Sonya's Progression Thread

SONYA CHERNOVA

BASIC INFORMATION

Villain Alias: Ishtar
AKA: The White Queen | The HBIC | The Second Coming
Player Name: Webby
Faceclaim/Series: AK-12 | Girl's Frontline
Age: 28 (March 14)
Gender: Female
Affiliation: Villain | ASTA Corporation | The Fraternity
Reputation: Sonya (Sterling Public Image) | Ishtar (Public Menace)
Height: 1.6m
Weight: 46kg
Hair/Style: Long Silver-White
Skin/Scars: Porcelain, Smooth, Scars on Lower Back
Eyes: Mechanical, Photoluminescent upon Activation. Can change to any HEX Color.
Notables: N/A

APPEARANCE AND PERSONALITY

Appearance:
Sonya is, in a world, stunning. A creature of startling beauty and grace, she stands a little taller than the average young woman from her family's home country. Slender and light, she strikes a slim and delicate figure especially with the lights of a stage, glitz, and glamour sparkling all around her. She habitually dresses well, takes care of herself, and maintains a strict (almost obsessive) level of cleanliness. This has resulted in an almost supernaturally immaculate appearance.

Public: Sonya commonly wears dresses and finery when out in public, preferring elegance to accentuate her figure and draw eyes to herself. She will dress down on occasion but it is rare.

Private: Sonya's activities behind the scenes rarely involve her having to go beyond wearing normal clothes, except for her mask. The black mask she wears is designed to help her regulate her breathing while using her quirk while hiding her identity.

POSITIVENEGATIVELIKESDISLIKES
Personality:
Sonya is, in a word, ruthless. She single mindedly pursues her own interests and cares little for the thoughts and hurts of those who fall under her boot. In her mind, the law exists to be manipulated and bent to her will. Whether or not her actions are legal or illegal are of no concern to her, only that they have satisfied whatever impulse or necessity for her plan that had triggered her decision. In general she does everything in her power to maintain a positive image in public and maintains a very strict code that in part she uses to justify her actions. In short, Sonya Chernova keeps her record clean.

When it comes to her personal desires, there are many. She enjoys creature comforts and the company of 'pretty, delicate things'. She has absolutely zero complexes concerning her own appearance, her own ego being probably the most sane part of her psyche. That said, testing her patience is something one should do at their own risk, she is not above using her quirk (or other methods) to inflict real pain to get her point across.

Surprisingly, when it comes to those she considers friends or acquaintances, she is remarkably kind and friendly. She is capable of letting her hair down, settling for some pjs and a t-shirt and watching terrible tv with a few close friends. She loves deeply and makes an effort to hide this for fear of involving herself in another relationship like what she had with her late wife, Setsuna.

There was one time when her entire existence surrounded perpetuating a lavish lifestyle. That time is long gone. She has come to think of herself as a motherly figure to other villains and sees the current form of society as an inevitable result of the march of progress. People are sheep, heroes and villains will never go away, and it is necessary for someone to be in charge of the whole system-guiding it forward and maintaining the conflict between all sides. As such; she has developed an almost romanticized opinion of other villains and especially those on the cusp of becoming a villain or not understanding what they have become.

She believes with her whole heart that younger villains should be protected and fostered. Whenever one of her peers among the villain community calls for aid, she is the first to help, but she is also the first to demand a favor in return when the work is done. She sees young heroes in training as two groups; those who are just villains in training and don't know it yet and those who are tools to be bought and manipulated. She sees Vigilantes as an annoyance, the undecided, and eagerly forces them to choose standing with society or against it. She sees Pro Heroes as a necessary antithesis to her and encourages their growth while working to undermine them as all good villains should.

A businesswoman at heart, she does nothing for free, expects nothing for free, and demands the best of everyone around her. She has learned from the stories of the first generations of villains; understanding their mistakes. She is cognizant of the importance of the little guy in any organization and takes pains to maintain a positive relationship with those who work for her, even her lowest rank subordinates. Though, at the same time, she is utterly, completely, and totally without mercy for those who fail her.

At her deepest level, Sonya is a fanatic. She believes firmly in Villainy as an ideology more than just a label and embraces the word as something to strive toward. As a villain, personal power, luxury, comfort, enjoyment, they are all secondary benefits to achieving 'greatness'.

HISTORY

Decades ago, a number of the surviving members of the Atomic Maiden's inner circle fled to Russia in order to rebuild. During that time, several of their number became involved in a variety of eugenics and genetics programs with the intention of resurrecting their long-dead goddess while eliminating her ultimate failing; giving her the ability to control her radiation. As their metahuman cult began to re-establish itself, they experienced failure after failure in the creation of a new maiden. Eventually, the organization largely gave up on the project and began practicing as a religion. Unbeknownst to the cult, one infant maiden did survive...

Sonya was born to two loving parents. Her father took his wife's name and settled down on the eastern coastline of Russia. She was born into a happy household, with kind people surrounding her daily. There was never any abuse in her history, never any cruelty, her parents pushed her hard to succeed but they showed leniency when they could. Sonya lived a simple life for all the good it did.

