Name: Sydney Shaw
Nickname/Alias: Nightscales
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Appearance: Besides her costume, Nightscales would be unremarkable if she had not recently mutated into an anthropomorphic lizard. Her skin was replaced with tough sandstone-orange scales, her old hair fell out and was replaced with long hornlike tendrils of thick, scaly hair, and she grew many other reptilian features, such as a long snout, black-clawed hands and feet, and a tail to match. Her eyes retained their old shade of blue, however.

Location: New York City?
Settlement: (undecided)

Profession: Retail grunt in a high-end clothing store by day, legendary thief by night.

Skills: Sneaking, lock-picking, sleight of hand, deceptive, hand-to-hand combat, scavenging, jury-rigging, decent shot with a crossbow.

Powers: Previously a regular human with exceptional skills, her mutation from the alien plague has granted her some interesting new abilities. Despite increasing in height and mass, her new reptilian form is perfectly suited for her, retaining all her old flexibility and barely impeding her sleight of hand and sneaking abilities. Her stronger reptilian muscles have given her the ability to jump higher and run faster then before, and if she can't make a clean getaway, her enhanced strength, complemented by her sharp claws and teeth, are handy for fighting her way out of trouble. Her new scales are also tougher then her old skin, able to deflect a glancing blow from a blade or even a bullet, if she's lucky. She also has minor control of the coloration of her scales, like a chameleon, but this is largely a useless cosmetic power as even if she had enough control over it to blend in with her surroundings, she would need to be entirely naked for it to be effective. Until that very strange day when she's forced to sneak around in the buff, she'll normally just use it to match the color of her outfit more closely when she needs to hide.

Weaknesses: Nightscales is cold-blooded, both literally and metaphorically. While her supervillain outfit is insulated enough to give her some temperature protection, spending too much time in cold temperatures will cause her to slow down drastically as her muscles start locking up, and if she doesn't get warm soon her body will eventually shut down entirely, leaving only a small window to revive her before she freezes to death. Also as a result of her unique physiology, it's pretty much impossible for her to hide in a crowd. The shadows are fair game, but being a giant lizard, it's pretty tough to disguise yourself as a normal human.

Weapons: Nightscales carries a combat knife and a one-handed crossbow on her person, but uses them mostly for utility purposes, as she's better at close combat and her new claws work just fine for that. The crossbow, in addition to a handful of actual bolts, has a pair with ropes attached for grappling and a few with noisemakers attached for an easy distraction. She also carries a single emergency smoke bomb, in case things go sour.

Armor/Clothing: Her current outfit is her supervillain costume, a hooded, lightweight custom-made stealth suit colored black and orange, built for sneaking and minimal protection, designed with a distinctive scaled reptile theme. It's still in very good condition, but considering it was made for her when she was a foot shorter and not looking like Godzilla's little sister, it's pretty snug on her. It's still as sneaky as ever, even though she's had to ditch the boots because they don't fit on her clawed feet anymore.

Equipment and Supplies: In addition to the crossbow attachments mentioned above, Sydney carries a lightweight satchel containing lockpicks, cable ties, caltrops, and a few small tools. She also has a larger pack with some first aid kits, ration packs, and a canteen.

Personality: Sydney is cordial and kindhearted, quietly competent, always with a big smile on her face, and always eager to be your friend. And frankly if you believed any of that baloney you deserved to be robbed blind. Nightscales, the real Sydney, is a schemer and a manipulator, motivated largely by greed, and to her everyone is a potential target for a good burglary. She remains cool and collected even in the most stressful situations, never letting her emotions take control of the job at hand and always ready with an exit strategy. She also harbors a particularly intense hatred for authority figures and the wealthy elite, believing them to be corrupting tyrants who deserve to be subjected to her own brand of "justice by other means". If she loves anything more then making a clean getaway with a massive payday, it would be leaking confidential files to the internet and watching those Wall Street fat cats jump from their office windows when their fortunes evaporated.

History: Despite her English name, Sydney Shaw is Puerto Rican, the daughter of a desperately poor woman who immigrated to New York City, only to pass away shortly after giving birth to her. Shipped off to a rather dismal orphanage, the child was later adopted by the Shaws, a wealthy and affluent family who lived in the Upper East Side, and renamed Sydney, in honor of Mrs. Shaw's favorite city. Despite living in relative comfort, Sydney never really felt at home with the Shaw family, often feeling like an outsider and even at a young age had the nagging fear that she was ultimately unwanted and unwelcome.

However, those feelings would never be resolved. When she was only nine years old, she came home from school to find her parents in a furious argument. Her mother had just discovered her father's steamy affair with his secretary, and all but threatened to file for divorce and bleed him dry of everything he owned. Sydney didn't think much of it at the time, at least until her mother mysteriously vanished the next day. Her father was naturally the prime suspect, but the police could never gather enough evidence to accuse him. Even Sydney's testimony about the argument that she saw was rendered useless thanks to her father's team of highly payed lawyers, and nobody was ever charged with the crime. Then in an act of cold-hearted vengeance, Mr. Shaw kicked his daughter out onto the street for her act of defiance. Emotionally destroyed by the traumatic loss of her family, she fled to the slums of New York City, hoping that this was all just a horrible nightmare that she had yet to wake up from.

