How does a child born into an average, loving home become a runaway and danger to herself and those around her? All one has to do is look at the life of Autumn St. Pierre to understand how.

Born in Rochester, New York, Autumn is the youngest child of parents Robert and Faith St. Pierre. Both parents, as well as her older brother Alex (4 years older) were normal, and until the age of 12, Autumn thought she was too…or could at least be normal enough to hide what was different.

Father working as a bank manager and mother working as a grade school teacher provided the family with a comfortable, though not opulent, lifestyle. The 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a two-car garage, regularly bi-yearly vacations to warmer locales, and plenty of family dinners was, to the St. Pierre’s, the realization of the American dream.

While her parents and brother were all normal, all excelled at what they did (management and teaching in the case of her parents, sports in the case of her older brother), Autumn had a difficult time fitting in. Never the smartest in her grade, nor the most athletically-inclined, the arts are where she showed any glimmer of talent, but even then, not much. She knew she was different from an early age, and though she did her best to hide it, to keep herself under control, it would eventually be this stubborn refusal to tell her family what she was that would be her undoing.

At first, it was hearing the thoughts of others in her head. Then it was being able to move glasses and toys through the air with her mind (never much, and never predictably). They started out as something fun, something new for a girl of 8, but soon, she tired of them; she knew they made her different. She did her best to hide them, and for four years she was successful.

In any child’s life, there are tests, trials, and tribulations on the way to adulthood. For Autumn, this was more extreme in that she had to deal with the normal complications of puberty plus the wild fluctuations in her powers. This is what would ultimately prove to be her undoing.

Rochester doesn’t seem like the type of place where crime would run rampant; the suburbs very much seem like the place where a girl of 12 can walk from home to school without be accosted by thugs. This, however, is just what happened to Autumn.

On her way to school one wintery morning, Autumn was jumped by a man intent on kidnapping her. It was planned and carried out just like the kidnappings seen so often on modern television. A snatch a grab, Autumn was picked up right off the street by two men, thrown into the back of a car, and driven off. Bound and driven into the countryside so as to evoke as little suspicion as possible, Autumn had worked herself into quite a frenzied, panicked state by the time they eventually arrived.

When the door to the car opened, the captors were greeted with an explosion of telekinetic energy. Both captors were thrown back from the car, the wind knocked out of them and an arm or two broken by an awkward fall. Leaving her school books behind, Autumn ran harder than she had ever run before, leaving the stunned kidnappers confused and injured. These criminals, beaten inexplicably by a little girl when they should have the upper hand realized that they couldn’t go to the cops. What would they say? That they wanted to press charges against a girl they were kidnapping for hurting them? They destroyed the evidence, licked their wounds, and admitted defeat.

The events of that day, of being targeted, kidnapped, and dealing with the fact that she had just blown two men through the air with her mind caused her brain to go into self-defense mode; she became affected by dissociative amnesia. Her life up to that point was forgotten in her own mind, as she feared associating that previous life would lead to remembering the horror and fear of that day.

Back at home, her parents started the process of filing a missing child report after just a day missing. Photocopies of photos and physical descriptions were sent to police stations all throughout the state. To that extent, her wandering through backwater towns let her slip through the cracks. In those places, she could beg or steal a meal or pair of socks here and there without much thought, so long as she moved on soon after. She never settled, but always drifted.

Even on the run, she wasn’t totally out of touch with the happenings of the world. The year was 2002 at this point. Mutants were made public, but registration wasn’t yet mandated. There was a growing din over their presence, however, particularly in these small towns where good-ole-boys feared what they couldn’t understand. Autumn, nameless at this point, feared for her ability to survive (and feared for her life because of her powers), and knew she needed a place where she could blend in and slip through the cracks.

For the next 13 years, as Sentinels attacked, and the city was torn asunder by conflict, the amnesiac Autumn begged, stole, and bartered for what she needed as she crossed the state, but always with the intent to move to New York City, where she could fade away. The political climate changed, with mutant registration, anti-mutant groups, and the big daddies of them all, Sentinels. Some would argue that NYC outside of Rykers was the least safe place for Autumn. Maybe suicide by Sentinel was her goal, even she couldn’t say. Eventually, she took the name of the borough she drifted to from Rochester: Brooklyn.

