From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

(Kristen Rau of Vanguard)
Kristen Rau
Player: @Andreah Blackstar
Origin:	Natural
Archetype:	Fortunata Widow
Security Level:	50, fully IO'd
Personal Data
Real Name:	Kristen Rau
Known Aliases:	None
Species:	3/4 Human, 1/4 Feline Hybrid Species
Age:	20 Actual, 26 Equivalent
Height:	5'5"
Weight:	105 lbs.
Eye Color:	Gold
Hair Color:	Blond
Biographical Data
Citizenship:	Confidential
Occupation:	Vanguard Operative
Place of Birth:	Grandville, Gutter District
Current Residence:	Confidential
Marital Status:	Single
Known Relatives:	Mirtha Ray Rau, Henry James Olessney
Known Powers
Teamwork, Fortunata Training, Fortunata Teamwork, Flight, Fitness, Teleportation
Known Abilities
Situational Awareness, Short Term Foresight, Uncanny Insight.
Equipment
Annoyingly Uncomfortable Widow Costume.
Footnotes
Prefers Human Appearance.

Contents 1 Affiliations 2 Personality 3 History 3.1 Early Career 3.2 The Razor 3.3 The Return 3.4 The Transition 4 Powers 5 Equipment 6 Rumors 7 Gallery 8 Other 9 OOC Notes

Affiliations

Kristen Rau is an established Vanguard Operative in good standing, having been on dozens of Mothership Raids, taken down twenty-eight Rikti Drop-ships, a veteran of several Task Forces for Lady Grey, and having earned over twelve thousand Vanguard Merits. Mid-spring of 2010, she was suspended from Vanguard duties after a falsified report of misuse of Vanguard equipment was inserted into her files via cyber-attack. This has been resolved.

Kristen is also in Arachnos Files as a former Fortunata Corps member. Kristen was stripped of formal Fortunata Corps membership and fled the Rogue Isles after attacking and severely injuring an Arachnos Arbiter.

In late summer, 2010, Kristen began working secretly with Agent G of Longbow and is a member in good standing of the Longbow Delta Force.

---

Personality

Kristen behaves in a friendly manner most times, but can exhibit a biting sense of sarcasm. She's somewhat sensitive, by Rogue Islands standards, of her feline heritage, and carries a canister of pepper gas to ward off the inevitable jerks who want to make out with feline hybrids. She's recently changed the mix of components she uses in that -- it no longer has dart-frog nerve toxins; but uses Incapascaline, a meta-human rated combat sedative.

---

History

• Daughter of Henry James Olessney (Human) and Mirtha Ray Rau (Human-Feline Hybrid).

• Born 31 Jan 1990; Grandville, Etoile Islands.

• Inducted into the Hybrid Utilization Corps, 01 Feb 2002.

• Subject assigned to Advanced Tactical Training, 15 Nov 2005.

• Transferred to the Fortunata Corps, Widow Operations Sector, May 2008.

• Escaped Grandville for Imperial City, Praetorian Earth, March 2010.

• Returned to Primal Earth, August 2010.

• Psionicist, non-telepathic talent.

• Kristen is one-quarter feline, with phenotypical features being generally subtly manifested.

Kristen is small-framed yet lithe and fit; but for her natural psionic talents she would have been pressed into Nightwidow service instead of the Fortunata Corps.

Early Career

Kristen's path to the higher Threat Levels had been a reluctant one; her true personal goals in life were basic; to escape the grinding poverty and daily danger of living in the Gutter, or worse, becoming a bordello slave like her mother. At first it seemed Arachnos offered those things and even more. Wealth, power, the ability to make her own decisions, and even autonomy and feeling proud of herself as a person. But the endless shady deals, thefts, kidnappings, bombings, and outright robberies extracted a toll. Once allowed entry into Vanguard, Kristen saw more that could be done. Tasks that while they might be controversial, weren't overtly criminal, and at least accomplished something identifiably positive -- giving the Rikti a piece of her mind. Having reached the pinnacle of advancement in reputation in the Rogue Isles, Kristen began to choose her own tasks and set her own agenda, such as to support the United Nations' Vanguard. Unfortunately, this degree of independence was, in the end, intolerable to the powerful in Arachnos.

