Shi-Ran
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Shi-Ran (foreground) and her mother, Mistress Ohm | |
| Shi-Ran | |
| Player: @Menagerie of Dreams | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 40 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Karen MacAllister |
| Known Aliases: | Kari, Shi |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 28 |
| Height: | 5'8" |
| Weight: | 130 lbs. |
| Eye Color: | Green |
| Hair Color: | Blonde |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American with dual citizenship in U.S. and Japan |
| Occupation: | Street Fighter |
| Place of Birth: | Miami, FL |
| Base of Operations: | Tokyo, Japan (Now split residence between Paragon City and San Antonio, TX) |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Beatrice "Bea" MacAllister (Mother), Patricia "Trish" MacAllister (Twin Sister), Willow McAllister (Younger Sister), Daisy Minazaki MacAllister (Daughter, infant), Reika Rose MacAllister, Khariss (Close friend) |
| Known Powers | |
| Martial Arts/Super Reflexes | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Hand-to-hand combat, Chi manipulation | |
| Equipment | |
| None | |
| Kari has returned, apparently more calm and mature | |
Contents |
Summary
Powers
Martial Arts
As Emerald Death, Kari was put through a brutal training regimen of various fighting styles across the world. It is rumored she knows over a hundred different fighting styles, but prefers to only show a handful, to prevent anyone from studying her for weaknesses or patterns. Her most preferred styles are Ninjutsu, the Russian Martial Art Combat (aka 'Commando') Sambo, and Kung Fu.
It is also rumored that she is a master of the Dim Mak or "Death Touch," which is said by its adherents to train attacks on pressure points and meridians in some styles of Chinese martial arts to kill, incapacitate, or otherwise control an opponent. There has been some possible corroborations to these claims, as many have observed her using pressure points either to inflict immense pain or pleasure, depending on her target. There are also rumors circulated among underground martial arts societies and 'fight clubs' of her being taught an ancient style, of which the Dim Mak is only one part of a greater whole.
Super Reflexes
The many years of rigorous training and sometimes practically impossible missions have honed Kari's reflexes to an almost machine like quality. They dulled for a small while due to the birth of her children, but they're now honed once more, though she seems more natural now in her reactions than the former cold, programmed reactions
Miscellaneous
By tapping into her chi, Kari can leap great distances effortless. She also can quickly build up a large amount to increase her power in a short span for more damaging attacks when needed against the toughest of all opponents.
Personality
Kari has returned to Paragon, older and more matured. There seems to be a calmed peace about her, and the young woman who once wanted to rampage and wipe all threats to her from the face of the Earth has been replaced by a more reflective, subdued woman. Kari will still unleash her fury in battle, but even then it is controlled and within reason. Overall she seems to have finally found a balance in her life. No longer wishing to eradicate but simply wander and explore life.
Pre-Heroine History
Born in Miami, Florida, and later relocated to San Antonio, Texas and then Tokyo, Japan, Karen's childhood was extremely traumatic. While too young to remember the abandonment by her birth mother, Beatrice, she did suffer extreme trauma at the hands of her father, who quickly indoctrinated she and her twin sister Patricia into the grim reality of being children of an underworld kingpin. At the age of 2 she witnessed firsthand her father murdering a rival. At age 3 he was teaching her how to use a knife to kill a threat. At age 4 she and her twin sister, Patricia, witnessed at their father's San Antonio ranch, the murder of their believed mother, Sharon Maxwell. The episode left both girls irrevocably damaged in different ways. Patricia suffered a psychotic breakdown and ran away a few years later, erasing the event and her past the farther she got away, while Karen became unattached as she was already used to the violence of her father.
Both twins blanked out the event, but Gerald saw Karen's unattachment and ability to cope as a perfect weapon to mold and shape. Over the years he began to drill into the girl's head that her mother was murdered and as her first born, she had to seek vengeance upon her killer, but only after becoming the perfect weapon. Karen eagerly fed into her father's illusion, as the ache and emptiness of not having a mother drove her to capture any piece of the woman she believed gone from ever. As time past, the face faded from memory, the name forgotten, but the drive remained, Karen became the feared Emerald Death, the Death Hand of Gerald Maxwell, helping him climb to the top of the O'Hara Crime Syndicate. Later in Japan as the head of "O'Hara Asian Imports", Gerald let loose his perfect weapon, as Emerald used her vast and diverse training to achieve her goal by any means and at any cost.
