Basic Information

Name: Amber Kiyoshi 
Nickname/Alias/Etc: Whisper 
Gender: female 
Age: 28
Height: 5’3” 
Weight: 110 
Faction: Vanguard 

Appearance

Hair Color: Whisper’s hair is a very dark red, almost brown, with a streak of purple and white on the left side. It is cut in a short bob. 
Eye Color: Black, like the eyes of many Asian people are. 
Ethnicity: ½ Japanese, ½ English 
Physical Appearance: Whisper is a small girl with a thin, toned frame. She’s small and dangerous, with an appearance that reminds one of Bruce Li (though not quite as ripped). She’s an attractive girl, with bright eyes and rounded features, but her stern, harsh glare and laser-focused features make her seem foreboding and intimidating. Whisper’s eyebrows always look angry, and her eyes seem cold and deadly serious. Her smile appears as if it is lacking something, like a gem without a shine. She has small ears, one of which sticks out slightly from under her hair, and a soft, round nose. Whisper’s hair curves around her face like curtains on a stage, setting off her facial features just right. The streak in her hair travels along the left side of her bangs and comes down to end the curtain on the left side. No one really knows why Whisper has this, as vanity is normally not something that she capitalizes on, but most have come to believe that she just likes it there. Whisper’s throat is spanned by a jagged crimson scar left behind by a sizeable shard of broken glass. Whisper gets her nickname from this, as the shard that caused the scar permanently damaged her vocal cords, causing her voice to become quiet and hoarse. There is a small cut just above her left temple that blends into her hair. Whisper's voice is deeper than one would think, and is very weak; it's hard to hear what she's saying usually. She generally sounds like she has a bad sore throat. 
	Despite her rough lifestyle, Whisper’s body is rather well-kept, with few bad scars besides the one on her neck. The only other scar of prominence on her body, besides a small incision on her abdomen made when she had her appendix taken out, is a scar that goes across her right heel, near her achilles. She’s not your typical street-scum, and has good hygiene. Her nails are always perfectly cut, but are never polished; Whisper sees such things as needless vanity. The only tattoo on Whisper’s body is one on her left shoulder of The Crossed Keys, the symbol of the Vanguard. 

Attire: Whisper more-or-less wears the same outfit every day, with a few different color variations. She wears a plain-color tee shirt, usually white, with a pair of jeans and her jacket. The jacket fits almost perfectly, cutting off about an inch below her waist while not being tight enough to suggest any sort of catsuit or sexually-arousing leather clothing. The jacket is tan in coloration, with the crossed keys on the back in gold and trimmed in white. The inside of the jacket is lined with a zip-out cream-colored fur lining which keeps Whisper warm when it’s cold. The jacket always contains several shurikens in an inside pocket. Another quintessential piece of Whisper’s wardrobe is her bandana; it is a normal red bandana that is tied around her neck like how cowboys used to wear them in the wild west. If she wishes to, she can pull it up to cover her nose and mouth, but normally she allows it to rest on her collarbone, where its shape is reminiscent of some sort of collar. She wears tan combat boots on her feet and a tan leather belt around her waist. On Whisper’s right wrist is a black Japanese bracelet made of polished wood beads. The Japanese symbol for strength is carved into one of the beads. Around her neck is a new addition to the Vanguard wardrobe that she is attempting to usher in; dog tags held on a leather cord. 

Personality

Outward & Innate Personality: Friends of Whisper often jokingly refer to her as two people: Amber and Whisper. When nothing perilous is happening, Amber is a fairly civil and sociable person. You won't find her partying hard, but she likes hanging out with the other Vanguard members. It’s not uncommon to see Whisper sitting at a local bar or restaurant with a few other Vanguards, sharing a beer or a meal. She’s very quiet due to her throat issues, however, so many people take her quiet listening as antisocialness. Amber very rarely speaks, and when she does, it is very, very quiet, so people often speak for her (this is one of Mamba’s many uses). She’s a fairly open person, and despite her lack of talking is actually pretty interesting to talk to. She texts a lot (because it doesn’t require speaking), and has a good memory (because she’s forced to be a good listener). 
Then Amber Kiyoshi becomes Whisper. Many people have concluded from her behaviour that Whisper is bipolar, as her personality seems to shift dramatically into a sort of attack mode when something sets her off. Normally, this “something” is some kind of threat to her security, like hearing footsteps behind her in a dark alley or a gunshot. When in this form, Whisper is almost completely devoid of emotion. She is devoted to action, efficiency, and cold logic; the perfect soldier. Once Whisper goes into “kill mode”, it takes a while for the effects to wear off. Oftentimes, she leaves the presence of others and goes off alone for a while to cool off after these. 
Both Whispers have one central personality trait in common; they are very, very clever. Whisper is a cold utilitarian, like Spock, giving her a major advantage in planning. She is a genius tactician, and is awesome at setting traps for enemies. This, however, can put others at risk, as she doesn’t mind occasionally using people as pawns. Once Amber becomes Whisper, she will do almost anything to achieve her goal. In some ways, Whisper is more bark than bite. Though she can be rather cruel in combat, she doesn’t have the stomach for torture and gets grossed out by gore. She tries to hide these things by saying that she’s above torture and maiming, but this is really more of a cover. She has a fear of venomous spiders. 

