Shania "Shane" Morgenstern
Shania "Shane" Morgenstern
Shane_Laugh.jpg
Portrayed By Alison Pill
Gender Female
Date of Birth March 4th, 1994
Age 16
Zodiac Sign Pisces
Aliases Kiloton
Place of Birth Tarzana, CA
Current Location Xavier's Academy
Occupation Student
Known Relatives Lisanne Cronenberg (Mother), Robert Cronenberg (Maternal Stepfather), Charles Morgenstern (Father), Louis Morgenstern (paternal stepfather)
Significant Other None
Identity Public
Known Abilities Personal Detonation
First Appearance ???

I don't know you, and I'm not interested in ever fixing that.

History

There's always one student that seems to attract bullying. The kid you find headfirst in a trash can within a week of the school year starting, the first name that comes to mind when you hear pounding from inside a locker door, the one the others laugh at every time something unortunate happens, secretly glad it's never them. Shania was one of those kids. Born to a plastic-surgery nurse and an upper-middle-management Project Supervisor for an LA tech firm, Shania seemed destined for bad luck. In grade school, she'd be (badly) serenaded with Shania Twain songs until she refused to answer to anything but Shane (which was slightly more tolerable, but did her no more favors), derided by her peers, and goaded into starting many a fight. At age nine, her parents divorced rather spectacularly; driving home from the clinic one evening, along the way her mother spotted Charles wrapped around a rather beefy man outside a local nightclub. For the rest of her life, her parents would dote on her, sniping at each other only when she was well out of earshot, but such upheaval served as even more bait for the more cruel students.

High school was little different; searching for a social identity, she'd move from social group to social group, always finding herself, for lack of a better term, voted off the island and forced to move on. The need to find a place to fit in, at least, helped her find out where her interests lie, and served her well enough as her taste in music and clothing slowly grew more and more rebellious. First anime, and eventually cosplay, became her hobbies, and both her parents would often praise her talents at costuming, whether or not they found the clothes themselves a trifle worrying.

Her sophomore year began with yet more difficulty, from an unexpected direction; In the middle of a US History test, just after she'd found photos of her in her underwear pinned all over the walls, one of the junior-varsity football players began a surreptitious spitball barrage. The first hit her on the back of her neck, and her temper was getting harder to control. The second dropped on her paper, and she'd had enough. Turning around, she'd opened her mouth to tell him off, when the third smacked her right between the eyes. The entire class burst out laughing, and she felt something inside her snap. The resulting explosion was more sound and fury than deadly damage, but several of her classmates were injured, some bones were broken, and now the school had a new problem on its hands. What to do with a mutant who could, at any time, possibly turn a high school into a war zone?

The school was swiftly polarized, with Shane caught squarely in the middle. One camp wanted the dangerous mutant out of school, all the better for getting rid of Shane personally, while another camp shoved her into the limelight as a prime example of the need for tolerance, regardless of her personal desire to be left alone. At home, things weren't much better. Neither her mother and stepfather, nor her father and de facto stepfather believed the rumors were even true, and her problems were met with little more than well-meaning ignorance… until a family visit from a particularly unlikable aunt necessitated a new living room. Her divided family, in a rare moment of solidarity, did their level best to smother Shane in a blanket of encouragment and nothing-you-do-is-ever-wrong. Which only annoyed her further, though she was at least grateful for the approval and tried not to take out her problems on the only people who cared about her.

Mason Steele, of all people, became the unexpected bright spot in all of this madness. The school's most popular student, a child actor, and up-and-coming talent, suddenly began to want to talk to her. To be her *friend,* when everyone else either wanted her gone or had reduced her to an abstract. For Shane, it was a dream come true. A dream that would soon be shattered.

School had only just gotten out, and Shane and Mason were on their way toward the bus stop, when a group of the loudest anti-mutant students walked around the corner, spreading out and surrounding the pair before they could break away. Despite Mason's defense, it was clear that the group wanted her out, now, and the killer mutie was just an accident waiting to happen. The first blow came from one of the more popular girls, a slap across the face that sent Shane to the ground, too shocked to be angry. Mason tried to stop the group as they moved in, but he was told to take a hike, pushed out of the crowd, and the last thing Shane saw before the beating began in earnest was her only friend in the world, turning his back on her when she needed help the most.

