HEROESFIRST.
General Information
Name: Eryth Alyn Wolfdemon
Current Alias: n/a
DOB: September 31
Place of Birth: NY, Earth
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Race: Wolfdemon
Legal Status: Teen Titans South
Marital Status: Single
Physical Description
[*]Hair: Well, fur really. Black.
[*]Eyes: black/gold (normal) reflective silver (when lightning powers are active)
[*]Height:5‘11"
[*]Weight:varies
[*]Clothes: black jeans, combat boots (metal lacehooks/bearings inside). Eryth also wears a dark gray trench coat, with spikes studded up along the arms and over his shoulders. The final addition is a pair of fingerless gloves studded along the base knuckles with metal plates. The theory for all the metal has never been fully revealed, though it is commonly speculated that all of it is highly conductive. The only oddity in the otherwise somewhat coordinated outfit is a ragged looking black cloak.
If one looks at Eryth, and they see a pale man with shoulder-length black hair and sunglasses, they're looking at an image inducer generated illusion. Eryth hasn't, doesn't, and probably never will appear human. While his stature and mannerisms are those of a human; he was born changed to the point that he appears to have the head of a black wolf, and he is covered in black fur from eartips to tailtip. Where fingernails and toenails should be; there are instead retractable razor-sharp claws of untold toughness.
Powers and Abilities
[*]Electrokinesis. Eryth possesses an inherent control over electricity, as well as the natural ability to generate and control his own brand of red hued lightning-like energy.
[*]Superhuman physical conditioning. The wolfdemon has displayed well above-average durability and strength; shown to be capable of lifting at least 60 tons. As if the strength were not frightening enough, his speed and reflexes are noticeably above those of normal humans. While he would not be able to match a speedster in a race, his reflexes are at a level where he could predict their next location and be there to intercept/counter any such attack.
[*]Flight. That’s not a cape he’s wearing.
[*]Claws and enhanced senses. It is not surprising, given his appearance that Eryth would lay claim to the enhanced sensory perceptions of an animal. His claws, while biological and un-altered, are still sharp enough to slice through concrete and most metals.
Weaknesses
[*]Bloodrage. Unique to his kind, Eryth will fly into an uncontrollable rage upon the sight of excess spilled blood. While he loses all feeling of pain and his strength and speed double in this state may cause some to think of it as a power; the fact remains that the only way for him to regain his sanity is to lose consciousness; either through death or an amount of physical punishment sufficient to batter him utterly senseless. Furthermore, this loss of common sense means that he is all the less likely to use his lightning to its fullest extent.
[*]Extra-powerful senses are an extra-powerful setback as well. Eryth is extremely weak against the uses of various gasses (smell), any attack generating a bright light (sight) or sonic blasts (sound) as they overwork his senses at an unrecoverable speed.
[*]Eryth hates flying. He'd sooner dig his claws in and climb up a building he's just fallen out of.
Personality
Eryth is often the one to speak out if it will involve a fight. His natural dislike of fighting (despite being fairly good at it) combined with a balancing view that everyone has the same end; to survive is one that often causes him to stand back and analyze a battle, if he involves himself at all. Unlike some who study an opponent's fighting tactics in order to best them, Eryth tends to study the personal history of any super-powered villain he may face so as to gain a psychological advantage and end the fight (hopefully) without bloodshed. In a more relaxed world, among friends; Eryth's personality-analyzing tendencies are put to a different use, often in the form of humorously dismissive sarcasm or a tendency to sometimes voice a sometimes uncomfortable truth.
[/LIST]
Personal HistoryEryth is one of the latest in a line of curse-created wolfdemons that first saw introduction into the world roughly one thousand years ago. In the ancient land of Nol, the castle of the Wizard Rorek had stood for centuries. The wizard lord held the position as guardian to the village, and was often assisted by his brother, the crimson-lightning mage known as Alynishirad.
While the war against the netherborn minions of Malchior was a near-constant thing, Rorek's side felt confident that they could soon win. In one of his more touch-and-go moments, Rorek had erected a soulbinding barrier: a shield that would greatly reduce Malchior's near-godlike powers to an easier to deal with level if he entered the area under the pale wizard's protection.
