Temujin "Gene" Khan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wrathfulkhan) wrote2013-08-23 10:08 pm
wrathfulkhan) wrote2013-08-23 10:08 pm
Entry tags:
application | tu shanshu
Player Information:
Name: Alex (Zed on the roster)
Age: 22
Contact: chatvert @ plurk, TeriyakiPickle @ AIM, greencat3 @ GTalk/gmail
Game Cast: Jason Bourne (brokenweapon); AC is here.
Character Information:
Name: Temujin “Gene” Khan / The Mandarin
Canon: Iron Man: Armored Adventures
Canon Point: During “Dragonseed”, when he is fighting Team Iron Man in the last temple, but before entering the challenge room.
Age: 17
Reference: Wikipedia.
Things in green are implied in the show but not outright stated due to the fact that IMAA is a kids’ show; things in yellow are pure headcanon conjecture.
Setting:
The simplest way to explain the universe of Iron Man: Armored Adventures - known otherwise as Earth-904913 - is a high-school AU of the Iron Man mythos set approximately parallel to modern Earth, featuring other Marvel universe characters as well. It largely focuses on the adventures of a teenaged Tony Stark and his friends, including James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, and for the duration of season one, Gene Khan.
The series flips between slice-of-life action and epic battles, sometimes even occurring simultaneously; one episode has Rhodey and Pepper stuck in a bind for their science project because their partner Tony is out in the Iron Man suit fighting crime. There are many issues of import during the series, including the mystery of the plane crash that injured Tony’s heart, was presumed to have killed Howard Stark, and left Obadiah Stane in charge of Stark International until Tony becomes a legal adult at age 18. Additionally, Tony's performance in school is tied to his eligibility to take the reins of the company, due to his father's will, so Tony can't just take off from school to fight crime full-time. The corporate intrigue is interwoven with the mystery of the Makluan rings; Howard Stark had found one shortly before the plane crash, figuring it to be highly advanced technology rather than magical in nature, and Tony decides to study them as well in the wake of the crash. He is assisted in this endeavor primarily by Gene Khan, who has his own reasons for wanting to help Tony find the rings. Gene believes that the rings are his birthright as the last of the Khans and the one true Mandarin, and he uses the resources of his stepfather, and leader of the Tong organized crime syndicate, Xin Zhang. Zhang hides his activities under the cover of being an import/export mogul.
Organized crime is rampant in the IMAA universe, with the two warring factions being the Maggia (led by Count Nefaria) and the Tong (led by whoever happens to be wearing the Mandarin’s armor at the time); SHIELD seems to be the only effective law enforcement agency, despite Pepper’s father being an FBI field agent and the police occasionally showing up at the scenes of crimes. The Helicarrier is almost always hovering directly over Manhattan, in what is probably a blatant violation of federal restricted airspace laws.
Corporations have enormous power as well; the two most notable are Stark International and Hammer Multinational, the latter of which is led by 21-year-old prodigyJoffrey Baratheon Justin Hammer. Obadiah Stane’s turn as the CEO of Stark International has led to a resumption of weapons manufacturing, which Howard Stark had stopped in favor of bricks and beams for baby hospitals industrial and personal entertainment equipment when Tony was born. This puts Stark International and Hammer Multinational in direct competition in the weapons market under Stane’s direction, infuriating Tony, who is vocally anti-weapons. (Why exactly he builds the War Machine suit with Sidewinder missiles included in it baffles the mind, but Tony seems to bend his morality when it suits him - something that Rhodey calls him out on, and often. The deeper you get into this show, the harder it gets to tell who the heroes are.)
Gene’s friendsare were Tony Stark (child prodigy and heir to Stark International), James Rhodes (Tony’s best friend, whom Gene never ever calls “Rhodey”), and Pepper Potts (unusual in that this incarnation’s proper name is “Patricia” rather than “Virginia”). In this version of the Marvel Universe, Pepper and Tony have only met within the past two years, and Rhodey has been Tony’s friend since childhood; Rhodey’s mother, Roberta Rhodes, is also Howard Stark’s lawyer.
