General idea: Amo can grow a protective armor on top of her skin, and also on others.
Mechanics:
Amo's body produces a special type of bacteria (first produced in her bone marrow) that can rapidly generate a hard shell, which she can manipulate. This bacteria can survive fine on Amo's skin, and be reabsorbed. When transferred onto another person, the bacteria can temporarily survive on the recipient's skin and produce armor before the bacteria dies and sloughs away naturally. This bacteria carries some of her x-gene, which is why she can specifically manipulate it.
The armor:
Amo can generate a rocky, turtle-like armor over top of her skin, either concentrated in select spots or spread across her entire body. The armor can also then get reabsorbed.
In a small area, the armor can be generated essentially instantly, but to build it up thicker would take some time. To generate it across her entire body would take some time as well, around 15-20 seconds.
The armor/bacteria exists in 2 different states.
Armor Off Mode: Which is when the armor is just existing as bacteria and not generating any armor.
Armor On Mode: When the bacteria is actually generating the armor.
Amo can also generate armor on those around her. Through touch, she can transfer bacteria onto them. From there, she can “Activate” the bacteria to “armor on mode” to generate armor, then manipulate it until the bacteria dies off after about an hour.
Currently, she can only generate on up to two other people and then also herself, or a total of 3 people not including herself. Eventually, she should be able to generate armor on more people (maybe up to 10), but that will take some practice.
The amount of armor is relative to how long she’s made contact with them, and continuous contact would allow for more armor to be made:
A brief touch would be a small patch, about the size of her hand.
A touch the length of a handshake would probably allow for an amount of armor to generate that’s equal to about 25% of their body.
She would need to be making contact with someone for a full 15-20 seconds for her to transfer enough bacteria to cover their entire body with armor.
For some actual rough numbers:
1-5 seconds: up to 25% of body
5-10 seconds: up to 50% of body
10-15 seconds: up to 75% of body
15-20 seconds: up to 100% of body
As long as she has touched someone in the last hour, and they are within a 50ft range of her, she can “activate” the bacteria to go into Armor On Mode, and manipulate it.
As long as they are within the 50ft range, she can make the armor go into Armor Off Mode, or kill the bacteria off early.
While in the 50ft range, and in Armor On Mode, the armor can move around on the person. If they exit the 50ft range, the armor will freeze in the last place it was on the person. If they re-enter the range, it will be able to move around again.
No matter what, the armor dies after an hour, whether or not they are within the 50ft range.
The armor, while on others, CAN be removed but doing so would probably be painful (and probably cause some minor skin abrasions here and there).
The armor is significantly harder to remove from Amo since the armor is much more embedded and able to bind easier through her skin, whereas the armor on others is more so attached to the top of the skin.
If she attempts to use too much armor, it can actually end up over generating on herself, like a switch stuck in the on position, until it starts weighing her down and makes her unable to move. She has to be careful not to tip the scale.
The armor is strong enough to stop a bullet, knives, punches, but is somewhat weak to extremely high temperatures since the bacteria can begin to die off over time. In extremely cold temperatures, the armor generates a bit slower. The armor will hold up in acidic or basic environments, but will begin to die off over time.
The armor helps disperse the force of impacts, allowing her to be extremely resistant to falling from large distances, or taking blows. SuperHero Landings Galore. The armor can protect against burns (at first it will, but with continued exposure to high temperatures it can begin to die off).
The armor itself can “react” and gives Amo a bit of a ‘spider sense’ that allows her to act a split second before the danger, and the armor itself sometimes acts on its own/instinctively. (Mechanically, the bacteria has a type of receptor that acts similar to whiskers in which it can sense air pressure changes). This is good for certain situations so that Amo doesn’t have to specifically think about it, but also not great if SHE becomes overly anxious, because then it will activate automatically in response to her stress, even if there is no danger to be seen.
When it’s on others, the armor will instinctively adjust to dangers, and the ‘spider sense’ will still activate in response to their dangers (which can help her keep track of the types of trouble people are in around her). She’ll only receive the ‘spider sense’ signals if they’re within that 50 ft range.
Other Neat Uses:
- The armor can be used to “solidify” herself, so if she’s attempting to hold something really heavy, she can generate a ton of the armor to lock her body in a certain position so she can carry something much heavier than she normally would be able to. (This is how she was able to hold the beam!)
- The armor can fill in wounds and calcify, helping prevent someone from bleeding out. Once calcified, Amo can no longer move or manipulate the armor. The calcified armor can slowly be replaced by the body and will disappear as the wound heals (it acts a bit like scaffolding in the way that artificial bone cement does, in which it slowly gets replaced by the body). To be clear, It’s not an ideal thing to fill wounds with, as it’s not very flexible and can make the wound feel very stiff and probably just overall uncomfortable, BUT it works in a pinch.
Physical effects:
The armor is somewhat malleable, but it’s still mainly stiff, and can make it hard to move. It is prone to building up in events of extreme emotional distress, and can end up completely covering her eyes, mouth, etc. It could theoretically completely cover her and make her unable to move. The armor is also heavy when there’s too much of it, and can significantly weigh her down and cause her to move slower, which is why she tries to focus it on certain areas. She has to be careful when generating it on other people too, since depending on the person, they might not be able to handle the added weight.
She’ll eventually be able to adjust the armor to be just as strong but lighter so it doesn’t slow her down as much. Currently, the armor generates as a disorganized rocky structure, but eventually will turn more organized and be able to present more like a turtle shell, or maybe scaly.
Overall, her bones are extremely durable. The bacteria is generated in her bones, and makes her bones dense and harder to break than normal, so even without any added armor on the outside it can be hard for her to break them.
