Name: Acacia Dyre
Code Name: Catalyst
Age: 15
Birthplace: Bemidji (Nothern Minnesota)
Occupation: Student
Height 5'5"
Weight: 120 lbs
Eye Color: Dark brown
Hair Color: Black

Mutation: Acacia has a very strong power of empathy; she can sense emotions and project them to others. She is also clairvoyant and can sense feelings and images connected to objects and people if in physical contact.

History: Everything about Acacia was perfectly average until shortly after her fourteenth birthday. Her family was working middle class and they didn't have alot but their needs were met. her little brother was annoying but they got along most of the time. She had friends and though she was a bit shy there were social events to attend and after school activities to participate in. She wasn't remarkable at anything she did or in her appearance but was cute and tried her best. She was just an average girl in the midwestern United States.

Everything began changing soon after she started high school. She decided to try out for the cheerleading team, partially at the request of her parents. The goal was to gain self-confidence and she was paired with two other girls who had the same troubles with shyness for her practice team. The assignment was not ultimately for the benefit of the aspiring cheerleaders however, and was more of a joke to the older girls and to the others who auditioned. They were humiliated in a series of mock accidents and then threatened in more private sessions when they didn't quit. it escalated until memebers of the football team were involved. In a scene that left few untouched, Acacia's power of projective empathy was unleashed. She was left standing, shocked, in the midst of terrified cheerleaders and panicked football players and there was little doubt about who was to blame for the manufactured emotions.

Because of the feats of thought and emotion manipulation that most people harbored she was pushed further and further from other students. Teachers avoided speaking to her or aknowledging her in class and parents complained about her presence in the school. Her parents fought for her vocally, but she could sense how scared and confused they really were. She would say the wrong thing while reacting to an emtion she sensed from a person or object, and her friends began to leave her as they started fearing the opinions of other students.

Her grandmother had told stories of people who had gifts or powers; old Native American traditional tales. She went to visit her grandmother before running away and recieved a new story and name of someone who might be able to help her. Her grandmother had been interested in the campaign to register Mutants in the United States; as an Ojibwa woman she had a histroy with government and the process which tore the rights of people from them because of their status within minority groups. She told Acacia about the opposition to the registration proposals and about someone who had spoken to the Senate about the issue, a woman named Jean Grey. Acacia resolved to find this woman and to ask about what help there was for someone who was mutant.