Post by Karma on Jul 6, 2008 12:12:17 GMT -5
~DOSSIER~
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Name:Xi'an Coy Manh
Codename:Karma
Team: X-Men
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Age:30
Height:5'4
Weight:119 lbs.
Eye Color:Dark brown
Hair Color:Black
Country/Area of Origin:Central highlands of Vietnam
Relatives:Coy Leong (brother), Coy Nga (sister), Tran Coy Manh (brother, deceased), General Nguyen Ngoc Coy (uncle, deceased)
Friends: the X-Men and fellow alliance groups.
Enemies:Various individuals in the Vietnamese criminal underground. The Brotherhood of evil mutants and various other enemies of the X-Men
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History:
Xi'an (pronounced "Shan") Coy Manh was born in the central highlands of Vietnam. Shan's origins are rooted in tragedy. Her father was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army, who was forced to bring his wife and four children on missions. When Shan's brother, Tran Coy Manh, was attacked by a Viet Cong soldier, Shan's power of mind possession emerged to protect him. Tran soon exhibited the identical power, and relished in using it cruelly. While Tran was rescued from the throes of war by their crime-lord uncle, General Nguyen Ngoc Coy, Shan escaped on a small, cramped, boat with hundreds of others, including her parents and her younger brother and sister, Leong and Nga. Shan's father was killed by Thai pirates on the way to the United States; she and her mother were raped by the pirates and her mother died shortly thereafter.
Arriving in New York City, a program to help Vietnamese immigrants run by the Catholic priest Father Michael Bowen (Dagger's uncle), helped Karma find work and an apartment. However, General Coy insisted she use her powers in his service, as Tran was already doing, and kidnapped Leong and Nga when she refused. "Possessing" Spider-Man, she attempted to use him to reclaim the children from a party her uncle was holding, before the Fantastic Four intervened and Tran (without realizing she was in control of Spider-Man) forced her out of Spider-Man's mind in possessing him long enough for the Thing to knock him out. With technical aid from Professor X, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man tracked her down. After an initial misunderstanding, they agreed to help her reclaim the children, but Tran possessed the Fantastic Four and set them against Spider-Man. Finally, Shan lashed out, absorbing her brother completely and taking the name "Karma". It should be noted that at this point Karma's powers doubled after this absorption, thereby making her more powerful than she was at this point in time.
Reed Richards referred Karma to Professor X, and she became his first recruit for his new team of mutant teenagers, the New Mutants. Karma had been working a full-time job to support herself and her siblings, and so agreed to work as Xavier's secretary to help him run the school in return for a generous salary.
Karma was the New Mutants' first leader, and along them battled the Sentinels. Before long, however, the team believed her dead when she became separated from them after a fight with Viper and the Silver Samurai. Instead, another mutant telepath, Amahl Farouk, whose physical body was killed in a battle with Professor X on the astral plane, took Karma as a host body. Possessed by Farouk, she engaged in rampant criminal activity. She ran a gladiatorial arena, where she masterminded the Gladiators, and came to the New Mutants' attention when two of them (Sunspot and Magma) had been forced to participate in the high-stakes gladiatorial competition.
Under possession of the Shadow King, she took temporary control of the minds of the X-Man Storm and most of the New Mutants. However, the Shadow King's mind fled from Karma's body, and she defeated him in psychic combat. Eventually she was rescued by the other New Mutants, but a side-effect of the possession had left her grossly obese, as Farouk was a large eater in life and had continued his voracity when using Karma's body. The New Mutants and Storm took a vacation on a small Grecian island. Karma isolated herself, not even wanting to eat and angrily berating Storm, then crying in her arms.
Due to a previous defeat at the hands of the X-Men, the Asgardian Trickster God Loki sends the Enchantress to kidnap the X-Men. Thinking, because of Storm, the New Mutants were the X-Men, the team and Karma are taken. Magik attempts to teleport everyone away, but her powers interact badly with the Enchantress' spells. Everyone but Magik is tossed through space and time. Karma ends up in a desert wasteland, where she decides to lay down and die. However, she happens upon a young child being pursued by a monster native to the wastleland. She uses her powers to drive the monster away and decides she must live for her sake. Karma uses her powers to stun the wildlife, allowing them both to survive. By the time she meets up with the other New Mutants again, she had lost all the additional weight (and in fact was shapelier than ever) and her hair had grown to waist-length. The child had vanished, a twist of fate manifested by the Norns. After an encounter with — and temporary death at the hands of — the Beyonder, she and her fellow New Mutants were briefly transferred to the Massachusetts Academy, and joined the Hellions. Alongside the other New Mutants, she battled the Avengers and then returned with the New Mutants to Xavier's school.
