Sierra Six Echo
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
[[Image:[img][/img]|300px|]] | |
Sierra Six Echo | |
Player: @SierraSixEcho | |
Origin: | Mutation and Science |
---|---|
Archetype: | Scrapper |
Security Level: | 50 |
Personal Data | |
Real Name: | Confidential |
Known Aliases: | Sierra Six Echo |
Species: | Nanite-based cyborg |
Age: | 44 |
Height: | 5'8" |
Weight: | 135 lbs |
Eye Color: | Changes based on mood |
Hair Color: | Off-white |
Biographical Data | |
Citizenship: | Confidential |
Occupation: | Record store owner, retired hero |
Place of Birth: | San Diego, CA, USA |
Current Residence: | Confidential |
Marital Status: | Single |
Known Relatives: | Antonio Ramirez (father, deceased), mother (status unknown, presumed deceased) |
Known Powers | |
Dark Melee (RPed as melee combat) | |
Known Abilities | |
Rapid regeneration, highly attuned reflexes and senses, increased combat and situational awareness, extreme pain tolerance | |
Equipment | |
Combat gear, customized body armor | |
Footnotes | |
No additional information available. |
Contents |
Powers
- Rapid regeneration
- Increased endurance
- Heightened reflexes and senses
- Extreme strength and acrobatic prowess
- Extreme pain tolerance
Melee
Sierra is a brawler, incorporating elements of various martial arts disciplines as necessary. She prefers a good fist fight to a protracted long-range affair and will most often jump right in to face an enemy and confront them at point-blank range.
Regeneration
Her powers include rapid healing, increased endurance and highly-tuned perception and senses. Her healing abilities are pronounced: she can recover from even heavy wounds in minutes. Most injuries, from scrapes and scratches to deep wounds don't bother her much.
Mind, Body & Soul
While she was born a mutant, Sierra was augmented with nanotechnology to enhance her powers. As she heals, nanites replace the damaged or dead tissue and assume the prior organic cell's functions. Despite this, Sierra is not as advanced as most of the nanosynthetic cyborgs that exist today. Her "tech" is essentially outdated and she cannot do advanced things like shapeshift or disincoporate her physical form. The nanites that make up her body are organic in nature and while far hardier and more resilient than standard cells, she is essentially still human. The nature of her modifications and her natural ability to regenerate combined created a side-effect: while she can tolerate extreme amounts of pain, she became adjusted to the sensation and derives pleasure from it in many instances, or at least a comfortable tolerance. This tolerance for pain would explain her numerous tattoos and piercings.
Mind
Sierra has made - and lost - many close friends over her years in Paragon City. She typically won't approach someone unless they pique her interest and even then, she remains guarded. However, she does continue to seek out new people to meet, partly because she is a social animal and partly because she is fascinated by different lifestyles and outlooks on life. Inversely, she is greatly annoyed by loudmouths, braggarts, racists, fascits, classists or people who just rub her the wrong way. More often than not she will simply get in their face, argue them down or simply threaten them. Is it a smart move? Probably not, but she does not suffer fools lightly. It is not hard to get on her good side, though: simply be somewhat interesting, thoughtful and open-minded. It doesn't take much to get her to open up once she feels she can trust someone.
Body
Sierra is athletic and despite not hitting the streets as much since she retired, she still works to maintain her figure. Her hair is naturally a light platinum blonde; her eyes are normally hazel green but can change based on emotional state: arousal or excitement is white or silver, anger or fear is reddish-maroon, depression or melancholy is typically blue.
Almost all of Sierra's body is covered in intricate, highly-detailed tattoos: Mayan runes, Aztec gods and goddesses, thick Polynesian warrior bars and tribal lattices, snakes, faces and even cartoon characters seem to dance on her skin. Of particular detail are the many snakes that are imbued on her skin: they weave in and out, between and through her other tattoos. Aztec goddesses (Xochiquetzal) and Mictecacihuatl ("Queen of Mictlan") appear prominently, as do gods such as Loki, Pan and even Lilith. The ink used on her skin seems to be metallic or highly reflective and the detail of her tattoos is extraordinary and highly complex, suggesting a practiced and methodical hand.
Tattoos
Sierra's tattoos are the stories of her life: memories, events, places, people. The physical act of being tattooed is linked to the story that each piece tells. Among the many tattoos she has, several stand out:
Upper-right arm - A solid black band extends from her right shoulder to just above her right elbow. Lacking detail or definition, this tattoo would appear to be a contrast to the rest of the ink on her body. However, Sierra refers to this as her favorite piece and the story behind it is just one example of the importance of the events in her life influencing the tattoos that adorn her body.
In 2006, Sierra (grudgingly) worked with Longbow and the PPD to bring down Nemesis. After weeks of investigation, raids and carefully-coordinated attacks on Nemesis facilities, the Crown Prince of Automatons was cornered in a facility in Brickstown and brought to justice. One would feel elation at removing such a threat, yet Sierra felt empty. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the maniacal machination known as Nemesis would manipulate his way to freedom, and that is exactly what occurred. Within days, Nemesis had escaped to once again threaten peace and prosperity across the world. Sierra was distraught and frustrated; all her work, the blood she had shed, had been for nothing. She related this to her close friend Carlos Aldovara (who has done almost all of her tattoo and piercing work) and sensing her emptiness regarding what should have been such a monumental achievement, gave her the monotone, completely featureless tattoo that adorns her arm.