As an outcast in the city, Brooklyn quickly fell into the habit of using her powers to get what she needed. Even so, the underbelly of NYC is an unforgiving place for a runaway. Thankfully, there are plenty of them. By the time she reached NYC, aged 13 at this point, Autumn was fortuitously able to fall into a group of others like her. Runaways of all ages, from the single digits into their 20s, had banded together to make a life for themselves amidst the chaos of NYC in a war of humans against mutants.

The motley crew was a collection of humans and mutants, able to set aside the petty differences to combine their resources and survive, taking what they needed and then some. Refusing to take sides, this little gang of runaways used all the resources at its disposal to earn cash, even to the point of committing crimes for money.

It was a welcome relief when Rykers was liberated and opened to all of mutantkind as a haven. As soon as she could manage, she made her way there. Not knowing anything else but what she had learned from her former compatriots in street survival, and tiring of stealing for what she needed, she started turning her body into income, transforming her self-loathing and morally-gray childhood into cold hard cash.

Perhaps it was the picture on the milk cartons for years and years, but Robert and Faith have never stopped looking for their daughter: the one they have no idea is dangerous but deep-down a good person; the one dangerously close to being lost forever, either to evil purposes or killed; the daughter kidnapped and turned runaway; lost in the chaos of Sentinel attacks and war-torn NYC.

Telepathy

The available half of Autumn’s power is telepathy, that is, the ability to read and influence the thoughts of others. Of the two halves, this is the more practiced; for the better part of 13 years on the run, this has been her bread-and-butter when it comes to getting what she needs to survive.

When it comes to hearing the thoughts of others, this ability is limited (thankfully) to one or a few people, if she can stay calm and collected. As she becomes more emotionally worked up, she loses her ability to restrict how many voices she hears, and can easily be overwhelmed to the point of passing out as a mechanism of self-defense.

With a great deal more concentration, she can influence the thoughts of others, by planting thoughts, subconscious or otherwise, tricking them into seeing things differently (illusions), and even mind control to the point of paralysis.

Those of strong-will can render themselves nearly or completely immune to her ability, particularly if they’ve had training against it, or special mechanisms (helmets with special geometries or materials). Often by staying out of her line of sight or far enough away (100 feet or so), one can stay completely immune to her power. If she is unable to concentrate, the chances of failure or reduced effect rise rapidly.

Tricks

See What I See: With concentration and great effort, Autumn can influence the minds of up to three others that they are seeing something else. The targets can be selected individually, and two people in the same room are not necessarily seeing the same things. However, the illusion is the same for all parties being targeted, and she can maintain a convincing illusion for about 30 minutes in one person, decreasing to 15 for two people, and no longer than 5 minutes in three people. Four or more people are likely not to be affected, and the strain of trying may cause her to pass out.

This ability works at a range of about 20 feet (the size of a decent-sized room). When she is in a room with (for example) two others, keeping one under the illusion is much harder than targeting both, as she has to be more selective where she sends the illusion and where the other person is (should they sneak up on her, etc). Those with stronger minds or those immune to the effects of telepathy are not affected by this ability. Additionally, line of sight is required, and she herself becomes vulnerable as she focuses on convincing others. Breaking her concentration or line of sight will cause the illusion to fail.

Subliminal Persuasion: With less effort than her other tricks, Autumn can plant subliminal instructions into a target’s mind, from a range of about 50 feet. They must be simple, direct instructions (buy this, bring that here, etc). The messages planted can’t violated the target’s self-preservation instincts, thus, no commands to kill oneself can be planted. Once the instructions are acted upon, they are erased, and only one command can be planted at a time in each target. Those of strong will are immune to this subliminal instruction. If for some reason the instruction cannot be acted on, it will fade from their memory the next time they fall asleep (at a maximum of 24 hours later, if they don’t sleep).

Psychic Flood: By quickly and temporarily flooding a target’s mind with a blast of psychic energy, Autumn can cause a brief paralysis and loss of control. This effect is extremely brief, and is used as an escape option. The paralysis is similar to the effect dogs and other predators have on ‘fainting goats;’ that is, a tensing of the body and limbs, often with a tumble. The severity of the paralysis ranges from full-body stiffening or crumpling, to merely stumbling. The duration is seldom longer than 10 seconds. Autumn can only use this power when she is extremely emotionally worked up, often with fear, and it happens concurrently with the human fight or flight reaction. This works at a range of about 10 feet, and affects those around her in a bubble centered on her body (a blast wave of psychic energy). Since this is an ‘overload’ ability, she can only use this about once an hour, and following use of this, her other abilities are severely weakened until she can rest and recuperate.

