About me:

I grew up in rural Montana and always knew I was different. As a teen, however, it didn’t have anything to do with untapped abilities. I was outgoing, fashionable, smart, artistic and kind...which in MT meant that you were something altogether different from the norm. I was picked on and teased from as early as I could remember, but in high school, the torment became more intense.

At age 17, after coming home with the drama team, I found a note in my locker from the senior class boys that said, “Stay away from us and our girlfriends, faggot.” I was close friends with most of the girls in my class, and their boyfriends grew to hate the “why can’t you be sensitive like Tobias" comparisons. (ahh, high school!) As if the note wasn’t enough, I was then jumped at my car by the entire football team. As I struggled to break free from the attack, a blast of wind erupted from me and knocked the attackers 15 feet in all directions. No one understood what had happened, but the unfinished beating only increased my torments.

I was a huge superhero geek, and thus believed I had amazing powers. But, I couldn’t manifest them again.

I left Montana and studied acting in LA. At college, I found acceptance and happiness.

After graduation, I fell in love with Henry, a strong, passionate and forthright guy. I admired his conviction for minority equality, and felt safe and comfortable with him.

That all ended one night when we walked back to our car after dinner. A black Mercedes pulled up to us and a group of men inside shouted derogatory comments. Henry, for the first time, seemed afraid and pulled me on. “Don’t interact with them,” he said. “It only makes them more aggressive.” I was petrified, but my rage (both from the verbal attack and Henry’s sudden cowardice) became more powerful than my fear. Suddenly, a glass bottle smashed into Henry’s skull. He fell to the ground bleeding, and within seconds the attackers were on him, beating him senseless with baseball bats while I was forced to watch.

My horror soon was eclipsed by a familiar feeling. “Never AGAIN,” I shouted. Wind suddenly whipped around everyone and everything. I held up my hands and blasted two of them across the street. I encased the guy holding me in a shimmering field and removed his oxygen supply. Two other men tried to flee, but I flew after them until I heard Henry groan. I quickly flew back, grabbed him, and flew towards the hospital…but it was too late.

I vowed to never let anyone hurt the “different” people again. I use my powers to protect the innocent and maligned. I got a day job where I turn people into superheroes (action figures) and make a difference by example in my daily life. As I become more active in my heroics, I’m getting more attention, and that presents more problems... but that’s a story for another day...

WHAT ARE MY POWERS?

I control air molecules. This allows for a wide range of abilities. With contraction or expansion of the air molecules, I can create force fields (either around myself or others), shoot pulse blasts of alternating particles that can be gentle enough to bump someone out of the way or strong enough to move a car/knock a hole in steel/blast a villain through solid concrete. By moving the molecules rapidly around myself, I can fly up to 170 miles per hour. Also I can condense the air to bend light and change my hair and eye color. Most of these abilities happen without concentration, very much like an involuntary muscle reflex. However, if knocked unconscious, all powers cease to function.

HOW DID I GET MY POWERS?

My Germanic lineage gave me a highly adaptive cellular structure that could fight infection and outside contamination extraordinarily quickly.

Unfortunately, I was exposed to abnormal bacteria from Mt. St. Helen’s ash (while on a trip with my grandpa as a toddler) that negated my resistance to infection .

At age 9, I found an old ring of my father’s with a strange translucent blue stone in it. Unknown to everyone, the stone was a meteorite of the petrified atmosphere of a sentient planet that had exploded eons ago. When I touched the stone, it came back to life for an instant and interacted with my weakened genetic make-up. It mutated my DNA to heighten my sensitivity to the atmosphere, and eventually allowed me to control air molecules.