Name: Josefa "Jackrabbit" Juárez
Age: 27
Gender: Female
Appearance: At first glance, Josefa appears to be pretty normal, one of the lucky Guardians who managed to survive the Bonding without suffering some sort of horrible mutation. She's pretty average in fact, neither particularly tall nor noticeably short at 5'5" with dark hair and delicate features. While she does have scars across her knuckles this is hardly surprising to see on someone who grew up sparring with her family and then went into a workforce where combat was common.
Beneath her clothes things become more unconventional. Over her right shoulder is a simple tattoo of the crucifix while her left bicep shows a dove in flight, in memory of her father. Her back is marked not by ink but by injury, the scars there more serious than those on her hands. She sports dozens of healed-over pockmarks, left over from the time she was blasted in the back with a load of birdshot.
The most eye-catching part of her body is scattered across her limbs and torso, a side effect of the Guardian process. Josefa has several milky-white crystals embedded in her skin, near flush but protruding ever so slightly. They are usually hidden by clothing but if one were to look carefully they'd be able to see the outlines.
Personality: Jackrabbit is above all else, a professional. She spent years defending Respite against threats internal and external, a job that required her to be quick to focus and observant of the smallest details. While she's more than capable of acting friendly with her comrades sometimes this slips into a more reserved, almost cold attitude.
This is a reflection of her self-doubt. While she's unlikely to ever say so aloud Josefa worries that she might not stack up against the other superpowered freaks she works with. If she were to become the weak link she'd up endangering both herself and the team, to say nothing of Respite itself. She can't seem to shake the feeling that she became a Guardian to get out of her familial duty to "proper" law enforcement.
The stress of her duties and esteem issues drives her to blow off steam whenever possible. With her entry into crooked policing came the introduction to various vices. Josefa is a gambler, a binge drinker and a philanderer, a common sight in dive bars and other businesses with less than stellar reputations. Her commitment to duty keeps her in check when on the job but enough downtime will send her back to cards or into the embrace of prostitutes.
Abilities/Powers: -Speed: Jackrabbit's main ability. The Bonding process strengthened her legs and her core so that they could perform far past human capability. Her average running speed caps out somewhere around a hundred miles an hour but if she were to push herself to her limits she'd reach a hundred and fifty.
Along with this incredible speed comes the ability to make truly impressive leaps. While she doesn't have the maneuverability granted by proper flight Jackrabbit can clear buildings and other obstacles with little difficulty (although she runs the risk of landing in a sticky situation she hadn't been able to see.)
-Endurance: Running so fast for any extended period of time requires that Josefa be much more durable than a normal person for two reasons: so that her joints don't pop out of their sockets, and so that she can bound off walls without being reduced to a broken pile of pulp.
It's important to note that Jackrabbit's enhanced endurance applies purely to her speed and its potential side effects. She can run into a brick wall at top speed and be fine but if someone were to stab her in the back she'd bleed just like anyone else. She assumes that it's based on intent; someone intending to hurt her still can.
Weaknesses/Vulnerabilities: -Ridiculous Metabolism: In the wild a hare can eat up to a pound of food per day, an amount that might be somewhere around an eighth of their weight. Likewise, Josefa needs to consume about ten thousand calories a day, more than triple the amount recommended for an adult man. While she can survive on more human levels doing so will leave her in a greatly diminished state, her powers weaker and her energy levels lowered.
-Primal Fear: The two most common predators that a desert hare has to watch out for are snakes and birds of prey. Fittingly, Jackrabbit suffers from both Ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes, and Ornithophobia, the fear of birds. The latter condition is limited to large hunting birds, hawks and falcons and the like, but any snake is enough to set her off.
Manageable situations, such as when the source of fear is caged or far off, will make her visibly nervous but being near to either category will cause her fight-or-flight reaction to kick in.
Specialized Equipment: "Wolpertinger" Armor: Designed in part by her brother Marcos. Flexible enough that Jackrabbit can move at full speed and sturdy enough to withstand some punishment. Unless that punishment is coming from an Alpha abomination, then it's going to break very quickly. The Wolpertinger is always on Josefa's person, the diamond-like nodes across her body reacting to the Respite embedded in her in such a way that she can mentally activate it. Upon activation the armor "unfolds" from those nodes to rapidly cover her.
