Mivuli

Harry Potter: 2017-2018

I might try to pitch in a CS too, if you guys aren't overcrowded yet?

Closed

Would time zones pose an issue?

Closed

@Mivuli

The Warden only has two arms.

@Gentlemanvaultboy

Ahh two whips? That makes it easier. Okay then, thank you and very sorry!

Closed

Riley hopped out of the chute, landing on her feet to see a massive hulking machine. Her eyes flickered to the exit, only to find their sole exit sealed with foam. She assessed it quickly, mind darting back to days when she and a couple other youths had tried burning polysterene and the like with Zippo lighters in abandoned warehouses, just to watch the smoke curl into the air and choke them with ash.

Rogues were fending off the Warden, but occasionally one of the electrical whips would lash out at inopportune places. Riley skipped out of the way as one cracked against the ground she had just been standing on, leaving behind a blackened scar. Riley snapped her fingers, and watched as an orange spark ignited on the wire: a little excess heat to cajole the electricity into evolving into a crackling fire that licked up the whip. Drops of melted metal began to drip from its limb as the Warden tried to coil it towards him, but limp and halfway-melted, the arm did not respond, reduced to a humming snake that gave a momentary start of life on the ground.

She let her fire do its work as she ran towards the exit. The figure that called himself General Semyaza channeled a flash of his own ammunition towards the head of the Warden. Before Riley could see if it would destroy the enemy good and proper, she turned to the girl of serious demeanour who had just been standing at the exit.

"Not joining in on all the fun?" she asked. Riley lit up her fingers and held the flame over the foam. "Funny, took you for a robotic bane." She watched as it caught fire and the snowy white began to smoulder into charred black. A wisp of smoke rose in a thready curl, but soon the smoke would be thick and fast, if her memory served. Still it would be a time before the foam all melted and the Rogues could slip out. She glanced up at the woman while she spread the fire at several points, feeling like she was lighting a birthday cake, and absent-mindedly offered her free hand. "The name's Riley, how do you do?"

Ink On Your Soul

Mia turned in bemusement to hear words none too gentle exploding from Solenne's phone. Catching the rough train of words, Mia laughed in shurprise when Solenne curled her towards him for a kiss. She felt the curvature of his lips against hers, and had to smile in return. “Hey...so I have a...concert thing...at The Saints Theater up town...would you like to come along tonight...seeing you in the audience would make me want to perform so much better. A dress is required.” Mia's grin widened under his crimson gaze.

"What, and give you a chance to blow me away even more?" she asked, before arching up for another chaste kiss to whisper, "Wouldn't miss it for the world." Even if it meant finding a dress for the occasion. Well, Delilah would help.

Mia scanned Solenne's face. It had been stoic and emotionless minutes before, and even if he was wearing a smirk, it did not erase the weary lines from Mia's memory. With a degree of concern, Mia cupped his cheek in her hand. "Don't fret too much," she murmured, before stepping back and nudging him towards the door. "Now go, and get yourself ready. She didn't sound too pleased on the phone, and I would hate if your concert got cancelled because she tore you apart," she jested, the smile in her voice.

Project Rehab

Wong Lian Hui

Wong Lian Hui

My mother – whomever she may be – named me for the lotus.
I would much rather have had the monkshood as my namesake.

The Basics

Name
Wong Lian Hui
Codename
Aconitum
Age
23
Gender
Female
Sexuality
Asexual/Demisexual – she hasn’t explored this aspect of herself very far.
Nationality
Chinese-Malaysian

In The Mirror

Height
170cm/5’5”
Weight
48kg/105lbs
Hair Color
Black
Eye Color
Brown-Black
Appearance
Petite and slight, with distinctly Chinese features and cheeks as smooth as pebble-stones – none of those high and sharp cheekbones American actresses keep inheriting – Lian Hui looks like a particularly youthful woman who has barely passed the precipice of adulthood. Her pale olive-skin has been left unmarked, a kindness she considers from the heavens what with the substances she handles on a daily basis. She has thick black hair that sweeps her upper back, and gentle curves, though is by no means voluptuous. She does not frequently wear make-up, but she has picked up finer cosmetician tricks to accentuate her physical qualities during her exploits. With perfect eyesight, small figure, and delicate hands and feet, Lian Hui has been likened several times to a fine-boned bird.
Her most occasional clothing would be anything modest and her fashion choices range wide. Long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, fitting blouses, jeans, and skirts that brush the back of her calf all clutter her wardrobe. She also has her own array of traditional outfits, from the Peranakan kebaya to the practically obligatory cheongsam, but those only ever make an appearance when she’s trying particularly hard to sell the exoticism of her past heritage.
Lian Hui doesn’t have a work attire so much as she has costumes. Anything that will emphasise her femininity when she’s playing the covert killer just plays in with her harmless appearance and demure smile. But she has learnt to expect any mission to go awry, and slits in dresses and cheongsams work excellently in her favour. She can run in stilettos, and get away quickly enough, but don’t think for a second she hasn’t got extra tricks up her sleeve. Lian Hui takes precautions, and she doesn’t dance with death so much as waltzes clear out of its path.