Mutants are present in this iteration of the Marvel universe, with prominent politicians building platforms on the issue of mutant rights, and everyone and their dog having an opinion on the issue. At this point, mutants are still largely feared and not accepted in society.
Of particular importance to Gene and his arc are the Makluan temples scattered throughout the world. There are nine temples which appear to be Chinese in origin, located in, among other places: China, Greenland, Mount St. Helens, Peru, Egypt, Latveria...and the barren, apocalyptic wasteland of New Jersey (I'm gonna be fair to the French animators and guess that they took every New Jersey joke they'd ever heard literally). The temples were created by his ancestor, the first Mandarin, who is heavily implied to be Genghis Khan, and used to store the Makluan rings until a descendant of the first Khan can pass the tests of worthiness and claim all ten rings. The Makluan rings are, as Howard Stark suspected, not magic but technology - but they are not human in origin, either.
That’s right.
The Makluan rings are actually weapons created by the Makluan aliens and used to subjugate and destroy entire civilizations. They were stolen by the son of the Makluan Overlord and given to a human with the ability to use them wisely, and the young Makluan altered the DNA of the recipient enough to allow him to use the rings. This means that Gene has a very few Makluan DNA markers that let him activate the full power of the rings; without these, anyone using the rings is limited to forming the Mandarin’s armor only. This does not mean he is half-Makluan. (I feel like I should make that clear, because some people seem to think this means he is half-Makluan. IT DOES NOT. GENETICS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.)
Of course, what kind of supervillain would do all the grunt work himself? Gene had caused Howard Stark’s plane crash, and kidnapped him from the plane before blowing it up (bear in mind he was about 15 or 16 at the time), because Howard was the foremost expert in the highly obscure field of Makluan ring research, and he had been corresponding with Zhang about the rings. Howard Stark returns to helm Stark International after a year and a half held prisoner, and the company fortunes begin to stabilize (especially after the very public breakdown of Obadiah Stane and his rampage through New York City in the Iron Monger).
Personality:
On a more serious note, even though everything above is also perfectly accurate:
Gene has had a pretty shitty childhood, and it shows in his interactions with people. He’s good at pretending he’s a normal teenager, or at least good enough to fool pretty much everyone right off the bat. He’s crazy manipulative. Often aloof and preoccupied, many people tend to dislike him right off the bat, or at least not be willing to make friends with him. The idea might be that he thinks he’s too good for his peers; while that’s probably part of it, his jerkass demeanor stems from an entire childhood’s worth of capital-I Issues.
From a very young age, Temujin was having prophetic dreams and hallucinations about the Mandarin’s armor and the Makluan rings, drawing fridge-worthy pictures with his crayons in his Soul Calibur stage of a home in Inner Mongolia, which led his mother to believe that he would be the prophesied one to reclaim all the rings and rule the world.
Getting that spoon-fed to you at the tender age of six is pretty likely to cause some issues down the line.
The first Makluan ring, the heirloom that the first Mandarin had left to his children along with the tale of the rings, was promised to Temujin when he came of age, and for a little while things looked like they were going to be okay...right up until his mother married a man named Xin Zhang. (Who is terrible.) Gene loathes Zhang. If the word “hate” could be written on every grain of sand in the Sahara desert, all that hate on each of those hateful grains would approximate one one-millionth of the hate that Gene hates Zhang with all the time.
It’s never stated outright in the show that Zhang murdered her for the money and power - although it’s implied as heavily as it can be in a children’s cartoon - but it’s not even sugarcoated that Zhang is physically and verbally abusive to Gene, a pattern which we can extrapolate as occurring since the death of Gene’s mother. Gene is half-Han Chinese, half-Mongol, which explains why he is “sick of being called a ‘half-breed’,” which he mentions has happened to him all his life. Upon moving to New York from Zhang’s previous Tong base of operations in San Francisco, he begins going by “Gene” rather than “Temujin”. Zhang considers this “weakness” and a sign that Gene is “corrupted by the West”.
