Species: Tabaxi (Cat Anthro)
Age: 26
Gender Identity/Orientation: Cis, She/Her, Lesbian
Location: Silver City
Citizen Identity: Zana Ray, Mechanic
Hero Identity: Lightrunner, Faster than Light
Power Rating: B (Defender of an entire city, but not the entire world)
Trivia: Zana collects plush toys and keeps them on a shelf hidden in her closet. She bought the limited edition Lightrunner plush made by the Silver City tourism bureau, and has mixed feelings about it.
Appearance:
Lightrunner is a cat-anthro with tan fur in shades of cream and tan with tan-brown stripes. Her hair is kept short in back with a sideswept front style, rarely combed, and is dyed a shade of purple that fades to pink at the tips. She favors short biker jackets worn over comfortable tank tops and muscle shirts and maroon pants or jeans. Her typical accessories are her yellow-tinted goggles and fingerless gloves, as well as a gold-coin necklace worn for good luck. When she taps into her powers Lightrunner manifests glowing tattoo-like markings on her forearms and back in neon pink and red hues, and lines of bent light tend to follow in her wake like "speed lines" made of the same colors. Because her superspeed power works more by manipulation of time and gravity than speed itself, her movements appear not frantic but fluid, like a parkour video seen at 0.75x speed as she gracefully leaps, rolls and dodges obstacles while everything else slows to a near standstill. Though of course what most people actually "see" is a flash of neon pink-red light and Lightrunner herself, holding the clip removed from a villain's gun with a cocky eyebrow lifted as if to say "Is that all you've got?"
Powers and Abilities:
Major Powers: Superspeed + Blast Power with Blinding add-on
Lightrunner's superspeed isn't just running by pumping her legs faster, she is able to tap into alternate timelines adjacent to her own and in effect pull herself a little closer to the unreality between them, physically lessening universal gravity on her and allowing her to pass through her universe at what seems like impossibe speed. Her own perception of time isn't changed- but by moving through the universe more freely everything around her seems to stand still by comparison. This is how "faster than light" travel is actually possible- even if light is the fastest speed by the laws of the universe as they stand, acting under different laws allows for different maximum speeds of movement.
Lightrunner can't summon enough force actually break free of her own timeline and jump realities, but she can lessen universal gravity on herself and pass through her own universe at speeds beyond that of light itself.
This is the primary ability which her other powers spring from, and causes the glowing tattoo effect to appear on her body, something which comes from a different timeline she taps into and shows more brightly the closer she gets to it. When using her powers to the extreme she has been observed with literal smoke rising from the glowing swirls as they fade, like an engine pushed nearly to overheating. The effort is easy in short bursts, but becomes more difficult to maintain the longer it is used.
When moving at superspeed Lightrunner can run along concentrated beams of light and grab onto them like solid objects, using light itself as a sort of parkour obstacle, although the light particles scatter quickly at a touch and such "light bridges" are a one-way trip that dissolves only a second after being touched. She can also "gather" light particles in her hands like grabbing suspended snowflakes from the air and making them into glowing snowballs to throw at opponents as semi-solid projectiles of blinding flashes of light. (And here her critics just thought the goggles were to keep the wind out of her eyes and look cool!)
-Medium Powers: Strike + Deflect Projectiles
Moving from superspeed back to normal speed allows carrying over some of that unencumbered raw force, similar to displacing water when jumping into a pool. Lightrunner is able to use superspeed punches and kicks to do superhuman attacks, such as kicking through solid steel walls or sending an evil robot flying with a single punch, but her strike power is limited to these sudden points of force and cannot be sustained, such as to actually lift a boulder and carry it over any distance.
Lightrunner can also hit and redirect bullets, chunks or debris, or small missiles mid-course while in superspeed, but she tends to use this ability defensively or to protect innocents, not redirect or return attacks to others.
-Minor Powers/skills: Regeneration + Mechanic + Drive Skill
Lightrunner heals at an accelerated rate, and can shake off minor injuries in seconds rather than hours. More serious injuries still take time to heal- a broken bone healing at over ten times normal speed is still a full week if you don't want to risk breaking it again right away, but one thing that sets Lightrunner apart from her peers is her scrappy fighting spirit and ability to seemingly bounce back from a pounding that other superheroes take much longer to catch their breath from.
