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Reika Pella <SC-B2>

Programmed and linked to others as a tool, broken loose and remembering the horrors... Becoming lost and falling under a new master, broken loose again by a shattered psyche. Will the cycles end? Can the pain be healed?

Reika Pella (a.k.a. Psy-Shot, Seer 1463, Widow Latrodectus)

"Yeah, take some time off. The mission's over. Rest for now. When the real fighting starts, we're going to need you."
Reika gave him a glance as she turned to walk away, "I won't be healed in time for it, so you better not need me."
Someone didn't realize how bad of shape she was still in at the time... Or how much of a liabilty she was in what they were against.
"I'm... just... tired of seeing that... mental enslavement..." She kept her hood pulled around her face, but she was freaking out a lot less than she could have been.
First combat outing in months and all-too-familiar nightmares were present. Because of course...

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

She's got an agile and athletic build going as she works on training after recovering being rendered unable to fight. Her right hand is cybernetic, clearly Arachnos teck, and both hands have widow claws visibly tucked within them.

Physical quirks

Never quite focused, but somehow still hanging onto alertness. A soldier's bearing clings to her posture and movements, and she has a tendancy to float out of habit.

Special abilities

She is a very powerful psychic with a variety of tricks at her disposal. From simple Telepathy and telekinetic-based flight to mind-scrambling shrieks, subtle bursts of power capable of confusing targets, and complete and total mental lockdown of a large area.
Most of her training is from being a Seer, particularly the mass mind control and flight. Though Arachnos re-trained tuned some of it to new uses in combat. For offensive use she focuses on larger scale bursts of power that render groups of targets helpless. She can also link the minds of those around her to enhance their combat effectiveness, and more gentle soothing auras to ease pains.
Alongside all of this she can also render herself invisible to most perceptions, though as this is purely psychic it doesn't work as well on robots or things that see with senses she lacks understanding of. She has a small-scale foresight that is mostly usable at combat scales and often uses this alongside her other psychic capabilities to avoid getting hit or minimize how much damage she takes if she can't.
She can also fly and teleport, the latter mainly being used for combat scale or very long distances that flying would be a pain for. Though she is quick and agile in the air.

Specialized Equipment

Armor
Arachnos Uniform: No longer in use...
Shiny, dome helmeted uniform with the spider motif patterning being red on black and fitted to be skin-tight, a split cape hangs from waist level almost to the ground, with the outside of the lower ends rounded. The only obvious armor present being over her chest, shoulders, and head, if anything other than the helmet could really be called armor.
Rogue Armor:
Arachnos blue-sheened metal serves as many of the plates, with a fine black chainmail filling the gaps underneath. On her chestplate is an emblem of a red web. Her boots and left glove are likewise plated and protective. Her head remains covered by a dark hood, mask, and tattered cloak, with a dull grey visor partially dimming the glow of her eyes when her psionics are in use.
Psychic armor:
TBW
Weapons
Arachnos Widow Claws:
Her new weapon of choice. A set of claws and blades set into her hands and forearms. Capable of rending armor if she puts enough force behind the blow, as well as shooting poisoned darts at targets.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Reika has, for the shortest words possible, been through psychic hell, back, returned, and is fighting to keep herself from falling back in a third time.

Praetoria and Early Primal
"Welcome to Praetoria's brand of insanity. ...It only gets worse the more you dig."
Reika is from Praetoria, her family's psionic capability meant they were all targets of being pulled into the Seer Network. Reika doesn't quite know what happened to the rest of them, but she has a feeling it was the same or worse than what she went through.
The Seer Network of Praetoria functions as psychic surveillance, mass mind control, and thought-policing. The Seers do not have free will while they're connected and are functionally more like robots in a human body.
It is a nightmare that cannot be escaped alone.
After all those years inside it... Reika found herself pulled out, surrounded by strangers, with memories slowly falling into place as the cybernetic and psychic link withdrawal hit hard. At the very least the strangers that pulled her out were able to get her calmed down... and she learned they were members of the Resistance and Syndicate.
When she was recovered enough, Reika joined the resistance. Fighting as a member of their Warden Faction with a dislike of the Crusaders' disregard for human life and their preference for maximizing damage... collateral and otherwise. Though with the nightmare of the network still fresh in her mind, this wasn't very long-lasting. She decided to relocate and largely live in isolation in First Ward.
It couldn't be called 'living in peace', unfortunately. First Ward houses the main facility Seers are created in, as well as Praetoria's unwanted and forgotten, though the latter are generally sympathetic toward former Seers. There are also the apparitions, D.U.S.T., Talons, Ghouls, and other things stalked around with less than friendly intent. Including a massive Seed of Hamidon patrolling the sky over the central city sections.
Reika usually kept to herself in that time, keeping away from even the survivor's compound unless she needed to do a supply trade. She wasn't in any particular hurry to change it, even if she faced frequent attacks from various horrors and supply shortages that threatened to kill her. It was better than the Seer network to her, nightmares of which still sometimes plague her sleep, years later.