Beneath The Surface

Personality
Lian Hui hasn’t cared for another in a long time, which plays out just fine for her in her line of work. Known to play to her strengths and even overdo it, Lian Hui is sharp and critical, and keenly aware of her own faults and shortcomings, which she toils hard over to compensate for. Of course, this means she has a clear understanding of what others lack, and even if it is inconsequential, it only means she has an entire arsenal of flaws to use against anybody she should be pitted against. Her gaze pierces past falsities she catches, and she is inclined to cut right to the heart of the person. It matters not just how ugly it may be; Lian Hui doesn’t care. Not to say she’ll accept any Tom, Dick, and Harry for his limitations; she simply won’t feel the need to persecute anyone for it.
Thus is the extent of Lian Hui’s emotionless. Very little angers or scares her now, and even less makes her smile. Her allegiance means next to nothing – of course, she belongs to a side, only because the stragglers who linger in the demilitarised, no man’s land between sides don’t have very long lifespans. Lian Hui plays the propositioned role of a party that can offer her enough benefits, and that’s the end of any matter. She may favour the stark simplistic contrast between black and white, and any appreciation for all the shades in between may be lost on her, but she isn’t blind to them.

What Makes Me Special

Powers
An exceptional affinity for poison-making, if that counts. Lian Hui neutralises her enemies with poison she makes by herself. She used to have the neatest of gardens she tended to, growing toxic weapons of death in ceramic pots. Perhaps it helps that poisons have no effect on her faculties, tactile or otherwise. She would spend her days preparing toxins for long dozes, burning ointments, and odourless syrups that could sweeten a beverage and disintegrate the alimentary canal from the inside-out. She even had a cookbook, even though everything was already memorised in her head.
Lian Hui refers to what she does as simple Chemistry and, combined with her expansive knowledge of human physiology and biology, she’s quite a force to be reckoned with. One of her proudest discoveries would have to be a powder she could fling at somebody’s face, and blind them, sting them, burn them, and which would only aggravate when in contact with water.
She is also gifted with the ability to accelerate, reverse, or terminate plant growth and life. Crops that would take months only require days in her garden – hours, if she concentrates, and seconds if the need is urgent. She is as good as a fast-acting fertilizer, or a sudden fatal drought, depending on whether we’re talking poisons or weeds. This talent is helpful in helping her acquire materials on tight deadlines.
Equipment
Chemistry sets, poison preparation kits, and plenty of vials. Hand her a kitchen, and she just might be set to go.
Onsite, though, Lian Hui tries not to go anywhere unarmed. She keeps antidotes in case something goes horribly wrong. Knives are a handy thing to keep on a person, as are guns, but they are just so loud and obnoxious, though a good prop to wave about and dissuade less cocksure pursuers. Lian Hui would prefer not to resort to such hands-on methods, even if knife play could be considered one of her lesser specialties.
Strengths

• Immune to Emotional Blackmail – It would take a lot to evoke a genuine and deeply-felt emotional reaction from Lian Hui, and this protects her from losing her head. Plus, she’s stood over enough writhing bodies in the throes of a foaming death to know that gore and death don’t affect her much. Humanity is but a rumour with her.
• Intelligence – Lian Hui is incredibly sharp, with a brilliant memory that’s even better at latching onto anything to do with her poisons. She’s a smart kid, even if she’s young, and she thinks quickly on her feet under pressure.
• Swift – Lian Hui runs quickly, and she’s nimble. Thanks to her years growing up, and the other years dodging chemical malfunctions, she is very agile. It helps when she needs to slip away quickly, and she can be very quiet while doing so.