Tragedy struck however, when Alynishirad's wife was stricken with an at-the-time unknown disease that left her prone to fits of dangerous rage and a frighteningly high fever. Fearing for not only her life, but that of his unborn son, the lightning-mage entered into a deal with Malchior; He would lower the castle's defensive soulbinding barrier in exchange for the cure to his wife's disease. Forced to choose quickly, his emotions took control and he carried out his part of the bargain
Revelation came in the middle of the attack however, that Malchior's intent was to utterly level the village; killing not just Rorek, but Alynishirad's now-cured wife. Quickly, he recreated the barrier, and trapped Malchior from the village for all time. However, while Malchior couldn't enter himself, his powers beyond were still fully effective, and he tore Alynishirad from the town, hurling him to his doom, and destiny.
Demonwood: Home of a million unfulfilled ambitions.
It was a place widely known and feared as a land where no one could pass unmarked. According to the texts of Rorek -even the oldest did not cover the origins of Demonwood- the place and its souls would bind any unfortunate traveler with a karmic binding spell that would reflect some aspect of their life and the victims themselves. The curses often being of a horrific enough nature; anyone afflicted was exiled and forgotten.
In a cruel sense; it was logical that the only one to pass completely unscathed would be the one to use it as a personal torture realm for his less reliable victims. Malchior's homonculi dragged the weakened Alynishirad to the forest's edge, and sacrificed their artificial lives for the dragon, pulling the double-agent in and abandoning him in the center of the wood before crumbling into nonexistence.
It was there that Malchior carried out his final punishment against Alynishirad; intending to create an undying agent of his will. Alynishirad would be the progenitor of a new race that would find themselves evermore slaves to the great dragon’s agenda. Boosting his own spells with the ancient magicks of Demonwood, he carried out the fusion, realizing only too late that the powers of the dreaded forest superseded his own designs. In the end his pawn was a fusion not of man and dragon, but of dragon and lycanthrope. The animalistic side of the being left it stronger than Malchior had anticipated, and enabled it to break not only from his will, but from the boundaries of Demonwood itself.
That ancient spell holds true for Eryth, and its nature will hold true through his children and theirs; a connection between the wolfdemons and blood that may cause a weakness or a strength among those stricken with it.
Eryth was largely sheltered as a child, with his father Maloran being his only guardian in a world that both respected and feared anything beyond human. Being as they were; the two could trust very few individuals around them, and much of Maloran's business was conducted in total secrecy. Save his father, the young wolfdemon spent his early childhood alone and isolated; he simply existed, losing himself in the home's vast library.
While his father went about a myriad of obscure affairs; Eryth remained at the mansion-like hideaway on the east coast without knowing where his father was going or what he was doing. His only real joy came from the books, which he read and re-read many times. Hey never had a photographic memory or the like, but his taste for reading grew to a point that sometimes he would forget when someone was entering or even in the room. The total silence at times began training him in its own way; bringing his patience up to an unimaginable level.
Regrettably, the peaceful yet lonely time did not last forever.
There was one week in January, when Maloran left on one of his usual assignments and failed to return that night. Eryth managed to feed and support himself for the next several days, reasoning at first that his father had merely encountered several unavoidable delays. His father always returned home from his work, rarely betraying emotion or offering any information on what he had been doing.
By February however, supplies were running low and Eryth couldn’t risk even stealing food and returning lest someone follow him and discover his home.
His father had been gone for over three weeks by then, and the young wolfdemon found himself leaving the only home he had ever known with what food he had managed to steal. Money was of little use to him at the time as no one he knew would react at all positively to a ten year old werewolf. Heading west, he avoided as many major cities and population centers in the earliest days of his travels. Nighttime travel seemed the safest at the time as he was almost never seen. On the rare occasions where he was spotted, he began making use of his abilities; both natural and supernatural. He quickly found that as young as he was, he possessed considerable strength, speed, and stamina. It was during one such close call that he first began making use of his lightning-based abilities, often using the blasts as distractions. Destroying nearby cars when spotted typically seemed the best tactic as he found people had a peculiar attachment to them.
Coast City became his eventual destination. Located on the western coast, it was something of a haven for other superhumans and he felt that as long as he didn’t fall on the bad side of the city’s resident protectors-without-fear, he would be largely overlooked. Taking up residence in an abandoned building, he began trying to organize some semblance of a life in the city. The city’s acceptance of odder-looking beings notwithstanding, he still felt that his present was best concealed.
