Akelha Sunslayer
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
A lot of information throughout this entry is unknown to anyone other than Akelha and possibly members of her crew, should there be any living survivors. The sections written as reports are accessible to those with the right contacts, while much of the rest is currently unknown. If you intend to interact with me in-game and aren't sure whether a particular piece of information here is discoverable or not, I'll be glad to talk about it in tells (@Mnemnosyne global chat), or post on the Talk page here if you don't seem to catch me in game, which I will try to remember to check regular-like.
| |
| Captain Akelha Shadevari, the Sunslayer. | |
| Akelha Sunslayer | |
| Player: Mnemnosyne | |
| Origin: | Magic/Technology/Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Brute |
| Threat Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Captain Akelha Shadevari |
| Known Aliases: | Captain Akelha Shadevari, the Sunslayer; Captain Shadevari |
| Species: | Seltaine |
| Age: | Confidential |
| Height: | 7'11" |
| Weight: | 561 Lbs. Without armor. |
| Eye Color: | Violet |
| Hair Color: | Blood Red |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Alien |
| Occupation: | Arachnos Agent, Technomagical Arms Dealer |
| Place of Birth: | Ilimandara |
| Base of Operations: | Confidential |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Confidential |
| Known Powers | |
| Confidential | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Confidential | |
| Equipment | |
| Sunslayer Armor, Nawenuma, Idara | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
Affiliations
Survivors from Captain Akelha Shadevari's crew are scattered across Earth. Whether she will regain contact with them or whether they will resume any involvement with each other if they do is unknown.
Works for Arachnos, and has thus far proven herself a loyal and supportive member of the organization since her joining.
Joined as a member of Vanguard as she rose in power, and has since worked diligently when called forth into the Rikti War Zone until her disappearance.
Personality
Akelha's personality seems to be appropriate for the task at hand, most of the time. She tends to be reasonably friendly in friendly conversation, all business when engaged in official work or business transactions, and a reasonable, straightforward individual most of the time. While she has no apparent code of ethics or morality, she finds it convenient to be honest and forthright 99% of the time. That way, the other 1% nobody ever thinks you're lying. While she is brilliant and capable of making observations and decisions near instantaneously, she often delays purposely to make others feel more comfortable, since humans tend to be used to having to think about things. This occasionally leads her to pause for too long or too often in a conversation, as despite her apparent genius and rapid acquisition of technical expertise, she seems a little slower at picking up on the subtle nuances of human interaction, being used to something similar but not quite the same. The closeness to her familiarity is likely causing some delay in picking up the details.
Powers
Akelha's powers are a technomagical blend that stems from her own magical ability as well as the artifacts she possesses, and the technological constructs she has created such as her Sunslayer Armor, in addition to her natural qualities as an alien species.
Natural
Akelha is naturally superior to humans in nearly every way due to her species. She is considerably stronger than normal humans, although her natural un-amplified strength is lesser than what is generally required to be called super strength. She is extremely agile and quick, as well as being extremely perceptive, able to analyze a situation and spot details immediately. Her hearing and vision are vastly superior to humans, and she's able to see the electromagnetic spectrum between high-frequency radio waves through microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma rays, and all the way to cosmic rays. Furthermore, she is able to audibly perceive sounds ranging between ultra-low-frequency to high-frequency radio.
Arachnos Biology Report:
Physical resemblance to humans is primarily superficial, with over 80% of subject's biology being entirely alien. Genetic studies and observations of cellular regeneration show an astonishing capability for continued life, with no apparent natural limit on her lifespan. Subject's age cannot be determined, as cell replication leaves no evidence of how many cellular generations have existed prior to the current one. Subject's genetic structure is difficult to interpret, but seems to confirm subject's explanation that the species lacks gender differences and all members are able to both bear offspring and impregnate others.
Subject appears immune to disease. Virus interactions are unique, with cells readily absorbing viral components then beginning a light-based reaction that incinerates the cell and virus, followed by the missing cell's replacement. Viral infection seems impossible. Subject also has no natural bacteria, including any forms of symbiotic bacteria that are necessary for human life. All of subject's cells seem to double as immune cells, and all foreign particles are immediately attacked and neutralized via light-based incineration. Note: If a bacteria or virus were incapable of being incinerated, subject may have no viable defense mechanism.
