Name: Lily Strider

Age: 23

Sex: Female

Shifter Form: Nine-Tailed Fox

Human Appearance:
Lily is roughly 170 high with a somewhat athletic build with a few muscles, but nothing extraordinary, being visible. It doesn’t take two glances to see that Lily has japanese blood in her veins, though mixed with something western. Her hair is pitch black and reaches absurd lengths, going down past her buttocks, though usually held in a braid. Her eyes are a dark brown—almost black—and peeks out from beneath a pair of equally dark eyebrows, a hard glint almost always visible in them, rarely ever absent. Her lips are prominent, with a rosy colour and noticeable pucker. She's nothing extraordinary when it comes to womanly assets either, being medium both up front and behind—perhaps even less than medium.

Shifter Appearance:

Here's a shameless steal to show what she looks like.

In her human form one might say that she’s decently pretty, but none would deny the fact that she’s a stunning beauty when she Shifts: Jet black hair the same length as before and kept in a braid as well, although there is enough hair to cover where her human ears would be. Her eyes are a striking summer blue with slitted pupils, giving her a slightly feral—and sometimes mischievous—look. Nine white tails extend from behind her, each about as long as she is tall and covering in soft, silky fur. All four of her canines are elongated, each a good centimetre longer than usual, giving her toothy smiles a bit of a dangerous edge to it all thanks to her fangs. It also makes her bites that much more painful, and potentially dangerous. Another thing that should be noted is that, in this form, she is the epitome of feminine beauty in accordance with the legends, with full lips, long eyelashes and so on; something which she's actually rather fond of, if she had to say so herself.

Where her nails are usually kept short for convenience’s sake, they are quite long when she's shifted, with an ever so slight rounded point to them, and coloured a purple-ish blue. Aside from that her hips become wider, as does her bosom become a fair bit larger. Where before her body had been somewhat tough thanks to her developing muscles and athletic lifestyle, they have now softened; giving her a body devoid of hardened muscles but rich with pleasant curves. Her facial structure also changes as well, becoming more sharper and a little angled; more fox-like as opposed to the roundness it had before.

Abilities:
Athletic and flexible, skilled at gymnastics/parkour, and a very fast and agile runner.

Powers:
True to the mischievous and trickster nature of the Kitsune in the legends, Lily's magical skills are focused mostly around illusions, enabling her to trick the senses of those around her; create ghost sounds and touches and make them see things that are not there. The more energy she uses the more powerful the illusions.

She also has a secondary magical gift which allows her to drain life energy from the area around her and use it for various purposes ranging from creating a light source to weaponizing it. The amount of energy she draws from anyone depends on how much they are willing to give, or how much more powerful her will is than theirs. She can freely take from plants and smaller animals, though she has to overwhelm the mind of other sentient beings, or larger animals, to drain theirs, though doing so is forbidden—A rule set in place by Ikari, the Kitsune Teacher.

Background:
Lily has never had an easy life, not by a long shot. For as long as she can remember she has been on the street, without easy access to food or shelter. She never knew her parents and has been forced to steal to survive more times than she can count. Her early life was spent in the company of an elderly person called Max, also a homeless man. For the first several years of her life he took care of her, sharing what food he had between the two of them. She remembers little about him, save that he was kind and patient, and always soothed her whenever she got sad, or cold. One fond memory from her past is one winter night when he gave up his coat for her so that she didn’t freeze.

Alas, fond though that memory may be, it was also what led to his death. He caught a harsh flu and, without money for medicine and no hospitals in the town, got deathly ill and died by the end of winter. She was six years old back then, and it took several years before she finally stopped blaming herself for his death, and realised that his old age was why he had died and not just because he got sick.

The town where she lived, she later found out, was located somewhere in England. She never really bothered to learn the name of it as her mind was more focused on finding food and a place to sleep each night, but staying unaware of her hometown was not quite possible. The town was Lichfield, a small-ish town with around thirty thousand citizens.

Aside from her time with Max, her life was rather uneventful. She scraped together what food and money she could, stole when money was scarce, and hoarded when she had sufficient.

She was a skilled thief. Quick with her fingers, and even quicker on her legs. There were hardly any roof she hadn’t been on, no alley she hadn’t sped through or hidden in when some gang or other criminal chased her. She lived on those skills, and constantly trained with whatever she had at her disposal to stay in shape; to stay quick and agile. It wasn’t always enough, however, as she was cornered from time to time, beaten up and had whatever food and money she had stolen. Life in a small city was never easy, and the multiple bruises she got was proof of that, and even though she often longed to just rob someone blind, hide the money somewhere safe and live a somewhat decent life, she didn’t. Stealing when she had to was something she was had no reservations with doing, but taking more than she needed… she did look down on that, especially those who stole from others who had so little—She wasn’t completely without morals, after all.

The day came, however, when the war erupted and the Shifter Program was started. She had heard, and noticed, the people going around recruiting everyone who would be willing to be test subjects. Lily initially volunteered, but due to her young age they wouldn’t accept her: A 13 year old was not old enough to become a potential soldier, regardless of her zeal. It was her chance for a proper life, a job, a room of her own. A chance for a life where she didn’t have to wonder if she’d go hungry to bed that night, wonder if she had to run from the police yet again for stealing. But they wouldn’t let her.