While it appears that Gene wants the rings for ultimate power for its own sake (since during season one his motivation is never examined too closely), during season two his position is made more nuanced. Gene wants the rings because the world is broken and horrible - and he thinks he’s the only person who can fix it. Naturally, this ends up backfiring spectacularly, because his collection and activation of all ten rings acts as a signal beacon for the Makluans todemolish the Earth to build a freeway come in and invade and also temporarily makes him a complete moron. By trying to save the world with his rule, he ends up nearly destroying it. So, good job, full marks, you can see why his self-esteem is not incredibly high here, despite also having an ego large enough to rival a small gas giant.
He is capable of cold-blooded murder, since he blew up the jet Tony was flying on with little more than a callous remark (“Your son is not my concern,”) when kidnapping Howard. Gene also, after his current canon point, kills the Makluan in the final temple in one of the few successful murders in the entire show (the others are committed by Justin Hammer).
He is so warped by his past experiences that the resident Cthulhu expy, a centipede-like demon named Yogthulu, considers him an “impure soul” when compared to Tony and Howard Stark...bearing in mind the latter used to be a weapons manufacturer for decades. Yes, you read that right. Gene is so fucked up that even the Cthulhu expy is like “Dude.”
The official Nicktoons description on the website, clearly written during the early days of season one, calls him “an egocentric sociopath”.
Gene's got the ego for sure. But "sociopath"? Nope. He tries really hard not to, but he ends up making friends with Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, and James Rhodes. (It gets incredibly awkward when one realizes he’s had Tony’s presumed-dead dad locked up in his basement dungeon this whole time - so for about a year.) He even goes so far as to sacrifice himself to the fifth temple’s guardian in an attempt to save Tony and Pepper from being eaten. (It works, but he also ends up getting all the currently-known rings back, and proceeds to go somewhat mad with power.) The guilt he feels afterwards is overwhelming, and he even throws his rings away from him because he thinks the power isn't worth losing his friends. But just before he goes back to apologize and try to make things right, the rings activate a hidden map showing the locations of the other, previously unknown five. It's easier to chase after the remaining rings than it is to go back and apologize, after all.
Tony especially is furious with him, and doesn’t believe his assertion that Howard is still alive until Gene practically gift-wraps the evidence for him; he appears hurt when Tony repeatedly calls him a monster, and after closing Doctor Doom’s portals of darkforce energy that are unleashing demons upon the world, sadly asks Tony “Do you still see me as a monster?” before teleporting away. He claims to have never much liked Rhodey, but has an evident soft spot for Pepper, going so far as refusing to fight her even when she wears the Rescue armor that Tony made for her.
His feelings towards Tony are...tsundere complicated, ranging from “useful pawn” to “good friend” to “he lied to us and betrayed us and now we hates it, precious, we hates it forever” to “surprisingly, the only person I can trust” to, finally, “respect and grudging ally - just don’t get in my way”.
At the heart of things, Gene Khan is a really messed-up kid with a really messed-up home life and delusions/aspirations of grandeur and far, far too much power for his own good.
Appearance:
Abilities:
Wushu
Gene is a “Wushu Gold Tiger with twelve years of training”, and as such is an improbably good martial artist since he’s been training from about the age of five or six. He is also capable with swords and other similar weapons.
Dragonseed
The Dragonseed (which, at this point, he doesn’t know is a thing) allows Gene to use the full power of the Makluan rings. Happily for him, this also means that anyone without the Dragonseed is only capable of summoning the Mandarin’s armor. Doctor Doom was able to create a machine that was able to use the power of the ninth ring; however, it took a great deal of time and effort. And also nearly destroyed the world. Kids, don’t be like Doom.
Makluan Rings
The power of all of ten rings combined gives the user godlike, reality-warping powers. Good thing for everyone Gene only has the first nine, and is mostly smart enough not to use them poorly! Mostly.
List of the rings and their powers.
Inventory:
x1 set of clothing – glasses, sneakers, shirt, pants, socks, underwear.
x1 mobile phone/MP3 player – Stark tech.
x9 rings, Makluan – phenomenal cosmic power in a gumball machine-prize-looking package.
x1 necklace – a simple string on which to hang the rings when not in use.
A handful of coins similar to these.
Suite: FI-1A if available. Something in the Fire sector is encouraged if it is not. As a high-profile rich kidand rightful ruler of the world, Gene is accustomed to a certain level of luxury.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Gene had really been having a good day.