Use and distribution of energy approaches 99%. Digestion system replaces stomach acid with a series of biological nano-disassemblers, tearing apart all intake particles at the subatomic level and rearranging the atomic particles into an efficient molecular structure for the system's consumption. While subject has a considerably higher ratio of body mass to energy requirement than any other known organism, the digestive system manages this by making all food intake efficient in the extreme. Bodily waste is nearly nonexistent, with a bladder-like organ containing the few particles impossible to process into energy for the body. Current calculations indicate that with the subject's standard rate of food consumption, this waste will not reach capacity to be expelled for 1,312 years. Unused nutrients are expelled from the body in both liquid and solid form, with liquid produced as breast milk.[1] This occurs when the subject consumes more food than her body is capable of using.
Muscle strength exceeds 280% of humans when adjusted for mass and muscle density. Subject's muscles appear to undergo involuntary exercise, with individual muscle cells contracting and expanding when subject is at rest. Although if this was random, probability would dictate muscle twitching to be common, there appear to be careful patterns of organization preventing sufficient simultaneous cellular activity to produce a twitch.
Subject's sensory organs are developed beyond any known species and beyond any single technological sensory device. Her eyes are capable of seeing the electromagnetic spectrum between 105Hz and 1028Hz, while her ears are of hearing as low as 10Hz to as high as 109Hz. Her vision and hearing overlap, allowing the reception of some of the same portions of the EM spectrum. Subject does not currently appear capable of understanding the content of broadcasts and transmissions, but may eventually learn to decipher them.
Subject's nervous system is composed of biological fiber-optic lines, and is entirely light-based. Scans of her brain are difficult to interpret, but it is theorized that it functions as a photonic quantum computer. Subject has demonstrated instantaneous reaction times, seeming limited only by the physical ability of her muscles to react. This appears to have resulted in a complete lack of reflexes - rather than reflexively reacting, she is capable of making an intelligent and conscious decision on her reaction to any stimulus in less time than a human would require in order to respond reflexively. Her ability to process the vast amount of sensory information she receives from her highly developed sensory organs is also believed to be due to her photonic quantum computer-brain.
It is highly improbable that a species with these characteristics could evolve naturally. Biologically, the subject and her species were almost certainly purposely designed. This is particularly apparent in her genetic makeup where, as far as has so far been understood, there are no dormant genes.
Magic
Akelha is a powerful sorceress capable of using a wide variety of magic, but much of this is complex and not particularly suited to the fast-paced super-powered battles she has encountered on Earth. Some of her spells are more powerful than the vast majority of native magic-users are capable of, but require minutes, hours, or days of preparation and have short durations unsuited to a life of combat against superpowered individuals without such limitations. Therefore, she rarely uses her more advanced magical abilities, relying instead on her artifacts and her technomagical suit to carry her through battle. Her two swords, the katana Nawenuma and the wakizashi Idara are both powerful magical weapons, drawing power from their wielder.
M.A.G.I. Arcane Report:
Akelha Shadevari has been careful to limit her use and display of magic since arriving on Earth. Standard mystical probing has been inconclusive, as her protections are powerful enough to deflect most detailed divinations and probes. Her constant protections have so far shown complete resistance to being dispelled, and whether they are innate to her being or simply cast at such a high level they cannot be dispelled is difficult to determine. She has made it a point to display some ability with magic, even in anti-magic fields and through other attempts at counterspelling and suppression, but never displays extreme magical power. It is likely the small displays she makes are the extent of her power while properly suppressed, but there is the possibility that she is still capable of more powerful magic even with anti-magic fields in place. She must never be allowed to be without powerful enough magical suppression as it is likely she will be able to teleport away if given sufficient time in such a state.
