Serene

[Catherine Beauvais]

Catherine L. Beauvais

Mutant Name: Serene

Age: 19

Faction: Dreamers

Height: 5'10"

Eye Color: Grey

Physical Appearance: Cathy is a pale young woman of above average height. Her white-blond hair falls most of the way down to her back, and her frame is that of a woman who clearly does not eat as much as she should, but still makes strides to maintain herself properly. A single metal stud can be found below her bottom lip, but otherwise she doesn't appear to have any other alterations.

Celebrity Face Claim: Kerli Kõiv

Strengths:

• Extremely strong-willed and stubborn
  
• Friendly
  
• Emotionally resilient, able to adapt to almost any situation
  
• High physical endurance
  

Weaknesses:

• Far too trusting of others
  
• Highly forgetful.
  
• Accident-prone; when Cathy is around, things have a tendency to be knocked over, broken and misplaced.
  
• Oblivious
  
• Somewhat dumb
  
• Extremely forgiving
  

Random Abilities:

• General household skills
  
• Can play the piano
  
• Long-distance runner, from being in track while attending high school
  
• Ambidextrous
  

Mutation: Cathy possesses the ability to pacify anyone in a ten-foot radius. This essentially negates any emotions an affected individual may have previously harboured and calms them down. Though she can turn her mutation on and off, she has trouble maintaining it for a period longer than a few minutes. Also, there have been instances where her mutation randomly activates, or refuses to activate when she attempts to turn it on. There is also a slight chance that individuals with intense emotions will not be fully affected by her pacifying aura, though this depends on the circumstance.

History: For the most part, Cathy had a normal enough life prior to a few years before her capture, marked only by a few random abnormalities. The eldest child of a small, middle-class family situated in Atlanta, Georgia, she was often the peacekeeper of her household, easily resolving arguments by simply being nearby. It wasn't until she was around thirteen that her family realised that her ability was actually a mutation; however, they opted to keep it a secret, maintaining that such a harmless - and, in some ways, beneficial - mutation did not make her any less a member of their family. As such, Cathy began to hide her abnormality, and life went on as it had been.

However, when she was seventeen, things took a turn for the worst. Her parents were killed in a car crash, leaving Cathy's siblings in the care of her grandparents. Meanwhile, she opted to live on her own, as her eighteenth birthday was only a few months away. She dropped out of high school, earning a GED and going to work at a local department store. She was able to provide for herself, and though she was certainly not living in the lap of luxury, rarely went hungry.

This all changed when a chance encounter with another mutant altered her life forever...

Report of Mutant Capture: On that particular day, it wasn’t an alarm that awoke Catherine Beauvais. Rather, thanks to a power failure in the middle of the night and the fact that the girl had completely forgotten to change the back-up battery, it was a long, pathetic yowl from her bedroom window that roused her from her slumber. For a long moment, she lay where she was, dimly aware of the cat-shaped shadow marring the rectangle of light that had fallen across her bedspread before the creature let loose another sound. At this, she struggled to sit upright, her sheets pooling around her bare hips as she gazed through the glass. A white-and-black kitten stared back, part of its fur flattened by the glass as it repeated itself once again.

With a yawn, she leaned forward, seizing the pull string and letting her blinds fall, blocking out any view of the cat. She’d let its owners feed it.

She stood groggily, wandering out into the living room in nothing more than her underwear. Her roommate was out of town for the week, and accordingly, such a move was perfectly within her rights. Cathy dragged herself into the kitchen, her eyes narrowing as she noted the empty coffee maker. She moved in, prodding the machine irritably before noticing the blinking light where the time had once been.

Curiously, she glanced over at the analogue clock above the kitchen window. It was almost nine AM.

This sudden realisation woke her up more than any caffeinated beverage could hope for. She was closing in on being two hours late for her shift. Without so much as a pause to contemplate her situation, she turned, her hip bumping against the counter and sending a defenceless, forgotten juice glass tumbling to the fading linoleum and shattering. She raced back to her bedroom anyway, resolving to clean up the mess once she was home.

Catherine dressed quickly, privately repulsed by the idea of going without a shower for the day, but resigning herself to the fact that she really had no choice in the matter. If she didn’t get herself into work as soon as humanly possible, there went her employment. She had been late enough times as it was, and certainly could not afford to be fired.

She burst from her room, still struggling to thrust one of her boots onto her foot, when a thunderous crash rattled the entire building, throwing her off-balance long enough to go spilling to the ground. She let out a soft groan, pulling herself up with the help of an aged, ragged armchair. As odd an occurrence as that sudden sound was, she really had no time to investigate. If it was really that important, she’d hear about it eventually.

