Capeworld Comics

Blue Angel

 

“I think we can still do some good. Maybe. I don’t know. I think we’ve gone too far for people to ever look at us as anything but criminals. Maybe. But maybe not…god, I really miss having certainty in my life. How about you?”

 

–Blue Angel talking with Sting Ray

 

“She knows the value of keeping her head down and her mouth shut. The one time she really asserted herself, she took Mr. Teacher up on his offer and well, I think she kind of regrets it. So she’s doing damage control right now by coasting off the will of others. Sting Ray asks her to do something behind Mr. Teacher’s back, she says yes. Mr. Teacher asks her to watch Sting Ray, she says yes. You see the problem here, right? Eventually she’s going to have to say no to somebody.”

 

–Ripple on Blue Angel

 

The girl with the graviton wings. Each brilliantly blue feather is a packet of gravitons held together by a sheath of gauge bosons. Very pretty!

 

Ripple tells us that her name is Michèle Rayne and she’s the most passive and good-natured of the Anti’s. She doesn’t like fighting, she doesn’t even like confrontation, and she’s Sting Ray’s tagalong when she goes behind Mr. Blue’s back. 

 

Sting Ray is trying to form some kind of secret country within the Kingdom unknown to Mr. Blue or any of the powers-that-be in the Kingdom. This secret country is where she took a crowd of Nix from Willow-Wells, and Sting Ray is the Queen. That suits Michèle just fine. She’s a follower, not a leader.

 

Michèle probably thought that being a follower would keep her safe. She was wrong. Mr. Blue recently asked her to keep an eye on Sting Ray and report back if she found her doing anything out of the ordinary. Maybe Mr. Blue only has a hunch something is wrong and legitimately trusts Michèle to rat out Sting Ray. Maybe Mr. Blue knows exactly what is going on and is testing Michèle. Either way, she’s going to have to choose between the love she has for her friend and the fear she has for her leader. We’ll have to see which wins out. I’m personally betting on love winning, and not just because I’m sentimental. Michèle likes Sting Ray. She’s her best friend. She offers Michèle mutual companionship, and that’s something Mr. Blue can’t offer anyone, not even if he powers-up to the level of a god.

 

But Sting Ray’s little country isn’t the only secret Michèle is keeping.

 

If I’m right, and I really think I am, Michèle is the most high-profile member of the Anti’s and doesn’t want anyone to know that she is.

 

Personality And History

 

I had to do a lot of detective work looking into where Michèle Rayne came from. Thank you Joule for the coffee and Karen for the cookies, they helped keep me awake while I burned the midnight oil. 

 

I had a hunch that most of the Anti’s were from Earth State, and the name certainly sounded French, so I started looking into what little data Earth State shares with us. The name didn’t return a match, so I assumed it was an alias and looked for a similar power. They had nothing on record like “wings made of graviton feathers,” so I assumed that either her training with Mr. Blue developed her hyperstasis into an unrecognizable form or Earth State had her suppressed on implants since the womb like Thrust and so had no idea what her hyperstasis really looked like. I widened the net. I combed through any mention of gravity powers, boson sheathes, wing constructs–you’d be surprised just how many powersets get flagged by those keywords. I ran into deadend after deadend until I was worried that I’d have to give up, but then I did a broad sweep on global Statesmen databases for powers similar to Michèle’s current powerset, just to take a shot in the dark, and I found something interesting.

 

There’s an island nation called Royaume, and if you’re up on your French you can probably tell from the name that it’s a monarchy. It’s one of those tiny superhuman led monarchies that sprang up on the exile islands after the Worlds War. They called it neo-feudalism, or sometimes superfeudalism.

 

Superfeudalism was made by people that wanted a simple existence that went back to when the social contract was clear. In superfeudalism, a handful of superhuman families dedicate their powers to providing for the needs and comfort of the common man in exchange for executive control of the government. 

 

Royaume’s royal family is called the Abreos. They rule over a couple of lesser families who rule as barons. The matriarch of the Abreos is Christina Abreo, AKA La Girandole Bleue. A Girandole is sort of like a fancy candle holder, and Christina’s power is to have graviton packets in the form of blue lights orbit her.

 

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

 

Of course, the link is thin on face value. A French woman has a similar power to Michèle. What am I suggesting here, that Christina is Michèle’s mother? Even a freshman knows that 95% of superpowers aren’t heritable. But I looked into the history of Royaume. The Abreos have maintained power partly because they breed true. Every Abreo has some sort of gravity power. Jim can confirm, he knows several Abreos in the bulletmen. The Abreos sell their gravity powers to ARGO to use as bulk scanners and use the profits to keep their people showered in luxury.

 

So what am I suggesting, that Michèle is a lost Abreo?

 

Yes. And I have supporting evidence.

 

Queen Christina approached the Earth State parliament to ask for membership back in 2004. It might seem strange for a superfeudal society to want to join a confederacy known for oppressive superhuman legislation, but it does make sense when you look at who benefited from Royaume joining.

