Kordelas “Kord” Palasz
Code-Name: Lancer
Position: X-Men (reserve) / Carpenter & Handyman
Ethnicity: Polish-American
Sex: M
Age: 23
Appearance:
Hair: Brown, short, unkempt
Eyes: Green
Skin: Fair
Height: 5’9”
Build: Stocky, burly, somewhat on the ‘thick’ side.
Other: To some Kord could be considered somewhat handsome, though has squarish, blocky features and a smallish ‘weak’ chin. He sports an air of carelessness in both his hairstyle and choice of clothing. He carries himself with confidence and has been noted to have a rugged, sturdy presence.
Date Of Birth: 11-MAR-1997
Place Of Birth: Joliet, Illinois
Education: Military prep training through HS (boot-camp for teens - summers). Trade school – Carpenter’s Apprentice School, Joliet.
Important Relatives:
Father (Julian): Sergeant in the ranks of the Purifiers – Chicago, IL division. Human, living
Mother (Marlena): Medical records clerk for Silver Cross Hospital. Human, living
Powers: Psionic Constructs- This is focused about Kord’s hands and feet. He has the ability to create projections of force that are extensions of his limbs powered primarily by his raw psyche. They are stronger than steel and can be created in various shapes: A sharp lance, a dagger, a club, a fan, a ball around his fist. He can project these slowly or even at the speed of thought to either pummel or pierce like a longer range punch or stab.
Although his career in construction was interrupted, Kord’s powers made him a natural at tasks common to the industry. When not being directly supervised he would utlilize his psionic limbs as hammers, nail sets, prybars, chisels, and even figured out how to vibrate them to produce a sawing effect. With his extended hands, he has learned some other utilitarian manifestations as well. For instance with concentration he can flatten them to reach through the crack under a doorway.
He can work his constructs into curves or bends where he can utilize some practical creativity. For example, he’s figured out how to add a tubular psi-limb barrel extension to any conventional gun he may be wielding, thereby increasing accuracy.
Kord has even learned to fly with his psi-constructs. By strongly launching himself with the power emanating from his feet, he can achieve tremendous leaps, then glide by extending his psi-limbs as flat ‘wings’ from his outstretched hands. He can further accelerate himself with pulsing thrusts from his feet.
In ‘reverse’, a new use Kord has recently adapted, he can plant his feet or hands to solid surfaces, giving him an iron-like grip. This aids in climbing, but while he may have a burly strength, he’s no Spiderman in this regard. He’s hardly an average human rock climber.
Kord can sense the presence of living creatures within the range of his powers. He can't pinpoint their exact location, but unless they have a way of masking their energy or presence, he knows when he isn't alone.
Power Limitations:
- Limited range (about 15 feet)– Kord is always trying to extend this, but it is a tiring exercise.
- The Psi-Constructs currently must project from his hands & wrists or his feet & ankles. Kord cannot seem to radiate constructs from other parts of his body.
- Kord can only focus the fine resolution of his powers on a small area of his construct. For example, he cannot maintain a razor sharp blade shape much longer than an 8-inch knife extending from his fingertip, but he can produce a fine spear point even at the end of his power’s range limit. Creating and extending the shaft of the power-spear is easy, but it’s the business end that requires his mental focus. This restricts him to fairly simple shapes - he cannot create a ‘hand’ on the end of his psi-limb.
- He has had only limited success in creating sustained off-body constructs. For instance, if he made a golf ball sized wad of energy then threw or launched it, it would dissipate soon after losing contact with his hand. Small, stationary objects he creates last a little longer, but fade quickly.
- Except for curves, waves or kinks in a shaped limb when he creates it, Kord’s constructs are not as flexy as a tentacle or flowing like a fluid. He can slightly tweak their shape once extended, like expanding a section or further bending a curve he already created. This is similar to his resolution issue – he needs to focus on small segments at time if he wants to change them. In fact, if Kord has to change the form or function of his limb, he’d have to withdraw it almost completely, then re-form it.
- When in use, the power is visibile as a semi-transparent pale yellow energy field with golden fringe.
- Kord’s power is fueled by a combination of his own will, and to a certain extent by the scattered ch’i of the environment. So if Kord has had a mentally taxing day or is in need of rest – like final exams in Senior Year – his power tends to only be partially effective, or fizzle altogether.
Hobbies and Interests: Arts and sculpting. Hiking & camping. Soccer.
