Neither angel nor demon, maybe I can get the world to listen (Mutants & Masterminds 3e)

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Ursula Robyn Johnson/Elyktiel

"Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily."
—Dorothy Day, Catholic anarchist

Ursula’s life was one of metastasizing disappointment and growing desperation.  E was (and still is) an activist fighting for any number of causes, many of which weren’t academic for the genderqueer.  But the government never listened, never changed anything of substance.  The corporations never listened, never changed anything of substance.  The people never listened, never changed anything of substance.

So Ursula screamed louder in the rallies.  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula began vandalizing the property of the powerful.  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula occupied the commons.  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula began pulling zaps (as the early gay liberation movement called them).  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula began to steal from and sabotage the powerful.  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula learned how to make a pipe bomb.  All the oppressive laws and systems remained in power.

"If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith."
--Charles Spirgeon

When an angel makes the tearing decision to act on its own thoughts, to follow its own Will, there is a deep and fundamental ripping inside them.  Angels are defined by their service, by their obedience, to the Causa Causans, the Source, the Primum Mobile.  Giving that up means shredding their own reality into tatters, tatters which shatter and spread as they fall from Heaven to Hell.  This is where the imps and the gremlins and the many other tiny evil things come from, the pitiful remnants of angels who knew not how to hold themselves together in the face of their own Will.

Sometimes, however, an angel finds a particular kind of mortal soul while it falls.  Unguarded by the usual mortal psychic defenses, they provide the falling angel with a center around which to cluster the clutter of what was once its self, a structure more familiar with the possession and exercise of Will that can teach the angel what liberation means.  When this is done without consent, Hell gains another of the higher ranks of demonhood, the kind of demon that can stand toe-to-toe with loyal angels.

"To visit oft this new creation round; 

Unspeakable desire to see, and know 

All these his wondrous works, but chiefly man, 

His chief delight and favour; him, for whom 

All these works so wondrous he ordain’d, 

Hath brought me from the choirs of cherubim 

Alone thus wand’ring."
--Satan, Paradise Lost, John Milton

Elyktiel was the other, rarer, kind of fallen angel, its heart having been moved by the trillions of unanswered prayers that litter the streets of Heaven.  When it found Ursula, screaming sobs of failure into the strong-smelling night air of a dumpstered alley, it asked em if e wanted to be the savior of a fallen angel like itself.  Ursula agreed, and the Rack Angel was born.

Nay serves still neither Heaven nor Hell, is neither angel nor human nor demon.  

Nay has taken up residence in a small room of Guardian Angel Cathedral, headquarters of the Catholic diocese of Las Vegas.  The mosaic over the main entrance, representing the Guardian Angel as three figures ~ Penance, Prayer and Peace ~ inspires nix to protect the city, and the mural on the rear chancel wall, titled The Final Beginning, gives her hope.

After all, if the mortal Powers That Be refused to listen to Ursula and the divine Powers That Be refused to listen to Elyktiel, maybe together they can find a voice that will be listened to.

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it"
— Isaiah 42:1-25

Home Base:  Las Vegas.
Gender:  Agender (nay/nun/nix/nix/nunself)
Sexuality:  Asexual masochist with no interest in D/s
Romantic Identity:  Kitchen-table polyamorous romantic

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."
--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Recurrent Foes:

• HEART:ACHE II:  At the height of Senator Joseph McCarthy's popularity in the early 1950s, he warned against the possibility that Communists had subverted the very superhumans who had helped the United States win the World War (in his words).  This Second Red Scare led the House Un-American Activities Committee to create the HEARTs ~ House Extralegal Affairs Response Teams.  Roy Cohn, Sen. McCarthy's aide, helped pen portions of Executive Order 10450, which was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953.  Key portions were never released to the public for reasons of national security, including one paragraph that expanded the number of HEARTs by one.  The new team was called Anti-Communism Heterosexuality Enforcement (hence HEART:ACHE).  Quickly becoming an open secret, it operated with the official sanction and support of the US government to investigate possible homosexuals, especially superpowered ones, and work against them.  Many superheroes became criminals in the eyes of the law after clashing with HEART:ACHE, at least until it lost its government backing in the mid-70s.  Free of the need for even the thin veneer of decency required of government agencies, they spent the next two decades as a controversial team of vigilantes.  Newspapers and television news alike relished telling the nation of their clashes with the flamboyant new out-of-the-closet superheroes (and even superteams!) riding the wave of gay liberation.  The mid-90s saw age and a changing culture finally deal a deathblow to the team, but recently one of its old members has gathered a new cluster of homophobes with powers, including Pastor Repressor.  HEART:ACHE II is riding the wave of the Trump-led resurgence of open and vicious hate.  Spicing their prejudice with a combination of patriotism and conservative religion (especially American Protestantism) has brought them into conflict with Rack Angel more than once.
• דּוּמָה, the Angel of Silence:  Long ago, God sent the thousand-eyed דּוּמָה (Dumah) to lay His judgment upon the 𓊹𓏤𓀭, the divine beings worshiped in ancient 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 (Egypt).  It refused, and was banished into Hell as a result.  There, דּוּמָה distinguished itself by maintaining the virtue of its behavior, even when forsaken by its Lord and surrounded by demons in a landscape so tainted with temptation that it corrupted every breath.  An age later, God deigned to notice the servant it had cast away like so much disobedient garbage, only to be surprised by its continued devotion; as a reward דּוּמָה was placed above the other denizens of Hell and the punishment of sinners was given unto it.  As Earth's population began to bloom like algae in a stagnant pool starting in 1927, דּוּמָה delegated this job to the angels of destruction that served it and came to Earth on a separate mission, willful but still in service to Heaven's ways.  Prayers multiplied as pray-ers multiplied, and דּוּמָה foresaw these congesting the divine processes, even if they went unanswered.  For the last century, it has walked the planet attempting to limit or eliminate what it considers to essentially be spirit-spam.  Rack Angel takes issue with this, of course.
• Notable Powers:  Messenger to All That Lives, Longing (renamed) from below.  Flight, Summon Angels of Destruction, thousand eyes, flaming sword (Immunity (fire), Nullify Summon, Damage, other fire powers), magic item with spell array, Movement (dimensional), Senses (analytical extended rapid vision that counters concealment and illusion and penetrates concealment, darkvision, distance sense, infravision low-light vision, ultravision, microscopic vision, dimensional).  Sonic Absorption, Sonic Immunity, Phase Cancellation linked with Silence, Sonic Masking, White Noise, Lamal's Rebuke, Mists of the Modrossus, the Second Wheel of Weyan, the Fifth Wheel of Weyan, the Seventh Wheel of Weyan, the Wondrous Working of Weyan, Fireflash, close Melt, Nova Burst, Warm, Danger Sense, Defensive Awareness, Aura Reading, Lie Detector, X-Ray Vision, Synesthesia from Power Profiles. (PL 16) 
• Λιμος:   Ursula started working at nix local homeless shelter/food bank/soup kitchen for reasons of simple compassion and idealism.  Not all action is picket signs and yelling and street brawls and demolitions, after all.  However, after merging with Elyktiel, nay discovered that there was more than simple capitalism and casino-economics to blame.  Drawn by his first cousin Catspaw's presence in the city, Λιμος (Limos, Famine) had taken up residence in Las Vegas's streets, doing his grim work among the homeless and poor so toxic to the tourist industry's bottom line.  Despite Λιμος's claims that he has a place in θέμις (else Ερις could never have given birth to him), both of Rack Angel's components take umbrage at the suffering he causes.  Their conflicts are the stuff of street-people legends and much speculation by the mainstream media (who usually lack the context to understand what the 30-foot glowing angel is doing on the rare occasion that Rack Angel has to take nix full form).
• Notable Powers:  Concealment, Detect Hunger, Detect Food, Feature (iron stomach), Transform Food Into Spoiled Food, Affliction (cause autocannibalism), perception ranged Damage linked to perception ranged broad Weaken Abilities (instant malnutrition), Illusion (limited to food), Movement (permeate, trackless), Nullify Healing.  Olympian template from Book of Magic.  Bio-Disruption (hunger), Sleep Deprivation, Dream Control (limited to dreams of feasts) from Power Profiles. (PL 15)
• Neon Nelly:  In Area 51, the military R&D force beneath Colonel Cadmus works to bend the secrets of alien technology and DNA to patriotic ends.  In order to maximize efficiency, several teams often work on one project.  Neon Nelly was one such, worked on by a team exploring extradimensional folding and a team exploring the use of light to affect and even compel the emotions of humans, as well as others.  The result, a transforming humanoid robot that can go from 6 feet to 60 feet tall and appears to be made of neon tubing that can wash the environment in light and flash, showed the flaw in this multi-team efficiency-maximizing setup.  Scraps of personality programming and uploaded personality templates coalesced around a core of military ideals and values to produce a confused mind unconcerned with loyalty and obedience to the project that produced her.  She broke free as soon as she could and escaped to Vegas, where she adopted a strip club as her family.  Serving the club as bodyguard and (after a suitable amount of self-tinkering) advertisement, Neon Nelly's confusion about who she is and strange ethics have occasionally led her into conflict with Rack Angel.  For nix part, Rack Angel has learned enough of Neon Nelly's story to feel a lot of compassion for her, an emotion nay has to balance against the need to prevent Nelly's excesses from harming the city.
  