Weaknesses

• Acting – Lian Hui can’t decently con somebody into believing something she can’t sell. Beyond the innocuous Chinese girl façade, she isn’t particularly apt at anything else. She might be able to seduce, but she’s found that the men she’s encountered in her business are largely attracted to her enigmatic quietness, without additional effort on her end. But ask her to play a bubbly, energetic teenager, and Lian Hui will balk.
• Physicality – Ask Lian Hui to fight to the death with empty hands and she won’t last a minute. She isn’t strong. She is easy to overpower. Her body is transport for her mind and an extension of her Chemistry set; she hasn’t taken pains to develop it for defense. Lian Hui might have taken kickboxing and KAPAP classes once upon a time, but those are hardly enough to keep her alive. She can fare well enough on the streets, but that’s because street-rats aren’t the same as thugs and bodyguards with a master to serve and professional training in ripping people asunder.
• Curiosity – Lian Hui knows no other emotion as strongly as inquisitiveness. When there is a fact missing, she will spare no expense to fill it in. When baited by a curious thing, Lian Hui can become so fixated on solving the puzzle that she will be made vulnerable. Lure her with a choice cut of meat – a mystery that will hold her interest and suspend her impassivity towards life – and lead her straight to a pit.

Skeletons In The Closet

History

It's Really Long

There is a conspicuous gap in Lian Hui’s memory, two years of her life she can’t remember despite efforts to recall what was hers. All she knows is that she came to a country – Malaysia – speaking a dialect of Mandarin, and she guesses she was born a mainland Chinese before being shipped off to Southeast Asia. It frustrates her that she does not know her origins – more so than she will ever let on – and even though it has been twenty years, she hasn’t given up on it.
Lian Hui spent her years of childhood as a kid on the streets. There were nights when she went to sleep on curbs with a disquieted stomach. Sometimes such nights ran consecutive. Finding food was not easy, and even if she did stumble across a rare treasure, she would have to defend her scraps from wild dogs that were as tall as her, and twice as large. Back then, she was a grubby little thing, a feral kid who picked up language roughly from other kids in just as dire straits as her. Lian Hui thinks an entire lifetime of sorrow and tears must have been wasted in her first five years, for none to be left now.
Her prospects improved significantly when taken in by a man she knew as Ah Huang. Nothing was known about him, except that he owned a small, decrepit shop-house overlooking a street that children under his care were tasked to tout along. Every morning, after a spare breakfast and a night’s sleep on the hardwood floor of the only room in the shop-house, roughly a dozen children would troop out armed with key-chains and tissue packets to hassle people on the streets with while he watched from the chair by his door. The amount of food waiting on your plate was directly proportional to how loudly your coin-pouch jangled when Ah Huang rattled it by his ear come sundown. After a month, Lian Hui learned that the tourists were the best targets. Blonde and European, with straw hats and unrestrained comments about a heat they were un-acclimatised to, it was so simple to shove her grimy hands in their laps, cradling her goods, staring up at them with wide eyes and a blank expression. Most of them cracked open their wallets at once, cooing over the poor sight before them. Others were simply unsettled by her relentless gaze, pinning them there with imagined accusation.
To the resentment of the other children, Lian Hui became a favourite of Ah Huang, and received enviable servings as payment. Ah Huang even paid her special attention, teaching her how to read using newspaper clippings. She cared little and less about their grievances, when she was going to sleep less hungry, when she could see the scribbles on the road signs and finally meld them into letters, words, names that made sense. What did it matter that the children all dragged their forms away from her when she settled down to sleep, with pointed looks of loathing? She was being given room to breathe and stretch out while they all huddled away from her. Perhaps before, this isolation would have brought a quiver to her lips and welled tears to her sockets. Now, it brought Lian Hui nothing.
It was tradition for them to scavenge on the streets when they weren’t touting, and most of the children would return brandishing bracelets dug from the rubbish, or broken toys wealthier children had tossed away with nary a thought, but which became monumental artifacts in the cramped shop-house. Lian Hui partook once, and brought back a book on plants. For nights, she was riveted by the section on poisonous plants, each page emblazoned with a warning to stay well away from those specie. Lian Hui only wanted to get closer, to touch and feel her fingers burn herself, if only to get out of the place.
And so one day she carried no tissue packets, no crudely-fashioned trinkets, but made her way out on the streets with only her book in tow. She walked, walked out of the seedy street and then walked even further, until she chanced upon a shop with a flower design on its front window. She propped herself up on the counter before a very bemused-looking shop-owner, and asked to be taught everything about poisonous plants.
It was evidently enough, and Lian Hui moved homes to the florist’s. In the day she helped around the shop. At night she slept by the refrigerators that hummed a rattling lullaby as she fell asleep, head swimming with whatever the florist could teach her during their lessons after the shop closed.
