Mayday

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

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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>Mayday is a long time hero who's now part of Advance Guard.

Personality

A capable leader who has the respect of his colleagues. Seen as good with kids, with one notable exception.<ref name="5.5 e8888">“Then she goes to the parahuman Asylum, and from the Asylum to Baltimore, with Youth Guard getting involved. Baltimore. We have an inner city, we have gangs, we have some troubled kids in our Wards. Had. I hate to outright say it, Looksee, because I do think you’re a good kid-”

“Everyone says so, but I did bad stuff,” she said.

“Uninformed stuff,” he said, gently. “But bad, yeah. It was more trouble to deal with her than to wrangle all the other Wards combined. I get out of the toilet stall in the men’s room and this kid is sitting on the counter by the sink, waiting, has been for twenty minutes, dead silent for the first time in her life, because she wants to talk to me. There aren’t cameras in the bathrooms. It’s a blind spot. How does that look?”
[...]

- Excerpt form Shadow 5.5</ref>

Relationships

Optics

Is Bitter about the fact that she essentially sunk his chances to be moved to the main Protectorate team. He recognizes that he is bitter however and is genuinely happy that she has improved.

Appearance

A thirty year old man of african descent, he keeps a trimmed beard.<ref name="5.5 e77">“Then we’re clear to talk,” Mayday said. He pulled off his helmet. He did the thing a lot of capes with helmets did, wearing a basic mask beneath. He was thirty-five or so, had warm black skin, with a very long face and sharp chin, arching eyebrows, a thin mustache at his upper lip, and a line of beard from the middle of his lip to his chin. His head was shaved.

His face didn’t really match the impression he gave with his helmet on, with the broader, triangular face panels. That was part of the point, I supposed. - Excerpt form Shadow 5.5</ref> He has a good speaking voice.<ref name="5.4 e4">“We know this,” Mayday said. He had a deep, rich voice, which was muffled slightly by his mask. “The thinker I mentioned, Mapwright, showed us before evacuating out.” - Excerpt form Shadow 5.4</ref>

As Mayday his red and black armor follows the Advance Guard aesthetic,<ref name="5.2">The costumes were distinct enough for me to recognize them before any icon came into view. Bold contrasts of light and dark, angles, armor panels, and bright colors. Masks tended to be full-face. All of it looked like they had one very tired designer working on their costumes. Cohesion to the max.

The camera caught the icon, and it popped up in a window, blur-corrected. A figure running to the side, drawn out as a collection of triangles and irregular shapes. Their arm was out and holding an arrow-shaped shield. Others had slight variants on the same icon, to play into costume textures and other minor details. - Excerpt from Shadow 5.2</ref>with the added flourish of a tucked in one-shoulder-cape.<ref name="5.4 e1">Eight members of the twelve initial Advance Guard capes were present. Spright was near someone I presumed was Mayday, a guy who wore a costume with red and black armor panels and a cape that covered one shoulder. - Excerpt form Shadow 5.4</ref> His full face helmet is triangular looking obscuring his actual head shape.<ref name="5.5 e77"/>

Abilities and Powers

Mayday is an artillery-type blaster, he summons large red spheres composed of 'abstract energy' filaments from far behind him that he can then direct towards targeted area. Where the energy impacts a major, yet discriminatory, rearrangement ensues. Targets can be pulled to their feat or knocked down, they may end up facing another way be placed behind cover, innumerable changes are possible at the impact site.<ref name="5.4 e2">In the midst of the fight, Advance Guard was actually faring well enough, even though I couldn’t tell where four of their members were. Spright was having a conversation with Mayday, as villains approached them, crowding in. Mayday raised a hand, palm flat, then brought it down, so it pointed forward. Villains started scrambling out of the way.

From the distance, a flare of red light rose against the blue sky at the horizon, framed with something shadowy and dark that made it stand out clearly.

It was deceptive, in its general oblong shape, which became a circle and became oblong again, and its apparent lack of depth.

I realized what it was and put my hand at Sveta’s arm, in case I needed to pull her away. A projectile of some sort. It soared toward us, and touched down in the middle of the battlefield, with Mayday running to intercept it, getting clipped by one of Nailbiter’s claws on the way.