Seven years went by with her asking every time they came to Lichfield to recruit, but every time they told her no because she was too young. That was until she turned 20, and they returned to Lichfield after three years of absence. She was finally over 18 and, to her relief, they finally let her join. She didn’t hesitate even once about leaving her old life behind.

She was brought to a facility in Spain, the nearest one at the time, and was immediately subjected to test after test, swarmed by humans and Mythics alike, each of them trying to figure what type of creature she was compatible with. The next day came faster than she realised, and the knews were thrust upon her: She was a Kitsune, or Nine Tailed Fox. She was compatible with a Demon Class, specializing in illusions and speed.

She didn’t care much about the news at first, but all the excited voices of the other applicants talking about what kind of Mythic they were compatible, and how much they wished to be able to test the abilities they would get… It infected her, so little by little she was getting excited as well, wondering how she’d look and how many tails she’d get. One of the things about Kitsune, she’d heard some of the people in the facility say, was that they were one of the few where you could estimate their power by their number of tails. Usually a Shifter only had between four to seven tails, but the occasional eight-tailed Kitsune also popped up. Nine-tailed ones were exceedingly rare, with only a handful having appeared in the past ten years since the Shifters came to be. She secretly hoped for seven or more.

Finally came the day—after all the others had been tested for compatibility—when she would undergo the process of becoming a shifter. The memory is still vivid in her mind, of standing stark naked in that strange, vertical tube with electrodes attached to every conceivable part of her body; from chest to legs, scalp to feet. One might say that she was covered head to toe in electrodes.

The process itself wasn’t painful, as she was knocked unconscious almost the moment a strange, blue-ish liquid started flowing into the tube itself. No, there wasn’t any pain but what happened when she awoke might as well have been for how vividly she remembered it all. The first thing she noticed as she was brought back to consciousness, still stark naked inside that tube, was a heavy weight behind her. A quick glance revealed a multitude of tails. She had counted them, counted every one of them and felt the joy fill her as she counted five and she wasn’t finished counting yet. She had gotten the seven tails she had been hoping for, but… There wasn’t seven.

She was stunned. She could hardly comprehend the fact that she, a no-body from the streets of a small town in Britain, was a Kitsune with NINE tails. The rarest and, supposedly, most powerful of them. That alone made her soar: She was special, she wasn’t a nobody. She was _something_ now, and not just an unwanted rat on the streets. But that wasn’t all, she soon discovered.

They had a large, wall-length mirror installed in the room where the process took place, and when she looked in that she almost dropped her jaw. She had always prided herself on being fairly pretty—at least among the rabble on the street. She had no uneven teeth, no excessive amount of pimples, and she managed to keep relatively clean. But what she saw was beyond her imagining.

It wasn’t a word she would have used about anyone she just met or saw in passing, let alone herself, but in that moment the only word that came to mind was “Beautiful.” Her eyes were a summer blue, and slitted, as opposed to their usual dark brown. Her face had become more angular, sharper, and more fox-like. What’s more, the toned and athletic body she prided herself on was gone, replaced instead by the well kept and fit body of a gorgeous woman, wide hips and a bust far larger than what little she had had before.

It was the first time in years that she had cried. Just seeing herself like that, seeing, and feeling, that she was worth something. Not just because of her enhanced looks, but also because she knew that with this transformation, she could help others. Selfish though she might have been, she’d learned from Max early on that compassion goes a long way.

The following days brought with them several more discoveries. Among them the fact that her smell, hearing, and sight had been vastly enhanced when she Shifted, as well as her speed and raw physical strength being far above what she had previously had. One of the most annoying changes in her Shifter form, she decided, were the fangs. Sure they looked good and gave her smile a certain level of viciousness, but the amount of times she had to put healing salve on a lip she had punctured was high. Far higher than she’d like.

In the following two years from when she was shipped off to the Academy from the facility in spain, to when she started her final year in said Academy, a lot of things happened. For once, she learned how to fight and utilize her knew powers. She learned how to trick the minds of others, to change reality as she saw fit and how to draw the very life out of plants and trees, small animals and insects. She was forced through tactics classes, dragged through the mud when she didn’t meet the field trainer’s expectations.

She learned a lot, and while she appreciated that there was still one thing she gained that she treasured, and still treasures, above all else: Her girlfriend, Tsukiko, a fellow Demon Class Shifter, and a Bakeneko—a two-tailed Cat-and-Human hybrid with the ability to divide herself into two, one tail staying with each of the ‘copies’. She was a sweet japanese girls, and one of the few who managed to get past her tough exterior, and touch and thaw the frozen heart within her. They hit it off early, and their initial friendship bloomed into something more in the months following their arrival at the Academy.

Now they’re inseparable, spending much of their free-time together and sparring when they get the chance.

As for Lily, so far she’s enjoying her stay at the Academy. For the first time in her life she has a bed and a room for herself. She doesn’t have to worry about food, or how to not get cold during the winter.

If it means that she’ll have to fight and put her life on the line to pay back for all of that, then so be it. At the very least, she spent the last of her life being happy if things go bad.

Personality:
As opposed to the kind nature of Ikari, Lily is quite the rough girl. Her life on the streets has made its mark on her, making her aggressive and distrustful. She’s used to having very little, and what little she has has always been in danger of being stolen. As such she’s very possessive and protective, suspicious of anyone she might find near her rooms getting a little too close to the few she cares about—Especially her girlfriend.

