Kaliq Murat

First seen in the Legion of Lawndale Heroes Mini ‘The Little Drummer Girl’, Kaliq Abida Murat is a Cadet Second Year at the United States Academy of Extranormal Studies.

Biography

The firstborn child (and first American-born) of Iranian immigrants, Kaliq Murat was born and raised in Dearborn, Michigan – the largest Iranian-American enclave in the United States. When Kaliq was eleven, he and his family witnessed the events of 9/11 first-hand during a trip to New York City, and became incredibly afraid of increasing anti-American sentiments. Kaliq’s mutant psionic powers manifested during the return cross-country trip when his family was attacked by rural ‘patriotic Americans’ during a visit to a rest stop. For the next six years, Kaliq became a secret hero for the local Iranian-American population of Dearborn as he used his powers to warn and protect people from not just anti-Iranian activists, but from a variety of problems. When he turned seventeen, an FBI Special Agent assigned to Dearborn (who also had psi-abilities) discovered his powers. After speaking with the family at length, and agreeing to provide protection for the community, the FBI agent (a graduate of USAES) arranged for Kaliq to enroll at the Academy; he entered during the summer semester that Tiffany Blum-Deckler enrolled, and was assigned to Training Cadre 3872.

A handsome young man, Kaliq (also known as Kal by his fellow cadets), is somewhat competitive with others; also, his experiences growing up have left him with very little patience or tolerance for people who treat others badly because they are different. A blossoming metrosexual, Kaliq is very fashion conscious, and owns a wardrobe that would rival any member of the Fashion Club.

Samara Murat is his first cousin.

Powers

Kaliq is a psionic of unusual ability and potential power. During testing, he has been classified as a standard-level Class Three psionic; it if believed that with intense advanced training, he could reach high-end Class Four status. Depending on the further development of his ability to manifest new powers through his crystals, Kaliq could possibly reach Class Five status. At present, Kaliq possesses the following abilities:

Telepathy: Kaliq possesses the ability to communicate through thought, and to discern the thoughts of others. He can use his psionic powers up to twenty-five miles away; however, if he channels his powers through his crystals, he can reach out to 250 miles away. Kaliq’s telepathy is unique in the speed of transmission; like Jefferson Davers, his ‘psi-speech’ is between 300-500 times faster than normal speech.

Aura Detection: Kaliq can detect the energy emanations giving off by all organic and sentient/semi-aware beings, creatures and areas; he can deduce general information about the target, and can even envision (or project images, through his illusion-casting power) what has occurred. His power is so sensitive that he can discern when people are telling the truth, or the general wishes of any animal or non-verbal creature/being he encounters. He can also use his power to locate persons or items giving off energy emanations; shielding or masking powers or methods to mask energy sigantures (such as radiation) will defest Kaliq's power. Kaliq's power extends to a radius of one-quarter of a mile from his location.

Empathy: Kaliq has the ability to monitor and manipulate the existing emotional states of any living being, as well as transmit his own emotions, transmit empathic messages that cannot be comprehended in the same manner as telepathic messages, or receive information on a person's location, surroundings and physical state (as they are affecting the person's emotions). His power has a range of two miles; because of the nature and range of his empathy, Kaliq has found this power very useful for dealing with large, angry crowds of people.

Mental Screen: Kaliq has internal psionic screens that shield him from psionic and emotion-based attacks and effects. A side effect of this renders him immune to powers and devices that specifically inhibit psionic powers.

TK force-charges: Kaliq can generate small, globe-shaped constructs of pseudo-plasmic/TK energy that act as missiles. Each of the 'force-charges', is yellow in color, can track on heat signatures, brainwaves or energy signatures, and operates like the AMRRAM air-to-air missile (each charge can move at speeds of up to Mach 4, strike out to twenty-five miles, and can detonate with the force of up to twice that of a Hellfire tank-buster missile). Like most cadets with a similar ability, Kaliq has also learned how to perform a 'Tekestorm' - a simultaneous release of more than one hundred force-charges that home in on multiple targets. Kaliq can control and/or destroy these charges in flight by mental command and can engage in continuous 'Tekestorm' release; he has been shown in testing to generate a total of seventy-five releases, and can control both the force and the energy output of the charges.

