Layton Ranta

Full Name- Layton Ranta
Gender- Male
Age- 30
Date of Birth- April 7th, 1983
Sexual Orientation-
Location- Brownsville, TX
Celebrity Claim- Bellamy, Matthew
What should we call you?- CO
Play anyone else?- Ryan Alcroft, Devon Ridgeman, Nireva Hale
Have You Read the Rules?- Behemoth is fat!

Personality-

Since his years in college, Layton has been a rather aloof individual, trying to remain away from the issues and agendas of others unless he can devise a way for them to benefit his own. Following his mother's death and his three years in college, he has grown quite distant from his remaining family - though more from his father, as he keeps in contact with his kid sister - and has become accustomed to accomplishing things on his own.

With recent events serving to prove his personal theories about how fickle a world filled with abilities can be, he sees the presence of his own ability as a monumental irony, especially when its nature is taken into account. Although his practice with it amounts to little more than idle pranks to stave off boredom, he has never used it in a practical or purposeful manner.

In order to distract himself from the talk of abilities, something he sees as being intrinsically linked to global politics; another thing he despises, Layton often finds himself indulging in various pursuits which others in the scientific field - a field into which he could easily enter if he were bothered - would likely see as frivolous, such as online video games and even the odd fun sports game with friends.

Abilities/Powers/Skills-

Induced Genetic Transhumanism

transhumanism: the belief that humanity should strive for self-improvement through means obtained through scientific or technological advances.

Although nobody knew of Melissa Baker's ability to transfer energy - be it electrical power or the energy expended in biological processes - Layton's ability of Induced Genetic Transhumanism is, in fact, an advanced inheritance from his mother's DNA. In much the same way that power negators have no other abilities than to hinder those held by others, Layton's sole evolved ability is to manipulate the abilities of other people.

By intercepting and blocking the neural signals which compel the evolved sections of a person's DNA to activate, Layton, through active concentration, is able to temporarily render someone powerless, preventing them from utilising their ability until he either shifts his focus elsewhere or becomes too far away from them to reliably control their neural activity.

However, the true focus of his ability - and the reason why he gave it such an unusual name - comes when he focuses his mind directly on the evolved DNA. By abstractly visualising the strands of encoded information, he is able to do a number of things with it; from sealing it within a cluster of genetic "interference" crafted from a person's own body and locking their ability away to creating a mental copy of a person's ability and implanting it into the genetic code of someone else, effectively grafting "synthetic" powers onto otherwise mundane individuals.

Limits-

As potentially incredible as his ability could potentially be, Layton's lack of practical experience is one of the central issues behind the limitations of his ability. Although he is able to temporarily negate the abilities of others through concentration alone, both the number of simultaneous subjects and the distance between them and him are a significant factor regarding how long he is able to maintain the hindrance or if he can even do it at all. Although actual powered individuals are few and far between - or so he believes - his all-time record during his sporadic tests on mundane citizens has been a group of eight people at a distance of a hundred metres.

For him to be able to do anything with any semblance of permanence, however, Layton requires physical contact with a subject. Without it, he is simply incapable of visualising and mentally cloning the fragments of DNA required to manipulate a person's ability. As well as being unable to compel a person to uncontrollably make use of their ability, the overriding theory he has of 'one ability per person' means he deems it a statistical impossibility that he could integrate the mimetic copies of people's abilities into himself and make use of them.

Appearance-

Although somewhat short compared to most men, being only 5'8", Layton manages to possess a decently toned physique beneath his 185 pounds of bone, muscle, skin and various fluids. Although he speaks with a mostly British accent, the features of his face betray a distinct Nordic quality to his looks; one of many things he inherited from his Finnish father. Despite his size, Layton is quite a rugged-looking individual; his personal hygeine rituals cladding his chin in an almost perpetual layer of dark stubble.

His hair, however, is a different story. Like his often casual clothes - unless the situation warrants something more upmarket - Layton makes no real effort to have it conform to any real social norm. Instead, if it isn't seen as its natural brown, it is often seen dyed a garish colour like red or blue and kept relatively short; rarely progressing beyond his neck before it's cut back into shape.

Faction- Lux Aeterna
Birthplace- Southampton, England
Mother- Melissa Baker / 46 / deceased (1997) / Special: Energy Transference
Father- Dr. Hannes Ranta / 58 / Surgeon (retired) / Civilian
Siblings- Milla Ranta / 16 / High School Graduate / Special: Technopathy
Spouse / Partner- N/A
Children- N/A

History-

Having worked at the Helsinki Surgical Hospital ever since the completion of his residency, Hannes Ranta made the rather interesting career choice in 1981 to apply his expertise to the medical community in England. While his aim was to to test himself by becoming a trauma surgeon in London - given that the city was capable of outpopulating the whole of Finland almost two-to-one - he settled for a job in the southern coastal city of Southampton.

It was while working there that he met his future wife - maternity nurse Melissa Baker - while the hospital at which they worked was under the strain of a large-scale car accident. He was tasked with dealing with the more serious injuries sustained by the occupants of the various vehicles, while she had been called upon to deliver the child of a heavily pregnant woman. Within the space of two years, the two medical professionals were happily married and happy at the lack of complications surrounding the birth of their son, Layton.

Despite his mother having a strange ability that not even she could reliably explain, the young Layton Ranta was a happy, regular child. Although Hannes had fathered his first child away from the country he'd once called home, he was reluctant to allow the linguistic knowledge to pass his son by, teaching him smatterings of the Finnish language in between his days at school. Rather than be mocked for the strange words he knew, his classmates - and his teachers - in those early years were amazed by his prowess. It wasn't every day that they got to meet a bilingual four year old.

