Buddy Pine
Posts : 198
Join date : 2015-07-25
 | | Subject: Buddy Pine Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:01 pm | |
| Name:Buddy Pine Face:TinTin (The adventures of TinTin) Age:25 Family members:mother Division:PEP (Psychic and esper powers) Superpower:Memory manipulation Description of superpower:Buddy can control memories of himself and others: he is able to modify, fabricate, suppress, influence, repair, restore, erase, detect, and view them. He can change memories to confuse, wipe away certain memories to cause amnesia, discern and provoke nostalgia, and enter the victim into a psychic vision, replaying their memory. However, the stronger is a memory, the harder becomes to actually replace it or change or delete it, and mind that are trained to protect themselves from psychic attacks are harder to trick. Buddy especially likes to mess around without creating any real, permanent damage. Personality:Buddy is quite a peculiar person: mischievous and even cruel on one side, he can terribly childish and childlike on the other. Sarcastic and witty, he smarter than the average person and he knows it. A prankster, he mostly uses his powers to mess around with people's mind and having fun, if not if his convenience. He gives the impression to have seen it all, to know everything, to have been everywhere, and still and yet he can still give the same reactions an enthusiastic nine years old would give when something surprises him. Story:Buddy is the only child of Molly Pine, a teenage mother who was knocked up by her boyfriend during high school and abandoned as soon as the father found out about the pregnancy. Luckily Molly’s parents were very rich and understanding, so the girl could give birth to her child and start her small family counting on their support and on their money. Buddy’s grandparents passed out when he was a child and he and his mother inherited their fortune, his mom was still young and pretty but she never cared to find another man, the only man she needed, as she always said, was her Buddy. They weren’t a traditional family, but they were happy together. Buddy’s childhood as well as teenage years passed without problems: he messes around a bit with his powers, he was a pit of a prankstar and liked to joke around but that didn’t stop him from being full of friends and even girls! As he finished with school, he knew he didn’t really need a job since he was going to inherit one day all his family’s fortune but still he didn’t just want to wait around: for three years he travelled the world, stopping in the most various places and making the most various jobs. When he went back home, he decided to enroll in university just because his teachers insisted that such a brilliant mind shouldn’t go waisted: he started studying psychology cause human mind fascinated him and soon enough he got his degree. After university he wasn’t really sure of what to do but then he stumbled upon the news of the new training academy for UN agents and decided that, why not, being an agents could be fun. Such a pretty life, isn’t it? Pity that it might all be a lie. Buddy himself is not sure about that: with his power of messing around with memories, modifying even his own memories and the ones of the people around him is just too easy and too tempting. He has no doubt he has altered something in his own mind, there something like a safe where he keeps all those unwanted, unwelcome memories, but it’s hard to say even if that safe is empty or not: sometimes he finds himself visiting it and after he is never sure if he has just deleted some little piece of himself, or if he was just thinking about it or if instead he has maybe taken a look and decided to forget again… - Spoiler:
Where to start with Buddy’s life? Possibly with the clichè’s phrase: it’s a lie. It’s all a lie. A lie that was eradicated in the roots of his power: now many people with ‘special talents’ find out about those gifts only in their teenage years if not in their adulthood. For Buddy it was different, his power manifested itself since the very beginning, it was born with him. And, needless to say it, he had no control over it.
Buddy was born from Sarah and Steven Walker, an average, young couple. He was their first child and when he was born it didn’t look like there was any particular problem. Except 8 months Buddy had to be set up for adoption because both Molly and Steven had gone crazy. Has the neighbors had told to the police, since after childbirth they had started acting strangely, forgetting things and developing strange habits, getting worse and worse every day. The neighbors didn’t know what to do and, worried for the child, they had ended up calling for child service: turned out not only that Molly and Steven were not able anymore to take care of Buddy, they weren’t even able to take care of themselves. And they had been such a healthy, nice couple…
Buddy was set up for adoption, but in truth he started a period where he jumped from a family house to another. People around him always seemed confused, dizzy, but for some strange reason they just weren’t able to express this problem: it was like they would forget about it the moment Buddy was out of their view. And if you can’t remember a problem, that problem doesn’t exist.
