Kyle Armalin
Kyleton Isaiah Armalin, Ph.D, is a fictional character who acts as the primary nemesis in Brother Grimace's alternate-universe Daria fan fiction-in-progress 'It's All About Respect'. He is unique in that he is one of the few African-American characters introduced into the Daria universe, as well as being one of a small number of adult characters who have been shown to have equal and or superior intelligence to Daria Morgendorffer.
Biography
An African-American man of average appearance, Kyle Armalin is a man of several occupations. Besides teaching special sociology seminars at high schools and colleges across the country, as well as acting as a ‘psychologist to the stars’, Kyle is also a Special Assignment Officer with DELPHI, a far-reaching covert organ of the United States intelligence community. Kyle has taught the ‘Special Projects in Sociology’ seminar (an annual occurrence that has garnered a certain level of gravitas in the academic community, and which actually serves as a recruiting tool for DELPHI) at Lawndale High for the past six years, during which he has made the acquaintance of many individuals in the community, including Daria Morgendorffer, Jane and Trent Lane, and Sandi Griffin.
An older, sadder, wiser (and male) version of Daria, Kyle is more accepting and outgoing with others, as well as capable of being more deceptive and vicious. Kyle experienced a lonely childhood and adolescence in his home town in Ohio, until a dramatic incident during his sophomore year in high school (in which he seriously injured over thirty persons) led him to be remanded to the custody of Professor Charles Xavier, the headmaster of a boarding school in New York State. Kyle completed his secondary school studies with distinction at the School for Gifted Youngsters, and also earned an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
He believes in at least trying to maintain his relationships and friendships, as he shows with Erin Danielson, who he had a previously intense romantic relationship with that nearly ended in marriage, and with Dr. Hanley Phillips, who he served with in the Paranormal Oriented Global Operations (POGO) teams – the special operations units that are the active paramilitary arm of DELPHI.
Other biographical information
Full Name: Kyleton Isaiah Armalin
Occupation: Teacher, celebrity psychologist, covert intelligence specialist/recruiter
Identity: Publicly known, but the general public is unaware of Kyle’s intelligence activities.
Legal Status: U.S. Citizen.
Other Aliases: Alpha Four’, ‘Nightbreed’.
Former Aliases: POGO Four/One.
Place of Birth: Fort Christian, Ohio.
Marital Status: Single.
Known Relatives: None (a father and brothers have been mentioned).
Group Affiliation(s): Special Assignment Officer, DELPHI, U.S. Marine Corps (reserve), former group leader, Para/Military Oriented Global Operations Command (covert U.S. military forces).
Base Of Operations: Mobile; formerly the U.S. Special Studies Center, Savannah, Georgia.
Current military rank: Major (formerly full Colonel)
Height: 6’1
Weight: 205
Eye color: Brown
Hair Color: Black
Powers
Powers: Kyle Armalin possesses the following abilities:
Vampiric Mimicry: Kyle possesses a number of metahuman abilities usually attributed to the classical literary beings known as ‘vampires’ – or more specifically, to the vampiric variant known as ‘daywalkers’. Those abilities are as follows:
Enhanced Strength: Kyle can lift up to ten tons.
Enhanced Speed: Kyle can move at speeds of up to ninety miles per hour until he begins to tire, or instantly achieve very short bursts of up to 770 MPH (which he uses to simulate teleportation). He cannot move at the higher speeds for longer than thirty seconds and simply stops from exhaustion if he attempts to do so.
Enhanced Senses: Each of Kyle’s five senses is far superior to any normal human.
Protected Senses: Kyle has the ability to resist sensory overload that would incapacitate a normal human or most metahumans, such as sonic blasts or the sound of an explosion, the flash of a nuclear weapon, etc.
Resistance to Fire/Heat: Kyle possesses an amazing resistance to fire, heat, and the resulting effects (smoke, etc.) He can walk though the flames of a forest fire without harm.
Resistance to Radiation: Kyle also possesses an amazing resistance to radiation (including UV radiation).
Accelerated Healing and Recovery: Kyle possesses the ability to heal from injury and disease. Kyle can completely recover from any non-fatal wound within twenty-four hours.
Reduced Aging: Kyle possesses this power and now ages very slowly.
Hyper-Leaping: Kyle possesses the ability to can leap up to 200 feet up or across an area (from a standing position), or down from heights of up to 400 feet without injury.