The Razor

In August, 2009, Kristen performed research secretly to help Golden Blizzard trace a lead on to the murderers of the Golden Centurion. As part of this, she made a deal with Ghost Widow, and now in December, is being made to perform tasks as payment. Kristen had hoped she'd been clear of Arachnos' dirty works, but was caught up in it again. By March, 2010, despite the Global Defenders' many and difficult attempts to prevent it, she was coerced into helping Ghost Widow resurrect herself; a plot that was only halted in the end by Arbiter Daos' intervention. Kristen was left with the choice of either betraying Ghost Widow and causing an innocent's soul to be forever destroyed, or to be executed for her part in the plot. Kristen rebelled. She invaded a heavily guarded brothel in the Grandville Gutter, kidnapped her mother by teleport, and seized an Arachnos flier from the Black Helicopter Line. With a ready platoon of Arachnos Soldiers in hot-pursuit in another flier, she crash-landed at Portal Corps Headquarters on Peregrine Island, and in an intense firefight, escaped through a portal to Dimension Omicron Pi 12-4; an Earth-like dimension relatively free of conflict and tolerant of meta-humans. Kristen spent several months there, arranging for her mother's residency.

The Return

Kristen had unfinished business in Grandville. Returning to the site of her dimensional travel, she caught a portal-scan and teleported herself into it. Her psionic step through the space brought her all the way back through to the Portal Corps facility on Peregrine Island. Fortunately, she was heavily stealthed and escaped back to Grandville via the Monkey Islands (Cutlass Isles) submarine. Grandville hadn't changed, and most of her contacts wouldn't speak to her. However, after fighting off an ambush by soldiers on routine patrol, she found a tip. Following up on the Arachnos Intelligence report on this ... hero ...Flambeaux, Kristen found her, and prevented her from playing into an Arachnos trap that would have framed the ditz for murder. Continuing her own search for the truth behind the events that had led her to leaving the dimension, she penetrated several Arachnos database systems. She found little but her name flagged for heavy surveillance, and empty status files. She found another "Destined One" with similar status flags; one Desdemona. Evidently a demon-summoner, this Desdemona's reports showed suspicion of contact to Longbow and activities involving Lt. Demitrovich, herself a Longbow turncoat Kristen knew all too well. That was a lead Kristen was happy to follow up on. After kidnapping Demitrovich, Kristen coerced her to confess a few things. How Ghost Widow had contacted her, why the Nullifier Mark II had been so important, and what was Desdemona's connection to all this. Desdemona herself would need to be contacted; not easy. After giving Demitrovich a headache so severe she wouldn't remember being interrogated; Kristen set out to find Desdemona.

Talking with Desdemona prooved difficult. Her own reputation preceded her, and Desdemona was far more interested in fighting. After long minutes of shouting at each other while trading psionic blasts, whip lashings crackling with fire, and demons erupting from the ground only to be blasted back by Kristen's mental powers. Eventually, they both tired, and spoke, more or less calmly. Desdemona though suspicious, offered to connect Kristen to a Longbow contact -- exactly what she needed.

Her mother safely out of this dimension, it was time to put this Nullifier issue to a final rest. Arachnos hadn't wanted a functioning Mark II Nullifier just as a new weapon to arm Crab Soldiers with; no, the technology of the Nullifier was important to create The Web from the Tangle over Grandville -- a method to drain powers from metahumans at long distances. Kristen performed a one-woman raid on a secret Arachnos facility where the Nullifier technology was being reverse engineered, and at the end, faced down an Arachnos Arbiter sent to halt her. A certain degree of chaos among the many factions of Arachnos and destined ones was tolerated, and even encouraged; however, when this infighting got out of hand, the Arbiters were called in to halt it. Short of Lord Recluse himself, their word was absolute law. However, at the end of the day, an Arbiter was stricken down, the Nullifier lab utterly destroyed, and an Arbiter strike team raced in hot pursuit of Kristen Rau.

A call to Agent G was received coldly, but a Longbow Submarine rendezvoused with Kristen off the coast of Grandville just as promised, and the pursuing agents of the Arbiter Corps were left with nothing to chase but the sub's wake on the surface. Kristen Rau was finally exiled from the Rogue Isles.

