X-Quisite

(Jennifer Frost)

exquisite `ik-skwiz’it` -adj.
of special beauty or charm, or rare and appealing excellence as a face, a flower, coloring, music or poetry; intense, acute, or keen as pleasure or pain
(Random House Dictionary)

Background:
Jennifer never knew her parents. Ever since she can remember herself, she was in and out of foster families, in and out of trouble. With her last foster family she actually got along quite well until she was fourteen and entered early puberty. Not only did her body start to develop, but so did her mutant powers. She discovered she could feel what others felt, and having a healthy, open relationship with her mother, she shared that discovery with her. Although they loved her, and although they never thought of themselves as genetical bigot, they were simple people were quite simply afraid of her. It wasn’t long before she found herself out on the street, again.
Life on the street was tough, and she learnt to live from hand to mouth – scavenging, stealing and tricking people just to scrounge her next meal. It wasn’t long before she understood her gift gave her the ultimate upper-hand in any sort of trickery or deceiving, from simple gambling through begging to elaborate set-ups of being injured by passing cars.
It was a cold evening and she was sitting at a park bench eating a meal she scammed someone to buy her, when she was approached by three gang members. They had no moral reservation against attacking a single small girl, and they were hungry. Usually, she’d just run, but she it was her first meal in two days and she wasn’t giving it up. “Three of you against little ole me?” She taunted them as she leapt on the table, the plastic fork from her meal clenched in her fist, “very brave…”. To her surprise, they just turned around and left, mumbling to themselves something about bravery and being men. It took her some time to understand what happened, but eventually she understood she could not only sense emotions, but also control them. On that day she began her meteoric ascension up the social ladder.
She would dress older than her age and crash high-society parties. Once inside, she would hold up the mysterious lady act until she was bored with it and then she would find a young, preferably handsome, easily impressionable man to take her home. His home, that is. It wasn’t long before she made herself a name as the underage high society queen. She celebrated her new found powers, and she was ruthless. She would make men want her, need her. She would make them give her things, sacrifice for her. And then she would toss them away, like old toys that no longer amused her.
That is, until she met Jason Hartford. He was a young and rich aristocrat, and she made him hers without even winking. Mind, body and soul. She toyed with him for a few months until he started to bore her, so she made him get into a fist fight over her. Only Jason didn’t resort to fists – he resorted to his mutant ability to control electricity and fried the other man. Revealed for what they were, together they fled.
She was on the streets again. At first, she resented Jason for making her loose everything she had built for herself. But the cold nights on the streets and the constant running from a world that hated and feared them made her understand she only resented herself. Slowly, she came to realize that she actually had feelings for Jason. Together, they decided that they were done running from the world. Like all other mutants, they too had heard legends of the X-Men, a fighting group of mutants who set out to fix the world’s wrongs. They were only two inexperienced mutants, but every journey begins with a small step. They reformed the X-Men, and begun the long journey of restoring this name to its past glory.
Even though she is the youngest member of the team, she is the most senior (together with X-Travaganza). However, she never demanded to be the leader and was never offered, which suits her just fine. Lately, since X-Cel has joined their ranks he had been like the father figure she never had. This is quite confusing for her, as she thinks she might be falling for him.

Personality:
As noted previously, Jennifer is, in layman’s terms, a heartless bitch. She knows what she wants, she knows how to get it, and she rarely cares what or who she needs to step on to get it. Or at least that’s the facade she puts on. The truth is, she still is the same frightened little girl who was tossed out of home at the age of foourteen, only she won’t let anyone see it. As time goes by and she learns to trust her new found friends in The Unlikely X-Men she softens up a bit (the Psychological Limitation used to be total), but she can still be as cold as ice when needed.
As also noted previously, Jennifer is somewhat torn between her love to two men – the young and flamboyant X-Travaganza and the old and experienced X-Cel

Appearance:
Jennifer is only sixteen years old, and has a petite figure of a young teenager that hasn’t fully developed yet. She cuts her hazel colored hair at neck length and her blue eyes are like two pools of icy water you could drown in if you looked too deep. Now that she can afford it, she wears upper-class, yet tasteful, cloths which usually show more than a hint of flesh.
As X-Quisite she wears a skintight black and blue body suite with a bright red X across her chest. She wears a small mask that only covers her eyes and conceals her identity but leaves enough of her face visible to help her work her powers.

Powers/Tactics:
Jennifer is an empath – a mutant who can sense and control the emotions of others. This is a limited form of telepathy, and perhaps under the guidance of a trained telepath Jennifer could fulfill her true telepathic potential.
Jennifer can sense the emotions of others, and thus it is very hard to lie to her or deceive her. In fact, she is so sensitive that she can virtually never be snuk up upon because she would detect the hostile intention and thus be warned. But Jennifer’s powers don’t stop at sensing emotions – she can also control and manipulate them, making people do her bidding even though they aren’t aware of it.
Usually, Jennifer prefers avoiding combat and leaves that aspect of her life as an X-Man (or perhaps an X-Person, to be more politically correct) to her teammates. However, she is not defenseless by any means. Pain is also an emotion, and she can make others feel it with great intensity. Another way she can offensively use her powers is to emit an emotional “shriek” which penetrates through the psychic plane and effectively “mentally deafens” anyone with any sort of empathic or telepathic sensitivity for a short time.

Notes:
What X-Men story-line would be complete without a telepath (or at least an empath) getting in the middle of a romantic triangle?