Selene
Selene is considered both a mutant and a powerful sorceress. She possesses a wide range of superhuman abilities, but it has never been clearly defined which are a result of mutation and which are skills derived from magic or other sources.
Selene's primary power is to psionically drain others of their lifeforce energy, absorbing their essence into herself. Selene is a "psychic vampire" with the ability to sustain herself by psionically expropriating the life energy of other living beings through physical contact. Should she absorb the totality of her victim's life, that person decays and crumbles to dust in seconds. When Selene drains only a portion of the victim's life energy, she assumes a measure of psychic control over her victim's mind, thereby subverting them to her will. Through unknown means, Selene can transform another into a psychic vampire like herself, but be subordinate to Selene's own will.
Selene's continued vitality and youthful appearance are contingent upon her absorbing the life energy of one or more persons on a regular basis. This restores Selene to a youthful and healthy appearance whenever she has been injured, or has over-exerted her other powers, as well as to sustain her centuries-long life. As a side-effect of this process, Selene experiences the life and memories of whomever she consumes. Although she does so by physically touching her victim, the process is psionic.
Selene metabolizes the absorbed energy that sustains her to enhance her physical strength and durability, speed, agility, stamina, and reaction time to superhuman levels. The degree of energy she retains from her victims directly correlates to her physical strength and resistance to injury. She can momentarily move at superhuman speeds, though doing so requires a considerable energy expenditure and can cause her to age rapidly and require additional life energy immediately. It is not known how often Selene must absorb another's life essence in order to survive at baseline.
She appears to be immune to most forms of conventional injury, as she has survived impalement with both knife and crossbow bolt through the heart with no apparent pain or lasting effect. While not indestructible, she has survived and completely recovered from molecular dispersion, although it required considerable time and effort to resurrect herself.
Selene's most direct weapon is the psychokinetic power to manipulate inorganic matter by projecting part of her absorbed lifeforce into it. She can affect nearly anything on a molecular level that is within her line of sight, and can warp and alter the molecules of the inanimate object to her caprice, causing objects to wrap around and constrict others, creating lifelike humanoid constructs to combat her opponents, or simply reducing objects to dust. She can use this power in more standard ways, such as the creation of powerful psi-shields and levitation but cannot truly fly. She can also control and manipulate fire in a variety of ways, although she cannot conjure the fire herself; whether this is a facet of her psychokinesis or a separate power is unclear.
Selene possesses formidable psychic powers with which she can to blend her own psychic signature into the background thoughts around her, making her difficult for other psionics to locate or track; project substantial telepathic defenses, potent psi-bolts of psionic energy, telepathic commands; and can alter the minds of others to initiate a sort of paralysis of mind. She often uses telepathy to induce a hypnotic trance in witnesses in order to manipulate them or to slip away at superhuman speed, leaving them with the impression that she simply vanished. She can survive unaided on the astral planes in astral form. Selene is not as telepathically powerful as such other high-order psi's as Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, or Elizabeth Braddock and she is vulnerable to psionic attack should she be located.
Selene possesses considerable sorcerous abilities and extensive knowledge of the arts arcane, enabling her to cast and counteract a variety spells and rituals. While the full extent of Selene's magical skills is unknown, her greatly extended lifespan has given her sufficient time and experience to be considered a threat to Kulan Gath.
In more recent appearances, Selene has been depicted as a being of semisubstantial living darkness with the ability to appear and disappear at will and, similar to Blackheart, imprison people in the dark energy which appears to comprise her physical form. Selene has been shown to manipulate darkness and transform into darkness, such as a dark mist or cloud, or manifesting tendrils of darkness while remaining partially intangible.
Log in to comment