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Name | Eli Ford 
Alias | Breakneck
Age | 40
Gender | Female
Appearance | Breakneck is noticeably taller than the average woman at 5'9", and has a toned build. She's lean as befitting a runner, wiry in a way that conceals her immense strength. 
Notoriety | Noble
Danger Level/Variant Type | Class 4 Agile-Brute-Architect
Abilities |
Speed: Breakneck's most powerful ability and the one she's most famous for. Capable of breaking Mach 3, although doing so is nearly always overkill. Even moving at a "mere" thousand miles an hour she's more than fast enough to suit her purposes.

Strength: Unsurprisingly for someone who regularly contends with ten-plus Gs Breakneck is incredibly strong. While the ability to throw cars and kick people through buildings comes in handy during a fight the real benefit is far more mundane. Without her enhanced strength, Breakneck simply wouldn't be able to turn while running full speed, leaving her as little more than a human-shaped unguided missile. 

Endurance: Breakneck is far more durable than a normal person, able to walk through gunfire and let perps ram cars into her. To contend with the stresses supersonic speed puts on an object her body is functionally insulated against extremes in in temperature and surges in electricity. She uses this ability to breach, sprinting through walls to catch suspects off-guard. In addition, poisons, diseases, and irritants such as tear gas or pepper spray are generally unable to affect her, while the natural aging process is greatly reduced. 

Perception: Moving as fast as she does means that Breakneck perceives times differently than normal people. When unfocused she'll generally experience the passage of time at close to the same rate as non-Variants but when she's tuned in it seems to slow to a near-crawl. 

Protective Aura: The most exotic of Breakneck's abilities, and to her the most important. The ability to pull someone out of harm's way is all well and good but if a normal person were to suddenly accelerate to supersonic speeds the resulting whiplash would be...unpleasant. 

This is mitigated by her ability to essentially share her part immunity to the effects of extreme speed with people and objects she touches. While a normal person likely wouldn't enjoy being moved at top speed they will survive it mostly intact. 

On a day to day level this ability is what allows her to travel without worrying about destroying the roadwork or disintegrating her clothes.

[Gear]
Attire | Breakneck's costume consists of her old flight suit and helmet. While she doesn't always wear it the tough material is harder to damage in a fight and the helmet has a several communications channels built in, allowing her to listen in on and communicate with local law enforcement. 

Armament/Equipment | Her preferred weapon is a set of short, thick steel stakes similar to bo-shuriken. Such esoteric weapons are highly effective in the hands of a super-strong, super-fast Variant. She also carries CS spray and a stun baton.  Any other weapons are picked up in the field as opportunity allows them to be.

[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Affiliation | As a Noble Breakneck is affiliated with N.O.V.A, and the Glorious Alliance to a lesser extent. While not connected to the organization she has expressed sympathy for Pariah Underground in the past.

Personality/Habits | Breakneck hasn't spent her career trying to become a superhero, she's worked to become the definition of a superhero. The past ten-odd years have been spent building her reputation, tackling every challenge ranging from simple street crime to natural disasters. While most of her activities have taken place in her adopted home of New Haven she's been known to sprint over to crisis points across the country, occasionally straying beyond America's borders. She's been quoted as saying "It's impossible to help everyone, but that doesn't mean I can't help anyone."

She projects confidence when seen in public, always happy to spare a moment for an autograph or a message to a fan. When dealing with lesser opponents like unpowered gangsters or low-tier Variants she's cocky bordering on arrogant but serious threats bring out a serious side of her.

People close to her know that despite the brave face she puts on in public the loss of her father and her being kicked out of the military still affect her to this day. When not wearing her "game face" so to speak she can seem callous, almost cold, traits that ended up causing her marriage to dissolve. She is very particular about her personal space, careful to keep people from entering it. 

Occupation/Trade | Formerly an Out of Atmosphere Fighter Pilot and military contractor, currently a full-time celebrity Noble. 

Skills/Talents |Breakneck is a trained pilot and a veteran of low-intensity conflicts around the world. Her military experience has given her a mind for tactics, a key advantage over her generally untrained opponents. 

Already quite intelligent before awakening her Variance her ability to perceive time at a slower rate lets her reason through problems faster than one would expect. 

