Template:Featured Articles/49-2008

File:Kevin.jpg Wither: Found by Charles Xavier living in a junkyard in Georgia after the death of his father following his manifestation, Kevin's first tenure at the school was a short one. Anti-social as a defensive mechanism, he made few friends and an accident with Jono Starsmore which resulted in the latter losing the new body he had managed to create lead to him spending a year at Muir Island Research Facility, undergoing further tests to determine the nature of his powers. Eventually, fed up with being a guinea pig, he left Muir and spent a short time living alone in New York, before another powers accident led him to ask to return to the school. Arrested by Garrison Kane on an outstanding warrant for the murder of his father, he was paroled to the school. Gradually he found himself making friends such as with the similarly-powers handicapped Yvette Petrovic... and in a tumultuous relationship with the risk-taking Jay Guthrie. The pair eventually split and a medical intervention with his powers gave Kevin a precious few months of a normal life before the side effects caught up with him. He decided to relocate to the West Coast Annex in order to get some perspective and try to work on his powers - and his increasing need to use them - in a less demanding atmosphere. While it appears that his mutation enacts itself through his skin and his hair it is not actually either of those which make him a danger to organic material. It is the sebum his sebaceous glands secrete which acts as a catalyst in the decomposition process. It first injures the membrane of the lysosomes which then release the digestive enzymes which cause the first state of decomposition, autolysis, to occur. The sebum also carries the bacteria in it which cause putrefication, the second stage of decomposition. His touch sustains the outward secretion of the sebum which is produced at a high and unceasing rate when Kevin has contact with an organic material and it will spread as far as it can reach, essentially moving over sebum already there to find the next exposed area on the material. His sebum literally triggers and catalyzes the organic matter's natural decomposition. As long as he's touching the organic matter the affect will spread to consume the entirety of the object/animal/person until it is broken down to nothing more than ash. Even if he is only touching ash the original shape will be retained until he is no longer in physical contact with the organic material at which time the ashes will fall to the ground. There are no sebaceous glands found in the lips, making that the only part of his outside anatomy that can be touched without effect from his mutation. His mutation, however, causes Kevin to have sebaceous glands on his hands and the bottom of his feet where they are not usually found. This character is currently unplayed, but is open for applications. If you are interested in applying for this character, you can contact the mods at x_moderators @ googlegroups . com and you can find the application form here.