Leda Calavicci

Leda Penelope Calavicci is a fictional character in the ongoing serial fanfiction Legion of Lawndale Heroes. A Cadet First Class (equal to a college senior) at the United States Academy of Extranormal Studies, Leda is a psionic of Class Five power levels, easily on the level of Daria Morgendorffer, or her fellow cadets David Allen Farrington, Yaniv Ernet and Amorette Molyneux (the latter two are also fellow members of Training Cadre 2999).

Powers
Leda possesses the following abilities:

Telepathy: Considered to be her primary ability, Leda is an exceptionally powerful telepath (she is registered as a natural Class Five psionic), but with the limitation of distance to her power. While Leda can project her thoughts or read those of others, she can only do so out to twenty-five miles away.

Leda cannot extend her range, even through the use of psi-amplifiers currently available, such as her Mark 30. However, in circumstances where she is in psionic links specifically said to merge or share abilities (such as when linked through David Allen's 'convergence' ability), she may use the range limitations of another psi in order to transmit long-distance messages. This, however, is extraordinarily tiring for Leda, and she cannot engage in long-distance communications of this type for more than thirty minutes).

Leda is exceptionally gifted in establishing mind-links in difficult circumstances (such as cutting through mental barriers and jamming fields), and can even establish psionic connections with alien and deity-level beings when they are unwilling to do so. Extreme means of psionic suppression, such as multiple layers of psi-resistant materials or unusually powerful psi-dampening devices (such as metaljammers) will only dampen Leda's power down to very low levels; only the use of 'flush' or Mark 40 'suppression bands' can totally negate her powers. Like Jefferson Davers and Kaliq Murat, Leda's psi-speech is incredibly rapid in its execution; she can communicate at up to 1,500 times faster than normal speech; also, because of the nature of her powers (including her linguistic skill), it in extraordinarily difficult to establish unwanted psionic contact with Leda's mind, which will unconsciously interpret it as an attack and respond accordingly.

Sense Alteration: Leda possesses the exact same side-ability of sense alteration that David Allen possesses, with the exact same range and effect as he has.

Mental Bolts: Leda has the ability to project powerful mental bolts that can stun, knock out or temporarily incapacitate even the largest of animals (such as blue whales), lessen the intensity of mental screens with each blast, as well as pass through solid materials (to affect persons/animals behind those materials). She can strike targets up to a half-mile away, and fire her bolts with rapid effect. Even though her power does not directly affect solid materials (machines, etc.), she can disrupt energy fields and electrical currents/circuits temporarily. She can modulate the effect of her blasts to act like lasers, cutting easily through reinforced steel (and related materials), and focus her blast to needle-thin beams, or to an area-wide effect. It has been discovered that Leda's mental blasts can also effect beings of mystical origin, as well as ectoplasmic entities.

Empathy: While a very powerful telepath, Leda also possesses the power of empathy (of a power level slightly lesser than that of David Allen Farrington). She can sense and project empathic messages, discern the physical state and current environment of any individual she locates, as well as manipulate the emotional states of living beings (animal, human or even alien) out to fifty miles away.

Astral Projection: Leda can project her astral form out to 300,000 miles away; she can use her full array of powers through her astral form, and allow others to see her form if she so chooses. Because of her advanced astral training in the ASTRO program, she is also capable of manifesting a specific self-image for the purpose of astral combat. Leda's ASTRO-form is that of Lady Godiva.

Psychic Healing: Leda has the ability to heal any living being of any condition, disease, or injury/trauma that does not result as a part of the aging process, as well as resurrect a person who has been dead for up to twelve hours. In addition, Leda's power (when used upon herself) is so profound that it automatically acts to cause complete regeneration on the cellular level, effectively acting as a 'fountain of youth' and maintaining her body in a youthful form. Due to the nature of her power, Leda has the potential to live an unusually long life span (it is theorized that Leda is in fact aging at a vastly reduced rate because of her power). Like Julia Carlyle, Leda's power is so strong that even if her body is destroyed, as long as even an atom remains, her power will resurrect her.

Emotional Control: Leda has the ability to alter the emotional states of any living beings within her area of effect, and subsequent actions, by forcing them to feel the effects of any specific emotion that she chooses. The range of her power is one mile, and she does not need to see her targets in order to affect them. Leda can only make her targets feel the effects of any one emotion at a time, and her targets return to normal instantly after she stops using her power. The effects to her power are strikingly similar to Daria's mind-control ability.

Mental Shields: Leda possesses extraordinarily powerful mental shields, which prevent any mental- or emotional-based attack of any source from affecting her or whomever she protects when her shields are active. She can expand the shields outwards to cover an area of up to 500 meters, or focus her shields around up to four other persons so tightly that even a Class Five psionic in direct physical contact with her or her targets could not penetrate her shields with their scans. A side-effect of this ability affords Leda protection from visual or audible input.

Perception Shield: Leda possesses innate psionic shielding that acts in the manner of the 'perception filters' of the famed Defender Rings worn by members of the Corps of Ringbearers. They protect all of Leda's senses from being overridden by stimuli such as encounters with multidimensional beings/entities and environments, as well as effects and attacks that take place through the senses (such as calcification or the disruption of sanity through the sense of sight). Leda's perception shield works regardless of the form of attack (mental, mystical, extra-dimensional, etc.), and is closely linked to her linguistics power, as her shield simply transmits the sensory data through her linguistics powers, which simply sees it as another form of communication to interpret.