Her katana, which she names Nawenuma, is powerfully enchanted, made of an unknown green metal, and overlaid with numerous spells in a web too complex to identify. The weapon does not appear to be an evil artifact, and is currently not suspected of being sentient. A certain degree of magical ability is required to even lift the blade, as in the hands of an individual with no magical ability, the blade increases its own weight until it is released or falls from the individual's grip. Super strength has so far not been sufficient to counteract this, as the blade continues to gain weight increasing exponentially as long as it is carried by a non magic user. There appears to be a limited exception to this when a non-magical individual is under the effects of a magical spell or item, in that the blade's weight will increase at a much slower pace. Proper use of the blade requires a level of knowledge and understanding of its magic that we do not yet have, as the blade, while powerful in itself, seems to require the wielder to supply personal arcane power to make effective use of it. Her offhand wakizashi, Idara, is nearly identical to the katana, but the spell weave on it is slightly less potent, and the observed effects are slightly weaker.
Technology
Akelha is highly knowledgeable in technology as well as magic, and seems to have perfected blending the two together into technomagical devices. The Sunslayer Armor is the primary device she uses, all others mainly being incorporated into this. Custom-built, the armor draws off her own magical power, containing it and feeding it back into her and her actions. It maintains powerful regeneration spells on her, allows her to move at tremendous speed, provides added strength and protection. Furthermore, the armor repairs itself as well as regenerating her. She also constructs a variety of technomagical weapons and armor for sale. These devices are all uniquely made by Akelha, and she closely guards the secrets of their construction with dangerous booby-traps should the buyers attempt to reverse-engineer them. Beyond such protections, technological side, devised by Akelha entirely from Earth technology[2] is worthless without the unique magic that only Akelha and perhaps the others of her crew are familiar with.
D.A.T.A. Tech Report:
External armor plating is composed of a material we've only seen in the Sunslayer's arms and armor. The metal is composed of a highly unstable element that rapidly undergoes gamma decay when separated from the main body of the suit. The unusual properties of the suit and the separated metal make a full study of the atomic structure impossible. The suit itself seems resistant to all forms of scanning, as TEM, SEM, REM, and STEM[3] have all failed to resolve any image whatsoever - the suit appears to capture electrons fired at it and release them in a controlled fashion. How this is accomplished is not yet understood. Metal removed from the suit lacks this mechanism. The atoms appear to begin undergoing gamma decay within seconds of being removed from the suit. Direct handling by humans has proven hazardous due to this fact and all testing must be accomplished through remote-controlled robotics.
Scanning of the suit when it is inactive reveals no energy sources. It appears to be entirely inert. Internal scans are impossible due to the aforementioned electron capture and release, but this behavior is not understood. The suit energizes on most attempts to interact with it, a small amount of detectable power running uniformly throughout the armor with no apparent source. Cutting external armor plating off of the suit causes internal circuitry and mechanics to first melt down into a fused pile of metal, then undergo gamma decay. Only once the external shell is repaired do the internal systems repair themselves. Furthermore, an exponential increase in gamma decay has been noted when larger portions of the suit are damaged simultaneously. Calculations indicate that at the exponential rate of increase, should the mass of the entire suit go into simultaneous gamma decay, a gamma ray burst of 1.0056 seconds would be produced on the surface of the Earth.[4] Continued study on the suit is being postponed indefinitely due to safety concerns.
Study of the combat locations where Akelha Shadevari was captured show no evidence of gamma radiation, despite her suit taking reasonable levels of damage in the combat. Medical tests on all PPD personnel present also show no signs of gamma radiation. This is inconsistent with laboratory analysis of the suit, and suggests the gamma decay observed is a defensive measure to prevent study or destruction of the suit. It is likely that whatever control method maintains the stability of the atoms as long as the suit is in one piece also controls their decay when the suit is damaged while being worn.
Character History
Note again that much of this information is not known to anyone other than Akelha herself, and is noted here only for the sake of relative completeness. If it does not seem reasonable that others would be aware of a fact, they probably aren't.
Before Earth
Little to nothing is currently known about Akelha's time before arriving on Earth. She is known to have been a Captain of a magically powered spacecraft, but beyond that she has never gone into detail about her pre-Earth life, though she commonly makes comments comparing to something or another. Unfortunately these are occasionally conflicting.
