Lucas Brenneman

[Deleted]

NAME: Lucas Dean Brenneman
NICKNAME: Luke, Dean
AGE: 28
GENDER: Male
ORIENTATION: Bisexual
POSITION: Detective and Under-cover Investigator
FACE CLAIM: Nick Bateman


Power: Conscious Projection
Luke is a mind walker, something that has also been referred to as a 'Warg' in modern fiction. He has the ability to transmit his consciousness into that of any living animal, save for humans. He cannot control the animal he is projecting into, as the connection is mental rather than physical, but he can probe and delve into its conscious. In a similar way, he can manipulate or influence the animal to think or react in a certain way, and so indirectly it is possible for him to influence their actions.

Limitations:
When using his power, his own body drops into a comatose state, regulating the base necessities for survival and nothing else. This leaves his real body completely vulnerable while he is using his power, and he usually prefers to have a trusted 'watcher' with him at all times. The link established between Luke and his target means that if the animal he is connected with takes damage, he will take the same damage, though it will only manifest after he has returned to his own body. If the animal dies, Luke faces the possibility of death, only if what killed the animal is effective enough to kill an adult male. For example, if he was inside the body of a dog, and a slab of cement is dropped on top of it, crushing it, this will most definitely kill him. However if he is inside the body of a cockroach that dies from being stood on, he will not die. It is not the type of death (Crushing) but rather the manner in which it is carried out (Stepped on/Falling cement) that will affect the damage he takes. Any and all damage is given only after he has returned to his own body.

Alternatively, if his sufficient damage were to occur to his human body that induces death, Luke's conscience would remain safe inside the animal. He would no longer be able to return to his own body, understandably, and would be nothing more than a mind without a body. In this instance, he would have no choice but to try and 'dominate' the mind of the animal he is currently housed inside, and take over it's mind and body. If not, he will simply be assimilated into the animal's consciousness and cease to exist.



Side-Effects:
Projecting is understandably taxing on Lucas' energy levels. However, while in the case of most powers exhaustion makes it easier to stop using their ability, in Luke's case it makes it harder. The longer he spends in the body of another animal, the harder he finds it to return to his own. His human body gradually weakens without a conscious to move or power it, while his mind, surrounded by the thoughts and instincts of an animal, slowly dehumanizes. As time increases, he loses his memory and the knowledge that he was once human, until eventually he becomes assimilated into the consciousness of the animal. After previous experiences, Luke is well aware of the risks associated with using his power, though does not have an accurate time frame as to how long he can safely use it.
If the instance occurs where he begins to lose his memories and then later returns to his body, the re-connection will restore them. 

Staying in an animal's body for too long can inflict changes upon Luke's physical body as well. The best example of this is his eyes, which bear the slit pupils of a cat. When pushed to the limit and faced with losing his connection with his body, if pulled back to his body, the influence the animal conscious had on his own mind may manifest itself on his physical body. 

To primarily use his power Lucas needs quiet and concentration. Actually forcing his conscious out of his body is difficult and can be time consuming depending on the level of urgency and the number of distractions around him. 
After using his ability, he is often left tired. Not only that, he will most commonly experience confusion at the sudden change, and in most of his longer trials he has gagged and/or vomited afterward. While the after-effects are relatively short-lived, they are usually acute and a pain to deal with. 





Luke stands easily past 6'2", with broad shoulders and a slim waist. He's slightly pedantic about fitness, and his toned body can be directly attributed to the hours of work he puts in at the gym every week. Apart from meeting base social expectations Luke cares little about his physical appearance or how others see him, focusing rather on how well his body serves him. He'll often put off shaving until he's bordering on the 'homeless' appearance and is happy whether he's pristine or caked in dust.
Luke still can't walk past a pair of good boots, and even away from the ranch, he will still feel bare without his old stetson. He frequents jeans and shirts with his similarly old leather jacket.
Probably Luke's most defining feature would be his eyes, which are a clear green. His pupils are not round like that of a typical human, but are instead oval slits like a cat, after a close call when using his powers. He tends to wear either sunglasses or specially designed contacts when he wants to keep them hidden, though he had become complacent in the last few years.