It comes with a shield because the only thing better than letting your armor take the hit is not letting it get hit at all.
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Harmonic Swordstaff: While an armored fist hitting something at a hundred miles an hour will do some serious damage there is always a way to improve it. The Harmonic Swordstaff combines Renaissance-era weaponry with modern-age technology, the blade of the weapon infused with Respite so that it functions as an oversized harmonic scalpel, vibrating at around 55,500 Hz. Usually this rapid vibration wouldn't just cut through flesh but also cauterize it by the energy generated by the Respite keeps the wounds bleeding.
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Dad's .45 Josefa's father carried this relic during his time in Fort Worth PD, It passed down to her mother upon his death. When she joined the Respite guards the pistol was then given to her for use as a service weapon. It's not as flashy as her ultrasonic swordstaff and ammo is finite but it's served Jackrabbit well enough thus far. She uses it in her role as a Guardian while she's fast a bullet is always faster.
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Knife: Just a simple, solid knife for those situations that require something less over the top than the Harmonic Swordstaff.
Biography: Josefa Juárez was born in the district of Haven, a small borough in the wider Fort Worth area. Her parents, Mateo and Elena, had not intended to have children and they
really didn't intend to have three of them but intentions aren't enough to avoid triplets. Alongside Josefa were Marcos and Gabriela. Now stuck in a too-small home with little in the way of support the parents did their best to raise two daughters and a son, just about managing to keep them as healthy as any other child in the post-respite world.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Juárez were members of the FWPD but while Alena's duties were mostly investigative Mateo was directly involved with the frontline defense of the city. Mateo was killed in action while his squad was hunting a pack of abominations that had strayed too close to Fort Worth's water supply, leaving his widow and seven-year-old children.
Another day, another corpse for the pile. Alena refused to show weakness in front of her children, packing up little the family owned and setting out for a new town with less painful memories. The journey to Respite was tricky but manageable, the family settling into a small apartment while the mother went to work with the city guards.
With one parent dead and the other working a full-time job the triplets lacked stability, picking up different coping mechanisms. Marcos threw himself into his studies, working with Respite in order to improve the weapons and armor used to ward off the abominations. He had a sense of duty, determined to make a difference in the world. Gabriela was the delinquent, getting picked up time after time for vandalism and petty thefts to the chagrin of her mother. These minor crimes led to major ones, Gabriela leaving home in her teens and falling into Respite's criminal underworld as an enforcer, smuggler and occasional paid killer.
That left Josefa, the most aimless of the trio. She joined the city guard out of a sense of obligation to her parents as well as not having any better ideas. She was partnered with her mother as a rookie but began to branch out once she learned the ropes, given her own assignments with a series of partners. Josefa was a decent enough guard but still felt like she was without real purpose, walking her beat out of obligation. When Gabriela came back into her life with others of valuable tech and other resources in exchange for tip-offs and the occasional get-out-of-jail-free cards Josefa was easily swayed.
The now dirty cop was a middle ground between her law-abiding brother and criminal sister, existing to play beige between black and white. This was not the existence she wanted. One night after a long shift and an even longer one at the bar she came to a brilliant conclusion: she would go sign up to be a Guardian.
The training was difficult, but she'd damned if she was going to wash out when there were teens going through the same program. With her combat experience, Josefa had an easier time getting through than others, making it to the crucial implanting process. The Bonding went relatively well, the side effects were definitely manageable. Instead of horrifying disfigurement or some sort of crippling madness Josefa instead had to learn to manage her increased appetite and new revulsion to snakes and birds.
She was a Guardian, and hopefully, that would give her the sense of purpose she craved.
Fun Facts: -Josefa's favorite part of being a guard was getting to play with the fun toys stored in the armory and that holds true now that she's a Guardian. She spends much of her free time on the ranger and will supplement her usual kit with an additional weapon or two when given the chance.
-Jackrabbit has never cared much for her namesake. Instead she keeps rats.
-She maintains an apartment away from the usual barracks, preferring to live in her own space where there are fewer people around to judge her.
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