Cuff

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Cuff</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

<label>Status</label><format>

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<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Ava<ref name="26.b">26.b (Interlude B, Golem part 2)</ref>, known publicly as Cuff, is a member of the Chicago Wards.

Personality

Ava can weaponize "niceness" when needing someone to do things. Naturally nervous and lacking in confidence, she is not well suited to the battles she participates in as a cape. She has been called a coward for her skittish personality, but the memory of her parents keeps her going despite this.<ref name="playtest">Playtest Capes</ref>

Appearance

Ava has platinum blonde hair. As Cuff, she wears a blue-black metal costume that includes a breastplate, heavy gauntlets, boots, and a white-lensed mask etched with a feminine face, and metal bands running down each arm and leg and binding her three braids.<ref name="23.5">Drone 23.5</ref> After the timeskip, she wore armor and a layered visor.<ref name="29.7">Venom 29.7</ref>

Abilities and Powers

Ava is a metallokinetic, capable of shaping most metals to some degree or another. As a Striker, she can more easily manipulate metal in direct contact with her skin, able to wear metal in a semisolid state as Cuff. She can also manipulate metal for several seconds after it leaves her vicinity, giving her the ability to control metallic objects in flight,<ref name="comment">Cuff is more of an agility/aim sort of metallokinetic. She can hurl metal objects and control their flight to a limited degree (her ability to manipulate these objects lingers for several seconds after they leave her vicinity) and shape metal as it hits an enemy. Throw/swing a metal pipe and have it form a shackle or binding around a foe on impact. Further, so long as she's wearing metal armor or is within arm's reach of metal, she can fling or slide herself using metallokinetic pushes. This can augment ongoing movement. She also has a passive, secondary brute power that enhances her physique slightly and increases her resistance to damage for a little while after she gets damaged (it's part of why she survives Behemoth's lightning). - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref> this allowed her to be an effective long-range attacker.<ref name="26.5 e1">Cuff used her metallokinesis to heave a small disc of metal. Effective enhanced strength, along with the ability to control the rotation of the projectile, the ability to control the flight of it after it left her hand…

It slammed into a Hatchet Face’s collarbone, burying into his flesh. - Excerpt from Sting 26.5</ref><ref name="25.3 e1" /> As part of her metal manipulation abilities she can also sense metal to some degree.<ref>“Plan B. Also plan D, if you count the more unnatural deviants,” Satyr said. “Except Scion is now here, and he’s here now. All of the plans will be forced into effect at once, rendered into little more than alphabet soup. To top it off, the architect of those plans is out of reach.”

I looked at the solid metal wall. “Cuff?”

Cuff focused on the metal barrier. “I can tell from here. It’s a lot of metal. I don’t know how they did it. It’s all one solid piece.” - Excerpt from Venom 29.6</ref>

Her striker powers allowed her to manipulate metalic objects as she was hitting them, increasing the impact and effect of her punches,<ref name="25.3 e1">Cuff rounded the corner just as Mockshow led her quadruped truck-minion outside. I folded the wings in just as she made contact.

Cuff could use her short range metallokinesis to manipulate her armor, effectively granting herself increased strength. She could, it seemed, also use it to impact the metal she was hitting. She wasn’t moving that fast, but everything my limited senses could tell me suggested she delivered a hit like a freight train striking a car that had stalled on the tracks.

“No! Fuck no, fuck damn!” Mockshow shouted. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.3</ref> with manipulation of her costume allowing her to hit hard enough to break bone, without hurting herself.<ref name="29.5 e2">Golem’s hands shoved more away. Cuff’s strikes, using her ability to manipulate metal and her metal gloves, were enough to break bone. She shattered legs and arms, struck ribs and threw people aside. - Excerpt from Venom 29.5</ref>

Ava also has a passive secondary Brute power that slightly enhances her physique and increases her resistance to damage for a little while after being injured.<ref name="playtest" /><ref name="comment" /> As stated she uses her metalokinesis powers to enhance the strength of her gauntleted blows<ref name="25.3 e1" /> as well as her agility,<ref name="List">Cuff Enhanced strength, durability, and metallokinesis, augmenting agility by manipulating own armor. Wards -

Parahuman List, Bolded edit by Wildbow</ref><ref name="comment" /> and is even able to deflect metallic objects as they speed toward her.<ref name="26.5 e2">She prepared to throw another disc, only for a Murder Rat to leap onto her from above.

The metal blades of Murder Rat’s claws were swept aside as if Cuff had parried it with something physical. Cuff settled for striking Murder Rat across the eyes with the razor edge of the discus. - Excerpt from Sting 26.5</ref>

After the timeskip, Cuff's skill increased to the point of being able to open vault doors with her Striker powers. Making her particularly effective against metal emplacements.<ref name="29.5 e1">They’d barely dented the reinforced metal doors, with their myriad powers.

Cuff ignored them, charging forward, and hit the door with her fist.

The crash was loud enough to stun me, and I was at the thick of the group, furthest from the door.

She did more damage to the door than most of them had.

[...]

Cuff hit the reinforced metal door again. It bulged as if she were ten times the size, hitting ten times as hard.

She hit it a third time, a fourth…

On the fifth impact, it gave way. - Excerpt from Venom 29.5</ref>

History

Background

Ava lost her parents during a plane crash<ref name="playtest Intro">This Ward cages herself in metal much as she’s bound herself to the fight against ruin. The image of her parents, surrounded by the wreckage of an Endbringer-downed plane, remains burned into her mind’s eye, pressing her forward. She was never meant to be a soldier. - Playtest Capes</ref> when Behemoth destroyed the volcano islands of Hawaii.<ref name="24.y">Excerpt from Interlude 24.y</ref> Ava survived and likely gained her powers from the event.

Post-Echidna

Ava saw her first combat when deployed against Behemoth at New Delhi. She performed admirably, although she suffered a burn that would take a good deal of time for her to recover from.

Post-Timeskip

Gained skill and experience in work.

Gold Morning

Ava started dating Golem around the time of the Gold Morning.

She was chosen to be part of Taylor's strike squad for investigating the disappearance of Doormaker by infiltrating the Cauldron Base.<ref>Venom 29.3</ref>

Quotes

"You’re doing that crazy mastermind thing again," ~ Ava to Weaver<ref name="29.6">Venom 29.6</ref>

References

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