration and is thus pretty much useless in battle.
- Psionics: Psionics is an umbrella term for powers which involve reading and projecting one's thoughts and mental power either for mental or physical effects - and it is the power which manifested within Jan and now follows him throughout his life. The most obvious use of psionics is, obviously, telepathic communication with any other human beings - however, psionics is a very catch-all superpower and this is far from the only application of Jan's powers.
- Telepathic Communication: The ability to communicate with others from a distance through thoughts. The power Jan uses the most often, sometimes even subconsciously, reading the thoughts of other people around him without being fully aware of what's happening.
- Mind Sensing: As Jan's telepathy does not have a sight limitation (but other powers like telekinesis do), this is pretty much a required secondary power for it. He is able to sense the presence of other conscious minds within a few kilometer radius and reach out to them - as such, the range limitation of Jan's mind sense is also the range limitation of his telepathic powers.
- Mind Network: If Jan reaches out to more than one person with his telepathic powers, he forms a network of connected minds with him as the central "server", allowing people who might not have telepathic powers themselves to communicate with others who are a part of this "mind network" through a distance.
- Telekinesis: The ability to control and manipulate objects with one's mind - say, lift up objects, throw them or crush them. A fairly versatile use of Jan's powers, though it has very clear limits - manipulating objects above his own weight inflicts significant strain upon his body, which grows exponentially with every single body weight added on top. Lifting, say, a ton of weight telekinetically (say, a heavy car) might just leave him unconscious.
- Psionic Constructs: The ability to channel psionic energy into physical constructs, such as blades or tools. The least trained application of Jan's power out of those which he has unlocked, as such, he can only create the most basic constructs such as shields or swords.
Limitations:- The Decalogue: Being an entity in the Heavenly hierarchy means that Jan is physically unable to break the guiding principle of God's will, the Ten Commandments. Most of the Commandments are hard to break for a person of Jan's character, but two of them are relevant most specifically. Jan is unable to kill any other living being - if he inflicts damage at a point where they would not be able to survive without immediate medical help, the damage is automatically restored to a point where this is no longer the case. At most, Jan is able to knock out living beings, but even that is on a grey line - after all, cutting off consciousness for a time longer than a few seconds is seriously risky. The second thing is that he cannot lie - if he tries to say a lie, his body will instinctively correct itself. Jan is fairly virtuous, however, so he rarely gets to try to break the Commandments.
- Telekinetic Strain: As stated earlier, Jan's telekinesis has clear limits on how much matter he can control or push at once. There is a point in which the strain becomes so hard to bear that no amount of willpower can power through it.
- Physical Frailty: Jan is as physically durable as a mundane human person - and perhaps even less so, seeing as he is smaller and lighter than average. If you stab him, he will bleed out. If you toss him out a five story window, he will die. And no amount of telepathy or telekinesis will change that.
Weaknesses:- Paragon: Jan has a very strong sense of right and wrong and is dutifully dedicated to doing the former, which means that the word "compromise" doesn't exist in his vocabulary. If he has decided that something is the right thing to do - even if it's far too dangerous for something like him, even if his allies have voiced disagreement, even if it compromises a plan, even if it's not actually the right thing to do - then he's going to do it, no matter what.
- Second Death: Being already dead does not protect you from dying again - if such a thing happens, your soul is destroyed permanently, never to revive again.
Likes: Cold borscht, slonina, kabanosy - or just anything to eat, really. Exploring American cities, prayer, helping people in trouble, playing the guitar.
Dislikes: Being called a child, failing at achieving something, staying in one place for too long, atheists.
Additional InformationBirthday: July 1st
Theme song: https://youtu.be/F81uA7XZCDA