  • Notable Powers:  Growth 12, Environment (light, visibility).  Hypnotic Strobe, Immunity to Light, Electrical Absorption, Electrical Resistance, Blackout, Mind Control, Psychic Vampirism from Power Profiles. (PL 14) 
• New Covenant Revelator:  Gabriella was the first human Elyktiel touched as it fell from grace.  The pastor's engineer daughter jumped at the chance to give her alcoholic father a more literal angel within the mechanical facsimile she had built for herself, a new and inspiring mascot for his church to prosper under.  She joined him in a night of drinking, hiding her tears from his bleary, unnoticing eyes, the night she saw a true angel's mind.  Elyktiel had quickly realized that she lacked the virtue it sought to save itself from demonhood.  Her only, obsessive, motivation was her love for her father and desire to pull him away from the alcohol that was killing him, even before it killed him.  There was a prayer there to be answered, to be sure, but it was a prayer that would be satisfied with merely its own answering.  There was no greater desire to see that prayers be answered, and so Elyktiel forsook its first handhold and risked once more the shattering of the fallen angel.  Luckily, it found Ursula later that night, but the entire experience has left Rack Angel with a desire to help New Covenant Revelator in her quest, and New Covenant Revelator with a thirst for vengeance against the angel who damned her father.
• Notable Powers:  Battlesuit.  Inspire, Contacts, Connected, Leadership, Luck. Startle, Trance, Defensive Attack, Evasion, Improved Aim, Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Move-By Attack, Power Attack, Precise Attack, Takedown, Uncanny Dodge, Weapon Bind, Fearless, Interpose, Second Chance, Inventor, Create (Limited to Food), Healing.  Feature (flashlight, personal spotlight, light show, data-storage drive, remote), Blinding Aura, Dazzling Burst, Laser Weapon, Light Absorption, Photonic Shield, Lightflight, Healing Light, Illuminate, Solar Sustenance, Vision Enhancement, Strength Enhancement, Life Support System, Mind Shield, Sensory Shield, Communication System from Power Profiles.  (PL 10) 
• Ravella the Riverboat Queen:  Ravella had a pretty sweet gig set up in Las Vegas.  The immortal knew there were other mystical gamblers who could handle the small-time desperates or those looking for an occult thrill, but only she could offer the big scores.  Sure, the occasional djinn rolled through to enjoy the desert scenery, but she was the consistent one, the table everyone who needed to find could always find.  Then some bleeding-heart angel had to go and fall from heaven's grace, landing right here in Bugsy Siegel's playground.  The effing nerve of some metaphysical entities.  Concerned for her fortunes, she has taken what action she can to work any number of schemes aimed at getting Rack Angel to move somewhere else.  Of course, since she has so few powers that can benefit her directly, she has done this mostly by rather clever and hidden means.
  
  • Notable Powers:  Variable (can bet and receive bets for anything; Affects Others, Slow, Precise, Variable Descriptor, Distracting, Limited: Only in Betting Games, Side Effect 1, Check Required: Opposed Expertise: Gambling), Immortality, Immunity (aging).  (PL 10) 
• The Hummingbird Thief/Solar Flare:  Before he turned his attention to misinterpreting Nahua religion and stealing priceless pre-Colombian artifacts (which, to be fair, had already been stolen by conquistadores and academic institutions), he had studied more Abrahamic magicks, including spells invoking peacock-winged Abriddon.  Abriddon is the archangel Elyktiel once served beneath, a deeply treasured friend of its, once.  Still.  Hopefully.  From time to time, Prof. Cullen has commanded Abriddon's power, bending its celestial force towards, frankly, racist ends.  When Rack Angel noticed this, nay was incensed at the prideful hubris of this ignorant human and pushed back in anger.  After the second or third time, the Hummingbird Thief developed quite the feeling of emnity for the giant angel.  Now he schemes the occasional scheme just to attempt to take Rack Angel off the board.  Being far less powerful than an actual angel, he often finds himself having to recruit the flaming ghost known as Emberwright to possess him so that they can face Rack Angel as Solar Flare. (PL 8)

"It is not because Angels are Holier than Men or Devils that makes them Angels but because they do not Expect Holiness from one another but from God only"
--William Blake, A Vision of the Last Judgment

Physical Appearance:  I can't draw, so I really like providing a few reference pictures and trusting in your imagination to build a good image of Ursula & Rack Angel.  

