<ul class="bbc_list"><ul class="bbc_list"><ul class="bbc_list"></ul></ul></ul><div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>MANTIS</strong></span></div><strong>CHARACTER NAME:</strong>Mantis<br/><strong>REAL NAME:</strong>Brandt, first name unknown<br/><strong>PLAYED BY:</strong>Neysha<br/><strong>AGE:</strong>Unknown, young adult 16+<br/><strong>SEXUAL ORIENTATION:</strong>Bisexual<br/><strong>HEIGHT:</strong>66 inches or 167 centimeters<br/><strong>WEIGHT: </strong>115 lbs or 52 kg<br/><strong>APPEARANCE/COSTUME:</strong><br/><div align="center">(http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/0/77/127685-135333-mantis.jpg)(http://www.girlswithmuscle.com/images/full/746549258.jpg)</div><strong>FACE CLAIM:</strong>Michelle Waterson<br/><strong>POWERS/ABILITIES:</strong>Most of her abilities are derived from her teachings of 'Cotati' by the Priests of Pama, starting at a young age.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Martial Arts Skills:</li></ul>She was in the process of mastering an esoteric martial art practiced by the Priests of Pama which is as much mental as physical. Referred to only as 'Cotati,' it's main benefit in combat is that master practitioners such as Mantis are able to instinctively detect and strike weak points in adversaries. She is also fairly proficient and skilled in more traditional martial arts, mostly from other Asian disciplines.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Meditational Control over her Body and Autonomous Functions</li></ul>She uses meditation to control her breathing, heart rate and other autonomous functions and to accelerate her natural healing process - fighting infection, blood clotting, cell production etc. By inducing herself into a deep, almost comatose like meditatieve state, Mantis can heal approximately 1.5 to 2 times faster than a normal healthy human, with much less chance of complications/secondary infections.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Mild Empathy Based Telepathy:</li></ul>She is not telepathic, but possesses a strong empathic ability that allows her to effective gauge and read people, sometimes to the extent of becoming predictive of certain behaviors depending on situation.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Possible Astral Projection Abilities:</li></ul>None evident but she alluded to the eventual attainment of such capability if she continued her teaching.<br/>[/list]<br/><strong>WEAKNESSES:</strong><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Limited World Experience:</li></ul>Self explanatory. Possesses no effective brain to mouth filter.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Turns Green During Periods of Stress:</li></ul>No direct biological causation detected yet. Likely a side effect of her training and upbringing. Also occurs when she is in a deep meditative state, regardless of circumstance.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Useless Precognitive Abilities:</li></ul>Her precognitive abilities have proven to be both generally accurate, but also utterly useless, random, imprecise and depending on situation, either annoying or irritating, especially when combined with her lack of an effective brain to mouth filter.<br/><br/>[/list]<br/><strong>HISTORY:</strong>Mantis is the daughter of a German mercenary and neer do well named Gustav Brandt who had a hankering lust for Asian women during his service in the former French Indochina. He knocked up a lusty Vietnamese barmaiden named Lua only to run afoul of her protective brother, who happened to be a local crimelord. Taken strong exception to the interracial coupling, Gustav did a poor job of explaining how the inclusion of superior German genes into his family tree could do no wrong. An altercation arose from the passionate disagreement that the spurned brother tried to resolve with a flamethrower. As expected it ended poorly, resulting in several fatalities amongst the indigenous.<br/><br/>Gustav, wounded, took his new baby daughter to a secluded monastic religious community known as the Priests of Pama. Finding their simple, pacifistic, pluralist, intellectual and philosophical teachings both odious, laughable and contravening everything he believed in, he decided this was the perfect place to leave his daughter. The Priests shared a likewise feeling about Gustav and promptly forbid him from returning and seeing his daughter ever again. This turned out to be a mutually beneficial arrangement between both sides who readily complied.<br/><br/>Abandoned by her father, the mysterious secretive Priests of Pama used their even more mysteriously secretive powers of precognition to deduce that said young baby had incredible potential and was raised by the Priests in an incredibly ascetic and monastic lifestyle, while pondering whether she was the Celestial Madonna, a figure of high regard in their religion.<br/><br/>Instead they reared and raised the child, teaching her 'the way' both in martial skill and in spirit. She soon learned, thanks to the esoteric, mystical and lofty teachings of the Priests of Pama, a mastery of exotic martial arts not so much lost to mankind as wholly unknown to them. Likewise her abilities stretched to possessing an incredible mastery of her own body down to its autonomous functions including regulation of heartbeat and body temperature etc as well as accelerated healing and empathic abilities.<br/><br/>Due to her quick mastery and affinity with the 'the way' of Pama, both mentally and martially, she was given the name Mantis, an obvious metaphor to the form and capabilities of the formidable insect predator of the same name.<br/><br/>When she grew older into her teenaged years and time as a young adult, the Priests plan for her quickly went awry when they realized their Celestial Madonna clearly had a bit too much of his human upbringing, likely his rogueish estranged father, within her, figuratively speaking. Initially the Priests of Pama attempted to prevent her escape only to realize to their chagrin that while Mantis expressed that she was a pacifist, it was with the emphasis on the 'fist' part. Ultimately the Priests realized her restlessness was indicative of deeper issues and that the concepts of harmony, serenity and deference if her spirit was still restless. Instead they realized the benefits of her attaining life experiences abroad and allowed her to escape, humble in their hopes that she would return to them once again when she became more wise and worldly, something they alone could not aid her in.<br/><br/>Within a week of her departure, Mantis ended up a barmaid in an expat bar in Ho Chi Minh City, exploiting the innate weaknesses of the inebriated and wealthy male for her own financial benefit. Within a month of her employment, she was in charge of the bar floor. She realized she had a natural talent in charismatic entrepeneurship.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, she also realized her presence tended to foment masculine aggression due to her lack of picking up on social cues and mores. Eventually, her business operations ran afoul of some wealthy expats of a military bent, as well as a local crimelord, with the point of divergence between the two involving interracial relationships, even if it was solely based on professional based flirtations. Though the irony was lost on her, someone drastically escalated the barfight by improbably bringing a flamethrower into the alcohol rich dining area and rather promptly the business burned down, incurring a plethora of casualties, Mantis among them.<br/><br/>In hospital after the fire - over a couple of days - her meditative trance results in her burns starting to recover much earlier than the doctors would expect. Her surprising healing, combined with the whole 'turning-green thing' lands her on S.H.I.E.L.D.s radar. They send an extraction team. Between nurse rounds, she disappears along with her records and is taken to a S.H.I.E.L.D. recovery facility.<br/><br/><strong>PERSONALITY:</strong>Whimsical, Curious, Confident, Silly, Contemplative, Calm<br/><strong>EQUIPMENT:</strong>None.<br/><strong>CHARACTER O/O's:</strong>Ons: Vanilla sex Offs: Same as players.<br/><strong>PLAYER O/O's:</strong>Ons: D/s, Interracial, Vanilla Sex Offs: Extreme bondage, scat, mutilation, snuff etc.[/list]