Katia’s defining trait is her protective and mama bear instincts… though she’s often not very gentle in the way she expresses these feelings. (Put on a fuckin’ coat before your dumb ass freezes off!) She can also be stubborn and tough. Katia has a strong moral code and is resistant to change, desiring to preserve and return society to the way it was rather than try to form it into something new. This is sometimes a good thing, like helping maintain a shred of order and humanity when chaos magic is ravaging the country. But it can also be a bad thing, like when creative magic-users suggest unconventional plans. She tends to be a straightforward person. Overall, Katia is a person who loves and cares deeply about many things, but she’d rather express it through actions than sentimental feelings or words.

Katia was raised in a decent home with loving parents and a younger brother, Deshawn. Deshawn was born with the Sorcerer’s Spark and could control the weather. Could, as in, he might’ve learned how to utilize his abilities well if he had been able to focus on it. Deshawn had ADHD, so concentrating on most new skills was hard for him. Sometimes Deshawn would do something really cool with his powers, impressing everyone around him. Other times, he’d get bored or frustrated and jump to a new skill before he was ready, with embarrassing results. And one time the family had to rush out of a parent-teacher conference because he felt too sad to turn off the sudden rain clouds.

As for Katia, she spent the first couple years hating her magical brother for all the attention he got. But she eventually matured enough to love her baby brother, his infectious smile, his amazing showmanship. Katia carved out some attention and praise for herself by playing various sports, eventually deciding on kickboxing as her favorite. Partly because her kickboxing prowess had an interesting way of dissuading people from picking on her little brother. Nobody dared to beat him up after that first incident, though verbal bullying and such still occurred.

Deshawn was certainly quirky, but overall things were going well… until he hit puberty. Around his twelfth birthday, his powers and emotions happened to spike at the same time. He never learned how to carefully control his abilities, and now they were becoming more of a problem. Deshawn’s friends, family, even Deshawn himself started to feel afraid around him.

One rainy day – Katia age 16, Deshawn age 12 – Katia’s first boyfriend was invited to dinner with the family. Deshawn and his dad got into a heated argument about… Katia didn’t even remember what. Something about a magic crystal. She just remembers the blinding flash, the booming roar, then waking up dazed and broken in an ambulance. No trace of Deshawn was ever found – he must’ve been unharmed and panicked enough to flee the scene. The rest of them died before help could arrive, electrocuted by Deshawn’s wild magic lightning. Katia survived, but she ended up half-deaf and with crippling lung damage.

In her plenty of time to sit and think alone in the hospital, Katia developed a bitter hatred toward magic. Part of her knew that was irrational – heck, magic had even helped save her life. But it’s difficult to be rational toward a mysterious force that instantly ripped everything she loved away from her – even the brother who wielded it.

However, there was another being who understood her strange hatred. A little-known Entity named Ro learned of Katia’s story and approached her with an offer. With a great amount of their strength, Ro could heal the worst of her magical wounds, and grant her some abilities to prevent more in the future. They asked for just two things in return.

#1: They knew Katia didn’t come from a rich background, so they would request just one large magical crystal. It would only cost all the money she would get from her parents’ will. Wasn’t that so much less than decades of medical bills?

#2: Squash magic wherever and whenever possible. Destroy it. Let the hate flow through you. Any magic would do… Ro wasn’t picky. But they would especially delight in snuffing out reckless, uncontrollable forms of magic… like the kind that killed Katia’s loved ones. Because, after all, Ro was a kind Entity at heart. They only hated magic because of the harm it did to people. (Definitely no hidden ulterior motive here, nope.)

The desperate teen hardly gave herself any time to think before agreeing to Ro’s terms. The gray, shimmering, formless entity reached out to touch Katia. She felt a moment of paralyzing terror and cold as a gray tendril snaked its way into her chest. She blinked, and the Entity was gone.

The next morning, Katia had improved enough to walk out of the hospital and begin her new life as… an anti-magic vigilante??? Weird. But, in her neck of the woods, magic was a source of well-maintained power that improved lives. Whenever she did feel a weird nagging in her chest, it was something like some asshole trying to use a magical item that they clearly stole. Katia relished in beating criminals like them to a pulp… almost too much… But hey, those situations were few and far between. This contract wouldn’t be too hard or interfere with her being an upright citizen.

A few months later, the apocalypse started.

Fuck.