Arrival on Earth
Thrust into the middle of a Rikti attack, Akelha's ship arrived by unknown means in high orbit above Earth. Before she could understand the situation, her ship, poorly equipped for space ship-to-ship combat against technologically advanced foes, was obliterated by a few blasts from Rikti weapons. It's magical Helm overloaded moments after she ordered her crew to abandon ship, taking a few Rikti vessels with it as Akelha plummeted to Earth. With no plans in place for such an eventuality, the crew was dispersed and scattered across the planet with no means to contact each other, as they lacked the technology to do so, and had not arranged for magical contact. Beyond this, they feared the unknown and apparently immensely powerful enemies that destroyed their ship would detect any communication attempts.
Initial Contact
Landing and Discovery
Akelha fell to Earth in southern Maine, and awoke from her landing to find herself just being discovered by a group of vacationing hunters. Eight foot tall black women laying in a small crater being beyond their personal experience, they did what any conscientious normals would. They panicked. Some of them made threatening gestures with their guns, and all of them were shouting in what to Akelha, was an incomprehensible language. Realizing immediately - due to their disorganization - that these weren't military officers sent to investigate her arrival, she drew her swords and struck out at them with magic and steel. The one who was still pointing his weapon threateningly at her disintegrated instantly, Akelha willing to take no chances. The others who made threatening gestures she attacked and killed with her swords, and the remaining three she imprisoned in a forcecage. Leaving them there for the time being, she set off to follow their trail.
Acclimation and Learning
When she discovered their cabin at the end of their trail, she examined the area and determined that no one had traveled here via magic recently - indeed, there seemed to be nothing magical in the area whatsoever. She took a number of minutes to identify the purpose of the two SUVs parked near the cabin, but once she realized they were vehicles, she was able to determine they had not left in a number of days at least, and no other similar vehicles had approached recently either. Returning to where she left the others trapped, she secured the humans and transported them back to the cabin, imprisoning them. It took her less than a week to learn enough English to understand and communicate with her prisoners, and after forcing them to give her more information, she was shown their computer and the Internet, which they had access to even in this remote region via satellite internet. A few days later, once she was certain she no longer needed them, she murdered the rest of her prisoners and disintegrated their bodies. She also took care to perform some cleanup around her initial landing site, disintegrating as much evidence of the brief not-quite-fight as she could. The next couple weeks were spent in the cabin, learning as much as she could from the Internet and gaining an astonishingly quick understanding of Earth, and a growing fascination, followed by understanding, of technology. The speed at which she picked up knowledge was incredible, and rather quickly she was hacking into computer systems to learn things that were not freely available.
Law Enforcement
It was some time before anyone reported the hunters missing, as they were on vacation and not expected to return for a while, but eventually they went overdue and concerned friends and family contacted local law enforcement. The sheriff went up to the cabin to investigate, and found Akelha there. Realizing she would not remain undisturbed any longer, she caught and killed him as well, disposing of the body via disintegration, then decided to leave the area as soon as she finished cleaning up evidence. Even trace magical residue she considered 'evidence' and prepared the proper magic to nullify this residue, coming near to completely eliminating all traces of her presence at the cabin. After obtaining detailed maps of the area, she took one of the SUV's and left in it, heading for Paragon City. Having learned that 'supers' are common there, she realized it would be the most likely place to draw the least attention.
Paragon City
Paragon University
After making a circuitous journey to arrive in Paragon City - as well as ditching the SUV and disintegrating it as well, she made her way into Paragon City. There was still a great deal for Akelha to learn, and while there were better places to do this than the university, Paragon University had a very open policy, especially for superheroes, who could use the facilities whenever they wanted at no charge. She figured, being eight feet tall and black, no one would even ask for her hero registration when she walked in and acted a hero there to learn. Even so, she took the precaution of making up an ID. She considered actually registering as a hero, but decided that would bring up questions she was unprepared to answer at the time. Her plan worked flawlessly, and for over a month she attended the university regularly, increasing her knowledge of both humans and Earth technology, until she was reading the paper and caught a picture of herself in it. Taken when she was leaving the area she arrived in, she apparently failed to notice a family vacationing at a lake she drove by that happened to catch her passing by in the SUV. The resolution was poor and she was extremely difficult to identify from the picture, as soon as someone noticed the similarity she would be investigated. The timing of her arrival at Paragon University, combined with the fake ID and the picture would draw obvious connections.
