Darcy Lewis

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PHASE 2

Darcy Lewis
Portrayed by Kat Dennings
Codename:	Conduit
Affiliations:	X-Force
Birthdate:	1 April 1988
Journal:	xp_darcy
Player:	Tink

I'm 90% sarcastic commentary and 10% political acumen. You'll need to get used to it sooner rather than later.

Darcy is being trained as an X-Force asset and facing what lurks beneath.

Details

Character Journal: xp_darcy

Real Name: Darcy Leigh Lewis

Codename: Conduit

Aliases: Nicknames are Darce and Seely. Only family calls her Seely, which stems from Joanna trying to imitate her aunt’s frequent calls of “Darcy Leigh!” when Jo was really young.

First Appearance: September 28, 2015

Date of Birth: 1 April 1988

Place of Birth: Madison, Wisconsin

Citizenship: USA

Relatives: Living: Grandma Edna, Aunt Luanne and Uncle Darren, cousins Isaac and Joanna. Deceased: Parents Gail and Stephen Lewis.

Education: Undergraduate: Culver University, B.A. in Political Science and Communications w/emphasis on public and media relations. JD from Columbia Law.

Relationship Status: Dating

Occupation: Data Analyst for Snow Valley

Team Affiliation: X-Force

Biography

Growing Up

Darcy grew up with her maternal grandma, aunt, uncle, and two cousins on the family farm outside of Belleville, WI. Her parents passed away while out of state for her mother’s work in 1991, and while she has some token interaction with the paternal side of her family, she’s not particularly close to them the way she is with her maternal family. The farm’s not very big, just 10 acres with part sectioned off for vegetables and commercial grain that mostly functions to cover the needs of the family and the small herd of alpacas they keep. They sell some of their excess at local markets, but they do a lot of canning and preservation so they don’t have to spend as much at grocery stores. They do bulk shopping in Madison and have a deal worked out with the local butcher, which is pretty nice. Living in a rural area close enough to make easy trips to an urban area was what Darcy basically considered the best of both worlds. She got the small-town experience (for good and terrible), but as she grew up also had easy access to shopping, culture, music, almost anything she wanted.

School started fairly normally for Darcy. She was bright, friendly, and had no issues making friends. She was a little stubborn and often got her own way, but not so stubborn that it caused any big issues. Teachers would send home reports about her chattiness in the classroom, but once they figured out that she would mostly keep quiet if she was allowed to read or doodle after her work was done those reports lessened in frequency.

She was one of the first girls to hit puberty in her class, and started 7th grade with a chest that just. wouldn’t. stop. growing. Her female classmates started spreading gossip about her--she’s got boobs, so she’s either stuffing it, had a boob job, or both depending on who you ask, and the boys made a game of seeing who could snap her bra hardest and farthest. Some of her teachers would intervene, especially when they saw someone grabbing at her, but others turned a mostly blind eye, only doling out punishment once Darcy had lost her temper and smacked the hands of the person touching her. The harassment came to a head when some creep grabbed her bra, pulling it back so far that not only did he leave a bleeding welt on her back, but he also destroyed the clasps on her brand new bra. Darcy completely lost her temper, whirling around and decking the guy. In the ensuing scuffle, she managed to nail him at least once in the crotch, and ended up with a black eye to join her bleeding back. She was proud as she walked to the principal’s office, and once the administration and her aunt heard the reason why she had lashed out against the guy (had been lashing out for months, albeit on a much smaller scale that most teachers didn’t do more than assign a detention for) the worst of the harassment was quickly dealt with. She still had to deal with the remarks, but by that point she had grown tough skin and a sharp tongue, and the words barely bothered her. The physical harassment stopped almost completely, and she was grateful the creeps were back to only looking and making comments. Her high school years were a largely unremarkable extension of middle school. She was on the school’s debate team and in choir, and got to travel with both groups for competitions. Darcy's psionic power unknowingly started manifesting her senior year of school. Between her last year of high school debate and her college admissions and scholarship interviews on top of normal school and life stress, she started pushing more for her way. She'd always been considered a little headstrong, and she'd been remarked on as an engaging speaker during debate, but she gained an edge during the year and by the time she started settling into classes at Culver the next fall she had a reputation among friends and classmates for getting folks to go along with what she wanted.

