This young woman may almost pass as 'cute', if she were to spend even a little bit of time taking care of her appearance. But as it is, she's as plain-Jane as one can get, It starts with her dark hair, worn in a state of perpetual dishevel, stray bangs and strands always escaping from their intended positions. Her face is thin with a pointed chin, brows never plucked and slightly too thick over green eyes - eyes that are arguably her best features, but unfortunately hidden behind a pair of thick, black-rimmed nerdy glasses. While her nose is unremarkable, her mouth is wide and her lips thin. Her complexion is on the pale side, with a smattering of freckles on her cheeks.
Her build is thin and scrawny, five-foot-five tall with lanky limbs and slender curves. Not that this is obvious, as she favors loose, formless clothes with poorly-coordinated colors. Take the current attire she wears: a gray top that's a size too big for her, over which is a long gray sweater with sleeves that are far too long. A pair of faded jeans trail down to a pair of gray sneakers. If she is eye-catching, it's only because she's about to be arrested by the fashion police.
Originally from Sacramento, CA, Isabelle "Izzy" Paulus was the only child of Mark and Susan Paulus, who operated their own pharmacy and were thus able to provide a stable home for Isabelle. Her early life was a happy, uneventful one, and she would not have imagined what came next.
When Isabelle was seven, both of her parents passed away in a fire that consumed their pharmacy. Though the police investigation concluded that it was a freak accident, suspicions abound about the case; rumors circulated that the Pauluses were murdered by the mob because they were somehow linked to them, and proved to be a liability. Others whispered someone even more sinister than the mob who wanted the Pauluses out of the way. In any event, the case was quietly closed and never looked at again.
Now orphaned, Isabelle went to live with her paternal grandparents, Henry and Martha Paulus, who have retired to the outskirts of Las Vegas. The event drastically changed the girl's life, and it took her years to get over the depression she fell into following her parents' deaths. She retreated into books - fiction being her favorite - and from there she gradually drifted in with the geeky crowd in her school. When other girls of her class were dating and worrying about their appearances, Izzy was spending her weekends at one of her friends' basements playing Dungeons & Dragons. It wasn't long before she was widely know as the nerd-girl, the only girl in her clique; like them, she endured ridicule and schoolyard bullies, proving that bullying knew no gender bounds.
What she lacked in social skills, Izzy made up for in smarts. She was a straight A student and graduated highschool with honors. While she was set to attend the University of Nevada after graduation, Izzy's senior prom was a bit of a disaster when two of her clique friends (whom she had no romantic feelings for) wanted her as a date, but the jock she had a crush on laughed her off after she worked up the courage to ask him.
Putting that behind her, Izzy went to University and predictably excelled in class. She followed in her parents' footsteps and studied pharmacy, and continued to be at the top of her class. In her sophomore year Izzy developed her second crush in her life, falling for a flighty drama student Aaron McNamara. Because of him she got involved with his circle of art and drama students, spending her free time helping them out with their exhibitions and whatever else they needed organizing. Unfortunately Aaron had little interest in the plain-jane girl, and soon distanced himself from a cluelessly bewildered Izzy.
The stress of the "breakup" was, unbeknownst to Izzy, the trigger of her special ability. There was no flashy explostion or public spectacle; after crying herself to sleep one night, she woke up to find herself inexplicably on the floor of the basement, underneath her room. She might have dismissed it as sleepwalking, if not for the fact that half the blanket she was sleeping in was left hanging off the ceiling of the basement. In the months since, Izzy struggled to deal with this ability, learning to control and activate it only when it was needed.
Her academic career continued to progress; her excellent grades came to the attention of Professor Gervaint, who headed the relatively new genetics department. He made her an offer to become his research assistant in genetic engineering for her graduate studies, and Izzy jumped at the chance. To help out her finanaces, she also took on a part-time job at the North Las Vegas Library as a librarian/archiver.
- Academics/Books: Very well read in a variety of subjects, Izzy is also a bookworm and very willing to dig deep for information she doesn't already know.
- Genetics Engineering: Izzy is a graduate research student in Genetic engineering, and her undergrad study was focused on pharmacy/medicine.
- Geek Culture: Having grown up on SciFi and Fantasy books as well as RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, Izzy is also enamored of geek culture and knowledgeable about games, comic books, movies and shows.
- Computer: Izzy is fluent with computer use, though not at the level of a professional hacker. She can work her way around computer systems, but advanced programming and hacking are currently beyond her understanding (mainly due to a lack of interest on her part).
- Investigation/Deductive Thinking: Izzy is a very smart girl. While not technically a genius, she's still in the top five percentile of the national university students.
Phasing - Izzy's special ability is phasing; in essence, she can phase herself through objects, walk through walls, and fall through floors. She can alter the natural frequency of her body out of sync with the rest of current reality, in effect taking a small sidestep from the physical realm. This power is selective, meaning she has enough control that she can walk through walls without falling through floors. Solids, liquids and gasses alike essentially do not exist for her, and by some quirk her body negates the need for oxygen to survive while in a phased state.
If any part of her body is still within a solid object, Izzy will not be able to phase-shift back to her normal self. Therefore she cannot currently phase-shift a hand back to normal while the hand is inside a person's head and causing it to explode! She is not yet able to phase only parts of her body; right now she can only shift her entire being or not at all.
Her phase-shift affects anything she has skin-to-skin contact with (including clothing, objects and people she's holding). At this point she can phase additional mass equal to approximately twice her body weight - so she can phase two additional people with her if she pushes it. The danger of this is if she breaks contact with people or objects while phased, and these 'passengers' and 'cargo' are still partly within a solid object, their atoms will comingle with the obstruction in a messy, messy way. Liquid and gaseous obstacles will part for such materialization, though liquid obstacles may still cause pain and discomfort for people.
At this point, this ability requires Izzy to be aware and concentrate, which means she cannot reflexively phase-shift to avoid a sneak attack. Theoretically, she can stay out-of-phase indefinitely, but practically she is limited to at most an hour, due to the stress of maintaining concentration for an extended period of time.