Villainous Equipment
She had been around the University enough to be recognizable, and with her continued presence in the area, talented mages would probably be able to penetrate any magical disguise she concocted, given ample focuses to guide their divinations. This had not been a contingency she was completely unprepared for, however. During her time at the university she had been drawing up plans for a suit of powered armor that combined technology with her magic to create what she would call Sunslayer Armor. She had been planning to acquire the materials needed in a more mundane fashion, but it was time to step up her work. Unfortunately in addition to materials, some of the design still needed finishing and she knew of only one place she could get the materials and the final data she required. Crey Industries. She did as much research as she could, picking the correct lab and using divinations to determine her exact target location, assault route, security plans, and so forth. She prepared her magical defenses, and left for the Crey base. By the time she returned it was clear she had been overly concerned about the mission, as her planning, reconnaissance, and magic had gotten her through the mission with no unanticipated problems, and no heroes showed up to stop her. This raid netted some of the most vital parts of her armor, and she now held the data disk with the classified information she would need to complete its design. Over the next few weeks she worked diligently to steal the remaining necessary parts from lesser Crey bases as well as other tech industries and construct the Sunslayer Armor.
Supervillain Graduation
With her Sunslayer Armor finally finished, Akelha now had a reasonable source of on-demand combat ability. In order to test the armor, she planned and executed a direct attack against one of the firms contracted to study Rikti technology by the Vanguard. The test proved a resounding success, the Sunslayer Armor meeting and at times exceeding Akelha's initial expectations. She defeated the standing security forces in direct combat handily, and when a pair of heroes showed up in response to the alarms, she proved more than a match for both of them, sending them off in a flash of the medical teleporters. With the successful raid behind her, she was now truly a supervillain.
Technomagical Arms Dealer
There was still a lot of upgrading to do on the Sunslayer Armor - it was effective but far from the perfected bastion of combat technomagic that Akelha saw as its full potential. However, Akelha realized that even a supervillain was a lone supervillain in a city of heroes, and as powerful as her armor was, from the reports she had read she knew for a fact that it was not yet anywhere near in the leagues to stand against Earth's premier superheroes. Should she happened to catch the attention of one of the big-name heroes, she'd still be done for. It wasn't long before she realized a good way to make a living, gain potential allies, and still remain relatively obscure was to supply her unique technomagical arms and armor to anyone who was willing to deal with her. A week of work setting up the website, offshore bank accounts, and appropriating herself a properly hidden lair with the potential for some better equipment than she had at her previous hiding spot, and she began 'advertising' her services in person, committing a few relatively simple crimes around Paragon City in as flashy and showy a manner as possible to show off the capabilities of her Sunslayer Armor as a sort of 'demo model'.[5] Within a month she had business from the Skulls, the Hellions, the Freakshow, the Circle of Thorns, the Family, the Council, along with street thugs and pretty much every other organized group in the city and even common street thugs. Even Crey Industries came to purchase some of her gear, with the intention of backward-engineering it and reproducing it themselves.[6] Rumor has it even a few heroes have purchased their equipment from the Sunslayer, justifying the transaction with the good they're going to accomplish with the superior defenses and weaponry. Akelha found herself hard pressed to keep up production.
The Sunslayer Captured
The blossoming demand for Akelha's technomagical devices was her undoing. She produced cheap, high-quality goods and sold to anyone, no questions asked.[7] Her weaponry however, was beginning to make a dent on the landscape of Paragon City, supplying previously easily controlled groups with the tools to create serious mayhem. This, combined with the high demand for such cheap high-quality weaponry and armor increased the desire to catch her by official forces and made supplying the demand impossible, and Akelha was forced to take ever more risky steps to increase her production. While at first her supply chains were easy to mask, the increased quantity of materials she had to be constantly bringing in eventually became too large to cover up effectively, and between D.A.T.A. and M.A.G.I. they managed to track down her hidden production facility (which had already been upgraded twice over the last two months) and send a group of heroes to take down the Sunslayer. In the ensuing fight, she apparently dealt some lasting injuries to several of the heroes before their medical teleporters whisked them away, but she was eventually captured and sent to Ziggursky Prison. Her personal armor and weapons were confiscated for study.
