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xxxxxArturo was one of those mutants whose mutation was obvious from the moment he was born. His eyes looked more animal than human, his ears were tapered and he made strange vocalizations instead of crying. He was extremely fortunate - his parents accepted him, even without knowing what they had given birth to. He was home-schooled for the first ten years of his life. His parents never made anything of his oddities and so he didn't think much of them. When his parents did finally enrol him in school, there was a surprising lack of fallout. His parents had bought him contacts to cover up his eyes and his hair had grown enough to cover his pointed ears. Turns out it was all unnecessary. For some reason, none of the students reacted to him as if he was anything strange. What was even odder, when he looked in the mirror, /he/ saw nothing strange. The second he walked through the door at home, he looked like his feral self again.
It took awhile for Arturo and his parents to figure out that he had a kind of instinctual illusion power. When he thought intently about fitting in, his power projected an illusion to suit the situation. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't control /what/ he appeared as. It was always dependant on the situation. What he did eventually learn to control was the degree he wanted to blend in. At its lowest, it just made Arturo look human. Still, triggering the power even for that could be risky. If the situation changed to where his normal human self was no longer "common," he might find himself shifting without wanting to. That caused a few near-exposures through the course of high school. As a result, he learned that wearing a hat and glasses was easier than going around with his power triggered.
Arturo was fortunate enough to have supportive parents who didn't consider their son to be a freak. Strange, yes, but not a freak. For the most part, his life was fairly normal. He was unusually good in sports due to his feral mutations. He was also drawn to biology, genetics and medicine. When you yourself are an example of strange biology and a leap in evolution, it's natural for curiosity to be piqued. He also had an aptitude for the subject. At first, Arturo thought that he would become a research scientist or a geneticist. But, like many people who end up as doctors, he felt compelled to heal. So he began studying internal medicine.
He worked very hard as the years passed as he moved through medical school and on through his residency. By necessity, he did reveal his mutant status to a few people close to him. His goal was to become a doctor who specialized in curing and treating diseases in mutants - diseases that were often unusual or reacted differently to their abnormal physiology.
In his identity as a human trying to push for further study and training into mutant internal medicine, Arturo was not being taken seriously. The only people who offered him funding were ones who wanted to use his research to 'cure' mutants, create screening tests or develop biological agents. One company nearly fooled him in to giving over his research. Only some last-minute investigation by a friend uncovered the company's true intentions.
Arturo burned a few bridges after that and found his sources of funding all but dried up. He ended up as a floater doctor, doing shifts at clinics around the city. It's not the most glamourous of medical careers, but it gives him time and facilities to work on his own research.
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Sheep's Clothing
He has the ability to appear to be whatever people expect him to be in any given situation. For instance, if he walked into a biker bar, he would appear to the people to be another biker. If he walked into a banker's convention, he would appear to be a well-dressed, middle-aged man. His ability cloaks him in whatever form would allow him to pass unnoticed in any situation. If he is in a group of diverse people with no real unifying expectation, he simply appears human. The ability also tricks himself. He will feel as if he's shapeshifted, even though he hasn't.
He can't control how he's perceived, but he can decide not to activate his ability at all. When his ability is activated, it isn't particularly taxing. As he can be caught off-guard in how he appears, he often chooses not to activate it. It is possible that if he is startled or scared that the ability will activate in an attempt to protect him. It is also possible that he will change as he moves between groups of people. He can try to hold on to a particular appearance, but the further he gets from the group that triggered the illusion, the more difficult it becomes. If he tries to hold on to an out-of-range illusion for too long, he's liable to get a migraine.
This illusion-based power works on all five senses. It can be blocked by telepaths (they can either see through it, or if they are powerful – block others from perceiving it). His illusions can be very strong though, because the power works off the collective expectations of a whole group of people. In fact, the illusion is actually stronger the larger the crowd he's in. It would be much harder for a telepath to see through an illusion he's projecting in Times Square than with two other people in the room. Peoples' expectations (even if it's only the expectation that what they'll see is a human) end up reinforcing each other's. He is the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing.
Feral
Arturo's mutation is a physical one. His muscles are more compact, his skeletal structure is more dense and he is overall more physically sturdy and agile than normal humans. He also has superhuman strength on the low end of the spectrum (approximately twenty percent greater than the strongest human) and speed (about ten percent faster than an Olympic sprinter.) He also has inch-long animal-like nails that he can retract to a quarter inch. Although he would never bite someone unless it was necessary, he has sharp canine teeth. His vision is closer to a canine's than a human's and he has excellent night vision.
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