Shinobi Shaw
Name Shinobi Shaw
Position Lord Imperial
Character Information
| Codename | Jace Adams | |
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Human Mutant | |
| Age | 20 | |
| Affiliations(s) | Hellfire Club, X-Men (formerly) |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5ft. 10in. | |
| Weight | 153 lbs. | |
| Hair Color | Light brown | |
| Eye Color | Blue | |
| Physical Description |  Jace has a slim and slight build which he has used to his advantage more than once. His light brown hair is shaggy and looks unkempt most of the time. The young boy sports a tribal tattoo on his upper left arm and the Chinese symbols for 'Flux' on the upper right arm. Both of them are typically covered up by the rock music motif tee shirts he likes to wear. Since accepting his birth name Shinobi Shaw and the rank, title and possessions that came along with it, the young man has left the shaggy, unkempt look and rock motif tee shirts behind. He now takes better care of himself and has updated his wardrobe to match his newfound identity. At eighteen, Shinobi carried youthful sharpness and raw intensity. His clothing was fashionable but still searching for authority. Power was worn visibly, almost defiantly. By twenty, two deliberate aesthetics emerged. His suits were looser with matte fabrics. Accessories were restrained and an understated confidence was exuded. But he was still the Lord Imperial. The tailoring was cleaner with sharper lines, slightly ahead of contemporary fashion. He dressed as a man building the future, not inhabiting the present. In both, excess ornamentation is absent.  |
Family
| Spouse | ||
| Children | ||
| Father | Troy Adams (adopted) | |
| Mother | Kimberly Adams (adopted) | |
| Brother(s) | Derek (adopted) | |
| Sister(s) | Sherry, Monica (adopted) | |
| Other Family |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Jason, or Jace, doesn't trust too many people anymore. He tends to be reserved and stand-offish with most. But he has has street smarts and is resourceful. Forced to be streetwise after he left home, Jace had to learn to think on his feet to avoid danger and scope out opportunity. He's resilient. He's a survivor. He can, on rare occasions, surprise you with kindness. Shinobi no longer surprises anyone with kindness. At all. He has become what he never expected. He is cold and calculating, dark and cunning. He plays the long game and removes obstacles along the way. Prior to Madripoor, Shinobi Shaw was defensive and reactive. He carried resentment sharpened by failed relationships, unresolved conflicts with mutant leadership, and a persistent need to prove his legitimacy both to himself and others. Power, at that stage, was something he asserted overtly, often accompanied by volatility and a quick temper. By 1992, that volatility had cooled into discipline. The Shinobi who emerged was controlled, patient, and deeply self-assured. Anger was no longer an impulse but a tool deployed selectively. He stopped seeking validation or recognition from any source; success itself became sufficient. There is a quiet and unforced smugness to him now; rooted in success rather than spite. Power was no longer asserted, it was maintained. Where he once argued with ideals, he now simply outlasted them, as he had done throughout the preceding year. A quiet internal certainty settled in: an unspoken I told you so. It did not need to be voiced. Reality had already agreed with him. Shinobi’s evolution is perhaps most clearly reflected in his changed dynamic with Kennedy. Where he once reacted with cruelty or provocation, his posture now is one of calm superiority. He neither chases nor clings. Her presence is permitted, not pursued, and that allowance itself defines the balance between them. Their relationship no longer functions as a wound or a battleground, but as a mirror. It is confirmation of how far Shinobi has come and a reminder of who he no longer is. It stands as quiet evidence that his choices worked. When Shinobi enters a room, he does not announce himself. The room reorganizes around him. He allows others to speak first. He listens. Stillness does the work. He is no longer an eighteen-year-old demanding space. He is a constant. Shinobi Shaw represents what happens when power is given time, silence, and freedom from opposition. He is not loud, chaotic, or ideological. He does not seek permission, nor does he require acknowledgment. He learned faster than anyone expected. He endured longer than anyone anticipated. And he returned not as a challenger, but as a ruler who no longer needs to prove he belongs. |