It was when she was 17 years old, Gerald made a discovery. His first wife was very much alive and living a successful life as Mistress Ohm. Violently enraged that his most precious prize had not only left him, but had become successful on her own, he let it slip to Karen that "Mistress Ohm" was her mother's murderer. Over the next few years, he delighted as he watched his daughter push herself to extremes, becoming more cold, ruthless, and calculating than ever. At age 17 he was just about to send her to do her "filial duty" when the Rikti War broke out. Not wanting to lose his greatest project in the crossfire, he kept the girl at bay until the war ended, when the conflict would die down, and his former wife would relax her defenses.
However, there was the problem of the large numbers of psychic and psionic heroes in Paragon, so extensive hypnotic conditioning was used to create the persona of "Kari", a young, impressionable, and eager student that Beatrice was only too happy to take under her wing.
No one suspected that Kari would actually develop deep feelings for her mentor, which threw the whole plan into turmoil as the killer persona Karen was sublimated and forgotten. Beatrice never suspected the girl's true identity, until a simple medical test came back pinpointing the girl as her daughter. Karen managed to wrest control during the emotionally charged revelation, and very nearly succeeded in killing Beatrice. However, her final blow was stopped when she realized, her father had lied to her, that her mother was NOT dead at another's hand, and that the one person she'd missed all through her childhood was lying bruised and bleeding at her feet.
The Hard Path Chosen...
Struggle for Redemption
What ensued after Karen's choice not to kill her mother was a struggle for Redemption, one which she still continues to this day. She first did so by committing her very last assassination.
With his enforcer no longer around to protect him, Gerald Maxwell's "empire" crumbled around him and he ran into hiding in San Antonio, Texas. Karen tracked him to his lair, and after dispatching all of his hired mercenaries and bodyguards, killed her father with tears in her eyes. Her twin sister Patricia witnessed the event, and rushed the critically injured Karen to intensive care; her three-day coma was never revealed to their mother, Beatrice.
Upon her return, Karen endured a struggle to cope and rationalize the conflicting halves of her life. Along with deep psychological programming that took many months to discover and undo (resulting in several hysterical episodes by her mother), Karen also struggled with a life of rules and policies after a life of being the only law that mattered. Many times her instincts to kill almost got her in trouble as she pondered the point of simply subduing enemies instead of eliminating them outright. Another great strife was her tendency to run black-ops, and disappear with no notice or mention of her activities upon returning. This lead to quite a few difficult arguments with her mother, as she tried to reconcile respecting Mistress Ohm's image and ethics with coping with her previous lifestyle of answering to no one and a life where ethics were seen as a weakness.
Two New Lives
After disappearing to Europe and Asia for 4 months, Kari returned 2 months pregnant. Refusing to name the father, she claimed the unborn child as her own and that nothing else would matter. Later discovering she was to have twins only made her more proud but also more determined not to reveal the father. The birth of her children has had a tremendous effect on her personality, and she has calmed down greatly since then. She prefers to remain at home and hold her children, rather than a life of dangerous missions, though she still has her wildcat personality and will aid her allies at any time.
Two Mothers?: A Reconciliation and Mending of Wounds
The final act in the Hard Path Chosen for Karen was the discovery that her master, Black Silk Talon, was still alive. This was the woman who had trained and molded Karen into a ruthless assassin, and had given her the name Shi-Ran ("Purple Orchid" in Japanese).
Talon, cursed to never bear a child herself, approached Mistress Ohm demanding that the woman return "her" daughter. Karen, caught in an emotional whirlwind, was unable to disobey her mother or her master, and stood there frozen. A fight ensued between the two women, resulting in Mistress Ohm defeating the more technically skilled sensei through sheer will and determination. Talon, realizing Ohm was indeed honorable and worthy of being mother to Karen, relented and accepted the status of aunt, after a more civil discussion with Beatrice. Later Talon would realize the cruel and heartless manner in which she raised the child she so dearly loved, and humbled herself before Karen for forgiveness.
The two have healed their wounds and Talon has settled into a private life, teaching martial arts at the dojo Karen set up as her own form of therapy.
A New Path
Currently Karen is forging a new path, at first she still had her not-so-good days, but generally is seen with more smiles than many of her close loved ones have seen. Though many still are trying to help her with her social skills. Quite a few times in the early stages she's was scolded for being terse or rude to other patrons in the Pocket D due to her being on guard and wary of any who approach her. She still lives with the training of being cold and unfeeling to all those who she doesn't hold within her heart as she felt for a while she no longer had a "need" to turn on her grace and charm as those were "tools for getting close to a target". Over the past few months she has softened and is trying to become a more, we wouldn't say "well-rounded" but more personable individual. Yet when her temper is still fiery as ever and she has been unapologetically crude if it meant getting the point across.