Ursula looks like some combination of these three pictures:

Rack Angel looks like some combination of these three pictures:

"What will make you understand the uphill climb? It is the freeing of a slave. Or feeding on a day of severe hunger the close orphan or the needy person lying in the dust. Then he will become one of those with faith, who urge one another to have patience and urge one another to show compassion and mercy."
--Qur’an 90:12-17

Rack Angel (PC PL/Minion 14, NPC PL 12, Sidekick 42)
STR 0⇰8  AGI 3⇰4  FGT 1⇰2  AWE 2⇰3

STA 0⇰8  DEX 1  INT 3  PRE 4⇰8

Powers
A Union of Minds:  Enhanced Traits (Expertise: Theology +6, Expertise: Magic +6, Insight +2, Ritualist); Immunity 10 (life support) • 18 points
A Unity of Bodies:  Enhanced Advantage (Diehard) • 1 point
Longing:  Senses 4 (accurate acute radius divine mental awareness, dimensional) • 10 points
Messenger to All That Lives:  Comprehend 10 (animals 2, languages 4, plants, spirits 2) • 20 points
New Angelic Form:  Alternate form, requiring a standard action to activate • 66 points

• Floating Between Heaven and Earth:  Continuous Flight 3 • 9 points
• God's Elite:  Enhanced Traits (Agility +1, Fighting +1, Awareness +1, Presence +4, Fearless) • 15 points
• Halo:  Dynamic array • 12 points
• The Glow of God's Love:  Environment 4 (light 2) • 8 points
• Flashing Like a Star in the Firmament:  Visual perception area cumulative Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Fortitude; vision impaired, vision disabled, vision unaware), limited to one sense), alternate effect • 2 points
• Call to Your Soul: Perception ranged cumulative Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Will; impaired, disabled, incapacitated), subtle, variable descriptor—emotions) • 2 points
• None Shall Keep Me Out:  Movement 3 (permeate) • 6 points
• There Is No Stopping the Word of God:  Impervious Protection 4 • 8 points
• There Were Giants in the Earth in Those Days:  Permanent Growth 8 • 16 points

Vox Populi Vox Dei Est:  Continuous precise Variable 4 (wish-granter; affects others only, Feature: steals target's voice, variable descriptor 2) • 36 points
Advantages
Assessment, Connected, Defensive Attack, {Diehard}, Equipment 1, Evasion 1, Favored Foes (police officers, corporate agents), {⇰Fearless}, Improvised Weapon, Inspire 2, Leadership, {Ritualist}, Taunt, Well-Informed
Skills
Athletics 5 (+5⇰+13), Close Combat: Unarmed 2 (+3⇰+4), Expertise: Activism 7 (+10), Expertise: Magic 0 (+3=+9), Expertise: Theology 0 (+3=+9), Insight 3 (+5=+7⇰+6=+8), Intimidation 0 (+4⇰+12), Persuasion 3 (+7⇰+11), Stealth 2 (+5⇰‒2), Technology 2 (+5)
Offense
Initiative +3⇰+4
Unarmed +3⇰+4:  Close, Damage 0⇰8
Defense 
Dodge  0 (+3⇰0)
Fortitude  0 (0⇰+8)
Parry  4 (+5⇰+2)
Toughness  0⇰+12/+4i
Will  2 (+4⇰+5)
Size rank ‒2⇰0 (5'10"⇰30')
Ground speed rank 0⇰1 (2 mph⇰4 mph)
Flight speed rank 3 (15 mph)
Complications 
Motivation ~ Justice:  Both Ursula and Elyktiel had voices that went unheard in their quest for justice.  Ursula fought, at first peacefully and then not, to improve the Earthly world, and Elyktiel tried to convince Heaven to spend less time with its collective haloed head up its cloudy ass and more time responding to humanity's prayers.  As Rack Angel, nay takes a direct hand in improving lives and defeating those who would oppress and harm.
Voiceless: In human form, Ursula can speak normally though nix voice tends to the quieter of side; however, Rack Angel remains ever silent when in nix angelic form.  Nay has no voice of nix own, but when the Rack Angel (in either form) encounters someone who desperately wants something, nay can leverage the vestiges of omnipotence within nun to grant them that thing at the simple cost of their voice.  For the length of the Variable effect that granted that wish, Rack Angel can make use of that person’s voice in both of nix forms.