Family | -Roman Ford, Father: Died when Eli was a teen
-Sofía Ford, Mother: Sofia is retired now and living in the Hamptons, enjoying her post-service life thanks to her daughter's success. 
-Evan Nielsen, Ex-husband: Met Eli in college and married her soon after she left the Space Force, only for their relationship to break down after she left Manticore. They're on fairly amicable terms for the sake of...
-Jamie Nielsen, Stepson: Evan's son from a previous marriage, met Eli when he was only four years old. Jamie's mother had died when he was a toddler and Eli felt a kinship with him through this loss. She visits regularly. 

Background | Breakneck's life story is a matter of public record. In fact she's published a (ghostwritten) autobiography detailing. Eli, as a few close friends call her, isn't a native of New Haven. She's a military brat, born to a pair of officers stationed at Nellis Air Force Base. By her own account she had a lonely childhood, bouncing from school to school every couple of years as her parents were reassigned according to the mysterious whims of Uncle Sam. It was a decent enough childhood, in the material sense. While the family could never be called rich Eli had food to eat, a warm bed to sleep in and no shortage of entertainment when requested.

But socially it was quite lacking. Making friends was tricky for her to do when she knew she'd be leaving them in a year so she mostly kept to herself. Even after the family finally settled in New Haven when she was thirteen she chose studies over companionship, shutting herself away from others in order to focus on her schoolwork. The exception was drama, Eli picking up a love of acting that pushed her to try out for roles at each school she attended.

As she entered high school Eli planned to study aerospace engineering, a career path influenced by her parents. But when she was 15 her father was killed in a crash landing, a freak accident snuffing out a veteran with a decades-long career. Having crashed on reentry into Earth's orbit, nothing was left of him to bury.

Her father's death, caused by a faulty braking system that had been missed during the pre-flight check, changed Eli's plans drastically. While she still went to college (Cornell, Summa Cum Laude) instead of chasing a job in the defense industry she applied for Officer Training School, with plans to enter attend Weapons School right after.

Eli found herself flourishing in OCS, driven by the need to serve her country and make her parents proud. After being commissioned into the Space Force as a second lieutenant she immediately joined flight school, learning to pilot the same model of spaceplane as her father. She took well to operating in low gravity, learning how to dogfight in open space and attack ground targets from the upper atmosphere. 

Her career as a fighter pilot, while promising, would take a strange turn three years into her service. During what should have been a routine patrol flight an errant bit of space debris fractured her cockpit window, forcing Eli into an emergency landing. While she had trained for such an event she had never before experienced it, the reality of the situation brought to mind her father's death. Eli panicked, failing to control her descent.

When she breached Earth's exosphere she was frozen in her seat, watching helplessly as the craft plummeted at more than twenty thousand miles an hour. Paralyzed by fear she failed to perform the required retroburn, essentially trapped in her own head unable to free herself. It felt as if time was slowing as she sank through layer after atmospheric layer...

and in a way, it was. Eli's Variance had awakened, and as she got faster her reflexes grew to match. The change in perception allowed her to gather herself, pulling up so that she might have a chance of surviving. The landing was badly botched, her ship skidding to a stop in a trench far outside the base, but she came out alive. 

Being unused to her powers meant that wasn't able to regulate her speed, clearing the ten miles back to base in under five seconds. This made it painfully obvious that she was a Variant and thus useless to the brass. Eli accepted her honorable discharge with grace, leaving behind her dreams of flying. 

As much as she would have liked to keep flying life moved on. She reconnected with an old college flame and would end up marrying him, and while she would never be a combat pilot again she quickly found herself in training once more.

The United States might have been unwilling to work with Variants but there were plenty of private companies more than happy to hire them. A small but aggressive PMC based out of South Africa sought her out and offered her a job. While Variants were simply too small a portion of the population to staff a private army with, Manticore did specialize in them to point that a notable percentage of their agents were empowered. They would approach civilians with noteworthy powers, offering to take the financial risk of putting them through training in exchange for a five year contract. 

While they lacked the multibillion dollar spacecraft she wanted to fly Eli was too far removed from her university days to seek employment as an engineer and didn't consider herself as being capable of much else. She signed up on a whim and whisked off into the exciting world of fighting for money. 

It was at Manticore that Eli learned to harness her powers, measuring her speed so as to avoid burning out while working to generate the passive field that would allow her to interact with the world without destroying it. In addition to honing her Variant abilities, Manticore had her go through boot camp once more, having her hone the basics of fighting on foot. 

By her mid-twenties she was a fully-fledged military contractor, Manticore deploying her to various hotspots around the globe. Eli, or "Breakneck" as she was now called, naturally specialized in the rapid extraction of VIPs but would be given additional training so in infiltration and demolitions. 