M.A.G.I. and D.A.T.A. Stumped
Once in custody, she was remanded to M.A.G.I. for testing on the extent of the necessary anti-magical procedures to keep her from using her magical power while in prison. Meanwhile, her personal armor was sent to D.A.T.A. to see if any substantial information could be gathered from it. Akelha carefully played M.A.G.I., at times low-balling her power while other times doing her level best to appear to be considerably more powerful than she really was. Her magic type and strength allowed her to call on some minimal power even within the most powerful of M.A.G.I.'s containment procedures, and being always careful to make it look easy made the testers concerned that she was intentionally holding back and waiting for a mistake rather than using her full power. Their inability to strip her permanent magical protections was also a source of consternation for them, and Akelha did her best to keep them guessing. Meanwhile, D.A.T.A. was getting nowhere with the protections of her Sunslayer Armor. Previous attempts to study her technomagical armor and weapons by various agencies had caused some gamma detonations, but her armor appeared to be on a scale so far beyond those that it would cause the extinction of life on Earth if it were carelessly detonated. Apparently a weapon of total destruction failsafe device. M.A.G.I. was finally satisfied with the magical bindings they placed on Akelha, and sent her off to the Zig.
Ziggursky Prison
Stone, Steel, and Magic
Akelha's arrival in the Zig was relatively uneventful, just another supervillain coming into the maximum security facility. Her weapons had already made her reasonably well known, especially since some of the inmates had been former customers. Most, satisfied former customers, since the products were high quality and met or exceeded their sales claims. A few were disgruntled, seeing Akelha as an available target to place blame on, blaming her products for their capture. Despite her lack of armor and the suppression of most of her magical ability, Akelha was still a formidable individual due to her natural ability, and well above the weaker inmates that required devices to be anything more than mundane humans. Akelha seemed comfortable in prison, but this was primarily due to the fact that she had already taken into account the possibility of capture and imprisonment. Two separate plans were already functioning and in place, and if one did not function, the other would.
Plan A, for Arachnos
Having foreseen the possibility of capture, Akelha planned possible escape routes. Several contacts among the criminal organizations she had done business with were instructed to set things into motion to break her free as soon as news of her capture was made public. Akelha didn't only entrust people with this, however, which was lucky because most of her contacts turned out to either fail to even try, or their attempts to break her free were so pathetic and laughably executed that even Longbow wasn't needed to prevent them, much less facing an actual hero. Still, a dormant spell was designed to go off if Akelha failed to refresh it periodically. She had done plenty of research, and was well aware[8] that Arachnos had a tendency to break out potentially useful and powerful prisoners from the Ziggursky Prison. That information in hand, Akelha's spell was designed to contact the most identifiable Arachnos agent she knew of who was also the most receptive to magical communication; Ghost Widow. In no way one to come to the bargaining table with a weak position, her contact made an offer that required Arachnos to recover her Sunslayer Armor, Nawenuma and Idara, and free her from the Zig. In exchange she would become an Arachnos agent and maintain an exclusive contract for the construction of precisely defined categories of technomagical weaponry and armor supplied solely to Arachnos.
Arachnos and the Rogue Isles
Arachnos Comes Through
There was never a direct response to Akelha's spell contacting Ghost Widow, but when the Zig was attacked by Arachnos agents that blasted their way to Akelha Shadevari's cell and delivered the Sunslayer Armor, Nawenuma and Idara to her, and extracted her by Arachnos helicopter, Akelha knew she'd gotten her answer. She also suspected Arachnos had read whatever reports D.A.T.A. had made on their studies of the armor, otherwise she thought it likely they would be more interested in studying the armor than returning it to her. Akelha's deal bypassed the typical greeting for breakouts of the Zig, and set her directly to work as an agent of Arachnos. As for the technomagical armor and weaponry, she has managed to enchant a few lesser Arachnos cronies with powerful binding magic forcing them to maintain the secrets of its construction, and set them to work building the physical portions of the devices her contract requires her to provide. Her part is now limited to casting the mighty magic to enchant the technomagical devices.