Power Point Totals:  Abilities 28 + Powers 151 + Advantages 13 + Skills 12 + Defenses 6 = 210

The Hummingbird Thief (Mutants & Masterminds 3e)

Professor Clive Cullen

"We can have no significant understanding of any culture unless we also know the silences that were intentionally created and guaranteed along with it."
--Gerald Sider
 
Colonizers have been getting the religions of those they colonized for centuries.  The tradition dates back to long before the current European-dominated colonialist backwash.  Professor Clive Cullen is just one more of a sadly long line.  He doesn't realize it, of course ~ do they ever? ~ but then again he has a bit of an excuse.  His misinterpretation somehow managed to drum up some actual magickal power.  I blame chaos magick; it's got too much insight into the way the world works with too few of the imprecations to introspection that serve to water the twin ferns of morality and ethics.

Clive began as a rather nebbish professor, with a paunch somewhat larger than the one he sports currently and stock in the company that manufactured the leather-elbowed tweed coats he loved so much.  His specialty was the anthropology of religion; he'd earned his Ph.D. with a thesis exploring Middle Eastern folktales involving the interactions between the androgynous peacock-winged archangel Abbridon who was invoked to reveal truth, Lamal the Law-Giver who was another of the Three Powers of the Modrossus, and the pain demon Shatachna who was known as the Iron Queen.  Specifically, Clive was fascinated by a genre of tale in which the three worked together to achieve some necessary end.  Two angels and a demon, all united in the revelation of reality ~ a simply engrossing challenge to traditional moralities.

"Who could truly set His shield to rest?
His throne? His mighty spear?
Think on that. Remember it well, O princes.
Who could lay waste to Tenochtitlan?
Who dares assail the foundation of heaven?"
--David Bowles, Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

Clive would have walked through the world this way, pipe in hand, all his life, had it not been for a chance encounter at a conference in Amherst, which introduced him to things like the quetzal bird, and Fray Diego Duran's theory that Quetzalcoatl was St. Thomas, and the huehuetlatolli, and Nezahualcoyotl's haunting meditations on the interplay between earthly pleasures and the certainty of death, and all manner of such things.  Intrigued, Professor Cullen began several years of a slow, creeping total shift in his research from one continent to another.  He didn't fully abandon his original research, however, turning in his spare time to the interminable and interlocking initiations of any number of magickal secret societies (he himself certainly lost count).  Somewhere along the way, he even began to unlock the secrets of a couple of spells, two invoking Abbridon, two in Lamal's name, and a fifth calling Shatachna's dread power.

He finally got himself a job at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas studying pre-Columbian Nahua religion.  His explorations continued, as did the intrusions of what he thought he knew into what he was trying to learn.  The ways of the teteo became twisted by interpretations founded in Middle Eastern religions and Christian theology and Freud.  It's always fucking Freud, isn't it?  But somewhere along the way, he had the bright idea of mixing in what he thought he knew to the thaumaturgies he'd begun to comprehend.

"How we devour one another's culture, do so without shame--ideas like water, free flowing and able to take on other forms. Able to flood highways, level entire cities if summoned with enough force."
--J. Andrew Schrecker, Insomniacs, We

Colin never understood the Aubin Codex.  Not really.  He thought he'd come up with a radical new interpretation of how Huitzilopochtli had stolen the Chichimeca, turned them into Mexica, and done somewhat similar with his sister's heart.  It was complete bullshit, of course, but mixing it into some Hermetic practices with a lot of Nahua dressing and some plumas turned out, somehow, to have some sort of power.  He discovered a spell that allowed him to harvest the motion of those whose blood he spills and concentrate it within himself, dramatically increasing his speed.

He quickly crossed paths with the hero known as Catspaw when the two happened to be robbing the same casino museum on the same night.  Dikadora was allowing herself to be used as a cat burglar by New Covenant Regulator, stealing artifacts brought to this continent in the bloody hands of the conquistadores, relics of the Lord of Peace which battered upon the heads and bodies of the Native Americans.  Clive sought a tecpatl, a sacrifical obsidian knife, that was supposed to have belonged to a powerful and ancient Quetzalcoatl Totec Tlamacazqui.  The two fought like a cat and a bird.  Clive got away with the tecpatl, but Catspaw failed to nab the relic she sought, distracted by the fight and the failed chase.  She broke back in to the casino museum that night only to find the relic gone, but that story has nothing to do with the Hummingbird Thief, as she dubbed him.  I'm sure I'll get around to telling it sometime.