Background: Kordelas Palasz was born in the suburbs of Chicago Illinois in the city of Joliet. His family has lived there since. His father, Julian, is a trained enforcer and security agent that worked for various companies and municipalities over the course of his childhood. Julian is a willful and passionate man with little to no sense of humor, but with a strongly protective and caring nature for people and ideals important to him.
By contrast his mother Marlena is a warm and somewhat doting type who is very transparent with her simple sentiments regarding health and happiness for all. While she seems sweet and superficial on the surface, she can show great reserves of wisdom and compassion when it is needed. She is a records clerk at the local Silver Cross Hospital.
The topic of mutants had always been hushed and avoided in the Palasz household, even though they were known from the news and acquaintances. Despite the fact that mutants were generally an unavoidable and important aspect of life in the modern world, the young Kord recognized that the subject was taboo. In particular he learned that the word was not to be brought up around his father. Julian quickly grew incensed at the mere mention of mutants, as if they were a constant and painful reminder to him of … something. Like an electric shock to Kord there would be screaming and frightful expressions on his father's enraged face when mutant-kind became a topic. In careful quieter times, Kord was able to glean from his mother that there may have been a relative on his father's side that was a particularly harmful mutant. How distant, he never knew, because he was encouraged to drop the subject.
Unknown to Kord, his mother already suspected he may be a mutant – that it was in his blood lines. She also considered it a prudent thing to use her free access to his medical records to alter all indications that he may have mutant traits… for his protection of course.
Like many mutants, his powers began to manifest when he was around 12 years old. Kord’s shut-in mind desired to escape to a happier more fantastical world. He was inspired by mutants, powers and heroics he had heard about. One day in his room he tried to levitate a pencil on his desk using his imaginary telekinesis. He sat a few feet away on the foot of his bed, extended his hand, and simply tried to reach out and touch his target on the blotter. To his amazement and shock it worked! But not like he thought it would. Golden white light enveloped and then flashed outward from his hand, knocking the pencil and a nearby stapler across the room into the wall. He ran to his mother, told her… showed her.
The look of horror on her face terrified him in turn as she forbade him to do it ever again. Hide it! Especially from father… He must never, never know. That evening she pleaded with – ordered him - to simply go to bed before his father got home. She told him to pretend he was sick. Still shocked and frightened by the event and by his mother's reaction, he easily complied, but was left alone under his covers all night with a myriad of confusing and frightening implications he didn't understand tormenting his young mind. The too-common image of his father's screaming visage and his mother's pale terror haunted him for years to come.
Kordelas grew up feeling quite alone – but with this came an air of independence and a practical self-reliance that he leaned upon for strength. To counteract his feelings of shame for being a mutant blight in his family's household, he felt the constant need to atone. This took the form of unconsciously over-compensating with his schoolwork, sports and chores, and he soon began to take on the role of the handyman about the house. He had a knack for applying his brain to figure out how things were built and his hands to complete projects effectively. He would lend himself out to the other apartments in the building and other residences in the neighborhood. Kord did enjoy a sense of fulfillment resulting from helping others.
Secretly, he used his powers to assist him when he sure he was alone, thereby exercising that part of himself. It was a strange cycle that had surprisingly productive results. He would use his abilities on regular mundane tasks, then immediately feel guilty about it. This in turn made Kord feel he had to enact some penance – by working on another constructive project, where he would use his powers as an aid.
Kord's own feelings of pride at his accomplishments were reflected in his father, who began to share his plans for his only son. Julian had already joined the ranks of the Purifiers, and wanted Kord to follow in his footsteps. Throughout high school and over the summers, Kord would begin military prep programs sponsored by the Purifier movement. He would learn protocol, weaponry, tactics, military combat, fitness and practical self-defense techniques. Kord was particularly interested in the hand-to-hand fighting, where he explored the concept of ch’i – the mystical energy that martial artists envisioned would flow through their bodies and lend power to their striking techniques. He was surprised to learn that beyond helping him focus his mutant powers, he could actually feel ‘extra’ ch’i in his environment and could combine it with his own personal energy to an extent. His understanding of this aspect of the world and his powers was a pivotal step in his maturation as a mutant and his true acceptance of his nature.
Kord hoped that following his father's agenda would lead to a greater understanding and closeness with the man and maybe even eventually an approval of his mutant 'condition'. So he persevered in the program through his teens. But Kord eventually came to realize that it was a doomed endeavor and a total farce with which he was deluding himself.
First, Kord obviously knew about the activities of the powerful mutant groups in the world through the media and was bright enough to distinguish the more honorable motives of some organizations from the more violent ones. He began to identify with the X-Men’s cause and romanticized that one day he might have place among them.
