Aura

Alissa Bright is a rather unassuming high school girl. Once a far more innocent-minded ally to those around her, she frequently sought to serve her community as charitably as she could. She tried to be as open, honest, and understanding with those around her as possible and would rather spend her time helping others than working to improve her own living conditions. Her family isn't particularly well-off, nor would they be generally be considered poor. She often feels guilty when comparing her own living conditions to those of her less fortunate peers which drove her charitable nature. However, it didn't take long for this charitable nature to become preyed upon by those who sought to manipulate her. For a while, she was blind to these tendencies, shrugging her doubts off as her own selfishness trying to get in the way. But things started to change when she found herself compromising on too many of her personal values. Though she once sought love, she soon fell into the lustful trap of man after man, and even some women, garnering her an unpleasant reputation among her classmates. Not wanting to be known just for her sexual favors, and especially noticing the advances were getting in the way of her focus in other areas of the community, she started to turn down sexual favors at which point she was only met with hostility ultimately culminating in her rape. This traumatic experience has led to a dramatic shift in her view on the world. Though she remains friendly and optimistic on the surface around her peers, she's noticeably more withdrawn and has adopted a far more cynical viewpoint toward the world. After months of steadily growing social isolation, she eventually came to develop a desire to protect others from similar fates to her. This desire led her to form a pact with a mysterious spirit of the night, granting her new alias as a superheroine: "The Moonlit Masquerade -- Phantom Myst" -------------- When Alissa had made up her mind that she wanted to stand up to protect the defenseless, she had no idea how to go about doing so until she was visited by a mysterious kitsune spirit who shared in her plight. The spirit sought to keep the innocent safe by protecting them from the evils of the world. The spirit had the fighting prowess but lacked the intellect to properly wield it. Alissa, as a human, much better understood humanity and could more easily get inside the minds of evildoers in order to figure out how to counter them. Together, the two formed a pact and Alissa's body became the host for the Kitsune spirit, giving rise to the city's new hero: The Midnight Masquerade -- Phantom Myst! While the spirit of the kitsune is active within her, Alissa's pink hair and blue eyes turn a soft midnight purple. She becomes far more skillful in hand-to-hand combat and is even capable of transforming parts of her body into water vapor in order to protect against incoming blows. Her normally rather dismal personality also becomes much more cheeky and confident, though Alissa soon came to understand these traits were not lent from the spirit but rather the freedom of her alias as Phantom Myst has helped her to understand who she truly was all along and consequently assisted her in rebuilding her social life in spite of her trauma with a new outlook. It was a breath of fresh air being able to fight crime and watch predator turn into prey under the thick fog of her mist. She loves to taunt and toy with the criminals she tries to stop, knowing that as long as they don't understand her powers, they can do nothing to hurt her. However, Phantom Myst is anything but invincible. Her spirit can only remain active while her body is bathed in direct moonlight, meaning her powers are entirely useless during the day and mostly useless indoors. In addition, in arid environments, or when she is dehydrated, her mist spreads thin much quicker and she becomes unable to convert her body into water vapor to avoid incoming attacks or move as freely. Because of this, she mostly resorts to fighting in the city streets at night. If she ever has to deal with indoor crimes, she often uses a variety of scare tactics to herd her targets into locations where her powers can be useful. Overcast nights are difficult for her to fight in as partially obscured moonlight weakens her kitsune spirit as well. Alissa is well aware that she is unable to defend herself during the day, so while fighting crime, she takes advantage of her change in hair color to disguise her identity by wearing a kitsune mask she'd purchased at a con to hide her face. This offers the secondary benefit of instilling the fear of God in her ill-informed enemies when they see her ominous inhuman silhouette within her signature cloud of mist. In addition to fighting crime while her powers are active, the thrill of fighting has also encouraged her to practice self defense in her own time in case push comes to shove and she has to fight without her powers.

Name: Gina Sumpter Age: 17 Sex: Female Sexuality: Pansexual Bio: Gina is a straight-A honors student who has had it drilled into her head from a young age that, as a woman, she has to work extra hard to prove herself capable in a sexist, male-dominant society. She's always placed herself under tremendous stress to succeed in everything she does which has caused her to break down under the pressure several times and ultimately causes her to drop any hobbies she tries to develop, deciding instead all of her efforts are best spent studying. She is dual-enrolled in high school and a local community college and leaves herself little time for socializing. She feels the need to prove once and for all that women are more than capable of not only performing as well as, but even better than any man before. She believes that by succeeding, she can not only prove to men that women should be given the same amount of consideration as men in her field, but inspire other women to follow in her footsteps in other fields of work. Gina is studying to become a surgeon, and has already received many offers for scholarships to promising post-graduate universities, but these only pile on the pressure she feels to never fail and always get perfect scores because she's terrified one slip-up will cause her to get complacent and cause everything to fall apart. During her freshman year of high school, Gina tried to take a Theatre class where she met her only friend Felicia Quinn who tried, but failed, to encourage her to open up. Despite the friendly encouragement of Felicia and the rest of their classmates, she felt humiliated after stumbling through an improv scene and hastily left the class. Even after the fact, Felicia stayed close to her and the two continued to talk whenever they had the chance. In her Sophomore year, she found herself distracted by a longing for intimacy after noticing other students pairing off and the way they would smile and laugh together. She ended up getting some lines mixed up in her notes which ultimately led to her getting a B on an AP history test. Even though the grade was still solid, she'd had perfection drilled into her head for so long that she was mortified. When Felicia noticed how badly she was reacting, she forced Gina to take the rest of the day off. Felicia took Gina with her and the two went to a local park where Felicia started to play some songs for Gina. Between Felicia's music and jokes mixed with the ambience of nature and the setting sun, Gina, for the first time, truly felt connected to another person. It was a truly magical experience for her. Unfortunately, the experience was quickly soured when Felicia was met with what she felt was excessive disapproval from her teachers when she didn't have her homework finished early nor have all the answers prepared for the lecture. She had to double down on twice the amount of work the following night and instantly regretted wasting the entire day with Feliica. Ever since, the two slowly started to drift apart to Felicia's confusion.