Well, not so much 'good' as 'productive', but quite honestly he'll take what he can get in this scenario. He's managed to get Count Nefaria to at least agree to meet to talk peace between the Maggia and the Tong, which is more than Zhang had ever managed. He's irritated that he keeps being unsure of himself enough to keep visiting Zhang in his cell and even more irritated that Zhang's completely unhelpful barbs keep digging under his skin like they do.
He'd even found time to do his physics homework in between searching for the next ring and running a criminal empire while masquerading as his stepfather, without sitting, sleep-deprived, in the back of the limo with a worksheet on the way to school and trying to remember which one was the second law of thermodynamics.
Yeah, he'd been pretty happy about the day's progress.
Then Pepper and Stark had to go and get all territorial about each other, start a fight in the middle of class, and damn them both but he'd been reluctantly dragged into it.
One detention later (he had never had detention before and was especially pissed that this had happened today of all days when he had so much to do), and he was stuck working with Pepper on the damn punishment paper, and the girl would not take 'I'm way too busy for this' for an answer.
Which is how he's ended up sitting in the diner with her - and surprisingly, they've managed to hit it off, since he's managed to deny Zhang being a criminal for long enough that she's gotten off the trail.
Maybe the day can actually end on a high note.
Network:
[Video. Gene looks haunted, like he’s barely holding it together - and given how good he usually is at hiding his emotions, this is a sight to see. He’s nervously tugging on something that’s been tucked into his shirt, and it looks like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. This boy is teetering on the knife’s edge of a nervous breakdown and he quite possibly doesn’t care who knows it.]
When you make a deal with the Emperor and she shows you your future, it’s not set in stone, right? Can it be changed?
REVISIONS: Upon learning that he is in a world between life, death, and dreaming...well, Gene's probably not going to take it well, at first. He's kind of in the middle of something, and being yanked out of a fight just before he's about to claim what's rightfully his and reaching the goal he's been striving for all his life is going to piss him off. A lot.
Once he's done breaking everything in his suite in frustration, though, he's probably going to calm down and fit in pretty well. The aesthetic of Keeliai will both make him feel at home, and also a little homesick. And once he finds out that people have sometimes found things that have fallen through the cracks into this In Between world from their own on landfalls, well, he might have some slight hope about finding the last ring somehow. If he has the last ring and the reality warping powers that are supposed to go with it, he'll figure, he ought to be able to make it home and finish what he started. (Odds of that actually happening are nil to also nil.) He'll integrate as best he can, play the role of the innocent, helpful teenager, and plot and scheme to try and find a way back in his spare time. Whether he'll realize it's pointless is another matter entirely. But either way, he is a Khan - he is the Mandarin - and he will find a way to turn this disadvantageous situation to his benefit.
After all, he's come through worse.
Name: Alex (Zed on the roster)
Age: 22
Contact: chatvert @ plurk, TeriyakiPickle @ AIM, greencat3 @ GTalk/gmail
Game Cast: Jason Bourne (
brokenweapon); AC is here.Character Information:
Name: Temujin “Gene” Khan / The Mandarin
Canon: Iron Man: Armored Adventures
Canon Point: During “Dragonseed”, when he is fighting Team Iron Man in the last temple, but before entering the challenge room.
Age: 17
Reference: Wikipedia.
Things in green are implied in the show but not outright stated due to the fact that IMAA is a kids’ show; things in yellow are pure headcanon conjecture.
Setting:
The simplest way to explain the universe of Iron Man: Armored Adventures - known otherwise as Earth-904913 - is a high-school AU of the Iron Man mythos set approximately parallel to modern Earth, featuring other Marvel universe characters as well. It largely focuses on the adventures of a teenaged Tony Stark and his friends, including James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, and for the duration of season one, Gene Khan.
