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From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Afire was originally designed to be a "Human Torch" type of character with a distinctly City of Heroes origin. She languished for awhile until the founding of the Union Supreme, at which time it seemed best to rework her nationality as being from somewhere in our troubled Asian sphere. My first thought was India, but, researching relatively recent military conflicts and abandoned mine fields led to the choice of Afghanistan instead.

Afire
35 Tech Controller
Fire/Radiation
Zeegan Hosani, Afire
Pyrotechny
Union Supreme Global Defender
Player: @Medika
Activity Level: Irregular
Real Name:	Zeegan Hosani
a/k/a:	None
Physical Identifiers
Species:	Human
Sub-Type:	Unknown
Gender:	Female
Apparent Age:	20
Height:	5'8"
Weight:	120 lbs
Build:	Thin
Complexion:	Brown
Eye Color:	Blue
Hair Color:	Originally Black, now Red and flaming
Distinguishing Features
Flaming hair, flaming hands
Biographical Data
Birthdate:	February 9, 1989
Birthplace:	Khowst, Afghanistan
Nationality:	presumed citizen of Afghanistan; legal resident alien in the USA
Residence:	Union Plaza (Paragon City), RI
Occupation:	Hero, student
Marital Status:	Single
Legal Status:	No criminal record, registered Hero of Paragon City
Relatives & Associates
Ari Hosani (father, MIA), Nadia Azizi Hosani (mother, deceased)
Known Powers
Control fire
Skills & Abilities
student photographer, journalist
Equipment
regulator armor
"Together we can make a better world"

[edit] Personality

Owing her life to a superhero in the right place at the right time, Zeegan is motivated to use her abilities to save innocents and right wrongs. On a personal level, however, she is conflicted. Having been raised in post-war Afghanistan and then kept in virtual isolation save for Crey-provided programming, Zeegan is struggling to find her place as both an Afghan woman and modern woman. The strong dichotomy of those two states often makes normal American social interactions – complicated. The Afghanistan in which she was raised would have allowed no female to flaunt herself in such a costume as Afire must wear. As well, her membership in the Union Supreme was not an appointment by the Afghan government but, rather, another case of being in the right place at the right time, so she feels self-conscious when pointed out as the "Afghani representative" in the hero world. In addition, her ability to read and write English is more limited than her ability to speak it.

[edit] Powers

Zeegan is, in many ways, a being of radiant energy who can be “powered down” to a “normal” human form. Once upon a time, she might have been labled an afrit, to be destroyed by heroes and magi. The radiant form emits heat and light along many axes of the energy spectrum, including levels that are fatal to normal humans.

Under the aegis of a power-inhibitor and controller, designed and patented by scientists of Crey Industries, Zeegan’s energy can be harnessed to useful purpose. She can construct cages of fire that can immobilize one or more opponents, albeit doing damage in the process. She can place radioactive rings around a target which deplete him and those around him, as well as interrupting his motor functions so to lessen his ability to focus and aim. She can manipulate flame "pulses" that someone with imagination might see as animated creatures of flame, that also do damage.

In a more positive vein, Zeegan can emit radiation at various levels which can revitalize and heal those around her. In addition, being basically energy, she can fly.

The full extent of her abilities has yet to be determined as she is still learning to use the control facilities of her armor.

[edit] Mundane Abilities

Zeegan speaks Farsi (Persian), some Russian, some French, and competent, albeit somewhat accented, English. Is a skilled slight-of-hand artist from her days on the streets in Kabul.

Following in her father's footsteps, she is studying photo-journalism and is a talented not-yet-professional photographer.

[edit] Weaknesses and Limitations

Afire wears power inhibitors in the form of her uniform armor and a subcutaneous regulator chip to prevent herself from bursting into flame or an even more damaging radiation flare. Damage to one of those would reduce her control of her powers; damage to both could result in her becoming a highly destructive, radioactive fireball.

[edit] Character History

[edit] Childhood

The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan lasted from 27.Dec.1979 to 15.Feb.1989 with the most destructive fighting happening in 1985. 1985 was the year that independent photographer Ari Hosani married student nurse Nadia Azizi in Paris, France. The two determined to return to their homeland and work with the resistance movement there. Six months after Ari had disappeared on one last “secret mission” from which he never returned, Zeegan was born in the ruins of Khowst near the border of the Tribal Area of Pakistan.

As a widow without the protection of her or her husband’s family, amidst the crushing poverty of her post-war country, Nadia nevertheless managed to work as a professional nurse and educate her daughter. However, with the rise of the Taliban in 1996, the repression of women reduced professionals such as Nadia to extreme penury. Determined to raise enough funds to send her daughter to a better country, Nadia managed as a "underground" woman’s nurse-midwife in Kabul, using only woman-to-woman word-of-mouth to find work – until the day in 1999, when she was caught in factional street fighting on her way home from delivering a baby.

Zeegan frantically tried to reach her mother’s body, but it was carried off before she could retrieve the papers her mother always carried which, Nadia had often said, were a last special gift from Ari. Thus, at the age of 10, Zeegan became a street waif and beggar, always on the edge of starvation, but surviving by picking up slight-of-hand and concealment skills.

[edit] Mutation Discovered

In 2003, Zeegan became one of the horrific statistical casualties of the mine fields left behind by the Soviets and Afghani communists. Serendipitously, Dr. Richard Kapetelis (Gods Speed) was serving with a UN medical-relief team as he regularly did in the years between gaining his powers and joining the Justiciars. The speedster rushed the badly burned and mangled body to medical facilities where it burst into flames – damaging the operating room and attendants but not actually burning up. As it happened, a representative of Crey Industries had offered the UN an experimental restorative capsule for use in absolutely hopeless cases. Thus, a week later, Zeegan entered the United States under a medical emergency visa sponsored by Crey Industries—sedated, encapsulated, and completely unaware that she’d achieved her mother’s dream.

Gods Speed kept tabs on the young Afghan, learning from Crey that she was a mutant whose radiant powers had been triggered in the mine field blasts. He negotiated with the team caring for Zeegan, and provided partial funding for the suit of armor they put under development to allow her some semblance of a normal life. Zeegan was finally decanted and started training with the protective suit 08.Mar.08.

[edit] After Crey

However, it was not until one of the scientists on the Crey Paragon Protector Experiment #ZHLR31 project learned that GS was helping found an U.N. sanctioned team of supers that Zeegan was permanently released from the containment capsule that had been much of her universe for 6 years. She was given her suit and contact information for Gods Speed. It was he who brought her into the newly formed Union Supreme.

There have since been indications that Dr. Kellerman may not have had official Crey authorization for the release of #ZHLR31. Crey Industries has put a “stop action” on legal papers which Zeegan had understood were her application for United States citizenship. Dr. Kapetelis has arranged for a temporary student visa for her under U.N. auspices, and she has enrolled in Paragon City University.

[edit] Affiliations

[edit] Trivia

• It is not yet clear whether Afire is actually the original Zeegan or a Paragon-Protector-like clone of the too-damaged-to live original.

• When under consideration for joining an offshoot of The Justiciars, Zeegan's then code-name of Pyrotechny ("fireworks") came under fire.

• The name "Zeegan" is invented, used by my daughter for her first fantasy RP character, a fire mage. As a tip-of-the-hat to her creativity, I've reused the name.