Crystallization: Kaliq possesses the ability to generate/create quantities of a gemlike material with the equivalent material strength of Secondary Adamantium. He can generate and project the pure crystalline material from his body in a number of ways: as solid projectiles; as a directed cloud of dust, mist or gas; as a web-like material, or as a shimmering fluid filled with crystalline flecks. He can project solid projectiles at targets with great accuracy up to one hundred meters away; he can project a crystalline web or mist/cloud out to forty meters away, and he can create up to a maximum of 4,000 gallons of crystalline fluid. The creation of great quantities of crystal is stressful upon Kaliq's body, and he has learned that after a certain point, he is incapable of generating more crystal for a full twenty-four hours.

-Transforming any material he chooses into a gemlike material with the equivalent material strength of Secondary Adamantium. He can choose to make the transformation of material temporary or permanent; if temporary (and used upon organic creatures), they are placed into a state of suspended animation. The temporary version allows crystallized objects to remain as such for a period of one hour; they return to their normal form afterward. Kaliq can crystallize materials up to fifty miles away.

- When transforming organic materials (such as persons, animals, etc.), he can choose to transform them into crystalline analogs of their organic forms. When doing this, the person transformed possesses the physical capabilities of a human at the very pinnacle of human development. Kaliq can crystallize himself as well as others.

- Kaliq can manifest and focus a number of other powers through his crystals (regardless of the form he has generated the material in), his own metahuman abilities, as well as several that he cannot generate outside of his crystals, and which are not necessarily considered psionic abilities. The abilities Kaliq has manifested through his crystals (at present) are:

• Artifact Creation: (can create items out of crystal)
• Gateway Creation: (as per the standard ability; he can only keep the locations for six gateways ready at any one time, but can also open gateways to places others have been)
• Biophysical Control/Gender Alteration: Kaliq can alter a person’s gender; in doing so, he can make alterations to the person’s ‘alter ego’ as he sees fit. He can make the alteration temporary or permanent; in addition, he can also allow the target of his power to permanently retain the ability to assume the alteration at will. (It must be noted that anyone with this ability can heal any injuries, sickness or even the effects of old age by simply switching back to their original form; when they assume the altered form, it returns in the original alteration.)
• Clairvoyance/Clairaudience: Kaliq can choose to see and hear distant events through the crystals, or create a crystal that can act as a viewer that others can also see those events.
• Energy Conversion: Kaliq can convert any form of energy into any other form through his crystals; at present, he does not possess an upper limit for his conversion, and is invulnerable to the forces that he channels.
• Illusion-Casting: Kaliq can generate illusions so realistic that even if a person is fully aware that they are illusions, they will still react as if they are real. The illusions affect all human senses (even enhanced ones). Kaliq's illusions can remain active as long as he concentrates upon them.
• Psi-Suppression: Kaliq can generate crystalline objects that act as psi-dampeners, preventing the use of any psionic abilities (including his own) for a period of up to twenty-four hours, or until he deactivates/destroys the object. He can disrupt psi-powers in a area of up to ten miles, or totally dampen out psi-powers out to three miles away. This ability has no effect on psionics who have the power of Mental Invisibility (or any related ability).

Talents and abilities

Kaliq is a computer specialist extraordinaire. He has skills in computer architecture, engineering and programming, as well as in computer security and encryption (in this, he seems to be following the path of other Academy-trained telepaths of note, who have chosen to follow other educational paths besides a major in communications). He speaks perfect English, Farsi, French, and Arabic, is learning how to fly small planes, and is taking lessons in Jeet Kune Do. He is also very knowledgeable in past and current fashion trends for both man’s and women’s clothing.

Kaliq is also slated to begin training in Tactical Psionic Operations elective courses that train psionics for front-line combat operations (the courses known informally as 'Combat Psi').