Evolution
A Deeper Power Forgotten
A new development has occurred in that with the tender love from her Mother and sisters, and their help in stripping away her brutal mental programming, a hidden secret has begun to emerge. Black Silk Talon's merciless training was not only to shape Shi-Ran into a deadly weapon, but to also submerge and constraint a deeper hidden power that bears an essence of chaos and destruction. The sensei knew even with the strict discipline she had placed upon the girl, her wild and chaotic nature would eventually overcome it and the effects would be devastating. Talon had seen it first hand when at the age of 8 in a bit of fury and anger after her father had killed a childhood friend and their entire family, Karen unleashed an amount of power so destructive several city blocks were decimated. While her father delighted at such a display, the Higher Council of the Yakuza feared such a weapon and ordered Talon to do whatever necessary to suppress it.
Who's The Dangerous Influence?
Recently Karen has been seen frequently in the company of the villainess Khariss and the two have cooperatively undertaken missions in the Rikti War Zone. It is unknown which one is the more dangerous influence on the other, but the results for the Rikti have been less than pleasant with multiple Rikti casualties found after the two have finished. Kari enjoys teasing Khariss about her stoic nature, when she's not screaming at her in anger. It is a frictious friendship, but one Kari greatly values. Rumors are Kari even once considered Khariss a love-interest, but the two discussed it and realized the fallacy in such a plan. Khariss has been made "Aunt" of her twins and Kari calls the woman her best friend.
Resurrection
The Story Becomes More Clear
Perhaps the greatest singular event to happen to Karen since the discovery that her Mother was indeed alive and the birth of her children, was the discovery that her two closest friends from her brutal childhood, Reika Kusanagi and Minazaki Nagano, were actually alive and well in the Rogues as the Red Eclipse and Daisy Chain. The greatest secret Karen had not told even her family was the tale of under Talon's guidance, she, Reika and Mina were her trio of kunoichi fiercely loyal to her and were raised together as sisters. This angered Karen's father who saw Talon and the other two girls as threats to his holding and ordered them murdered.
Talon seeing the lack of honor in the man even in such a dishonorable world of crime, stole the three girls away and they were on the run for two years until her father's agents found them. Talon rushed against the force telling the girls to flee and was lost from Karen's sight, believing to have died in trying to save them in vain as the girls were caught. Separated from them, Karen's father lead her to believe he "eliminated" them. This horrible wound and pain was far too much for Karen to bear. She had not only lost yet again another Mother, but had lost her first loves in Reika and Mina and blamed herself for their deaths.
In reality, Gerald had cruelly sold Mina to the Ghong Wai while Reika had escaped and over the years slowly rebuilt her self as Sayuka Kusanagi and created the Asian crime syndicate, the Crimson Dawn, which would in time crush not only Gerald specific Yakuza holds, but assimilate many Yakuza families and later many Asian crime gangs and cartels under her banner.
But the effect on Karen was what Gerald had wanted. Her spirit was broken, and it was at this moment, Karen at age 16, created Emerald Death. Her escape from the horrible pain and agony of losing those so dear to her was to simply cut off her feelings. She yearned to end her father's life, but at the time perceived his power and resources too much to overcome and accepted her damned fate.
It has been the reunion with these two women which as seemed to resurrect the final part of Karen that had long ago been sublimated and perhaps even left for dead. She now has found an inner peace, her chi has also reflected this change as if changing from raging tsunami to now a gentle stream, though the great power and intensity still resides beneath the surface. She as re-entered her training alongside her two best friends under the guidance of Talon and the three women seek to know her greatest secrets while strengthening a bond long ago broken. Where they go from here.......only time will tell.
Self-Exile and Return
Unable to handle the strain and angst along with her unstable chi, Kari took her children and exiled herself to her ranch just outside San Antonio, Texas. Her mother soon followed as did her twin sister Trish, and the women lived a simple quiet existence. However, Kari still felt the torments of her chaos within her and had a special man-made waterfall with cave behind it erected on the property and secluded herself there, undergoing an intense meditative and introspective training regimen. More focusing on healing her mind and spirit than honing her body. What she found was finally a perfect inner peace, a calmness that washed over her like a gentle river. She emerged from it, more matured, more calm, and finally willing to let the ghouls and demons of her past rest. Going so far as to place flowers on her father's grave, finally forgiving him for the monster he was and made her into.
After three years of this training, Kari has decided to return to Paragon. Not to redeem herself, or prove herself to anyone, but simply to help. She expects adversity and people to look at her skeptical, perhaps even former allies to now be enemies, but she walks her path in peace. Accepting whatever may come her way and vowing to never be a choatic agent of destruction ever again.
Artwork Credits
Shi-Ran and Mistress Ohm
Image (C) 2007 by Martheus
Characters (C) 2005 by @Menagerie of Dreams and @Soul Train
Side Notes
Theme Song: Kittie "Funeral For Yesterday"