Lightrunner is also a gifted mechanic, and can complete complex repairs at superspeed. She is a highly competent driver, sailor and pilot, able to steer vehicles and sometimes even commandeered villain machines through challenging high speed chases safely.
Childhood:
Zana Ray was born in Silver City and spent her childhood there, playing in playgrounds built into skyscraper fitness parks and going to Palmtree Park and riding the fastest, most twisting roller coasters until she threw up every year for her birthday. She played sports, never enough to consider it a career path, but because she was always a "wild child" her parents kept busy so she wouldn't get bored. Getting bored made her tend to throw tantrums and act out. Although Zana was happy in every regard, she was also aware that she felt "different" than her peers, and didn't make many friends. She found the boys fun but too immature, and their inevitable crushes on her made her uncomfortable. She enjoyed girl friends but inevitably annoyed them with her lack of interest in pretty things, dolls, or when she tried to roughhouse with them. This left Zana a little shy and she clung to her parents for support and attention more than an average child her age.
Unlike most kids, Zana never dreamed of being a Superhero, and didn't collect posters and trading cards with their pictures on them. To Zana heroes and villains were always like the clouds overhead, bringing sunshine or storms, on high and beyond understanding or even care. She didn't really follow celebrities, TV shows or trendy clothes, either, and generally lingered in the back of the class or playground, content to run in circles, play on the swings, or doze under a shady tree without a care for anything that required hard work.
High School:
In High School Zana fell behind the more gifted athletes and dropped sports for shop class, where she was much better at taking things apart than actually fixing them. Her shop projects weren't the best, but through them she discovered a new kind of fun in which her mind, now more restless than her body with the academic and social woes of high school, was able to run as fast as it wanted while she stayed mostly still. With a wrench in her hand she again felt the same peace and sense of control her child self did when holding a baseball bat, and this distraction kept her from falling victim to self doubt or depression even on her worst days. Zana most enjoyed engines and things that moved, running her hands over their rusted, oil-stained casings and thrilling at the lingering hum of power and motion sleeping within them.
While there were always math classes, bullies, and awkward young friendships that were really crushes she didn't know she was feeling for her female friends that inevitably ended with her being hurt and confused, Zana never experienced anymore real drama or hardship than a normal kid, and grew into a healthy, if slightly shy, easygoing and unambitious adult.
After graduating from Silver City High, Zana decided not to purse college, and instead managed to get an apprenticeship at a local mechanic's garage on a letter of recommendation from her shop teacher, a friend of the owner. Within three years Zana graduated her on-the-job-training and got hired full-time. Working in the garage was a lot like being in shop class for Zana, the other people there were weird and the jumpsuit uniforms made everyone look the same. She wasn't expected to be "pretty" or use "nice" language, she could just be herself, and it felt freeing. After saving up some money she bought a wrecked motorcycle for cheap, a fixer-upper the original owner had given up on advertised in the local sales ads in the personals section of the Prism Pulse. Zana read a lot of personals ads, not admitting to herself why, but always daydreaming of finding love... even if she still wouldn't admit to herself what that looked like to her.
The months Zana spent working in the shop by day learning by doing on all sorts of engines and in the rented storage unit of the parking garage of her parent's apartment building by night fixing up the trashed motorcycle she bought were some of the happiest of her life. Long uncertain hours faded away in her own world of gears and pistons where everything was predictable and no problem couldn't be fixed with the right parts. Although Zana's parents always loved and encouraged her, never giving her reason to doubt they would love and accept her, the feelings of attraction she felt for other girls caused her secret stress. Articulating her feelings was always a challenge for Zana, who preferred doing to speaking, and trying to find the words to ask for help or talk about what she was going through with her parents seemed impossible when she still didn't fully understand or accept those feelings herself. Loving and happy as her home had always been, Zana's own internal restlessness grew and grew, and some part of her wanted nothing more than to get her bike running so she could ride away from everything and just hide in a cave somewhere until she felt calm and in control of her own heart and life once again. When the bike was finally completed and restored to beautiful condition Zana felt like the future was really hers, and decided to upgrade to her own place- a tiny 1-bedroom apartment in one of the small split housing building communities on the highway just outside of the city. Close enough to be near everything familiar, but far away enough to feel free.