It wasn’t until an elderly lady came to patronise the florist that Lian Hui actually began to learn. Spotting the scrawny ten-year-old perched on a high stool with her head bent over a page on poison ivy, she made inquiries with the shopkeeper, and stayed a few hours, after which Lian Hui was softly ushered out the door to go home with the old lady.
Lian Hui was told to call her the affectionate endearment Popo, but in all her recollections, Lian Hui will ever only remember her as Manchineel, for she bore the most toxic fruit possible. Under Manchineel’s roof, there was always a warm bed, a full meal, and biscuits if Lian Hui’s stomach still growled. Outside of it in the cosy backyard, was a sprawling garden that Lian Hui was expressly forbidden from exploring, but which Manchineel would often step into wearing over-the-top gear: gloves that reached her elbows, Wellington boots, and a suit that left no skin bare. Lian Hui recognised enough plants from her book, to know Manchineel kept an odd hobby Lian Hui herself could appreciate, and for a while Manchineel only ever imparted theoretical knowledge about her little plants.
Lian Hui never understood why she couldn’t share Manchineel’s pastime. It was a garden, after all, of the only thing that had held Lian Hui’s fancy for this long. Of course she should be indulged. One day, Manchineel came into her backyard with all her protection to find Lian Hui frolicking in the garden, face split in her widest grin as she sniffed at a bright purple flower.
It was the first time Lian Hui had ever heard Manchineel scream.
She was quickly whisked back into the house, while Manchineel fussed and half-sobbed over her, turning her palms over and over and lifting the front of her shirt, looking for rashes, spots, festering blisters. And then Lian Hui began to understand exactly why she was never meant to play in the garden of toxic plants. For a moment, she was arrested with fear, that now she would surely die from horrible wounds. She had spent ten minutes – ten admittedly glorious minutes – exposing her bare skin to an intense range of poison, and all there was left to do was wait for the Grim Reaper to claim her.
But it never did. Manchineel declared it a mystery, and even as she sternly reprimanded Lian Hui for her disobedience, she continued to look puzzled as to why Lian Hui could possibly be all right. It was an even greater mystery when she found that the dying plants she had been trying so hard to keep alive were instead now flourishing, blossoming with vivid colours.
After that, Lian Hui was never restricted from the garden, and no plants ever died.
When she was sixteen, Lian Hui moved to America, after Manchineel passed away. She stayed long enough for the funeral, before she packed her bags dry-eyed and took the flight. She had already found a humble little cottage, where she recreated Manchineel’s garden, and added a few more choice specie to the mix. Overnight, the yard was overrun with poisonous plants. It was another two days of researching on the Internet before Lian Hui attempted her first toxic brew, which she fed to a neighbour’s cat. Suffice to say her first try was a smashing success, but which the neighbour would never learn about. After that, she learned the ropes quickly and began to experiment. Her test subjects were always chosen at random, from a sea of faces made of strangers and eventually turning featureless.
Word got around somehow however after Lian Hui was seen walking out of a café right after a high school athlete collapsed of an unexplained spontaneous heart collapse. In hindsight, it was not the first time she had been linked to a scene of a victim’s death, but back then – a novice – Lian Hui had been absolutely clumsy. One day, she was grabbed in a back alley and thrown into a van, where Lian Hui was frisked and her vials were produced from her pockets and purse. It wasn’t the most conventional way to proposition someone, but the organisation that had taken an interest in Lian Hui’s movements did exactly that. They made an offer of money and creature comforts in exchange for her services. Lian Hui accepted.
Initially, they’d only wanted her for her poisons, and Lian Hui had no qualms about handing over vials of her poisons under tables and at street corners as she passed by. But then they found that their agents were incompetent at handling them, after more than five died during their missions due to misuse. Some of them were foolish enough to touch the poisons, others fumbled and drank from cups meant for their targets. Frustrated, the organisation proposed a contract change, and Lian Hui suddenly joined their ranks as an assassin.
Having suspected it was a mercenary business but not caring enough to ask questions, Lian Hui began her own training, learning to slip through crowds, to lure targets away from the heart of the crowds, to make them crave a little solitude. She learnt to be a shadow, which was no problem, because what had she been before?
Lian Hui relied on her appearances to deceive others into believing she was tame. It was all too easy to learn how to infiltrate a brewery, and pass for a waitress long enough to slip a victim a lethal drink. She could be an escort for an hour, and offer a massage before the intended could even realise the skin on his back was being eaten away by what felt like acid. Soon enough, she was given the alias Aconitum – for the toxic flower. Lian Hui liked the name, especially since it was also known by wolf’s bane, Devil’s helmet and – best of all – the Queen of Poisons.
But soon enough Aconitum came to be on the Wanted list, and Lian Hui was caught during a mission. It was difficult to explain away all the tiny vials in her pockets and linings of her dress, and she was taken into custody. While being transported to the correctional facility, Lian Hui mused over breaking out the poisons and forcing them down the throats of her captors. But that seemed like too much trouble, and bemusedly subdued she allowed herself to be taken away.