The Transition

Upon meeting Agent G in the Longbow base hidden inside the Faultline Dam, Kristen was debriefed. Longbow and PPD Psi-corps representatives were unrelenting in their questioning; her history, her operations from inside the Fortunata Corps, her time with Vanguard, her personal activities, relationships, attitudes, and even family, what she knew of it. Throughout it all, despite the crimes major and minor she had committed, one fact was clear. Kristen had never killed a single living person. Her fall-out with Arachnos had been, at its core, one of true conscience.

Reparations would need be made. An appearance in Paragon District Federal Court, attestation from Numina herself, of the Freedom Phalanx, and Longbow's assurance of a period of testing, and trial. Kristen Rau was offered, and accepted, provisional status with Longbow's "Delta Force", a recently established group of former Arachnos Operatives who sought to make a transition, a full change of heart, and fight against their former masters.

Work In Progress

---

Powers

Kristen has been submitted to thorough Arachnos-developed training programs in Defensive Combat, Tactical Maneuvers, Offensive Combat, Assault Tactics, and Tactical Leadership.

Due to her feline heritage, Kristen has inherent psionic abilities which manifest as Telekinetic Blasts, Subdual Blasts, Psychic Screams, Mental Dominance, Psionic Tornadoes, Psionic Wails, and Thought Scrambling. Additionally, Fortunata Corps focused her abilities to Link Minds with those about her. Feline meta-humans are inherently stealthy, and Kristen can further Mask her Presence, which involves more than just hiding and moving quietly, but being mentally unremarkable and escaping notice.

As a Fortunata, she has their signature ability to foretell the future. In Kristen's case this is limited to a few seconds, and requires intense concentration. While mainly useful in combat, she's been known to use her uncanny insight to read people, penetrate computers, and evade capture.

Kristen has limited telekinetic abilities, but in the case of her own person, can easily hover and fly at rapid speeds. Finally, as with all cats, she can teleport; both herself, her allies, and even enemies.

Equipment

Primarily working through the raw power of her partly-feline mind, Kristen carries little equipment. She does often have a few Vanguard Psi-Bombs and an HVAS power core with her for emergencies. She carries a small, but potent, canister of pepper gas for personal safety. In her earlier days, she kept a supply of darts dipped in Dart Frog poison; but stopped this practice once her mind became strong enough.

One piece of equipment she uses often is her personally-spec'd Silver and Gray Fortunata Uniform, which she favors for the image and reputation it carries with, making it worth the binding kevlar, crinkling mylar, and annoyingly uncomfortable stiletto heels -- she hovers a lot anyway.

Commonly, Kristen will wear a Light Armored Vanguard Combat Uniform. This is not only more practical than the Fortunata outfit, but elicits fewer questions.

Rumors

Until Spring of 2010, Kristen had been seeing a hero from the Global Defenders, the Golden Blizzard. The two had and on-again, off-again relationship, and rarely got through enough of their mutual difficulties to share a kiss.

The relationship between Ray, the Golden Blizzard, and Kristen had continued to develop for a while; with them being seen dancing and embracing in the 'D, and text message traffic has been picked up between their cells by at least one national intelligence service, and by the spymasters at Vanguard. However, as they got closer, he had more troubles with disapproving team members, and the two of them decided, very reluctantly, to stop seeing each other. When they do meet by happenstance, it's quite awkward.

She blames this break-up on him, perhaps unfairly, and was quite torn up over it.

They attempted to get back together, but their relationship simply couldn't endure the separation caused by the gulf of distance between them.

Gallery

Other

She prefers to keep her appearance more humaniform, generally only showing ears, faint coloration spots on the shaved skin of her face, vestigial claws carefully manicured, and tail often tucked away carefully.

OOC Notes

I created Kristen to try out the cat-girl experience. It's been frustrating at times; but the depths of a character that is both human and animal has been rewarding too. I've been attempting to portray one fairly seriously, and especially -without- the cybering focus that seems all too common. I'd be open to a romance storyline for Kristen at some point, but it would stop at the bedroom door, and then "fade to black" in classy style. Otherwise, cat-girl fetishists beware, Kristen carries pepper gas.

This article about a character is a stub -- a small, but growing, work in progress. If you're the creator of this character, why not consider expanding it?Template:Widow