General Information

Real Name Ash Merry
Current Alias Chameleon
Marital Status Widowed
Classification Super

Characteristics

Gender Fluid
Age 58 (11/11/59)
Height 5'11"
Eyes Yellow
Hair Red
Discovery June '74
Abilities Metamorph
Decreased Ageing
Increased Agility
Regenerative Healing

Extended Information

Nicknames Ash, Blue
Relatives Robert Merry
Kara Merry
Darren Cadence
Dominic Cadence Victor Sinclair
Sexuality Fluid
Handler Miles Shaw
Occupations Nurse
Reg Recruitment Aug '92

Ash didn't always have blue skin and yellow eyes; her appearance didn't alter like that until she was fifteen years old. Previously, Ash had been a light skinned, blue eyed blond with light freckles and sweet dimples. She'd been the typical girl next door for the first fifteen years of her life.

However, shortly after her fifteenth birthday, Ash started to change. Her skin started to tint softly at first, becoming dry and hard in some places. Before the time of her sixteenth birthday, Ash's skin was a sharp cobalt blue, all over, with darker scale like details over her arms, shoulders, neck, sternum, legs, pelvis, buttocks and face.

Her formerly baby blue eyes were now all yellow with black iris', and her hair was a deep red instead of blond.

Now that Ash is able to utilise her metamorphing ability she can change her appearance to anything, but when she is unable to shift due to the implant or her own consciousness, this is the form she reverts to. If Ash is not wearing her true skin, she will wear the blond haired, blue eyed appearance that she might've had if her powers hadn't developed.

If there's one thing that someone really notices about Ash, it's that she's the mom-friend. In any circle, in any group, she's the 'mom'. She's supportive, reliable, patient, very loyal and exceptionally nurturing. She likes to take care of people, she spent a lot of her youth as a nurse, even hiding who she was, that made her feel the accomplishment that made it worth while. Caring for others makes Ash feel good; whether it's helping them get better, teaching them something she already knows, killing their nemesis.

Yes. Ash has developed a protective streak that may, to some, appear a little extreme. However, in her rather full life to date, she's needed to do such things twice. And while she is sorry for the life(s) she took in order to achieve her goal, she isn't in the least bit sorry for the outcome of that decision. There are few things that Ash will explode over, her tolerance for things is exceptionally high and she tries to be understanding, however her protective instincts are so dialled up that she does and will go to extreme lengths for those she has a close emotional connection with.

She can over load herself at times, she has a strong sense of duty, especially to others, and can be a bit of a perfectionist at times, this means Ash pushes herself to the breaking point in order to achieve the best possible outcome in all aspects of her life. She's very hard working, and often very enthusiastic about her work, even the work she may not have chosen for herself. She prides herself in a good job and taking absolute responsibility for her actions. Usually, Ash will stomp down her own feelings and emotions regarding an issue, presenting what she thinks others would prefer to deal with or what they could handle best, this means she sometimes has a lot bottled up, but she's not had the proper time to work through a lot of things she has to deal with.

If triggered, Ash's implant renders her unable to alter her form and with a basic human's agility and healing. Long term use of her implant would result in a normal rate of aging, although it does not instantly result in her age catching up.

Metamorph

Ash is able to psionically change the formation of her biological cells at will resulting in a change in appearance and sound; able to change her gender, her voice, making herself look human or non-human, duplicate another person and even alter her finger prints, retina and vocal chords to that of someone elses.

Ash's ability allows her to mimic textures of skin, hair length, clothes and fabrics, the cadence of voices and accents. If she is mimicking a person, her psionic connection to her abilities means she only needs to have veiwed them in person once to be able to copy their appearance, mimicing their gait and voice habits is up to Ash's observations themselves.

Limitations: While she's able to alter her gender, it is only in appearance, as Ash is physcially female and cannot alter her own genetics to change that permenantly. Similarly, she cannot change her mass, while she might be able to look taller or smaller, wider or slimer, Ash isn't able to fully alter this of herself. She must still mataining the same mass of her own body -she cannot shapeshift into a small child now that she is an adult, she also cannot change into an animal beyond beind a humanoid with animal traits -tiger stripes instead of her blue scales, snake eyes instead of her yellow ones. She does have limited ability in altering her colours to blend into an area, but this is limited to just a few simple backgrounds, more complicated or busy camoflague is too confusing for her ability to alter.

Ash can make minor alterations to her own form, such as talons or fangs, but cannot fabricate wings to her form due to the phyisological alterations.

Decreased Ageing

Ash ages at an exceptionally decelerated rate; while she may be in her 50's, she still has the appearance (mostly) of a young woman, this is partly due to her metamorph abilities which allows her to appear however she likes, her organs and skin age slower than an average human, although no tests can determine just how slow her ageing is, as her natural form when inhibited from using her powers does not directly indicate an age bracket. Short of examining her skeleton it's hard to say just how slowed her ageing would be or indeed what her natural lifespan might be.

Limitations: The ageing rate is slowed, not stopped. Ash will still age and potentially deal with the side effects, but it will just take slightly longer. She can make herself appear to be an average woman in her 50's, and she has in the past used that for a cover while younger, however it is not a true representation of her current appearance.

When her implant is triggered, if left long term, Ash would age at a normal rate. It is unknown if her actual age would determine anything in regards to life span if left with her implant on.

Increased Agility

Ash's agility is augmented in a way that is higher than that of peak human agility. She is able to rapidly respond to situations around her and adapt her reactions to the situation efficiently by integrating balance, coordination, speed and reflexes to a reactive state.

Ash has dutifully trained to be able to utilise this in a gymnasitic approach, increasing her fluidity with movement in the field.

