Mink II
| Gale Power Grid | Translation |
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Contents
Katie Jones
Only daughter. Raised by a single mother on Detroit's west side. Working class. A problem child due to frustrations derived from her meta-intellect. A short stint with gangs and a handful of arrests. Young Katie's life finally came around on the last year of high school when she got scouted by a representative from a school for gifted youngsters in Michigan and offered a scholarship in automotive engineering. Nevertheless, that was but the second top life-changing moment to take place that year.
You'll Do
That same night, Katie had the misfortune of being caught in a terrorist incident, and the mixed blessing of being able to follow the breadcrumb trail when terrorists started dropping from radio contact until she saw The Everglades Mink finish the job. Katie became infatuated with the method, the efficiency, and yes, the feeling of power exhuded by their savior.
Curiosity is always good... obsession, not so much, usually at least. Tracking the trajectory of someone who has done her best to keep a low profile was the greatest challenge Katie had ever faced, and her gifted mind had never felt so stimulated. What the young woman didn't foresee, however, is that soon she'd be able to do something only one other person ever managed: Tracking Mink's next move based on what she estimated was her current case. So, once again she was at the wrong place at the right time and Katie was elated.
For better or worse, Monica noticed.
After assessing how much of a threat the young blonde was, the Mink was now facing the decision of what to do with her while also facing the fact that she wouldn't be able to cheat death forever. Eventually, she'd need a replacement. While she had been toying with the idea of adoption, she also had to face two things:
1) This late in the game for Monica, the possibility that she wouldn't be around to fully form a successor from early childhood to adulthood only increased every passing year.
2) Right now she had a woman skilled enough to track HER down right here, so she had the perfect detective candidate handy.
Civilian and untrained, yes, but nothing some boot camp can't fix. Mutant, yes... but non-superpowered. Furthermore, since Katie showed all the tell-take signs of hypercompetence (evenly distributed meta-intellect), Monica could drill years or even a decade's worth of expertise into her in mere months. In addition, the background check revealed a strong sense of justice.
A mutant would usually be her last choice, but Katie Jones would have to do.
Funny how life rarely works the way we'd choose.
For eight months, Katie would disappear from the face of the Earth after Mink abducted her to an undisclosed location in the Pacific for as thorough a boot camp as she could impart in eight months: Survival, espionage, armed and unarmed combat, piloting, detective, persona training, etc. Katie wanted to become all she could be, didn't she? Well, no backsies now.
By the time her boot camp ended, Katie had even a name in mind: "Kit" (the way you call a baby mink, which is also a short form of Katie). Contrary to what she thought, however, she wasn't to become Mink's sidekick. Instead, Monica dropped her back in Detroit with nothing but an assembled scenario of her surviving a shipwreck and being finally home. While Monica would remotely keep an eye on her and monitor her progress, it was Katie's job to build herself as a vigilante from the ground up. No handouts at all, and no backup (Monica was an unregistered vigilante, and so would be Katie, you can't watch the watchers from inside the system).
The good news, however, was that the college she was merely days from starting also happened to be the place where the country's political elite kept their metahuman children safe from prying eyes*. Furthermore, the school was conveniently (mis?)managed in just the right way that would allow a hypothetical "someone" to take advantage of the school's resources in order to live a double life.
(* Katie was originally created in Champions, but nevermind that.)
Kit: working Class Heroine
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| Mink II | |
| Mink II | |
| Player: @White Nightingale | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Stalker |
| Security Level: | 30 |
| Server: | Confidential |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Katie Jones |
| Known Aliases: | Kit (former nom d'guerre) plus a host of alternate identities she uses as needed, each with full papertrail |
| Species: | Mutant |
| Age: | 22 |
| Height: | 5'7" |
| Weight: | 140lbs |
| Eye Color: | Brown |
| Hair Color: | Brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Unregistered vigilante, postgrad student |
| Place of Birth: | Michigan |
| Base of Operations: | Detroit |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Eleanor Jones (mother), Harold Jones (uncle) |
| Known Powers | |
| Low tier Meta-Intellect evenly distributed among the seven types of intellect (i.e she's hyper competent) | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Hypercompetence: Uncannily quick learner, photographic memory, world-class athlete, martial artist, and detective, consummate hacker and gadgeteer | |
| Equipment | |
| Meta-grade assault armor and a webbing of low-grade metatech gadgets (full listing below). Hoverbike. A collection of vehicles inherited from her mentor after her disappearance. | |
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To build an arsennal, collect intel on all factions in the city, set safehouses, and respond to emergencies as needed were Katie's first months in a nutshell. Her first nights were reckless, and her resources slapdash, but her training got her through, and as her resources grew her costumed escapades got easier. Furthermore, while Michigan shared Rhode Island's superpowered hero inflation, it didn't share its supercrime inflation, and Katie had the luxury of cutting her teeth in a comparatively safer envinronment where metatech smugglers was the worst of her regular threats.
As expected, the walk through the park wouldn't last.
In Over Her Head: A Crash Course in Maturation
West of Fear and Loathing
Kit's Halloween chase of a serial killer whose M.O was poaching zombies during seasonal outbreaks in order to deploy them in "death room" scenarios got her trapped by what turned out to be a supernatural creature that had been feeding on Detroit's misery for years.