Name: Felicia Quinn Age: 16 Sex: Female Sexuality: Pansexual Bio: Felicia spends most of her time keeping to herself. She doesn't really have a plan for her life and takes each day as it comes. She's a hobbiest musician an has ultimately decided that's probably the direction her career will take her since she feels music just comes naturally to her. She's a fairly emotional teenager who likes to deflect her problems with humor because she believes life is too short to get bogged down in all the details. Anything she can put off for the next day she will if it means another day of just enjoying life and she refuses to buy into any lifestyle that she deems stressful in any way. She holds a naive belief that she can find a way to live a stress-free life in a way nobody else has before by rejecting society's traditional views on work and hustle. While she won't let herself be bogged down in stressful situations, she hates nothing more than anyone needlessly spreading negativity. She won't hesitate to shout at somebody across the room to fuck off and has gotten herself in trouble more times than she can count for it. With her values on stress-free living, it drives her mad to see other people intentionally trying to make another's life more stressful for no reason. She sees stress as a killer and the enemy of humanity and has decided to take up war against it. Metaphorically, of course. Her parents are both alcoholics. Her mother was driven to alcoholism by her father's abusive nature. She and her mother both had to suffer through a lot of misogyny from her father. Felicia's conception was a result of her father impregnating her mother as a means of guilting her into staying in the abusive relationship and forcing her to feel obligated into marrying him due to her religious upbringing. The knowledge of the circumstances of Felicia's birth makes her especially suspect of manipulative people and incredibly suspicious around men. Though she pities her mother's situation, she still can't help but resent her for putting up with her father's cruel treatment for so long. She's never been able to talk sense into the woman who just allows him to treat them both like animals. Felicia herself has been insulted, hit, and even had opportunities sabotaged by her father. Due to having to endure her father's abuse along with her mother's neglect, from a young age she's had to learn to find joy in life by her own means. She avoids her parents most of the time and often makes jokes at their expense to find some sense of humor in her twisted environment. She spends a lot of time playing her acoustic guitar (not pictured) in abandoned buildings or at friend's houses. When she's not in her room or playing her guitar, she's mostly roaming the streets of her hometown. She's learned a lot of street smarts over the years. She's extremely quick to take a suspicious stranger down when they approach her with intent to attack. She's privy to keep valuables secured and she can hold her own in a fair fight. She also knows when to give up and let things go so as not to let things escalate, but mostly avoids any possibility for that to happen. For the most part, though, these things are unlikely to happen as she often befriends most people she meets. She's naturally very charismatic much like her mother supposedly was when she was young. She loves to get to know people and is surprisingly forgiving despite her inability to forgive her parents. She believes they are simply incapable of changing. She follows slightly in her mother's footsteps. She is somewhat religious as she finds the mercy of God to be a source of peace and a means to forgive and forget her own mistakes as well as those of people around her. She wants to one day be able to face her parents peacefully, but she's ultimately lost hope in her ability to communicate with either of them. Her mother just brushes her off and her father only gets angrier. So, she just assumes it's not her place to help them. Unlike her mother, however, she believes strongly in trusting that her path would not involve constant stress and anxiety, or subjecting anyone around her to such a fate. She follows her faith in a unique way to most. She focuses less on abstaining from things she's not supposed to do and more on leaning into God's mercy, understanding, and forgiveness. This pattern of belief often leads her astray, but she doesn't allow herself to be concerned with that. She often rejects the opinions of other Christians in favor of her own personal relationship with God, even when she is in the wrong. And she was certainly anything but clean, as she was no stranger to shoplifting from chain supermarkets and other petty crimes in her younger days, though she was very mindful of who she stole from. And being friendly with so many people meant she was no stranger to drugs and alcohol, either. But she quickly came to realize how badly certain drugs were affecting her and chose to stay away from them, a lingering addiction to cigarettes and alcohol does still tug at her occasionally, especially when hanging out with the wrong crowds. People are often surprised to find out about her faith. She's fascinated by tattoos, she's openly pansexual and regularly flirts with both sexes and she's no stranger to the bedroom, either. She sees sex like a game, a challenge to see who can outlast the other. She usually wins. But she isn't a slut by any means. She has a lot of respect for her body and only puts out to men and women she feels she can trust on a personal level. Among her many friends, one in particular has always stood out to her: Gina Sumpter. Something about the girl intrigued her. She met Gina in her freshman year when they had a Theatre class together. Gina was very quiet, reserved, and a bit nerdy. She always thought her shyness was endearing, especially the way she'd get red-faced and start stuttering when she didn't know what