Project Rehab

Thank you!

Closed

Riley looked down in bemusement at the young-looking girl with black curls, asking for protection - and what was that smell on her breath? It smelled suspiciously coppery. She arched an eyebrow in inquisition, as the grimmer woman who had scowled at her proposition said a few curt words before embarking to leave. Riley turned her grin to the cowering girl then. She had seen the same trick before, done by girls she had known in a past life who wanted some slack. "Sympathy points don't generally pan out well among most Rogues," she offered with a shrug, already beginning to turn on her heel. "Lady's got a point though, don't seem like you're helpless if Mr Sinister handpicked you." Slowly backing away into the battle, Riley flicked her right arm like a whip and felt her grin widen as she felt the familiar warmth tickling away around her palm. With her non-inflammatory hand, she saluted the girl. "Sorry, 'mite. Hit me up some other time when we're not in the middle of a robot war. I'll see you on the other side, pretty sure you're going to make it." With those words flippantly thrown out, Riley turned, and headed for the worst of the clash. Even if the girl didn't, Riley's words wouldn't be held against her. She stole a glance back, before focusing entirely on what lay before her. But no, surely they wouldn't lose anybody at the first stage.

Her right hand aflame and blazing, Riley made a quick dash through the thick of the robots - most of them already engaged in combat - dodging nimbly out of the way when the mechanical whirs darted out to grab her. She managed to make it halfway through when she felt steel talons enclose around her arm. She grunted, and tried to wrench it out, but of course no give. With her right hand, she grabed the thin joint of the robotic limb, and felt cold metal heat up alarmingly. In just seconds, Riley skipped away, and watched as the robot's arm fell apart, melted at the elbow.

She had just made it another few bounds when another robot appeared before her, somehow even meaner-looker than the one before. It reached out once more, but Riley jumped out of its reach, circumventing its outstretched arm to jam her hand between its metal plates. Her fingers splayed out inside, ripping out as many wires as she could find, trying to find something vital and flaring her hand into fire when she did. At once, the robot began to short-circuit and overheat, and it wasn't long before it collapsed in a heap at her feet.

Completely satisfied with her fire, she put it out, and sprinted for the tube she had seen the rest go up. Before a robot could make an eleventh-hour grab for her, she pounced, and felt the billow of air whisk her away.

Project Rehab

Please let me know if there need to be any changes! Also, if you'd like me to summarise the history more succinctly, I can provide an abridged version. Thanks, and cheers!

Wong Lian Hui

Wong Lian Hui

My mother – whomever she may be – named me for the lotus.
I would much rather have had the monkshood as my namesake.

The Basics

Name
Wong Lian Hui
Codename
Aconitum
Age
23
Gender
Female
Sexuality
Asexual/Demisexual – she hasn’t explored this aspect of herself very far.
Nationality
Chinese-Malaysian

In The Mirror

Height
170cm/5’5”
Weight
48kg/105lbs
Hair Color
Black
Eye Color
Brown-Black
Appearance
Petite and slight, with distinctly Chinese features and cheeks as smooth as pebble-stones – none of those high and sharp cheekbones American actresses keep inheriting – Lian Hui looks like a particularly youthful woman who has barely passed the precipice of adulthood. Her pale olive-skin has been left unmarked, a kindness she considers from the heavens what with the substances she handles on a daily basis. She has thick black hair that sweeps her upper back, and gentle curves, though is by no means voluptuous. She does not frequently wear make-up, but she has picked up finer cosmetician tricks to accentuate her physical qualities during her exploits. With perfect eyesight, small figure, and delicate hands and feet, Lian Hui has been likened several times to a fine-boned bird.
Her most occasional clothing would be anything modest and her fashion choices range wide. Long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, fitting blouses, jeans, and skirts that brush the back of her calf all clutter her wardrobe. She also has her own array of traditional outfits, from the Peranakan kebaya to the practically obligatory cheongsam, but those only ever make an appearance when she’s trying particularly hard to sell the exoticism of her past heritage.
Lian Hui doesn’t have a work attire so much as she has costumes. Anything that will emphasise her femininity when she’s playing the covert killer just plays in with her harmless appearance and demure smile. But she has learnt to expect any mission to go awry, and slits in dresses and cheongsams work excellently in her favour. She can run in stilettos, and get away quickly enough, but don’t think for a second she hasn’t got extra tricks up her sleeve. Lian Hui takes precautions, and she doesn’t dance with death so much as waltzes clear out of its path.