In the months following however, concealment became all the harder. As the heroes Eryth believed would provide a natural mask for his presence found themselves drawn away by other concerns, newer, younger,
would-be heroes began making their way into the spotlight. Despite recognizing that he could perhaps join in what seemed merely to be a trend, Eryth endeavored to remain hidden.
At least, until one morning when two correspondingly self-styled “super villains” crashed through the ceiling and woke the young wolfdemon by landing on him as he slept.
Instantaneous electrocution was the predictable response and the blast of lightning was sufficient to draw the attention of the one responsible for depositing the hapless intruders on his back. It was in a foul mood that Eryth first made the acquaintance of “The Sonic Spider”, a superhuman roughly his own age possessing all the social graces Eryth seemed to lack, and as Eryth felt at the time; missing all sense of modesty and dignity that he himself felt he had.
Initially, barbed nicknames were tossed back and forth between the two and it wasn’t long before “Fuzzy” and “Webs” -it hardly needed to be guessed which of the two was more annoyed with his name- were out over the same areas. Eryth preferred to operate during the night as opposed to broad daylight (The Sonic Spider initially protested the timing due to a lack of fan presence during the night hours) and preferred to let the police make the first move against any disturbance, causing Webs to point out several times that ordinary police could hardly be expected to deal with some of Coast City’s more...unusual troublemakers.
Both were forced to give in on the points of the other at times, though the partnership thrived and eventually Eryth had worked himself to the point that he was known to make jokes occasionally and sometimes express something that Webs jokingly claimed was a concept supposed to be alien to him known as “civility”.
Eventually and after several years operating in the same area however, Eryth and Webs left Coast City, striking out on their own, though promising to at least keep in touch. Eryth wasn’t certain at the time where his friend had gone, though he himself struck out for the neighboring Jump City in an effort to fit in with a younger crowed of heroes,hoping that at least the similar age range would suit him better than hiding in Coast City ever did.
Proving how little location changed lifestyle however, he was attacked almost immediately upon entering the city by a group of supervillains consisting of a hulking mountain of muscle, a small boy with technological expertise surpassing his diminutive height, a young man attempting to emulate someone from a back issue of “Captain America”, a one-eyed pervert, and a thin boy covered entirely in black robes. Engaging them, he managed to defeat the tech wizard and the shield-user.
The other three proved more problematic and Eryth would have been in trouble if he himself hadn’t been rescued at the last second by a second group of super-powered people. His first impression upon meeting Jump City’s signature superhero team was even worse than his initial impression of Webs.
Two members of the team seemed quite skilled and reasonable; one of the two he even recognized as a protege from Gotham. Of the other three; one of them seemed to send mixed signals, one attempted to ruffle his ears on sight, and his opinion of the fifth member of the team he politely kept to himself.
The fact that everyone in the group lived in an awkwardly gigantic T-shaped building on a small island in the middle of the bay absolutely horrified him.
Turning down an invitation to at least stay at the Tower for a short time, Eryth left the group, muttering something about “dangerously unsafe living conditions” and found a room without much trouble in the heart of the city. Jump City continued the change in him that Webs had started. He had come to realize that while most people were generally morons, their minds and hearts were at least in the right place and among superhumans at least, he didn’t have to hide from everyone. Over time he even began to develop what others might have once recognized a sense of humor about fights.
It was several months into his solo operations that he found himself embroiled in another fight alongside the Teen Titans and gradually drawn into a social circle of his own...
Theme SongsThe Wizard - Black Sabbath
The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell - David Bowie
Basic Information[/u]
Name: Hikari Kagura
Alias: Screwball
Age: 18
Legal Status: Vigilante/heroine
Marital Status: Single
Physical InformationHeight: 5‘10“
Weight: Unknown
Eye Color: Red
Hair Color: Black, often pulled into a ponytail.
Clothes: Relatively normal in appearance save her red eyes, Hikari Kagura is a young Japanese woman of average height. Keeping her long black hair back in a ponytail
Powers: [*]Physical invulnerability. Knives, bullets, tank shells, they all just bounce off/crumple against her.
[*]Personal field of gravity alteration. Screwball is capable of altering gravity’s affect on her. She can make herself lighter or heavier at will, and even change which direction she is pulled in. Anywhere may be a floor to her.
Weaknesses: [*]Only physical invulnerability. Screwball is still perfectly susceptible to mental attacks attacks. Furthermore, unlike most superhumans who have super strength paired with invulnerability, Screwball’s strength and stamina are only that of a physically fit human girl. If dropping from a mile up to crush a tank causes her to be buried and tangled up in the debris, she will most likely be stuck and unable to free herself (to say nothing of the potential for smoke inhalation or the like).
