Name: Abigail Rose Krause
Aliases: Abby
Age/DOB: 30/ March 23rd, 1988
PB: Elçin Sangu
Gender: Female
Sexuality : Straight
Registered: 2006
Residence: “Little Genosha”
Height: 5’7″
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Light Brown
Eye Color w/Powers: Yellow glowing
Family:
Mother – Margo Krause
Father – Unknown
Appearance
Abby stands at 5’7″, has red hair and light brown eyes that glow a soft yellow when her power is in use. She has a small physique and tends to wear oversized sweaters or jackets because she doesn’t think she has a figure worth showing off. Of course, she’s pressured into dressing up more when in public or in court to look less homely, so she does so reluctantly. She is rarely seen without her vision book, which she typically keeps in an old shoulder bag along with a variety of drawing implements. Her choice of long sleeves isn’t a style choice either as much of a choice to hide some of the scars she has from when she was in GD. Some are barely noticeable now, while a few others are much more obvious. She is very self-conscious about them which is probably one reason why she’s not had a relationship since being freed. The last time she actually acknowledged them was when she was examined by a doctor. She was able to identify the cause for most of the scars, but not all.
Personality
Abby grew up a geek, liking sci-fi and fantasy movies, comics and books and playing games of all sorts before being a nerd was cool. She was always shy and had low self-confidence growing up, she was very loyal to her small group of friends. Still, she felt ignored a lot and if she weren’t there, they wouldn’t notice she was gone. Abby has never had a serious relationship, a few crushes but nothing ever came out of it. She’s never even been on a date.
Her time at Global Dynamics left her very un-trusting of people, especially those in authority. The fact she grew up without a lot of love from her family also has had a lasting impact on her self esteem and self image, which has been hard to reconcile with the intermittent attention she gets when her trial gets back in the news.
Thanks to her powers, it’s not uncommon for her to stop mid-sentence or any point in a conversation (briefing, eating, walking down the hallway) ans start drawing. And she’s not normally an angry of violent person, but over the last three years she has started to become a bit more outspoken about meta rights, but mostly because she feels pressured to because of the public example her case has made her.
All her powers have the same result, it’s just a matter of what is drawn. When her power is triggered she ends up going into a sort of fugue state where she is compulsed to draw what she sees. In this state she is completely cut off, cannot speak or hear. She is completely unaware of anything going on when it’s happening and will not come out of it until the image is drawn. If someone attempts to stop her she will become violent and if she doesn’t have anything to draw with, she will find it; salt, dirt, blood (granted the quality of the work diminishes in these cases because of the medium). The images are sometimes abstract but the detail is impeccable and one might think Abby was a real artist, which she is not. She never remembers what she see’s. Her powers have no distance limit to them, however the farther away the less descriptive detail in the image for example, a house on the other side of the world might only show the door, where one in another state may show the whole facade and one only miles away would have the full street. She has also had limited success with focusing back on her own images to garner more details. She also rarely does actual writing show in her work, occasionally numbers even rarer actual words and if there are they are because they are part of the image not separate (like the writing on a van, not something someone says). Global Dynamics did find out that pain is a trigger to force a vision, this was used regularly when she wasn’t cooperative (despite her not having any real control over all her visions). *Note* She has gotten better at delaying her visions to an extent. It’s not perfect but sometimes she can sense them coming and delay them long enough to get drawing supplies or someplace safe.
Expressive Clairvoyance – Abby has the ability to draw things happening in the present. These visions are triggered seemingly at random (or if she suffers injury).
Expressive Precognition – Abby has the ability to draw things that will happen, one possible future should things to that point go unaltered. These visions are triggered seemingly at random (or if she suffers injury).
Expressive Psychometry – Abby can use items to ‘trigger’ a vision, typically drawing the past of said object- or an event/person tied to it while they were in possession/around the object. Typically the object would have had to ‘witness’ or been used in an event for her to draw anything (Ie. a clock in the room where someone was assaulted, or the phone someone used to make a call). She can only draw into the past of the object as it is (however technically if the object has parts she could attempt to trigger off the parts, but it would never be their root materials; such as when a table is a tree.). This is something she can trigger herself, or be induced via pain.