Despite this, she can be perfectly friendly and amicable if someone proves to her that they are trustworthy, though it doesn’t get rid of her tough exterior. Some might call her a Tsundere (made even more exasperating due to her japanese roots), and they might be right. She doesn’t open up easy, and she’s stubborn, but she isn’t impossible to befriend. She’s the kind of person you can count on when things go downhill if you have managed to win her over to your side.

Furthermore, she’s somewhat arrogant and a tad narcissistic, as well as being the kind of person who has trouble seeing the difference between right and wrong. That is not to say that has no regards for other people, but having lived a life where taking what you could from an exposed fruit stall or sneak the wallet out of some fat business man’s pocket has sort of made her indifferent to stealing, meaning that she’s not opposed to taking something if she feels that she has a need of it—something her girlfriend is trying to make her stop doing.

Other:
- She is very proud of her looks in her Shifter form, and can be caught admiring her naked self in the mirror if you “forget” to knock in the late evening before entering her room.

- She’s a lesbian and has a girlfriend who’s also a Shifter: A fellow Demon Class able to shift into a Bakeneko. Her name is Tsukiko, and she’s born Japanese.

- Her name was given to her by Max. Lily because he thought she was a pretty little girl, like a lily, and Strider because she was quick on her feet and faster than most kids her age.

- Her hair is as long as it is because she never really had a proper chance to cut it while living on the streets, so she just got used to it being so long.

- Lily is being taught Japanese by Tsukiko, and is decent at it so far, able to at least swear at it and do simple shopping in a japanese town. Longer conversations is something she’s still working on.