Breakneck found comradery among her fellow contractors, many of the Variants within Manticore also having been discharged upon the discovery of their powers. She served with Manticore for nearly a decade, making good money and living a life of adventure. But as much as she enjoyed it the soullessness of the work needled at her. The military had given her a purpose before rejecting her, promising the chance to live up to her parent's legacies. Manticore was just a job, and an unpleasant one at that. Her mood soured and she began to drift away from her husband, Evan unable to understand even if she cared to explain.

She would be forced out of the mercenary life when Manticore suddenly dissolved. A number of incidents with local law enforcement brought international attention down on the company while many of the higher-ups and investors suddenly found Interpol agents digging through their more illicit files. As the moneymen were arrested for fraud the company simply disappeared, its files burned and hard drives disposed of in discrete rivers and lakes around the world. 

Breakneck took this as a sign that it was time for her to do something good with her life. Now in her mid-thirties and recently single (she and Evan agreed to a divorce the day before she found out she was jobless), Breakneck went back to New Haven and sought to put her experience to work as a Noble. She signed up with N.O.V.A and got to work immediately. 

Early in her career, she struggled to make a living off of her good deeds, not comfortable seeking payment from those she helped, but as she become more of a known figure she was contacted by an ambitious talent agent. He'd sell her image, get her interviews and book deals and make her a star, ensure she'd have more than enough money to care for her mother all while saving lives. 

In return he'd get fifteen percent of all her earnings, a steep charge but one well worth paying he promised. Once again devoid of any other options Breakneck agreed. 

In the thirteen years since starting her agent has done what he promised. Breakneck is something of a celebrity, attending fan signings and auctioning off old bits of gear for charity in between missions. While those close to her know that she finds fame somewhat stifling she'll always prefer it to what she was doing before. There's been ups and downs, painful injuries and tragic failures, but she's making a difference in the world.

That's good enough for her.

Name | Unknown
Alias | Ignoble
Age | Unknown
Gender | Unknown 
Appearance | It's hard to determine features underneath the armor and mask but Ignoble is well-built and broad shoulder, their size fairly deceptive when compared to their quick reflexes. Specific features are still unknown. 
Notoriety | Wanted
Danger Level/Variant Type | Class 2 Brute-Agile
Abilities |Enhanced Phsyiology- Ignoble is tougher, stronger and faster than any non-Variant. They've kept pace with a speeding car and can easily manhandle full-grown men as if they were children. While they try to dodge bullets whenever they've been hit a number of times over the years and have yet to be truly injured, suggesting they can sustain some amount of damage before needing to retreat.

Enhanced Reflexes- While hardly precognizant Ignoble has demonstrated a level of awareness that suggests Variance in that aspect. They are capable of dodging gunfire and quite dangerous in close combat. 

[Gear]
Attire | Ignoble's outfit is heavily armored, consisting of bulletproof canvas weave covered by ceramic plating. There are multiple pockets for ammo and other cargo, and beneath is an aramid bodysuit, likely Nomex or a similar product. The skull-like helmet they wear likely has some sort of HUD, although if that's the case it's running on a closed loop outside of the Nexus as attempts to hack in have gone poorly (see the files on the killing of registered Noble White Hat). 

The ensemble is clearly designed to evoke fear, and has been described by Agent Vasquez as "pretty edgy honestly." While that may be the case it is certainly functional.

Armament/Equipment | Ignoble uses a variety of equipment, what they carry with them on a given day is tailored to whatever their current objective is. They've been known to use grappling hook launchers, lockpick guns, dissemblers, and prebuilt hacking modules to defeat electronic security measures.

Every time they've been spotted they've carried a primary firearm, a secondary or two and a fighting knife. Other notable weapons include a variety of explosives (improvised or not), stingers loaded with sedatives or overdose quantities of mundane narcotics, and less-than-lethal options for dealing with non-targets. 

[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Affiliation | There's a good chance that Ignoble is affiliated with the Syndicate, or at least has contacts within the organization. Ignoble's Variant-supremacy leanings match up with the gang, and they would have needed help sourcing the variety of equipment they've picked up over the years. Them being a full member is extremely considering the clash between their modus operandi and the Syndicate's.