The series flips between slice-of-life action and epic battles, sometimes even occurring simultaneously; one episode has Rhodey and Pepper stuck in a bind for their science project because their partner Tony is out in the Iron Man suit fighting crime. There are many issues of import during the series, including the mystery of the plane crash that injured Tony’s heart, was presumed to have killed Howard Stark, and left Obadiah Stane in charge of Stark International until Tony becomes a legal adult at age 18. Additionally, Tony's performance in school is tied to his eligibility to take the reins of the company, due to his father's will, so Tony can't just take off from school to fight crime full-time. The corporate intrigue is interwoven with the mystery of the Makluan rings; Howard Stark had found one shortly before the plane crash, figuring it to be highly advanced technology rather than magical in nature, and Tony decides to study them as well in the wake of the crash. He is assisted in this endeavor primarily by Gene Khan, who has his own reasons for wanting to help Tony find the rings. Gene believes that the rings are his birthright as the last of the Khans and the one true Mandarin, and he uses the resources of his stepfather, and leader of the Tong organized crime syndicate, Xin Zhang. Zhang hides his activities under the cover of being an import/export mogul.
Organized crime is rampant in the IMAA universe, with the two warring factions being the Maggia (led by Count Nefaria) and the Tong (led by whoever happens to be wearing the Mandarin’s armor at the time); SHIELD seems to be the only effective law enforcement agency, despite Pepper’s father being an FBI field agent and the police occasionally showing up at the scenes of crimes. The Helicarrier is almost always hovering directly over Manhattan, in what is probably a blatant violation of federal restricted airspace laws.
Corporations have enormous power as well; the two most notable are Stark International and Hammer Multinational, the latter of which is led by 21-year-old prodigy
Gene’s friends
Mutants are present in this iteration of the Marvel universe, with prominent politicians building platforms on the issue of mutant rights, and everyone and their dog having an opinion on the issue. At this point, mutants are still largely feared and not accepted in society.
Of particular importance to Gene and his arc are the Makluan temples scattered throughout the world. There are nine temples which appear to be Chinese in origin, located in, among other places: China, Greenland, Mount St. Helens, Peru, Egypt, Latveria...and the barren, apocalyptic wasteland of New Jersey (I'm gonna be fair to the French animators and guess that they took every New Jersey joke they'd ever heard literally). The temples were created by his ancestor, the first Mandarin, who is heavily implied to be Genghis Khan, and used to store the Makluan rings until a descendant of the first Khan can pass the tests of worthiness and claim all ten rings. The Makluan rings are, as Howard Stark suspected, not magic but technology - but they are not human in origin, either.
That’s right.
The Makluan rings are actually weapons created by the Makluan aliens and used to subjugate and destroy entire civilizations. They were stolen by the son of the Makluan Overlord and given to a human with the ability to use them wisely, and the young Makluan altered the DNA of the recipient enough to allow him to use the rings. This means that Gene has a very few Makluan DNA markers that let him activate the full power of the rings; without these, anyone using the rings is limited to forming the Mandarin’s armor only. This does not mean he is half-Makluan. (I feel like I should make that clear, because some people seem to think this means he is half-Makluan. IT DOES NOT. GENETICS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.)
Of course, what kind of supervillain would do all the grunt work himself? Gene had caused Howard Stark’s plane crash, and kidnapped him from the plane before blowing it up (bear in mind he was about 15 or 16 at the time), because Howard was the foremost expert in the highly obscure field of Makluan ring research, and he had been corresponding with Zhang about the rings. Howard Stark returns to helm Stark International after a year and a half held prisoner, and the company fortunes begin to stabilize (especially after the very public breakdown of Obadiah Stane and his rampage through New York City in the Iron Monger).
Personality:
Gene Khan…how do I begin to explain Gene Khan?
Gene Khan is flawless.
I hear his rings are insured for $10,000.
I hear he does car commercials…in Mongolia.
His favorite movie is Infernal Affairs.
One time, he met Howard Stark on a plane, and he told him he was crazy.
One time, he punched Rhodey in the face.
It was awesome.
On a more serious note, even though everything above is also perfectly accurate:
Gene has had a pretty shitty childhood, and it shows in his interactions with people. He’s good at pretending he’s a normal teenager, or at least good enough to fool pretty much everyone right off the bat. He’s crazy manipulative. Often aloof and preoccupied, many people tend to dislike him right off the bat, or at least not be willing to make friends with him. The idea might be that he thinks he’s too good for his peers; while that’s probably part of it, his jerkass demeanor stems from an entire childhood’s worth of capital-I Issues.