Now, beside this creepy aura that surrounded him, Buddy was actually quite a sweet kid. He was nice, gentle, with those big puppy blue eyes… it was impossible not to like him! And still and yet, he never managed to stay for long in one place, people never sticked around for long. He was quite sensitive, always suffered when he had to move, it even caused him physical pain such as stomachache or nausea or headache.
Once, when he was 6, he had just gotten in a new home, one of the tutors invited him to draw with her and other kids. She hoped this would help him vent and deal with his emotions. He joined them and drew a picture of himself with the other kids and the tutor, imagining how nice it would be to belong there, to overcome to be the new kid once again. After he had done and he had shown the drawing to everyone, all the kids and the tutors seemed to think that he had been there for quite a long time now.
Buddy’s power had been with him since birth, but that was the first time he actually took notice of his gift. Furthermore, he understood he could use it.
As we said, Buddy was a nice child, sweet and nice and kind: he intended no harm. But he was 6, he had no family, he kept passing from family house to family house and he felt really alone. He started using more and more his newfound power, and inducing affection and care into tutors and other kids was his first purpose.
At the beginning he thought he needed to draw things to create or change a memory, but soon enough, before he had done with elementary school, he realized his power over memories was far bigger than this and needed nothing more than his mind. As a child, though, he didn’t care much: all he wanted was to be loved and this power of his was a mere instrument he had to reach his purpose, he didn’t care about deepening his knowledge of it.
But this induced affection, those fake, manipulated memories he made up… they had limits. If for one moment a memory he had created had seemed incredibly real to a person, the following moment it could already look only like a dream… his power was incredibly unstable and he couldn’t understand how to use it or what he was doing wrong. What he could see, though, was that no matter what, he was still alone and who was supposed to love him still didn’t love him enough.
The passage from elementary school to middle school came with the realization that the only way to obtain what he wanted, was to push harder with his power. He started studying more his power and his limits, understanding that he could do more or less everything with someone else’s memory, although it was hard to modify stronger memories, and implant new memories was harder then modify existing ones.
Buddy was growing up, the sweet, little kid was turning into an awkward, insecure, grumpy teenager and even the use he made of his power started changing: sure, he never stopped trying to gain love trough it, making friends through false memories and things like that, but beside that he started using his power to play tricks on other people, on people he didn’t like, on his ‘enemies’, on the ones who tried to bully him… And he started to like it. Fuck them, he was the one with the power! He could mess with them as much as he wanted! He was the puppeteer!
He experimented with his power, he started to understand it better, to define his limits. And he realized that in the same way he could change someone else’s memory, he could change his owns. Sure enough, this wasn’t something he was eager to do, why would you ever want to mess up with you own mind? But when he understood he could just delete from his mind the memory of a bullying episode right after it happened… well, that was too tempting not to be done. That ability, forgetting pain and painful memories, made him stronger… at least in his mind.
Since the beginning of middle school he changed family house only once, quite a record for his standards, so for once he actually managed to create real bonds with the kids around him, not only fake memories. In particular there was a child around his age, quiet and nice, with the same red hair he had, just a little taller than he was. He got along quite well with him and Buddy liked spending time with him, they were becoming friends but then he got adopted. Actually the family had been directed toward Buddy himself, but had ended up adopting the other kid.
Buddy kept sending bad vibes to new people, and he still wasn’t able to play with their memory on the spot… not enough to make them like him anyway. The child left the house and Buddy didn’t even think about him for a long time. Until he met him again, almost a year later. He was 12.
It was in a supermarket: the kid was with his parents and his younger sister, they looked so happy. And he and that kid were so damn similar! Buddy couldn’t say what got into him that day, but as they had to leave he switched places with the other boy.
