Timewarp


 * For the place in Newtown, see Timewarp (arcade).

Timewarp is the heroic identity of the CHHS student Talitha May, generally known as Tali. She has been active as a superhero in Colonial Bay since the summer of 2064, and is a founding member of the Blue Ros.

Description
As Timewarp: Timewarp, when she's not a barely-perceptible blur, is an attractive young woman barely over 5 foot in height, with shortish brown hair worn swept straight back from her mask.

Her costume is a classic skintight suit with half mask, in shades of magenta. Over this she wears boots, which come to a high point at the front, and a waist-length jacket, both in midnight blue with lighter blue trim. The jacket has numerous zippered pockets and the emblem of a blue rose on a white background on the left breast. Typically she has the jacket done up only at the bottom, though this varies.

As Tali: Tali stands only about 5'1" tall, though with her open, bubbly disposition she can usually attract attention despite her stature. Her dark eyes always seem to have a twinkle, and when she smiles her wide, easy small chubbyish cheeks dimple. Her face is framed with chocolate-brown hair which she often pushes back behind her ear with a small hand. Of figure she is quite shapely for her age.

She dresses in currentish teen styles - clearly not wealthy enough to be right up to date, but not so out of date as for it to be embarrassing. Her shoes do tend to look a little worn out, though.

Origin
At some point in the distant future, the technology exists to create time travellers through genetic manipulation. While time travel is strictly regulated, licensed individuals, from law enforcement agents to historians, do make trips into the past.

Tali's father, who gave his name as Naith, was one such individual. He told her mother that he was an agent sent back to stop a temporal terrorist. Whether this was true or just a way to impress her is unclear, but it certainly did the latter, with Tali being the result. Naith, meanwhile, ostensibly completed his mission and was sent elsewhen, leaving Helen to raise Tali alone.

Tali, for her part, never believed this story until, shortly before her 16th birthday, she was nearly hit by a car. Suddenly the whole world seemed to freeze in place, which was at first more frightening still. But when she was safely out of the street the world started moving again. Her fear vanished and she grinned. She had superpowers!

Powers
Tali potentially has considerable control over the timestream, but so far she only knows how to accelerate herself and a small area around her, to the point that the rest of the world appears almost stationary, and how to stop herself ageing, which is important given how much she is in accelerated time.

Because she is bending time itself she cannot do many speedster tricks: if, for instance, she threw something "super-fast" at someone it would just be moving at a normal speed once it left the time field. But there is still a lot she can do besides just moving on foot at ludicrous speeds.

For direct attacks, she can take her time and study her target for weak spots, then strike that point with haymaker-like strength. Or she can just hit people weakly but a lot. A clever trick is that, if her warp has a "fuzzy" edge, which is useful for allowing air to displace when she moves, she can by punching the air close to someone cause a pressure wave as faster air rushes into progressively slower air. Less directly, she can tie people up, disassemble machines, rush about doing manual work, fetch almost any small object, change her clothes, dodge attacks and generally "take time" over actions, all in an instant, and sometimes too fast to see. Her reflexes are faster than almost anyone's and even let her reduce damage by flinching after she is struck. These attacks are effectively "ranged" because she can run to a safer distance again after striking!

Her timewarped eyes and brain work fast, but her other senses are ineffective when accelerated: only light moves fast enough to be useful. In a fight, she moves about enough she seems to be able to see all directions at once. She can scout anywhere she can reach on foot and return too fast to spot.

Tali's powers leave a distinctive signature in the space-time continuum that the right technology or the senses of some time travellers can detect.

Personality
Tali is characterised by a bubble joie de vivre. She enjoys so much in life that there's barely time to fit it all in - or at least wasn't before she got her powers. Such is her enthusiasm that she can leap into things without thinking enough of the consequences - and well, she is a teenager - but that just keeps life exciting.

While generally outgoing, she's not just a physical and social sort she enjoys learning and has a number of private pursuits, her art first among them. Now she can do these in accelerated time, to have more opportunity for her more extroverted activities.

Her relationship with her mother is a darker spot in her life. Helen always embarrassed her with her "craziness", and now Tali feels guilty too, now she knows Helen isn't really crazy after all. Combined with typical adolescence, this means Tali has trouble communicating with her mother.

She'd never dream of killing people, because she'd never deprive anyone of the gift of life.

Relations
Tali's relationship with her mother, Helen, is somewhat strained, largely because Helen being thought crazy didn't help Tali's early social life. That it seems she wasn't mad has just made Tali feel guilty about the whole situation, which hasn't help. That said, the estrangement is probably only in the typical teen range.

Tali has not (to her knowledge) met her father Naith, nor does she know any of the various time travellers who will soon be crossing her path.

Tali is a friendly sort, and can count a lot of her classmates as friends, but some are a lot closer than others. Pia and Marjie have been her close friends back to elementary school. Her other notable friends are the teen heroes of CHHS.

History
It wasn't not always the easiest to grow up the child of a single mother, especially one with a reputation for being a bit crazy (n Colonial Bay anything could be true, but people tended in the absence of any proof to assume that the time-traveller story was either a fiction to conceal the identity of the real father or a delusion). But Tali managed pretty well, considering. All in all, she had a mostly normal life, as much as anyone who grows up in Colonial Bay does. And if her mother was considered by many crazy, at least she was good at making other friends.

Her powers have just given her the chance to enjoy life even more - there's more time for her to have fun. She has also started being active as a superhero, and is a founding member of the Blue Ros.