Beneath The Surface

Personality
Lian Hui hasn’t cared for another in a long time, which plays out just fine for her in her line of work. Known to play to her strengths and even overdo it, Lian Hui is sharp and critical, and keenly aware of her own faults and shortcomings, which she toils hard over to compensate for. Of course, this means she has a clear understanding of what others lack, and even if it is inconsequential, it only means she has an entire arsenal of flaws to use against anybody she should be pitted against. Her gaze pierces past falsities she catches, and she is inclined to cut right to the heart of the person. It matters not just how ugly it may be; Lian Hui doesn’t care. Not to say she’ll accept any Tom, Dick, and Harry for his limitations; she simply won’t feel the need to persecute anyone for it.
Thus is the extent of Lian Hui’s emotionless. Very little angers or scares her now, and even less makes her smile. Her allegiance means next to nothing – of course, she belongs to a side, only because the stragglers who linger in the demilitarised, no man’s land between sides don’t have very long lifespans. Lian Hui plays the propositioned role of a party that can offer her enough benefits, and that’s the end of any matter. She may favour the stark simplistic contrast between black and white, and any appreciation for all the shades in between may be lost on her, but she isn’t blind to them.

What Makes Me Special

Powers
An exceptional affinity for poison-making, if that counts. Lian Hui neutralises her enemies with poison she makes by herself. She used to have the neatest of gardens she tended to, growing toxic weapons of death in ceramic pots. Perhaps it helps that poisons have no effect on her faculties, tactile or otherwise. She would spend her days preparing toxins for long dozes, burning ointments, and odourless syrups that could sweeten a beverage and disintegrate the alimentary canal from the inside-out. She even had a cookbook, even though everything was already memorised in her head.
Lian Hui refers to what she does as simple Chemistry and, combined with her expansive knowledge of human physiology and biology, she’s quite a force to be reckoned with. One of her proudest discoveries would have to be a powder she could fling at somebody’s face, and blind them, sting them, burn them, and which would only aggravate when in contact with water.
She is also gifted with the ability to accelerate, reverse, or terminate plant growth and life. Crops that would take months only require days in her garden – hours, if she concentrates, and seconds if the need is urgent. She is as good as a fast-acting fertilizer, or a sudden fatal drought, depending on whether we’re talking poisons or weeds. This talent is helpful in helping her acquire materials on tight deadlines.
Equipment
Chemistry sets, poison preparation kits, and plenty of vials. Hand her a kitchen, and she just might be set to go.
Onsite, though, Lian Hui tries not to go anywhere unarmed. She keeps antidotes in case something goes horribly wrong. Knives are a handy thing to keep on a person, as are guns, but they are just so loud and obnoxious, though a good prop to wave about and dissuade less cocksure pursuers. Lian Hui would prefer not to resort to such hands-on methods, even if knife play could be considered one of her lesser specialties.
Strengths

• Immune to Emotional Blackmail – It would take a lot to evoke a genuine and deeply-felt emotional reaction from Lian Hui, and this protects her from losing her head. Plus, she’s stood over enough writhing bodies in the throes of a foaming death to know that gore and death don’t affect her much. Humanity is but a rumour with her.
• Intelligence – Lian Hui is incredibly sharp, with a brilliant memory that’s even better at latching onto anything to do with her poisons. She’s a smart kid, even if she’s young, and she thinks quickly on her feet under pressure.
• Swift – Lian Hui runs quickly, and she’s nimble. Thanks to her years growing up, and the other years dodging chemical malfunctions, she is very agile. It helps when she needs to slip away quickly, and she can be very quiet while doing so.

Weaknesses

• Acting – Lian Hui can’t decently con somebody into believing something she can’t sell. Beyond the innocuous Chinese girl façade, she isn’t particularly apt at anything else. She might be able to seduce, but she’s found that the men she’s encountered in her business are largely attracted to her enigmatic quietness, without additional effort on her end. But ask her to play a bubbly, energetic teenager, and Lian Hui will balk.
• Physicality – Ask Lian Hui to fight to the death with empty hands and she won’t last a minute. She isn’t strong. She is easy to overpower. Her body is transport for her mind and an extension of her Chemistry set; she hasn’t taken pains to develop it for defense. Lian Hui might have taken kickboxing and KAPAP classes once upon a time, but those are hardly enough to keep her alive. She can fare well enough on the streets, but that’s because street-rats aren’t the same as thugs and bodyguards with a master to serve and professional training in ripping people asunder.
• Curiosity – Lian Hui knows no other emotion as strongly as inquisitiveness. When there is a fact missing, she will spare no expense to fill it in. When baited by a curious thing, Lian Hui can become so fixated on solving the puzzle that she will be made vulnerable. Lure her with a choice cut of meat – a mystery that will hold her interest and suspend her impassivity towards life – and lead her straight to a pit.