Free to breathe, free to set her own schedule, free to be... herself. The hour long commute wasn't a bother as much as a needed release, a ritual for Zana to get her mind in order before and after work, and the sea breeze and ocean view from the highway in the early morning and late afternoon filled her heart with joy. The apartment was small, the building a little old and not so well maintained, but it was hers. Her own job, bike, and place, if things kept going her way she might even be able to start... meeting people.
The first new person Zana met, however, wasn't anyone she could fall in love with- it was her neighbor, William Oats, who insisted everyone call him by his beach bum nickname, Sandals. A middle-aged human man with a retired surfer vibe and an uncle-wanna'-be way of giving advice when it wasn't needed, Sandals spent most of his time sleeping, surfing, or lying on a lounge chair in his overgrown backyard drinking beer. He wasn't the sort of person Zana was glad to have as a neighbor at first, but the two ended up bonding over sharing packs of beer in the afternoon while Zana decompressed after a hard day at work half listening to Sandals' stories about waves, his travels seeking the best beaches to catch them, and sometimes his "Tide Princess", his deceased wife, Rose. Zana wouldn't admit it to herself, but Sandals filled a need in her life, he was the "fun" uncle who's maturity and calm make you feel at safe, but who isn't like your parents, and you can relax around.
It was Sandals who's words gave Zana the nudge she needed to finally accept her sexuality. One night while drinking beers in the backyard and watching the weekly space launch from distant Rocket Island he finally showed Zana a picture of his beloved Rose.
The shy, small figure in the photo was nothing like Zana expected, and buzzed from the drinks she laughed and blurted out that Rose looked more like a librarian than the supermodel Sandals' stories had painted, but he only smiled a sad and longing smile and said "Our time together was so brief. Cancer doesn't wait. If I could do anything differently I'd just... do it sooner. Not have wasted all that time worrying if it was right and just asked her out the first moment I met her. Don't make that mistake, Zana. When you meet her, the one... Don't waste whatever time you might have together by doubting it."
In the emotional silence that followed both of them were glad it had grown too dark to see the tears they each blinked back in the gathering darkness. Not tears of sorrow, but maybe relief. Sandals needed to say it, and Zana needed to hear it, and they were both equally glad not to be sitting alone just then.
In the movies personal growth happens in an instant, but in real life it takes time. It is a process of spurts and stops, and Zana took a week working through her feelings. Reexamining her young memories with the painful clarity of age, reconsidering her long held images of what her future could look like with some things that had been expected thrown out and new possibilities added in. It was an emotional, personal struggle, and filled with uncountable inner flinches of cowardice and surges of invisible bravery. When Zana finally felt like she was ready to talk to her parents it wasn't a convenient time, the sun was already low in the sky, and it had grown dark ahead of sunset because of the cloudy weather, but she had been through the awkward moment in her head a thousand times and finally she just couldn't take one more imagined confession- she needed to just do it, in person, right then. Zana grabbed her keys, slipped on her jacket, and hopped on her bike to make the hour long drive to her parent's apartment building in Silver City. As she pulled onto the highway it began to rain.
The accident that changed everything:
Zana never saw the 18-wheel freight truck filled with stolen Horizon Labs equipment driven recklessly by Dynamo Industries henchmen that was going 75 mph in a 50 mph speed lane and turned too sharply for its size and weight. The huge, unmarked trailer slid on the wet pavement clear across the road and into Zana's lane, striking her broadside like a solid wall. It happened in an instant, and she couldn't have reacted quick enough even if she had seen it coming- her mind was too far away in her own thoughts to come back fast enough.
The truck didn't tip over, but almost every bone in Zana's body was crushed and she was thrown from her bike and went flying through the air across the street towards the ground and seemingly certain death twenty feet from where she was hit.