Background InformationPersonality: While Hikari is relatively normal in appearance, she is seen by many as anything but normal in personality. Seemingly determined to be as odd as possible, she often gives others cause to question her sanity. She is outgoing to the point of “too friendly” and sometimes ends up pushing people away in her efforts to get closer to them. How long it takes her to get a clue as to what she’s done depends on how vocal a response she gets from the other person.
Aforementioned acts of weird include sitting upside down in chairs during meetings or walking on walls/ceilings when the urge strikes her. Also, she does not seem to “walk to” as she does “tumble wildly towards”.
History: For most people in pop culture, SCIENCE! has become a term unto itself. Any experiment seeming devoid of logic and reason but having all the trappings of real-world study is simply referred to by such a term.
All capitals and exclamation point included. Occasionally...a dramatic pause is used...as well.
In the case of the heroine who would come to call herself Screwball, the term applies to much of her life. Her life both with her family and on her own has been lived at the expense of and for...SCIENCE!
Hikari and her twin brother Hikaru were born to Hideki and Hitomi Kagura; geneticists working in the field of metahuman research. The twins practically lived at their parents’ laboratory and grew up seeing entire rooms covered in fluid tanks, pipes, and brightly lit consoles. While they were never allowed to witness any of the work their parents did, they soon came to know the hallways of the facility well, even being able to navigate the myriad passageways in the dark. Home schooled with other children whose parents worked at the facilities, the two of them managed to find at least one friend among their peers. Erya was a shy girl who rarely socialized with the other students and who seemed paranoid about even being touched by anyone.
It wasn’t until the twins were twelve that they discovered just what their parents did for work.
The lab Hideki and Hitomi worked at was one of numerous Super Human Augmentation Research/Development facilities scattered across the world. The mysterious CEO never showed his face that anyone could recall, though he seemed to have an intimate knowledge as to just what went on.
As if the boss’s odd lack of presence were not enough, Hikaru uncovered a file listing both numerous heroes who had been given powers through experimentation and an even longer list of subjects who hadn’t survived the rigorous procedures.
Terrified of what they had found, they were on the verge of confronting their parents when the building was rocked by a series of explosions. Separated from her brother, she ran through the lab trying to find an exit, her memory of the layout forgotten in the panic. Stopping briefly as a flash caught her eye, she caught sight of a lone figure moving quietly through the smoke and flames. Through the thick air, she barely had time to glimpse a hooded form standing in the center of the inferno gesturing sharply. Before she could approach him however, he pointed an arm sharply in her direction.
Seconds later, Hikari blacked out and could only recall the vague sensation of being carried quickly before she awoke once more, deposited roughly near an emergency exit. Stumbling through the door, she made her way across the street to where other survivors had gathered. She glimpsed Erya only briefly before her friend vanished, but couldn’t see the rest of her family.
That afternoon she watched in horror as the building collapsed.
Several months later while living with her grandparents in New York, Hikari managed to find the cause of the explosion. The photograph on the front of that morning’s paper showed a balding man with twin mechanical eye implants and a distinct scar running down the center of his face. He was a scientist from Japan -as her parents had been- and had sabotaged one of the reactors in the sub-basement, overloading nearly every piece of machinery in the building. He had fled back to Tokyo, taking with him the Kaguras’ research on genetic grafting. While he was eventually caught by law enforcement and the research returned, Hikari remained infuriated that she had never been able to bring him down herself. She had been completely powerless to save her family and powerless to bring their murderer to justice.
The answer to her dilemma was obvious. She had her parents’ notes, and all that was left was to track down someone willing to use them. She couldn’t leave the States and genetic researchers weren’t exactly waiting on street corners. She briefly considered trying to get the attention of one of the local heroes in the country, but the idea seemed absurd the second she thought of it.
It was another year before her crazed desire for powers finally abated and she settled into the life of a normal high schooler. On the surface, she seemed at peace with herself and her past, but inside a little voice still nagged her and she was often caught daydreaming about having powers.
The desire returned in full force in the spring before her birthday.
