Molly Hayes

Molly Hayes is a young girl who just turned 13, the daughter of two prominent L.A. doctors who died recently. Some people in law enforcement or who have a really good memory following old news reports might realize that she was reported as being kidnapped by another teenager called Alex Wilder two years ago. Otherwise, she's just some excitable kid. Probably wearing a silly but adorable animal-themed hat.

Princess Powerful (named by herself), aka Bruiser (named by Chase) is the youngest member of the impromptu superhero group of teenagers known as The Runaways. She's the daughter of two powerful telepathic, human-hating mutants, but she herself is often very cheerful to ... pretty much everyone. Unless you get on her bad side. Superhuman strength and invulnerability and a collection of wacky hats, she's very close to fellow Runaway members Chase and Karolina. She also is awesome at playing Risk and Xbox 360 - and hitting stuff.

Background
Molly Hayes was born to Alice and Gene Hayes - two doctors who were also powerful, telepathic mutants ... and who were part of a secret group running Los Angeles known as 'The Pride.' Molly was raised oblivious to the true nature of her parents, or that they were supplying ritual sacrifices to an ancient race known as the Gibborim in return for ruling Los Angeles. Although her parents were both powerful mutants, they had believed Molly had not inherited the mutant gene. When Molly had turned 11, during one of these sacrificial meetings, the other Runaways witnessed the Pride sacrificing a prostitute. Molly was not there when the other children saw this - she was with Karolina. Although Karolina was told about what their parents had been doing, the others decided to not include Molly in the investigation due to her young age. When the Pride found out that their secret had been discovered and had run away, they used Molly as a hostage, hoping to force the other children to return.

The others did return to try to rescue Molly. When Nico attacked Molly's mother, Molly's powers manifested for the first time. She was about to fight Nico when Gertrude came in with Old Lace, which sort of derailed Molly's train of thought because ... DINOSAUR! Gertrude told Molly that all of their parents were actually supervillains, and Molly initially accused Gertrude of lying.

Then Karolina's mother blew up the wall to Molly's bedroom and tried to kill Gertrude.

Which caused Molly first exhibit superhuman strength - hitting Karolina's mother, sending her flying out of the room and into a pool next door. At that point, the children all run away, but the Pride televised it with a fake story saying that Alex had murdered the prostitute and kidnapped Molly.

The children dubbed themselves the Runaways, hiding at a mansion known as the Hostel, and they all decided to essentially be heroes and stop the Pride - their own parents. Molly sort of kept pushing that they should all be superheroes. Because they had powers and stuff and it would be cool! Each of them took on a different codename (again, at Molly's nagging insistence - since superheroes are supposed to have codenames). Molly actually wanted to call herself Princess Powerful, but Chase named her Bruiser instead and the name (unfortunately for Molly) stuck. Mainly because Chase KEPT CALLING HER BY THAT NAME. Molly also tried to get them to all wear costumes as well but that never 'took' with the others. She made a rather crappy costume herself though, which she wore when fighting Cloak and Dagger. Even after the others stopped using codenames, Molly kept calling herself Princess Powerful. At least, when not around the other Runaways, since it would usually result in Chase teasing her by calling her Bruiser - a codename which she really, really doesn't like.

The Runaways learned about the location of the Pride's next rite to the Gibborim. When they went to the undersea lair to stop the Pride, Alex attempted to betray the team, showing that he had been a mole and spy for the Pride all along. However, Molly destroyed the cannister containing a sacrificial soul to the Gibborim. As a result, the Gibborim killed the Pride for failing the rite. They tried to kill the Runaways as well, but they managed to escape. Molly was later placed into an 'special' school, but Gertrude breaks her out and they run away to rejoin the rest of the team.

Later on, Molly and the other Runaways fought various other criminals, like the Wrecking Crew, Swarm, and even Ultron. Molly later on sees future Gert die in Chase's arms, warning the rest of the Runaways about a future villain called Victor Mancha (who later joins the team, actually). When the Runaways go to New York to help Cloak, Molly finally meets her favorite hero ever, Wolverine. Molly's thrilled about Wolverine. The hero who she wants to marry when she grows up. Unfortunately, Wolverine wasn't particularly nice to her, and scared the heck out of her with threats.

Molly punched him through a wall and sent him flying several blocks, landing face down in the snow.

Thus ends (at least temporarily) Molly's crush on Wolverine.

And began the 'Wolverine is a jerk who smells like beers!' phase.