Personality/Habits | Ignoble is professional, driven and extremely dangerous. They hold great disdain for those who would attempt to harness the Variance and are openly hostile to N.O.V.A, but tries to avoid involving mundane civilians in their conflict. Being a Variant is no guarantee of safety either, Ignoble has fought a number of them, Noble or otherwise.

Ignoble believes that attempts to regulate Variants are inherently unjust, and any attempt to even the playing field for non-Variants is to be seen as an act of war. Those would try to give the Variance those without, or working on ways to neutralize Variation, are at risk.

Interestingly they appear to be fairly ambivalent on cybernetic and organic augmentation. Analysts suggest that because those types of enhancements come from an outside source they don't tread on Ignoble's need to be special, at least not overmuch. However, suitably drastic changes might draw their ire.

Occupation/Trade | Vigilante and pro-Variant terrorist.

Skills/Talents | Outside of their powers Ignoble is a skilled gunman and infiltrator. They're capable of making and using quite complex IEDs and are a competent, if not outstanding hacker. These traits made them a very good bank robber in the past and a very good assassin in the present. They're extremely dangerous and not it's recommended that N.O.V.A. agents refrain from engaging without backup when possible.

Family | Unknown.

Background | As far as N.O.V.A is concerned Ignoble came into existence eleven years ago in Las Vegas, Nevada. When they first popped up on law enforcement radar they appeared to be a fairly standard Variant crook, faster and stronger than a normal person but not to the degree seen in Class 3s or above. They used their powers to rob armored trucks and casino vaults, hitting a few in Vegas before branching out to Phoenix and Portland.

While a Variant robber running around certainly wasn't ideal Ignoble wasn't a big enough problem to be a priority for N.O.V.A. But then after a year of activity, the street criminal suddenly dipped a toe into terrorism. A renowned molecular biologist by the name of Franklin Payne was shot dead outside his home in Norfolk, Virginia with Ignoble leaving a note taking credit. 

Dr. Payne had recently spoken about his theory of the Variant gene and expressed an interest in transplanting it in non-Variants. Ignoble declared their opposition and promised to do the same to anyone else with the same idea. In addition, they declared open war on N.O.V.A, decrying it as openly corrupt and causing people to suffer under heavy-handed attempts to meddle with forces it didn't understand. As far as Ignoble was concerned it fell on Variants to police themselves, and they would just that.

The note ended with a promise: Ignoble would do their best to avoid killing any mundane while they pursued their hunt, save for N.O.V.A agents and those attempting to harness the Variance. 

And thus began a cycle of violence. Ignoble would appear as if out of thin and target some young researcher or attack a laboratory, using guns, explosives, and poisons in to achieve their goal. After destroying as much research as they could they'd simply disappear for weeks or months, reappearing elsewhere to do it all over again.

They got into fights with other Variants as well, both those attempting to stop them and ones who Ignoble considered to be careless with their powers. In keeping with their policy of self-policing, they eliminated Variants that caused excessive suffering to the unpowered. 

They've kept up their crusade ever since.

[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Personality/Habits |  Breakneck and Ignoble are one and the same, alter egos of Eli Ford. The balancing act required to keep the lie going is crucial to get right but far easier for her than it would be for someone else. 

Breakneck is known to value her privacy when not in public, often sprinting to some vacation hotspot or another when not working. Ignoble is only ever in the public eye for a few minutes or hours at a time, disappearing off to God knows where after each attack. Breakneck, while quick to react, is not omniscient so she can't respond to calls she doesn't hear about will not be able to help since Ignoble is generally gone before anyone knows what's happened.

It's a tiring way to live, but it's what needs to happen.

Occupation/Trade | Part-time Noble terrorist, full-time liar

Skills/Talents | Outside of the previously mentioned, acting. Eli's always had a knack for the craft so slipping into a costume to play a role comes naturally to her. The voice changer in her helmet and padding to the armor are necessary parts of the costume but she's the real star. Ignoble looks, acts and sounds entirely different than Breakneck.

Background | As far as the public knows Eli accepted her discharge with grace and understanding, disappointed that her career had ended so soon but accepting the military's reasoning. In actuality she was embarrassed and enraged, the sense of failure she felt at being unable to live up to her parent's expectations mixing her feeling of abandonment by her country to poison her perception of Variant-Mundane relations.

While she considered getting a job as a commercial pilot she felt that her resume would be weak. As a fighter she didn't actually that many flight hours logged compared to the transport guys she'd be competing with. Moreover, it wasn't fair that she even had to consider civilian work! She joined Manticore because it offered her a chance to be exceptional, not because she liked the idea of being a mercenary.

