Associates

Real Name: Tara Donnnelly (last name generally unknown) Height: 5’9” Weight: 130 Sex: female Birthdate: March 22, 1995 Hair: Red (usually with blonde highlights) Eyes: Blue Ethnicity: white

Tara Donnelly grew up in Boston’s theatre district, the middle daughter of an Irish-American family that prized confidence over caution. She was the kid who sang too loudly at school plays, the one who always volunteered to light the fireworks — and the one who discovered, at fifteen, that she didn’t need matches to start them. Her mutant power to generate and withstand intense heat appeared during a kitchen accident that should have burned down her apartment. Instead, she walked away glowing, literally aflame and unscathed.

The media dubbed her Flamebreak when they captured on video running into a burning building and pulling three children to safety.

To pay the bills, she worked strip clubs until she figured out a way to turn her powers into profit. She got signed on to NYFD's Meta program and became a first responder, sent into burning buildings to find anyone trapped. Easy money for someone almost completely immune to fire.

The press still adores her: she’s articulate, dazzling, and unapologetically dramatic. Behind the cameras she’s practical and warm, the friend who brings snacks, gossip, and a ready babysitter network wherever she goes.

To the world she’s Flamebreak, the incandescent hero who never met a spotlight she didn’t like.

Codename: Lucia Real Name: Lucia Pietrangeli Height: 5’5” Weight: 110 Sex: female Date of birth: Sept 15, 1992 Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown Ethnicity: white

At 21, Lucia was a fast rising pop star, 3 platinum records, VMA awards, and a sold out stadium summer tour. And then it happened: a pyrotechnics fountain misfire. She was engulfed in fire, her clothes igniting. But she didn't burn. Instead her powers flared, the energy from the fire absorbed; redirected into a visual light show that beat any fireworks finale, stroking in beat to the music. She didn’t stop the show.

Over time, she learned to control her abilities. How to aim the blasts of pure energy, how much she could safely absorb and redirect. How high she could fly and not have it be metaphorical now.

She was a mutant. She didn't hide. Her fans … loved it. They loved her.

But then the studio execs … the producers … the PR agents … they wanted to capitalize on it. On her. Ramp up the tiny outfits. Lean into the supe sex appeal. So se … walked away. Broke her contracts.

She went indie. Made a metal album, of all things. Her fans trashed. Metal heads unironically thought it was the best thing since Slipknot. She is a vocalist mainly, but plays piano/harpsicord (that's right, her metal albums feature harpsicord and chamber music) and some rhythm guitar.

She still plays at metal clubs. But she's reclaiming her brand. Hair product endorsements. Makeup cover girl. And every time she gets the chance, she trashes the music industry.

But Adrian thinks her music is good now, and goes to her shows when she’s playing in Brooklyn. Kyung-mi is constantly sliding into her DMs. The few times the Nyx Collective and Lucia arrived at the same location – Lucia ended up stealing all the credit, without even trying. The media just automatically assumed she was the one who took care of it.

Codename: Luminous Real Name: Wuying (last name unknown) Height: 5'6” Weight: 125 Sex: female Age: 30s Hair: Black Eyes: Brown Ethnicity: Chinese

The person that calls herself Wuying is a shattered echo of her former self. She only remembers bits of her life as Wuying. She can’t remember her last name, how old she is, what she did. She remembers only a collection of phrases in Mandarin. Her most vivid memories are of a cold bathroom floor, a hospital gown, and a pool of blood.

But inside of her is a symbiote – together they are Luminous. The symbiote can speak and when it does, there’s an echoing hollowness to Wuying’s voice. It swears that Wuying invited it to meld with her, to save her from her pain.

Luminous’s motives are unclear, the symbiote inside her alien. However, it does possess powers, and has over time changed her molecular structure. Now, she can launch beams of pure radiant energy, in singular blasts like a laser, or in sweeping arcs. Her punches also appear to be infused with this radiant energy as well. She has healed people with the light, but rarely, like it’s a draining thing to do.

Codename: Ewan Real name: Ewan McAllistair Nickname: “that fucking guy” Height: 5’10” Weight: 210 Sex: male Age: 34 Hair: Brown Eyes: Green Ethnicity: white

He’s a drunk. When he drinks, he wants to bash heads. When he bash heads, he uses his mutant powers – spines burst from under his skin, flames wreath his body. This causes him pain, which makes him self medicate with alcohol (usually cheap scotch).