Hypnosis: Kyle has the ability to place a person under his hypnotic control. Through eye contact or his voice, Kyle can affect and have as many persons under his control as he wishes for the duration of his control (up to 24 hours); however, the persons must be in his presence (at least within the sound of his voice). He primarily uses this ability to hypnotize persons into forgetting things that they’ve seen, or to place post-hypnotic suggestions. When Kyle uses this ability, his eyes take on a nonreflective black appearance.
Fangs and Claws: Kyle can extend his incisors, toenails and fingernails, and can use them to do slashing damage against opposition. By extending his nails, Kyle can climb walls and other surfaces. Against beings of mystical origin or with weaknesses to magic, his fangs and claws do twice the damage as against normal beings.
Resist Domination: Kyle has the ability to resist attempts to exert psionic and biophysical control over him (this includes passive attempts such as Sensory Link; he will always know that someone is trying to access his senses and attempt to resist the link). If Kyle experiences an attempt to control him by someone who has attempted to control previously, the person’s attempt is dramatically lowered.
Homeostasis: Kyle has the ability to control his body temperature and the resultant effects of temperature on his body. Because of this, Kyle can exist in any hazardous environment (icy waters, arid deserts, arctic plains, monsoon-swept areas) without risking the detrimental effects of exposure. In addition, Kyle possesses a virtual invisibility to all heat-related detection and tracking devices, as he can simply stop radiating heat from his body.
Molecular Control: Kyle has the ability to temporarily transform his physical form from solid to gaseous form. He cannot remain in this form for more than several hours before reverting to normal. In this form, Kyle can travel at speeds of roughly seventy MPH, or cover a radius of roughly 270 feet in ‘fog’.
Animal Affinity: Kyle has a natural affinity with specific animals traditionally classified as ‘dark’ – wolves, rats, cats, snakes, and so forth. They will not attack him unless under the control of another, and seem to have a natural rapport with Kyle that allows him to speak with and understand them.
Levitation: Kyle has the ability to levitate himself and move at speeds of u to 15 MPH for as long as he chooses. He rarely uses this ability, as it is usually too slow for his purposes.
Power Creation: Due to procedures performed upon him by government scientists, Kyle has the ability to secrete a solution in his saliva and blood that acts as a mutagenic agent when it enters the bloodstream of another person, giving that person abilities equivalent to his own, but at somewhat lower levels. The process takes up to twenty-four hours to fully reconfigure the subject’s genetic structure; however, if the subject also receives a direct transfusion of blood from Kyle, the power levels generated will be at significantly higher levels and take less time to manifest (Franklin Divers, Priscilla Henry and Stacy Rowe of the LLH received transfusions and as such, have power levels equal to Kyle’s).
The project that altered Kyle is code-named ‘Project Nightbreed’, a code-word access only classified project begun in 1918 (and brought under the aegis of ‘Project Fast Forward’ in the late 1970’s) after special interests in the post WWI U.S. military decided to pursue the concept of extraordinary abilities in soldiers as a force-multiplier.
‘Nightbrethren’ is the term used for those altered. To date, Project Nightbreed has located four individuals with the abilities considered suitable for them to be ‘adapted’ so that their abilities could be duplicated in others; the project has specifically identified metahumans with vampiric- or pseudo-vampiric abilities as the most suitable for enhanced small-unit tactics. Kyle is the youngest of the four known Alpha Nightbreed (Alphas are born with their abilities, Betas are given their powers through an actual blood transfusion and Gammas are adapted through the mutagenic solution).
Contacts
Kyle has many contacts within the U.S. military, particularly within the U.S. Marine Corps, and the secret organizations known as DELPHI and ‘Project Fast Forward’, which he works for. He can also contact many of the members, past and present, of the Paranormal Oriented Global Operations (POGO) teams for assistance. He can also ask for help from his old flame Erin Chambers-Danielson, a wealthy socialite and author of best-selling children books. As a ‘celebrity psychologist’, he has made inroads with many of the movers and shakers within the society circles in many major cities, and can nose around for information.
Military Awards
Kyle has received the following military honors and awards:
Navy Cross, National Defense Servce Medal, Armed Forces Service Medal (2 stars), Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (2 stars), Fleet Marine Force Ribbon (with Combat Operartions Insignia), Kosovo Campaign Medal, Arctic Service Ribbon, Combat Action Ribbon, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, Presidential Unit Commendation, Purple Heart (2 stars),
Victorian Order (Knight Commander) - Great Britain
Trivia
Kyle is a very big fan of root beer.