Internal Mental Defense: Leda possesses an unique mental defense, seemingly based upon her linguistic and empathic powers, that not only actively repulses mental probes and contact but causes any telepath attempting unwanted contact to develop an unwanted connection to her linguistics ability - at which point, her powers will simply shut off the offending psionic's powers completely (albeit temporarily). Anyone attempting to force their way into Leda's mind will find their powers beginning to dampen down; within thirty seconds, all of their powers will be shut down completely for between twelve and forty-eight hours. (Because of the way her powers work, Leda can subconsciously determine if such action would prove harmful or even lethal to the offender; in such cases, Leda can simply eject the offender from her mind without harm.)

Linguistics: Leda's primary ability is the psionic ability to understand and communicate with ANYTHING (be it of capable of a differing Human language, or of alien, animal, plant, machine, spirit or a currently non-living nature) and translate/understand its language. She can do this with any form of language (spoken, written, symbol, sign, body movements, mental pulses, etc.), and create a 'primer' for others to learn from. Because of the nature of her linguistics power, Leda is an almost unbeatable hand-to-hand combatant, and is a superior crisis counselor and negotiation specialist. Her power also allows her to seduce anyone she chooses (or renders her incredibly difficult to refuse); because of the nature of her power, Leda has developed a reputation as a 'yenta', (or 'matchmaker'), as she has been able to bring many couples together over the course of her life.

Skills and Talents
As a Cadet at the Academy, Leda is majoring in Political Sciences and minoring in Linguistics; even without her powers, she has a natural ability to pick up other languages easily. She speaks at least ten other languages (at present) besides English.

She is also a highly-skilled hand-to-hand combatant with a high ranking in the martial art of Aikido; like many psionic cadets in her year, Leda has taken up the skill of knife-fighting; she is considered one of the most dangerous fighters in the Academy (only bested by Maryann Lyter).

Leda has also been trained for the Starseed Program, and has been a member of the USAES Ambassador program since her time as a Cadet Second Year (she has been the cadet leader of the program since she was a Cadet Second Class). As part of her qualifications for the Starseed Program, Leda trained for her entry-level EMT certifications. Leda is also the Head Resident Assistant for Boruszkowski Hall (she has served as a resident hall assistant there since her year as a Cadet Fourth Class, and became head RHA as a Second Class).

Because of her powers, Leda possesses a natural affinity for both computer programming and cryptography. She has taken taken several of the advanced Academy psionics-operations courses:


 * she received her Level One Healer qualifications (use and understanding of psi-healing skills); this has recently been found to be a certification in the Lifeform Control course curriculum, but psionics may use it to fulfill psionics course electives.
 * she has received her Level One psionic search-and-rescue qualifications.
 * she has completed his training in psionic communications, and has been certified for secure psionic communications duties
 * she has completed her Level One Psionic Examination and Legal Transcription (PELT) certification (any testimony he gives in a court of law gathered with his psi-powers is admissible, and she has a high-level security clearance, allowing her to attend classified government meetings for the purposes of having her memory used as a downloadable record).
 * has completed two certification levels in the 'Leviathan' psionic armaments-enhancement training program.
 * she has completed the 'Hellhound' advanced psionic combat-operations certification procedures process with perfect marks; she has received assistant instructor certification, and acts as a 'Red Rabbit' (a term for wanted telepaths actively being sought by the authorities) for training purposes.
 * has received her certification in the Astral Special Tactical Response Operations (ASTRO) course for out-of-body/psionic combat.
 * been specifically trained to perform and resist long-term mental interrogation techniques.

Trivia

 * In a flashback sequence from the upcoming LLH 'Mini' Statement of Intent, Leda is shown to be a Chicago Bulls fan, as well as a resident of the city. It is also established that she is the youngest daughter of Vice Admiral Al Calavicci (ret.), who was offered the position as Commandant of USAES but declined in favor of retirement. Leda is also a fraternal twin; her sister Alessandra Calavicci is also a Cadet First Class, and is a member of Training Cadre 3000.


 * Leda is 5'2, with a slender build, large, jade-green eyes and raven-black hair that she prefers to keep cut short. She is incredibly attractive and equally flirtatious, and enjoys unnerving people with her nature (she is known for ignoring the concept of 'personal space' and hugging or pressing up against other people). She is also incredibly honest and open. with her thoughts and opinions.


 * Leda possesses major personality traits from both of her parents; Like her mother (Beth Calavicci), Leda has a innate manner of imposing her will on others, allowing her to intimidate vastly even physically imposing men. Like her father, Leda is very romantically adventurous and playful, and has a reputation for her amorous escapades.


 * Leda is planning a career in the U.S. State Department after her required service time has been completed (she has mentioned that she's going to be working in the National Security Agency). She had originally considered nursing, like her mother, but switched into her current major after deciding that she didn't want to be limited in the places that she could work (due to her metabilities, and the security clearances a facility would need for her to work there).


 * In an early draft of the LLH 'Mini' 'Competition Kitten Cannon!', it is mentioned that she is the 'psionic peer mentor' to Jason Lincoln.