Thought Reception: A passive part of Autumn’s ability is hearing the thoughts of others. In a calm state, she can direct this to focus on one particular individual, to clearly hear their thoughts. As she loses concentration, the ability to focus evaporates and her ability to hold out the flood of thoughts and voices is impaired; the more emotionally vulnerable she becomes, the more overwhelmed she becomes. A total loss of control renders her unable to filter thoughts at all, and she falls unconscious in an attempt to keep her mind from being overwhelmed permanently.

Once again, this works by line of sight; any person she can see, she can hear the thoughts of. Unless she focuses on one person individually, she hears only the surface thoughts of others. When she focuses on one individual, she can hear deeper thoughts, which also has the effect of blocking out the passive din of surface thoughts of those around her. The more agitated they are, the more clearly she is able to hear their thoughts; in a room of calm individuals, she’d hear what they were saying, and also what they were thinking on the surface at about the same volume. If someone knows she can listen to their thoughts, they can attempt to calm their mind and shield their thoughts, which prevents her from passively hearing them. Strong-willed individuals may not be able to be heard even when she focuses on them. In an attempt to keep from being overwhelmed, she’s tried sensory deprivation, i.e., eliminating one or both of sight or hearing by blindfold or iPod to keep from over stimulating her own mind with the addition of this extra sense.

Skills

Street Smarts: Autumn has lived on the streets and on her own for 13 years. In that time, she’s learned what works and what doesn’t when it comes to getting the things one needs to survive and maybe a few things on top of that. She’s got some skills in everything from outright stealing, to dealing/pushing, to prostitution if at some point it would have helped her. She has a general idea what it takes to survive the grim streets of NYC.

Thievery: Autumn has learned how to most effectively use her powers to steal. Particularly by application of her powers of illusion or subliminal instructions, against human shop owners, she’s made quite a living stealing things. In addition to this brute force way of theft, she’s also learned how to shoplift outright, and to use her body (either by pouting, tantrums, or puppy-dog eyes to evoke sympathy).

Saleswoman: Like her skills in stealing, Autumn is quite adept at using her powers to charm others into buying what she’s selling…be it drugs, or herself. Aside from using her powers, she’s quite charismatic enough that she might have made a decent saleswoman had circumstances been different.

Artsy: Though she was never academically or athletically inclined, Autumn did show a glimmer of talent in the arts as a child. In particular, she was somewhat adept when it comes to painting and drawing. She’s no Rembrandt, but she might be able to make something she can sell somewhere should the need ever arise. Additionally, this is something calming for her when she needs to uncharged emotionally.

Escape Artist: 13 years on the street have made Autumn very good at knowing when, and how, to make a speedy escape. She’s quite adept at scaling chain link fences, fire escapes, hiding in dumpsters, and the other methods of disappearing in the absence of using her powers. Combined with her ability to pick up on the thoughts of others, she’s very hard to catch unless cornered with no avenues of escape.

Babydoll: Autumn has become quite good at turning her fragile nature to her advantage. While some particularly powerful personas are capable of rendering her fawning and obedient, weaker personalities are usually prey for her antics. By acting purposely naïve, fragile, and vulnerable, she is capable of evoking the ‘puppy-dog defense,’ as she tends to think of it. This is generally the method used when she suspects powers are overkill, or after she’s developed a rapport with people who have things that she needs to survive but doesn’t want to burn bridges.

Resources

Contacts: Her time out on the mean streets have provided her with the names and identities of a number of other morally-disinclined individuals, mutant and human alike. Need to know where to score a hit of this or that, or to pick up a girl or whatever, she probably knows a place or a face to help you out. A few of her contacts are mutant-sympathizers as well.

Secret Caches: One of the things a runaway has to do is make sure there’s always a secret stash. Autumn has a few of these across the city. They’re caches of drugs, primarily, but also cash or stuff folks have told her to ‘hold on to.’ Additionally, she’s taken what little bit of what cash she’s managed to steal and dumped into a handful of bank accounts under false names. It doesn’t amount to much (typically 200 bucks or less in each account), but she has three or four of them.

Meal Ticket: She knows a lot of places in NYC to go for free, hot meals, be it a shelter, a helpful person that she’s used her ‘charm’ on, or mutant sympathizers. For the most part, she frequents women’s shelters and the homes of various mutant sympathizers about the city and nearby suburbs.