Kyle has been involved in martial arts since he was eleven years old, gaining his black belt in Isshinryu Karate and a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do in just under a year. He is also highly skilled in Ninjitsu and Kendo, and is especially proficient with edged weapons. Kyle has a preference for machetes and short swords.
Kyle attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he majored in engineering and was sixth in his graduating class with a 3.87 GPA. After being recruited into DELPHI, he attended George Mason University where he received a Master’s Degree in sociology and a Ph.D in psychology.
During his time at Annapolis, Kyle was a member of the Academy football team (second string). He played left tackle, and scored five sacks during an ‘Army-Navy’ game.
Kyle’s doctoral thesis was entitled 'Culling The Herd - The Psychological and Socio-Political Effects, Moral Considerations and Legal Ramifications of Median- and Long-Term Human Engineering Within Closed and Isolated Social Constructs.' After being published, ‘Culling The Herd’ became a best-seller, reaching #4 on the New York Times Best-Seller list.
As a Marine aviator, Kyle flew F/A-18 combat aircraft for 18 months aboard the USS Emancipator (as a member of ‘the Black Sabers’). He has retained his current flight status; according to his file, he is currently qualified in the F/A-18 Hornet, AV-8B Harrier II, EA-6B Prowler, and CH-53E Super Stallion (due to his POGO duties).
Due to his POGO training and activities, Kyle is an expert at survival in many environments, and has been trained to resist interrogation and psionic attack.
As a POGO team leader, Kyle has seen action in several major U.S. military actions including Kosovo and the Persian Gulf War, as well as places such as the Arctic Circle, South America, Micronesia, and the Korean DMZ.
On a POGO operation during the Gulf War, Kyle acted to save the lives of hundreds of coalition servicemen by single-handedly destroying six enemy helicopters that had ambushed a troop convoy and destroyed their armored escort. He did this by engaging the hostiles from his exposed recon blind with a bolt-action .50 caliber sniper rifle even after coming under heavy chain-gun and rocket fire. Due to internal politics, Kyle was awarded the Navy Cross instead of the Medal of Honor; in response, the Crown formally recognized him as a Knight Commander of the Victorian Order (to the British, he is ‘Sir Kyleton’) as two-thirds of the men saved by Kyle’s action were Royal Marines.
While recruiting for DELPHI, Kyle had a 96% retention rate – the highest of any recruitment officer. Only three of his recruits left the program, and only one of those because they didn’t want to be involved with the program. Kyle is well-known throughout DELPHI as being unflinchingly loyal to his recruits.
Kyle is derisively known through the POGO Program as ‘Major Body Count’, because of his predilection towards the use of overt tactics to unnerve opposing forces, and of wiping out enemy forces to the last man.
Because he refused to use any methods necessary to keep Trent Lane in the POGO Program, Kyle was court-martialed, demoted from full Colonel to Major, forfeited twelve months pay and was transferred to an Arctic Circle listening post for two years. Had he successfully recruited Lane, Kyle would have been promoted to Brigadier General and was the front-runner to become the Chairman of the Department of Defense’s Special Assignments Oversight Committee, which controls the POGO Program (and other military-oriented metahuman projects).
Kyle is a certified psychologist, & speaks English and fluent Russian
First Appearance
Kyle first appeared in the fanfic "Lunch Hour In Lawndale". However, he is best known for his role in It's All About Respect.
Other Appearances
In the fanfic series Legion of Lawndale Heroes, Kyle became involved with the Legion when Jane Lane, the current Leader of the Legion, contacted Russell Stark to ask for self-defense training for the Legionnaires. He is currently the head of the training cadre attached to the Legion.
The Mary Sue Factor?
Soon after Kyle's appearance in 'It's All About Respect', there were several mentions on PPMB at to how Kyle was a 'Mary Sue' character; these accusations seemed to be stemming from a number of scenes in 'IAAR' where Kyle was seen in minor confrontations with Daria where she didn't fare well. The author answered these charges with a posting detailing the shortcomings of the character, after which those claims fell silent. There is, however, a lingering belief that Kyle IS a 'Mary Sue' in that he is a self-insert character that mirrors the author's own fantasies of wish-fulfillment.