He messed with the boy’s memories so that he would think he was still an orphan, and he messed with the family so that they would think he was their child.
It was hard to make it work. Really hard. Modifying memories so they would remember him, and still see them scared and doubtful the following day… It took time and effort to take the other child’s place, and it still wasn’t enough: the adoption was still connected to the other him. And he didn’t want to be a family-less kid anymore! High on his power, he started creating memories from nowhere, convincing them he was and had always been their son. And in the end, he gave in in his own lie, willingly giving up on the orphanage memories.
It took 2 years, but after that Buddy could finally say he had a family. And still, did it make him happy? No. Cause this wasn’t anymore the family that he had seen at the supermarket anyway. In his attempt to make them accept him and love him, he had changed them, he had pushed them on the road to insanity. They did believe now they were his parents, they did believe even that those memories where real and still and yet that felt no love for him! He had tried to direct the love that they felt toward each others on him, but he had only managed to scatter their feelings. All he managed to obtain, was a broken family, that he truly believed was his family and that he hated.
His parents ended up asking for a divorce: he thought about stopping them but decided not even to try, after all there was no reason. He ended up living in an apartment with his mother and sister, but his mother was always angry, his sister hated him, his father too the chance of the divorce to avoid him… Sure, at school he could have all the fake friends he wanted, and all the fake girlfriends he desired but it wasn’t enough. There was a void he couldn’t fill.
And that was when he met Molly Light, his neighbor: she was 31, she lived just next door and she was always so nice and sweet to him. She was quite, and looked so pail and frail, il looked like the world had been pretty merciless on her and when Buddy took a look at her memories he could see he wasn’t wrong: she had lost her parents at a young age and then she had been sexually abused by her uncle, who had been her legal tutor for a long time. She had had the strength to run away from him only in her 20s, and she had been alone since then, too afraid to let anyone in, and still horribly lonely. Like Buddy himself.
To Buddy that was love. Not romantic love, he had no romantic feeling whatsoever toward the girl who was in her 30s. No, what he felt was pure filial love. For the first time in his life, he actually wanted to help someone else, to use his power to ease some else’s pain. Furthermore, he wanted her to be his mother.
This time he took his time: for a couple of months he took care of erasing her bad and sad memories, gently implanting himself instead, making sure to do a nice job. As school was over and summer vacations were about to start, he decided it was the right time to leave and start a new life with Molly.
He wiped himself away from his family’s minds, not even remembering he wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place, and convinced Molly to change home. They went to leave in a small house in the periphery, as mother and son. Molly was a simple salesperson in a supermarket, her pay wasn’t enough for the both of them, so Buddy decided to start a small part time job. It was just the two of them, but now Buddy could say he was really, really happy. And he thought Molly was too: she, like he, wasn’t alone anymore. She even smiled more.
Slowly, to be sure it would work, to be sure it would be good, it would feel real, he implanted in both he and Molly’s mind the same memories: he gave her a new story, taking her real one and changing it just enough to wipe away the awful, hurtful parts, adding himself in it. He made her a single mom, they didn’t need a dad, they were happy on their own… Once again, he wiped away his past.
Now one could object… how could he gain experience from past attempts if he deleted them? Well, Buddy had soon realized that deleted memories are never really deleted: they are put in a figurative, imaginary mental-safe: there, only the one with the key can have access to them.
And he was well aware of where his mental safe was. Still figuratively speaking, he often found himself staring at it: he could freely visit it, he could restore all his memories, cause he was well aware that at least some of his memories had been altered a bit. But how much damage he had done… he didn’t know, and he wasn’t too eager to find out. After visiting that safe he was never sure if he had actually just avoided it once more, or if he had stared at what he had done to himself and decided once again to forget. He didn’t want to admit it, but the thought of what he could find in there scared him…
For almost 3 years he lived a happy life with Molly, and even if Molly did show now and then some confusion, like everyone in the past had, she was the one who reacted best to Buddy’s powers. Either Buddy had actually learned to do a better job, or she was more willing that the others to accept him in his life. Buddy was more keep on the second option, even if he was proud of his job.
