Age: 18
Birthdate: 18 March
Class: Villain (secretly)
Occupation: Student
Superpower: Post-Mortem Power Absorption (taking the powers of those she has killed)--leads to having Doppelgänger Morphing (the ability to take on the appearance of other people) after she kills her sister.
She keeps her first power a secret. Nobody except her knows that that is her real ability--after all, to admit that would be to admit to murder, which she isn't about to do. She entered school pretending that Doppelgänger Morphing was her only ability, and that she'd always had it. She categorizes herself as a hero, and pretends to be a good guy, so nobody suspects that she actually does terrible things.
The daughter of two superheroes, Saoirse grew up with a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy. Everyone in her family had powers, except, it seemed, for Saoirse. She lived in the shadow of her parents, and of her younger sister, Roisin.
Her parents had both emigrated from Ireland to attend the superhero academy in America. Her mother, Grainne, had the power to duplicate herself, while her father, Ciaran, had the power of flight. Roisin had the power to shapeshift into other people, which they'd discovered rather early on, when she was about four or five. Saoirse, three years older than Roisin, displayed no such talents.
Every day, she felt excluded from her family’s activities. Though her parents claimed to love her just as much as Roisin, she could tell they didn't mean it. How could they? Roisin was special--she was everything they wanted, a daughter just like them who could carry on their legacy. And Saoirse was just...normal. She tried and tried to find some sort of power within herself. Perhaps her abilities were simply latent, and she'd discover them someday. But every day, she tried to make something happen--flight, telekinesis, elemental control, shapeshifting--and every day it failed. Every day, her jealousy of her sister grew.
The worst part by far was the lack of control. To her, that was what having powers was all about. If you had a superpower, that meant you were able to control something that normal people couldn't. Which meant her parents and her sister all had more control than she did. She couldn't stand it. Being a normal person in a world full of superheroes...she felt like she was at the whim of everyone around her. Her life meant so much less than everyone else's, it was so much more fragile. She would never be content just being a civilian, with her life dictated by powers beyond her reach. She had to do something about it.
So she decided to take control. If she couldn't have powers of her own, if she couldn't control the world around her, she could at least control her own life. She could take away one source of her misery.
Roisin. Daddy’s darling daughter. That perfect little princess had everything that Saoirse had ever wanted--superpowers, their parents’ pride and affection--and by God she loathed the little bitch, down to the stupid pink bows on her revolting sparkly shoes.
So one summer day, she took her sister out to the lake for a fun day of sisterly bonding. Their parents were out fighting some villain or other--Saoirse really couldn't care less--and the girls had often gone boating or fishing on the lake when they were younger, so it was hardly a suspicious activity. Roisin was nine at the time, and Saoirse twelve.
She brought their fishing gear, and rowed her sister out to a secluded part of the lake, claiming to have heard it was the perfect spot for trout. Roisin happily leaned over the edge of the boat as Saoirse pointed out the silhouette of a particularly large fish, and without a moment's hesitation, she shoved the unsuspecting girl into the water. No one else was around to hear her scream, but Saoirse personally found it very annoying, so she promptly smacked her sister over the head with an oar, knocking her out. Then she reached down and took a fistful of the girl’s hair, dunking her head under the water and holding it there until her small body jerked, and eventually went still.
Then Saoirse started screaming. She jumped into the water herself, tugging at her sister’s body, and eventually dragging it to shore. She ran to the nearest dock, shrieking and crying hysterically, calling for help. People came running. They called the police and performed CPR, but it was too late.
Over the next few weeks, Saoirse played the part of the grieving sister perfectly. Her parents were in shock, slipping into a long period of mourning, and the neighbors often stopped by to comfort them, and to check up on how Saoirse was faring after such a traumatic experience. She responded exactly as she was expected to, and nobody ever suspected a thing. Roisin’s death was a tragic accident, nothing more.
It was several months later that Saoirse made a shocking discovery. She was standing in front of her mirror, brushing her hair and contemplating her sister’s powers, wondering how it felt to transform into someone else. She tried to imagine it, picturing herself morphing into the lady next door...and then it happened. She dropped her hairbrush in shock, her face quickly reverting back to her own. She'd discovered her ability: she'd stolen Roisin’s.
In her excitement, the twelve-year-old ran to show her parents. They'd never suspect that it had anything to do with her murdering Roisin--nobody believed she was capable of that. Plus, she already had another explanation in mind, which her parents would latch on to: the emotional stress had prompted her latent powers to show themselves. She was simply a late bloomer. And that she had the same powers as Roisin? Well, it wasn't unheard of for siblings to be similar, right?
She was right when she thought her parents would believe her explanation. She was wrong when she thought they would be pleased. Although they expressed some excitement at the fact that she had powers after all, it was marred by the blatant reminder of the child they had lost. Her powers being the same as her sister’s felt like mockery. Saoirse could never replace Roisin in their eyes.
Saoirse hid her bitterness. Even when she was dead, Roisin still found a way to ruin her life--if anything, now she cast an even bigger shadow. But Saoirse decided she was done trying to please her parents. She had her own powers now, she didn't need them.
And she'd also discovered something else the day Roisin had died: murder gave a her rush she'd never felt before. And she liked it.
Shortly before her thirteenth birthday, she killed the neighbor’s cat. It was nothing personal, she just wanted to know if killing animals felt the same as killing people. As it turned out, it wasn't quite as satisfying, but perhaps that was just because she didn't hate the cat as much as she'd hated Roisin. She buried the cat’s body in the woods. Later, she helped her neighbor post “MISSING” posters all over town, smirking inwardly because she knew Mr. Whiskers would never be found.
She developed a private obsession. Every time her mind wandered, she found herself thinking about how to commit the perfect murder. Every time she watched the lady next door working in her garden, she wondered what it would feel like to strangle her. Every time she made a new friend at school, she made a game of planning the best ways to kill them without getting caught.
Nobody would ever suspect any of this from the way she carried herself. Slightly paranoid of being caught, she worked hard to make herself the most unlikely suspect imaginable. She was a friendly, helpful, slightly ditzy teenager with a penchant for fashion and popularity. Sweet and innocent, murder surely couldn't be farther from her mind.
When she was fourteen, her parents enrolled her at the superhero academy that they had attended when they were younger. She quickly made friends with just about everyone, and excelled as a student, claiming that her dream was to become a superhero like her parents. Nobody discovered her secret ability, or her secret intentions. In truth, as she found herself surrounded by powered individuals, she found herself craving something more than what she had. She had her sister’s power, yes, but she could have so much more. All she had to do was kill a few more people. The more heroes she killed, the more power, the more control, she would have. Tempted by this thought, behind her facade of doe eyes and giggles, she is always plotting, searching for the perfect opportunity to strike her next victim.