Monica Rambeau

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PHASE 2

Monica Rambeau
Portrayed by Wakeema Hollis
Codename:	Spectrum
Affiliations:	Generation X
Birthdate:	May 10, 2000
Journal:	Speed of Light
Player:	Rossi

Quote

Monica is the only daughter of a widowed Army sergeant, driven to do her best - including as a mutant.

Details

Character Journal: Speed of Light

Real Name: Monica Rambeau

Codename: Spectrum

Aliases: 'Nica

First Appearance: (link to LJ (x_logs) with date as link text)

Date of Birth: May 10, 2000

Place of Birth: New Orleans, Louisiana

Citizenship: US

Relatives: First Sergeant Frank Rambeau (father); Maria Rambeau (mother – deceased)

Education: Sophomore at Kaiserslautern High School, a Department of Defence Dependents’ school in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

Relationship Status: Single

Occupation: Student

Team Affiliation: Generation X

Biography

Childhood

Monica Rambeau is the only child of career military parents. Her father Frank, born and raised in Louisiana, joined the Marines at a young age as a way of getting away from a dysfunctional family and poor prospects. He served in Afghanistan and Iraq during military operations there, and by the time Monica was in her teens, had reached the rank of first sergeant due to his discipline and leadership. Her mother Maria was from a military family, her father having been a Navy man for his whole life, and when Maria graduated high school, she enlisted as well, eventually joining the Military Police Corps. They met in Afghanistan during Desert Shield in 1990 and married in 1995, having established their relationship would last through various absences due to deployment. They waited until they were relatively ‘settled’ in the States before deciding to have children and Monica was born in 2000 after several years of trying.

Monica’s childhood was typical of a “military brat”. The family moved locations regularly, and she went to several different elementary schools all over the States. As a result, the three of them were a close unit, and as Monica grew older she was as supportive to her parents when one was away as they were to her. She grew up steeped in military culture, with recruits as babysitters and training equipment as her playground. Obedient, confident and just a bit sassy, she was often the favorite on the various bases they lived on. She wasn’t perfect, but any means, having a stubborn streak that made it difficult to change her mind once she’d decided on something, but she tended to be helpful and self-sufficient and responsible beyond her years. Even as a child, she had a tendency, fostered by her parents’ talk of their military service and why they had to leave for periods of time or move to another place, to protect those smaller and weaker than herself, and would often get into fights at school while defending the younger children from bullies. In order to help her self-confidence and to protect herself, her parents taught her the Marines-style martial arts. Monica is proficient, but not an expert, and knows how to take care of herself and others.

Aware of the highly-mobile life she led and the temporary nature of her relationships, Monica always held part of herself back from others and her friendships were only so close and no more. She was also suspicious and guarded with people who tried to get too close

In 2008, while deployed in Iraq, Marie Rambeau was killed by a roadside bomb. Frank and 8 year old Monica were devastated by her loss, but true to the Marine way, Frank seldom spoke of his grief and Monica, as always, took her lead from him. Frank requested transfer overseas in a training capacity, in order to remove himself and his daughter from the constant reminders of their loss and to try and prevent Monica losing another parent in the Middle East. After living in Okinawa for two years and South Korea for another year, the Rambeaus were then transferred to Germany and the Marine base there, where they would remain until 2015.

Monica reveled in the four years in one place. While she remained somewhat guarded – and no-one really noticed, since they were all military kids and all did the same thing – she allowed herself to open up more than usual and she made a number of close friends at the Department of Defence Dependents’ school she attended. An average student in most subjects she relied on her hard work rather than natural genius to attain a solid grade point average and make her father proud. Although still deciding for sure, she began to entertain thoughts of a career in law enforcement or maybe international politics, as her father was adamant that she would not join the military and instead have a more normal life than he had had. At home, she took on the responsibility of preparing the meals, doing the laundry and making sure her father was taking care of himself, while a housekeeper came in twice a week and cleaned. She missed her mother, but never talked about Marie, beyond her pride at her mother’s actions overseas, helping others. True there were occasional incidents of racism, particularly from the younger right-wing locals, but for the most part she thrived. Her father encouraged her interest in the civil rights movement and African-American history, and she took pride in who and what she was.

Her school also has a strong emphasis on inter-mural sport and as a member of the girls’ soccer team, Monica also met and made friends with some of the local German girls. This was to be the cause of her downfall, as they tended to be on the wild side. For the most part, Monica refused to be drawn in, but on the night of her fourteenth birthday, she was presented with a fake ID and an invitation to a local rave. Tired of always being the “good girl” and teased by her friends as a stick in the mud, Monica decided letting loose just once wouldn’t hurt. A drink spiked with Ecstasy resulted in the full-blown manifestation of her powers and while for the most part the revellers thought the ensuing light show was all part of the event (or due to their own drug-taking), Monica herself was extremely freaked out and locked herself in a bathroom cubicle until she could stop glowing.

The next day she confessed all to her father and despite her fears, he was supportive. His own concern was for her – he had seen the rise of anti-mutant feeling after Day Zero and didn’t want Monica to be subjected to that – and together they developed a kind of training program for her, based on meditation and self-control and studying what they could about mutation. Over the year, Monica learned that she could absorb light and reflect it back as a kind of force beam through her hands, rather than taking on a full-body glow. By releasing what she absorbed on a regular basis, she was able to keep her mutation secret. She also broke her friendship with the girls who had been with her that night, focussing instead on the Students Against Destructive Decisions club at school and vowing to stay away from any kind of mind-altering chemical substances – it was just too dangerous for her. She also became more withdrawn, her focus on her training and control becoming paramount in her life and costing her most of her school friends, those who hadn’t already moved on. When M-Day happened, she withdrew even further, terrified of hurting someone and travelling only between home and school and nowhere else.