Earlier in the quarter, she had heard both students and teachers talking about one of the boys in her chemistry class starting to excel not only in academics, but in sports as well. The rumors had built up, but at the time she had thought little of them, not even catching the boy’s name. Indeed, she had nearly forgotten about them until one night when she was in the middle of a homework assignment and happened to glance out her bedroom window. A sudden movement had caught her eye, and she had nearly dismissed it as an animal until she saw the person outside push off from the ground below and launch himself straight to the rooftop.
A quick check of the address later and the realization that someone her own age had managed to acquire superhuman abilities relit the fire within her and she began following local papers the next day, hoping to find some sign or mention of the new hero if not his operating territory itself. Despite her best efforts however, he was either determined to keep a low profile, or reporters felt little need to report on any hero who wasn’t a page-one-headline.
What was making the headlines however, was a report on a growing number of children going missing from their homes. The police were fearing the worst in abduction, and Hikari’s own grandparents soon started escorting her too and from school and friends’ houses. Following the case to occupy her time, she didn’t notice a minor news piece from two months prior in one of her grandfather’s papers that he often had shipped from Japan.
“Saboteur of Super Human Augmentation Research/Development facility escapes Prison!”
It was afternoon in the library when Hikari made an odd connection in the kidnappings. Every child abducted was between the ages of 12 and 15. Fearing for herself, she was about to call and tell her grandparents when a hand clamped over her shoulder. The sunglasses he wore hid his eyes, but she recognized the jagged scar on his face instantly.
Before she could react, she was drugged and knocked unconscious. She didn’t recover until the van she was in was well outside the city limits. Blindfolded, she felt herself dragged roughly down a flight of steps before the blindfold was remove and she was thrown into a brightly lit room. Looking around, she was surprised to find that she was not alone. Around her on cots or the floor were children. All but one of them had been kidnapped (it seemed the one had simply wandered into the area happily and didn’t even care when she had been locked in the bright room). Eventually after a day in the room and witnessing the arrival of two more children, the saboteur returned and faced them all. Seated between the apparent airhead and an albino, Hikari listened with a mix of horror and fascination as the plan for the children was outlined. An army of young superhumans, all under the control of a collection of rogue scientists. They would be returned to their families as sleeper agents with powers which would only be activated when their masters wished it. Even as the explanation went on, Hikari found herself focusing only on one thing.
She was going to be given superpowers.
She was both scared and elated. Somehow, sooner or later, she vowed that she would break whatever control was placed on her and use whatever powers she was given to fulfill her promise of vengeance.
MINORVILLAINSSECOND!
GENERAL INFORMATIONName: Karla Von Schwarz
Alias: Zahnräder (“Zahn")
Age: 18 (ceased aging at 15, continued function as PEM for 3 years)
Gender: Female
Race: N/A
Birthplace: Nuremburg, Germany
Birth date: July 12
Occupation: H.I.V.E. Mercenary
Martial Status: Alignment Villain
BACKGROUND INFORMATION Powers
[*]A Persistent Energy Machine has replaced Zahn’s heart and mind. The alien device houses a unique energy matrix that processes thought and movement at the same time and is wired to a series of six motors throughout her body; one in her head, and one each for her major limbs. There is an extra sixth motor directly behind the PEM that can be used to power any number of attachments/upgrades linked through her back. It is worth noting that with the location of such a central device, Zahn is perfectly capable of surviving without her “head”.
[*]Save the highly advanced PEM (Persistent Energy Machine) in her core, Zahn is almost entirely mechanical in nature. Her joints are gears and hinges, her muscles are belts and chains, and in every area save her face, her “skin” is a tempered steel alloy. She is bulletproof, tireless, and possesses a greater sprinting speed and reaction time than humans.
[*]Flight. That sixth motor? Hooked to a jetpack.
Strengths:
[*] Having lived with her mechanical body for three years, Zahn is adept at diagnosing problems and making self-repairs. In fact, that aspect of her life has left her a highly skilled mechanic in general.
[*]While not necessarily a “strength" or a “power" per se, Zahn's flight suit contains many pockets which in turn contain odds and ends such as small blowtorches, extra wiring, clippers, pliers, and other various tools she might need for emergency field repairs.
Weaknesses:
[*]Despite the numerous advantages of her body, Zahn has her own unique set of limitations. While pieces of her body can be repaired/replaced, it is something she must do herself or have someone else do for her. Additionally, acquiring the parts may prove difficult at times, particularly if a hand or other unique part is damaged/destroyed. Also, while she doesn't tire, parts do wear out and require replacing. This is particularly true of any of the belts and gear chains that make up her muscle structures. Such parts require visual inspection, as she cannot “feel" whether they are wearing out or not and if she goes too long without replacing them, they may break and render a limb useless at the most inopportune of moments.