Right thigh - In a foray in to scarification, Sierra had with two thick, vertical black bands tattooed from the top of her right thigh down to the knee. Despite the similarity to her right upper-right arm tattoo, this piece has a hidden level of detail: the skin is carved with intricate whorls and spirals, delicately cut in to her skin and allowed to heal to create raised scars in bas relief. Both the tattoo and the scar work were done with traditional bone needles, and Sierra has commented that it was the most painful thing she has ever experienced. Her tattoo artist and close friend Carlos Aldovaro has noted that this kind of deliberate self-mutilation had been practiced by ancient warriors and Sierra seems to like that assessment.
Lower left back - A small but highly detailed tattoo of the Aztec goddess Xochiquetzal is displayed in a semi-circle, peering from behind a veil. Xochiquetzal is the Aztec goddess of fertility, pleasure and excess.
Face - Sierra's face is actually mostly unadorned with tattoos, except for a series of "spike" tattoos running from her lower left jaw, up along her brow and ending just on the right side of her forehead (for reference, see Brent Hinds of Mastodon's facial tattoo). Her eyelids are lightly tattooed with faint latticework and curved lines. These "spikes" represent her feelings of being trapped by her decisions, or perhaps that she often looks in to the face of danger and acts recklessly as a compulsion towards self-destruction.
Upper left arm - A stone castle nestled in deep vines and thorns. Strength and foundation, but the danger of falling prey to your own traps and defenses.
Both knees - Large musical notes bound together with rope. She loves music, often noting that it has saved her many times and keeps her from falling apart. The rope could symbolize sturdiness, captivation or bondage.
Left hand - Black bands extending from the first to second knuckles of all of the fingers (except the thumb). She lost her fingers in an explosion while fighting a group of Sky Raiders, the first such event where she realized she could regenerate body parts. While the event was rather traumatizing at the time, she commemorated it by having her fingers tattooed with black bands so she can know at a glance if she loses another in a fight.
Various places over much of her body - The larger or more elaborate single motif tattoos on her body tend to be bound together with either serpents (nature, guile, cold-bloodedness), rope (structure, flexibility, bondage) or detailed geometric shapes (analog, technology, precision).
Miscellaneous tattoos
- A stylized tattoo of the sun on her right palm and a similar tattoo of the moon on her left palm.
- An anatomically-correct heart with the word "Heartbreaker" imposed over the top, on her chest just above the crest of her breasts.
- The word "Regret" in gothic text running the length of her right forearm, slightly obscured by inked impressions of ivy gradually engulfing the word itself.
- A cartoon-stylized broken heart on her right shoulder.
- Squared, snake-like scales extending from her clavicle up her throat, ending in a snake head on the underside of her chin.
- "Cassandra" tattooed as a snake woman, curling around her upper left arm.
- "Juno" in small, neat font in an oval just below her stomach.
- "Zayan" posited many times on her body, mostly hidden or blending in to other tattoos.
- "Lily" made in to the shape of a lily, on the right side of her chest, extending with vines and thorns around her right breast.
- "Raven" under her right breast, the "R" in the name forming from the rattle of a rattlesnake tattooed between her breasts and curling in to the "Lily" tattoo.
- "Fel" under her left breast in gothic font
Piercings
In addition to her tattoos, Sierra has a number of piercings:
- Two one inch plugs in her earlobes
- Five studs in her left ear
- Three in her right ear
- A 4G 3/4" septum ring
- Two small rings in her right eyebrow
- One stud in her lower-left lip
- A tongue bar
- Ten 00G 2" rings running vertically down her back
- One ring in her belly button
The Broken Needle
Saving the world, one record at a time. - The Broken Needle motto
Sierra owns and operates a record store called The Broken Needle, located in Skyway City. It's the premier place for music lovers of all kinds, featuring tens of thousands of vinyl records and casettes as well as musical equipment and even home stereo for the budding audio enthusiast. The store's staff tend to be mutants or metas that Sierra has helped in some way, either by giving them gainful employment to get them off the streets, by helping them become to control and understand their own powers and abilities, or simply because they like music and wanted to work at a cool place. Think of Amoeba Records in Berkeley but larger, more raucous and more lively. Sierra's personal collection of records sits at over 15,000 items and it grows all the time. Her musical taste varies and the ecclectic variety of the Needle's customers reflects that. Sierra frequently showcases local bands and talents and will donate her own money to help keep Paragon's independent music scene alive and flourishing.
Influences and Inspirations
- Kembra Pfahler (lead singer of the punk band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black)
- Zealot (WildC.A.T.S comic books)
- Tank Girl
- Wendy O. Williams (lead singer of the punk band The Plasmatics)
- Jade Cuzen (wife of the tattoo artist Glenn Cuzen; Sierra's tattoos are heavily based on this style)
- Spider Jerusalem (Transmetropolitan comic books)
- Villanelle (Killing Eve)