Hobbies/Interests: Chess, logic puzzles, poker, parkour, martial arts, swordsmanship, collecting Japanese weapons, shooting, hunting, reading (she’s a fan of Cormac McCarthy and has read The Art of War no less than ten times), music (she likes Evanescence, My Chemical Romance, Fallout Boy, Panic At the Disco, Death Cab for Cutie, and a little Blink 182). She’s always wanted to learn flute, but never learned. She practices both yoga and tai chi. She’s secretly a comic book nerd. 
Skills/Talents: Being the leader of a gang makes it so that you have to learn how to fight pretty damn well. Whisper is a master swordswoman, mostly self-trained. She knows enough martial arts to boost her hand-to-hand combat abilities, and is trained in parkour. She has picked up a lot of fighting techniques from the military, such as disarming techniques. She has the map of human pressure points memorized. She is very flexible from yoga, and used to be into gymnastics. She cannot play any instruments. She used to be able to sing, but we all know what happened there. She is attempting to learn Japanese. Emphasis on the word “attempting”. 
Prized Possession: She really likes her primary weapon, a footlong wakizashi, but besides that she has no real favorite object. 
Quote(s): “..."

History/Bio: Amber Kiyoshi was born in West Mendel. Her father was a banker in an investment firm, and her mother was a schoolteacher. Both were metas, and so Amber never found being meta odd. SHe always thought that there was something wrong with normal people, not the other way around. Being an only child, Amber was very spoiled, to the point of being smothered, and by the time she was a teenager had a serious rebellion phase. She went to a good school and got fairly good grades, but in high school began to associate with a bad crowd of people (ie Peter Osten, Kylie Detmer, and Damian Sparks). The drinking and smoking was cool and all, but a life of crime didn’t appeal to Amber as much as it did to Pete. Amber, having an affinity for mathematics and money, wanted to be an accountant, but never mentioned it to the others, because she knew they’d make fun of her. In reality, the Skulls were really more of an escape from her parents to Amber, and in retrospect she wonders how things would have turned out differently if she hadn’t hung out with them. 
	Amber’s life was changed forever when the Riots happened. In November of 2004, David Summers, a banker in West Mendel, was found dead on his way to work. The body showed signs of bad scarring and burn marks. People automatically assumed that meta humans were behind it, and when the courts found the only suspect, a meta named Raphael Johnson, to be not guilty, the city went to shit. The protests started out as peaceful, but after a group of kids tried to rape an innocent metahuman, Peter Osten and Damian Sparks decided that it would be a bright idea to rescue her and take down her attackers. This started a two-month shitstorm that spanned from February to the first week of April. At first, Amber fought alongside her friends, but after Skeleton tried to burn down a street of brick row homes, Amber decided that it was no longer worth her time to deal with these nuts.
She didn’t know that Skeleton would almost die in the fire he lit because there was no one who could drag him out of the flames. How was she supposed to know that? To this day, she feels guilty that Skeleton was so badly burned. While on the way home from the fire on her motorcycle, Amber was jumped by a group of men and was hit by an SUV. Her powers kept her from splattering against a wall and dying, but her right leg was shattered and a piece of glass slit her throat. She would have died laying in that alley bleeding to death, if someone hadn’t pulled her into their car and taken her to the hospital. To this day, she doesn’t know who did this; she was too busy not-dying. Amber spent nine months recovering from her injuries, but after almost a dozen surgeries, the doctors couldn’t repair her vocal chords. There was just too much damage. This is where she got the name “Whisper”. 
Whisper’s family left Mendel after the riots, and Amber lived in Dallas for four years. She got an AA degree in accounting, but she decided that she didn’t like accounting at all; it was much too boring. She tried a few other things like statistics and economics, but nothing really stuck. She graduated from University of Maryland at age twenty-two, with a degree in economics and a bad taste in her mouth. She had no idea what she wanted to do, and so she tried her hand at the stock market and went into the investment business. This lead her back to Mendel, after a five-year hiatus. It was now 2008, and the city was in bad shape. The Skulls were in power now, and while they had yet to do much damage to West Mendel, much of East Mendel was ruined, especially the River Hill neighborhood, which had once been prime real estate. 
Bored, stuck in a dead-end job (you can’t give a presentation if you can’t speak) and possibly out of her mind, Whisper thought back to her days of comic books. What if she could become a superhero? Maybe she could clean the city up and make it beautiful again. Excited to finally find meaning in her life, Whisper began to train to be a vigilante. One benefit to her college experience was that a friend of her’s had gotten her interested in fencing, causing both the beginning of Whisper’s swordsmanship and her love of weaponry. Whisper began taking martial arts courses, and studied many forms of combat. Finally, after about six months of training and honing her skills with her sword (and with her power), Whisper went to stop her first crime; a bank robbery. 
She woke up in the ER a day and a half later with two bullet holes in her gut. This changed Whisper drastically, and she realized that she could not fight the city’s crime alone. After getting out of the hospital, she met up with Emilio Elias, a friend of her’s from martial arts classes, and together they founded the Vanguard, an organization made up to protect meta human rights in West Mendel and to prevent crime. 
Five years later, the Vanguard is a fairly sizeable gang, though not as big as the Skulls. It “protects” meta humans and generally leaves normal humans alone, though is known to clash with police if they attempt to detain a metahuman for a crime that they did not commit. At the top of this criminal pyramid is Amber Kiyoshi, the girl who wanted more. 

