Codename: Shadow

RECRUIT REPORT OBSID-LAT43.LON-717
DATE - [REDACTED]
RECRUITER: A. BROWN
Comments Updated by A. Brown

Age: 25

Power: Shadow Manipulation - Subject has, by far, one of the strangest and misunderstood abilities yet. While others can be explain via scientific methods and facts, there is little explanation on how the subject (aka Shadow) is able to manipulate shadows in particular. Normally one manipulates light to change shadows, not drawing shadows themselves into the light without blocking objects. Regardless, noted below are known abilities of her new found power;

• Night Vision: Subject seems to have the ability to see in complete darkness, up to 120 feet, with a slight note in improved vision outside of this. Quartz injection has genetically modified subject's eyes in this case.

• Darkness Curtain: Subject is able to infuse the surrounding area with a sudden burst of darkness, ranging from a moonlight-like condition to complete darkness. Though the stronger the curtain, the longer subject needs to potentially charge her personal reserve of energy.

• Hard-Light Construction: Limited to small objects for the time-being, subject is able to (unexplainably thus far) create solidified objects from shadows. Subject has tenancy to lean towards melee-like weapons and personal body shields. These constructs are hard enough to deflect bullets, but extreme testing still needed to gauge potential limits.

• Shadow-Melding: One of the more mysterious abilities, subject has the ability to physically meld within shadows that are not her own, allowing her short-distance jumps from one shadow to another and in some case, turning ethereal as to avoid physical harm. Limitations are unknown.

Personality: Subject has shown a strong will towards a private goal that lines up with obedience to Obsidian objectives. Though unknown, this goal has obvious physiological effects of giving the subject resolve and courage. Subject is also a known introvert, though sociable and willing to work within a team environment. This could be seen as a potential set-back to team-building, but subject makes easy use of being friendly and sensitive to the feelings of others. This paired with an ethic towards efficiency and loyalty makes subject well suited as an Operative.

Strengths and Weaknesses: Subject is a quicker learner and has displayed signs of having of superior abstract intelligence, grasping complex subjects and ideas easily, though communication has proven difficult at times when trying to get ideas or plans to make sense in subject's mind. She has gained a noticeable grasp of her powers, wielding them with surprising efficiency, however noted here is her apparent weakness to light. Though in most normal conditions, she is able to grab hold of some shadows and make use of them, during conditions that require extreme lighting her effectiveness dulls quite a bit. Subject is recommended to undergo specific stealth training and tactics due to her affinity with blackout operations.

History: Subject Codename Shadow; Born August 3, 1989 in Denver, Colorado.

Orphaned by unknown parents. Bounced through several foster homes until subject felt the need to branch out on her own. She turned to petty gangs and theft, gaining a criminal record, though a noted Robin Hood complex, despite gang demands. Avoided rape or abusive treatment within gang due to her unusual friendliness and gathered respect, along with homosexual orientation. By some unusual amount of personal strength and martial arts training, she survived the streets of Denver against outside influence including the DPD, homosexual protestors, and other gangs until the point of contact with a certain Beth Collins.

Beth Collins, serving within the DPD (ironically), was able to draw subject's introverted nature and gear her towards a more lawful path. After two years and an engagement, Beth was killed in the line of duty by a drug dealer from subject's previous gang. Since the incident, she has holed herself up in an abandoned warehouse and continued to practice martial arts to an extremely dedicated degree, along with the return to theft for food. She was contacted by Obsidian to start a new life, free from the bounds of her previous life. She accepted with little hesitation, especially after the explanation of the Quartz injection.

Other: Subject seems unusually educated for having grown up in the streets. Has been noted that she keeps her personal goals or wants a secret, but no threat to Obsidian objectives is seen here.