Name: Alice Blackwood Gender: Female Age: 21 Shifter Form: Valkyrie Appearance: Alice is a somewhat short, heavyset, muscular 1.6m and 86 kilos, to be exact. Her skin is somewhat pale, mainly due to spending most of her daylight hours indoors. Her muscles, while not grotesquely large, are big and as hard as whipcords. Her hair is jet black, and about midway down her back when left alone, though she ties it in a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, which are a steely grey. It's impossible to tell what her legs look like, as they're covered 24-7 with a pair of heavy, black, military cargo pants completely covered in pockets and other things. Under one of those pant legs is a sleek and shiny prosthetic, top of the line and if anything better than the organic limb it replaced. Her face eyes appear to be locked in a semi-scowl. Due to her less than feminine form, many people would and will frequently mistake her for a man with long hair, mainly when her figure was obscured by something, either a jacket, or weapons and armor (armor, weapons, etc-cetera). Shifter Appearance: Use the image as a reference, not as an accurate representation of her appearance. Her hair shifts along its length from black at the top to pure silver at the bottom, but remains the same length. She gains several inches in height, and her already muscular build only becomes more so, with the muscles visible standing out like steel cables rather than whipcords. The prosthetic disappears, replaced by a "regular" leg that's just as muscular and powerful as the other. Any change in "Feminine assets", if any, is small. A pair of glossy, jet black wings spreads from her back, with two small holes in her armor permitting their use in battle. When she shifts, she gains a set of elegant but futuristically angular armor, also in varying shades of black and silver. The breastplate juts out slightly in a single point, with several overlapping plates angling downwards to deflect blows, and similarly in the back. A helmet in similarly angular but deflective style rests on her head, and more armor of the same style covers her arms and legs. Her face, while not exactly loving by any stretch of the imagination, nonetheless softens noticeably. Abilities: Has extensive training in both armed and unarmed combat- (Unarmed: Kapap and Tai Chi. Armed: Kapap, some dabbling in HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts), and training at The Academy) Even while unshifted, she’s strong. While she wouldn't be able to beat a steroid guzzling power-lifter, she’s no slouch in the strength department. Fast, in the sense of a sprinter. Excels at quick bursts of speed Basic knowledge of field medicine, Strong self discipline. It takes an awful lot to set her off, and by contrast she’s excellent at masking her feelings and essentially isolating herself in a personal fortress. (Not to say she does so all the time.) Speaks Russian, more or less. Powers: Greatly increased physical abilities (Faster, stronger… tougher) Can use a powerful short range offensive blast with her magic, mainly to let her catch a breath or exploit an opening As she’s a Valkyrie, she does have the ability to bolster her allies’ strength and fortitude, and can heal wounds to an extent Can fly Can further augment her abilities and those of her weapon with magic, the more magic she pours into it, the more her abilities are strengthened. Background: Alice Blackwood was born to a militant family. Not military, militant. From a young age, her highly competitive single father (her mother died shortly after her birth from an accidental overdose of pain medication) pushed his also competitive, but not pathologically so, daughter to her limits. While one might've expected her to resent it, she saw it as a competition against her father- one she was determined to win. Occasionally however, he broke those limits so much that she actually wound up with a prosthetic leg and a policy for a discounted upgrade to a top-tier version upon adulthood. She didn't mind too much, well, she didn't mind the prosthetic as it fascinated her to no end; the fact that her father was the reason she needed it severely damaged their relationship. The prosthetic was paid for of course, by her father’s company, or at least the company he worked for, a private military company which stipulated that she work for the company upon her reaching 21, circumstances permitting. And so, her already intense training increased even more so, with her learning things at the age of thirteen that no normal young teenage girl would've really wanted to know- things such as small unit tactics, where to stab or shoot to kill an opponent hopped up on drugs, and first aid. As the company was in fact Russian based, another part of her training was Russian with a native speaker, also from the PMC, though this was more of a formality, she still took it seriously. Her school began to take notice, especially after she walked in one morning after a prolonged absence with a whirring prosthetic limb. They took umbrage with her father’s practices and how they rubbed off on his daughter, her impressive knowledge of ways to kill people or occasional remarks about how “That position would be untenable in [Insert a situation here]”. This extensive training left little or no room for a social life, and though she tried on multiple occasions, the closest she ever came to real friends were other students of HEMA. She chose to go into HEMA because it was one of the few things that her father would approve of, and his controlling nature lead to her slowly developing an intense dislike for him. After much arguing and many letters of pure vitriol, she was pulled from public school and was enrolled at a private institution for aspiring military officers- where she mastered the art of keeping a straight face and hiding emotion behind an impenetrable mask. The public school was thrilled to be rid of her truthfully- having brought up several other issues with her father. Incidents such as the time she’d “accidentally” forgot to return to classes after lunch, and released hazardous materials into the building after managing to trip over several valves and crash an electrical line into flammable material. While she had had some inkling they were hazardous, she hadn't been as aware of where exactly they would go. While there were no fatalities, her voice never recovered from her brief exposure and remains horribly raspy to this day. When she was seventeen a large legal battle commenced with child protective services and her father, and her father lost. It wasn't the government that took custody of her, but rather the company her father worked for, and they took over the training role. In fact, she enjoyed her time there more than with her father, largely because they weren't technically able to subject her to anywhere near the same regimen as her father, and partially because the director of the American branch of the company had in fact been shocked when he learned of what she’d been trained to do from a young age and had essentially reduced her training to a classroom. At age 18, with a brand-new, top-of-the-line, bleeding edge prosthetic limb she made a spur-of-the-moment decision to see if she was mythically compatible. It was either fight against superior forces as just another soldier, and likely join a list of statistics, or fight superior soldiers as a shifter and maybe stand a chance of not dying horribly- there wasn't really any decision. At a facility run by the CDC in Atlanta, flurries of people- humans, shifters, and mythics alike poked her, stabbed her with needles, et-cetera. Suddenly it was the next day, and lo and behold, she was compatible with the Demon class, a Valkyrie. So she got to stab things and mess stuff up, make everyone else feel like they could stab things and mess them up, and help them do so a little. Well that didn’t seem too hard. She’d left herself on a sort of autopilot for the next bit, the actual transformation itself more of a blur than anything. Her mind was primarily occupied with how to make things work with the company and her contract (which she had technically agreed to anyway). She does remember appraising herself after the transformation with approval. Prominent muscles more so, impressive wings that would… well, she wasn't sure what exactly to do with them. Oh, and the armor, she had no idea at all where that had come from, but she certainly liked it. She’d not really done much experimentation with what powers she’d been granted as a Valkyrie, and didn’t do so until she arrived at the Academy later. Her primary concern had been potential issues with the company, though surprisingly they proved fairly reasonable, though she suspected her new status had something to do with it. Not many PMCs could brag that they technically had a shifter working for them. She progressed through The Academy much like she had prior, though this time there was the new variable of socializing, that she’d actually be able to participate in, maybe even make a real friend! Or not, she progressed through The Academy exactly like she had previously, and was completely baffled by all the social niceties she encountered. While she’d been fully expecting to have her ass kicked when she arrived, and was not disappointed, it happened a lot less than she’d been expecting. Her familiarity with strict physical training and regimens certainly helped. She learned many things over the next three years. She made a runic blade, and learned how to use it better than any amount of HEMA could’ve done. She learned to augment her abilities and those of her blade and other with magic, and while not as blisteringly fast or agile as other Demon classes, she far exceeded them in strength and endurance. She learned to apply the wings she gained when shifted to their fullest extent, able to quickly cover ground or rapidly brake. She also learned to apply her magic in a more active manner, with varying results. Perhaps the biggest glaring error in her training was her disdain for the healing and support capabilities of a Valkyrie, her logic always being “If the enemy is dead fast enough I don’t need to heal them, now do I?” Something she’s well aware of is the fact that she’s theoretically still going to be fighting as an employee of a private military company, and not of one of the different governments of the world. Personality: Alice predominantly has a cold, almost distant disposition to most people, though that will change depending on whether the person she’s speaking to is someone she likes (not a whole lot of people on that list) or someone she dislikes (lot more people on that list). To someone she likes, she can still seem distant, though it’s more a confusion with how to interact with them rather than an intentional barrier, nonetheless she will at the very least greet with a smile as opposed to the half-scowl. With someone she dislikes her attitude also changes considerably, the best term being “Bitchy”, though luckily it actually isn't easy to get oneself on the list of dislikes. She can be very patient, up until a point when everything will explode, though if this does happen one must consider themselves supremely unlucky; she once waited four hours while standing to wait for a store to find something, only to discover they had in fact forgotten she was there after something happened, and they were able to bring it out shortly after. Privately, she has an almost poetic way of looking at things, and can be very romantic in the 18th century Romanticism sense, and were someone to catch her in the middle of well, not being the hardass military chick, it’d be hard to gauge her reaction beyond “Flustered”. Other: She has a heavy revolver, extensively modified by herself, which she refers to as Охота Пистолет, or, "Hunting Gun." She is currently working on modifying this revolver to use ammunition made from the same runic material as her sword and armor- which, needless to say, would be far more effective against a dragon than lead and copper. Jackets were mentioned earlier, she wears a military styled one wherever she goes when not shifted, like this. This jacket also has excessive pockets, but most of them are located on the inside. It may or may not be impossible to tell just what she is carrying in her clothes. If I think of anything else later I’ll put it here.