Then, on his 18th birthday, Buddy took an important decision: he opened his mental-safe. The weight of informations was overwhelming and almost drove him crazy, the pain was even physical! He could forget everything once more, he could just pretend he had seen nothing, but he would be tempted to open that stupid vault again soon anyway…
Instead, what he did was track down his biological parents. They were both recovered in a mental institution, unable to handle the most basic actions on their own: their minds were a mess. The though he had done this to them, even unwillingly, made him sick: what sort of monster was he?
He couldn’t forget this once again, but he couldn’t go on with his normal life either. He ran away from home, leaving a note to Molly. He didn’t know what to do, what to be, what to do with himself… even with Molly herself! She still thought she was his mother and he was too much of a coward to let her go! But… would he end up leaving her in the same state as his original parents? She did often look a bit confused, dizzy… as everyone else before her…
He started traveling around the states, keeping in touch with Molly but trying to understand what to do with his life. He did various job, stayed in various places, met various people, but he was never satisfied and after only a couple of months or less he moved on to the next city.
That was his life for two years. Until he met Stan. Stan Pine was quite an enigmatic guy: rich, powerful, he recognized quickly Buddy’s power and introduced himself as an old man with a philanthropic interest in helping others. He could see Buddy was having a rough time, and Stan had helped others with Esp powers before him… Buddy was fascinated, not to mention he had been on his own for so long now that having someone willing to spend time with you was a pleasurable change. Furthermore, Stan was willing to help him test the limits of his powers.
Stan welcomed Buddy in his own home, a huge villa with all the comforts one could desire. He made him meet other people with Esp powers, talk, train, he convinced him to finish school and to enroll in university to study psychology and understand better human mind, in order to be able to use better his power.
Buddy was starting to feel stronger, more confident. The sweet kid he had once been had long gone, it had been replaced for a long while by an awkward teenager, full of anger and doubts who still, though, only sought some love. Now he felt like he was finally closing that phase too: he could even managing to make peace with his past and his demons, and even managed to explain the Molly-situation to Stan. He kept calling her periodically, and since Stan had taken him in he had visited her now and then, still pretending she was his mom. Buddy finally expressed his fears that maybe, just maybe, he was keeping her as his prisoner, in a mental cage he had built for her… but she was so miserable before! And even now, when he had had the impression she could recall that something in her memories was wrong… it looked like she was willing to believe, she wanted to believe he was hers on like he wanted to believe she was his mom!
Stan didn’t judge him. If anything, he understood his troubles and when Buddy decided that no, he wouldn’t let Molly go, he understood that too.
Now, for one year Stan asked nothing to Buddy. He just helped him, making him actually believe that he was doing this just out of generosity. And Buddy was so naive he actually believed it. When Stan asked him a little favour, to Buddy that sounded only fair. Using his power to help him in his business… there was nothing wrong with it, right? And what was a small favour compared to all he had done for him? Pity that a small favour turned soon into two, and then for, ten, fifty, hundreds!
And the more Buddy wiped away memories, or made up new ones, or dug into someone's mind to find the right memory, the more he understood that Stan had planned it all from the beginning, cause such a powerful boss of such an important criminal organisation obviously could use such powers as his.
All the self respect Buddy had acquired through time was suddenly gone, replaced by self loathing: how did he end up being one of the henchmen of such a criminal mind?
He still didn’t manage to rise up, he owed too much to Stan, and Stan was too powerful anyway... and he had to admit, he was settling in fine in this new life... he was even making friends, real friends! Well... they were jerks, kinda like he was, but... that was probably why it worked so well. And they had powers too, another thing they shared...
