Butterfly

"Too much to absorb, really, which is why we'll have gaps in our knowledge. But that's okay. Not knowing everything means at least we get to pretend we have free will sometimes."

- Layla Miller

History
Layla Miller's life has never been anything but odd. After having an affair with an older gentleman, thirty year old Joan Miller gave birth to a daughter that did not cry, even after the doctors hit her to get a response. After the fact, she very rarely made any noise at all, a good baby all in all, and yes, very loved by both her mother, and her step father who took to her like she was his own, and forgave his wife for said affair. They had been trying since their marriage over ten years prior, after all, to produce a child and Joan promised Richard that it had all been for him. She'd only used the old man, having seen on the television that it was possible for the elderly to still have children, and who the hell gave old men some nookie? He was probably desperate. Layla grew up healthy, though all attempts at making her talk proved fruitless. Layla simply did not want to speak, and so with what little money the family had they put her in children's counseling in hopes to figure out what was wrong with her. By the time she was three they had put forth close to ten thousand dollars in cheap therapy along, only to come up with absolutely nothing at all, and were horrified to experience her first catatonic episode. The family had decided to spend the day in Central Park for whatever reason, Richard with the day off of his low grade job as a janitor, trying to support his wife, of whom he did not want to work. She was hospitalized with her coma-like state, her parents completely horrified. What if their little girl never woke up?

She did, however, a day later, and the first thing she did? Was say 'hi mama'. The doctors claimed that perhaps it had been a part of her brain finally turning on, or something, the Millers didn't pay attention, only clung to and kissed their now talkative toddler, who seemed keen on telling them just about everything, ever. They learned a good portion of the history of Central Park through her, and with their own poor education they passed it off as childish stories that she made up. Her talking, however, grew increasingly alarming as she began to tell her parents in advance before things happened. Aunt Irm was going to call about her mother-in-law's death, the mail man was going to come down sick, don't answer the door mommy, that man has a gun, things like that, not just little things like the peanut butter was going to go bad soon or don't drink the milk because it's spoiled. This led them to believe their child was blessed by God, though Joan's mother seemed convinced she was possessed by a demon. She even took Layla to a Catholic Church downtown in an attempt to beg for an exorcism. They made it a whole five minutes in before the police burst on to the scene.

Layla had drawn pictures of what was going to happen and left them conveniently out in the open, and her father, however ill educated he may have been, was certainly able to figure that little message out and called the police to claim his mother-in-law had kidnapped his daughter. Layla was returned to her parents and charges were brought up against the church and her grandmother on kidnapping and child abuse. Her parents never looked at her gifts as anything but that, gifts, and took incredible care of Layla, never once treating her differently. One evening they left her in the care of a babysitter, and Layla cried for her parents not to leave her, six at the time, pleaded with them, begging. They assured her they would be home by midnight, smoothed away her tears and hair and promised themselves that she was just being too attached, they'd never been away from her after all, and left for a night out, just the two of them.

They never came home, killed by a drunk driver that crossed the center line as they were headed to a movie after dinner. Layla was orphaned, no family on her father's side, and her mother an only child who's psychotic mother was not allowed to see her ever again, and so the peculiar child was placed in an orphanage in Hell's Kitchen where she stayed for the next four and a half years. She was mostly quiet, keeping to herself about the things she knew, she frightened the other children with her strange, detached attitude and knack for knowing things, all of whom took to teasing her about it, a few even going as far as to threaten her. She took no joy and comfort in any of them, her abilities developing at a rapid rate beyond her control, and kept to herself as she tried to work through what she knew. There were many, many occasions where the other children would take to being abusive to her, throwing things at her, hitting her, locking her in closets, trapping her under the bed, beating her down for no reason what so ever. During her catatonic states the staff would claim she was just looking for attention, and took little love for her either as they went about their daily business...

On the eve of her eleventh birthday Layla Miller fled from the orphanage, aware of what she needed to do and where she had to go, and ran to District X as hard and fast as she could, in search of X-Factor: Investigations.

Personality
Layla is an incredibly intelligent child, mentally advanced far beyond that of your average grown adult. This, and her abilities, have made her socially inept and detached from the rest of society. She does not know how to connect with other people on a normal basis, like normal people might, and she absolutely cannot connect with other children, at all, no matter how hard she tries. This has left her with a sort of void, where other children have developed to be socially outgoing, moderately bratty, and all of those other things that children tend to be, Layla is quite literally a small adult in nearly every single way, though somewhere locked up pretty deep inside of her is that little girl clawing her way free, gradually.