From a very young age, Temujin was having prophetic dreams and hallucinations about the Mandarin’s armor and the Makluan rings, drawing fridge-worthy pictures with his crayons in his Soul Calibur stage of a home in Inner Mongolia, which led his mother to believe that he would be the prophesied one to reclaim all the rings and rule the world.
Getting that spoon-fed to you at the tender age of six is pretty likely to cause some issues down the line.
The first Makluan ring, the heirloom that the first Mandarin had left to his children along with the tale of the rings, was promised to Temujin when he came of age, and for a little while things looked like they were going to be okay...right up until his mother married a man named Xin Zhang. (Who is terrible.) Gene loathes Zhang. If the word “hate” could be written on every grain of sand in the Sahara desert, all that hate on each of those hateful grains would approximate one one-millionth of the hate that Gene hates Zhang with all the time.
It’s never stated outright in the show that Zhang murdered her for the money and power - although it’s implied as heavily as it can be in a children’s cartoon - but it’s not even sugarcoated that Zhang is physically and verbally abusive to Gene, a pattern which we can extrapolate as occurring since the death of Gene’s mother. Gene is half-Han Chinese, half-Mongol, which explains why he is “sick of being called a ‘half-breed’,” which he mentions has happened to him all his life. Upon moving to New York from Zhang’s previous Tong base of operations in San Francisco, he begins going by “Gene” rather than “Temujin”. Zhang considers this “weakness” and a sign that Gene is “corrupted by the West”.
While it appears that Gene wants the rings for ultimate power for its own sake (since during season one his motivation is never examined too closely), during season two his position is made more nuanced. Gene wants the rings because the world is broken and horrible - and he thinks he’s the only person who can fix it. Naturally, this ends up backfiring spectacularly, because his collection and activation of all ten rings acts as a signal beacon for the Makluans to
He is capable of cold-blooded murder, since he blew up the jet Tony was flying on with little more than a callous remark (“Your son is not my concern,”) when kidnapping Howard. Gene also, after his current canon point, kills the Makluan in the final temple in one of the few successful murders in the entire show (the others are committed by Justin Hammer).
He is so warped by his past experiences that the resident Cthulhu expy, a centipede-like demon named Yogthulu, considers him an “impure soul” when compared to Tony and Howard Stark...bearing in mind the latter used to be a weapons manufacturer for decades. Yes, you read that right. Gene is so fucked up that even the Cthulhu expy is like “Dude.”
The official Nicktoons description on the website, clearly written during the early days of season one, calls him “an egocentric sociopath”.
Gene's got the ego for sure. But "sociopath"? Nope. He tries really hard not to, but he ends up making friends with Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, and James Rhodes. (It gets incredibly awkward when one realizes he’s had Tony’s presumed-dead dad locked up in his basement dungeon this whole time - so for about a year.) He even goes so far as to sacrifice himself to the fifth temple’s guardian in an attempt to save Tony and Pepper from being eaten. (It works, but he also ends up getting all the currently-known rings back, and proceeds to go somewhat mad with power.) The guilt he feels afterwards is overwhelming, and he even throws his rings away from him because he thinks the power isn't worth losing his friends. But just before he goes back to apologize and try to make things right, the rings activate a hidden map showing the locations of the other, previously unknown five. It's easier to chase after the remaining rings than it is to go back and apologize, after all.
Tony especially is furious with him, and doesn’t believe his assertion that Howard is still alive until Gene practically gift-wraps the evidence for him; he appears hurt when Tony repeatedly calls him a monster, and after closing Doctor Doom’s portals of darkforce energy that are unleashing demons upon the world, sadly asks Tony “Do you still see me as a monster?” before teleporting away. He claims to have never much liked Rhodey, but has an evident soft spot for Pepper, going so far as refusing to fight her even when she wears the Rescue armor that Tony made for her.
His feelings towards Tony are...
At the heart of things, Gene Khan is a really messed-up kid with a really messed-up home life and delusions/aspirations of grandeur and far, far too much power for his own good.
