Reuben “Ben” Heyman [GEIST

Power Index: Reality Warping - Can bend the rules of reality and change things.  His powers don’t allow him to create life, but he can change the appearance or the very atomic structure of things and alter physics (ex. Make himself and others fly even though it’d be humanly impossible).

“Dimensional Vision”: can see into other realities, but they’re mostly ghostly or latent images unless he’s really concentrating on bringing them into focus.

Can act as an anchor or tether into other realities due to being able to mentally access them; sort of like a living homing device that those with porthole powers/magic can use him to focus on and travel between dimensions.

Background

Ben’s powers manifested when he was in his early tweens, which of course meant that he was fairly reckless with them at that age.  His younger brothers and some of his friends knew about his abilities so he’d show off for them, starting out small at first with messing with reality and changing things up to confuse their teachers and peers.  When he was thirteen he got in over his head with his powers when trying to make the manifestations even bigger.  Ben had no clue how his powers worked, only that it seemed as if he could change things on a whim.  He’d only been fiddling with his powers at this point and not really considered the big picture, but one friend gave him the idea that maybe he was able to see into other realities.  When he tried it, he felt as if someone was pulling from the other end of the reality he was accessing, and became the conduit that unleashed something dangerous into his home dimension–the Dark Sorcerer who fought and killed Arcanus/Keith Simmons, wrecking the downtown district in the process.  

Horrified at what he had caused, Ben swore his friends to secrecy and avoided using his powers, afraid of what else he might bring into the world, or what he might do that could hurt others.  It became clear that ignoring his powers and not using them only made it so that they seeped out in other ways.  He began to distort reality without meaning to, such as when feeling strong emotions, or worse, with nightmares, which manifested when he was asleep so that his brothers had to wake him up to get the faint illusions that were quickly becoming real to cease.  It started to become harder for him to tell reality from the ones he was creating so that he was at a point where he had false memories from the ones he made and was interacting with them.  School became difficult when he was more focused on the ghostly images from other realities happening around him instead of his own; this led to an incident at school where he seemingly had a mental breakdown and was pulled out of junior high indefinitely.  Concerned, his mother and father took him to a psychologist who diagnosed him with schizophrenia, but his brothers knew better and finally informed their parents who discreetly asked around for some assistance from any other superhumans with similar abilities.  It took several superhuman tutors, including a retired hero with slightly similar abilities and a telepath to help Ben understand the nature of his powers and how they worked.

Ever since he was young, Ben was always interested in both law enforcement and stage magic.  Seeing how the former promised a more stable job, he went that route with his career since it felt like a way he could make amends for what he’d done as a reckless kid, along with helping people without using the powers that he saw more of as a burden than a blessing.  Though he wanted to go the legitimate route, he also found that it was beneficial if he did vigilante work outside of the law to deal with criminals who were superhumans like him.  He also got married young while still in the police academy, falling in love with a barista at the local coffee shop he'd frequent while studying.  The barista, Vanessa, had a talkative and warm personality that clicked with him, and the two jumped into marriage without really thinking things through.  They were married for about a year before multiple problems arose that ended in a disastrous divorce.

Following the mess of the divorce, Ben focused on his police work and vigilantism so that he wouldn’t dwell too much on what had happened.  It was pretty obvious that he struggled to balance both sides of his life, relying on copious amounts of coffee and caffeine pills to stay alert if he’d spent most of the night tracking down supervillains or criminals.  He started to use his job to get to crime scenes before anyone else if he was solo in a patrol car so that he could try to deal with the suspect if it was someone with powers.  He started running into some other vigilantes who had started cropping up in the city when he got the call for superhuman criminals, and was forced to hang back while they handled things.  Ben would come across them while as Geist as well, trying not to get too chummy since he wasn’t completely sure about them, helping out if they were in a bind with a superhuman then dipping into the shadows before they could try to chat.