[*]While the PEM possesses its own unique resistance to electrical attacks that would otherwise ravage or destroy electronic systems, lightning-based attacks will briefly scramble Zahn's functions.
[*]Even if the central location of the PEM allows Zahn to survive without her head, the loss of it will render her deaf, mute, and blind all at once.
Appearance:
[*]Hair: Black
[*]Eyes: Green
[*]Height: 5’2”
[*]Weight: 100 lbs
[*]Clothes: Zahn does her best to disguise her nature as a way to throw off her enemies. She wears a blood-red flight suit with black boots and gloves and a dark red helmet with black and white strips along its sides. The ensemble is completed with a white face mask and goggles with green lenses. Beneath the mask however, is a young girl's face that would seem cute to most people, but due to its artificial nature seems instead to exist unnervingly in the “uncanny valley". Her lips never precisely match what she's saying.
Personality: Very polite, almost apologetic towards her enemies, Zahn is a methodical and studious girl who still forgets once in a while that not everyone can fix a sprained wrist with a monkey wrench. This civil demeanor can vanish the instant she becomes stressed however, at which point she will launch into a tirade of insults that make little to no sense.
Despite even her skeletal structure’s toughness and her own exterior plating’s durability, she’s still very paranoid about being damaged and tries to avoid intense physical combat as much as possible. She prefers to rely on mid-long range tactics and weapons, or at the very least; hit and run maneuvers if punching and kicking is unavoidable.
Finally, she’s paranoid about more advanced robotics because as she puts it “No one else gets to shove their hands into my vorkings.”
Background information: The life of Zahnräder is...to be perfectly blunt, unremarkable for much of her eighteen years of existence. Her family moved to the United States shortly after she was born, and the young Karla Von Schwarz grew up in Maine. It was dreary, rainy, and if the looney bin local author was to be believed, every town contained at least one alcoholic and one promiscuous woman whom said alcoholic was cheating on his wife with.
It wasn’t until Karla’s fifteenth birthday when she was on a nature hike with a group of friends that everything changed.
And by “everything changed”, it is meant that “she died”.
Sort of.
One of her friends caught sight of something glowing with a faint bluish light in the ground and after some digging, the three girls and four boys had dug up a strange looking sphere. The “shell” of it was a golden lattice of thin, gleaming arches and skeins that seemed to contain the pulsing light they’d spotted from a distance.
Unfortunately, as they passed it around to look at it, Karla’s fingers brushed the glow within and her body erupted in a flash of pale fire. Seconds later, her friends fleeing in terror, a scorched outline in the grass and the undamaged relic were all that remained.
And there Karla’s consciousness sat for several hours. The shock of a transfer had rendered her addled and unable to properly perceive anything. What felt like an eternity before she began to figure out her new “form” was in fact only two days. Her family retrieved her and, unable to bear looking at the alien device until an expert could be called in, left the strange relic in the back of their van.
Whether the device adjusted to the new consciousness with in it or whether Karla figured out how to “control” her new form is still unknown. The day after her family brought “her” back, the golden sphere unfolded several of its tendrils and latched them into key points of the vehicle’s interior. In that instant, she was the van. That same instant was when she realized she couldn’t remain with her family. Aside from the fact that she no longer had a proper human “body”, the idea of letting her family “sit in her” was weirder than she cared to try and understand.
And so it was that she first took control of machinery linked up to her “shell” and fled.
Or did her best to anyway. She found she could “see” through the van’s rear camera and “speak” through the radio, but steering in reverse was a task more complicated than she could properly handle and her getaway ended within an hour after she smashed through two other vehicles and shattered her camera. Steering blind, she drove herself into the ocean.
The darkness lasted for an unknown length of time before she washed up on a shoreline. It was a fisherman who found the van and noticed the strange relic in the back. Puzzling over the demolished vehicle whose radio kept screaming pleas for help in a distorted mix of German and English at him, he eventually stuck an old microphone against the sphere and pushed the cable against one of the golden tendrils that was holding Karla’s “shell” in place.
For the first time since her transformation, Karla could both speak and hear. Both abilities were limited, but the return of at least those two capabilities was enough.