Just as Monica and her father were establishing a new kind of normalcy after her manifestation, Frank received some worrying news – he was being transferred back to the States, to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, South Carolina. Between his own experiences living in the South and the news broadcasts of increasing racism and anti-mutant violence, Frank did not want to risk exposing Monica to that sort of stress which could result in a powers blow out of some kind. His research into mutation had given him some contacts with the Mutant Underground, and through them he was able to contact Charles Xavier and arrange for Monica to live at the mansion in safety and learn the full range of her abilities. Monica wasn’t happy when she was told this, but she accepted her orders and made up her mind to do as well as she could, for her father’s sake.

Physical Characteristics

Monica is a tall, athletic-looking African American teenager with a disciplined posture and bearing, unconsciously mimicked from her parents and their friends.

Height: 5 feet 9 – Monica’s parents are/were both tall and she takes after them.

Weight: 142 pounds, although most of it is muscle rather than fat. She’s a sporty type.

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Black and worn naturally, usually with a headband to keep it out of her face.

Other Features: Her hands glow when she is stressed or angry or unable to control her powers. Sometimes this glow is full-body.

Powers

Monica’s mutation allows her to absorb and (eventually) transform herself into various types of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum, specifically x-ray radiation, ultraviolet radiation, visible radiation (light) and infrared radiation. Currently she is limited to absorbing energy and needs to release what she builds up in the form of energy blasts from her hands. She can only absorb/release one kind of energy at a time, depending on what kind is most prevalent or what she is focussing on specifically. Her power will require her to learn a lot more about electro-magnetic radiation than she knows now, much to her disgust. ;) A side-effect of her powers is that she doesn’t feel cold or heat. Too much energy will make her hyperactive and glowy until she can bleed some of it off.

In her visible radiation form, she can't pass through things, the same way light can't pass through a wall. It's the same with ultraviolet and infrared light, although with infrared, she could probably heat up the other side of a wall with sustained effort. Once she masters x-rays, however, she will be able to pass through solid objects, the same as x-rays do.

Additionally, objects that "bend" light, like prisms and such, can bend Monica's light form too, so those would be a good way to disrupt her when she's using those powers. She'll object to being told she makes a pretty rainbow, too.

Energy Blasts:

X-ray radiation - her x-ray blasts will be actual x-rays, so potentially cancer-causing in high enough doses, no actual physical manifestation. Ethical concerns will prevent her from using these against people beyond a quick "peek" for hidden weapons, etc, in much the same way as an airport scanner. She won't actually know she can do this for several years.

Ultraviolet radiation - these blasts act like a black light, so again, no actual physical effect, just the funky glow you get from white objects. Again, potentially dangerous/fatal in high doses, and she can permanently blind someone with them, but again, not something she'd be comfortable with doing. This one might be useful for investigative purposes when Adrienne's not around (the whole black light thing) and for treating vitamin D deficiency. ;)

Visible radiation (light) - these blasts would be light only, and the first ones Monica works out how to use. She assumes there's no real combat application (she jokes that she can make indoor plants grow), until she and Alison start training together and she learns to dazzle and blind.

Infrared radiation - these blasts are heat based and will burn on contact. This will be the second type of light Monica learns to consciously use, since her mindset is combat-oriented and she's looking for ways to take down the bad guys (without actually giving them cancer, since that would be bad).

Flight:

In about six months, she will learn to fly with her powers. From there, she will realise that when she is flying, she is actually intangible – her body has turned into light, much like a hologram. Cue much freaking out when this happens. It will not be something she can control for some time, and it will be even longer (several years) before she realises she can not only absorb other forms of EM radiation, but transform herself into them and from there be able to become invisible and travel at high speeds.

Monica's flight will initially be restricted by her mindset; as long as she believes she can only travel at "normal" velocity (say, 100 m/h maximum, same as a car), she'll be stuck with that. In the distant future, she'll realise that because she _is_ light she can travel at the speed of light, but that's a massive mental jump and involves her accepting she's transcended physical limits and that's just way too weird for her to get her brain around, so she'll be in deep denial about that.

Limits:

Monica can only channel/use one type of energy at a time. Once she learns to fly, she will be able to manage it for up to a few hours, but when she returns to her solid form she will be exhausted and starving and in need to immediate rest/food. She is also vulnerable to telepathic powers even when transformed, and can be “knocked out” of her energy form by telepathic suggestion and other forms of energy which can impact the one she’s transformed into. Also, while intangible while transformed into visible light, she cannot pass through objects such as walls, any more than a sunbeam can.

Monica also requires a baseline amount of energy in order to keep healthy - much like a plant, if you shut her up in the darkness too long, she’ll droop and get sick.

Equipment

None.

Trivia

Monica always wears her mother's dog tags, returned to the family after her death.

External Links

[html link x_communication posts by tag]

[html link x_journal posts by tag]

[html link x_logs posts by tag]

Meta

Player: Rossi

E-mail:

Player Icon Base: (provide html link to IMDB, Wiki etc page)

Meta Trivia

Rossi picked up Monica in July 2015, having always had a liking for the character and finally gotten her act together six months after dropping Yvette Petrovic.