Culver and Beyond

Darcy started Culver without a firm idea of where she wanted to go for a career, and spent her first year exploring majors and making friends. She finally settled into Communications and Political Science, and began working steadily towards a double degree. She fit a few theatre and music courses into her schedule for fun, and was in the touring choir as part of her scholarship requirements. In 2011, her advisors realized she hadn’t taken her science credits yet and wouldn’t be able to fit them into her remaining schedule, and Darcy scrambled to find a science internship for the summer that would accept her. She ended up fetching coffee, Pop-tarts, and collating data for Dr. Jane Foster in New Mexico, even after SHIELD took interest, and returned to Culver that fall with six science credits and a cramped hand from signing numerous NDA forms so she could complete her final two semesters. She had her diploma in hand and feelers out for jobs in her field, but when late July rolled around with no offers in site she talked to Jane and managed to come back to the lab as a Jane-and-other-scientists wrangler. Darcy was there for a year before she found a place in House Rep. Ramona Scott’s office as a media relations junior assistant. She shuttled between DC and the Philadelphia apartment near Rep. Scott’s local office that she shared with two coworkers, keeping up with Jane in sporadic e-mails and texts between the lure of SCIENCE! and her own decreasing free time as the 2014 election dates loomed ever nearer. It’s in these communications that she first started hearing about Jane’s new coworker Clint Barton and later his friendship, of sorts, with Thor. The anecdotes usually made her laugh, and she responded with similar funny work stories when possible. She was able to come up a few times for a weekend to drag Jane (as well as Thor and Clint, when they were around) out for dinner and drinks to catch up, but the two men remained mostly in the realm of “friendly acquaintances” because of her limited interaction with them outside of Jane’s stories and those rare outings.

Rep. Scott was re-elected in 2014. Afterwards, Darcy considered going back to school for a Master’s degree to open even more doors for work--she considered several options before sending applications to USC and Columbia, and in late December traveled home for Christmas and New Year’s. She contracted a nasty case of the flu while home, and M-Day passed in a haze of splitting headaches, sleeping, and being awake just long enough to take meds and sip broth. Her illness kept her barely aware of what the news was saying until she’s packed up and headed back to work. The news and speculation did nothing to prepare her for the reality of fewer coworkers and fellow media relations assistants to drop her stress-baking off with, and the quieter corridors before new reps arrive are unsettling. By midsummer she’d accepted a place at Columbia for the winter term and sent off her financial aid package, and spent her time after that sassing the new interns and showing them the ropes.

A targeted attack to out any Democratic staffers with an X-gene outed Darcy's (unknown to her) status, and when things started to get violent she called on help from Clint through her connections with Jane. Darcy arrived safely at the mansion thanks to the wonder of Clarice's portals, and Clint asked Doug to scrub the speculative presence from the internet as thoroughly as possible.

Living At The X-Mansion

Darcy settled in at the mansion and eventually got comfortable interacting with most of the inhabitants. She successfully deferred her admission to Columbia and started their law school in the fall, bankrolled by Warren in return for holding his battle standard at Worthington Industries.

Life at the mansion was nothing if not interesting. Darcy left her mark with baked goods and her glowing personality - and her impatience with people (Clint) being stupid with their health and safety. In December, she accompanied the younger Generation X members on a field trip and they came upon a car accident. She successfully talked Maya down from a panic attack while the rest of GenX set to helping people. Her political experience came in handy when Hope Abbott needed help stopping questionable political mechanizations.

Darcy ended up being one of the lucky ones in the mansion, despite her tendency to attract chaos, and managed to stay out of trouble. In 2017, Clint recruited her for his new team for help with paperwork, HR-related things, and (unofficially) Team Mom-ing for the group. She started out taking notes for the weird green gems, then progressed to incoherently yelling CLINT NO when he adopted a tank of evil, mind-controlling baby squids after the events of Poor Unfortunate Souls in 2018. Halloween that year brought about her best Scooby Gang impression when she teamed up with other members of Gen X to fight an evil bear spirit that was causing chaos at the high school. In December, routine maintenance on the Danger Room got her stuck in a Minecraft world, where she wasn't able to use her powers to kill a dragon, but was able to fight one with the power of food (and useful enchants on weapons and armor).

2019 was thankfully calm to start. Juggling law school and shenanigans was sometimes tiring, but the quiet to start the year had her on good track to finish school and work on the bar exam. She was also unofficially the PA of Reed Richards, which got her wrapped up in the events of Fear in the Dark. In the fall, she helped Clea perform an exorcism on a fraternity's haunted house, then shuffled the other woman back to the mansion to continue sleeping off a cold.

2020 was calm for her, giving Darcy time to really settle into her position at a local firm and build a reputation as a strong researcher.

Joining X-Force

In April of 2021 she was at the mansion when the events of A Fistful of Nanites occurred. Down in the labs, hoping to get out safely (and with Laurie's more recent back-up arms, once she came across the good doc on her way out), a comedy of horrible errors chaining together led to the arms being overtaken by nanties, trying to attack Darcy, latching on to Laurie's attached arm in the process of saving Darcy, and ultimately to Darcy tazing mostly Laurie's arm but also herself in the process. They were able to drag themselves out of the labs to safety, but Laurie's arm connections were toasted in the process. Darcy spent the summer working from home, helping mutant children in Madripoor, and after some weird pasta predictions with Marie-Ange, she accepted an interview (and ultimately a position) at Snow Valley as a data analyst and X-Force trainee with Kevin Sydney as her mentor.

