Callisto

PHASE 2

Callisto
Portrayed by Shannyn Sossamon
Codename:	Callisto
Affiliations:	N/A
Birthdate:	29 Mar 1989
Journal:	xp_callisto
Player:	Morag

Callisto smash.

Details

Character Journal: xp_callisto

Real Name: Alex Gabler (note: not generally known)

Codename: N/A

Aliases: Callisto

First Appearance: Dec 8th 2015

Date of Birth: March 29th 1989

Place of Birth: Scarsdale, New York

Citizenship: USA

Relatives: Parents, estranged

Education: High School graduate

Relationship Status: Single

Occupation: Hahahahahaha

Team Affiliation: N/A as yet

Biography

Phase 1

It should be noted that the Phase 2 incarnation of Callisto is a completely different person from Phase 1 Callisto, and as such their entire background is different right back to childhood.

Phase 2

Normal

Alexandra Gabler was born to normal parents in a normal New York suburb, and had a normal upbringing in a normal house. She went to a normal school, where she was a slightly above-average student - but nothing out of the norm. She was a keen gymnast and track'n'field athlete, but though she was described as 'showing promise', nobody considered her to be anything other than a normal kid who happened to be pretty physically gifted.

She was sixteen and on the way home from a party when everything changed.

The accident

It was a normal party at a friend of a friend's house. She was there with a group - two guys and another girl, loosely paired off in a somewhat experimental arrangement, nobody quite sure that they were that into their partners but sure that they definitely wanted to be 'dating'. Alex's sort-of-boyfriend was driving them home, just a shade before curfew, giggly and fired-up but perfectly sober. By contrast the SUV that went barrelling into them contained four drunk twenty-year-olds.

Meaning it was logically the college kids' fault, of course. They were the ones on the wrong side of the road. They were the ones who were drunk. They were the ones in the wrong. But then, they were dead, and so was everyone else, except Alex, and so somehow it felt an awful lot like her fault.

People looked at her funny after that. Somehow, word got out what had happened - that she'd gone flying through the windscreen, smashed into the other car and been tossed like a ragdoll out onto the road and somehow still been not just alive but conscious enough to be screaming in pain on the way to the hospital. Someone's mom was an EMT - someone else's was a nurse - piece by piece, a story seemed to emerge about painkillers that didn't work, about scratches and cuts that disappeared, about bones that seemed to have snapped like twigs but that after setting healed overnight, of fractures that just... went away, between one x-ray and the next.

And then there was the fact that once she was healed, her body seemed to just... work better than before. She was faster, stronger, more flexible. Where her form had been good it was now perfect, she could execute any move with barely any thought. Over time Alex couldn't bear the suspicious, calculating looks being thrown her way by her coach, and she quit gymnastics, quit athletics, and sleepwalked through the rest of high school, scraping by with the minimum of effort.

Dropping out

Gone were ideas of college, whether with or without scholarships; gone was the bright or even 'normal' future she might once had looked forward to as Alex went off the rails in a singularly unspectacular fashion, going through the standard one, two, three, of getting a messy haircut, falling in with a bad crowd, and getting into trouble. She would have capped this off with tattoos and piercings except that none of them seemed to take, holes closing up and inks fading almost as soon as they appeared.

The few years after high school featured a string of dead-end jobs and petty crime. Alex tried everything, running through the whole 'rebellion' playbook, though experiments with drugs and booze proved sadly underwhelming given their inability to make much of an impression on her formidable metabolism. Still she refused to accept or come to terms with what she was, the only explanation for what she could be - after all, she looked normal, and she sure as hell lived a normal existence, albeit an unsavory one. Maybe if she just ignored it, it would never come up.

Home again

Sadly she hadn't banked on her roommate's asshole pimp boyfriend trying to intimidate her into working for him. Harsh words were exchanged, insults were thrown, and so was a slap to Alex's face, in return for which she broke the young man's jaw for him.

She barely remembers the next bit. She knows her friend pushed between them was thrown violently aside. She knows the boyfriend pulled a flick-knife. She remembers blood on her hands, only some of it her own, and intense pain, hot and stabbing and dull and thick all at the same time. She remembers sirens, and she remembers running.

Her cut-up face healed itself overnight, the half-dozen vicious slashes mostly disappearing without a trace, only a couple knitting back together badly and leaving her scarred. Her eye socket closed up entirely, leaving a mess of scar tissue in its place. This gave her a sort of grim satisfaction - finally her outsides matched what she really was: a monster.

