Pejuta

Kayda Franks, born on April 26 1991 as Brandon Franks, codename Pejuta, is the protagonist of ElrodW's Buffalo Gal Won't You Come Out Tonight and following stories.

Originally from Eastern South Dakota, Brandon Franks was a sophomore in high school, a well-respected athlete (mostly), and a good student - he was a math prodigy, working on graduate-level college math classes. He was one quarter Lakota from his maternal grandmother, and was five-nine and one-hundred-sixty-five pounds of good-looking, solidly-muscled all-American boy. Brandon's family is doing well financially through a very large farm (worth between thirty and thirty-five million), a trucking business associated with the farm, ranching, and owning a farm implement dealership in town, but as is typical with farms and ranches, most of their assets are not readily liquid. Brandon has a brother, Danny, who is in 8th grade, and somewhat of a brat at times.

Kayda and her spirit Tatanka

Brandon's hometown has severe mutant-phobia due to a rager incident in a nearby town. Although Humanity First! doesn't have a formal chapter, many townsfolk are members of H1.

Brandon manifested one morning at school without warning, never having suspected that he was a mutant. When other students saw his eye color change, they nearly beat him to death, leaving him for dead in the snow by the school's dumpsters. Only his new healing powers, heightened by a mild burnout, enabled him to survive. The burnout, though, hastened his mutation, causing him to completely change within a few days instead of several months.

Kayda was supposed to have entered Whateley as a mid-year sophomore transfer, the same grade she had in her old school, but due to a foul-up in her class schedules, she was missing an English II credit to be able to advance to Junior; accordingly, at the 2007 Commencement ceremony, she was seated with the Freshmen and "advanced" to Sophomore—with membership in the Honor Roll, Dean’s List, Chief of The Nations, Member of the Alpha Leadership Council, and a SDSM&T March Award for Graduate-level Mathematics. The Whateley preference for the students having the full four-year experience no doubt played a part in her placement.

Stories

Main Character

• Buffalo Gal Won't You Come Out Tonight
• Trials of a Warrior
• Two Spirits
• Now the Real Learning Can Begin
• The Riddle of Sappho
• Medicine Girl
• Charging Buffalo, Hidden Dragon
• The Best Days of our Lives
• Crying for a Dream
• There's No Place Like Poe
• Pomp and Conspiracy
• All Hallows Ball
• Would the Last One Out Please Turn Out the Lights

Appeared

• To the New Year!
• The Penance Factor

Mentions

MID

MID as of 2007-05-29:

Mutant Identification Card
Code name	Pejuta
Ratings	Wiz: 2, Exemplar-2, Avatar-5, Gadgeteer-5, Native American weapons - basic
Techniques	ghost walking, shield spell, bow, tomahawk, manifested bison
Weak vs	normal human weaknesses
Backup / Team Affiliation	The Nations, Ghost Walkers

Physical Description

Kayda is "...five-foot seven, one hundred thirty pounds, and probably the most exotically gorgeous girl I'd ever seen, apart from the woman in my dreams. Strangely, I didn't look like the kind of beauties I used to see at school, like Julie, with their European features and my own European sensibilities about what made a woman beautiful. Instead, I was gorgeous in an exotic way because I was distinctly Lakota, and looked foreign and exotic, but still, with my eyes, approachable and compelling." Besides appearing full-blooded Lakota, she has distinctive Kelly-green eyes that have a very soft, faint glow in the dark.

Powers

Kayda is an avatar who unusually hosts two spirits: Ptesanwi, a channeler and prophetess for Wakan Tanka (the Lakota Great Sprit); plus Tatanka (the Lakota White Buffalo Spirit). Additionally, she can manifest a physical representation of Tatanka at various sizes, ranging from puppy sized through St. Bernard sized (typically for 'meet-n-greet' purposes) up to full sized (typically for defensive purposes).