The only saving grace: the flame aura makes him essentially indestructible. Except he feels everything.

He’s Scottish. He’s a punker. He has a heavy Glaswegian accent. He’s unreliable, but you need to plan with the fact that he may show up in mind – even uninvited. He actually will barrel through walls and shout out, “oh yeah!” like he’s a Scottish Koo-Aid Man.

He’s in the Nyx Collective group chat. Adrian and Alison try to kick him when they notice. Somehow he keeps getting back into the chat. Adrian suspects Kyung-mi is pranking them.

He’s usually too far in the bag to answer journalists or media questions about the Nyx Collective; and if he does, he denies any ties with “those yank cunts.” He calls everyone a cunt. It’s an insult and a term of endearment. At the same time.

Ewan gave up a long time ago hoping that there was some cure for his condition, but he won’t stop anyone looking for one.

Name: Mirage Real Name: Anca Ilinca Draghici Height: 5’6” Weight: 130 Age: 26 Hair: Black (silver streaks) Eyes: Brown Ethnicity: Romanian

Anca Ilinca Draghici’s public story is the stuff of tragic cinema: born in post-Soviet Romania, orphaned by political unrest, hunted for her mutant gifts, surviving a nightmare of secret police, border crossings, and refugee camps before finding sanctuary in America. It’s the kind of story journalists love — haunting, heroic, and conveniently unverifiable. Anca has never corrected a single word of it. She tells it differently each time, always with the same faraway look that makes people want to believe her.

The truth is far simpler and much duller. She grew up in a comfortable apartment in Cluj-Napoca, daughter of two accountants who adored her and drove her to ballet, gymnastics, and math tutoring. Her mutation — the ability to bend light into illusions — emerged quietly during her teen years, more nuisance than miracle. When her visa to a New York performing-arts college ran out, she simply stayed. She picked up part-time jobs, stage work, and eventually the nightlife circuit, blending illusion and dance into something that drew a cult following. The tragic backstory? It started as a joke, then a defense mechanism, then a persona that took on a life of its own.

The Mirage identity lets her be everything her real self isn’t: mysterious, powerful, untouchable. Off-stage she’s warm, funny, and a little embarrassed by her own myth. Her “Romanian resistance fighter” accent slips whenever she’s tired or tipsy, reverting to the bright, unguarded tone of someone who grew up happy and middle-class. Only a few people in the Nyx Collective know the truth, and they keep her secret out of affection rather than obligation.

Anca’s illusions aren’t just visual tricks — they’re expressions of empathy. She reads people instinctively, building mirages that comfort as often as they deceive. In battle she can conjure nightmares; in calmer moments she uses her powers to distract children in shelters or create light shows at charity events. She jokes that she’s “the world’s most ethical liar,” but her teammates know she’s one of the kindest people in the building.

To the public, she’s the tragic Eastern-European ghost who survived impossible odds. To her friends, she’s a woman who built her own myth because the truth was too ordinary — and somehow, that makes her all the more extraordinary.

She can create solid-seeming illusions — not just visual tricks, but animated phantasms that feel and act real. These constructs can cause real damage: claws that cut, bullets that bruise, fire that burns. The strength of her illusions scales with focus — the more complex, the more they tax her. She can turn invisible, achieved by bending light around her — a total control of illusion applied to herself. She can erase her sound/heat signature with concentration, making her nearly undetectable. She can ride currents of refracted light and warped perception — looks like she’s levitating, but she calls it “riding the phantasm.” Speed is moderate (around 70–80 mph max). Stoic, Haunted: Often quiet, calculating. Trust is hard-earned. Compassionate: Despite her mistrust, she has deep empathy for refugees, immigrants, and outcasts. Vengeful Streak: Against authority figures who abuse power — she’s not above cruelty when confronting oppressors. Poetic Wit: Sometimes quotes Romanian proverbs, or frames her illusions like theatre — “if the world wants monsters, I’ll give them monsters.” Illusion Style: Her phantasms often carry gothic overtones — shadow wolves, spectral knights, burning effigies. A little Dracula, but weaponized.