Swiftly, she moved to her front door, but as soon as she wrenched it open, something small whipped inside.

Cathy took a large step back, blinking in confusion as she glanced around her apartment. After a moment, she found the intruder; the same black and white kitten from earlier, perched on her chair and staring at her.

“Shoo!” Cathy hissed, moving toward the creature and moving to swat it off her furniture. The kitten dodged her assault, hopping down onto the cushion and then the floor. Her teeth ground together; she really did not have time for such games, but she wasn’t about to let a cat stay in her apartment all day.

“C’mon, you cain’t stay in here. I gotta go,” she told the kitten, giving no thought to how ludicrous it was to be communicating with an animal. Behind her, she could hear more crashing and glanced over her shoulder for a moment; what in the world was going on downstairs?

“They’re looking for me,” a child’s voice murmured.

Cathy spun back around, her eyes wide in shock. Where the kitten had been moment before was a little girl, possibly not even eight years old. Long black hair draped around her small shoulders, and though she was hiding herself behind the old armchair, Cathy was sure that she was naked.

“What‘re… how…” she sputtered, but the girl cut her off.

“My name’s Emily. The people down there… I think they’re from that place. The place where they keep the mutants.” She spoke quickly, her eyes refusing to lock with Cathy’s as they darted from the floor to the open doorway. “I think my grandmother called them… I… I can turn into animals. Please… I… I just need…” Her voice broke, tears leaking from her eyes as harsh sobs began to wrack her small body.

Catherine couldn’t help herself; as terrifying as the thought of people from “that mutant place” could be so close by was, her own pity for the girl overwhelmed her. She could not, no, she would not let them take that girl away. It was her job, not only as the adult, but as a fellow mutant - no, a fellow human being - to help her. Screw her job, screw everything. The girl that had just wandered into her life took precedence now.

“A’ight. Listen to me, Emily,” Cathy began moving over to shut and lock the door. “I’m gonna calm you down. Don’t be afraid. I’m like you; a mutant. This is my… power, I guess. Now, when you’re all calmed down, I want ya to turn inta the smallest thing you can. A’ight? I’ll hide ya in one’a my drawers. When they’re gone, I’ll help ya find some place ya can hide permanently. Do ya understand?”

Emily swallowed hard, but nodded all the same. Cathy moved closer, letting out a breath as she allowed her ability to activate. All at once, a feeling of calm began to build up within her, then, slowly, as though she were a room filled with smoke and someone had opened a window, it began to ease out. Emily was halfway through another sniffle when the pacification enveloped her, and almost instantly fell silent. She gazed up at Catherine, her mouth open in a small o, her eyes wide but not with fear. She was in complete control of herself, but at the same time, she was no longer driven by her terror.

“Now, why don’t ya…”

Before Cathy could finish, her door shuddered behind her. She turned, clapping her hands over her mouth as it was removed from the frame, falling in a small cloud of dust to the floor. Before she could so much as speak, dark figures moved in; it took a moment for her to realise that they were, in fact, wearing black armour.

“There she is,” one of them grunted. He moved in, shoving Cathy out of the way before closing in on Emily. At first, the girl made no sound; she simply stood where she was, resigned to her fate, until he grew closer.

Two things happened in rapid succession; first, Cathy felt her aura simply disappear. There was no fading, no feeling of it being torn away; one moment, it was there, and the next, as the armoured man approached, gone as though it had never been. Second, right after the pacification was negated, Emily began to scream.

“No!” she wailed, kicking at her captor as she was hoisted up. “Please! Don’t take me!” She looked over at Cathy, her eyes wide with terror. “Please!”

“Someone shut that kid up,” another one growled, nudging a third. “Go question the woman.”

The third nodded, approaching Cathy with thunderous footsteps. “We apologise for any inconvenience, ma’am, but this is standard procedure in the capturing of mutants. I’m sure you understand that we have to do anything necessary to keep everyone safe from these creatures.” He gave a shrug, which, judging by the black armour, was no easy task. “I just have a few questions and we’ll be out of your hair. What was that girl doing in here?”

She broke in. It would have been so easy to say, so easy to simply lie and move on with her life. She could have gone to work, told her boss there had been a raid on one of the tenants in her building, and pretended that a little girl in the form of a cat had never walked in.

But she couldn’t.

She had an obligation now. An obligation to help that girl… by whatever means necessary.

“I was helpin’ ‘er,” Catherine said softly. Her eyes locked with the place that she assumed the man’s were. “I was helpin’ ‘er because I’m a mutant, too. So if you’re gonna take ‘er away, then ya might as well take me, ‘cause we’re one an’ the same.”

[Sulley]

I enjoyed your Capture.