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| Mutant Power(s) | Self-Density Manipulation/Density Control (2) = The user can create, shape, and manipulate their own density. This can range from enhancing to acquire heightened or superhuman durability, increased weight, and amplified strength or diminishing it to achieve intangibility, decreased weight, and even levitation and/or flight capabilities. The user can manipulate the density of matter through tactile interactions, accomplishing the same applications the user possesses. Thus, with practice and training, the user could extend such control to others. Jace had no idea of that possibility until after he arrived at Xavier’s Institute. After training sessions and much practice, Jace can now phase others with himself. He can also achieve the opposite density with them as well. The user is limited by being able to only affect one extreme of his density at a time (increased or decreased). There are also the effects of density alteration to take into account. For example, increased density may result in slower movement and decreased density may result in diminished strength. > Invulnerability/Increased Density = Sub-power of Self-Density Manipulation. The user is mostly immune to physical damage and harm, unable to feel physical pain as much, and is mostly immune to bleeding. The user is vulnerable on a deeper level than just the material body, such as the mind, emotions, soul, or telepathy. While in this state, Jace was still scratched by the claws of a Wendigo. > Intangibility/Phasing/Ghost = Sub-power of Self-Density Manipulation. The user can move through solid objects and ignore most physical effects in their way. The user can also fuse objects into people. Advanced users have the ability to shift from phasing through objects to becoming solid to varying degrees. The user, still intangible overall, can selectively determine who or what can and cannot interact with the user while they are intangible. They could intentionally entangle people or objects within walls, or cause harm by making their hand solid inside a person's head, which could lead to the victim’s death. Jace once removed the brain of a Wendigo in this fashion as he phased through it. He calls it his ‘touch of death.’ The user is also immune to telepaths while phased. They are vulnerable to getting stuck or crushed if they turn off they're intangibility while inside of a physical thing. |
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| Profession(s) | Jace says he's a professional street kid. Shinobi Shaw is the head of Shaw Industries and the Lord Imperial of the Hellfire Club. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | + street smarts + resourceful + resilient - untrusting - stand-offish - reserved |
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| Ambitions | ||
| Hobbies & Interests | Music – Radiohead, Green Day, Guns n' Roses, Nirvana | |
| Mutant Mastery | X-2 |
| Origin Story | They say if you wanna understand the streets, you gotta live 'em. Street kids know the streets, the gangs, the slang, and generally what's going on in the "lower life" aspects of the city. Gangs, fixers, small-time pushers, hookers - you were raised by them all. Jason Adams fell into that category of being raised by them all. But it wasn't where he started. Jason, born January 21, 1972, grew up in a decent family with a brother and two sisters in a well-to-do suburb of Tacoma, Washington. They had family dinners, holiday gatherings, and periodically attended religious services throughout the year. The Adams family was the picture of perfect suburbia. That is until three months after Jason's thirteenth birthday. He was in the backyard disassembling an old tree-house in the large Oak when his powers first manifest. The density of his body increased and the large limb he was sitting on broke. Jason fell to the ground and created a sizable hole. His parents ran outside at the sound of the limb cracking and found the hole. Gasping, they rushed to the edge and saw their son, uninjured. They reached in to pull him up but couldn't move him. Jason's ability reversed and his density decreased. His parents' hands slipped through his and they fell backwards with the force they'd been using to pull him up. Jason floated out of the hole before their very eyes. He was a mutant. His mother screamed in horror and his siblings came running out. Jason had no control over his abilities. They leveled out, returning him to his normal density, and he fell to the ground. The boy's life changed from that moment forward. His dad tried to hide him from the rest of the family and their friends. His mom was terrified and completely ignored him as if he didn't exist. His siblings tried to tell him that it'd go away, but eventually followed their mother's example. During the intervening year, Jason became a recluse and privately practiced his powers. He couldn't replicate the decreased density for floating, but could do it just long enough to pass through a wall. With concentration though, he could increase his density. He practiced more and more with that and began to gain some semblance of control. After that year, at age fourteen, Jason ran away from home with nothing more than a backpack and some money he'd stolen from his mom's purse. He walked, hitch hiked, and paid his way to Seattle where he lived on the streets. Downtown Seattle was now his home and whatever empty building he found to squat in was his house. Jace, as he'd taken to calling himself, was now a street kid. A mutant street kid that would steal to eat and survive until the day before his fifteenth birthday when a local gang approached him to run drugs for them. Jace denied their request and they threatened to shoot him. The boy used his ability and increased his density. The bullets bounced off of him as he walked towards the nearest gang member and grabbed his arm. Jace grabbed a little too tight and snapped the bones. When the shooter screamed, Jace punched him in the face to shut him up. That most certainly quieted the other boy as his limp body fell to the ground. The gunfire stopped. “Friggin' mutie!” yelled one of them. "C'mon, let's get outta here. Ya freak!” yelled another one. The gang ran away and Jace ran in the opposite direction. Word spread among the low life of the streets about a mutant boy and his bullet-stopping ability. They called him Flux. Jace spent the next few years practicing his ability, doing jobs for some fixers, raiding warehouses for bigger gangs, and a myriad of other questionable things. He didn't get paid much for the jobs. But he didn't care. It bought food and drink for wherever he happened to be living at the time. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday, he had a visit that would change his life once again. Since being kidnapped, taken to Canada, imprisoned, fighting his way out, and being rescued by the fabled X-Men, Jace has taken up residence at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Jace certainly had to pick back up on his regular studies since living on the streets. While academics was a necessity, training in the use of his mutant powers was a must. Control and execution were at the top of his learning as well as concentration, discipline, and a host of other things. The young man has done the best he could both academically and practically. One day at the X-Mansion, Jace was approached with news about his past. Apparently he was adopted and his Seattle family was not his real family. The courts eventually ruled in his favor and he accepted his birth name, Shinobi Shaw. He was the son of Sebastian Shaw and the new head of Shaw Industries. With the help of Emma Frost, he took the rank and title of Lord Imperial of the Hellfire Club, just as his father had been. Shinobi is responsible for the reactivation of Operation Zero Tolerance, the renewed production of Sentinels, and the more advanced Prime Sentinels. Shinobi attempted to make Kennedy Kelly his White Queen at the annual Hellfire Gala where he took his position as the Lord Imperial. She was 'rescued' by the X-Men while they destroyed his house and ruined his Gala. Shinobi has no more feelings for Kennedy, but she still crosses his mind once in a while. He has since left North America and watched as Emma Frost took the fall. Shinobi visited the United States a few times on business after his initial arrival in Madripoor. Twice, he returned to the X-Mansion for specific purposes. And twice, he saw Kennedy. After the final battle, however, he fell off the world stage and seemed to fade away. But true power never fades. Shinobi Shaw disappeared for roughly one year, operating almost exclusively out of Madripoor. It is now 1992. He is twenty years old and remains the Lord Imperial of the Hellfire Club. The outbreak of the Legacy Virus proved an unintended but decisive shield, drawing the attention of the X-Men, Magneto, and international institutions elsewhere. In that uninterrupted silence, Shinobi rebuilt. What emerged during this period was not merely a restored power base, but a restructured empire. Assets were consolidated while alliances were forged and re-forged. The Hellfire Club and the Inner Circle was rebuilt without interference, ideological opposition, or the pull of outdated power holders. For the first time in his life, Shinobi operated beyond his father’s shadow. Not in defiance of it, but without reference to it at all. This absence of moral correction or external pressure proved formative. Shinobi was no longer reacting to systems that rejected or challenged him. He was building systems of his own. Under Shinobi’s leadership, the Hellfire Club was not restored to its former state. It was modernized to a degree and still remains extremely exclusive and elite. While the galas, ceremonial attire, and formal gatherings of the Club’s Victorian grandeur remain, they exist primarily as institutional memory. These rituals serve the general membership, preserving continuity and reminding all involved where the Club came from, and more importantly, who elevated it to its current form. The restructured Hellfire Club favors infrastructure over spectacle. Its membership trends younger, though select elder figures remain for continuity and influence. The obsession with status and wealth has been replaced with quiet efficiency and empire-building. It is dangerous not because it demands attention, but because it does not. The Hellfire Club now reflects Shinobi Shaw himself. By the early 1990s, Shinobi Shaw’s influence had expanded beyond private power structures and into state-level engagement. Among the most significant of these developments was the finalization of a comprehensive Sentinel systems contract with the People’s Republic of China. While debate and pushback slowed full enforcement elsewhere, Chinese authorities ultimately leaned into the program, adopting Shinobi’s Sentinel infrastructure as a long-term model for mutant control and surveillance. The agreement marked one of the first large-scale deployments of a fully integrated Sentinel network purchased directly from Shaw Industries. The success of the program positioned China as a visible example of what centralized mutant oversight could become when implemented without ideological hesitation. For Shinobi, the deal represented more than geopolitical influence, it signaled a decisive shift in scale. The revenue generated further entrenched his financial dominance, compounding existing assets and accelerating the growth of his empire. |
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| Past Exploits |