Apostate

Talia Wilson began her mission as the vigilante hero People’s Paladin, a crusader against the corruption and injustices of the rich and powerful. With the aid of her mutant physical and mental enhancements, she was able to forge herself into a weapon of uncompromising justice.
She took on mission after mission to expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, but over time, she began to lose hope. No matter how many victories she achieved, the truly rich and powerful never seemed to pay for their crimes, the people simply continued to support the same politicians and businesses, or others equally bad, and the corporate-controlled news media and law enforcement agencies slandered her as a criminal, traitor, or terrorist.
She decided that no one person was actually capable of causing the change that was needed on the scale that was needed, to make a real difference. Only a full-scale popular revolution would do it, but the people were too comfortable, too secure, and too distracted by constant entertainment. As bad as things were, the people still believed in the system, and looked to tepid reforms to save them. Things weren’t bad enough to awaken the masses and spur them to action.
So, Talia hung up the mantle of the People’s Paladin, and became the merciless villain Apostate. She began to oppose the justice she once fought for, eliminating whistle blowers and witnesses, intimidating juries, destroying evidence and targeting journalists.
If she couldn’t make things better, then she would make things worse, until it got bad enough to wake the sleeping masses. She would destroy all false hope and shred any chance for cosmetic reforms, until revolution became the only possible answer.
Talia is entirely independent, choosing her own missions, but she makes sure to attract attention, leaving trails from the crimes she commits leading to those in power who benefit from them. Even if they deny working with or knowing her, which they do, she knows that more and more, people will stop believing them. One day, they will rise in rage.
Talia knows that in the end, after the revolution, she will be hated, recorded in history as an enemy of the people, but she has accepted her fate as the price a true hero must be willing to pay to do what needs to be done.

Physical Description

Special abilities

Apostate is a mutant, with superior physical and mental capabilities. Her mutant abilities by themselves don’t put her in the same class as those with more significant super powers, but combined with her extensive training, they make her quite formidable.

Apparel & Accessories

She is a master of the Chinese hook swords, using the paired blades to trap opponents, pull them off balance, redirect and disarm them, and sweep them off their feet to leave them open to her strikes. The swords themselves are forged from the finest steel, and designed for the stresses of high-powered combat.
Aside from her swords, she carries equipment specific to the mission at hand. She only uses guns if they are absolutely essential, not from any moral compunction, but because she feels they are easy and psychologically distancing weapons that tend to make a warrior overconfident, lazy, and dependent on them.

Mental characteristics

Morality & Philosophy

Talia is an embittered and angry idealist, a crusader for justice outside the law who has given up hope that any good can come from anything short of total overthrow of the system. She is aware that her actions are evil, but she also believes that to give the people false hope through doomed efforts and petty heroics that uphold the status quo is ultimately a far worse evil.
She is driven by her mission: always on the move, investigating targets, carrying out missions, and honing her skills. She has no friends, relationships, or life outside the mission.
While she uses stealth and careful planning to approach a target covertly, her assault is always violent and loud. She wants witnesses and publicity. She wants the ruin she causes to spur the sleeping masses to fight back against their oppressors.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Apostate maintains no close relationships or permanent allies. She isn’t willing to work with the kind of people who would support her actions because she actually considers them enemies to her ultimate goal, and she doesn’t want them knowing anything about her or being able to get to her. She might team up with an independent villain for a specific mission where she needs specific skills or powers she lacks, but this happens only rarely. She is a loner by nature.
It is likely that many of the corporate or government targets she opposed as the People’s Paladin might suspect who she is, especially given that she used the same distinctive weapon and fighting style as the Apostate. She is likely to be a personal target of justice-seeking heroes, and is a high priority for the government.