Said “real” little girl very rarely has her moments, and they often come in the form of Layla's being cornered with no way out. It isn't often that she doesn't know, and so when she doesn't, she tends to break down and panic, unaware of how to handle not having the upper hand in a situation, her actual childish nature coming through. She'll cry, a rare feat for Miss Miller, act appropriately afraid, have those helpless breakdowns. She cannot stand helplessness, either, an incredibly independent little girl, able to fend for herself, take care of her own needs, look after the people around her. She's more likely to take charge in a situation than your average adult, and she's also more likely to be able to handle it better on any general occasion so long as, again, she is not blindsided by her abilities and left in the dark to stumble without knowledge.

Her intelligence and advancements aside, however, there is still mystery in Layla's life where people might think there isn't. Her social crippling have left her inquisitive and curious about the simple things, things we might take for granted. What is the purpose of a doll? Why do we bother hugging one when it cannot hug us back? Why do people need one another to survive? What is the purpose of “love” and “need”? What about subtlety? Layla has very little, used to being very blunt about what she knows. She may be elusive with her riddles about the future in her attempts to tell people what she knows without ultimately bringing about her own demise, but when explaining how she got there, or what she might mean, she has no tact, her world purely black and white. She doesn't understand the gray areas and how to appropriately integrate them in to her own life, after all the things she knows are definite, and that is that. To her, some things in life are inevitable while others can be changed, and it isn't about the dramatic emotions in between or the people on the outside, but simply what people do to get from point A to point B. She cannot comprehend that other people don't think the way she does, and might need things layered gently for them. Using the explanation of someone's death to explain her visions, even if that isn't what the vision meant, is not the best way to go about trying to tell someone how she works.

Morally, she's a little confused. She understands the difference between right and wrong, but seems more hell bent on the “hard” aspects of justice rather than innocent until proven guilty, usually because she knows how it's going to end. It's hard for her to make emotional attachments to people, as hard as she tries, with the general knowledge that eventually everyone is going to leave her anyways, though she does try, very hard. She loves people as much as she can, and will do what she can in order to protect and ensure their safety but has little trust that they'll do the same for her, lest it be out of obligation of some kind. She wants to love people, she does, and she wans to be loved by them, but knows she tends to have a rather unbearable personality and has little faith in people actually warming up or attaching themselves to her. She'll intentionally go in to a situation assuming the worst without being sad about it, that way she has no reason to feel down about it later on when she's been proved right. This nihilistic point of view extends to both friends, and family, Layla's experiences tend to prove her orphaned more often than not, another reason she cannot properly integrate herself like a normal human being. People are intimidated and put off by her, so why set herself up for the failure of thinking they'll love her?

A loner, curious as she may be, attempting to live her life, unable to properly integrate fully in to society with the massive cripple her mutation has put on her, stunting her emotional development... If she were to learn how to properly control her abilities, and shut herself out from them she might be able to begin the process of proper functioning, but as it stands right now she's on a one lane road to becoming a withdrawn ice queen by the time she's fifteen.

Likes

 * Literature
 * Odd, colorful clothing
 * Music
 * Disney cartoons
 * The zoo
 * Soft pretzels
 * Dazzler's music
 * The circus
 * Chaos
 * Surprises

Dislikes

 * People who feel sorry for themselves
 * The dark
 * Helplessness
 * Children's shows
 * Being alone
 * Disloyalty
 * Supremacists
 * Dark colors
 * People who do not accept themselves
 * Self abuse

Skills
Nothing out of the ordinary. She's a decent enough artist.

Powers
Quantum Precognition: Don't let her youth fool you, Layla is an incredible child with a number of incredible abilities, though most prominent is her ability to 'know stuff'. Known as Quantum Precognition, the child is able to see the past, present, and future at the same time should she so please to do. This is done in a rather specific way, seeing the present with both eyes, bu the past and future in separate ones, Layla able to visualize specific periods in time right down to their most intricate details should she so wish to do so.

The past is set, she cannot see anything that may have happened in history as it has already been chiseled in stone, though the future is not, and as such Layla can see all possible futures to their ultimate ends, should she wish to. These visions can play in fast forward, or 'real time', but never in slow motion, and as such, despite the intricacy that she is able to see, she may miss small details here and there. This aside, however, she is essentially the precog to end all precogs, she has no set time limit for her abilities, she can see up to days in to the future, should she so choose, and is not limited by such things as her age or mental capacity.