Next, his father’s angry attitude towards mutants never lessened. In fact it became more and more demonstrative and viscous, changing from a constant dislike to all-out hatred. Every exclamation and curse aimed at mutants shoved a wedge in Kord’s heart more deeply.
And lastly, he was constantly exposed to the rhetoric of the Purifiers as his prep program became more religious in nature and progressively more extreme. It was all he could do from becoming ill in their presence; secretly knowing HE was the target of their communal hatred. These teens were being groomed and brain-washed! He became very adept at controlling his expressions and emotions among them. On reflection later, he realized that this was actually a great aid in the control of his own psi-powers.
When it came time for Kordelas to graduate High School, his mind was made up. There was no way he was going to follow his father’s plan for him, but instead he eschewed the Purifiers and concentrated on the part of his life that granted him some sort of fulfillment. He joined the nearby Carpenter’s Apprentice School. This caused a huge schism between Kord and Julian, but Marlena was able to intercede and put out any immediate fires.
Kord trained for a few years at the Carpenter’s school, where the subject matter came easily for him. However in the country around him, the transplantation of mutants to Mutant Control Institutes came a bit too close to home for Kord’s liking. Neighbors and friends were suddenly gone – to him the results of the “Safety Act” were nothing short of abduction. Paranoia started taking root. He’d have to be careful about using his powers and started strategizing ways he can leverage them to help him depart into more mutant-friendly parts of the country.
A number of factors caused Kord to finally decide that his fate lay elsewhere. Constant pressure to join the Purifiers ate at the young mutant’s patience along with the unabashed disappointment from his father when he refused. The advent of Project Trident and the deployment of the Bio-Sentinels terrified him and sealed the deal. Life for him in Joliet would never be normal or safe.
Kord left his home in dramatic fashion. On his 21st birthday on March 11, 2018 he decided to tell his parents about his mutation and that he was moving out. He made sure to include his mother in the audience in order to absolve her from having to acknowledge that she already knew of his mutation. Julian shouted a litany of curses in his outrage and betrayal, stormed out and came back with a rifle aimed at his son. Before the man could speak, Kord reflexively lashed out by projecting a narrow psi-limb down the barrel of his father’s gun. Then just as instantly, he expanded it enough to tear the weapon apart. Unfortunately, this caused a detonation of the ammunition and his father was knocked back through the doorway… his mother out of her seat and to the floor.
Kord didn’t remain to witness any further backlash. He ran to his room, grabbed the supplies he had kept prepared and then hurried to the roof of the apartment building.
Using a technique he had only tried once before, he shot his psi-limbs out from the bottom of his feet as strongly as he could, and launched himself into the air. As gravity greedily claimed his body at the top of his arc, he thrust his arms out to his sides and created long, flat fan shaped protrusions of psionic energy that allowed him to glide straight away from home. At this point, he didn’t care if this method of flight worked or not. Either it would, or he would plummet to his death. Both options were acceptable.
He was able to maintain his flight, and headed South without looking back. This was one month before the emergence of Apocalypse and fortunately for Kordelas, also before the Purifiers claimed their independence.
Over the next few years, he fell in with various mutant and human bands, judiciously using his powers or skills to make life just a little bit better for people in those places torn apart by the ensuing wars. When asked his name, he simply called himself “Lancer”. If he found that he didn’t agree with any particular community’s agenda, whether it was a desire for inaction, anti-mutant sentiment, or violent power grabbing by potent mutants, he would depart. All the while he hopped his way South for he had learned that the X-Men had some sort of presence in New Orleans, and he still held on to their ideals.
Personality: Kordelas is very practical-minded, but can also let his thoughts wander into daydreams. Outwardly he seems reclusive and a bit of a loner, but shows he needs to be part of a group in his persistent desire to help others. He’s more the type to enjoy quietly hanging out with friends rather than going to a hopping party. When connects with someone, he values the friendship, but he doesn’t make these connection often. He is aloof on the outside, as if nothing bothers him, but internally he’s a worrier and deep thinker who takes words and actions to heart. Kord is not overly fond of himself and has visceral internal reactions concerning wrongdoings against mutantkind; however, he is also sympathetic to humankind and is hopeful and optimistic for a greater balance and temperance. He has lived firsthand through the worst human attitudes toward mutants, and often he feels he was wrong to stay as long as he did in Joliet. Sometimes he has a reflexive defensiveness, prejudice, fear and distrust of new mutants that he has to willfully suppress.
Special Notes: Play By – Ben Lloyd-Hughes