Subject Name: Celica Dancer
Gender: Female
D.O.B: 17 January 2550 (23)

Shifter Form: Yuki-anesa – Demon Variant

Physical Appearance: The patient’s height approaches the six feet, and her weight is consistent with that of a lean, healthy woman of her age*. She has straight, black hair flowing past her shoulders, clear blue eyes, and fair, pale skin. She is possessed of full lips, smooth cheeks, and a well-defined jaw. She has a straight body shape, with moderately sized chest and waist.

*Refer to the addendum for images and specific information regarding measurements.

Shifter Appearance: Compared to some of our previous patients, Miss Dancer’s appearance was not too drastically altered.

Her hair grew slightly longer, reaching her lower back, and her skin paled further, with her lips acquiring a bluish tint. The deathly pallor was worrisome, but there were no signs of malfunctioning equipment. There were no changes recorded in her height, build, and body mass after the procedure, nor was there any alteration of her basic features.

There were some rather striking changes, however. Her left eye’s sclera and pupil disappeared, leaving behind an icy blue, faintly glowing surface. The area surrounding that eye, from the cheek to near the scalp, were covered in what appeared to be a mask of jagged ice. The ridges, rather than growing haphazardly, seemed to sweep outwards, away from the center of her face, in a pattern mildly reminiscent of scales. A staff member, upon peering at the ice from a close distance, reported seeing what appeared to be patient’s cheekbone under the surface. She has taken to hiding the eye under a swath of black hair.

A similar occurrence can be seen in her hands. The flesh seems to have been replaced with ice as well, in a shape reminiscent of a plated gauntlet, up to the middle forearm. The ice at the fingertips concludes in sharp points, as if they were claws meant to pierce or cut into objects.

There were no more observable changes beyond that.

Subject Skills: Miss Dancer agreed to join the Twin Souls Project after completion of basic training, and as such has knowledge of basic marksmanship, survival skills, and first aid. Her profile notes that she has attended courses on various martial art disciplines over the years. She is also proficient in Spanish.

Shifter Capabilities: In this form, the patient displays an increase in speed and durability uncharacteristic among other subjects of similar compatibility. The current hypothesis is that this inconsistency may be related to the patient’s own nature, or previous experience.

As expected, the patient’s Shifter Form demonstrated a remarkable affinity to ice related magic, allowing her to freeze objects and sculpt and move ice to her wishes. Manipulation of frozen, water solutions has been shown to be possible, but attempts to manipulate frozen elements besides water have so far proven unsuccessful. Further testing proved the patient able to control gaseous matter to some degree, as was demonstrated by her ability to freeze objects beyond water, and what personnel have dubbed the ‘blizzard spell’. Attempts to refine this ability to the capacity seen in Silph-related Shifters has seen little success, and as such has been determined to be an extension of her previously mentioned abilities, using air as the solution.

The patient has also been known to dissolve into a cloud of mist. Beyond motion, her ability to interact with the world in this state has shown itself to be minimal, and we had to bring some of the Mythic personnel in order to reverse the transformation. With instruction and practice, the patient was shown to be capable of reversing the change under her own power.

The patient has shown the intriguing ability of being able to store a form of power into objects, a skill some of our Mythic experts have likened to enchantments. In practice, the patient has been able to bind spells in small items, or even tiles on the floor, and trigger them once certain conditions have been met. We foresee this ability to be particularly useful at the time of setting traps.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the efficiency of this form’s powers changes depending on the humidity and temperature of the environment **. In fact, in the most extreme temperatures of our testing, the patient was unable to reverse her mist form, and had to wait until the room was brought back to cooler temperatures to reassemble herself.

It may be of note that, following her transformation, the patient complained about irritation in her transformed eye. Moreover some of the male staff members reported feelings of unexplained anxiety after maintaining eye contact with the patient for some time, even with the transformed eye under cover. The feelings typically subsided after leaving her presence. The latter effect could be linked to the nature of the Mythic she has shown compatibility with, but we have not been able to form an hypothesis for the reason of the former discomfort.

To summarize, the patient is able to manipulate the motion and shape of ice, send out blasts of frigid wind, and dissolve into a cloud of mist. The patient’s abilities in enchantments seem to work by using objects as delayed focuses for her power. Enchantments placed on ammunition made large crystals expand from projectiles upon impact, encasing targets in ice. A similar enchantment placed on a section of the floor sprouted a jagged crystal upwards once pressure was applied to it. The patient has been unable to replicate these effects without making physical contact with these objects, be it by holding them in her hands, or at least stepping on them.