Sex: Female
Age: 25
Species: Human / Shadow Fox

Powerset - Shadow
• Shadow Constructs (Offense / Defensive, Class 3): An experienced user in the construction and manipulation of hard-light constructs made entirely of shadow, Kaylia is able to mold different objects from shadow, though she is most used to forging thrown dagger-like objects and creating shields than anything else.
• Shadow Step (Tactical, Class 5) This is where Kaylia shines the most, as her ability to meld into the shadows with a quickness and appear elsewhere in shadows is not only hard to detect, but can be as off-putting as teleportation. However for some, this is even harder to gauge where she may come from, despite that this is limited to shadows or night time.
• Night Vision (Utility / Passive, Class 2): This ability is passive and grows along with her Darkness Curtain. It allows her to see in complete darkness of the same class or quite obviously, in any natural darkness.
• Darkness Curtain (Tactical, Class 2): In opposite of her night vision, she is able to curtain the visible (form her position) area around her in complete darkness. While it may not last for more than five seconds, anyone can tell you that every second counts in a battle. She may also use her Shadow Step during this, since it is still a form of shadow.

Rogue Power
• Probability Prediction (Passive / Tactical): Though locked right now, this (like many other rogue powers) will unlock when she's cornered herself into a situation that seems impossible to escape and can result in fatal injury, extreme mind-control, or death. This power allows her to nearly slow the world to a stop in her mind as it calculates and predicts all possible outcomes of a situation, allowing her to see any and all possible solutions to get her out harm's way. Even after unlocking, this can only be used a couple times a day and will passively activate in near-death situations. The limitation is that it cannot force outcomes that have a zero chance of happening, to happen. Due to it's nature, it cannot grow or become more powerful and has no class rating attached to it.

Learned Skills
• Supernatural Lore: Kaylia is well versed in various common and uncommon species of the supernatural realm, including the most common variations of their powersets and general disposition towards good or evil deeds, along with general weaknesses. This differs from power sensing, since it's entirely based on knowledge gained through study.
• Journeyman Hacker: While certainly not the best, she is far from being the worst either, and practices hacking into various data defense barriers and firewalls to gain information. The hardest security system she's been able to bypass so far is corporate businesses - not anything like advanced private sectors or military-based operations.
• Journeyman Swordswoman: Kaylia is a trained swordsman and knows her way around a blade of various types, though has some issues with more exotic blades such as the katana. Instead she prefers wielding a shortsword if possible. Excluding experts and masters of this practice, she can normally use her agility and speed to gain a quick advantage over her opponents, even the ones with matching skill.
• Notice Marksmen: She knows enough to get by basically, however if she's caught in a firefight, her chances start to decrease dramatically. At the very least, when providing backup, she isn't a hindrance in the least, though her ability to provide an aid is limited.
• Notice Martial Artist: Much like her marksmen skills, she is only a novice and only able to hold her own for so long. This becomes glaringly obvious the more skillful her opponent is - but she knows the basics.
• Journeyman Detective: Kaylia has trained her ability to spot unusual things, objects, and people to a point that she serves as one of the detectives of the Bureau. Though she is far from being the best, she can definitely hold her own and sometimes even spots things that some of her superiors miss. This is a recently trained skill, but she seems to have an unusual knack for this type of thing.

Personality: Kaylia is most commonly known for being a nerd or book worm. She is well versed in several topics, including various supernatural and magical specieis, power sets, technology, software, tactics, and combat training. She seems to be one of those types that loves to learn for the sake of knowing things and yet stems away from the usual pride or arrogance that is associated with more intelligent types. Instead she is more introverted and keeps most of her secrets close to her. However she has also learned to be rather social and absolutely adores being helpful and praised by superiors and peers for being so nice. Kaylia also seems to be an underlying confidence and courage for doing the right thing and will even stand up to superiors if she thinks something is inefficient or wrong.

History

Born to one of many Otherkin safe havens, Kaylia never actually knew her parents or her family. However the fact was, that even as a newborn, she displayed the puffy black tail and ears. This hinted at a nearly forgotten species of Otherkin known as the 'Foxes,' which instantly arose the awareness of the entire haven once rumors started to spread. Though no one ever claimed responsibility for her due to dark myths and creepy legends of the 'Foxes,' they all raised her in their own way due to the friendly, nice nature of this little creature.

She spent her early years playing with the few kids that braved her presence until they found out that she really was no threat. However by this time, coupled with her natural introvertness, she often kept to herself on the outskirts of the haven. She normally stayed are rotating houses for meals but otherwise found herself in trees - perfectly comfortable - for the night. During her young teenage years, she began to discover her powers and affinity towards shadows and darkness, which around the time a small unknown group of Otherkin hunters were on the move towards the haven.