He is proficient in many weapons, most noticeably the bo staff and standard-issue shot guns. He has had brief training with sniper rifles and tiger-hook swords, though has little interest in either.


All I see myself to be

Lone Wolf ! Flawed ! Reserved ! Insincere ! Judgmental ! Unsympathetic !
Luke isn't a very good team player. He can socialize with the best of them, but for the most part he is only displaying the skills he learnt while undercover needed to fool people. In terms of close-knit relationships, they have been avoided since his separation from Reid. Because of the presumptions he made about himself, Lucas lacks the drive to stretch out to another. He has already decided that he is too similar to his mother to change, and as such is a creature 'without love'. 
These perceptions make it difficult to find true affections for others after he shut himself away. Not only that, but it affects how he sees others. Luke is both judgmental and cold in his examinations of others, holding absolutely nothing back. He has been known to be harshly blunt or outrightly cruel. Not only that, but his unsympathetic, insincere nature makes it easy to hate him, and doubt much of what he says.
These aspects are his true personality, or so he believes.
It is what believes he inherited from his mother.
This is all he sees when he looks at himself; and so it is all he is.



And what I could Really Be

Focused ! Ambitious ! Hard Working ! Confident ! Smug
Luke takes after his mother in the cold, focused manner with which he achieves everything. He is hard working and determined; once he has found something to work towards, it will become his sole focus. He is both ambitious and self-confident, since he is well aware of his own strong work ethic. This self-awareness can make him insufferably smug as well as arrogant in a great deal of situations, and he damn well knows it too. Every ounce of confidence that he shows has been hard earned through his own work, and so he feels no qualms with flaunting it. 

Adrenaline Junkie ! Courageous ! Risk-Taker ! Sadistic ! Low Self-control
Luke became a police to help others and maintain a state of justice. He also desired freedom away from the set structures he had been raised under. This same yearning for freedom is shown in his willful, often reckless manner. He will never perform dangerous acts for senseless pleasure, but if he can find a motive behind it that helps attain his overall goal, you wont find him complaining. He is willing to go through just about anything to achieve his overall means, which can result in both dangerous and dehumanizing acts on his part. He has been known to lose control, both internally with his alcoholism and externally, as he has displayed a slight sadistic streak on numerous occasions. 
'The end justifies the means' is a quote he lives by.





+ Lucas was born in born in Austin, Texas on his family's large horse ranch. His parent's Celinda and Murray Brenneman were relatively respectable people, known for their prosperous property. His mother was the head of the ranch, estranged, cold and judgmental, while his father was the heart. As such, Luke grew up wanting for nothing, and relatively happy.
His little sister Avery was born when he was three, and she similarly joined the little rebel group of Murray and Luke. It was an agreement that Celinda would not interfere with the care-taking of the ranch, and the rest of her family would stay out of the finances and social aspects of having a reputation. It was an effective enough establishment, but it did not keep Celinda from judging her husband and her son whenever she got the chance. She continually pushed Luke, at home and at school to strive for excellence and perfection, or at least her perceptions of it. It was twelve years later when Luke realized that his mother's standards were, and always had been unattainable. Over fifteen years, he had come to hate the shrewd woman who had given birth to him. 

+ Discovering he was a mutant was something like a godsend, and a curse. His first 'mind walk' was into a bolting horse when he was fourteen. His last conscious thought had been to calm the fleeing creature, and the next thing he knew, the world was suddenly looking very different through the eyes of a horse. The inherent fear, both his and the horses, threw him almost immediately out of the horses's mind. However, caught by the urgency in the moment, Luke had tried to focus his wits and attempt it again. When he was actually trying, it proved much more difficult. He did however, manage it, and brought the horse under control before returning to his own body. After that he lost his earlier lunch in the dust and collapsed.
A few days later there were strangers at the gate. He paid very little attention to them, as almost all guests were reserved for Celinda. These however, were for him, and fairly quickly Lucas found himself seated at their kitchen table hearing about his 'gift'. A mutant, they called him, and thinking back on his previous experience, Luke believed them. Maybe a part of him had simply wanted to believe it if it meant getting away, as there was also mention of some academy school for his education. 
It was surprisingly easy to convince his mother to let him 'move' to Montana. Only his father had been told about Luke's new-found abilities, and he hadn't been the one that needed convincing. As part of the bloodline, Luke's only purpose was to take over the ranch after his parents. Since he had never had any desire to do this, his mother had very little purpose for him other than to use him as her verbal punching bag. As such, it was an easy relief to travel with his collectors to Montana, and Bellefonte Academy.