Family: 
David Kiyoshi: Father: Alive. Currently living in Dallas, Texas. 
Kathleen Kiyoshi: Mother: Alive. Currently living in Dallas, Texas. 

 

Relationships

Relationships: (Basically a section where you put your character's thoughts on the other ones they've encountered. You can also talk to other people and decide what your characters relations will be.)

|Damian Sparks| bad | former friend| “I try not to associate with the Skulls anymore. Damian and I dated in high school, but I have no feelings for him. He is an enemy now, and if I have to kill him, I will do so.” 

|Kylie Detmer| bad, leaning on neutral| ex-friend | “Kylie was one of my best friends back before the Riots. It’s a shame that she can’t see the light and leave that stupid gang. I would accept her as a Vanguard.” 

|Peter Osten| Bad | enemy | “I never want to see his burnt-ass face again as long as I live. He’s a cruel, heartless bastard and I regret having ever known him. I want nothing to do with him or any of his brood.” 

|Emilio Elias| Excellent | best friend | “Emilio is my best friend by far. He is my right-hand man, and I’d trust him with my life.” 

|Neal Ecclestone| Improving | boss | “I used to think Neal was all talk, but he can back it up. The kid is impressive.” 

Abilities

Power Class: elemental/anatomical

Power: Ancient stories from Feudal Japan tell of the Ninjas, an elite squadron of commando samurai that served the emperor himself. It is said that the ninjas were deadly accurate with shurikens, and that they were so stealthy they could disappear into a cloud of dust to escape detection. Whisper shares that age-old ability, the power to turn into dust. The obvious ramifications of her power is a degree of intangibility. Once she is dust, Whisper is immune to damage. Whisper also doesn’t need to breathe in this form, so toxic gasses cannot hurt her. To deal with poisoning, Whisper can turn into dust and perform a sort of detox process where she removes the poisoned cells from the dust form. This makes her immune to both disease and poison. Whisper can control the movement of her dust also, allowing her to use it for both teleportation or offensive purposes. She can vanish into dust in the middle of a battle and reappear behind her enemy, poised to cleave them in two. Being in the Vanguard has made her so skilled at her power that she can morph into dust instantly and return to normal just as instantly. Anything Whisper is touches, except for living things, turns to dust with her, including weapons and other objects. Whisper cannot heal herself using her power, but she can put herself in a kind of stasis where she can’t bleed or become more wounded. This allows her in theory to get to help quickly without bleeding out. 

Weaknesses/Limitations/Drawbacks: Firstly, there is an energy limit to Whisper’s shifting just like anyone else. She can only turn to dust so many times before she gets too tired to do so anymore. Secondly, wind. While Whisper can indeed control the movement of her own dust, a strong gust of wind can still scatter her dust and make it extremely difficult for her to put herself back together. All of the pieces of Whisper’s dust must be used to put her back together, so capturing or blowing away any part of her prevents her from morphing back. If she does morph back with a piece missing, she cannot heal from it, even if the other dust is returned. I should specify however, that I mean “strong wind”; Whisper isn’t going to be walking through the park and get blown away by a light breeze. It’s a given that Whisper cannot communicate with others while in dust form. Also, while Whisper can remove poisons from her body using her dust, if the poison takes effect before she can react to it, she will still feel the effects. Another issue with Whisper’s powers is that she’s not breathing 

Other: An important aspect of Whisper is that she doesn’t see the Vanguard as a gang of criminals; she sees them almost like a meta police force. Because of this, she will deny at the any and all criminal activity done by the group as libel. 

Whisper lives in a luxury apartment in the upper east side of the financial district. It’s a two-floor apartment, square in shape, and about 40ft x 40ft. The largest part of the place is the living room, which is separated by the kitchen and parlor by short staircase (it’s very hard to describe). The walls of the living room are massive tinted windows that allow Whisper to watch the city from above. Whisper pays for the apartment with a combination of payment money she receives from normal humans living in Vanguard territory. 

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