With both his parents being academics, Layton found that he was able to excel at most subjects at school, standing out considerably from the crowd in language and science lessons and, for a long time, he was the only object of his parents' affection and praise. It wasn't until 1997, however, that things changed. Finding herself pregnant for a second time - fourteen years after giving birth to Layton - Melissa was understandably elated that she was going to be having a second child at an age most would have considered, if anything, unlikely.

Unfortunately, the birth of Layton's kid sister Milla was far from as smooth as his had been. Rather than manifesting at adolescence as abilities were normally prone to doing, Milla's capabilities as a technopath were awakened during Melissa's labour and, without control, her wayward abilities sent the surrounding technology into a state of panic. Although the machines and appliances did nothing to upset the pregnancy, the sudden rush of unbridled energy Melissa could sense from her daughter as she used her ability was enough to set off an equally uncontrollable chain reaction in her body. Although Hannes now had a daughter, it had been at an unimaginable cost.

Although neither he nor Layton - or Milla herself, for that matter - had any idea who had been responsible for Melissa's death at the time, the normally joyous occasion was a catalyst leading towards Hannes' eventual retirement from surgery. Years later, after determining that a similar career to his father wasn't what he wanted out of life, Layton decided to follow his father's footsteps in a different way and, after graduating from college with an A-Level in Biology, he decided to move to an entirely new country: the United States.

Anything else?- Just making sure this is still an annual thing.

Sample RP-

"Layton, oletko se sinä..?"

Her voice might have been well and truly assaulted by puberty by now, but he could still spot his kid sister's voice anywhere. Milla Ranta was a little over half his age and, while he was now living in America and had been for years, she - by his reckoning - had only just graduated from high school. "Tietysti," he sighed. It might have been the middle of the afternoon over in Southampton, but the time difference meant that he'd found himself answering the phone at six in the morning. Suffice to say, he wasn't exactly pleased. But there was no way he could be mad at his sister. "Though could it have waited a few more hours, Milla..?"

"N-.. Not really." There was mild trepidation in her voice, as though she was fearful of someone's reaction to what she was about to say. "Dad's been out all day. I don't know how long he'll be."

But his dad was retired, Layton immediately thought. As far as he knew, there was simply no reason for him to leave the house and, even if there was, there was no way he would have left his sixteen year old daughter home alone 'all day'. "What's up? Is something wrong?" Having been on the other side of the Atlantic, he hadn't thought of himself as a confidant to anyone. But, regardless of what he thought on the matter, he was still Milla's big brother. "Tiedät voit kertoa minulle mitään, Milla."

Milla had no idea what to think; about what she'd discovered or how much she could really trust Layton. Although she'd spoken with him a lot growing up, the fact remained that he had left home when she was only five years old and, after that, any further correspondence between the two siblings had been through their father. It was only now - that Hannes was out of the house - that she had seized the opportunity to scour the phonebook for her brother's number. "Layton..? You, uh... you know those stories on the news? The ones about people who can do weird things?"

If he believed all of the boogeyman-esque stories about how government agents were wiretapping each and every phonecall in search of conspirators in any number of terrorist activities, Layton would have thought differently about speaking openly about abilities on a trans-Atlantic phonecall. But he didn't. In all honesty, he thought the whole thing was horseshit. Sure, he knew that abilities themselves existed - he had one, for crying out loud - but the whole notion of secret police was inane. "Yeah? What about 'em?"

There was nothing for it. She'd just have to say it. "I think I'm one of them."

It wasn't as surprising as expected. If abilities really were transmitted through genetics, then it stood to reason that his sister had a decent chance of possessing one as well. "You think?" On the other hand, she could have been imagining a connection between herself and idle coincidence. There really was no way to tell unless the two of them were face-to-face. But, for now, he'd give her the benefit of the doubt. It was the lease he could do. "What makes you say that?"

Upon hearing the question, Milla's eyes shifted down from the door, towards the couch she was stood beside. The first impressions of just about anyone who walked in and saw what she was seeing would be that she was a criminal. But she wasn't! And, for some reason, she felt that Layton was the only person who would understand. "I was in the middle of town this morning; at the bank, withdrawing some money for a few things." Hell, this story sounded insane to her! But, once she'd started, she wasn't going to stop telling it. Thankfully, Layton hadn't hung up the phone in disgust. Yet. "I had only fifty pounds left in my account and I remember thinking to myself how much better things would be if I got a job and had more money..."

"Yeah..?"

"...a-and, all of a sudden, six hundred pounds just... comes out!" Staring in disbelief, Milla's eyes studied the thirty pieces of paper lying on the couch. Having no heart to walk into the bank and explain to them that either their machines were broken or that her power of desire had caused it to spit money at her, she had taken the somewhat naïve approach and stuffed the money into her pockets. To make matters even stranger, the balance sheet which the ATM had given her to accompany the money had somehow amended the contents of her account to deal with obvious discrepancy. "Layton, what the hell am I supposed to do?"

Normally, a big brother would have offered some moral guidance. But the scientist in Layton was unwilling to let this go. "Turn on the TV, Milla," he replied, giving a seemingly nonsensical instruction. Before she could protest, he added, "Don't get the remote. Don't use the button, either. Just... stand where you are and think about it. Just keep willing the TV on."

There was silence on the other end of the line. Occasionally, he could hear the quiet muttering as his sister - in Finnish - bemoaned her decision to ask her brother's advice and, in somewhat colourful language, express the stupidity of what he'd suggested she do. Of course, all that stopped when the television at the other end of the room suddenly blinked into life, showing the tail end of a regional news broadcast. What Milla couldn't help but say down the phone only made her brother grin in delight.

"Holy shit!!"

His hunch had paid off.