She spent about two years with the fisherman, who also ran a small mechanic shop out of his home’s basement. Within a year, he’d constructed a more proper “body” for the sphere. It was rudimentary to say the least; not much more than an old mannequin with a video camera for a head, old hearing aids for ears, and a tiny speaker mounted on the camera’s underside. Of course while this “body” returned her head’s functions once the sphere was nestled inside its torso and the tendrils had hooked up to the instruments, it still lacked the capability of independent movement.
The first solution saw the torso removed from the legs and replaced with the base of a lawnmower. There was still the problem of arms, but for the time being, Karla was content to move about and explore the house and workshop of her benefactor. In that time, she began to absorb and memorize everything he did when repairing and fixing. As any teenager would, she was rapidly becoming bored.
It was another six months before the fisherman managed to rig a rudimentary arm set made of small model boat motors, pulleys, gears, and fishing line. The hands used were simply plastic grabbing claws, cheaply bought and easily rigged.
From that point on, Karla began stealing.
When her benefactor wasn’t looking, she would swipe various tools and parts from the workship, hiding them in an old box out behind the house. She was grateful for the new lease on life, but she was rapidly becoming tired of resembling a macabre toy, and was even more infuriated with the nickname he’d started giving her; Gears.
Eventually, she left the old body made from a puppet and a lawnmower. Her four foot tall new body wasn’t perfect, but it was humanoid, possessed individual fingers, and the gear and belt systems she’d rigged into the arms were stronger than even human muscle. Looting the entire shop and leaving the old body in the living room, she loaded the stolen parts into the fisherman’s truck and left.
Eight months later, the being known as Zahnräder had upgraded and added to herself, practically creating a new body with greater stature, vastly improved strength, and greater perceptive capabilities than she’d ever dreamed of. She could once again pass for a human -unless someone got a good look- and as far as she was concerned, the world was her’s to enjoy forever.
Three months later she was contacted by a representative from the Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination.
GENERAL INFORMATIONName: Klaus Blecher
Alias: Steppenwolf
Age: Unknown, appears to be in early 30s
Gender: Male
Race: Human - lab experiment.
Birthplace: Unknown
Birth date: April 12
Occupation: H.I.V.E. Mercenary
Martial Status: Unknown
Alignment Villain
BACKGROUND INFORMATION Powers
[*]At will, Steppenwolf can transform from an ashen-skinned if otherwise normal looking human into a towering being of metal plates and jointed armor. Perhaps the most notable feature in this state is that he possesses ten eyes in total; five on each side of his head running from front to back. Additionally, eight of these “eyes" can detach and fly about under Steppenwolf's mental control, allowing for a field of vision with almost no blind spots. When necessary, he can cause these eyes to vanish and reappear in his head.
[*]Superior strength. In his “human" state, Steppenwolf can lift seven tons. In his armored form, this strength is amplified tenfold.
Strengths:
[*]Klaus has taken time to study his capabilities, analyze his limits, and thus understands better than most when he is in over his head.
Weaknesses:
[*]Any eye that has forcibly been re-summoned to Steppenwolf's head is unable to detach for another hour. Additionally, his exterior, while extremely durable, is susceptible to heat-based attacks.
Appearance:
[*]Hair:Bald
[*]Eyes: Maroon, turn bright red when armored.
[*]Height: 6'2” normal, 7’ armored
[*]Weight: Unknown. Variable.
[*]Clothes: In his unarmored form, Klaus wears a full suit complete with shirt, tie, vest, and overcoat. All are the same dark shade of gunmetal gray. Eerily enough, his very skin seems to have an ashen look to it as though it were struggling to match the color of his suit.
Personality: Klaus is a fighter who seems to specialize in remaining nearly unreadable. He speaks with no identifiable accent and rarely shows emotion in combat. Taking it a step further, he also prefers not to be addressed by his real name and will go out of his way to ignore anyone speaking to him who uses it. He possesses little tolerance for humor or levity and betrays the barest hint of an emotional reaction to such things in a fight; He almost always tries to silence the wise-guys first.
Background information: There is very little known of the monster who calls himself “Steppenwolf”. He first appeared as an active member of HIVE shortly before its fall and was instrumental in its re-gathering and re-branding as a mercenary group. He presently makes no claim of leadership over the collective of villains but seems content to entertain himself in outings and battles with the younger recruits to the group.