Appearance:
 |
| Mandarin armor with the nine rings he’ll have upon arrival |
 |
| Gene without his glasses (unusual), half-armor |
 |
| Gene’s usual attire. Not shown: his atrocious yellow track pants |
Abilities:
Wushu
Gene is a “Wushu Gold Tiger with twelve years of training”, and as such is an improbably good martial artist since he’s been training from about the age of five or six. He is also capable with swords and other similar weapons.
Dragonseed
The Dragonseed (which, at this point, he doesn’t know is a thing) allows Gene to use the full power of the Makluan rings. Happily for him, this also means that anyone without the Dragonseed is only capable of summoning the Mandarin’s armor. Doctor Doom was able to create a machine that was able to use the power of the ninth ring; however, it took a great deal of time and effort. And also nearly destroyed the world. Kids, don’t be like Doom.
Makluan Rings
The power of all of ten rings combined gives the user godlike, reality-warping powers. Good thing for everyone Gene only has the first nine, and is mostly smart enough not to use them poorly! Mostly.
List of the rings and their powers.
Inventory:
x1 set of clothing – glasses, sneakers, shirt, pants, socks, underwear.
x1 mobile phone/MP3 player – Stark tech.
x9 rings, Makluan – phenomenal cosmic power in a gumball machine-prize-looking package.
x1 necklace – a simple string on which to hang the rings when not in use.
A handful of coins similar to these.
Suite: FI-1A if available. Something in the Fire sector is encouraged if it is not. As a high-profile rich kid
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Gene had really been having a good day.
Well, not so much 'good' as 'productive', but quite honestly he'll take what he can get in this scenario. He's managed to get Count Nefaria to at least agree to meet to talk peace between the Maggia and the Tong, which is more than Zhang had ever managed. He's irritated that he keeps being unsure of himself enough to keep visiting Zhang in his cell and even more irritated that Zhang's completely unhelpful barbs keep digging under his skin like they do.
He'd even found time to do his physics homework in between searching for the next ring and running a criminal empire while masquerading as his stepfather, without sitting, sleep-deprived, in the back of the limo with a worksheet on the way to school and trying to remember which one was the second law of thermodynamics.
Yeah, he'd been pretty happy about the day's progress.
Then Pepper and Stark had to go and get all territorial about each other, start a fight in the middle of class, and damn them both but he'd been reluctantly dragged into it.
One detention later (he had never had detention before and was especially pissed that this had happened today of all days when he had so much to do), and he was stuck working with Pepper on the damn punishment paper, and the girl would not take 'I'm way too busy for this' for an answer.
Which is how he's ended up sitting in the diner with her - and surprisingly, they've managed to hit it off, since he's managed to deny Zhang being a criminal for long enough that she's gotten off the trail.
Maybe the day can actually end on a high note.
Network:
[Video. Gene looks haunted, like he’s barely holding it together - and given how good he usually is at hiding his emotions, this is a sight to see. He’s nervously tugging on something that’s been tucked into his shirt, and it looks like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. This boy is teetering on the knife’s edge of a nervous breakdown and he quite possibly doesn’t care who knows it.]
When you make a deal with the Emperor and she shows you your future, it’s not set in stone, right? Can it be changed?
REVISIONS: Upon learning that he is in a world between life, death, and dreaming...well, Gene's probably not going to take it well, at first. He's kind of in the middle of something, and being yanked out of a fight just before he's about to claim what's rightfully his and reaching the goal he's been striving for all his life is going to piss him off. A lot.
Once he's done breaking everything in his suite in frustration, though, he's probably going to calm down and fit in pretty well. The aesthetic of Keeliai will both make him feel at home, and also a little homesick. And once he finds out that people have sometimes found things that have fallen through the cracks into this In Between world from their own on landfalls, well, he might have some slight hope about finding the last ring somehow. If he has the last ring and the reality warping powers that are supposed to go with it, he'll figure, he ought to be able to make it home and finish what he started. (Odds of that actually happening are nil to also nil.) He'll integrate as best he can, play the role of the innocent, helpful teenager, and plot and scheme to try and find a way back in his spare time. Whether he'll realize it's pointless is another matter entirely. But either way, he is a Khan - he is the Mandarin - and he will find a way to turn this disadvantageous situation to his benefit.
After all, he's come through worse.