Thanks to Kaylia's increasingly trained powers, she was able to play a major role in the protection of the haven with only eight people getting injured and no deaths. This was the time that the Bureau stepped in after getting reports of the attack. When they arrived, they were surprised to see that the hunters had been dealt with, despite no high class users among the population. In fact, they ended up learning that Kaylia's keen mind and tactics were what actually won the day, and not her powers. With the haven more than willing to rid themselves of an eerie legends, even in spite of Kaylia's friendly nature, the Bureau offered Kaylia a home and a job.

Ever since, she has been with the Bureau in their living quarters, along with other non-looking human hybrids and Otherkin. They quickly found out how intelligent she was and allowed her to naturally gravitate towards the library. After her examination into the Bureau at age 18, they literally gave her freedom of choice on where to go, having discovered she had the mind to learn anything she wanted, and they wanted her to be motivated to best use her abilities. It was then that she went for a detective slot and took on secondary duties as an administrative assistant to the detective department. While not the most powerful of the agents, most will openly admit that she may very well have the most potential they've seen in years.

Notes
• Kaylia will spend hours studying or practicing her talents inbetween cases, as a form of hobby. Unfortunately, this can make it a bit harder to get close to her.
• She had admitted, only two years ago, that she is homosexual. Superiors have kept a closer eye on her since, seeing as they have discovered her romantic tenancies over the years. They realize liking other women has made it harder on her.
• She has become somewhat of an enigma among the bureau, not only because of her personality, but also because of her bloodline. This is even more pronounced since learning better social skills.

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SHADOW FOXES

Human Reproduction? Yes.
Physical abilities
• Extremely agile: Has the ability to jump through fox-size holes with ease mid-jump.
• Very fast: Can sprint as fast as a young adult horse.
• Low Durability: If caught by a strike, they seem to take it harder than even humans do.
• Regeneration: Due to their strange meta-physical state, they are both solid and shadow at the same time, resulting in moderate-speed regeneration.
• Nine Tails: The more tails a Fox creature has (no matter the element), the more powerful they tend to be.

Power set(s)
• Darkness: The ability to manipulation shadows and darkness to their will or to meld with it. This is a more extreme version of Shadow.

Culture
Sadly, no one knows what this is for sure. However myths and legends point to these elusive creatures being more loners than communities. Despite the fact, many believe they used to gather to share ideas and secrets with each other before departing to separate directions.

History
There is no concrete history left that is widely known and if there is, they were be considered ancient artifacts. Instead, history is replaced by myths and legends revolving not only the 'Foxes,' elemental fox-like creatures with extraordinary powers, but only Shadow Foxes in particular. Unlike most of the other Fox variants (especially the Light Foxes), Shadow Foxes are seen as dark, sadistic, evil creatures in their myths and legends. They are related from anything to creatures that have caused murders by manipulation to being right-out evil gods. While only a few learned men speculate that these legends of evil came from the element's relation to "evil" by being darkness, most treat anything related to the species with caution at best and fear at worst. Whatever they had done in the past has had a long-lasting effects on their myths and legends in the present ... unless someone manipulated the fact all along.

Age: 27
Gender: Female

Role: Mercenary
Renown: Very Famous

Interests: Naturally speaking, she is quite the book worm and enjoys learning new things for the sake of learning. She is also drawn towards ancient and mythical artifacts and ruins when the chances present themselves to her. However these days, when not doing her job, she finds herself just trying to get away from people and reflecting on the past - perhaps a bit too much.

Skills: Her repertoire includes many survivability and ranger-like skills such as hunting, basic cooking, tracking, herbology, and making basic shelters. This is mostly due to her nomad-like living within the last eight years. Beyond this, she is a master swordsman and an expert martial artist (not of any particular style, just the art of using your body in a fight) and has some knowledge of small unit tactics. Essentially her skillset being of a warrior.