The Sunslayer and the Furies
Most recently, Akelha was 'encouraged' through her official contacts at Arachnos to either join a division of Arachnos or secure the loyalty of enough Arachnos agents[9] to form one of her own. After some deliberation she chose the former path, deciding that at the moment, command of a division was not her best course of action. Reading the files and reports she was provided with the potential choices, she decided to meet with Naughty Nadya at Recluse's Furies base of operations. The Captain's impression of the Furies between her research and the direct meeting was favorable, and apparently so was Nadya's, as she accepted the transfer immediately, placing Akelha Sunslayer as part of the division under her command.
Vanguard, Against the Rikti
Having spent some time in the Rogue Isles improving the Sunslayer Armor and getting used to the logistics of combat while using it, Akelha eventually came to the attention of Vanguard, who invited her to join up against the Rikti. Not being of the 'forgiving' sort, Akelha has been intending revenge on the Rikti ever since they destroyed her ship, so she eagerly joined up to get a chance to hit them back, as well as learn as much about them as she can in preparation for her real revenge, once she has the time it will take to implement.
The Sunslayer's Nemesis
Various of Akelha's investigations, aided by her own foreign type of magic, were closing in on Lord Nemesis through seemingly unconnected threads - a case of some missing material from her laboratory coinciding with an investigation performed under Vanguard orders and a seemingly unrelated runin with some Nemesis troops. Underestimating the completeness of Lord Nemesis' plans, Akelha set up what she felt would be adequate contingencies before traveling to the remote location her intel seemed to be converging on. They sneaked and fought through a well-concealed Nemesis base crawling with automata, but Lord Nemesis had a reason as-yet unknown to Akelha to eliminate her from the picture. The entire base turned out to be a dimensional trap, stranding Akelha in an alternate dimension thus far unknown. As time passed with no sign of her presence, she was noted by Arachnos as missing in action.
Return to the Rogue Isles
In mid-March 2010, Akelha made a rather sudden return to the Rogue Isles. The long nature of her absence had led her to be declared missing in action, and presumed dead by Arachnos. She immediately contacted the proper authorities and made a full report of her extradimensional 'detainment,' making particularly displeased note of the fact that it was constantly raining in the dimension she was stuck in. Regardless, she was welcomed back to Arachnos, and immediately reallocated lab space, and of course immediate duties attempting to 'catch up' on the missed work during her long absence. She was also given full authority over her own research and development division, answering only to the Arbiters and Lord Recluse, although her relationship with Ghost Widow picked up rather well right where they left off. Her apartment took somewhat longer to re-assign to her, and she has spent some time with a friend she originally met while they served together in the Furies.
Trivia
- Akelha's magical spacecraft and home civilization are inspired by the AD&D Spelljammer setting.
- The Sunslayer title and some of Akelha's pre-Earth history are inspired by The Astromundi Cluster.
- Akelha herself is inspired by elves of various varieties, including Tolkien's Noldor in her height and imposing physique, Dark Elves for the skin color, and The Record of Lodoss War in a variety of minutiae including the extremely long ears.
- The details of Akelha's biology are original - as far as I can tell, at least, since I occasionally think up 'original' ideas and later discover I heard them before.
- Some research effort was put into the details of Akelha's biology and the gamma decay properties of her Sunslayer Armor, attempting to make the reports sound scientifically accurate.
Footnotes
- ↑ Some researchers described her breast milk as tasting smooth and unusually sweet.
- ↑ Along with Rikti and various other alien technologies she learned about on Earth.
- ↑ Various electron microscope scanning types: Transmission Electron Microscope, Scanning Electron Microscope, Reflection Electron Microscope, and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope
- ↑ While this would not physically destroy the Earth, it would blow off the atmosphere and melt the surface.
- ↑ The Sunslayer Armor is unique and vastly more powerful than anything Akelha has been willing to sell.
- ↑ Coincidentally, a Crey research lab was lost to a gamma radiation blast shortly afterward.
- ↑ Beyond necessary security precautions to ensure she wouldn't be apprehended by the law, of course.
- ↑ Despite Paragon City officials trying to keep such news downplayed.
- ↑ Or those willing to become Arachnos agents.