 

The deal was publicly explained as a way for the ruling Abreos to bring even greater luxury to their people and bring Royaume into the “big leagues.” The Abreos would sell their gravity powers to Earth State who would then sell them back to ARGO for greater profits, and these profits would go to the people. The people ultimately benefited, if you can call the transparent purchasing of their votes benefiting, and were more than happy to vote in parliament members to back the joining.

 

This was how the deal was publicly explained, but the public explanation left out the ultimate beneficiaries–the Abreos.

 

Earth State’s superhuman restrictions are pyramid shaped. Their general superhuman population can’t decide where, when, or how to use their powers. They make the bottom of the pyramid. You go up the pyramid and you find progressive tiers of superhumans with fewer restrictions based on their “trust score.” A trust score increases the longer a superhuman works under Earth State law and the more work they do for the government. Ostensibly, the system encourages a culture where superhumans are rewarded for doing good. Realistically, it places the most powerful, most skilled, and most obedient superhumans at the tip of the pyramid.

 

A society where basics ride herd on superhumans was never feasible. The best they came up with was one where superhumans bully other superhumans and pretend it’s for the good of the common and powerless. A government claiming to be by the people and for the people when its anything but is an old swindle.

 

Am I sounding a bit too much like Hans? I can’t help it. It’s insufferable how Earth State is stonewalling me at every turn. One of the most Machiavellian supervillains is playing Fagan throughout the multiverse and they don’t share with me what I’m certain they know. I’m halfway tempted to start talking to BOL snitches, I think I could make more headway with them.

 

Correction, I’m halfway tempted to have Emmy start talking to BOL snitches.

 

My point is that the Abreos, as the rulers of Royaume, came into the Earth State system near the tip of the pyramid. The lower families of Royaume on the other hand got stuck in the middle with several restrictions–and if you look really hard through the paperwork, you’ll find that one of the restrictions prevents barony families from competing with the Abreos for ARGO contracts.

 

The Abreos would never have been able to get their parliament to lock the families out from competing with them, but in cloaking their plan through joining Earth State, they managed to get what they wanted anyway. The barons can’t compete with the Abreos without competing with official Earth State governors.

 

Now I know what you’re probably thinking. “This is all really interesting Dave, but how does Michèle tie into this political tangle? WHere does she fit in?”

 

Get this. I nearly spat out my coffee when I read it.

 

The name of the Earth State politician that worked with Queen Christina to facilitate Royaume joining Earth State?

 

Julius Rayne.

 

Intriguing, isn’t it?

 

A good cynic, and that’s certainly me, would say that Royaume joining Earth State was a trade between the Abreos and Earth State. The Abreos got to consolidate their power by using Earth state laws to control their competition, and in return Earth State got Abreos scanners and through those scanners a bit of influence over ARGO. Everyone knows Earth State hates how ARGO ignores their laws. ARGO calls it being neutral, they call it being biased. The scanners allowed them to stick it to ARGO and milk them for all they were worth.

 

What if the price Earth State asked the Abreos for was higher than they let on? What if they wanted an Abreo scanner all their own without any ties to Royaume? A female Abreo, one that could continue an entirely new lineage of bulk scanners…

 

Here’s my theory–you know how Mr. Blue bribed Alys with the promise of a place where no one knew about her criminal past, a place where she would have a fresh start as a princess? What if he bribed Michèle with the promise of a place where she could truly be free of her messed up heritage, a place where no one has ever heard of Earth State or Royaume?

 

Am I the only one feeling like every day we step further into a fairy tale? Let’s make sure this one has a happy ending, people.

 

If any of you are ever in a fight with Michèle, ask her about some of this. She probably doesn’t think we know anything about her at all.

 

Hyperstasis

 

Michèle’s wings are as blue and alluring as the sea–and just as deadly (Anyone besides me remember the water safety video Joule made? The one with the shark?).

 

Each feather is a packet of gravitons held tight in a sheathe of specialized gauge bosons that shape and limit the gravitons without fundamentally altering their field. That’s the fancy way of saying “they let her fly.”

 

Ripple says that she isn’t as fast a flyer as Thrust, though he cautions that she may be hiding how fast she can really go so as not to upset Thrust.

 

Michèle can do more with her wings than use her wings to fly. She can break off feathers and have them float independently. It’s a very pretty sight to see her blue feathers floating in the air, but never drop your guard around her. She can dissipate the gauge boson sheaths and have the graviton fields leak out and affect the environment. A single feather can alter the effect of gravity on an opponent to slam them into the ground or send them soaring to the Moon (or in the case of Michèle’s partner Sting Ray after she got finger-flicked by Neiros’ double, flying back to Earth from the Moon). 

 

The graviton fields can also be used to repel or attract objects. Just one can set up a repellent forcefield around Michèle or her teammates. Using all the feathers at her back sets up a forcefield around her that is virtually unbreakable, but at the cost of severely limiting Michèle’s offensive options.

 

Michèle can have her feathers attach themselves to objects or opponents like magnets. She typically uses this aspect of her power to tactically move her teammates around (though she knows better than to ever try putting a feather on Thrust), though the offensive potential of such an ability is clear. Imagine two feathers pulling at you from opposite parts of your body.

 

Ouch, right?