With Reno and Nolan it was quite love at first sight: they did nothing but bicker and make sarcastic and even heavy comments but somehow, that worked! In no time drinking together and spending time after missions and stuffs became a habit, Buddy started to feel welcome for who he was, not just for an imposition of his power... and that helped bear the problem he had with the 'job' he got.
And then there was Leon... now with Leon it didn't start off as easily.
The guy was one of Stan's most trusted men, and when Buddy had to start make him "favours", Stan just wanted to be sure he'd be safe (since he was quite the troublemaker and Stan didn't want to lose so easily his golden goose) so Leon received the job to look after him. Neither of them was happy with it, but soon they both had to get used to the situation. For six long months they did nothing but fight each others, bickering and arguing, with Buddy being the usual jerk, teasing Leon as much as he could, and Leon making Buddy regret it every bit in any way that didn't include killing him.
It looked like those two were destined to be enemies, and instead, surprisingly enough, they became lovers. They had a rough, intense relationship, but... well, it worked for them. Buddy would have never said that out loud, but what had started just as a sexual relationship soon was filled with feelings. If he had ever loved anyone in his life in a romantic way, well, that was Leon. And he suspected the feeling must have been mutual, since the guy even asked him to marry him. Not that either of them cared much about marriage, but in time Buddy had shared everything with Leon and the guy knew how Buddy had always wished to be part of a family, how he had actually stole the surnames he used since quite an early age... the commitment didn't matter much, but leon wanted to give that to him: as surname he didn't have to steal and a sense of belonging.
They had a small ceremony, just the two of them, Reno and Nolan as witnesses and Hiro as ring bearer. Hiro was a 12 years old boy with quite a difficult situation at home Buddy had taken a liking in: he had saved him once, back when he was only 9, and since then the little guy had kept coming back, no matter how many times Buddy tried to tell him he had to stay way. in the end, he had given up. He had actually ended up arranging a guest room just for him, for when he wanted to stay: after all it didn't look like the boy's parents cared at all... While Buddy soon couldn't help but feel protective toward the little guy.
All in all, life was fine, even if Buddy had to deal with a 'job' that he hated. He actually wanted to quit, to just leave, but Leon didn't share his problems and, what's more, he couldn't understand them: to him the job they had was fine, they had big money and tons of free time, why did they have to leave such an easy life? That was the reason of many, many fights between them... but in the end, Buddy was always the one who gave up, who decided to stay, for Leon... until the day Stan forced him to wipe away completely the minds of two people. He had never willingly done that before, his job was to find informations or erase them, mess up people's mind, even torture them, but never this... and it didn’t matter if they were criminals, they still didn’t deserve such a thing… the sight of their blank glances, so similar now to his biological parents, sickened him. That was enough.
Later that night, when he got back with Leon in their apartment, Buddy knew he just couldn't live like this anymore. "That's it. I'm done. I'm leaving." of course he and Leon started fighting, and to Leon this was just like every other time, he was sure Buddy would take it back and that things would go back to normal, but he was just so pissed off, he couldn't stand that attitude of his and in the end he just left the apartment, slamming the door behind his back "Call me when you come back to your senses".
This time, though, Buddy was absolutely serious. Stan had left the city after that last mission, though, so he had to wait a whole week before he could meet him. Meanwhile, Leon didn't come back, and he didn't call him either. When Stan came back, Buddy decided to meet him immediately: it was late night, but that didn't matter, he had waited long enough and now he had to tell him. He was leaving. He would have even gone without a word, but he didn’t want to risk Stan going after him or maybe after Molly. Stan, of course, didn’t like it. The discussion degenerated quickly and when Stan threatened repercussions on Molly, Buddy attacked him. Stan recovered his gun from his desk but Buddy was quicker and managed to shoot him.
Stan was a murderer, a criminal, an awful person, but for a period Buddy had actually loved that man. And now he had killed him.
