Shatterpoint

Shatterpoint
Author	/u/Shadeshadow227
Civilian name	Holly Byrne
Alignment	Mercenary
Affiliation	Noncanon (Devilfish)
PRT Classification	Mover (Shaker), Brute, Stranger, Thinker (Blaster), , ,
Born	(1997-04-19) April 19, 1997
Status	Noncanon

Part of a team of mercenaries, seemingly rather skilled despite showing up fairly recently, Shatterpoint herself going so far as actively taunting those she faces and generally seeming irreverent and overconfident as she zips around.

Character Sheet

Appearance

Holly's a fairly tall, athletic woman in her mid-20s, with auburn hair, brown eyes, and somewhat pale skin, usually seen with near-omnipresent bags under her eyes and a disheveled appearance, typically wearing a slightly-oversized and stained hoodie, jeans, and boots.

Her costume consists of tactical gear spray-painted with fake crack designs and accented with bits of metal torn up using her main power, a prominent, spiky "S" painted on the chest, helmet clearly modified and somewhat bulky, faceplate altered to look cracked and broken to the point of being basically opaque from the outside. Several parts of her costume have hooks that link them into her skin over less-armored areas and inside her helmet, with the helmet having a few switches that engage and disengage the ones inside it. The entire mechanism is rigged so that she can partially remove her own face by opening the faceplate.

Equipment and Resources

Wealth Level: 5

Has a decent apartment, a few guns from before the original Holly got cloned, a crappy motorcycle purchased post-trigger, and usually operates under a fake ID and other things in that vein due to being a clone and thus not legally existing. Turns out, having a whole swathe of stuff for fake identities as a mercenary would eventually be useful in ways she wouldn't have expected before getting powers.

• Several throwing knives
• A crappy burner phone, regularly swapped out for a new one
• A personal radio, for communicating with teammates over longer distances
• Her costume

Skills and Specializations

• Experienced in handling and operating various kinds of firearms. Largely useless, now that she's a cape.

• Somewhat skilled with knives beyond using her powers to throw them better, actually knows how to fight with them in close-quarters.

• Surprisingly excellent cook.

• Has the alcohol tolerance of someone three times her weight. Usually needs it.

Mentality

Confident and cheerful on the surface, somewhat irreverent, hiding a lot of fear and worry surrounding her situation as a clone, her status as a cape, etc. Quick to lash out, jumpy in combat situations and when stressed.

Power

Her primary power is a form of teleportation through surfaces, entry and exit points becoming fragile as she dives through them, cracking and sending up sharp chunks of shrapnel at either end, not usually enough to completely destroy whatever she travels through, though bits of glass, stone, etc., are still dangerous. Her maximum range is roughly 50 feet, and in order to successfully teleport her entry and exit points need to be made of the same kind of material, though while using her power she can sense anything within her range that matches where she’s trying to teleport from.

Her secondary powers are:

• The ability to shrink to roughly eight inches in height, choosing which point she ends up at where she originally was (for example, shrinking mid-step to dodge a punch while remaining on the ground, leaning against a desk only to shrink down and end up standing on it, etc.). Usually used for stealth and to teleport around in a less conspicuous manner, as the effect her teleportation has on what she uses it on is reduced.
• A minor brute power where soft tissues tend to come off when she’s hit, skin and muscle sloughing off and scraping loose without actually impairing functionality or causing much pain, mitigating actual harm. Works best to minimize small wounds, so she can keep going when punched, stabbed, or even against low-caliber firearms, though this can be overwhelmed with enough force or damage (so she can take some hits, get stabbed and cut a few times, or even shrug off a pistol shot or two, but anything else is probably gonna hurt). Comes with minor regeneration to replace lost mass and somewhat speed up healing major injuries.
• An intuitive awareness of distances relative to herself and other objects in her field of view, can use this to aim shrapnel from teleports, throw ranged weapons with surprising accuracy, and gather information about her surroundings.

Cluster

Shatterpoint is part of a cluster that formed when the team of mercenaries the original Holly was a part of were hired by a Tinker to kill a rival villain. The Tinker offered to teleport them right into their target's base using a "teleportation chamber" that in reality scanned and cloned the entire team, their client planning to send in wave after wave of trained soldiers to overwhelm their enemy. The clone that would become Shatterpoint was part of the first (and only) wave...who began to physically destabilize and fall apart halfway through their attack, as the original team watched in horror. She, alongside one other clone and both of the originals they were copied from, triggered in the chaos.

Backstory

Holly could never get ahead in life, at first. Struggle through school, struggle to find a job…only to get fired two months in, because some Tinker could make robots that did her department’s work twice as fast for 10% of what she made. Struggle to find work, until a friend took her in and showed her his operation. Small gang, small business, but at least there was money in it. A year went by, riskier deals paid off, more guns, more drugs, more manpower. More money in her pockets, better position, better life. Next year poised to be even better.

Until someone fucked up, and some asshole with lasers blasted the door in. Debts owed, deals not upheld. A rival gang, one with capes, ready to extract what’s theirs by any means necessary. They don’t have their fucking money. Holly runs. The screams follow behind her.

Decimation. Bodies littering the floor, everything of value taken. Back to square one. Tried to go straight, didn’t last a month.

Sold information, burnt bridges, lost everything she had. Managed to find a breakthrough.

Mercenary work. First contract, find a familiar face and squeeze him for cash. Roles reversed, gun to his head. Empty clip, full wallet, for once. More work, why hadn’t she done this before? Bullets clinked like coins, the sound of finally taking the better life she deserved.

Fell in with a team, after a while. Real professionals, top-quality equipment suitable for anyone who didn’t bleed money or have powers. Real nice group. More jobs, splitting the pot mattering less and less. Even some work from capes, experience over flashiness.

One more job, unique in that the client needed a cape taken out. Teleportation Tinker with bottomless coffers and a grudge, offered to send the team right to the unlucky fucker’s doorstep, some rival villain who needed a wakeup-call in the form of armor-piercing rounds to the skull.

Holly gets into the teleportation chamber, there’s a flash, an instant of nausea, and...she’s somewhere else.

Team’s ready, guns loaded, hired goons in the way. Bullets fly, curses cut off by gunshots. Further in. Further in.

Almost there, then a scream. One of her allies on the floor, suit folding in on itself as something happens to them. Screaming turns to gurgling, fluid leaking on the ground, rotten meat and chunks of bone. The screaming stops, something pops, viscera splashes on her goggles.

Holly runs. Hides. Prays, under the sounds of the gunfire and what she hopes isn’t her squad’s suffering. For fuck’s sake, she can’t die like this. Fuck the job, she wants to live. She has to get out.

Hired guns on all sides. Death approaching, if whatever the hell killed her teammates gets her. Nowhere to go. She tries anyway, getting up and sprinting through the chaos.

Something shifts in her chest. Pain. Ignore it. A mad dash for freedom, going nowhere, bullets pinging off metal and stone. She can’t run. She has to.

She blacks out mid-step, stumbles, and crashes through the floor.