The Story of Evenstar

I found this to be an interesting challenge, and so… well. here is what I wrote in response.

Huh… well, let’s see…okay, I don’t really want to turn this into a “I’d be more powerful than you” scenario, so I’m going to try and put some limitations on myself. The goal here is to turn me into an actual superheroine with a fairly consistent set of powers, not a character who looks like she’s been swiped from a teenagers wish fulfillment fanfic. So here are the additional rules I placed on myself.

• • Only actual superheroes count. No fantasy characters or mythological beings. Wizards and magic users are fine, as long as they are taken from actual superhero narrative… so Wanda Maximoff would be fine, Hermione Granger would not.
  • No villains. This is supposed to be a superHERO challenge. Anti-heroes and redeemed villains are fine, but actual villains are not.
  • No civilian names, only code names. So, for example, I can’t pick Wonder Woman, even though her civilian name, Diana, begins with a D.
  • No dudes. Okay, this is just me, but since there are still more powerful male superheroes than female ones, it’s more challenging if I deny myself the opportunity to pick powers from male heroes. Especially if I also adhere to all the other rules. Trans and non-binary characters are fine, long as they present feminine. Female heroes that have taken up the moniker of a former male hero (Impulse, Hawkeye, Dove), or female heroes who are derivative of male heroes (Supergirl, Aquagirl) are acceptable, but only if I don’t find any other suitable candidates.
  • The final powerset has to make some kind of sense. Like, there should be a certain theme to it, or at least the powers shouldn’t blatantly contradict one another. I want to be a superhero of the sort that you COULD see in an actual superhero setting, without breaking the entire genre. I shouldn’t be able to take on the entire universe and win effortlessly… let’s say Superman is the upper limit here, I absolutely can’t be more overall powerful than him.
  • And to give myself a bit of a break: Broad strokes powers. My powers don’t have to work in the EXACT same way as the original, long as the general description matches. If I choose Impulse, for instance, I don’t have to get my powers from tapping into the Speed Force, it counts if I just have super speed and can pull off similar tricks. I can also interpret the powers slightly differently than the original power, or I can choose to ignore some powers if I don’t think they fit with the overall theme… though I can’t make up a new power or use rules layering to turn one power into another. If the hero I draw from can’t shapeshift, for example, then I can’t go, “well, technically if I interpret these powers THIS way, I should be able to…” Nope. Small variations and creative interpretations are fine, if they make sense for the overall power set, but just making stuff up to give me a specific power I want isn’t.

So! Let’s turn me into a superhero!

D is for Dagger…

…which means I have the ability to “generate an excess of the psionic energy possessed by all living beings” which I can release as light daggers that can, depending on their strength, do anything from stun to paralyse to kill, or even heal and regenerate to some extent. I’d also have the uncanny ability to wear a skintight outfit with a dagger-shaped cleavage that went right down to my bellybutton and somehow still never expose my bare tits to the world, but to be fair that sort of thing seems to be an ability shared by most superheroines. Already not too shabby.

I is for the Invisible Woman…

…so add the ability to turn invisible and create impregnable, near-indestructible forcefields and energy constructs in any shape or form I like. I’d also be able to turn other things or people invisible, as well as change the colour of objects if I like. Okay the invisibility and colour thing is mostly about stealth, but those forcefields are seriously powerful. We’re upping the ante here to a big degree already.

N is for Nightveil…

 

…which would mean I also got to be a sorceress with affinity for darkness and shadows. Okay, fine, power-wise Nightveil is essentially a knockoff of Raven from the Teen Titans, though not a teen and not a half demon. And before that, back when she was the non-powered Blue Bulleteer, she was a knockoff of Phantom Lady. Still, I think the magical powers and the darkness would provid a pretty cool complement and contrast to the light powers I already got from Dagger. Now I’m kind of shaping up for a sort of “Mistress of Light and Shadow” kind of deal. Now I’m a serious powerhouse, since Nightveil could probably decently mimic both Dagger’s and the Invisible Woman’s powers, but has a lot of other tricks up her metaphorical sleeve, including teleportation, levitation and lots of neat magical spells. I’m definitely becoming a mystical hero.

And finally, A is for Aurora…

 

…which admittedly mostly just enhances powers and abilities I already got from the other three, like expanding upon the “light manipulation” from Dagger and turning Nightveil’s levitation into actual flight, not to mention increasing the Invisible Woman’s stealth factor by also making me undetectable to technological detection, but Aurora also brings a few new more physical powers to the table, with superhuman speed, reflexes and durability.

There, we have a superhero powerset for me. So I’m essentially a sorceress with powers of darkness and light, but also a few other interesting abilities. I think I can work with this. Let’s add it all up and turn me into a superhero in my own right!

So, meet a fictionalized superhero version of me; Dina M Nealey, AKA Evenstar.

Okay, hastily improvised backstory… mmm… this fictional version of me obviously lives in a world where superheroes and -villains exist, and so one day a superpowered fight between cosmic heroes and villains caused a spontaneous dimension shift where a number of random bystanders including me ended up stuck in another dimension of magic and light and darkness. The only way to get back home was for us to seek out the Interdimensional Mystic Coucil, who could hopefully send us back home.

After several epic adventures, where we all grew as people, discovered hidden talents and developed magical powers, and probably helped defeat a Dark Lord or something, we managed to contact the council. Problem was that they couldn’t return us home since they didn’t know our dimension; one of US had to learn the necessary magics and perform the spells. Those of us who had developed magic powers had to take some magical tests to determine whether we were worthy to join the council, and a couple of us qualified, upon which we were granted knowledge of various magics.

I learned the magics of Light and Shadow, and together with the other members (probably a whole lot of varied and interesting characters that I don’t have time to think of now), managed to shift us all back to our home dimension. Only to discover that, just like in the Narnia books, no time had passed at all since we were gone.

Of course, none of us could return to normal lives after that, so a number of us continued on as superheroes. Plus I and those other character were still junior members of the Council and had to take on some responsibilities there. Cue fighting supernatural threats and all sorts of weird monsters.

As a sorceress of Light and Shadow, I can manipulate both elements; I can generate light and turn it into concussive blasts and solid projections that can take the form of powerful projectiles or impregnatable forcefields, but I can also use that light to heal, soothe and give life energy to people… I can probably heal very serious injuries, but can’t call people back from the dead. I can also manipulate shadows, create darkness that engulfs people or even turn them into shadows. I can teleport using the “shadow realm,” meaning I can step into any shadow, vanish, and step out of any other shadow, miles away. I can also turn myself totally invisible and undetectable both by living beings and by non-thinking automatons like security cams and heat scanners. As the result of being so steeped in the magics of light and shadow, my body has also transformed a little, giving me not only superhuman reflexes, speed and durability, but I can also fly at almost, but not quite, the speed of sound. (So I couldn’t give the Flash any competition or anything, but I could outpace most commercial aircrafts!) I can also perform a number of more powerful magics, but they take more time and preparation to do.

All in all, I think in most superhero universes I’d be a fairly heavy hitter, but nowhere near the top tier.