In a near death instant some people talk about having a moment of clarity, when time seems to slow, and from that vantage point all of the past and all of the choices you didn't make, or could have made differently, and even some of the futures you might have lived if you had, seem to open up to you. A grand reflection of what was, and sorrowful realization of what won't be. Zana had that moment- a grand, spiritual finale to the years spent struggling over one simple truth, and the unimaginable pain of knowing she had no time left to finally confess that truth and live it openly. The falling raindrops and her own tears slowed to almost a standstill. The light took on a strange, beautiful quality like ribbons and lines as it stretched, warped, and froze in place. The stars overhead, peeking through breaks in the beautiful, dark blue and black clouds were shining down like secret worlds precious beyond measure, now to be lost forever. How many years had it been since Zana just stopped and actually looked at the sky? She couldn't remember. In her anguished regret, which seemed to open up and spread across the universe in as much painful clarity as the things she saw, Zana was comforted only by that one glimpse of starlight, so beautiful, so precious, yet so beyond reach. She kept her eyes on it, hoping against hope to be able to keep it in sight... until...
But "until" didn't come. A microsecond expanded by clarity into an eternity shrunk back down, three seconds of breath held in tormented anticipation spread out into a full minute and... Nothing was moving. Sorrow turned to wonder and then wonder to fear too quickly to describe as anything other than "instant nausea", but Zana had one full minute outside of time, stuck in place, to glance around and start to worry that this was death- some horrible limbo frozen in the moment it all ended but unable to go any further.
But then it did start to go further. The raindrops began to shimmer in the faintest way that said they were moving again, the elongated ribbons of distorted light began to smooth back into straight lines imperceptibly. And Zana panicked.
As time began to reassert itself Zana's soul screamed in protest with the unreasoning desperation of one with only one hope to cling to left, and she wrenched her gut, trying to hold onto that feeling of being suspended outside of time and motion, grabbing it like a drowning man grabs at a straw, with all of her willpower and holding on for dear, sweet life itself.
And it worked... Partly.
Zana felt reality slam back in around her with a force that made the semi truck seem like a dandelion seed in the wind, but when it did, she was still stubbornly halfway from where she should be, clinging to a moment out of place, like an anchor in a storm. She was still thrown twenty feet across the pavement. Still came to her senses among concrete literally cracked by the force of her impact... But the broken body smeared into red paste she should have been wasn't the result. With a sickening clarity Zana knew what should have been, even somehow felt the idea of it, but like she had somehow been struck so hard by force more than physical, and held onto some other version of what could have been so fiercely, that she was knocked sideways in time itself and grabbed hold of a different possibility so strongly that she came back off-center, in the same place... but not as entirely the same her. The mysterious glowing swirls on her forearms faded away as Zana marveled at her own hands in disbelief. And where did the goggles on her head come from? For that matter, she didn't even remember cutting and dying her hair. She looked up and saw her motorcycle, crushed and strewn across the road, realized what had happened, and promptly threw up and passed out.
When Zana awoke at the hospital, seeing her parents and remembering how she felt thinking she wouldn't get to again, she couldn't control her emotions anymore. There was so much she needed to tell them, so much that it had been part of a nearly impossible string of coincidences that literally rearranged reality to give her back the chance to do so... and yet in the moment all she could do was to hug her mom and sob uncontrollably into her chest like the scared little girl she used to be.
Starting Over for the First Time:
Zana escaped the accident unharmed physically, a miracle attributed to a "lucky fall". Her mother scolded her for not wearing a helmet. Zana tried to argue that she had been wearing one... But the mysterious goggles are what she was wearing after the crash. She couldn't explain it... so she gave up trying to. The red alligator plush from Palmtree Preserve her mother gave her in the hospital for her secret collection was adorable... But holding it gave Zana the most surreal feeling of deja vu, a feeling she had again and again in the days that followed and tried to attribute to having bumped her head when she fell. Zana's boss gave her a week off, two if she needed, everyone was just glad she was okay. After the remains of her bike were delivered to the garage and everyone saw them her boss and coworkers came to the hospital to see her in person and insist she take three weeks, and not a word about it. It was the first time she saw the big lugs she worked with get emotional, and she masked her embarrassment by teasing them for it. They repaired her bike for her, as a get well soon gift, and Zana wanted nothing more than to hop back on it and ride away somewhere. Everyone paying so much attention to her made her feel weird, and she already felt... weird, as it was.