Plenty of her comrades felt the same. Throughout her service she grew close to a fellow contractor by the name of Jake, a man with a sketchy past and an eye for valuables that he could snatch up from the battlefield and sell at a profit. Originally Breakneck was cool towards him, unimpressed by his vulturish tendencies. But after she saved his life in an ambush in Northern Yemen he latched onto her, and she found herself growing to like him. 

After that they constantly buddied up often for operations, getting to know each other over the course of a decade of service. By the end of it she had managed to piece together that he was a low-level affiliate of the Syndicate, one of many criminals using Manticore as a means to make connections. Earlier in her life Eli might have been disgusted with him but post-discharge she couldn't muster up much more than vague disapproval. While it might have been wrong Variants using their powers to better their lives was something she could sympathize with. 

When the company suddenly shuttered its doors in the face of an international crackdown Eli managed to get out clean, having done nothing illegal save for violating a few laws on the importation of alcohol in various countries. Jake however went down for smuggling and wire fraud, whisked off to French Guiana for trial. Before he turned himself he promised to hook her up with a couple of opportunities from his friends in the Syndicate.  

She was fairly certain that she'd never see him again but thanked him anyway, wishing him well. As much as she hated to see her friend go she had her own problems to worry about. Settling back into New Haven she found that the forms and fees to register as a Noble were unreasonably high, the money of course flowing into non-Variant pockets. Once again her wish to serve was hindered by her very nature. 

But Breakneck managed to scrape together the money and lived off her savings, working hard to build up goodwill with the community. She had just about managed to find her footing as a hero when she was connected by an unknown agent with some very interesting information.

To her sadness but not surprise Jake was dead, having escaped from prison a year earlier only to get killed in a drunken brawl. But before he got himself murdered he had passed her name on, as promised. The person on the other side of the screen wouldn't explain more without a more secure form of communication, giving Breakneck precise instructions to follow if she were interested.

Curiosity would get the better of her after only a week, and after establishing a secure room deep within WildFyre she was directed towards Las Vegas. While the Syndicate wasn't going to dirty their hands with simple robbery they did have the inside scoop on plenty of potential takes, and they'd pass along the information in exchange for a cut.

Ignoble came into existence as a childish way to get revenge, Eli masking up and lashing out at the world that had been so quick to keep from doing what she wanted with her life. It was a sort of stress relief in that she could spend most of her time sprinting around saving lives and then take a break to release all her anger by comitting grand larceny.

Her robberies were bloodless, military training and insider information allowing her to beat the police response time with rarely a shot fired. As her legitimate career became more successful the dirty cash piled up. It was when she was trying to figure out what to spend her ill-gotten, hard to explain gains on when the idea occurred to her.

The ease with which her still-unnamed Syndicate contacts could get her what she wanted distracted her from just how quickly she was willing to turn to murder. The fairly ratty mask and second-hand plate carrier she had been wearing were replaced by proper gear, an old moonshiner's tucked away in the depths of the New Haven Bayou converted into a safehouse. Ignoble turned from profit-based crime to violence in the name of ideals, lashing out at those who would leash her.

Both careers continued on with little impact on the other, save for one event. As much as Eli enjoyed helping those who couldn't help themselves the stress of working as a celebrity Noble was beginning to get to her. Compared to Ignoble Breakneck was an inescapable part of her life, recognized on street corners and in theatres. Someone who valued privacy as much as Eli did couldn't keep up appearances for as long as she had without a long vacation, and she had a way to kill two birds with one stone.

Breakneck was accompanying a squad of MADmen in an attempt to rescue a hostage Ignoble had ferried all the way over from Houston. Intel suggested that the vigilante and their victim were holed up in the Shanty, but that was nothing but a ruse. The building was rigged to blow, and the resulting explosion wiped out half the team. Breakneck took the brunt of the blast, her durability allowing her to walk away alive but injured.

It was a drastic way to buy time but it worked. The doctors told her that she'd be moving at less than half-speed for at least a year and her PR team informed the world. Meanwhile Ignoble, far slower and weaker than Breakneck's normal condition, escaped to continue their activities. Eli had winged herself, but she already had to hold back when playing as her criminal alter-ego.

Ignoble kept doing what they did best, Breakneck was back in action in ten months, and since then Eli's found some semblance of balance. By day she helps people that need it, by night she hunts those would put her down again.
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