**Refer to addendum for testing procedures and data.

Background:
Excerpt from transcript of patient’s second interview with Dr. ————, post procedure:

C.D: Hello, Doctor. I’m here for my appointment?

Dr: Ah, good afternoon, Celica. Please have a seat. How are you adapting to your… new circumstances?

C.D: Well enough, I suppose. At the very least, I don’t accidentally freeze my food while eating anymore.

Dr: Does your eye still bother you?

C.D: Not like this. In Shifter form, however… I don’t know how to describe it. It doesn’t hurt, per se, at least not anymore. It’s like… an itch, I suppose.

Dr: I see. Perhaps it will subside with time, but be sure to notify the medical team if it ever becomes an issue. What about your other changes?

C.D: My hands feel odd as well when I’m that way. It’s like, it’s hard to feel anything with them. I can see them, and I can move them just fine, but beyond that, it almost feels as if they’re not there.

Dr: Have you experienced any pain coming from them?

C.D: No. No, I haven’t. Even when it feels like they should hurt.

Dr: Ah, I see. Your case resembles those of people who recently acquired prosthetics, and seeing these images of your Shifter Form, I can understand why. It is perfectly natural, and I expect you will grow used to the sensation with time. [Short pause] Has anything else been bothering you about your change? Any other strange feelings? Emotions?

C.D: I admit to feeling slightly insulted regarding my compatibility. A spirit who seduces men and leads them to their deaths?

Dr: I have been told that there are several versions of the Yuki-Onna’s tales.

C.D: Their saving grace.

Dr: [laughter] I suppose so. Is there anything else that feels odd to you?

C.D: No, I can’t think of anything else out of the ordinary. I feel fine.

Dr: Okay, okay. Fine is good. Could you remind me of your date of birth?

C.D: The 17th of January, 2550.

Dr: Place of birth?

C.D: Buenos Aires, Argentina. We lived there for a few years before my parents moved back to New York.

Dr: Good, good. And you were three years old when you moved? [pause] Good. Tell me about your life after that.

C.D: Haven’t we had this conversation before?

Dr: We have, but I would like to hear it again.

C.D: … where should I start?

Dr: Wherever you feel comfortable.

C.D: Wherever, huh… okay. I don’t really remember anything about South America, to be honest. I’ve lived in New York for most of my life up until now. The only reason I can speak some Spanish is because dad and mom would speak it around the house half the time. It was somewhat confusing when I was little. I spoke a lot of ‘Spanglish’ back then.

Dr: These were your parents, correct? Do I have their names right? [pause] Good. What were their occupations?

C.D: My mother was a translator. She usually dealt with older documents. Dad was military. A big, burly guy. He’s the reason why I was enrolled in so many martial arts classes. It drove mom crazy. She kept saying I was going to turn into a boy one of those days. Other than that… let’s see… school was school. Boring at best. High school was slightly more dramatic. At least up until the first attack.

Dr: What happened then?

C.D: My father was called into active duty. He did not make it back. We got a flag for it.

Dr: You have my condolences.

C.D: I told you the first time, it’s fine. I had time to grieve. Still, after that… it felt like the world had changed perspectives, in a way. I might not have turned out the way mom thought I would, but I was a big daddy’s girl, in a way. It hit me hard. It must have hit mom even harder, but she didn’t show much. She was always so strong…

Dr: I see. [pause] What about after high school? Did you have college lined up?

C.D: No. Nothing terribly interesting happened. I took a free year, backpacked across Europe, saw the sights, and thought a lot in general, mostly about where to go next. I went on my own. It hadn’t really been my intention, but after high school, most of the people I knew sort of… scattered, and I wanted to have different surroundings for some time.

Dr: What did you conclude after all this meditating?

C.D: There wasn’t a single conclusion or epiphany, to be honest. It’s rather frustrating, but, I don’t feel like there ever is for this kind of thing. At some point, I got it into my head that I should do like dad and join the army. It just felt… right. I guess I thought it would make me feel closer to him. And take me closer to the ones who took him.

Dr: That is understandable.

C.D: The hardest part of it was breaking the news to mom. She did not take it well, and I could understand. She had lost her husband to war, and here went her little girl charging into the breach.

Dr: What made you volunteer for this program?

C.D: Mechs weren’t much good against Endola, were they?

End of excerpt.

Personality:

Note: This space is not the subject’s psychological evaluation, but rather musings and observations taken by Dr. ———— during the patient’s stay at the facility.

Celica strikes me as a driven woman. She has an inquisitive mind, and the focus to match it, and the personnel has told me she was a pleasure to work with while determining the breadth and scope of her new capabilities. It would seem some of our volunteers are less fond of protocol than others.

However her focus and drive means that she is engaged when working, and seemingly worn out the rest of the time. She often seemed subdued while interacting with other applicants and staff members in her free time, but was roused in moments of mental or physical activity.

Celica seems to be a well-centered individual, confident in herself and her capabilities. She smiles often and easily, and seems to have a preference for wit and dry humor.

Miscellanea:

In the environment of the station, seeing familiar faces every day and the expecting tests and exercise, Celica often chose to wear more comfortable clothing. She often wore gray, loose cargo pants along with a plain, white t-shirt. Following the procedure, particularly while her body adjusted to her newfound power, she often carried a vivid blue parka lined with fur over the ensemble.