Even so, Zana's parents insisted she stay with them until it was time to go back to work. They had seen her so little recently, and after the accident nobody wanted to take the time together for granted. They even went to Palmtree Park together as a family again, though Zana stuck to the kiddie rides and nothing too fast. Sandals visited Zana at her parent's house, and generally embarrassed her with his big hugs and unashamed tears of joy, but her parents were relieved to know she had a good friend looking out for her where she lived so far out of town.
Zana did eventually tell her parents she was a lesbian. Not in the cool and direct way she intended, but rather in a rushed and stumbling blurting of words over dinner on her third night staying with them after leaving the hospital.
One universal truth for LGBTQIA+ people is that the dreaded moment you finally tell someone what you've been going through never goes exactly as you expect. It's taken better than you thought, worse than you'd hoped, has less drama than you feared, but falls flatter than you wanted. More than anything... it's just awkward. For everyone. But people who love you get through it, and you learn to be a family and love each other again, even if there is a difficult time of relearning how you relate to each other. Zana and her parents are a family, and love each other very much, and are closer now than ever before, and that's what matters. Pain, doubt, confusion and hurt feelings can stay in the past, where they belong.
Zana still chose to live in her apartment out of town, not for distance, but because it felt right now. Although getting back on her bike again was scary, that felt right, too. As did keeping the mysterious new goggles with her... just in case.
First appearance as a hero:
Zana spent a few weeks after the accident really believing she could go back to "normal". The more time she had to return to her comfortable familiar routines the more the destiny-altering accident faded into a dream like memory that could be excused by saying "the mind plays weird tricks when you think you're about to die". Zana figured everything was fine now. But the twin forces of desire and destiny, rarely working in harmony, had other plans, leading to a painful choice that would change Zana's life forever.
While cashing her paycheck at the bank one Friday Zana glanced up at the new teller, a Tabaxi woman with snow-white fur, frost-blue hair and sweet smile, and she was struck. In real life there is no such thing as "love at first sight", because love comes from knowing someone, choosing them for who they are as a person, and not just how they look. Yet in this case Zana felt like she did know this woman, like somehow she always had. Her forearms and upper back felt warm- a tingle of some other reality where a different version of herself she bumped into during her accident had lived a different life and already met this woman. She didn't even need to read the teller's name tag to know it said "Yuki". In Yuki's eyes Zana saw the twinkling of the stars she saw during her accident, and felt the same yearning she had during her moment outside of time. She tried to speak, but her words failed her. Yuki, for her part, just smiled in that patient way customer service people do when tired but keeping up the appearance of friendliness.
Of course in their own timeline Yuki didn't recognize Zana, as they had never met before, and Zana didn't understand herself what she was feeling aside from an overwhelming joy mixed with gut-wrenching anxiety at not knowing how to express her feelings, or if she even should. She gazed into Yuki's eyes for a moment longer, but saw her expression turn to concern and then panic in an instant- the sound of a gunshot rang out as the screaming began.
"EVERBODY ON THE FLOOR!!" RedTide's voice bellowed, and he fired into the air again. It all happened so fast. The stunned Zana was pulled to the floor by the well-meaning stranger behind her and RedTide began going teller to teller, taking the money. Zana tried to stay calm. She knew that if everyone stayed still the man would leave and it would be over soon. A Superhero might even appear to stop him any second, or on his way out the door. All she needed to do was stay calm, like her parents taught her to do in such moments. When RedTide reached Yuki's counter his sheer size and aura of danger standing over her made Zana tremble, despite herself, and for the first time in her life she wished she had superpowers and could put an end to it right now. Yuki, originally from a small town and not used to big city crime, froze up, stumbled her motions, and dropped the cash tray she tried to retrieve with shaking hands. Without thinking, she bent to retrieve it... and RedTide mistook the motion for a ploy to reach the emergency alarm switch. Glaring in anger, he lifted his gun, while Zana watching from the floor at his side, began to cry out in horror.