She was also on her own.

She couldn't go back to her apartment - she wasn't even sure the guy was even alive. And she certainly couldn't go back home. So began life on the streets. The Morlocks found her more or less by accident; she was sheltering in an old abandoned subway station when Healer was doing the rounds, helping those who'd let him. Alex wasn't ill, but she was weak and near-delirious with hunger. A single touch and he knew she was a mutant, and brought her into the fold. Alex became Callisto, and Callisto became well-liked and respected, eventually becoming the Morlocks' de-facto leader.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5ft 8in

Weight: Slim in build but unnaturally heavy due to her density, tipping the scale at about 200lbs/90kg.

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Dark Brown - short, choppy, 'just-out-of-bed' in style.

Other Features: Callisto has scars crossing her lips over her bad eye, the eye socket itself completely healed over with scar tissue. Theoretically, there may be a healed, sighted eye under there, but she has never let anyone perform surgery to find out. She wears a patch.

Powers

Heightened senses

Callisto has super senses - incredibly acute hearing (speech a few rooms away, whispering through a wall), superhuman vision including night vision (due to this she's a little hypersensitive to bright light and makes more of a point than most of wearing shades in sunny weather) and heightened senses of taste and smell.

Enhanced reflexes, balance and strength

She possesses superhuman reflexes (she could dodge a bullet but not a laser), balance (on a par with the world's best acrobats - but without having to think about it) and strength (car-lifting strength, not push-the-moon-out-of-orbit strength - perhaps around a tonne with effort). She's fast and has lots of stamina but doesn't possess a superhuman running speed (about 20 miles per hour). As such she also can't leap the proverbial tall buildings, although she can jump as far as any Olympic athlete and a good bit higher. Her hand-eye coordination is virtually perfect and she's functionally ambidextrous.

Healing factor

She heals more quickly than a normal human being, but not to excessive regenerative extents - she could heal even a bad break in the space of a day but can't regrow a limb (or an eye!), and really serious wounds (or those that knit together badly) can leave scars that last for some time though they will mostly eventually disappear. Her abilities would best be compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the height of her powers.

And the rest

Though not a mutant power as such, as a result of her grace and heightened senses Callisto can learn new physical skills, whether sports, weapon use or fighting styles, at an almost supernatural speed. She learns the moves no faster than an average human being, but with her physical condition her body will do exactly what she wants it to first time, entirely circumventing the physical discipline aspect of training and leaving her with only the memory aspect to master. In the unlikely event that it were to happen his would extend to the technical and muscle memory aspect of musical instruments also, although she wouldn't learn to read music any faster than a human with a good ear.

Perhaps due to her combination of powers, Callisto also excels at small-scale combat tactics. She couldn't run an army, but in a skirmish-sized encounter she can assess the situation and see the best way to engage in any given conflict. This makes her an excellent squad leader - provided you can get past her attitude.

A note on her bad eye: Working with one eye doesn't appear to affect Callisto's balance, depth perception or distance sight, though of course it's impossible to say how much more formidable she might have been by now was she fully-sighted. She can theoretically be outflanked on the right. In practice, her abilities combined make even this a daunting prospect for prospective assailants, who underestimate her other senses at their peril.

Equipment

Callisto generally carries at least two small fighting knives (weighted for throwing also) with her at all times, in ankle holsters, and if she thinks she might be heading into a risky situation will secrete more. She's also a fan of knuckle dusters, particularly when up against foes with tough skin.

Trivia

Watch this space

External Links

xp_communication posts by tag

xp_journal posts by tag

xp_logs posts by tag

Plots

2015

Case File: A Better Mole Trap

2016

X-Men Mission: Fall of the Mutants

Operation: Mutant Massacre

2017

Green-Eyed Monster

2018

Sins of the Father

Meta

Player: Morag

E-mail:

Google Hangouts: As email above

Player Icon Base: Shannyn Sossamon

Meta Trivia

Callisto wasn't Alex Gabler in Phase 1, but Gabler was a real person in the Phase 1 world who had a brief affair with the Phase 1 Callisto (and whose ID Cal stole to use as an alias). Do both women exist in both worlds, with a different woman getting the mutant X gene? If so Phase 1 Alex must be different from Phase 2 Alex in other respects also, as they're not even the same age. Still, it's an interesting question: is a human version of Phase 1 Callisto out there somewhere - or maybe even a different mutant version?