Forbes Carlyle

A former friend of Helen Morgendorffer, Forbes Carlyle is the lifetime companion of Paige Turner in The Winters of Those Gone Before and Legion of Lawndale Heroes. The only daughter of the uber-wealthy Spaulding Carlyle and Stepford Carlyle (also the granddaughter of Miranda Carlyle and a descendant of Majel Carlyle), Forbes was a double major (Archaeology and Art History) at Middleton College when she met Paige (also known as Serenity) and they fell in love, becoming a couple almost immediately afterward.

Forbes' friendship with Helen and Jake cooled after their graduation from Middleton (partly because of his slight jealously over Forbes' ability to deal with her family problems in a way he never could, and partly because of the way he refused an offer to work for her family as an entry-level marketing rep in the Carlyle business empire). Currently, Forbes lives with Paige in a supremely affluent surburb of Denver, Colorado, where she also works as an international antiques broker. It is also stated that there has been little said in a negative manner about Forbes and Paige as a couple - mainly because of the family's immense wealth, but also because the Carlyle family has truly accepted Paige as one of them. (In the LLH universe, Helen simply drifted apart from Forbes and Paige. Jake had no problems with them, and they all became reacquainted at the Middleton College reunion.)

(In the story notes for 'Winters', as well as the unreleased 'unrated' version, it is revealed that in the summer after Helen's graduation from Middleton, Forbes and Paige accompanied her on her month-long vacation paid for by Helen's mother (as a ruse to try and break her and Jake up). Over the course of their vacation, the three women engaged in many playfully erotic adventures, including a bet dealing with the fourteen graduating seniors at an exclusive boys' academy in Dijon, France, and an intimate encounter between all three on the night before they returned to America. (It is currently unknown if the young Forbes, Paige and Helen of the LLH universe shared the same experiences.)

Forbes is 5'7 and very attractive, with dark scarlet hair, cream-colored skin and blue eyes. (All Carlyle women have dark scarlet hair.) She is the mother of Cadet Second Class Julia Carlyle, who attends the United States Academy of Extranormal Studies and looks surprisingly like her (except that Julia has green eyes). She birthed Julia with the help of Deforest Carlyle, the adopted son of a fourth cousin who she had dated during her last year of high school and first year of college (before she met Paige), and they have a close relationship as friends and Julia's parents (along with Paige).

Powers
In the LLH universe, Forbes has the ability to change the color frequency of any substance or form of energy, and can do so with anything and everything within in a one forty-meter radius. The color changes, which Forbes has perfect control over, will last for at least one hour or for up to four days (about one hundred hours); she can change them back to normal immediately. She can change the color of anything in her radius, regardless of size; with solid objects, the change in color does not change the physical properties of the material. If she needs to do so, Forbes can make a color change permanent; she has to concentrate intensely on exactly that which she wants to change without interruption for one full minute, and will fail if she is disturbed (however, she can try again).

While not having anything near the training that her daughter has, Forbes still has long experience in playing with her abilities, and has learned many tricks over her lifetime:


 * Forbes has learned how to 'hide' her heat signature and that of others by suppressing the heat signature/changing it to other frequencies of 'light':


 * She can change the frequency of the ambient light in an area in order to detect energy signatures of active equipment, living beings, and even radiant energy sources (such as laser grids and spotlights). She can also dampen down those sources, amplify them, or shift the frequency (color) as she wants into a single color. By doing this, she can use a normal flashlight as an effective weapon, as she can increase the light to blind attackers, or shift the light entirely to red (or blue-green, if underwater) in order to use the light as a laser.


 * She can see inside sealed/locked areas and containers by turning the appropriate materials transparent.


 * She can render laser weapons and any communications, surveillance/reconnaissance or defensive measures that rely on EM transmissions or radiant energies inoperable.