Skeletons In The Closet

History

It's Really Long

There is a conspicuous gap in Lian Hui’s memory, two years of her life she can’t remember despite efforts to recall what was hers. All she knows is that she came to a country – Malaysia – speaking a dialect of Mandarin, and she guesses she was born a mainland Chinese before being shipped off to Southeast Asia. It frustrates her that she does not know her origins – more so than she will ever let on – and even though it has been twenty years, she hasn’t given up on it.
Lian Hui spent her years of childhood as a kid on the streets. There were nights when she went to sleep on curbs with a disquieted stomach. Sometimes such nights ran consecutive. Finding food was not easy, and even if she did stumble across a rare treasure, she would have to defend her scraps from wild dogs that were as tall as her, and twice as large. Back then, she was a grubby little thing, a feral kid who picked up language roughly from other kids in just as dire straits as her. Lian Hui thinks an entire lifetime of sorrow and tears must have been wasted in her first five years, for none to be left now.
Her prospects improved significantly when taken in by a man she knew as Ah Huang. Nothing was known about him, except that he owned a small, decrepit shop-house overlooking a street that children under his care were tasked to tout along. Every morning, after a spare breakfast and a night’s sleep on the hardwood floor of the only room in the shop-house, roughly a dozen children would troop out armed with key-chains and tissue packets to hassle people on the streets with while he watched from the chair by his door. The amount of food waiting on your plate was directly proportional to how loudly your coin-pouch jangled when Ah Huang rattled it by his ear come sundown. After a month, Lian Hui learned that the tourists were the best targets. Blonde and European, with straw hats and unrestrained comments about a heat they were un-acclimatised to, it was so simple to shove her grimy hands in their laps, cradling her goods, staring up at them with wide eyes and a blank expression. Most of them cracked open their wallets at once, cooing over the poor sight before them. Others were simply unsettled by her relentless gaze, pinning them there with imagined accusation.
To the resentment of the other children, Lian Hui became a favourite of Ah Huang, and received enviable servings as payment. Ah Huang even paid her special attention, teaching her how to read using newspaper clippings. She cared little and less about their grievances, when she was going to sleep less hungry, when she could see the scribbles on the road signs and finally meld them into letters, words, names that made sense. What did it matter that the children all dragged their forms away from her when she settled down to sleep, with pointed looks of loathing? She was being given room to breathe and stretch out while they all huddled away from her. Perhaps before, this isolation would have brought a quiver to her lips and welled tears to her sockets. Now, it brought Lian Hui nothing.
It was tradition for them to scavenge on the streets when they weren’t touting, and most of the children would return brandishing bracelets dug from the rubbish, or broken toys wealthier children had tossed away with nary a thought, but which became monumental artifacts in the cramped shop-house. Lian Hui partook once, and brought back a book on plants. For nights, she was riveted by the section on poisonous plants, each page emblazoned with a warning to stay well away from those specie. Lian Hui only wanted to get closer, to touch and feel her fingers burn herself, if only to get out of the place.
And so one day she carried no tissue packets, no crudely-fashioned trinkets, but made her way out on the streets with only her book in tow. She walked, walked out of the seedy street and then walked even further, until she chanced upon a shop with a flower design on its front window. She propped herself up on the counter before a very bemused-looking shop-owner, and asked to be taught everything about poisonous plants.
It was evidently enough, and Lian Hui moved homes to the florist’s. In the day she helped around the shop. At night she slept by the refrigerators that hummed a rattling lullaby as she fell asleep, head swimming with whatever the florist could teach her during their lessons after the shop closed.
It wasn’t until an elderly lady came to patronise the florist that Lian Hui actually began to learn. Spotting the scrawny ten-year-old perched on a high stool with her head bent over a page on poison ivy, she made inquiries with the shopkeeper, and stayed a few hours, after which Lian Hui was softly ushered out the door to go home with the old lady.
Lian Hui was told to call her the affectionate endearment Popo, but in all her recollections, Lian Hui will ever only remember her as Manchineel, for she bore the most toxic fruit possible. Under Manchineel’s roof, there was always a warm bed, a full meal, and biscuits if Lian Hui’s stomach still growled. Outside of it in the cosy backyard, was a sprawling garden that Lian Hui was expressly forbidden from exploring, but which Manchineel would often step into wearing over-the-top gear: gloves that reached her elbows, Wellington boots, and a suit that left no skin bare. Lian Hui recognised enough plants from her book, to know Manchineel kept an odd hobby Lian Hui herself could appreciate, and for a while Manchineel only ever imparted theoretical knowledge about her little plants.