Kayda is also a gadgeteer, although her mechanical knack emerged from an early age, well before manifestation. Her manifestation appears to have enhanced her gadgeteer abilities.

Kayda has some magical ability, although it's unknown exactly what or how powerful. Some of the healing magic is associated with her Ptesanwi spirit.

Official testing from Whateley Powers testing list Kayda as: Wizard - 2, Gadgeteer-5, Exemplar-2, Avatar-5.

Appearances

• On Thursday, May 17, 2007, Poise reveals to Fey that Pejuta decided to join Venus Inc. Pejuta then does the test shoot for the Lorelei collection, when Fey is too demotivated to do it, because she sees no hope of getting any reward in doing so.

• On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, she has a Venus Inc meeting after dinner.

• On Friday, May 25, 2007, it's revealed that she helped save Venus Inc's modelling contract with Lorelei when Fey's modelling performance had taken a nosedive and would've sunk the contract.

Classes

Placed Out

Kayda has high school and college transcripts that show she's completed the following Whateley math classes (and that's not counting the college-level math she's completed):

• Algebra
• Geometry
• Trigonometry
• Calculus I
• Calculus II
• Probability Theory I
• Probability Theory II
• English II (after managing to get this accepted, Kayda was officially made part of the Class of 2009 instead of Class of 2010)

Spring 2007

After arriving at Whateley, late for the Spring Term of 2007, she was initially assigned by Mrs. Hawkins to the following classes (despite her protests):

• Algebra I - First period - replaced with Avatars I
• Basic Martial Arts - Second period
• Intro to Magical Arts - Third period
• English I - Fourth period - replaced with Aikido II special training
• Powers Theory - Fifth period - replaced with French
• Powers Lab - Sixth period
• Electronics I - Independent study (after normal classes)
• French - Evening class - moved to Fifth Period
• Costume Shop I - Saturday mornings
• Native American Fighting Styles - Special tutoring, whenever it fits in

Associations

Family

• Franks family:
  • Pete Franks Father
  • June Franks Mother
  • Danny Franks Younger Brother
  • Little Doe Grandmother
• Brenda Kimimila Franks - baby sister

Friends

• Cornflower Girlfriend
• Julie Robinson Former girlfriend
• Punch Roommate, Poe Room 205 Poe
• Loophole Soul Sister
• RPG
• Harrier
• Nursing
• Sanctuary
• Freeze Frame
• Charge
• Headrush
• Delwin ?? (In Electronics I, not Negator)
• The Nations - Native American Student Group

Tutoring

• Pupils:
  • Phase Pre-Calc and Calc I
  • Charge Algebra I
  • Headrush Algebra I
  • Tennyo Math
• Instructors:
  • Chaka is tutoring Pejuta in BMA with Charge and Headrush
  • Billy Two Knives - Native American Fighting Styles
  • Charge - French

Combat Teams

• GhostWalkers
• Team Phoenix
• unnamed team of The Nations

Enemies

• Chief Dan Bear Claws
• Unhcegila
• Grey Skies
• TNT
• Cagliostro

After Graduation

After graduating, she takes her parents to a vacation on the Hilton Orbital Casino and Hotel. While there, a villain attempts to take the installation over, and is foiled. She decides to quit heroing and take up her role as First Shaman.

She takes up her role in the First Nations, to try to bring the tribes together. During a mass meeting, an old Lakota demon attacks. It's foiled, but at a huge cost.

Associations

In her role in the First Nations, she has an entourage of four young women:

• Emily Walks-far - one of the Ptesanwi's personal assistants
• Anne Roaring-fire - another one
• Suzie White-Peak
• Christy Black-Rabbit

They are sworn to her, and they are her friends.

She has another friend who isn't quite a member of the inner circle, but is very close.

• Doli

Generation 2

In 2016, she's still alive. She's on Whateley campus at least once to try to heal Vanessa Barton.

She plays a significant part in the Lanie-Tansy switcheroo.