Expressive Tracking (Superhuman/Human) – A seeming combined aspect of her Clairvoyance and Psychometry. If she focuses on an aspect of a person (typically a photo) and she can draw their location. This is something she can trigger herself, or be induced via pain.
Outside of her ability to remember pop culture (which she’s slowly brought back current since being released from Global Dynamics), Abby doesn’t have a lot of skills. She’s working on getting her GED, seeing as she was ‘taken’ before graduating high school. She also likes to bake when she’s bored or nervous/anxious about something. It calms her.
History
Born in Chicago, the only child of Margo and a man who’s name she never knew, Abigail Rose Krause never got the chance to meet her father. When Margo informed him that she was pregnant he disappeared and never came back. Life sort of went down hill from there. Margo was a horrible mother and probably would have given Abby up if it wasn’t for her own mother Amy. For the first seven years of her life, Abby was basically raised by her grandmother. Her mother jumped from job to job, barely bringing home enough to provide for her family- actually Amy ended up having to go into her own savings and over the years used it all up to help take care of Abby while he mother blew what she earned on beer and a string of dead beat boyfriends.
When Abby was almost eight, her grandmother passed away of a heart attack. Abby herself didn’t fully understand and when the doctor tried to help explain it she thought that her grandmothers heart had broken and was certain it was because she’d been bad (because her mother constantly told her how horrible she was). After that, things just got worse for the little girl. Her mother never physically abused her, but there was definitely emotional abuse and neglect. Worse thing, Abby was prone to believe her mother.
Abby did pretty well in school, only had a few friends (who she never had over to her house) and did her best to avoid her mothers boyfriends. Many times she had to scrounge for food (or take advantage of a friends invite over) as her house rarely had anything that constitutes a meal. Abigail got good at forging her mothers signature and used it to apply for the meal program at school as she got older, and other programs her mother was too lazy to apply for, just so she could get food and clothes that fit and supplies for school.
Once Abby started high school and was able to get a job she did, at a movie theatre. It was fantastic and she loved it. All the money she earned she saved, hoping that by the time she graduated she’d be able to get away. Unfortunately this was also around the same time she was developing powers. From Abby’s perspective she started to black out and would wake up to, typically, violent and unnerving pictures. She didn’t know what it meant and didn’t talk to anyone about it.
Then, one night, the night of her eighteen birthday, she was being dropped off from a small celebration her friends had for her (she kind of even had a date planned just the two of them with one friend/crush), she was on the top of the world. Until she entered her house. The moment she entered the door a bottle hit the wall next to her and her mother started to scream at her about stealing from her. Abby had no idea what she was talking about and her mothers boyfriend started to get physical with her. Abby screamed, still not knowing what her mother meant and her mother pulled out a wad of cash and showed it to her daughter.
Abby managed to wrench away from the man who had her arm and ran to her bedroom. Her closet was ransacked and so were all her drawers. The superhero tin that held all her money was laying empty on the floor. Abby ran back into the living room and told her mother the money was hers- from her job. Apparently her mother thought that the shit job she’d done providing for her daughter for 18 years entitled her to the cash. Her boyfriend took the moment to pull out all Abby’s journals with the drawings she’d done while in a fugue state- one actually depicted someone who looked quite like her mother. They accused her of being what she was, a meta, and dangerous and when Abby tried to get her book back her bothers boyfriend knocked her to the floor and she hit her head.
Abby’s mother took her down to get registered the next day and a week later a knock came to her door. Abby’s mother had locked her in her room ‘for her own safety’ and had been debating what to do with her, not wanting a ‘freak’ in her house. When Margo answered the door she was greeted by a man who said he was from Global Dynamics research and development department. He explained that they worked with new meta’s and helped them fulfill their potential in a safe and secure environment. He told Margo that her daughter was just the type of meta they sought to help. Margo wanted nothing to do with the man until he mentioned a signing and recruitment bonus. Two hours and one forged signature later, Abby was on her way to upstate New York and the home she’d have for the next nine years.
