Jaina Derasmo

Jaina Derasmo is an original fictional character who first appears in New X-Men.

Background
Jaina, or "Jainey" as she is known to her friends, is the eldest and most responsible of the Derasmo children. Unlike most of her siblings, she clearly recalls her brief childhood at the Xavier Institute, and even remembers a little about her biological Chinese parents, and so had the hardest time adjusting to a life in hiding after the Last Stand. Even learning to call Kelly and Alex "Mom" and "Dad" was hard for her at first, but that was a long time ago, now.

Jaina is extremely diligent and hard-working and is practically a mother figure to her brothers and sisters in her mother's frequent absence. She is like a drill sergeant on school day mornings, making sure everyone is dressed in clean uniforms and ready to go on time, and that everyone gets to their appropriate classroom and makes it home safely at the end of the day. She does most of the laundry as well as more than her fair share of cooking and cleaning, and has changed countless diapers over the years. She is determined to set a good example for the others by earning consistent grades at school, working at Pasquale's on most evenings and weekends, and most importantly by not using her mutant powers. Almost ever. In fact, Jaina doesn't even seem to like her mutant power and is quick to downplay its usefulness.

Her stress level has been through the roof in recent months, as the Derasmo family's life in hiding has been getting more and more complicated with each passing year. Jaina has already been tested once for the X-Gene and only escaped detection by using her power to "cook" her own blood sample as it was being drawn from her body, effectively destroying her own DNA sample and causing the test to come back "inconclusive". She did the same thing when it was Illyana's turn to give a sample, and both children are overdue for a retest. She dreads the day when the Initiative will connect the dots and show up at the door demanding answers, and is annoyed at the way her younger siblings don't seem to take any of this stuff seriously.

New X-Men
Following the passage of the Mutant Rights Act which effectively decriminalized the X-gene, Jaina moved back into the Xavier Institute along with the rest of the Derasmo family. However, she privately expressed conflicted feelings about the move to her parents, citing a budding relationship with a highschool crush and fear that the family come apart without the looming threat of the Initiative to keep them together.

When Alexander Jacobe was identified as a potential Omega-level mutant, Jaina grew worried that the responsibility of weilding that much power was too much for such a young boy to handle. Her worries grew into something of an obsession, to the point where she confronted the Institute's Headmistress, Andrea Richmond, about the possibility of sealing he boys powers away behind a mental block.

Andrea soon uncovered that Jaina's obsession with Alexander's powers actually stemmed from a hidden mental block of her own, installed by Emma Frost over a decade ago, while Jaina was still only an infant. Within this mental block, designed to resemble a perfect replica of the old Xavier Institute, Frost also left behind a fragment of her own personality and memories: just enough to guide Andrea through the process of helping Jaina to unlock her full potential. This appears to have been a contingency plan in the event that Frost perish in the Last Stand, though she failed to predict the expansion of the Superhuman Registration Act which would separate Jaina from the help until well into her teens.

Andrea is currently helping Jaina to gradually, safely unlock her full potential, thought he process could take months, or likely even years to complete.

Powers and Abilities
Once believed to be a Gamma-level mutant, Jaina's full potential is believed to be classified as Omega-level.

Due to a mental block put in place by Emma Frost while Jaina was still an infant, for most of her life Jaina has only been capable of emitting low-frequency radiation from her body, most commonly her hands. The highest frequency she could achieve fell into the infrared spectrum, which, while not visible, could be felt as heat; at lower frequencies she could produce weak microwaves sufficient to rapidly bring water to a boil. It has been suggested that Jaina may also be able to absorb a small amount of ambient infrared energy, but if this is really the case, the effect is so minor as to be effectively negligible.

Jaina very seldom made use of her powers and thus has had little practice with them; however, she has demonstrated enough control to be able to definitively destroy a sample of her own blood as it was being taken, without drawing attention to herself.

Since discovering her full potential, and with the telepathic help of Andrea Richmond, Jaina has begun the lengthy process of wearing away at the mental block which contains the vast majority of her mutant powers. To date she has unlocked the ability to manipulate the visible spectrum of light, while maintaining all of her former powers.