Reika had no intention of leaving Praetoria, even after hearing of an alternate dimension that may or may not cause a war, until a powerful stranger came looking for her. The other woman didn't reveal her identity at first. Helping against an attack on the compound by apparition possessed D.U.S.T. without hesitation. Clearly as someone who was far better trained and equipped than needed to handle them.
When the fighting settled the mystery woman revealed her identity. On Primal Earth she was best known as Silent Eyes but her real name was Deanna Pella, making her Reika's Primal Earth counterpart. Silent had come there looking for her Praetorian, worried about having a mirror that would turn evil and try to kill her and her allies. Something that seemed to be a common theme among her friends.
They parted ways after making sure neither was out to kill the other, keeping in loose contact. It wasn't until things started to really break down on Praetoria's side of the rift that she left for Primal Earth. Quickly learning that time around the Primal-Praetorian war was... wonky. The war was over for Primal, and Praetoria was even more of a mess than it had been... At least the former Seer had no particular attachment to her home dimension.
Suddenly in an unfamiliar dimension, Reika was more than a little lost. Isolation hadn't been doing her any favors... and she wanted to do something to help this new world. While Deanna did give her a quick rundown of who was who around Primal...
She didn't emphasize enough caution around groups like Arachnos.
Reika ended up in a conversation with an Arachnos Crab Spider soldier. It was friendly chatter, but it pulled her just far enough over to investigate the Isles... and then Arachnos...

One thing lead to another, and Reika ended up joining the organization. Earning the moniker Widow Latrodectus, she took to their training and light augmentations readily. Becoming a deadly and powerful Fortunata that was effective with her new, poisoned claws.
At first, she was content in the position. Even with the horrors Arachnos committed among their own ranks, to their people, things she did in their name. Some of the nightmares were familiar, like the Banes and their self-inflicted control, but... the Widows' network had a comforting feeling. The noise and support of a thousand sisters and some brothers, but far less control than the Praetorian Seers were held under.
At least, so it seemed at the time.


Arachnos and Escape
"All the mirrors are broken."
Then, one day, Reika heard a callout on an open frequency, someone was in Night Ward asking for help, close to familiar territory. Though she came in Arachnos uniform, she came as a Praetorian wanting to help with the problems of her home dimension.
It wasn't long before another, plugged-in Seer caught up, Visionary 10011, familiar to some of the team's members from earlier. Old memories were brought up to the surface, and the Widows' control was weakened across the dimensional divide. After an exchange between just the two of them, Reika realized what she'd let herself get pulled into.
When the latest batch of problems in Night Ward were solved. Reika, Scarlet Sniper (leader of the team), Dethstryker, and an entity called 'Nothing', worked to break 10011 free of the network. Settling in to get the newly dubbed 'Hope' settled and all finally relax after the chaos that came before.
Now Reika had a sister she wanted to look over, and protect from falling into Arachnos' nightmares like she had. It also gave her a desire to get out again... A desire that she struggled to hang onto within the network.
But she didn't want to leave alone, either, there were two others she wanted to help escape. A crab spider known as Sparks, and a Bane known as Arza. But she had an enemy, Lavender Spinner, a high-ranking Fortunata Mistress.
She waited and watched for Sparks to flee, the younger soldier moved resources but... didn't leave. No opening seemed to present itself for her, at least not one she wanted to risk taking... Reika's primal half and her family dealing with their own issues, though they wanted to assist, the spiders didn't want to strain them further.
Reika was starting to grow restless.