When Sonya's quirk awoke, her body was not immediately ready to handle the energy it produced. Sensitive, exposed parts of her body were scored and burned. The worst injury being to her eyes, having to have both removed at a very young age after her own quirk melted the sensitive orbs inside of her own head. Now Sonya had always been a little off, but the loss of her eyes and the following surgeries and experimental prosthetic replacements weighed heavily on the mind of a child. By the time she was in elementary school, she was hardly the same person anymore. 

Her parents, terrified of having to commit their child who held so much potential, were relieved to see her acclimating to school. Despite all that happened to her Sonya seemed to be handling herself well, making friends, and winning over her teachers.

The truth: Sonya had learned how to behave to protect herself. She had not improved, she was not healthier, she had simply learned a lesson that most sociopaths and serial killers wait until adulthood to learn. How to pass oneself off as normal. She could feel emotions, she could even feel love, but they were distant, isolated things.

Sonya excelled at school, eventually taking up the violin and becoming an accomplished player in her town. Eventually she was sent oversees to Japan to live and study music. Unfortunately, now that she was living on her own in a private apartment, she was free at last to sate her private hungers. What would she do first?

Sonya sought opportunities wherever she went, seeking out little acquisitions here and there. She craved knowledge and eagerly consumed what she could and developed connections with those who understood that which she could not. She gained a small measure of fame through her violin work and eventually was invited to shows here and there where she met more powerful people. She resisted her urges and eventually came to savor the experiences she had. Her popularity grew and so did her ambitions. Eventually she met a young woman by the name of Hitsuki Setsuna, a singer. The two fell in love and were married on June 12th.

Sonya and Setsuna planned for some time to graduate from college and move to France to join one of the new opera groups forming in that area. Unfortunately, Setsuna depended on regular treatments for a medical error in her youth that resulted in a poor connection with a prosthetic limb. Just before graduation there was a complication during treatment and her condition became terminal. Sonya held her wife's hand as she passed away. Subconsiously she blamed the doctors for racism against Quirkers though she otherwise handled her lover's passing well. She began to read pro-quirker literature, thinking to become an activist, before she came across texts by a pro-villain philosopher by the name of Otsuki Taito. Engrossed in the reading, that dark thing from her childhood stirred inside her once again; she embraced the beliefs described in the book and threw herself into building a new life for herself.

She eventually formed a small company called ASTA where she drew in many of those she had made connections with to begin producing what she described as 'fineries for the era of heroes'. The reality was that she had come upon an unequivocal truth while traversing the world of the corrupt and powerful as a common woman; the age of heroes was here to stay and few had taken real steps to take advantage of it. She, on the other hand, would not be so foolish. She dedicated her life to fleecing this new "Hero Society".

Her work began in earnest, she threw herself into drawing in allies, friends, co-conspirators, and minions. Business connections were formed and she began to work her way towards weaving it all together in her wicked little web, but she needed something to shake everything, to make her first foray into the public eye as momentous as possible. Then the Shinegawa Terminal invitation came. She arrived under the guise of a violinist and performer; working her way through the celebration of the underworld's strength with all the anonymity it afforded.

It was there she met Wang Ba and Maekawa, crossed paths with heroes, and narrowly escaped being ousted as a villain. It was here that she made her most important purchases, stole what she could, and allowed the name Ishtar to enter the public consciousness. The police knew that the luminous villain Ishtar existed now, she'd have to keep her two identities separate from now on. Even so; she'd achieved her goals with gusto. ASTA broke into the public eye with enough force to send the cities elite reeling and scrambling to find new purchase. Nothing would be the same.

Hero Society had gone Corporate.

As she built her company, Sonya began to gather allies and take a hard look at what it meant to be a villain. She examined the styles and beliefs (from what she could gather) of her peers and those who came before her. She took an objective look at society as a whole and came to a conclusion. It was pointless to fight against society. Heroes and Villains were a necessary and inevitable result of all that had come before it and it was neither her duty to destroy or force it to remain. Instead, she began to see heroes and villains as two halves of an important function in this new quirk based society. Even if one killed every single existing hero, nothing would change. More heroes would rise up. 

So instead she looked at what heroes were doing to compete. Training young heroes early on, becoming integrated into government, politics, and business. It became clear to her that Villains would have to do the same. So she began to look for the first generation of students of her new Villain Academia. Then she caught wind of an opportunity she simply could not resist; there was a window of opportunity to free the #3 Villain, Lady Lavande, and gain the friendship of the powerful villain Crowley. Without hesitation she threw herself into planning. During this time she recruited several individuals who would begin to flush out her inner circle.