What was worse, Leon loved Stan, and after the way they had fought he doubted he would believe it had been an accident... But that wasn't the only problem: what if someone found out? He could maybe ask Reno and Nolan's help, but he didn't want to drag them into this, it was too risky. Not to mention the sickening sensation of knowing he had killed a man... how could he cope with that?
He had to cover up his traces, he didn’t want to end up in jail for being a murderer. Implant a memory in the servants as well as in the few criminals that actually worked directly for him that he had died for a heart attack wasn’t hard at all. He buried him in the garden, and he thought he could even leave at that point but before he did so, he decided to check Stan’s cards one last time. He found out, Stan Pine was just one of the many identities of this criminal… and Stan Pine had no heir, no successor… actually, the name of Stan Pine wasn’t even connected to illegal activities, for that he had other names, even other locations he used. That was when the idea hit him. No matter how wrong it was… Life hadn’t been kind to him, so why would he have to play fair?
Beside, with what he had just done, he just couldn't go back to his old life... But to disappear properly, he had to delete himself from the memory of the ones that mattered to him... He started with Leon: track him down wasn't hard at all, not after knowing him for 3 years. Now Leon had always hated Buddy's mind tricks, and Buddy had soon learnt to stay away from Leon's mind, that was possibly the strongest mind he had ever met, but this time he just didn't see another solution. While Leon was sleeping he sneaked inside his mind and removed himself from all his memories, just himself, trying not to make a big mess so that such thing would be accepted even by a ming as strong as Leon's one. After that it was Hiro's turn. He even considered about taking the boy with him, but beside the obvious consequences of what kidnapping the boy could mean, he didn't want to tinker so much with his mind: it was like growing a tumour inside it! Lastly, he took care of Reno and Nolan, but before doing so he decided to go out and drink one last time with the boys: it was a big mistake since in the end, when it was time to use his power, he was too drunk to think straight and made a big mess, making them forget things that they should have remembered and leaving intact the memories of who he was...
In the end, he took care of himself. He deleted everyone of this old life, and slowly implanted memories of a life he had never lived. He started a new lie, a bigger lie, a memory to implant in the servants that he still decided to fire. He made Molly his daughter and heir. He even provided to change their surnames.
He went home, recovered Molly and started messing once again with her memories. It was for the both of them, this was good, they were going to be rich! She could quit her job, she could have a better life!
They went together in Stan’s villa, but he didn’t trust staying there and decided to sell it and buy a new one. For quite some time he was afraid that someone would have found out, too much money, that scam was too big, he had surely messed up too much… But after a whole year nobody seemed to care, nobody seemed to have noticed anything, and he could take his degree in philosophy without any problem.
He was 23. His life had been a mess, but now he was rich, Molly looked happy and he did feel like she was his mother. He was powerful and great, he had a chance to be happy but his past got in the way! So he decided what he had been thinking for a while. He re-wrote his own memory, taking as a basis the fake memories he had given to Molly.
The pleasure now to look in Molly’s eyes and actually believe she was his mother! That was incredible. The doubt of what he could have put in his mental safe was just a little price to pay, sacrificing with his past part of his personality and mental sanity was again not a big deal.
For two years he enjoyed his new life, enjoying the money as well as the fake friends and the fake girlfriends that both the money and his powers would give him. The first time he heard about the Elite World Training Center For Gifted talents he didn’t actually care much about it: why a guy like him would ever want to be a UN agent? Didn’t he have everything already? Wasn’t his life great? Yes… maybe… and still… either for an uneasy feeling Buddy couldn’t express, for a boredom that rich people sooner or later experiment or just cause after all he had to do something with his life, in the end he decided to take the test. He wasn’t surprised to know he passed.
Extra:- He's particularly susceptible about his height - Often, in the memories he give others, he makes himself taller, and he can't stand when people see him and comment "oh, I remembered you taller" - He has an extremely close relationship with his mother, toward whom he is really protective | |
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