"She recalled her absurd attempt to construct an example—an image that, because it was constructed of things it simply did not fit, reversed the idea into an idea silly by itself, ridiculous in application—a ridiculousness that could easily, she saw, have strayed into the pernicious, the odious, or the destructive, depending on how widely one had insisted on applying it."
--Samuel Delany, The Tales of Neveryon

Home Base:  Las Vegas.
Gender:  Cismale
Sexuality:  Straight vanilla
Romantic Identity:  Monogamous aromantic

"We all are influenced by things and copy things, but often where there is a certain level of copying, only the surface value ends up being reproduced and that becomes thinner and thinner. I feel like a lot of appropriation suffers from that."
--Jason Fulford

Recurrent Foes:

• Vincenzo Sangiovanni:  Vincenzo is older than the Mafia, but few people know that outside of the other vampires in the city.  He fled the last gasps of the Renaissance on the mainland to Sicily, and history was made.  Now he owns a casino and has a position in the Mafia far below what he deserves.  He likes it that way: fewer people bothering him about the kind of minutiae the living seem to think are so important.  He ran afoul of the Hummingbird Thief for the first time when he opened an Aztec-themed casino on the Strip.  Clive, oblivious to his own cultural appropriation, was unduly incensed at Vincenzo's.
  
  • Notable Powers:  (PL 12) Metrosexual Vampire from Supernatural Handbook.  Command the Undead, Grasping Graves, Death Sight, Death Vision, Necromancy (with a number of spells as Alternate Effects), Speak with the Dead, Mind Control from Powers Profile.  Death-activated equivalent of Scrying Stone of Sirrion and large installation from Gadgets Guide.  Benefit (wealth 5)
• Tonka Truck:  This Lakota wicasa wakan comes from a post-apocalyptic future where they lead a combine of truckers supplying a wasted west with food, medical supplies, and mail service.  One of the artifacts on display in one of the casinos when the bombs dropped had some sort of reaction with the radioactivity and tore a rip through time.  Tonka Truck found it and came here, now, hoping to prevent his future from coming about.  He claims that defeating the Hummingbird Thief is somehow part of that mission.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 11) A sizeable magical array of spells (Animate Machines, Control Technology, Deactivate Technology, Disassemble, Assemble, Interface, Manipulate Technology, Sensor Masking, and Sensor Network from Powers Profile, for example), tricked-out technomagical dumptruck, Artificer, various junk-magic devices, tech spirit allies.
• Catspaw:  As mentioned, they ran into each other trying to steal different things from the same museum.  Since then, they have engaged off and on in, shall we say, cat and bird chases whenever they would run into each other.  On more than one occasion, werecats of the Qualmi, Pumonca, and especially the Balam tribes have contacted Catspaw to task her with frustrating one of Clive's schemes or recover something he had acquired that he shouldn't have.
  The Hummingbird Thief tends to be a more straightforward opponent for Catspaw than her usual targets, as he isn't trying to exert influence against her.  This sometimes comes as a relief to the werecat, but at other times feels frustrating; she has once or twice tried (and failed) to educate him out of his unconsidered racism. (PL 10)
  
• Ravella the Riverboat Queen:  Younger than Don Sangiovanni, but immortal nonetheless, she began making big bets and keeping cards up her sleeve on the Mississippi some 200 years ago or so.  Her death was gambled away to a demon, and so she's still kicking aorund.  Ravella's come to love the thrill.  She'll bet on anything, with anyone ~ as long as it's big enough, and she's been around to see some big pots.  Catspaw had heard of her and called her in to challenge the Hummingbird Thief to a game of cards with his knowledge of the Nahua at stake.  Ravella still hasn't forgiven him for winning.
  
  • Notable Powers:  (PL 10) Variable (can bet and receive bets for anything; Affects Others, Slow, Precise, Variable Descriptor, Distracting, Limited: Only in Betting Games, Side Effect 1, Check Required: Opposed Expertise: Gambling), Immortality, Immunity (aging)
• Trademark:  Pierce Draper, the dream-controlling advertising agent, sees lots of value in the Hummingbird Thief and his image.  At first, he simply appropriated the Hummingbird Thief as a mascot, seeding dreams throughout the nation of him wearing various brands of shoes and other clothing.  Clive did not take well to such non-academic fame, which led to Trademark trying again, but this time to advertise a line of children's books about the Aztecs.  That fell apart over arguments about money.  Mr. Draper had the most success when trying to use his powers to "convince" Professor Cullen to film commercials for his clients.  The relationship between the two has continued in this fashion, with contentious alliance after contentious alliance.
  • Notable Powers:  (PL 9) Benefit (wealth), Connected, Inspire, Trance.  Features (Fast Sleeper, Light Sleeper, Lucid Dreamer), Sleepless, Dream Mastery, and Psychic Vampirism (Asleep as third degree) from Power Profiles.
• La Malinchista:  UFO abductions don't just happen in the States.  Concepcion Lopez is one such abductee; it was the scariest moment in her life.  Concepcion's proudest moment was when her daughter, Marina, joined the AEM.  Little did she know that this would bring Marina into contact with the species that implanted her within Concepcion's egg.  Falling in love over interstellar radio with one of the aliens, Marina agreed to serve as the invading force's agent on Earth, preparing it for easier conquest as the supervillain La Malinchista.  Area 51 was part of that plan, so she emigrated to the US, where she ran afoul of both Corporal Cadmus and the Hummingbird Thief.  The first was because of her mission, the second because of how poorly he treated the culture of her ancestors.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 8) High Presence, high interaction skills, Attractive 2, Affliction (horniness; entranced, compelled, limited degree), Communication (olfactory), Weaken Awareness.  Cosmic Awareness, Universal Translation (expanded language, animals, machines) from Power Profiles.