This was not the end for Sydney, however. She had barely spent a few months living on the streets and begging for food before she met a man named John Rook. A war veteran and a drifter, John Rook came across as a cold and unfriendly to most people, but his stoic attitude always seemed to soften when Sydney was around. Eventually they became good friends, and Sydney was always eager to listen to his stories about the war, and his diatribes about how unfair the world was nowadays thanks to "the Feds and those money-grubbing bastards on Wall Street". In return, John Rook would teach Sydney some interesting skills, like how to cause a distraction if the police ever came snooping, or how to tug on just the right heartstrings to get some extra money from a sympathetic onlooker. As their friendship grew, Sydney learned how to do all sorts of interesting things with quick moves and sleight of hand, and she began to take to heart Rook's beliefs about the wealthy elite and their crimes, an idea that seemed very feasible when she remembered her father was one of those wealthy elite. Eventually John Rook offered her a place to stay so she wouldn't have to sleep on the streets, which she readily accepted. Years later, on her thirteenth birthday, John Rook would ask Sydney if she ever heard the name Nightscales. She said she saw the name in the news a few times, and that he was some sort of master thief with a thing for reptiles. John Rook smiled and stated that the reptile theme wasn't his idea.

Sydney was reasonably shocked that her friend, a man whom she had almost come to respect like a father figure at this point, was a dangerous supervillain, and asked why he was telling her this. Rook explained that he was not the original Nightscales, as the identity was a legacy title used by some of the most legendary thieves of the modern age, and that it had been used by three others before it came into his possession. He had thought about retiring for some time and living out his days in peace, but he realized he needed a successor. Seeing how quickly she learned all the tools of the trade, so to say, he wanted to give Sydney that chance. Initially hesitant about being a thief and a criminal, Sydney reminded herself of her father, a man who used his wealth and influence to cheat the system, and asked herself; why should he and others like him get away with it? With that thought in mind, she accepted his offer. John Rook would teach Sydney everything he knew, and his young protégé took to the trade like a fish to water, finally happy to find a place where she was wanted. Eventually her skills progressed to the point where Rook thought she was ready to commit her first grand larceny under the Nightscales identity. Donning the hooded costume, Sydney infiltrated the headquarters of a successful local corporation and managed to escape with the contents of their private vaults and the server access codes. She tucked away enough of the company's overseas funds to remain anonymous, then released the company's dirty secrets onto the internet. Overnight, Shaw Industrials collapsed like a tower of cards, and the owner of the hapless company, who just a few years earlier made headlines when his wife mysteriously vanished, was found dead in his office from a self-inflicted gunshot wound by the officers sent to arrest him for his company's misdeeds. John Rook couldn't have been more proud.

After a few more high-profile heists over the next few years, John Rook was hoping to officially retire once he felt Sydney was ready to take on the mantle of Nightscales full time, but sadly he never had the chance. When the aliens launched their invasion, New York was a prime target, and after the aliens publicly executed the super villain that helped them in Times Square, Rook knew what was going to come. He may have hated what his country had become, but in the end he was a soldier and a patriot, and he would do what he had to do to stop them. Donning his old Nightscales uniform for the last time, he gave his adopted daughter one last hug goodbye and told her to stay safe while he helped bring the fight to the aliens, a fight he would not return from. Sydney holed herself up in their safehouse and started to settle in for the long siege when she started to feel strangely light-headed. Shrugging it off as her being nervous, she decided to distract herself by organizing some supplies. As her head started to ache, she unconsciously rubbed her cheek and discovered that her mouth was spontaneously bleeding. Then she dropped to the ground, screaming. Pain, pain like nothing she had felt before shot up and down her body like a lightning bolt. It felt as though her flesh and bones were twisting and tearing apart, almost as if they were changing shape. Wracked with agony as the pain intensified, she mercifully passed out before the torment could continue.

When she finally regained consciousness days later, blissfully unaware of the alien bioweapon that wreaked havoc on her body, the apocalypse had taken its toll on the world. Still somewhat lightheaded after the experience, Sydney emerged from the bunker to take a look around, but was surprised when the few survivors on the streets took one look at her and ran away. At least until she stumbled upon an unbroken storefront mirror and saw her reflection for the first time since the end of the world. To her utter shock and horror, she had been transformed into some sort of reptilian humanoid. Combined with the crushing realization that the world she knew was over, and that John Rook would never be coming back, Sydney retreated back to her bunker to suffer in silence. Nearly going insane from the mental trauma, Sydney worked through her grief with intense training, improving her skills even further and testing the limits of her strange new form. After many grueling months of training, Sydney was ready, and she emerged to the outside world as the one and only Nightscales.
Other:
The Past Nightscales
Nightscales I: Marko Mueller, original creator of the Nightscales identity, active from the 1930's to the 50's. Exclusively targeted the wealthy upper class, possibly had ties to a Third Reich espionage cell in the United States. Retired to South America.
Nightscales II: Bradley Banner, a flamboyant and drama-hungry thief who began using the identity after the retirement of the old Nightscales. Well known for his themed heists (such as stealing rare reptiles or priceless jewels conveniently named after lizards) and for his massive arsenal of insufferable reptile-based puns. Died in 1973 after a heist gone wrong, in which off of a bridge and snapped his neck.
Nightscales III: Lucas Reeves, inner city youth who was a henchman for the previous Nightscales that inherited his boss' identity. Generally seen as a Robin Hood-esque figure who turned over much of what he stole to struggling families in the slums. Voluntarily retired from his life of crime to care for his family in the late 80's, and handed off his title to the son of his deceased friend.
Nightscales IV: John Rook, dispossessed orphan whose parents were killed by vengeful gangsters, backed by corporate interests, wanting to settle a score against the previous Nightscales. A veteran of the Gulf and Iraqi Wars, generally regarded as the most violent iteration of the Nightscales identity. Trained Sydney Shaw as his replacement, died fighting against the alien invaders.