Global Dynamics was a large company that specialized in weapons, meta control measures and containment. They prided themselves on being one of the nations bigged government contractors dealing with the metahuman threat. They had no intention of helping Abby, they’d seen a description of her powers on her registration- a database they’d been granted access to thanks to their contract work for the government, not that the average citizen knew that. Abby was put to work almost immediately. They ran a number of tests on her the first year, trying to peg down exactly how her powers worked. They’d leave her for days alone in her cell, only contact with others was food service and monitor the frequency of her visions. They’d take away all writing materials and see what happened (they found out when all else fails, blood can be used to draw with). They exposed her to a number of stimuli in order to try to force a vision, eventually finding pain was the most consistent trigger. Granted over the years she did end up working up a tolerance to the electroshocks they used to induce the visions and constantly had to tweak the voltage.
For nine years she was used for her visions, either to predict future events, or more commonly as the years went on, to track mutants, terrorists, or anyone the company wanted. They’d give her a picture, or item that belonged to the person and if she didn’t willingly induce a vision, they did. After a while she became complaisant, at least with those visions she had any control over. And it became easier to trigger them herself, however her clairvoyance and precognition were still beyond her control.
Then, something wonderful happened. In 2015, there was a break in in the lab. A group of girls with powers managed to bypass security and one of them found her in her cell. Most the other meta’s had been moved to other locations, but she was still there actively being used. At first she thought she was dreaming and almost fought them when they tried to free her, but Abby realized it was real and soon she found herself in a New York apartment… free… Abby had no idea what was next, thankfully the same group that rescued her had contacts. One such contact was with a law firm that specialized in metahuman rights cases. After meeting with one of the lawyers and explaining her story, her case was taken pro-bono and she was put on the path to healing.
Of course no one could have told her that the path to healing would take years. Thanks to many sources from the Office of Metahuman affairs, to a number of gofundme’s started in her name, Abby was able to get a place to stay, clothes, food, furniture, etc. It had been a daunting task considering that she had nothing. Her lawyer and their small team was pivotal in helping her, they became her advocates. As the criminal case against Global Dynamics for her kidnapping and torture got traction at the state level, her case became national news. She became the face for a lot of metahuman rights causes, whether she approved or not, and also was targeted by anti-meta groups. Almost three years it took for her case to finally conclude, the company’s lawyers drew out every motion they could for the prosecutor and did everything they could to make Abby look bad. From claiming she was a willing participant to trying to use her rough childhood as a way to claim she was just trying to get attention with her false accusations, nothing was off the table. Eventually the jury came back with a verdict that shocked the world. Thanks to the amount of evidence the defense got thrown out because of how it was obtained (by the group of vigilantes that rescued her), the company was found not guilty on all charges.
Abby was crushed, she felt like everything she’d gone through was somehow her fault after all. She’d started to believe all the talk on conservative television about how she deserved it, how she was just white trash, a meta freak. Then, in July of 2018, the lawyers that had helped her through the criminal case proposed a solution, if Global Dynamics claimed she’d been a willing participant, an employee of theirs, then they’d sue them for back pay and damages for an unsafe, unhealthy and mentally damaging working environment. Of course, this has brought her back into the spotlight a little, but she’s gotten better with it- or tells herself she has at least. Granted, unbeknownst to her, Global Dynamics is working on a counter suit, claiming breach of contract. So, there’s a chance that Abby might not be out of the news anytime soon.
Employment was hard for her to come by, seeing as she had no practical experience outside of high school, and no GED made it hard to find gainful employment. She sort of worked freelance for a while, some people who managed to find her and requested help with everything from lost keys to lost people. She didn’t make a lot- often didn’t even ask for pay as she actually liked being able to use her powers for good instead of whatever Global Dynamics had been using them for. As she had more people visiting her via word of mouth, she did find herself having to deal with anti-meta people more often than not (but that wasn’t abnormal), but those she helped always left with a homemade treat. It took a number of times for someone to mention that she should open a bakery because her treats were so good until she finally started to give it thought. Soon after the criminal case was over, she started work at the Oasis restaurant as an assistant pastry chef apprenticing under the owner and his head pastry chef. She is looking to get the experience needed to open a bakery of her own and has been spending a lot of time to learning the craft- more than a hobby.