Rue Becks

Rue now with the use of her Age Alteration

Rue Becks is a character used by Holly in World 2: Reflections. She is in her mid-fifties and is the eldest child and daughter of Angela Petrelli. She possesses the abilities of Age Alteration, Pyrokinesis and Psychometry. One of her many contacts (or friends as they are known to others) is Jared Stanfords.

Appearance

Rue's current appearance ressembles the look she would have had when she was younger, in her twenties, and although this caused a few problems at the places she lived – people getting suspicious of her appearance after more than a few years of living there – she learned to keep moving and she knows that if she lets herself age, she may die.

Rue if she lets her age manipulation slip and ages

Rue only has a few photos of her when she looked really old and usually keeps them hidden away from everyone. In these photos she can vary from being say in a chair to just lying on a bed, old, gry and wrinkly. Depending on what physical age she is at, she can move about as freely as another elderly person.

Rue at her most comfortable age.

Normally, when Rue is in control on her ability, she looks like she did when she was younger. She feels comfortable at this age and thinks that if she looked any older or any younger than she wouldn’t be happy with it. After a temporary loss of her ability, she can deage herself back to any age she wants but always goes back to the age she likes.

Personality

Rue is a bit of a quirky girl, and is bubbly despite the upbringing she had in a foster home. She usually smiles a lot, but when things go wrong she can become depressed for several days before forcing herself to snap out of it. She will also come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who annoys her. She welcomes all those who needs help but usually tries to stay away from those who are only out to cause trouble. Any friends and close friends that she calls her family can count on her for backing them up and keeping them safe, at any costs.

Rue has slight trust issues and never stays in contact with anyone she doesn't trust. Those who she does trust - with her life in some cases - are the ones she calls her friends and her family in very few cases. Trust is a tricky thing with her, and after having seen it make and break her throughout her life, she has issues with it and it has issues with her. She's been damaged - both mentally and physically – by people who she thought she trusted in the past and plans on not making the same mistake twice. Rue can be very old fashioned in her thoughts and ways but she's as young as she feels.

Abilities

Increasing a man's age

Rue's first ability is Age Alteration, the ability to change her own age and that of others, as well as ageing rates. Rue manifested this ability when she was 5 years old, and unknowingly used it to delay her physical ageing for a year, resulting in her becoming small for her age. When she was 7, she undid this, and accelerated her age until she was at the right size and height for a seven year old. She then identified the ability, along with her other two, when she was 12. She has been using the ability for years to delay her ageing, which means that she still looks like she is in her mid-twenties even though she is by now three decades older than that. She could probably make herself immortal. She can also affect the ages of others, but has never been known to do so. Sometimes, her control of the ability seems to slip, making her temporarily lose it. If Rue were ever to lose this ability permanently, she's not sure what would happen but believes that she would be close to death or might even die on the spot. On several occasions when she has lost it temporarily, she has started to age slightly after ten minutes. Her hair immediately begins to turn grey and her skin wrinkles. Slowly, her body shrinks slightly and becomes lightly hunched over.This is as far as Rue has gotten before she regained the ability.

Creating fire

Her second ability is Pyrokinesis. Rue manifested this ability when she was 9. At that age, she would unknowingly cause existing fires to flare up and burn their surroundings when she was angry, and then cause the fires and even the building's heating to die away when she calmed down. She has since learned to control it. However, sometimes this control can slip, and then she seems to temporarily lose the ability. She has never done anything bigger than playing with the odd open flame (a log fire, for example) and doesn't plan on doing so. She knows how dangerous playing with fire can be, with or without the ability to control it. It is - to date - her least developed ability.

Sensing a necklace's history

Her third and final ability is Psychometry, the ability to detect an object's history and future. Rue can sense the past and future of objects, but usually needs to touch the object to do this. Sometimes she can however gain a reading from being near an object, or by hearing about it. She can also do the same for places and locations,. She is known to have used the ability to predict that a necklace would be broken when she manifested, and has also used it for years in an attempt to track down her birth mother, but has only been partially successful in doing so, catching glimpses of her history.

Rue has only ever used Psychometry and Age Alteration on random objects and herself. She has never tried to see another person's past or even tried to change someone's physical age as it has never occurred to her that she could. Even if she did, Rue wasn't the sort of person to ask someone to be her guinea pig. It is also unknown if Rue possess this certain part of the ability.

Family & Relationships

• Mother - Angela Petrelli
• Unnamed father
• Brothers - Nathan Petrelli, Jack Calwin, Peter Petrelli, Chris, Neo Petrelli
• Sister - Pippy Gray
• Brother in law - Gabriel Gray
• Sisters in law - Barbara Zimmerman-Petrelli, Tracy Calwin, Lowri Petrelli
• Nephews - Luke Accera-Gray, Nathan Petrelli Jnr, Nathan Petrelli Jnr Jnr, Cody Calwin, Noah Gray, Josh Deveaux, Zachary Gray, Simon Petrelli, Monty Petrelli, Darrien Petrelli, Alex Gray, Jacob Gray, Claude Bennet, Braedon Gray, Zander Calwin
• Nieces - Hannah Deveaux, Dani Petrelli, Abbie Gray, Amber Petrelli, Hayley Petrelli, Ashleigh Calwin, Tessa Petrelli, Zoe Gray, Claire Bennet, Gretchen Berg, Lucia Petrelli, Kayleigh Calwin, Nicole Calwin
• Great nephews - Jake Deveaux, Alec Petrelli
• Great niece - Ella Meers

History

Rue was Angela's first child, and because of her young age and financial difficulties at the time, her mother chose to give her daughter up, handing her over to some friends of hers when she was just a few hours old. The couple cared for her for two years, until they too began struggling, and left the girl at a foster home. Rue was then raised here. She manifested all three of her abilities during her childhood, but didn't realise this until she'd gained her final one, psychometry, aged 12. She made a few friends at the home, but still left there as quickly as she could, when she was 17.

For the next decades, Rue tried in vain to identify and track down her birth family, but found that all the trails she could discover using her abilities would soon dry up. She used her ability of age alteration to keep herself young. She also formed several contacts with other evolved humans, and eventually one of these led her to New York. This contact told her that she should go to the city and search for others there with abilities. Rue did so. Soon after arriving, she met Lowri Petrelli, and the woman used her own ability to identify Rue's birth mother. Rue then met Angela for the first time, and the eldest of her brothers, Nathan.

Etymology

Rue is a Germanic name meaning "fame" or "notoriety". It is also the name of an evergreen shrub, and can mean "street" in French and "to regret" in English, but is not a name in either language. Her surname of Becks is English and means "dwellers by the brook".