Commissioner Stuart’s daughter, Monica, figured out that Ben was one of the superhuman vigilantes that the police force was trying to bring in—being one herself—and teasingly confronted him about it.  Ben threw on a poker face as she grilled him, being under the impression she was going to expose his secret, but she instead asked if he was interested in joining the small team she was part of since they could always do with more help.  Ben was hesitant, still wondering if this was maybe some sort of elaborate setup, though he agreed to meet them that night at a prearranged spot.  It turned out that Monica wasn’t kidding when she advertised the team as “small”–there were only two other members including herself, Zeno/Ryan and Theia/Amanda.  She explained that they kept running into each other enough to warrant them all teaming up so that they could pool their resources and tag-team patrols if the situation seemed too big for them to handle on their own.  They also needed somebody who had more experience and was over the age of twenty-five, and Monica seemed to think Ben fit the bill as someone to lead the team.  Completely taken off guard by this offer, Ben balked, pointing out that he was barely able to maintain his day job, let alone the vigilante side of things.  He told them he’d do a trial run for a bit to see how he fit in, and if it didn’t seem like it was working he’d go back to his lone wolf shtick.  The trial period eventually led to him sticking around since he enjoyed the camaraderie and having someone else watching his back, which took a bit of stress off his plate.

Crash n Burn

He didn’t plan on helping a supervillain on the run, but he went against the dictations of his job to assist Blair and Tara when they sneak into the back of his squad car after he responds to an incident happening downtown involving superhumans.  She threatens him with a knife to the neck and demands he drive them somewhere isolated, which Ben complies with only because he senses she’s in trouble and he’s trying to figure out some way to assist before she tells him to pull over (and likely attempts to kill him).  When it turns out that Blair is injured and loses consciousness, Ben takes matters into his own hands and drives her and her child to his duplex where he has one of his teammates come and use her healing magic on Blair.  When Blair comes to, she threatens him once again; Ben merely turns the weapon she picked up from the kitchen into a harmless ball, showing her he's a superhuman as well.  He  tells her he knows she's in hot water and is willing to look the other  way and keep his mouth shut since he knows Bradley's people are bad, and  gives her a wad of cash she can use to start out somewhere with her  daughter before leaving for work.

When he returns to the duplex that evening, Blair and Tara are still there.  Blair gets defensive and says she’s trying to figure out where to go, she’ll need more time than just a day.  Ben knows he’s digging himself into an even deeper hole for doing this but suggests that she stay at one of the police department safehouses for the time being.  She  insists on coming on vigilante patrols with him when she finds out  Bradley's people are still hunting her; she looks different enough by  then that people wouldn’t pick up on who she is.  Ben lets her join him and the other Vigilantes under the stipulation that she doesn’t try doing patrols alone and withholds from killing people.  Blair is less cool towards him once she gets to know him better, even being friendly, though whenever it feels like she’s truly letting her guard down around him it goes right back up and she’ll become impassive or change subjects...but it is clear that there's some sparks going on that the two of them are unsure on how to act on.

Personality: 

• Gives off the general feeling that nothing truly surprises him—he’s seen it all and is more than ready to deal with it however he can.
• Seems very laid back, but is a giant ball of stress just under the surface due to worrying that the department will find out he’s Geist and that his powers will get the better of him.
• Takes his job as a police officer very seriously, but can also be real kickback.  Tries to lighten the mood at the station and with his squad car partner with amateur magic tricks and dry jokes.  It’s when he stops joking that people better get nervous.
• Got into “fake” magic as a way to balance out his powers.  Doing illusions and card tricks that require skill gives him something fun to focus on that isn’t as high-maintenance as his very real abilities to warp reality around him.  Also provides a distraction from the “Dimensional Visions” so he can direct his attention to learning/performing these illusions instead of the things he sees out of the corner of his eye.
• Has a hard time juggling his day job with his vigilante stuff, so he’s living off of caffeine pills and coffee; constantly smells like an odd combo of dark roast and spearmint gum.  He’s not awake (or sociable) until he’s had his morning coffee.  When he crashes, he’s out cold.
• Will bend the rules to help people if he feels that they show some potential for reforming their lives.  “Shape up and get out of here and I won’t tell anyone.”  On the flip side, if the perp looks like they’ll cause a lot of damage and won’t stop, he’ll take em down quickly and painfully to teach them a lesson.
• Due to his atrophying social life, he isn’t very up to date with the current trends; he’s about two months behind on everything and could care less.
• Naturally suspicious because of his line of work, so it takes a while for him to really trust someone until he can suss them out.  Really good at researching because of this.
• Perceptive, finds it easier to see the bigger picture than most.  He’d like to work his way up to becoming a police detective eventually, but burning the candle at both ends is a fairly big hindrance to that right now.
• Loves kids and finds it easy to get along with them.  Dotes on his nieces and nephews with elaborate (expensive) gifts since he doesn’t spend much on himself.

Goals: Keep the city safe both as a police officer and superhero, lead The Westgate Vigilantes to the best of his abilities, maintain control of his powers so that they don’t overwhelm him and drive him to insanity.