Lian Hui never understood why she couldn’t share Manchineel’s pastime. It was a garden, after all, of the only thing that had held Lian Hui’s fancy for this long. Of course she should be indulged. One day, Manchineel came into her backyard with all her protection to find Lian Hui frolicking in the garden, face split in her widest grin as she sniffed at a bright purple flower.
It was the first time Lian Hui had ever heard Manchineel scream.
She was quickly whisked back into the house, while Manchineel fussed and half-sobbed over her, turning her palms over and over and lifting the front of her shirt, looking for rashes, spots, festering blisters. And then Lian Hui began to understand exactly why she was never meant to play in the garden of toxic plants. For a moment, she was arrested with fear, that now she would surely die from horrible wounds. She had spent ten minutes – ten admittedly glorious minutes – exposing her bare skin to an intense range of poison, and all there was left to do was wait for the Grim Reaper to claim her.
But it never did. Manchineel declared it a mystery, and even as she sternly reprimanded Lian Hui for her disobedience, she continued to look puzzled as to why Lian Hui could possibly be all right. It was an even greater mystery when she found that the dying plants she had been trying so hard to keep alive were instead now flourishing, blossoming with vivid colours.
After that, Lian Hui was never restricted from the garden, and no plants ever died.
When she was sixteen, Lian Hui moved to America, after Manchineel passed away. She stayed long enough for the funeral, before she packed her bags dry-eyed and took the flight. She had already found a humble little cottage, where she recreated Manchineel’s garden, and added a few more choice specie to the mix. Overnight, the yard was overrun with poisonous plants. It was another two days of researching on the Internet before Lian Hui attempted her first toxic brew, which she fed to a neighbour’s cat. Suffice to say her first try was a smashing success, but which the neighbour would never learn about. After that, she learned the ropes quickly and began to experiment. Her test subjects were always chosen at random, from a sea of faces made of strangers and eventually turning featureless.
Word got around somehow however after Lian Hui was seen walking out of a café right after a high school athlete collapsed of an unexplained spontaneous heart collapse. In hindsight, it was not the first time she had been linked to a scene of a victim’s death, but back then – a novice – Lian Hui had been absolutely clumsy. One day, she was grabbed in a back alley and thrown into a van, where Lian Hui was frisked and her vials were produced from her pockets and purse. It wasn’t the most conventional way to proposition someone, but the organisation that had taken an interest in Lian Hui’s movements did exactly that. They made an offer of money and creature comforts in exchange for her services. Lian Hui accepted.
Initially, they’d only wanted her for her poisons, and Lian Hui had no qualms about handing over vials of her poisons under tables and at street corners as she passed by. But then they found that their agents were incompetent at handling them, after more than five died during their missions due to misuse. Some of them were foolish enough to touch the poisons, others fumbled and drank from cups meant for their targets. Frustrated, the organisation proposed a contract change, and Lian Hui suddenly joined their ranks as an assassin.
Having suspected it was a mercenary business but not caring enough to ask questions, Lian Hui began her own training, learning to slip through crowds, to lure targets away from the heart of the crowds, to make them crave a little solitude. She learnt to be a shadow, which was no problem, because what had she been before?
Lian Hui relied on her appearances to deceive others into believing she was tame. It was all too easy to learn how to infiltrate a brewery, and pass for a waitress long enough to slip a victim a lethal drink. She could be an escort for an hour, and offer a massage before the intended could even realise the skin on his back was being eaten away by what felt like acid. Soon enough, she was given the alias Aconitum – for the toxic flower. Lian Hui liked the name, especially since it was also known by wolf’s bane, Devil’s helmet and – best of all – the Queen of Poisons.
But soon enough Aconitum came to be on the Wanted list, and Lian Hui was caught during a mission. It was difficult to explain away all the tiny vials in her pockets and linings of her dress, and she was taken into custody. While being transported to the correctional facility, Lian Hui mused over breaking out the poisons and forcing them down the throats of her captors. But that seemed like too much trouble, and bemusedly subdued she allowed herself to be taken away.

Project Rehab

Same here, would it be okay to submit a CS?