 

The more feathers Michèle uses, the greater the overall effect. It’s not clear if this is an additive or multiplicative effect, but there is a clear increase in power. Ripple has reported her stacking several feathers to create a black hole under Mr. Blue’s supervision. 

 

There are a lot of questions we need answered about Michèle’s limitations–how powerful is one feather, how powerful are all the feathers at once, and how many she can use before needing to rest–and Ripple has only been able to help answer the last one. He’s “pretty sure” he heard her talking to Mr. Blue about getting training to increase the number of feathers in her wings. This implies that each feather has a finite power and she can only have so many out at a time.

 

Eyeballing noosphere photographs of her wings tells us that she has about 36 remiges (thank you Karen for telling me the scientific term for wing feathers) on each wing, but she could very well have more hidden out of sight. We know from comments Ripple made that her wings aren’t shaped by the limits of her powers but by her sense of aesthetics. He’s told us that he’s seen her idly play with her feathers stretching them and rolling them into balls as if they were clay.

 

72 feathers are thus a lowball estimate. Keep that in mind when engaging her.

 

Ripple tells us that every member of the Anti’s (Thrust excluded) carries one of Michèle feathers on their person just in case she has to yank them out of danger real fast. This came in handy when she had to retrieve Sting Ray from Willow-Well’s Moon (I love talking about that! Nice move, Neiros!). Ripple showed us his own, and he told us that everyone gets one and only one–more proof that there’s a limit to how many feathers Michèle can have out.

 

Karen has started to analyze the feather, and together with Jim is working on a device that’ll shut down Michèle’s wings with a push of a button.

 

I bet you anything Earth State already has a working device, they just don’t want to share it because it’ll look bad for it to get out that they’re keeping an ace-in-the-hole against the royal family of Royaume.

 

Michèle’s powers might sound scary, but she’s not worth the worry of someone like Thrust or Green Duelist. She’s non-confrontational by nature and prefers to use her powers to assist and protect her teammates instead of engaging opponents directly. She also doesn’t have the stomach for violence. Ripple has said that Mr. Blue has gotten onto her for being too gentle in sparring. She doesn’t slam opponents with gravity fields, she pins them or holds them in place.

 

Views on Teammates 

 

Sand Queen–She isn’t surprised Alys left. She figured it was only a matter of time before the team did something to make Alyse mad enough to want to leave or Alys did something to make Mr. Teacher mad enough to kick her out.

 

Ripple–He’s sort of like Sting Ray in that he likes keeping secrets, but unlike her he never shares them with anyone.

 

Thrust–She’s a big, scary attack dog and Michèle treats her like a big, scary attack dog. She gives Thrust her space and never gives her any reason to think she’s a threat.

 

Green Duelist–He’s creepy, but handy to have in a fight. She avoids him, not out of fear but because he’s pretty boring. The way he acts on a mission, like he’s done nothing but fight people and do paramilitary stuff since being born? He keeps acting that way after the mission’s over and it’s exhausting when everyone wants to hang out and drop the supernames and he’s still Green Duelist. He doesn’t even take off his armor!

 

Panel–He’s a nice guy, very troubled, very cute. Michèle totally gets him being willing to do anything to be important. She doesn’t know what kind of deals she would make to keep her wings–but they weren’t be that different from the deals Panel made with Mr. Teacher.

 

Sting Ray–Michèle’s BFF! Sting Ray acts tough, but she’s really a total softy. She’s headstrong, and when she acts behind Mr. Teacher’s back Michèle is often carried along with her. It started just with her agreeing to turn her head and pretend not to notice certain things…but then Sting Ray started trusting her. She started trusting Michèle with information that could destroy her if she ever relayed it to Mr. Teacher. No one had ever trusted Michèle before. She felt honored, and a true friendship grew between the two girls.

 

Cadell–He’s great! Michèle finds it fun to flirt with him since he gets all flustered and formal whenever girls talk to him. Michèle wonders if she couldn’t go further with him. She has wings, he has wings (and they turn into a cute snake alien!), she’s a princess, he’s a prince, she’s from Royaume, he’s from the Kingdom…

 

It’s going to be interesting to see what would happen if Michèle ever met Bleddyn…

 

Engagement Strategy

 

When Jim and Karen gather enough data to make their device, it’ll be our go-to weapon against Michèle. The very threat of it might be enough to convince her to surrender to our side since an off-switch for her powers would make her nothing but a useless tagalong in Mr. Blue’s eyes. But until we get the weapon up and running we need to think about how to take her down through other means.

 

Given her lack of aggression, I recommend saving her for last in any engagement with the Anti’s. If her feathers become too annoying, attack her and play up the power of the attack. Make the attack glow, say something like “And now I’ll use my maximum power!”, get Martina to yell out something in Spanish, etc. She’ll likely recall most of her feathers to add power to her shield.

 

Once isolated from her friends, she’ll be easy to take down. She’s not a fighter.

 

Jim is the best person to put against her. His telepathic link to gravitons should allow him to directly disrupt her control over her wings. After Jim, the best people to use would be those that can get around her shield. Teleporters and telepaths are the best call here. Since Neiros is both, he’s who should engage Michèle if Jim isn’t present.