Magical Skills: Jocasta practices (or more accurately has) a nearly mythical type of magic that a few rare can fully grasp well enough to actually use it. It has been called many things; Bladesong, Sword Magic, and Edge Hymn, but it is all the same. It is a potentially powerful and crippling magic that revolves around the use of a sword or blade of some sort. Accounts have spoken of users being able to shoot waves of cutting air from their blade, engulf blades with fire, blast away opponents with flashes of light, deflect elemental attacks, and call swords to hand, but the most obviously glaring weakness of this type is that the user requires a blade to be in hand to cast the speechless spells.

Personality: Jocasta is a well known enigma that many do not understand. She is a mercenary and requires payment, but while her demands among the royalty of covens is a high price to pay, she will often turn around and fulfill contracts for commoners for nothing but an apple. Her attitude can easily be called cold or distant, but she also has a reputation for refusing - even those among higher social classes - anything that she deems immoral or evil. Despite her fame, she is rarely seen outside the duties of her self-proclaimed job and therefore, little know who she is, why she does what she does, or what her main goal in life is. Also interesting tadbit that is rumored is the fact that she often avoids drawing her sword unless absolutely necessary and sometimes, she can finish entire contracts with only her fists.

Biography
Born of a commoner class, Jocasta had a myserty about her the moment she was born. Some believe the moon has unknown magical powers and that those born under the full moon are born with luck in their veins. Though luck was far from her life, she came into the world with something mythical though she would not find out until later in her life. Her father was a blacksmith and her mother a simply flower saleswoman, though Jocasta's luck turn fouled at the age of only three, when her mother passed away from a nighly incurable disease. Having to raise a daughter on his own, he did the only thing a man could do with a child in such a dark world - teach her to defend herself. So among the duties of helping her father take care of the shop, she often practiced the art of swordsmanship and using her body as a defensive weapon, which served to her benefit in the coming years.

As she bloomed into a young woman, it was no uncommon for men to try and snatch her away either by deception, genuine interest, or force. Through this, she gained some understanding of being cautious with silver tongues and showed her skills to those who came at her with force ... but even those with genuine interest were spurred away. Jocasta could not explain it at first, why she had no interest in the young handsome men, until she felt blushes on her cheek from stealing glances at some of the more noble women. It wasn't until years later that she finally gathered the courage to tell her father, whom did neither to accept or reject her standing in romance - it was more of a compassionate confusion that held until his death.

It's such a wonder though, to find someone who is so strong in spirit, with a pure heart and determination to what is right to have made it through what she had to bare. During her late teens she had, by what she concerned amazing luck, found another woman to confide her affection in and for them to be returned. They grew very close together, so much so that Jocasta swore that she had fallen in love with Chastna, but when Jocasta discovered her ability to manipulate magics through her blade during a practice, is when everything seemed to tumble down hill. She hadn't realized at first, but what she did by cutting a dummy's head off from a distance, had sparked a rumor mill within the more criminal-inclined. Soon, men were coming to her father's door demanding her service, even until the point where they threatened his life right in front of her.

Whether by bribery or corruption, none of the guards seemed all too interested in their plight. However Jocasta's resolve to righteousness proved to be the most painful time in her life. Her refusal sparked anger in the men and instead of just killing her father like promised, they also took it upon themselves to drag Chastna, in chains to the forest and wait for her. As she arrived, with no warning, no threats, and no time to react - they slit the lover's throat and let her choke on her own blood. With shock and tears, Jocasta marched forward with blade in hand only to see herself surrounded. "You will accept our proposal, or we'll kill you too," they demanded. At first, she stood in silence and when her reply came, "fine," they were all too happy. However scowls soon followed as she added, "a life for a life. Yours will end today too." With a lift of her sword, she channeled all her sadness and anger into a spell that blew them all away in a bright flash of light, tearing streaming down her cheeks.

Since that day, she has kept everyone at a distance from her, pushing those that dared get close to her. That day left a scar that even now throbs with pain, but left her with a determination that cannot be shaken. She has sworn to life her life for good, in the memories of her father and her lover, and refuses to fail as to never taint their deaths. However it has left her somewhat cold as well and unsympathetic to nobles that demands high prices from. If someone could ever break that barrier, perhaps one day she could become a true hero, but for now, she works on her own terms as she feels like.