Hope was inimical to the creature, and heroes were hope. The unorthodox serial killing was actually a trap for the still fledgeling heroine, who was then trapped in a spiritual, dark reflection of West side. Escaping the hellscape required destroying the creature, and vanquishing it took a week of facing her fears, nightmares, and otherwise more literal versions of her demons. It took her getting intimate knowledge of fear.
Fear was a tool in Mink's arsenal, but one she often warned Kit to avoid until she had enough experience under her belt, since frightened people can be unpredictably dangerous unless you can properly redirect their behavior.
For better or worse, Katie's week in her personal hell taught her all she needed on the topic.
No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition!
As aforementioned before, Detroit in general and its westside in particular are a hotbed of misery for several reasons... being an ancient landfill of deffective magical artifacts was seemingly one of the reasons it acted as a pressure cooker for negativity which in turn attracted predatory supernatural presences.
Katie, however, wasn't aware of this until she caught wind of a Santa Alleanza cell operating in the city. They came to collect all the magical artifacts that made up for Detroit's supernatural woes, but they also took targets of oportunity whenever they crossed members of the city's supernatural community, forcing Kit to intervene.
Timeout: Biting More Than You Can Chew
Brynn was one of Katie's friends. A South-American super soldier produced by a regimen empowered by Nazi deffectors and then defrocked by the U.S before their war-mongering projects could bear bigger fruit. Brynn was also still monitored by the powers that be, and every so often, DoD still sent a squad or two from private armies her way in order to keep her sharp. When such incidents started happening in Michigan, however, Katie honored her namesake animal and decided she wouldn't have illegal military presence in her city.
She got lots more than she bargained for. What she thought was delivering a simple, concussive warning, ended up in a most scandalous FUBAR when the team she brought down was followed two minutes later by a second one... and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. The sixth one came followed by a flying warship putting the whole neighbourhood on lockdown, point at which all local heroes got involved while Kit decided to use the distraction to cut her losses and make herself scarce... and while the incident happened, Brynn got kidnapped.
As expected, Kit would track her friend's location. What she didn't expect was ending up sneaking in a FEMA party hosting a "super soldier battle royale." Also, the VIPs included members of all the shadow elite, from Countess Crey to Gyr Falcon. That was the first time Katie finally had to just sit tight and let things unfold. She knew extracting Brynn would only make things worse for her (also she knew she had no chance in hell of making it out alive if she went in guns blazing). What she could do, however, was laying her feet on this web and see how close she could get to the center. The moment Kit validated the Crime Syndicate conspiracy theory by finding the main parties comprising the "bank of supervillains" Mink decided it was moment to hit the breaks on her pupil.
Monica had her work cut out for her derailing all the parties now hot on Kit's trail, and after that Katie was to be recalled for a three-months re-training course to perfect her spy game. The main reason Monica took Katie in was her uncanny nose for trouble. Alas, Katie's ability for finding trouble far exceeded her ability to get herself out of them. It was time to fix that.
That was to be Mink's parting gift to Katie.
Mink II: Most Dangerous Game
One year later, Kit would learn in a most of unpleasant way of her mentor's untimely demise.
Mink had seemingly spent the last months on the trail of a "big game hunter" that was assassinating Omega-class metahumans world-wide. What she didn't expect was that she herself was on the list. Kit only learned this after Agent Crimson brought her in to "kindly request" her help, expecting her to have the missing pieces of her late mentor's investigation. Unfortunately for Longbow, Mink kept her pupil in the dark about all of her activities. With Kit being of no use to Longbow, she was released, but that didn't mean Katie wouldn't follow the case on her own.
While college was over, Katie had now one more task before resuming her life. Now she is in her mentor's old stomping grounds on the trail of the alien conspiracy that costed her mentor her life.
Except now she brandishes her mentor's name.
Tools of the Trade
- Headpiece and mask: Full spectrum optics with 20x zoom and linked to face-recognition database, psi-Dampers, artificial nose, enhanced hearing (sub and ultra-sonic), HUD for the rest of the armor's systems, communicator, slave System controller for grav-bike, camera and mic.
- Gauntlets: Syringe/drug dispenser (anti-biotics, sedative/power suppressor, adrenaline). Multi-tool and skeleton key. Defibrilator.
- Bodysuit: Meta-grade polyolefin Class VI armor, central computer, medical computer connected to emergency defibrilator and stimpack dispenser, communications computer.
- Webbing: Grappling hook, dicyanoacetylene torch, flashbang grenades, sonic grenades, smoke grenades, smoke pellets, EMP grenade, Meta-grade polymer cuffs, C5, breathable gum, forensics tools, tracking bugs.
Trivia
- She helps operate a support network for D-list metahumans to get access to backup, companionship, training, and occasional resources they wouldn't be able to get a hold of otherwise.
- The creature known as "Diablos Loci" is the embodiment of Detroit's misery, and will probably never be fully destroyed. The main reason Diablos Loci targetted Katie was because of a personal grudge, as Eleanor successfully banished it twenty years ago.
- The mink is a very territorial animal that will attack almost anything.
- Mink II's "theme song" would still be "You know my Name" by Chris Cornell.