#5 – Careen

Another day I didn’t manage to upload my picture… this challenge is more challenging than expected. I spent half my day running around looking for a connection cable for my new Cintiq. And when I finally got one and plugged it in, I found out it was broken! So I though today would have been the right day for Careen, the fastest member of the Marginal Men. I should have her do my errands!

Careen is actually Kareen Amidou, an assistant tax consultant from New Orleans. During a tax inspection of estranged scientist Thierry Lamont, a freak accident bestowed upon her amazing powers, which seemingly enabled her to move at incredible speeds.

Kareen and Dr. Lamont decided to work together in an effort to understand the exact nature of her powers. Kareen adopted the identity of masked crimefighter Careen (another slang word for moving fast, I know…) and donned a costume that is specifically meant to look like it has to withstand extreme velocity and friction. It is, however, basically a cheap cosplay made of cheapest materials, and Kareen keeps a dozen or so of them in her appartment. The only real part of the costume is the oxygen tank around the back of her waist.

Careens exact powers are temporal. Due to the accident, she is able to build up a “time dilation field” which removes her from the timestream. Since it is an emitted field, it grows weaker with distance from her, enabling her to move and interact with the world instead of being completely removed from our timescape and simply vanishing from existence.

While her powers are active, Careen appears to move at speeds near lightspeed, while she herself notices no difference at all. If she is sent across town, she still has to run across town and will be running for – what appears to her – hours.

The dissipating time dilation field around her also has severe side effects:

Careen has almost no air within her “time bubble” and needs an oxygen tank for respiration. She cannot touch things, because the field pushes everything back, even beneath her feet. So basically, Careen is constantly floating, and cannot stop running, or she will literally vaporize the floor beneath her. Even while running, the floor takes noticeable damage wherever she treads. She cannot take larger objects or persons with her into the field.

Careen is able to deliver hard blows by just slowly approaching targets with her fist. A quick blow will result in death and destruction, since the destructive effect of the field increases radically with proximity to Careen.

Careen has been training her condition and running speed constantly since the accident, but still her effective range is limited tothe amount of oxygen she is carrying with her and the distance she can cover on foot without her powers. Careen can cross smaller bodies of water, but will sink immediately if she stops. Running to China would be entirely impossible for her. Sending her to Alaska would mean that she would have to run the entire distance like a normal person. It’s just that nobody would notice, except for her accelerated aging while she was gone.

In order to be accepted into the superhero community, Careen decided to keep these restrictions a secret. She joins Blindsights team after a shared adventure with Xroma, who convinces her that superheroines are at a disadvantage anyway, and she should establish herself as part of a team in order to be taken seriously.

Tags: Marginal Men

Category: Superhero