to say next in a scene. But it seemed to bother the girl a lot and she suddenly quit the class. Felicia was concerned when she noticed the girl stop appearing and started to seek her out in the halls and cafeteria. The two started to talk more and she came to understand Gina was very much the opposite of herself. Where Felicia didn't care much at all about things like grades and making mistakes, it seemed to mean the world to Gina. It almost hurt to watch Gina beat herself up so badly over even the smallest of mistakes. The whole issue reached a boiling point their Sophomore Year when she noticed Gina start to break down over something as silly as getting a B on a test. It hurt too much to watch Gina worry herself sick over something so meaningless, so she forced Gina to let go of everything for the rest of the day. She took the girl out for a day of relaxation. They ate together, loitered around some stores, and settled down at a local park where they would share some small talk, mostly Felicia talking to Gina about random things she liked while playing some music on her guitar. The ending of that day was always magical to her. She remembered looking up and seeing Gina smiling at her. It had struck her then how she'd never seen the girl smile before, and how sweet her face looked. That one smile caused feelings to stir in Felicia she'd never experienced before and she quickly developed a crush on her. From that moment, Felicia decided she wanted to fight to protect that smile. Unfortunately, as quickly as it came, it seemed to fade. Suddenly the next day Gina started seeming to avoid her as much as possible. She could never understand why. She'd helped her to feel happy like she'd never felt before. For one day she wasn't a total robot! She knew that smile wasn't fake, so she desperately wracked her brain to try and figure out why in the world Gina would suddenly avoid her so harshly. Who or what was so deeply woven into her head that she couldn't keep pursuing the things that made her happy? Felicia would go on to try and stay close to Gina, who would continue to try her best to ignore her. They would occasionally make small talk, but it just was never the same. Like Gina was always keeping her at arm's reach. It broke her heart not just because of her newfound love for the girl, but because she understood that there was something seriously screwed up going on in Gina's life to mess with her priorities so bad. The girl just went right back to worrying herself sick over due dates, tests, and homework and all Felicia could really do was just accept that she must have a completely different worldview than her. She tried her best to go back to the way her life was before but always kept Gina in her eyes, hoping she could find some opportunity to help her.

Name: Illiad V'rei Age: 24 Sex: Female Bio: Iliad is one of few survivors of a bloody massacre of her people. The elven kingdom was completely demolished by humans who had assaulted them with vile plagues and curses that drained them of their magic. When she was young, she always wondered why her people never simply made peace with the humans they always seemed so afraid of. She was always told humans were vile, greedy beings who wanted nothing more than to seize total domination of the world. She never fully understood why that was a bad thing. If the whole world was ruled under one people, there would be no more war or fighting and it'd be like everyone was one big family. It made sense in a child's mind, anyway. In her childhood, Iliad was an adventurous young girl. She would often go on explorations through the forests surrounding her kingdom. At one point, she discovered an abandoned human settlement. She would bring her friends there and imagine being a part of human society. They would gather items from the forest and pretend to run stores or play house together. As she matured, she would use this place as a getaway, she had her first kiss and even lost her virginity here to a young elven boy. But when the massacre of her people began and she watched countless men and boys die in vain trying to protect their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters... only for those very same women to be dragged away screaming and begging in shackles, a battle they stood zero chance of winning from the beginning, she understood all to clearly why peace was never an option. There is nothing Iliad wants to do more than to raise hell on humanity. She would feel no shame in painting the streets of human cities red with the blood of everything that breathes. But she's smart enough to understand that her pure hatred alone isn't enough to win her any battles. She spent many years dawning a hood to cover her distinctive ears and slipping into human cities. She searched high and low for any signs of elven slaves. She searched brothels, towns, private homes, perhaps the largest incident was a time when she completely destroyed a slave auction with cleverly placed explosives. All of this with the intention of liberating her people from the tyrannical clutches of humanity. Unfortunately, any elven slaves have had their magic permanently sealed away with markings across their necks. Without magic, these slaves are nearly incapable of fighting and most completely lack the spirit of rebellion having lost everything they've lived for already. Iliad spends most of her time stealing from the wealthy among the humans to feed the many slaves she's freed and relocated to the abandoned settlement she discovered in her youth. She'd renamed it Ur'ada after the elven word for heart, blood, and life. It would now serve as a refugee village for liberated slaves. Many train to fight without magic. Though they are physically weak, there are a select few willing to fight for revenge alongside Iliad. However, even the strongest of them know they stand no chance if Iliad were to get caught and lose her magic, too.