Dion Rene Butler

Pre-Pantheon
Dion Rene Butler was born to Lars Butler and Janice Chaplain, a young couple who had yet to marry. The pregnancy was entirely unexpected. They were both very serious about their careers, and the academics leading to them. Needless to say, the shocking wake up call allowed them both to realize that they were just as serious about each other, and then at that point, about their baby. Neither were very clingy, so it worked well after Janice had the baby, when the two of them staggered their class hours to share responsibilities. Meanwhile, they hardly faltered, coming from driven and fairly successful families, and the two of them made it into their own successful careers when Donnie was still just a kid.

As Donnie got older, his parents became busier and busier, his mother moving on to a valued stock consultant role, and his father catching a demanding but rewarding accounting position for the local building of a giant of a corporation. While it was frequently noted that little Donnie bore a striking resemblance to both parents, it wasn’t hard to wonder if he was adopted. Even as a child, Dion hated school work, and cared only for play. He made lots of friends, but his strong mood swings were also evident at an early age. Concerned, Janice began to take him to therapy sessions, and his doctor wanted to diagnose him as bipolar and put him on a number of medications. Always calculating, Janice ‘considered it’, and proceeded to research the medicines the doctor wanted to put him on, and in learning it’s possible side-effects, refused and withdrew him from therapy.

Despite it all, Donnie was intelligent enough to maintain good grades on through middle school, so much so that he skipped the seventh grade. This, however, marked the pivoting point in his life, and he began to sprawl out more and more socially. By the time he was half-way through his eighth grade year, his parents noticed a decline in his grades, and an increase in his tendency to spend several days at a time at friend’s houses over the weekends. The more it persisted, the less they allowed themselves to think little of it, and so they finally confronted him, and grounded him on the terms that he’d be released from his punishment when he brought up his grades. Donnie made the effort to stay at home, in his room, just like he was told… for two days. At this point, he snuck into his parent’s room while they were sleeping, took back his phone, made some calls, and snuck out of his window. It was around this period that Donnie discovered the simplest form of his ability, which he kept secret.

As time continued, his busy parents continued to ‘ground him’ to no real effect. By the time he was thirteen, he was hanging out with older friends, and was no longer sneaking out of his window. At this point, he would simply leave through the front door. Truth be told, his parents were so busy with their careers that they simply resigned themselves to the notion that Donnie was going through a rebellious phase, and would be through it soon enough. Their passive personalities were the opposite of his, and could not command his respect. Meanwhile, for Donnie, he merely grew more and more immersed in his active social life, and in ninth grade, was no longer making much of an effort in his classes. He’d spend the time sleeping when he could get away with it, or would often sneak his headphones into the class as well, and enjoyed playing the music so loudly on his ipod that the adjacent students could hear the beats. This is likely how he was given the nickname, “Thumper”.

When the first year of high school was said and done, Donnie’s year ahead was lost as he was held back in the ninth grade, and told he’d have to repeat it. It was the least of his worries, of course, but for his parents, it was a mortifying wake-up call, and Lars and Janice agreed and promised he’d be sent to a special school, beginning to research good schools to send him too immediately. Donnie made it quite clear that he would refuse to go, but deep down, he felt a sense of anticipation that he might soon be leaving his friends behind, and began to spend all of his time with them.

As time progressed, Donnie only became more and more popular with his ability to provide the booze as well as get a good party together, despite having to operate through his older friends in a number of ways. He also became the sole dealer for a new drug that he called “Dizzy”, using it to make money and entertain his friends. With no real understanding of his ability or what he was capable of, by the near-end of the summer, Donnie was on the verge of heading his own cult of wild, hedonistic party freaks. He had inadvertently addicted them to his unusual by-product, a ‘drug’ for which he was the one and only source. “Dizzy” had become a topic of concern in the city’s local news for a brief period, but at the summer’s end, it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Donnie was called home by his parents, and reluctantly agreed to speak with a representative to a school that made bold and enticing promises for Donnie’s ears alone. His parents are unaware of what the representative talked about with Donnie, but thankful that she had succeeded in convincing him, they happily shipped him off in hopes for his finding his way.

School Life
Food Fight

Powers
Chemical Transmutation

Put simply, Donnie has the ability to alter the chemical makeup of a substance. In simple terms, it means he can ‘transmute’ one thing into another thing entirely. The timeless example is ‘water into wine’, and it’s quite likely to have been his first use of the ability. Although it extends a broad domain that would allow him to create a vast number of things ranging from cleaning chemicals to deadly, caustic acids or other dangerous substances, his range of practice has been quite limited by his interest in general. Donnie does not fully understand how his ability works, merely that he can easily make most any beverage alcoholic, and that he can also create his own “drugs”. What he creates is more or less a pebbled substance that can be taken like a pill or dissolved in a beverage. It lacks the nasty side-effects of the many “drugs” found on the streets and such, and in truth, he hates the comparison itself. It seems to cause powerful euphoria, act as an aphrodisiac, and remove a number of social inhibitions.

With further training and understanding in his gift, Donnie may become able to create tonics, remedies, medicines, and even cures not found in modern medicine, but unfortunately, his capacity to reach such lengths of achievement is limited by his lack of academic knowledge in these fields, giving him incentive to pay attention in certain classes. While pure sentiment can drive him to will certain effects into what he creates with his power, it’s still somewhat of a gamble without proper chemical knowledge.