The Hellfire Gala in September kicked off a series of events for Darcy. Her first real mission with X-Force, dates for the event in the form of Laurie and Namor, and some competitive, flirty dancing with Doug that ended up leading to dates. In October, she got a front row seat to the consequences of her actions, as X-Force offered up a local politician as a ritual sacrifice to appease one pissed off nature spirit and prevent the flooding of Baltimore. Barely home, the standard XF milk run had her obtaining a magical copy of what claimed to be the Necronomicon. It was placed in Avalon, and the resulting traps on the book had mansion residents living out classic monster moments. After they were released from the spell, the book blew a hole in Avalon, which led to its collapse and the disappearance of Topaz. November was a quiet clusterfuck as the stress from the events of October piled up on Darcy, and she turned to her girlfriend Laurie, who offered stopgap pheromone help with her anxiety and insomnia. As November turned to December, Laurie's continuing efforts to get her arm fixed or replaced led to the events of Arise, X-Man. When Darcy finally confronted her, the two ended up in a fight. As words--and powers--were used, the resulting feedback loop left Darcy unconscious and powerless. She fled the mansion in a panic as soon as she was awake and able to talk herself out of medical, and stayed with one of Kevin's acquaintances while she came to terms with the aftermath of Laurie manipulating her mind.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5 feet, 3 inches.

Weight: 150 lbs but also none of your business.

Eyes: Green

Hair: Dark Brown

Other Features: When she's actively engaging her technopathy, her eyes flare a bright, almost neon version of her normal shade.

Powers

Electrokinesis: Darcy is her own personal taser.

Technopathy: Darcy's psi-insight has expanded to work with electronics as well, with simple gadgets doing things like giving her perfect toast or stopping just before the popcorn burns. "Smarter" gadgets require time and effort. Her own devices and communal or friend devices she uses or is around the most often are the easiest to sweet talk. With practice she's learning to coax strange devices into giving her information. When she's accessing her powers for any length of time, her eyes flare a neon version of their normal shade, and if she's going deep into a device she enters a fugue-like state and becomes unaware of her surroundings.

Formerly

Darcy's voice has persuasive powers, and in their current “I’m a mutant, wtf?” form they work on a subconscious level, making people inclined to go along with what she wants if she feels strongly about the topic. It's very ineffective against those that are strongly averse to the idea, mentally shielded, or highly aware of their own mind, and Darcy has to be in both speaking and sight range (roughly 20-30 yds). The person also has to be able to hear and understand what she's saying. This subconscious manipulation pings on emotions and impulses primarily, but she also gleans some of her perceptions of people from these unknowing brushes against their brains, which is part of her flashes of insight. So far, people have generally brushed this off as Darcy just being headstrong and a charismatic speaker, although it's actually something that materialized her senior year of high school, while she was stressed and working on college admissions and scholarship interviews.

Equipment

Darcy and her taser are not easily parted. Multiple pairs of anti-static bracelets and a shock-proof case for her phone and tablet.

Trivia

Darcy's in-game twitter handle is @andtaser.

She used to keep a reward chart for the scientists that she originally started for Jane (and then Clint), but at some point it expanded to basically be "People that Darcy cares about but has to bribe because they're dumbasses about their own health and safety." During the events with Laurie, it went the way of the dodo.

It's a running theme that other people notice changes in her powers before she does, from finding out they exist to observing her behavior while using them.

External Links

xp_communication posts

xp_journal posts

xp_logs posts

xp_teams posts

Plots

2015

Dial My Number

Roadside Assistance - event

2016

The Dulcet Sound of My Voice

2017

Green-Eyed Monster

2018

Poor Unfortunate Souls

Generation X: Demon Bear

The Danger Room Paradox

2019

Fear in the Dark

House of Horrors

2021

A Fistful of Nanites

X-Men Mission: Coming to America

Operation: Dewey Deceptional System

Potomac Calls to Chesapeake

Monster Mash

The Color of Horror

Operation: Wideawake

Arise, X-Man

2022

Operation: Clan Akkaba - Ascent

Operation: Black Hand

2023

Operation: Bat Country

Behold A White Horse

Operation: Behold A Red Horse

X-Men Mission: Behold A Black Horse

2024

Behold A Pale Horse

Meta

Player: Tink

E-mail:

Player Icon Base: Kat Dennings

Meta Trivia

Darcy tends to invite chaos, and she's made her peace with that. #kallisti

Darcy's powers changed as a result of a feedback loop burn out during Arise, X-Man.