Limitations: While Ash's agility is increased it is not absolute. She is not agile to the point of being unhitable, she has faults and flaws and is only as fluid as her body can allow. Exhaustion plays a part as she does not have enhanced endurance and will tire just as quickly as an average person of the same fitness level.

Regenerative Healing

In addition to a decelerated ageing, Ash has the ability to self-regenerate. This means that Ash is able to recreate lost of damaged tissues, repair her organs from damage or failure, has an immunity to toxins based on how rapidly her healing can function versus the dose of the toxin, potential limb regrowth/reattachment and could possibly be part of her slowed ageing.

Ash has never had to attempt to attach or regrow a limb, although her regeneration level is fairly advanced, she isn't particularly looking to test it's limits with that.

The current theory puts Ash at an adanced state of regeneration level; external wounds such as breaks, burns and lacerations heal at an accelerated rate, she can survive severe blood loss where others wouldn't, damaged organs repair quickly, although previously removed organs do not grow back -Ash's appendix was removed prior to her abilities triggering, this did not result in the regrowth of her appendix. It's speculated that Ash will never suffer genetic disease however it's expected her regeneration level will not grant her immortality.

Limitations: The limitations of the regeneration ability are largely untested due to Ash's unwillingness to experiment with the questionable results and the potential damage it may cause her. To date, no one has over ruled this due to her usefullness. When Ash's implant is triggered, she displays no ability to self-regenerate and heals at the rate of a normal human.

Born in 1959, Ash was a perfectly average child for most of her life. The only child of middle class parents, she had a completely normal upbringing; she attended school, helped her mother with chores, obeyed her father's rules, attended church and aspired to marrying a smart, gentle, kind man and have children. Things changed slightly when she started school. There was an emergency in class one day and the nurse had to be called. Ash was besotted with the action, with the efficiency in the nurse and the overall expectation of the nurse to fix everything. She went home to her mother and declared her desire to be a nurse, never swaying from it for years.

The only snag came when she was fifteen years old, struggling with the burdens being a teenager, and Ash woke up blue.

Power Development

For several days, Ash faked a sickness that kept her locked away from her family and confined in her room, panicking about the new colour of her skin and apparent scales she developed. No amount of scrubbing in the shower or bathtub helped and Ash was running out of things to try when Sunday and Church approaching and there was no way her parents would allow her to miss church. Ash found that she could change herself, literally, from the blue, scaled appearance she'd woken up to, back to her previous appearance. What she did notice was that her form flickered back to blue every time she was distracted. Ash made the conscious decision to not get distracted.

And it worked out, for a while. Ash would always wake up blue, and always change herself to 'normal', and go about her day. Whenever her concentration slipped, she revered to blue skinned, yellow eyed and red haired. So Ash pushed herself to maintain while in public, but let it slip in private. She stopped being as social for a while, scared that someone would find out she was a freak.

It took a while, but eventually Ash learned that she could change her appearance entirely. Not just back and forth from blue and 'normal'. She'd been singing along to 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon' on her record player when suddenly she realised she looked like Tony Orlando, exactly like Tony Orlando; skin, hair, big white smile, even the outfit he wore on the album cover. Ash had another meltdown in the bathroom before finally pulling herslef together to work out just what she was. Over the next few years she was able to control her morphing, maintain the look she wanted with flawless control, shifting effortlessly between identities, mimicking people she'd met and seen and singers and movie stars she'd watched.

It was still very daunting, but Ash learned how to live her life around her abnormality, while hiding it from everyone.

Career & Marriage

Like her plan, Ash was able to attend nursing school after she graduated, training to help people and be a trauma nurse. No one ever suspected that she was hiding anything and Ash grew exceptionally competent with her ability. To most, she was just a bubbly, friendly blond nurse who never seemed to age. Which Ash eventually caught on to, in time to remember she needed to appear a little older as time passed. She did realise that she had to make the conscious effort to do this, because while blue she looked like her 21 year old self, even as she reached 30.

It wasn't high on her mind when she met Darren Cadence, a kind and gentle business man who visited the hospital she worked at with a broken hand. He was cheesy and silly, and Ash couldn't help but be charmed by his poking fun. He asked her out and she accepted, the pair hitting it off and progressing to steady dates before Darren expressed to Ash's elderly parents that he would like to marry her. They were both very approving and within five months of meeting, Ash and Darren were wed in a small city hall ceremony.

It felt like Ash was accomplishing everything she'd dreamed of as a young girl. Even through the passing of her parents, Ash had the devotion of a great husband and the new addition of a sweet baby boy. Ash was able to throw herself into her family, and for a few years, everything was fine.

Anit-Super Riots & Regiment

In 1992, at the age of 33, everything came crashing down.

Ash was accidentally caught up in a riot that broke out at an anti-Super rally, the demonstration got violent and broke into the streets, leading to numerous casualties and deaths. One such death was Darren, who was the victim of a trample resulting in a punctured lung. Darren bled out before help could get to them because of the riot. In the following chaos Ash was questioned before people from the Regiment organisation showed up. She'd outted herself during the follow up, shifting appearance numerous times in the flurry of activity and her own grief.

Voluntarily giving Dominic up to Darren's family, Ash went into Regiment willingly, going through training which resulted in the documenting of a power she wasn't aware she had, and confirmation on her healing and ageing. Ash had a new purpose, training for missions, usually undercover where she'd assume an identity and break in to gather information and leave without anyone realising she wasn't the person she looked like. It wasn't ideal, but Ash was making it work.

For the first time ever she was encouraged to assume her natural appearance, wearing her blue skin more often than her 'normal' style appearance. She made friends, bonded with team mates and found that life wasn't utterly terrible. Even if she seemed to outlive most of her teammates, purely because she was able to heal and continue working, her ageing decreased significantly.

At the beginning of 2018, Ash was put down for another transfer, heading to Washington to join Wraith facility.