She checked in with her Primal counterpart's friends and family again, now known a bit better as the "Shining Lights". Several were out infiltrating an enemy, and some who were stuck at home were getting restless... And then they got an alert that the Lights' opponent, G.E.N.E., was working with Arachnos somewhere...
Reika joined them in putting a halt to whatever was being planned by both groups together, but at a cost. Fighting psychics she was linked to, and trying to hide her signature as well as allies, without sharing every horror in her mind began to wear down on her. Old traumas began to be brought up as they uncovered more information about one of the names tied to G.E.N.E. and took down their latest abomination of a pet project.
At the end of it all, Reika tore herself out of Arachnos' psychic network. Violently. A piece of herself left behind and her mind shattered and beaten along with her body. She managed to retreat back to the Shining Island with the rest of them, but did little more than curl up in the garden.

For the time being, all her fighting spirit was gone, used up in that last, desperate attempt at freedom.


Recovery
"Or Reika... means power of the wolf, or power of the home."
The next day Reika was pulled from her mind, some of the damage being gently soothed and preventing her from losing herself. She wouldn't be able to leave the island for a while but... she'd be in good company, and safe. A fresh start with better support than her prior experiences had given her.
But first... healing, recovering from tearing herself apart, dealing with trauma that was never properly handled... And a name she could call her own, something she'd considered before but never had any urgency to figure out. Though now sharing space with her Primal counterpart, when they were both still going by 'Deanna'... It set in slightly, how messed up she was to be fine with being called 'Prae-Dee' and variations of, instead of a proper name.
But before healing could get far... Lavender Spinner paid a visit, having discovered the Island at a previous point entirely by accident. She'd snatched up the abandoned fragment of Reika's mind, having watched when the now rogue widow escaped.
The Fortunata offered the fragment back, and even was allowed to re-attach it. Though this latter choice had an almost disasterous outcome, if not for the protective presence of Maxine, a former Arachnos Tarantula Mistress.
The fragment Reika had lost contained the 'echos' of things she'd had heard with her psionics over long periods of time, the Seer Network and Hamidon, specifically. Also within the fragment was her addiction to psychic links caused by her history with the Seers and Arachnos both.
When the fragment was re-attached properly enough, Reika almost, tried to properly connect to Lavender Spinner. But the Fortunata got a psychic punting, and promptly got chased off the Island itself, before that could happen.

With that whole ordeal over... Reika returned to resting and healing, now too afraid to leave the Island in case she ran into Lavender or another Arachnos psychic. The ones she'd wanted to help previously would be on their own.


[More, always more, slowly catching up to current events. Probably going to rewrite chunks for more detail...]

Employment

Former Praetorian Seer, one of many horrors created and utilized to keep the population under control. Cybernetically enhanced psychics networked together and used as autonomous thought-police. Likely served with the IDF for a time before being pulled free of the Seer Network by members of the Resistance and Syndicate.
Once freed and semi-oriented she served with the Resistance's 'Warden' Faction for a time. Then moved to First Ward... Then pulled into Primal Earth as Praetoria fell apart.
Several months later, for about half a year, she was part of the villain organization Arachnos as one of their more powerful and dangerous Fortunatas. She is still recovering from tearing herself free, and can currently be considered one of the "Shining Lights", though due to the trauma she's suffered she hasn't done much field work.

Mental Trauma

There's a mountain of it, an extremely deep-rooted mountain. She really can't get a break from psychic-related trauma at this point.

Reika is a former Seer from Praetoria, "Mother's" little "precious children" who are...
Tortured, brainwashed, and cyberneticly bound into a psychic network meant for mass mind-control to function as literal thought police. Without a single conscious thought of their own or an ounce of say in weather they want to become one or not.
Even being unplugged is traumatic, especially when you've been hooked up for several years. You don't know how long it's been, but suddenly you're not a child anymore, or where you last remember being, and the questions just keep... piling... in...