When a new Pride emerges, led by a young, out-of-time Geoffrey Wilder (Alex's father), events lead up to an encounter in which Gertrude is killed by Geoffrey. Molly misses Gertrude deeply, talking to a picture of Gert regularly and trying to find out from the Leapfrog if it thought Gert was in heaven. Leapfrog winds up confirming Gert is in Heaven to placate Molly.

During the Heroes Crisis, Molly had fought some zombies and vampires, then fell asleep and wound up in Wonderland. She spent the rest of that time chasing after the Cheshire Cat's smile and did so until the other heroes wound up ending the crisis.

Personality
Naive - Molly usually believes the best in people without needing to first be convinced. Everything is very black and white for her with no real nuances - war is caused by bad people, superheroes who she haven't met yet are good people, things that blow up are awesome. Some of this comes from her youth, but a lot of it comes from having been brought up in a very sheltered lifestyle with a protected upbringing from the world (by overprotective parents) until she and the others ran away. She still maintains her youthful innocence though. She also can very easily go from one extreme to another, like going from wanting to marry Wolverine when she grows up to thinking he's a jerk when she actually -meets- him... to wanting to marry him again afterwards. She sees stuff like the Danger Room as a great way to play with unicorns and butterflies.

Short Attention Span - She's a 13 year old kid. Her attention span is about the same as the lifespan of a fruit fly. She's very prone to go from one fixation or fascination to another at the drop of a hat. She doesn't worry about the awesome responsibilities that come with her powers - having powers are just COOL!

Trusting - Another facet if her naivete, Molly is unreasonably trusting. This can get her in serious trouble when she puts her faith in people who are trying to use her or trick her, and usually doesn't realize it until it's way too late. Once she does realize that her trust has been betrayed, it's devastating to her and she can react with sadness or anger. Just like any other little kid.

Kindness - Even though she's young, she's a really good listener. She doesn't like to see ANYONE sad - friends or strangers - and will often do things to try to cheer them up - bringing them candy, watching movies with them, or just sit with them. She doesn't just give people second chances. She gives them 12th chances and almost always thinks people who say sorry can change and be good.

Upbeat and Perky - Molly is incredibly upbeat - very much the optimist. Even when bad things happen, it doesn't usually keep her bummed out for long. Some people think it's because of her short attention span, but it's actually because she just is a naturally very happy, cheerful and excitable person. And hyper. Very, very hyper. Probably should cut down on her sugar intake, and definitely cut down on caffeine, since when she's been given caffeine blasts, her powers (and perky personality go into overdrive).

Smart - She doesn't really show it, mainly because of her excitable nature (or perhaps because she doesn't want to be expected to act all grown up ALL THE TIME), but Molly's actually really, really smart. Much smarter than she usually lets on... especially for her age. Plus does have the capacity to be very serious and level headed (at least for short periods of time) - sometimes at the most unusual or poignant moments. She can be very intuitive, though when she is, she usually likes people to recognize that she TOTALLY knew what she was talking about! (See, I knew it! Why aren't you all awesomed by me!?)

Careful - When Molly's powers first manifested when she was 11, she was incredibly excited about being able to become a superhero. She didn't know that her parents were both mutants, or evil, but superheroes are supposed to only hurt bad guys, so she always was trying to make sure to be really careful not to hurt anyone accidentally with her powers or break stuff. You know, unless she gets angry. She tends to make sure to not use her powers on anyone who doesn't themselves have powers. If she was to, she'd be all freaked out and nervous that she might have seriously hurt them. It doesn't always register that not everyone with powers has the power to deal with a massive punch from a superstrong kid. It also doesn't always occur to her that not everyone who has a superhero name doesn't have powers.

Explosive Temper - Molly's all happy and perky. But when she does, watch out. Because like any kid having a tantrum, she'll explode into violence. Fortunately, when she gets angry she usually gets over it rather quickly. Almost manically quickly. But if she's forced to do something, people tease her, exclude her, hurt her friends, try to hurt her, or try to upset her friends (or even someone she doesn't know who she feels is being bullied), watch out. Because that person will regret it and probably become a projectile from a 13 year old's super-powered fist. You should see how much she overreacted when Chase refused to let her have the codename of Princess Powerful and kept calling her Bruiser instead!

Hero Worship - Despite her parents being evil, Molly LOVES superheroes. She's a walking encyclopedia of superheroes (though somehow she manages to mix up people like Dazzler and Dagger, and assumes the Punisher has superpowers). However, she's very likely to kick heroes out of her pantheon of worship once she actually meets him or her and they are shown to be not NEARLY as awesome as she built them up to be in her mind. Ask Wolverine, Punisher, and Cloak. Especially ask Wolverine.