It hit him, almost dead on, and smashed into the road like water might, a mess of red strands that glowed to the point they were almost neon, in a sea of darker and darker strands. The webbed ball dissipated, broke up, the lines spreading out to run through, around, over and under almost everything on the ground. The larger portion of the mass skidded nearly a hundred feet before breaking up. Mayday’s team had been carried along with the skid, and as the strands dissipated, they were on their feet, standing in formation. The villains who hadn’t scrambled out of the way were at the edges, lying down, or pushed between parked cars. No property damage had been done. - Excerpt form Shadow 5.4</ref> Mayday himself is either immune or can be easily accepted from this rule as can any friends and allies. On a smaller scale he can shoot small blasts of the energy to push targets back,<ref>Sidepiece and Disjoint were moving to flank the group, sneaking around a parked vehicle. A diagram-wall appeared to block them off. Disjoint hopped up onto the vehicle and was knocked off as Mayday swung a hand in his direction, casting out a tiny version of the red projectile he’d been bringing in from the horizon. As Disjoint landed at her feet, Damsel started cussing him out for getting in her way. - Excerpt form Shadow 5.4</ref> presumably he can fall back on these when he can't set up a artillery strike.

His energy balls, roughly the size of a trailer home, are summoned through various hand gestures<ref name="5.4 e3">Mayday retreated through the bottleneck with a flying ally shielding him by catching some flung balls of flame in what looked like a web of glowing lines in geometric shapes. Mayday raised both hands, palms flat, forming a ‘y’, and then brought them down.

In the distance well behind him, twin flares of red energy appeared at the horizon. One of them might have been headed straight for me.
[...]
Mayday’s power hit. Two shots, barreling in from the horizon in a matter of seconds, each half the size of a house. The red balls were more oblong than before, where the last one had only appeared that way because of its arc. The shape might have been why they traveled further as they hit, carrying people away. While villains scrambled to get to their feet. Lines spread out, forming overlapping triangles, circles, squares, and stars, extending in a pattern around the woman who had been shielding Mayday. - Excerpt form Shadow 5.4</ref> and are accompanied by a black flare when they appear.<ref name="5.4 e3"/> Starting as orbs the energy deforms as it moves through the air, perhaps deforming in the air resistance, forcing it to stretch.

It is highly disruptive to enemy tactics and can destroy other constructs but it is not that powerful.<ref name="5.4 e5">Mayday raised his hand, then brought it forward. The entire assembly of villains reacted.
[...]
Meanwhile, I flew over the enemy group, putting myself behind the herd of enemies, while they scrambled to do something or get clear of the incoming Mayday projectile.

It was intimidating, being on the ground, while a ball of abstract energy the size of a one-car garage hurtled toward us. I was pretty sure it was very selective about who it affected, catching people up and depositing them in a way Mayday thought appropriate, but even with that, I found it distracting.
[...]
I was barely touched, as it washed over me like hot air from a hair dryer. Others were dragged a hundred feet down the road, pushed back and away from the bottleneck. Bluestocking’s blue stocking was shredded by the contact with the road, stained red.

They were a jumbled heap. They hadn’t pushed past the bottleneck or delivered a serious blow to Advance Guard before the bizarre siege weapon hit. - Excerpt form Shadow 5.4</ref> Non-targeted individuals just feel a wash of warm air as the effect touches them.

History

Background

Had been a member of the protectorate in Baltimore, became the leader of the team after the previous one was booted out because of how they had handled Optics.<ref name="5.5 e1">. - Excerpt form Shadow 5.5</ref>

He did not have positive experiences with the young teacher either.

Gold Morning

Participated as much as everyone else did.

Early-Ward

Deployed to Cedar Point and was able to cover the retreat.<ref name="5.5 e8888"/>

Trivia

• While he is technically a Nuker his power application clearly falls on the Blaster side of things.<ref>a blaster power with shaker-esque radius and damage potential or a shaker power with blaster-like offensive potential, the indistinction closely fitting the original PRT ‘Nuker’ designation). - Detail Generator - Vials, spreadsheet by Wildbow.</ref><ref name="Blastertypes">BLASTERS, document by Wildbow.</ref>

References

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