It's been a few years, it still hasn't all healed. There's still nightmares, some things she struggles to say without forcing the words out, or has to fight saying on reflex. She's still twitchy about psychic networks, especially after a stint with Arachnos.
She also later learned about the psychic surgery part of Seer Inductions... where rebellious parts of their psyche were removed.
It took over an hour and a half for her to be mostly pulled out of the mental shutdown that had followed when she learned that one.
It didn't help that she almost immediately put together that that was what the apparitions in First Ward were, either. She'd always thought they felt strange but... but...
Did she kill her stray psyche in one of those attacks? Or someone else's? Was her's still out there, somewhere, and might it be safe to recover?

Then there's all of the horrors Arachnos performs. Another round of psychic enslavement in a network, though she didn't quite make the connection right away to what it was. It was... oddly comforting, in a way, while she was in that one. The noise and support of psychic 'siblings' while still being able to be 'herself', sort of. Until she connected the dots to all the parallels to the Praetorian Seer Network, she almost couldn't break free.
When she left, it wasn't under great circumstances either. A desperate escape driven by a whole lot of her previous trauma getting torn open. New trauma being gained as she ripped herself out of the Widow network with enough force a piece of her was left behind. Making psychic connections painful.
That piece was recovered, or rather, 'given back', by one of Reika's now former superiors. Who almost used it to pull her back into Arachnos, as it contained her addiction to psychic connections, among things actually useful for her to function. Though the attempted re-connect to the network was interrupted, the threat still remains.

...And of course the Shining Lights are still having to deal with other groups that utilize mental enslavement.

That Reika manages to be even passably functional is impressive, really, or completely terrifying, one of the two.

Morality & Philosophy

Her mind has been programmed like a machine, broken by the release and horrors inflicted, trained to warp minds in new and more horrifying ways, broken again...
That she's able to still care about another life is impressive. Though she's fully capable of killing without hesitation, she tries to avoid it when she can. Her limits on psychic fuckery are still being established, but long-term mind control, brain washing, or total puppeting is something she's against. Psychic networks without consent also set her off.
But where do you draw the line with consent as someone who fights with psionics?
And how do you decide when it's ok to use that power to kill?
There's... a lot of morality questions she's going to have to ask herself.

Social

Family Ties

Reika doesn't know what happened to her biological family in Praetoria. Though nothing points to it being anything good, she's opted not to investigate in the end.
Reika has pretty much been adopted into large, crazy family of Deanna, her primal counterpart. Good luck trying to map all the relations in that one... Half of it is adopted in friends, some from other dimensions or times, and a few created by magic.
It's unlikely Reika would have it any other way, at this point, even if it took a bit to adjust.

Mannerisms

She can be somewhat subconscious about her claws, especially around ex-Arachnos or others who aren't fond of the organization. Anger tends to make her flex her hands, sometimes allowing the claws to slide out of their internal sheaths.
Titles (for my memory, Badges)
Seer
Widow
Covert Operative
Hero Slayer/Bloody Hands
Origin
Natural
Background Origin(s)
Tech
Archetype
Blaster, Arachnos Widow/Fortunata
Primary/Secondary Powers
Beam Rifle/Mental Manipulation, Arachnos Widow and Fortunata Training
Other Powers
Flight, Teleportation (limited), First Aid (Limited)

Counterparts
Silent Eyes <SC-B2> (Primal), Reticent Feather (Other), Silent Eyes (Other)
Family
Status of Praetorian kin unknown, has been adopted into her Primal counterpart's family.

Current Alignment
Vigilante? ... Good-leaning, probably.

Age
31 (Maybe, Praetoria's timeline is WEIRD)
Children
Gender
Female
Eyes
Brown
Hair
Brown with redish streaks, left long
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Pale, she needs more sun
Height
5'9"
Quotes & Catchphrases
"All that glitters is not gold..."
"Welcome to Praetoria's brand of insanity... It only gets worse the more you dig."
Known Languages
English (Native, Praetorian/Isles Italian accent mix)

Objective
Heal, hide from Arachnos.
Other story bits
Former Praetorian Seer and Resistance. Former Arachnos. Heavily damaged mind.

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Cover image: by Foxyowlet

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