+ His school life passed in relative eventfulness. He lost contact with his family, texting his sister now and then but otherwise drawing a blind over his old life. If his mother had decided he was of no use, then it was so, and so long as Lucas continued to defy her there was nothing else to be done.
The academy was uneventful in most aspects; the only thing he found was his future, and this was in two places. First there was his dream to become a detective. It was a relatively spur of the moment decision, but the more he thought on it the surer he became of his career. Second was Reid, the girl he was dating, who by graduation, he was certain he loved.

+ Things changed when he entered the police academy. He was living and training with Reid, but the more time he spent with her, the more distance he realized had always been separating them. The problem, he realized, lay with himself. His dream of helping and saving others was being pursued with a single-minded determination that faded everything else from his peripheral. It was the same focused ambition that had led him to master his mutation and ace his grades in school. It was in the second year of police academy that he realized why. He reminded himself of his mother; and there was not one good thing he could say about her. So what did that say about himself?
Once he'd realized that, it was much easier to give in to what he believed he was destined to be. He saw it as karma. He'd escaped his mother's intentions, and this was the curse she had placed on him in response.
He ended things with Reid after a five year relationship, insecure in himself and channeling this by pouring every ounce of his attention into work. There were no promotions, no notice that he was aiming for, he simply wanted an out. That was why, when he was offered an under-cover case in Miami, he took it. He worked the case for three months, finding security in adopting a new identity and letting everything concerning Reid, his mother and everything else fade away. Maybe that was why he also took up drinking and smoking while undercover. To this day he still maintains it was part of his disguise, but he can't fool himself.

+ With a successful case over he returned to Montana, having lost himself and the new personality he'd tailored to catch an underground drug lord. It took him another few months to steer himself right, quitting smoking entirely and frequenting AA meetings when he could. It wasn't by choice of course, but policy on the station's part. After all, they couldn't have a certified alcoholic running around with a gun. Much less a drunk mutant. 
The one positive thing was that he was returned as a detective on the force, and placed on the confidential list of names reserved for 'under the radar' jobs that were sometimes an unavoidable necessity. He found he enjoyed the risk, and the forgetting, and was out on two more jobs before another two years had passed.
On the second job, Luke was required to walk in the mind of a cat. While it wasn't the first time he had used his power for work, but this was the occasion he came closest to losing himself. He intended to walk through the mind of a suspect's pet cat, hoping to hear something mistakenly said by his suspect when they thought they were alone. He had learned quickly that people often said far too much to animals when they thought they were alone. His hunch proved correct, even better actually, as he appeared right in the middle of a secret meeting between the suspect and their client. However, he became so hooked on all of the information he was gathering, he forgot about his time limit. After a time, he began to forget what he was even doing, and wandered off into the kitchen.
The only thing that saved him that day was the food bowl. He had begun to eat the mixture of sardines and cream, and only when his own consciousness (he had always vomited at the taste of fish) revolted against the cat's predisposition to love fish, did Lucas regain enough of his own sanity to tear himself away from the cat's mind. After which, he really did vomit.
He believed he'd gotten off without a hitch, and was extremely lucky. It was only when one of his backup men held up a hand mirror did he see his eyes, which had remained the same dark green as ever, but now sported slitted pupils, like the eyes of a cat. Needless to say, he took to wearing sunglasses after that, though after a while he switched to specially made contacts.

+ He returned to Kalispell just before his twenty-eighth birthday on UC leave, with orders to return to his usual duty until told otherwise - as usual. He'd been in and out of the town since breaking up with Reid, and while he'd had time for a one-nighter every now and again, from what he'd heard, Reid had, had time for much more. That, he discovered with some guilt, made it easier to be an ass to her.




USERNAME: Trick

AGE GROUP: 18

EXPERIENCE: 5 odd years....or 4. I don't remember anymore

WHERE DID YOU FIND US? I followed the rainbow

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