Rykers Hideaway: It’s not much, but Autumn has a place she can call her own on Rykers. It’s not ritzy, it’s not hers alone, but it’s a place to crash without having to worry about Sentinels, Friends of Humanity, or the cops. When she needs a place to crash and get a good night’s sleep, she goes here, even if she shares it with a few other mutants. Mutants she meet who need help themselves may be taken back here.

Flaws

Amnesiac: Owing to the traumatic events that turned her into a runaway, Autumn has experienced dissociative amnesia. A form of retrograde amnesia, the traumatic event has lead to the inability to access memories up to the point of the event, while she retains the capacity to learn and remember things following that event. The prior memories, up to and including what happened, are not gone, but merely repressed. Arguments may be made that her travels and assumption of a new identity are because of this, and a partial fugue state (dissociative fugue). In short, this was her defense mechanism to the events of that day.

Criminal Record: Despite her best efforts, Autumn has been caught a handful of times by the police, mostly for shoplifting and other thefts. Her few times prostituting (on Rykers, aged 25) have not been picked up on by the police. In each case, she’s often out in no time, owing to putting on an illusory persona, or making bail herself. Perhaps fortuitously, or because she does put on her illusory persona for the cops, she’s not been linked up to her missing child photo. Chances are that, as more than half her life has been spent on the streets, the milk carton pictures have been forgotten, and because of the new false name she gives the cops no name matches have been established either.

Daddy Complex Autumn ran away from home at age 12, and at age 25, has spent more than half of her life on her own. Jumping from puberty into the unforgiving world without parental support has left a significant void in her personality. To that end, significantly authoritative figures often command her loyalty and can send her into a child-like state of naïve, fawning obedience.

Damaged Goods: Living on the street for more than half her life as irrevocably altered Autumn, for good or bad. She’s learned to beg, borrow, and steal what she needs, and to use her body and powers to get what she can’t beg, borrow, or steal. She has little sense of right or wrong, and tends to look out for herself first and others never.

Emotional Vampire: As a result of her passive mind reading, Autumn is often easily influenced by the emotions of those around her. As their thoughts become more violent, powerful, fragmented or confused, she can’t help but hear them in her head. This often leads to her emotional state becoming more erratic, which may affect her use of her powers, which may cause changes in how those around her think, and on and on; in rare cases this positive feedback loop will grow until she passes out.

Frail: Time and time again it’s been shown that physically exceptional individuals have weak minds and vice versa. Autumn falls into the vice versa category. She’s not a physically intimidating woman, and can easily be overpowered. Though she’s fit, she’s not exceptionally strong; she has the body and physical capabilities of a normal 25 year old woman.

Kid on the Milk Carton: Suspecting quite correctly that their child had run away, Robert and Faith wasted no time in getting her photo out there. This being the time before AMBER Alerts, photocopies, fliers, and the iconic picture on the milk carton were the methods used to help search for missing children. Autumn’s face has been out there for a while, infrequently anymore, but out there nonetheless. One or two people are likely to have seen it in the past or present.

Uncontrolled Telepathy: Autumn has not learned to tone down her telepathy in order to hide herself. To that end, more powerful mutants with the ability to locate other mutants or to sense the use of TP can easily locate her.

Telekinetic Cripple: Aside from a few small occurrences in her childhood, and the big explosion when escaping her captors, Autumn’s telekinetic abilities have not manifested on a large scale. They’re there and she’s shown she has them, but only in those circumstances. As much as they might help her to survive, she is unable to tap into their potential, and might have forgotten them all together as a result of her amnesia.

Logs

2016/02/16 - Shhh, You're Thinking Too Loud!	ben brooklyn
2016/01/23: BeDazzled	alison brooklyn hotwire lorna
2016/01/19 - Attempted Hot Dog Robbery	brooklyn ellen
2016/01/07 - Trading Fish Guts for Eyeballs	brooklyn jubilee
2015/12/31 - Six Big Macs Please	brooklyn scott

Watch For

Her mood swings.
Her annoying ability to get out of trouble.
Her 'clean slate' personality; she's recruitment fodder.
Her potential recovery of her memory.
Her potential discovery of a latent power.

Quotes

Quotes by or reminiscent of character.

People

Icon	Name	Notes

Icon	Name	Notes
	Scott	He's…kind of an asshole. A good-looking asshole, but still. Oh, and he knows what it's like to have someone in his head, which is weird.
	Jubilee	SPARKLIES! Well, and knives. Sorry I had to zap you, but, three guys with knives and a karate kid with sparklers is just a little freaky.