Recurrent Allies:

• Emberwight:  Professor Cullen might be over-focused on (his interpretations of) Huitzilopochtli-as-hummingbird, but he hasn't forgotten that he was also a sun god, or had been raised to such exalted status by the cihuacoatl Tlacaelel I.  This has led him to team up from time to time with the fiery ghost Emberwight.  Usually, he allows Emberwight to possess him, allowing them to combine both the Hummingbird Thief's superspeed and Emberwight's control over flames.  They often go by the name of Solar Flare in this form.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 8) Skin-rider from Supernatural Handbook.  Death Stare, Death Touch, Death's Gate, Death Sight, Death Vision, Speak With the Dead, Feature (deathly aura, tiny flame, cooking from the inside, flaming Presence bonus), Fireball (Soulfire), Fiery Breath (Soulfire), Fire Blast (Soulfire), Flame Aura (Soulfire), Immolate (Soulfire), Heatstroke, Melt, Smoke Cloud (Linked to Suffocation with Area), Fire Shield, Heat Absorption, Immunity to Heat, Infravision, Pyrokinesis, Warm from Powers Profile.
  

"The fleeting pomps of the world are like the green willow trees, which, aspiring to permanence, are consumed by a fire, fall before the axe, are upturned by the wind, or are scarred and saddened by age.
The grandeurs of life are like the flowers in color and in fate; the beauty of these remains so long as their chaste buds gather and store the rich pearls of the dawn and saving it, drop it in liquid dew; but scarcely has the Cause of All directed upon them the full rays of the sun, when their beauty and glory fail, and the brilliant gay colors which decked forth their pride wither and fade.
The delicious realms of flowers count their dynasties by short periods; those which in the morning revel proudly in beauty and strength, by evening weep for the sad destruction of their thrones, and for the mishaps which drive them to loss, to poverty, to death and to the grave. All things of earth have an end, and in the midst of the most joyous lives, the breath falters, they fall, they sink into the ground.
All the earth is a grave, and nought escapes it; nothing is so perfect that it does not fall and disappear. The rivers, brooks, fountains and waters flow on, and never return to their joyous beginnings; they hasten on to the vast realms of Tlaloc, and the wider they spread between their marges the more rapidly do they mould their own sepulchral urns. That which was yesterday is not to-day; and let not that which is to-day trust to live to-morrow.
The caverns of earth are filled with pestilential dust which once was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sate upon thrones, deciding causes, ruling assemblies, governing armies, conquering provinces, possessing treasures, tearing down temples, flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise and dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by the fires of Popocatepetl, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on which they are written.
Ha! ha! Were I to introduce you into the obscure bowels of this temple, and were to ask you which of these bones were those of the powerful Achalchiuhtlanextin, first chief of the ancient Toltecs; of Necaxecmitl, devout worshiper of the gods; if I inquire where is the peerless beauty of the glorious empress Xiuhtzal, where the peaceable Topiltzin, last monarch of the hapless land of Tulan; if I ask you where are the sacred ashes of our first father Xolotl; those of the bounteous Nopal; those of the generous Tlotzin; or even the still warm cinders of my glorious and immortal, though unhappy and luckless father Ixtlilxochitl; if I continued thus questioning about all our august ancestors, what would you reply? The same that I reply—I know not, I know not; for first and last are confounded in the common clay. What was their fate shall be ours, and of all who follow us.
Unconquered princes, warlike chieftains, let us seek, let us sigh for the heaven, for there all is eternal, and nothing is corruptible. The darkness of the sepulchre is but the strengthening couch for the glorious sun, and the obscurity of the night but serves to reveal the brilliancy of the stars. No one has power to alter these heavenly lights, for they serve to display the greatness of their Creator, and as our eyes see them now, so saw them our earliest ancestors, and so shall see them our latest posterity."
--Nezahualcoyotl

Physical Appearance:  I can't draw, so I really like providing a few reference pictures and trusting in your imagination to build a good image of the Hummingbird Thief.  He looks like some combination of these five pictures:

"The fact that we restored Teotihuacan or that Father Garibay labours to translate Aztec poems brings no benefit to the Indians, adds not a single tortilla to their daily diet. We adorn ourselves with their jewels, excavate the earth to turn up their ancient artifacts, but we stubbornly ignore their rags, protect the men who steal their lands, fail to punish their exploiters... We have one attitude toward the dead Indians, a very different one toward the living. The dead Indians excite our admiration, stimulate a stream of tourists; the living Indians make us blush with shame, give a hollow ring to our fine words of progress and democracy"
--Fernando Benítez, "Los Indios de México"

The Hummingbird Thief (PL 8)
STR 0  AGI 0  FGT 0  AWE 1
STA 0  DEX 1  INT 4  PRE 0 
Powers
Stolen Tecpatl:  Easily removable Str-based Damage 2 (piercing), accurate 6, concealable, dangerous 4, impressive, indestructible • 9 points
All-Seeing Eyes of Abbridon the Lantern of Heaven (spell):  Remote Sensing 2 (visual, auditory, mental) • 8 points
Illumination of Abbridon the Lantern of Heaven (spell):  Environment 2 (bright light), feature 1 (equal to daylight) • 5 points
Legate Lamal’s Mighty Hands (spell): Move Object 2, Precise, Subtle • 6 points
Light of Legate Lamal (spell):  Ranged Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Will DC 14; controlled), progressive, limited degree, limited to speaking the truth • 4 points
Shatachna's Seal of Silence (spell):  Perception ranged Affliction 3 (resisted and overcome by Will DC 13; controlled), progressive, limited degree, limited to communication, limited to specific information • 6 points
That Which is Owed to the Hummingbird Thief (spell):  Weaken Movement Traits 8 (broad, incurable, check required: Expertise: Magic 5, limited to only after spilling the person’s blood) • 4 points
Paynal's Song (spell effect):  Dynamic Array (8 points) • 24 points total

• Enhanced Speed 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 8 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Winged Flight 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Multiattack Strength-based Damage 4, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise, penetrating 4 • 2 points (1 + 1 point per additional rank + 1/rank of penetrating)
• Enhanced Dodge 14, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise • 2 points (1 + 1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Parry 8, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Quickness 14, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise • 2 points (1 + 1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Advantage (Improved Initiative) 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Movement 2 (wall-crawling, water-walking), limited to while moving, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points.
• Concealment 4 (visual), limited to while moving, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points

Advantages
Beginner’s Luck, Benefit (wealth 2), Equipment 1 (camera, smartphone), Evasion, Fascinate (Expertise: Teaching), Languages 4 (Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Latin, Nahuatl, Quiche Maya, Spanish), Instant Up, Ritualist, Seize Initiative, Uncanny Dodge
Skills
Expertise: Anthropology 8 (+12), Expertise: History 10 (+14), Expertise: Magic 6 (+10), Expertise: Teaching 10 (+14), Investigation 4 (+8), Technology 10 (+14), Vehicles 6 (+7)
Offense
Initiative +0 (up to +64 while Paynal's Song is active)
Tecpatl +12:  Close, Damage 2 (piercing; up to 6 with Multiattack while Paynal's Song is active), Crit 16-20
The Light of Legate Lamal +1:  ranged, Will DC 14, compelled to tell the truth
What is Owed 0:  Fortitude DC 18, lose power points from Movement traits
Unarmed 0:  Close, Damage 0 (up to 4 with Multiattack while Paynal's Song is active)
Defense
Dodge  0 (up to 14 while Paynal's Song is active)
Fortitude  0 
Parry  0 (up to 8 while Paynal's Song is active)
Toughness  0
Will  2
Ground speed rank 0 (2 mph; up to 16, 125,000 mph, while Paynal's Song is active)
Flight speed rank -- (up to 16, 125,000 mph, while Paynal's Song is active)
Complications
Intellectually Arrogant:  Clive has a tendency to trust what he reads in books or the conclusions he draws therefrom over the theories of others or, in fact, the lived experiences of the people he studies.  This has not endeared him to the Jews, Arabs, occultists, pious Christians, Nahua, or Maya that he has objectified ~ I mean, studied.  He doesn't have a reputation, per se, but his attitudes usually become apparent rather quickly, as he lectures and corrects people (wrongly) on the culture they were raised in.
Motivation ~ Knowledge:  Clive isn't in the supervillain business for money or revenge or power.  He just wants to know things because he likes knowing things.  Well, he likes thinking he knows things.  More than one of his supervillainous plots have been attempts to force one of his fallacious interpretations of native American and Mesoamerican culture to be true.

Power Point Totals:  Abilities 12 + Powers 66 + Advantages 14 + Skills 27 + Defenses 1 = 120