Fear, desperation, rage, love, hate... Zana couldn't define her feelings in that moment besides a flood of intensity. She saw what was about to happen, and yearned to stop it. She felt herself trying to stand, to shove the villain and throw off his aim, while every fiber of her being screamed against physics, reality, fate, as desperate to avoid the inevitable pulling of the trigger as she was her own near death earlier. Just like then, sound seemed to stretch into silence, light to bend in strange ways, and with a surge of effort somehow Zana got to her feet, slipped on her new goggles like a practiced motion done a thousand times before, and grabbed the gun from the villain's hands before it could fire.
Normal time snapped back with a bang, and Zana stood bewildered, her forearms holding the gun in front of her still faintly glowing with strange swirls of flickering light. The villain directly in front of her just looked very angry and balled his fists as Zana smiled stupidly, unsure of what to do next. She tried to lift the puny handgun to the man's face as a warning, but the villain's hardened scales looked far too powerful to really threaten him with his own weapon, and before she could even try he sideswiped Zana back down to the floor in one painful blow. Seeing his plan falling apart rapidly, RedTide decided to take a hostage for protection, and grabbed Yuki by the hair, pulling her clear across the counter and under one powerful arm in a single motion as he turned toward the exit.
Zana, only beginning to understand her abilities, repeated her clumsy desperate lunge, and pulled Yuki from RedTide's grip, setting her down gently as if in slow motion, and tried to shove the villain to the floor. She mistimed her push, however, stopping just shy of his back but with the force of her movement continuing, and RedTide was struck, sent flying forty feet through the air, and through the glass double doors of the bank entrance out into the street. A stunned hush lingered for a moment. Everyone stared, unsure where this mysterious hero had come from. Zana turned, looking at Yuki staring at her in disbelief. Zana's eyes went from Yuki's... To the glowing swirls of light still fading from her forearms.
Zana realized, painfully, in that moment. A good superhero was a lousy lover. Missed dates, lame excuses, unhealthy secrets and worst of all... the risk that anyone too close to you could be used against you if a villain evil enough to sink to that kind of manipulation ever discovered your true identity.
Sandals' warning not to waste time in love replayed in Zana's mind. The struggles she had gone through as a kid, the wasted hours skimming the personals ads in the Prism Pulse fantasizing about love, the years spent trying to come to terms with herself and talk about it with her parents, the core of her tiny world. Everything Zana had lived for was to find this woman, Yuki, and love her completely. This was her first moment, the one to go for it and not wait she had been warned not to miss. But now that it came the moment wasn't entirely hers anymore. Zana began to realize in her heart that in the accident she lost as much of her own possible futures as she had gained those of some other her. The hero her.
And this was the moment to choose which of her futures came true. She opened her mouth, her lip trembled, forming a word... and the sound of a car crashing and a bellowing roar from RedTide, on a rampage, finished it before she could.
Lightrunner ran from the bank and saved the day. Despite the shattered windows, crashed cars and cracked pavement, thanks to Lightrunner's heroics nobody was hurt. Nobody except for Zana Ray- the girl on a motorcycle who escaped death to finally find the one for her, and died again giving her up to become the hero she never wanted to be.
Chance of Happiness:
Perhaps someday. Although Zana tries to stay away from Yuki, afraid her longing to get close to her will make her do something foolish, fate conspires to see them continually drawn into the same robberies, accidents, explosions and schemes time and time again. Although Zana resists growing too close, Yuki sees her reluctance not for the secret hero identity behind it, but as shyness, and often creates plans that put the two of them together... plans that often backfire in the most spectacular ways.
Someday, when destiny finds a new hero to protect Silver City in Lightrunner's place, maybe poor Zana can finally take her life back and be happy for her own sake. But until that day comes, Lightrunner is already off chasing the light of justice... and this timeline's poor Zana Ray, who never wanted or was even meant to be a superhero, is lost in the brightness.
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This is a character lore story from the Superhero world of Prismaris. It is based on my original stories playing TTRPG games such as Green Ronin Publishing's Mutants & Masterminds. Many of my amazingly talented friends here have created their own characters and stories in this world, and I fully welcome others to join in as well! Please just read the original world lore article here first, and tags your works "Prismaris" (even better if you tag me in the post comments also so I'm notified right away) so that we can find them easily!