Astra

NAME: Astra
AGE: ~10 Years [~3.2] (Believes he is eternal)
SPECIES: Virus
GENDER: N/A (Referred to as "him/he" for simplicity's sake)
POWERS:

[*]Possession -- To compensate for not having a physical form, Astra can force himself inside the body of another and basically leech onto their Essence. While he possesses someone, he slowly drains their Essence and willpower to feed into his own strength. When first taking over a person, he does not have much control over them and can only affect them through mild mental suggestion. As the host’s mental strength weakens, it becomes easier for Astra to assume direct control and begin to utilize his own abilities with the host’s form. Once the imbalance of spiritual strength is enough that Astra is in total control, however, the host’s body begins to break down, forcing to Astra to find a new host soon before the host’s Essence is completely drained and the body becomes useless. If he is forced to leave the host before finding a new one, he can still exist in pure “Spirit” form, though this is extremely taxing on him and will use up a very sizeable amount of his own Essence. The sequence of his possession generally goes through five distinct phases.
[*]Inception: Only recently entered host’s body. Cannot directly control their thoughts or actions, but can plant thoughts and ideas in their mind that may cause them to act erratically. The host is unlikely to think anything particularly off is going on. Astra has begun draining their Essence.
[*]Acclimation: Astra is now able to clearly speak telepathically to his host. People will react to this in many various ways. Some will assume they are having some sort of emergent split-personality issues. Some may finally realize what exactly is going on with them and try to fight it. A lone few may actually accept the new visitor in their headspace and work together with Astra. Whatever the case, Astra has gained a greater hold on their Essence and continues to feast.
[*]Subjugation: Astra can now directly influence his host’s actions, taking control of their body for short periods of time, usually against their will. He is rapidly reaching his full potential with this host.
[*]Assimilation: Astra has assumed total control over his host body. Their mind remains intact, but fragmented and pushed to the back in submission to Astra’s. His power in this host body has reached his peak.
[*]Deterioration: Once Astra reaches full control of his host, the body’s own Essence will gradually begin to run dry. As this happens, the sustained mind of the host, along with their body, will begin to deteriorate as well. Astra must attempt to find a new host before their Essence is completely drained. If Astra absorbs the last of their Essence, the body has at that point become decrepit and completely lifeless and useless, and Astra will be forcibly expelled from the body in Spirit form.
[*]Genetic Memory -- Once Astra reaches the Subjugation stage in a host, in addition to utilizing their own abilities at his will, the genetic information Astra has collected from previous victims can be called upon to use their powers as well. When in an applicable host body, Astra is able to use one power from his previous host body in addition to the current life-form’s abilities.
[*]Polymorphism -- When Astra has reached Assimilation level Possession, he has gained such total control over the host’s body that he can actually morph their body mass at will, including their skeletal and muscle tissue. His most common utilization of this is to form a gigantic, grotesque Bone-Blade that he can sprout out of the host’s wrist and use as a weapon. Once he has used this ability, even if the host survives him leaving their body, they would likely drop dead immediately afterward anyway due to their insides being completely ruined by the abnormal mass shifts. If necessary, he can also use this ability to make near-instantaneous repairs to his host body if it sustains injury, but generally he doesn’t bother. In most cases, he does not feel the pain of the injury, and as long as the host has remaining Essence to siphon off, he can keep the body moving even past the point that it would normally be unable to on its own.
[*]Essence Resonation – Due to his nature as a living Essence, whether he has a body or not, he can sense Essences and get a rough estimate of their strength and species. This ability is most effective when he is in pure Spirit form, and only slightly less so when in his Deterioration phase, with decreasing utility further down the line of Possession progression.

ID NUMBER: 00030

BLOOD: #B65959. As Astra’s level of Possession progresses, the host’s blood gradually turns to this shade.
HEIGHT: Host-dependent.
WEIGHT: Host-dependent
SKIN: Host-dependent
HAIR: Host-dependent. Doesn’t care to keep it cleaned and straightened up once he’s in full control unless he’s trying to keep up a facade, which is rare.
EYES: Host-dependent. While Possessing, they change color to the same shade as his blood, at the same rate.
MARKINGS: Host-dependent
POSTURE: When he has attained full control of his host, he varies between a normal, alert, upright posture to a somewhat crouched hunch when focusing in on something, usually a target of attack.
COORDINATION: Coordinated enough to keep his balance in a fight, but not enough to do crazy parkour-esque acrobatics.
FEATURES: Host-dependent
CLOTHING: Host-dependent until he attains full control. When he does, he really just does not give a damn and will keep wearing whatever the host was last in until the body is unusable.

LIKES:

[*]Monologuing
[*]Watching as hosts’ minds crumble and submit to him
[*]Seeing his opponents and victims in fear and panic
[*]Gaining power through spirit leeching.

DISLIKES:

[*]Disguising himself after attaining full host control.
[*]Opposers to his holy mission
[*]Being forced into Spirit form.
[*]Other (non-virus) races and “false” viruses.

STRENGTHS:

[*]Nigh-unkillable
[*]Highly adaptable to new host bodies
[*]Good at striking fear into most people

WEAKNESSES:

[*]Keeping up disguises
[*]Declining power at the end of a Possession cycle
[*]Extremely egocentric

FEARS:

[*]Being stuck in Spirit form
[*]Complete extermination of Virus-kind

HOBBIES:

[*]Murder
[*]Deception

QUIRKS:

[*]Frequently grins rather maniacally
[*]Must be overly flashy in his executions whenever he can.