Father Bowen, Karma's confessor, cared for Leong and Nga during Karma's absence, but she resumed caring for the youths upon her return to the New Mutants. During the Mutant Massacre, though, Karma fears for her siblings' safety after witnessing many Morlock casualties at the hands of the Marauders. Leong and Nga had in fact gone missing and Karma's apartment was mysteriously bombed — in fact, she was nearly killed by the Marauders's bomb. The Xavier School’s current headmaster, Magneto, was unable to locate the missing children, even with the resources of the Hellfire Club at his disposal. Believing she must be more proactive in finding the kidnapped children, Karma left the New Mutants to return to General Coy's service to find her missing siblings.
Karma reluctantly accepted work for her uncle, General Nguyen Coy, in Madripoor in exchange for help in locating her siblings. In Madripoor, she officially opposed, but often covertly helped the X-Man Wolverine who she knew from her days at the X-Mansion. She saved Wolverine and Tyger Tiger from Roughouse and Bloodscream. General Coy strung Karma along for several months with promises of finding the children, but she eventually left him for his lack of scruples.
Karma continued her search independently, and as it turned out, the children had been abducted by Shinobi Shaw and sold to Viper and Spiral, intent on sending the children through the “Body Shop”. With the aid of Cannonball and Beast, Karma finally located and freed Leong and Nga.
Karma reunited with the original New Mutants for a minor adventure in which they met their past selves traveling to the present. Karma evidenced expanded telepathic powers in this appearance, specifically removing the memories of the older New Mutants from the minds of the younger ones. These abilities have not been seen since. Karma later met many New Mutants friends, in the form of X-Force at a desert rave, where she had dyed hair, body piercings, and revealing clothing, a surprising difference to the image held by many of her former teammates.
She soon moves to Chicago with Leong and Nga and took a job as a librarian for the University of Chicago while attending classes. There, she ran into Kitty Pryde and assisted her in her mission against the anti-mutant hate group, Purity. Around this time she publicly came out as a lesbian and confessed her undying love to Kitty. According to Shan, she had tried to speak to Kitty about her feelings, but desisted when she felt that Kitty could not reciprocate her feelings.
Months afterwards, Danielle Moonstar, another ex-New Mutant, dropped by the University of Chicago while trying to recruit Prodigy to the renamed Xavier Institute. Her siblings became friends with Prodigy, even trying to run a harmless scam on him. Prodigy was not fooled, due to his powers. Ultimately, Karma decided to return to Xavier's, where she served as the librarian and mentor to the students less than fifteen years of age (thus too young to be assigned to squads). She was specifically chosen as a mentor by the younger student Anole.
When Rahne Sinclair left the Xavier Institute due to a romance with a younger student, her position as advisor of the Paragons squad was left to Karma. Upon the (temporary) death of Northstar, Karma also became the advisor to his squad, the Alpha Squadron. Magma eventually took over duties as the advisor of the Paragons, yet that still left Karma as the librarian, French teacher, and advisor to the Lower School and Alpha Squadron.
Known Mutant Power(s):
Karma is a mutant with the ability to take possession of the minds of other people or animals. She projects a psionic energy surge that overwhelms the consciousness of another; this renders the victim unconscious, while placing her own mind in command. It allows her to alter the victim's perceptions and memories, command entranced opponents to divulge information, and/or operate their bodies as if they were an extension of her own.
When Karma first takes possession of someone, she can only move her subject's body awkwardly until she acclimates herself to her new host. If she remains in possession of a host for too long she will begin to think and act as her host would, and eventually her own personality would become subordinate to one identical to the host's. Although Karma can possess multiple subjects simultaneously, her control over her subjects is fragmented as she shifts her attention from one to another.
Karma had also begun developing other telepathic abilities that were either latent or triggered by her use by the Shadow King. She is also able to generate a psionic deflector shield that disrupts incoming psi-signatures, protecting her from all manner of psychic assaults.
Karma is also a capable combatant with medieval weapons (particularly swords), due to the extended period of time she spent in Asgard. She is also familiar with first aid and firearms owing to her time in Vietnam.
Known Weaknesses:
If Karma maintains her grip on her target for too long, her own personality begins to fade as she takes on the mannerisms and character of her subject.
It takes time for Xi’an to grow acclimated to a subject’s body, and her first few moments in control will cause the subject to move and behave awkwardly.
Xi’an is near-sighted and has mild lactose intolerance