NAME- Kurt Wagner
ALIAS- Nightcrawler
AGE- 18
OCCUPATION- Student
RELATIONSHIPS- Kitty Pryde - he's been close friends with her ever since she saved him in Winzeldorf
PERSONALITY- Kurt can be extremely light-hearted and fun-loving. However, he does have a deep insecurity and loneliness, and sometimes can be afraid of getting close to people. He also relies heavily on his faith, as it is what got him through his imprisonment in the freak show. He is also extremely compassionate and caring, and has one of the biggest hearts you will ever find.
FEARS- Ultimately, Kurt fears being alone and ostracized. He is extremely insecure about his appearance due to the ridicule he was treated with at the freak show, and fears that people will leave him if they find out what he really looks like. He also is afraid that he may hurt someone again, like he did to Stefan (see below).
HISTORY-Kurt was born an unusual child, with his blue skin, forked tail, three fingers and two-toed feet. His parents were the mutants Mystique and Azazel, and shortly after giving birth to him, Mystique threw him down a well when a group of villagers spotted him. However, he was saved by Azazel – who used his teleportation powers to do so – and then given to Azazel’s lover Margali Szardos, a sorceress and gypsy queen. She would later claim that she found him on a road in the Black Forest with his father lying dead on the roadside. Margali took Kurt to a small Bavarian circus in Germany that she performed at, and raised him with her own two natural chidren – Stefan and Jimaine. Kurt was not discriminated against growing up, as the circus performers had no prejudices against mutants.
Kurt was happy growing up in the circus. He became friends with Stefan and Jimaine, and because of his natural agility, he became one of the circus’ best acrobats by the time he was in his teens. He was passed off as an acrobat in demonic costume to the audiences, who would not have reacted well to seeing an actual mutant perform for them.
Then, when Kurt was seventeen, Texas millionaire Arnos Jardine – who already had a large circus in Florida – heard of the small Bavarian circus that had become so immensely popular – partly thanks to Kurt. Jardine bought the circus, and intended to move the most successful acts into his circus in Florida. However, he became aware quite quickly that Kurt wasn’t wearing a costume in his act, and so demanded that he be placed in the circus’ freak show. He drugged Kurt to make him comply, and Kurt remained in captivity for months. However, Kurt slowly realized that he was being drugged through his food, and so stopped eating, hiding the drugged food so that Jardine wouldn’t catch on. Kurt soon became aware enough to start trying to formulate an escape plan, but all seemed bleak until one night, after being particularly ridiculed by an audience, Kurt wished more than ever that he could be back in the nice warm trailer he had lived in with his foster siblings . . .
. . . and then he was there in a puff of smoke.
Kurt’s secondary mutation had developed.
Kurt was baffled, but wasn’t one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, and so fled the circus, going to Winzeldorf where Stefan was. However, he soon discovered that his foster brother had gone mad, and had slaughtered several children. Kurt was reminded of how, when they were children, Stefan had made Kurt promise to kill him if he ever took an innocent life. Kurt couldn’t bring himself to do so, and tried to reason with Stefan instead. But his foster brother was beyond reason, and Kurt ended up having to fight him, a struggle that ended in Kurt accidentally breaking Stefan’s neck.
Kurt was horrified and saddened, but matters were only worsened when Margali appeared – intending to visit Stefan. She saw her son’s body and Kurt standing over it, and immediately blamed Kurt for her son’s death. She set a mob of villagers on Kurt, telling them that he was responsible for the murder of the children. Kurt most certainly would have been killed, but the was saved by Kitty Pryde, who had come to recruit Kurt to the X-Men. Kurt thanked Kitty, and gratefully went with herto America. In order to help him blend in amongst the common population, Kitty gave Kurt a wrist-watch that acted as a perception filter; disguising his blue skin and oddly shaped hands. However, if anyone were to shake hands with him, they would notice that they were only gripping three fingers and not five. He also has to hide his tail in the leg of his pants, as the perception filter would not be able to hide it.
He was eventually directed by Kitty to join the school set up by S.H.I.E.L.D., as he still was unsure on how to control his teleportation powers.
POWERS/SPECIAL TALENTS- Kurt is a mutant whose primary mutant power is the ability to teleport himself, his clothing, and a certain amount of additional mass from one point to another virtually instantaneously in a puff of crimson red smoke. He does this by means of displacing himself through an alternate dimension briefly and reappearing in a desired, pre-selected location. He has been shown to be able to teleport distances of up to two miles (3 km) under optimal conditions, although this is usually his extreme limit, and he can become severely fatigued if he tries to teleport that distance (in one case, however, he teleports somewhere over 50 miles (80 km)) Nightcrawler's teleportation ability is also affected by direction — north-south along Earth's "magnetic lines of force" is easier than east-west against them.
He possesses a limited unconscious extrasensory "spatial awareness" ability which prevents him from teleporting into solid objects within his immediate vicinity, but this ability diminishes the greater the distance he teleports. Because teleporting into other solid matter would cause severe injury or death, he will only teleport to an area he is familiar with or that he can clearly see at the time or has seen in the past. His power automatically displaces liquids and gases when he arrives.
After Nightcrawler teleports, he leaves behind smoke and a faint scent of burning brimstone; this is a small portion of the atmosphere of the dimension he travels through when he teleports. His teleportation power is due to a biophysical/biochemical reaction he consciously triggers within himself. A loud "bamf" noise is always present whenever he teleports (being the sound of air rushing to fill the space he was just occupying). His teleporting also causes a slight change in the atmosphere before he arrives, although only superhumans with heightened senses can register it.
In addition to his primary power of teleportation, Nightcrawler's physiology is unique in several different ways. His agility far surpasses that of an Olympic level gymnast, and his bone structure allows him great flexibility. His spine is more flexible than an ordinary human, enabling him to remain in a crouched position for a long time and perform contortionist-type feats without causing any damage to his spine. Nightcrawler's balance and bodily coordination are all enhanced to superhuman levels. He has the ability to cling to surfaces through microscopic suction cups located on the pads of his hands and feet. He also possesses superhuman dexterity, being able to manipulate items and fence with either hand, both feet, and his tail.
He has the ability to blend into shadows, both as a result of his indigo fur, and the dimensional portal which always surrounds his body and absorbs photons.
Nightcrawler has a prehensile tail, allowing him to grab onto objects with relative ease. His tail is strong enough to not only support his body weight, but also lift an adult man completely off the ground at the same time, and is deft enough to fight with while holding a sword or blunt object. Nightcrawler's eyes (which are constantly glowing) grant him a marked degree of heightened night vision.
Aside from the abilities granted by his mutation, Nightcrawler is a superb fencer and is very skilled at hand-to-hand combatant, a skill that he gained while at the circus.
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Subject: Character Profile: Nightcrawler 
Mon May 06, 2013 4:12 pm