Celica is one of the few students in The Academy to make use of firearms. She is known to carry a pair of pistols holstered on a thick, black belt, usually carrying ammo enhanced with her magic.

Name: Lilith Al-Alia-Al-Akhtar “Copperhead”

Age: 24

Sex: Female

Shifter Form: Lamia (Snake-Demon)

Appearance: Lilith is Scoto-Syrian, so her features are a notably Middle Eastern, with flowing wavy black hair and a rugged sort of unkempt beauty. She has strange serpentine blue eyes due to a minor leak in her shifter powers, and her skin feels a little scaly, tougher than what would be considered natural but not particularly noticeable. She is not a tall woman, standing about 5,4, but has a quite athletic, muscled body, but with some notable assets. She has a Romanesque nose with a strong bridge, as well as full lips and a relatively angular face. She wears a long snake skin longcoat, which matches her shifter scales with its copper and black patterns; underneath she tends to wear crimson or orange colours, and long flowing clothes, as well as high black leather boots. She doesn’t wear makeup at all, and never enjoys wearing it, arguing it makes her look like a porcelain doll. As it is, she looks a little country-ish, rugged but not unattractive. Occasionally she wears a Stetson with a kingfisher feather in the ring.

A complex snake like ring pattern covers her right arm, which is intermingled with a lot of alchemical symbology, which she had tattooed on in second year. Occasionally she wears short black gloves on her hands, but mostly she doesn’t as it makes her hands uncomfortable, apparently rubbing her slightly scaly skin wrong.

Shifter type: Titan

Shifter Appearance:
http://naturaljuice.deviantart.com/art/Lamia-348815669

In her Shifter form she changes into an exotic serpentine beauty, with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a snake. Her skin is pale as Ivory or Marble and her form becomes more curvy and full. Her muscles also become more prominent and powerful, complimented by a 20 meter tail, with total body size of 30 meters. Her Scales are thick and glossy, like living plate armour, and are coloured copper-orange and black, with a white stripe running down the spine, and her upper body’s skin whilst apparently softer, is almost as tough as her scales.

Her face loses her cheery friendly disposition and becomes far more predatory, complimented by a series of long, jagged fangs laced with paralytic neurotoxin nicknamed “A Lamia’s kiss”. Her eyes once vibrant blue are now dark red and copper, giving her a deadly but hypnotic edge, matched by long dark straight hair and thick talons on the ends of her fingers. She’s a particularly large shifter, but despite this she is a swift and deadly killer, making up for her size with speedy ferocity. She’s not as strong as some of the Titans, but she’s faster, and in the right position her strength is good enough to constrict even the strongest shifter. During battle she usually wears her own set of ornate, sophisticated and beautifully crafted Grecian, brass-pressed black armour as thick as her own scales. Outside of battle she’s usually less cumbersomely dressed, and her actions could be said to be somewhat… brazen. She uses a massive cleaver like blade and a heavy shield whilst in battle, using it to club or hack to death those that opposed her.

Abilities: Swordsmanship, athletics, Hand-to-Hand combat and basic medical training

Powers: As a Titan she is much stronger than most shifters and more heavily armoured, naturally. She’s not as strong as some Titans, like giants or dragons, but this is more than made up by her capacity for terrifyingly fast reaction speeds. Only a Titan could reasonably expect to survive her direct blows without breaking anything, and she uses her weapons to batter her way through opposition if she encounters tough resistance. Her fangs are coated with an agonising paralytic neurotoxin, and even without her teeth are sharp and strong, well able to rip and tear a body to shreds if she wanted to.

A secondary aspect of her powers is her ability to create low level emotive fields around her, the most common being terror which she uses to frighten, scramble or paralyse her opponents. Another is to use seductive powers to equally distract and cause dissension amongst enemy ranks, or to muddle the mind so she can make a killing blow. When using this power she usually moves into a slow serpentine dance, advancing slowly towards them, like a snake would weave and dive in the approach of its paralysed prey, before striking with brutal efficiency.

Her giant tree-trunk like tail is also particularly useful to bludgeon and destroy things in her path, and can reach quite fast speeds with her coils, as well as a great ability to climb and cross difficult terrain, although she doesn’t much like it as it’s uncomfortable on her scales.

History: Lilith is a fourth generation Syrian born in Scotland, her great grandparents having made the trip across a little over a century ago, and as such she is a very Western sort of woman. She’s a non-practicing member of the Assyrian church of the East along with her parents, but doesn’t have much to connect her to “The old country” and only knows shaky Syrian. She doesn’t speak much about her history but most of it seems perfectly normal. She grew up in a loving household with parents that took care of her and loved her along with three younger brothers, and from an early age had a kind and gentle disposition, if a little quirky. Even from an early age she’d become a somewhat athletic and tomboyish, happily pushing herself to her physical limits, strengthening her body and her endurance, making her quick on her feet if somewhat diminutive, standing only at 5,4.