In the time that followed she systematically began to infect hero society. She spoke at the National Diet, urging the nation toward a stronger Hero Centric vision. She began to donate to UA High School and even offer sponsorships and internships at the school. Yet all that was minor compared to her scheme to assist the villain crowley. On March 22nd, her plan went into motion, the Fuchu Supermax Prison was breached and every prisoner inside freed to wreak havoc on the city once more. She'd done it for several reasons, none of which was a lust for violence. Her wicked mind had already turned to how she could use the situation to strengthen hero society and benefit herself. She began to gather those who had been inspired by her actions and even form new alliances. At last, she even met the number one villain, Thunder Shock, whom she'd long seen as a rival and they too formed an agreement.

Little did she know that the news of such an enormous prison being breached would reach as far as her homeland and draw the attention of a sleeping giant that had waited for her rise to power for thirty years...

SONYA CHERNOVA

QUIRK INFORMATION

Quirk
PALE DAWN

Type: Emitter
Rank:C
Description:Sonya's body is constantly producing a strange radioactive energy that she calls Moonlight. At rest, her body glows just enough to be easily seen even in darkness. The luminescence seems to increase and even sparkle when she is exposed to artificial light or moonlight, the effect appears to fade when she is exposed to sunlight. Sonya can generate, amplify, manipulate and even handle this strange energy. With training and the development of equipment to tailor her quirk she has become able to even create simple solid constructs with moonlight.

"Moonlight" has several odd properties. Instead of producing heat when excited, it is startlingly cold. Moonlight also pops and crackles with little flashes of charge-less light. The strange radiation leaves almost necrotic burns on flesh when exposed to the energy. The burns are cold and are akin to an instantaneous frostbite. As it is a form of radiation, extended exposure to intense bursts is carcinogenic.

Sonya no longer needs to concentrate at all to restrain her quirk. She wears a restraining band on her wrist in case she falls to sleep. She can cause her skin to completely lose its glow without a thought and does not strain herself to maintain it. When acting as Ishtar in a potentially public situation she forces her body to glow brightly enough to obscure her appearance.

Benefits

1. Necrotizing - Anything coming in contact with the light is potentially subject to painful necrotic burns, scoring, and can even be disentigrated by the radiation dealing enough damage to rip through hard metal.
2. Disorienting - Exposure can cause debilitating disorientation, reducing accuracy by 4 ranks for 3 turns.
3. Weakness - Exposure to the radiation can cause an intense physiological reaction akin to illness, reducing physical strength and the capacity to draw on one's quirk (to do damage) by 4 ranks for 3 turns.

Exhaustion and Weakness:

1. Sunlight/Ultraviolet Weakness - Pale Dawn loses its effectiveness under intense solar light or ultraviolet radiation and can even render the quirk useless if used directly against Sonya. Whips of Moonlight fall apart, her glitterskin is useless, and any other effect is rendered moot.
2. Moonlight/Artificial Light Dependence - Sonya must charge her quirk at night, standing in artificial light or direct moonlight is enough to recharge her quirk but this process is slow. She effectively starts at 0 stamina before charging up.
3. Debilitating Quirk - Pale Dawn destroys and burns whatever it touches, while it no longer requires concentration for Sonya to not destroy her clothing and hurt those she touches she still must remain vigilant. Overtaxing her quirk, extended use, and strain, can cause chills, nausea, headaches, and at worse aneurysm.

COMBAT ABILITIES

Cybernetic Eyes
Rank: F
Effect: Sonya lost her eyes as part of her quirk's initial manifestation. She now possesses artificial eyes that aid her in directing her quirk and give her enhanced vision up to a range of 5-7 meters.

Sickening Radiation
Rank: E
Effect: The radiation created by Sonya's quirk causes horrific muscle contractions that can cripple a person and cause intense nausea and vomiting, reducing mobility by 2 ranks for 3 turns.

Agonizing Radiation
Rank: E
Effect: The radiation created by Sonya's quirk saps the strength of those exposed to it, the illness caused by the quirk drains the victims stamina for three turns.

Radiation Absorption
Rank: E
Effect: Sonya can convert ambient radiation, moonlight, and artificial light into energy to heal herself while she recharges her quirk, healing moderate wounds over 4 turns.

Glitterskin
Rank: E
Effect: Out of necessity, Sonya has begun practicing a skill to draw her moonlight so close to her body that it forms a protective layer of on her skin. With the obvious side effect of reducing the amount that she glows (instead causing her skin to sparkle), it provides an amount of protection equivalent to wearing armor as tough as thin concrete.

SPECIALIST ABILITIES

ASTA Corporation
Rank: C
Effect: The High-End Support Corporation; ASTA is a major player in the business world and underworld. As the Leader of ASTA Sonya possesses connections and friendships in the underworld and the realm of the legitimate. She possesses a direct line to the mayor, has connections with some heroes and overseas villains and has the reputation of a celebrity. She sells to heroes, vigilantes, civilians, and villains alike.

ASTA Gains money from:
Selling designer clothing.
Selling luxury cosmetics.
Selling luxury consumer electronics.
Selling luxury/fashionable support items.
Selling high-end weaponry and gear.

LIFE SKILLS

Name
Rank: Rank
Effect: Effect