PERSONALITY: Extremely arrogant, Astra believes not only that the Viruses are the original "Alpha" race, but that he is actually the reincarnation of a messiah of old Virus religious texts. He believes that his infective powers mark him as a "True" Virus, looking down upon other Viruses without similar abilities. He resents everyone except for the "True" Virus-kind for the near-wiping-out of his people. He wants to allow for a repopulation and restoration of Viruses to their former glory through elimination of the other races, and he's completely willing to do the dirty work to accomplish this by repaying their decimation to all others tenfold. He never tends to make any kind of plans more than two steps ahead, he relies mainly on split-second decisions in battle and manipulation of those he is possessing.

OCCUPATION: N/A
CLASS: N/A
LIVING: N/A
CRIMINAL HISTORY: Yes.
HEALTH: For somewhat obvious reasons, he has never had a proper mental examination, but among what is likely a myriad of conditions--assuming that Astra’s claims of being the second coming of the Virus messiah are untrue--Grandiose Religious Delusion is certainly one of them. His physical aptitude when in full control of a host is more dependent on how much of a reserve of leeched life force he's built up than the host's prior state.
HEALTH CONDITIONS: Unclassifiable
MEDICAL HISTORY: N/A


FAMILY: None
MARITAL STATUS: Single
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None
ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Unknown. Likely incapable of romance.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Unknown
ROMANTIC HISTORY: Unknown. Unlikely to have any.
HISTORY: Roughly a decade ago, the underground R&D group, ANOMALY (The Association for Neo-Organics Mastery and AnaLYsis) was attempting to create a new multipurpose hyper-adaptive life-form for use as infiltration/spy units, as soldiers, as grunt work, or as pretty much anything else that’s deemed either too dangerous or too undesirable work for the common person. The life-form would be able to change its capabilities on command to suit any possible situation. The goal was to perfect their prototype Essence for this life-form and then mass-produce it. Unfortunately, their experimentation did not go exactly as planned; Project Alpha did succeed in producing an extremely adaptable essence, true. However, it started by adapting to its lack of a body prior to even gaining any sort of sentience.

One night, while one of the flunky scientists was keeping an eye on the projects in storage for the night, he began to feel an unexplainable impulse to interact with Project Alpha. In secret, he began to “communicate” with the Project, directly memories, information and such. In the case of the Project, these “memories” were encoded directly into its Essence, samples and traces of deeply-ingrained memories from the former bearers of the Essences fused into this prototype. Over the course of a few months, this covert communication between this scientist and the Project, which he began to call his own, continued and deeply affected the man’s mind.

The Project leaders generally tended to write him off as simply your run-of-the-mill eccentric until the day he intruded on their procedures. As they tried to shoo him out of their lab, the man activated the release protocol on Alpha’s containment cell, and then appeared to absorb the Essence that appeared to freely flow into him. As it did, the man’s demeanor suddenly changed; he gained a maniacal grin and began raving about a “Holy Mission” and calling himself “Astra”. After slaughtering the remaining Project leaders, Astra escaped the facility, leaving a scattered trail of blood and corpses in his wake. Since then, the scientist was never seen again; or at least, nobody was left alive to report seeing him. However, over the years there have been multiple other instances of the name “Astra” cropping up in reports of mass murders across the world. Eyewitnesses have seen the name linked to what appears to be a multitude of different people of differing genders and species, but always employing the same methods of killing, making this entity near-impossible to trace until it’s too late.

NAME: Tony
AGE: 20
GENDER: Male
LOCATION: United States
TIME ZONE: well it’s 4:30 here right now if that means anything


EXAMPLE POST:

“This form grows fragile…”, he muttered, skulking down the darkened street in tattered, bloodstained suit and tie, not a single soul else on the path to see him. He had to find a new host, and quick.

!! There!

Astra turned and quickened his pace down the alley he nearly passed up. Down the path and around a few corners, he sensed the Essence of a young woman, a Trojan hunched over by a small fire. Perhaps homeless, perhaps keeping a watch out for a gang. Didn’t matter either way. As she came into his vision with her back to him, he continued walking up to her, stealth evidently not a concern for him. Suddenly she straightened up and spun around, making direct eye contact with the man pacing toward her as she unsheathed a fairly large combat knife.

“Back the fuck off, pal, I ain’t sellin’ tonight!”, she growled, holding up her knife defensively. Her knife which she suddenly found knocked to the floor by the enormous blade being held up to her face, sharp as hell and dull white with fleshy tendrils intertwined and dripping blood—not hers, though, she hadn’t been injured yet. Behind the blade was a face that looked like it was supposed to belong to a middle-aged man, yet had features that made him look old and decrepit, almost zombie-like, with small patches of skin missing or hanging off of him.

“Mine’s bigger.”, he snarled, with a wicked grin before the horrified woman felt razor-like claws jab up and into her chest. She tried to shriek from the pain, but was suddenly overwhelmed by a warm, numbing sensation before ending up completely unconscious.

--------

Cecilia woke up at around 7 AM to the smell of a burnt-out fire and some sharp pains in her torso. She slowly stood up, supporting herself on the wall next to her and looked around. She spotted a man’s suit lying next to where she rested and sneered at the shredded clothing. Shit, what the hell happened last night…? she thought as she unzipped her punctured jacket and lifted her shirt to find the source of the pain she was suffering; there she saw five small holes just above her belly, leaking small amounts of blood. Dammit… Well, no point dwelling on it if I can’t remember a fuckin’ thing… Guess I’d better get patched up.

And so she stumbled off back to her gang HQ, none the wiser that she was no longer alone in her own skin.


CONFIRM: Hydrogen Phosphate