Reality/Mental Warp Immunity: Due to the intricate nature of Layla's precognition, she has been rendered immune to memory alterations through both telepathic intrusion, as well as reality warping. Should some crazed mutant with way too much power decide that they don't like what's happening today and want to turn everyone in to fuzzy bunnies living in La La Land, rewriting the past, Layla would remain mentally in tact. The same applies to attempts at rewriting her memory through telepathy. This happens because of Layla's ability to see the past in its reality, actually considered recognition, rather than precognition. Because it shows the true, solid past rather than alternate versions, a falsely altered reality would not have a true past, and Layla would therefore experience a review of things, especially in her own life, that did not happen in the altered reality, ultimately undoing the alterations anyways. It's simply skipping to the end of the book and getting to the inevitable.

Mental Awakening: A somewhat latent ability of Layla's that is pretty well blunt, when people's memories have been altered due to reality warping, Layla has the ability to tap in to their true memories and bring them back to the surface through physical contact, over riding all implanted memories.

X-Gene Detection: Layla also seems to have the ability to “turn it on and off”, meaning that she can go under mutant radar detectors and look completely and utterly human one minute, cloaking the strands of the X-Gene in her DNA, then will it to make the mutant strands of her DNA known.

=Weaknesses= Unfortunately, Layla's form of precognition has robbed her of the majority of a normal childhood, and as such her entire mutation is a weakness. This has left her jaded by what she knows, or will know, and socially dysfunctional. This aside, her abilities also have their weaknesses, for all that they are incredible and strong, and some of them are incredibly crippling, starting with the stunting of her emotional growth. Moving on, however, Layla's precognition is not omnipotent, there are specific people in the world, and specific events upcoming, that affect her greatly. People heavily influenced by chaos, such as The Scarlet Witch and her twin brother Quicksilver, for instance, are completely immune to her abilities. Layla can see neither their future, or their past, and only what she is involved in concerning their present, when she is in their presence. Other people immune are: Nathaniel Essex (Mister Sinister), Rosalie Curtis (Blitz), Damian Tryp (Dai), Phoenix (Not Jean Grey, just Phoenix) and Simon Lee (Leech). (Should Damian Tryp ever exist and create Singularity Investigations, all associates would be immune as well, so long as they worked for Tryp. The instant they stopped working for him, however, they would no longer be immune to her abilities.)

Although her abilities are Quantum Precognition, Layla cannot see the present in all aspects, unless she is also present. Some precogs with this ability are able to see the present halfway around the world, where Layla, unfortunately, cannot. She can only see her present. In this respect, Layla can also only see the past of the area she is standing in, and the ability is random. She cannot choose when she sees the past, it happens at random intervals. During this point she will go in to trance like states where she is completely still for an undetermined amount of time, unfocused on the world around her, blind in the eye that can see the future while seeing the past through the other, watching it replay in front of her like a movie. This experience is exhausting, and in the end Layla always collapses in to a state of unconscious. The time spent out is generally determined by the length of time she was in a trance, and how much of the past she needed to process. Ten minutes in a trance like state watching the past on fast forward will result in an hour of total, unresponsive unconsciousness as her brain attempts to process all of the information presented to her.

While her ability to see the past is severely hindered by handicaps, her ability to see the future seems limitless, and happens frequently, well out of her control. She is not forced in to trance like states or anything of the sort, but rather, as the future plays it in one eye, she is able to see the present with the other. This has forced her to learn to multi-task, but has its unfortunate downsides as well, and should the visions last longer than a minute or two at most, Layla will, unfortunately, need to close both eyes so that she only sees the visions being played out. This leaves her vulnerable to outside forces, given that she is no longer able to see while she waits for her mind to free itself from the state that it's in, and once she has closed her eyes she cannot open them again until the vision has completely passed, otherwise she could confuse her mind, and force herself in to a catatonic state, her brain overloaded. Like the past, Layla can only see the future for her general area, within a mile range.

Layla's immunity to mental alterations through reality warping and telepathic intrusion is just that. Immunity to alterations. She is not immune to someone reading her mind. Her memories are free game, so long as they do not pertain to what she has seen in the future, those seem to be locked up in a little version of Pandora's box, un-openable for reasons only she seems to be aware of. When presented with the question of why, or intricate details on what she knows, she will only respond with 'If I tell you, I'll be struck down dead on the spot.' and leave it at that. Whether or not this is true is obviously up in the air for debate, though suspicions and clues point to yes, if only because no one knows exactly what she does in terms of the future. As far as mental awakening goes, the ability is limited. It does not work at all unless reality has been warped in any way, and then it only works on memories altered through reality warping. Telepathically altered memories are not the same, and therefore she cannot fix them, the detailing is far beyond her control. On the topic of her X-Gene, the only real downside to that is.. should she come in contact with someone like leech, she'll inevitably be unable to turn off the X-Gene, and while her powers may be negated, she'll still have the X-Gene and will be unable to hide it.