The beating broke her collarbone, three ribs, fractured her jaw, and dislocated her right femur, plus the assorted bruises, cuts, and soft-tissue damage scares. The investigation to follow would uncover that the group had realized Shane might have exploded at any moment, and proceeded to kick her to unconsciousness and beyond, before Shane's anger could have a chance to push past her terror and do real damage to the lot of them. Everyone involved in the beating was brought up on charges, and joined the school itself in court under the lawsuit filed by Shane's father. None of this mattered to the girl herself, however; all she cared about was that, once again, someone she'd tried to call friend hurt her, worse than any individual blow or all together. He turned his back and let it happen.

She was a long time healing, in the hospital. At first, she sank into a depressive despair, only bothering to try to get better because her family needed her to. When she was well enough for her first session of physical therapy, her nurse quickly became 'Dr. Phil' in her mind; he offered no pity, no sympathy, and seemed to be most satisfied when frustration drove her to exercise properly just to shut him up. After the first week of this, she started to get angry about her situation, and everything that had happened to lead up to this point, and without even thinking about it, she started turning that anger toward changing herself as she improved physically. If all she ever wanted was to be left alone, but no one was willing to let her sink into obscurity, then she would just have to shove her identity into the world's face first, and make it back down. If nobody could be trusted, then nobody could be allowed to get close enough to hurt her again. If she couldn't be quiet and obscure, she would just have to be loud and off-putting. Already fond of punk and metal, and owning a large array of anime-styled costumes, she began to wear her creations on a daily basis. Vash the Stampede, Squall Leonheart, Misa Amane and many other characters would be the armor keeping the rest of the world from her, and if the price she paid was to be lonely, then so be it. It wouldn't, after all, be anything new.

When the rep from Xavier's came to tell her and her families about a school in New York, where mutants are treated as gifted, not pariahs, and would give her every opportunity to live the life she *wants,* Shane never doubted she'd be sent to New York. After all, her parents may love her, but how could love stand up to the threat of constant remodeling? And even if this academy was some magical mutant Hogwarts, and not the asylum she privately believed it would be, it would still be a magical mutant Hogwarts full of teenagers. And, Shane believes, nobody on Earth is as familiar with teenage cruelty as she is.

Powers

Shane's only real power is to explode when terribly angry. The explosion is caused by an extremely limited range full-body projection of energy, but the projection is rapid enough to compress the air in front of it, and create a sizeable blast-wave that travels proportionally much farther than the projection itself. This explosion is largely concussive, but the energy involved in creating the explosion does transfer some light and heat, enough to cause minor first-degree burns in anyone unfortunate enough to be standing near her when she goes off.

As she has only practiced in *not* exploding, there are a great many limits on what she *can* do. Due to the relatively minor energy levels she can currently keep a metabolic hold on, her explosions do very little damage beyond ten feet away, and at that range are equivalent to two hundred pounds of force. The force rises exponentially the closer one stands to her, and at 'ground zero,' can produce a full ton of concussive force… But one would have to be physically touching her to take that much damage.

The energy involved in creating these explosions is something that must be generated and stored before it can be released; a telltale sign that Shane is about to explode is the reddening of her skin; first it appears to be a full-body blush, which deepens, and becomes luminescent the instant before detonation. The time between generation and detonation can be as slow as three minutes, or as quick as ten seconds; it's all a matter of how much energy she can create and how much she can store.

Timeline

  • What's happened since you've been approved?

Quotes

  • "I said it!"

Theme Songs

  • 'I'll Get Even' — Megadeth
  • 'Morgenstern' — Rammstein
  • 'Gotta Get Away' — Offspring
  • 'Feelings' — Offspring
  • 'Capsized' — Samiam
  • 'Alien' — Pennywise

Trivia

  • Shane's favorite hobby is cosplay; all the outlandish outfits she wears, she makes herself.
  • One of the benefits of being able to keep your hearing after exploding is, you can listen to music as loud as you please.
  • Amazing thing!
  • Amazing thing!

Gallery

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