She’d always been fascinated with Shifters, but she’d never managed to work up the courage to try and go for it, and had instead focused on a life which was more primarily based on earning a university degree in Arts and Humanities. However one night she suddenly decided to make the shift from gaining a degree towards becoming a living weapon to protect earth. Nobody knows what exactly happened, not even her parents, but they supported her anyway, although they did worry about her safety a lot. Because of this, they sometimes visit and frequently message her whilst she’s on campus, as her family managed to gain moderate affluence through a successful store chain set up by their great grandfather. Her parents are still confused about why she decided on an immediate change, but on occasion they have wondered if she was running from something she couldn’t deal with…

When she first visited a Shifter testing facility she was just as wrapped up in the overall enthusiasm as the rest of them, and wondered what she’d be aligned with, and became very excited when she was told that preliminary tests suggested something serpentine, and definitely a Titan. She’d always loved snakes and had kept them as a teenager and child, as well as having a pet boa with her which she nicknamed “Silky Sam” when she lived on university campus. Eventually it was pinned down that she’d likely become a Lamia, a serpentine demon, which made her quite excited and eager for the beginning of her change.

When she went into the tank and it began to change her, she almost burst the tank prematurely as she unconsciously wriggled her coils into a bunch inside the machine. Despite this, her transformation mostly went without a hitch, but she did have some difficulty adapting to her new form of mobility, which caused some issues in getting out of the tank, however eventually she mastered the basics of it. When she first caught sight of herself in the mirror she stood stalk still in absolute shock, only to let out a happy squeak of approval and hug her tail firmly. From day once she absolutely adored her shifter form, and made that clear when she gave all the scientists involved crushing hugs, causing several broken ribs in the process.

She sent them all flowers and handmade “get well” cards afterwards, and apologised profusely in them.

The first years of her training went well form her, and she quickly mastered her Lamia form, becoming apt also at sword fighting and hand to hand combat, as well as being highly educated due to her university years. She managed to make a good impression due to her kind and friendly nature, but many found her good cheer grating, including Morrigan, who she is slightly scared of and tends to cower when she’s around, even when she’s a massive shifter which is twenty times her size. She gets on well with Draco, who is patient enough to put up with her compulsive quirks and obliviousness, and he in return appreciates her, but remains very worried about putting her in a violent situation, worried that her good natured ways will make her prone to forgiveness, and the carnage will cause her emotional distress. Despite this aspect of her training, she’s remained dedicated to her course and is willing to fight to protect what she holds dear, which has alleviated some of Draco’s concern.

Since the years have passed since her first day as a Shifter, she has begun to notice a gradual bleeding of her powers into her human form. The most noticeable of these was her eyes which became slit blue orbs, like a serpents, and her skin took on a silky, but scaly texture which hadn’t been there before, she’d also noticed her physical muscles have become much more prominent over the years, but she is far below the behemoth-like standards of Jones, and the bleed-over seems to be gradually slowing down.

Although outwardly friendly and very sociable, she hasn’t been able to make any permanent friends, and has more taken on the position as a bit of a “hanger-on”, although there have been a few deviations. Recently she’d caught sight of a pretty Kitsune who she was interested in making friends with, but was too concerned she might end up saying something wrong or come across creepy due to her obsession with that Shifters fluffy tails. She hopes to introduce herself at some point, but hasn’t had a chance to do so before the sudden emergency with the Endolan invasion. Hopefully she might be able to rectify the situation.

Personality: Lilith, despite being a child-eating demon-snake shifter, is a remarkably friendly and sociable person. She’s always in a chipper mood and approaches life with a smile and a hug or two… or thousand. She’s a very physical person, both in physical interests but also in expressing herself, and she tends to hug people on whim, even if she doesn’t know them that well. She is a bit of a dreamer and can get overly focused on odd or strange topics or just ramble confusingly, and she can occasionally be oblivious and unintentionally rude, but it’s never meant to insult and she’ll get worried and upset with herself if told off for it. She loves her snake form and is particularly proud of it, loving her tail, which she thinks looks very beautiful. Being bullied or insulted tends to make her very upset and she’ll become clingy if sad or miserable, but by in large is easy to cheer up again with a little bit of effort.

Generally, she’s a person who tends to be easy going and friendly, and will not resort to violence outside of a battle context. She is very difficult to enrage, and she’s more likely just to become upset rather than violent, but when enraged she becomes nothing less than a rampaging elephant in her desire to destroy whatever made her angry, and is difficult to calm down. She has a particularly odd sense of humour and can find things funny for the most strange reasoning, but she’s not a fan of making fun of people. She’s a generous soul, and quite willing to try speak good about all people, regardless whether their friends or not, but she can just as easily be chilly, cruel and brutal when dealing with people she genuinely considers to be her enemies.

Notes:
-Solar and weather patterns tend to affect her moods somewhat; Sun makes her sleepy and willing to bask in her free time, with a blissful expression on her face. She doesn’t much enjoy rain or winter, as it makes her depressed and sluggish feeling, but for the most part she’s able to struggle through it. Oddly she is quiet affected by full moons, she tends to dance during them.
-She likes to punch peoples shoulders good naturedly when she’s not hugging people, and can be a bit of a ladette sometimes, with a small competitive streak.
-She loves fluted instruments, a lot.
-She is not modest. Not at all. Mix that with oblivious and you have a pretty awkward mix for some people.
-Her voice is dry and cracked, with a distinctive Scottish accent, but which also has a bit of a bass note to it, her voice shifts in shifter form and drops an octave, giving off the sound of a vibrato and thrum when she speaks, which is quite serpentine.
-She coils up in a ring when scared, or when trying to defend herself.