01-27-2018, 09:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-31-2018, 04:42 AM by Nika Raskov.)
Age: 23
D.O.B: 6/26/2023
Origin: Forme, Italy
Current Location: Moscow
Height: 5’2
Weight: 105
Occupation: Assassin
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Loyalty: Atharim
Psychological description
Nika remembers life before the murder of her parents; those memories and feelings of love and inclusion are hers alone. She does not share them. Nor does she seek them out for fear of having what she loves ripped from her life once more. As Atharim operatives her parents taught lessons of right and wrong; good and evil. At age seven she experienced what those then abstract concepts meant in the rudest of ways. The destruction of her world reinforced within the girl an unparalleled work ethic...toward the eradication of the channeler menace. Her parents had also taught the value of practice and study; for this was the key to their own successes.
The Atharim took over her care and initially she lived within Vatican City, her schooling and training began with other children. Nika recognized the value of the lessons taught in direct correlation to what she’d experienced. She was a studious and model student, obsessing over each aspect of her training until it was mastered to her satisfaction. However, Nika was found to be too intense. She never played or seemed to have fun like the other children. In her physical training she did not hold back regardless of the opponent or odds. There was no balance.
A neutral group of priests took over her tutelage and removed the girl from the Vatican. They started her once more in the sport she’d once loved. Using it as a method of focus and an outlet, this they believe, turned her away from the path of destruction. Through the years she has excelled in both ventures; promoted through racing ranks as well as the Atharim early on. She was the youngest full factory rider at the premier level of motorcycling as well as the youngest member on many hunting teams. While the press calls her a darling-demon, whispers within the Atharim name her soulless. Had the zealots taken notice?
The Atharim have tested her countless times for serious psychological defects after questionable, if debatable, moral decisions in the field. Nika has no qualms about killing women and children. The channelers who murdered her parents were going to kill her too, regardless of the fact she was a child. They set the bar that day, not her. Some members of the Order maintain she’s insane. Some praise her dedication. More attack teams refuse to work with her despite her skill, letting rumors steer them. Nika has become the one they call for the delicate tasks no one else will touch.
This is fine by her.
Physical description
A professional motorcycle racer by day, Nika is as physically fit as any rider at the top level. At 5’2 and 105 pounds, she’s not busty or curvy but can cut an attractive figure when dressed appropriately. Her dark hair is kept buzzed short. Nearly-black eyes rarely soften in their intensity. The young woman’s dimpled smile though, if you can earn it, is worth the wait. In the public eye, she’s the humble rider; not generally showy or cocky but will defend her record with facts if pushed. She lets her on-track actions speak for her. Her bearing is confident despite scars from racing and her other vocation.
When on assignment, she uses guile and subterfuge as she’s easily overlooked when posing as a child, beggar or other destitute. A shaved head makes wearing a wig all too easy and she also conceals her identity from fellow Atharim. As her talent was recognized at a young age she was groomed to be an Asset. No file exists to tie her to the Atharim. She is not marked by the Ouroboros; a fact lost perhaps with the death of her second handler. Few still alive know her code name. Fewer still know who she is. She is a ghost.
Biography
Summers were always for family, her father often said. It was July of 2029...right after her birthday.
She was exiting the motorhome, bag in hand, when the screaming started. It was her mother but Nika didn’t know it at the time. Shrill and drawn out in the same tone; it sounded like a tea kettle. The girl turned, flipping her long, wavy black hair over her shoulder and clomped up two steps to check the stove inside. No one had made tea since Sunday morning at the race track though, so her young features scrunched together and a mischievous brow arched the exact same way her father’s did when he was perplexed. Her mother always had a wry comment about that when it happened. The girl hurriedly kicked off her shoes; mom said nothing but God’s feet were allowed on her carpet then had gotten a good laugh out of her husband’s suggestive remark about now being a god. Nika hadn’t understood what that conversation ended up really being about although. Sometimes her parents spoke a different language, even if the words were all familiar. Grownups!
There was a trophy on the bench. It was golden and shaped like a great urn. Of course it wasn’t REAL gold; she’d asked the man who’d presented it to her. He’d laughed and said she could win one of those when she was older and racing for the great Italian teams. Her shrugged acceptance and thoughtful expression had made the man laugh even more. This was her first win in the upper division and her father was so proud. He’d been a motorcycle racer too, before she was born, and a famous one at that. His trophies lined their expansive basement along with checkered flags, banners and other racing memorabilia. Marchello Raskov, Factory Ducati. Sometimes he’d take her on rides through the mountains on the back of one of his bikes. She loved that more than anything. Well almost. Nika also loved her mother’s passion: shooting. Lea Raskov was the reigning Olympic gold medalist although the girl couldn’t ever get the events right. Long rifle and pistol? She knew it wasn’t the air events… While they had a range, also in the basement, mostly the girls shot outside. Dinner was often what they had hunted that day. Nika was not as interested in cooking the meals but was allowed to scamper down to the garage once their kills were dressed properly.
The girl hugged her trophy before placing it back on the bench. “I will win you many friends, as many as Papa has!” A dimpled grin sealed the promise and with a skip she was off to the galley.
Nothing was on the stove. The tea kettle was sitting on the counter, cold as can be. This drew a frown. What was whistling? Wait, it stopped. Or had it. Was it outside? She tried to remember if the noise had muted when she came inside. The girl squinted and tilted her head. It had started again. Hmm.
She slipped her shoes on, folding the heel in on one. That drove her nuts! The girl bent over and stuck a finger in the shoe to right that wrong only to be rewarded with a nail tear. The shoe was fixed though and so the child continued down the steps, unaware she’d stepped on a shoelace and pulled it loose. Really? Her nails were too short to tear. An examination proved otherwise and she nibbled at the offending digit while scooping up her mother’s heavy purse, which was why she’d come back to the motorhome in the first place.
The family had just returned from an epic month-long holiday which had included the beach, her last race of the season and, a trip to The Vatican. For two weeks. They’d done so much there too. There was a huge library and her mom took her to a range where she’d met a lot of priests…
So they were on their way to go eat dinner because there wasn’t any food in the house. Her dad had backed the motorhome into its garage behind the house but her mom had forgotten her purse. Anyway, her parents were waiting in the car...what was that noise? If it was the car, it was what her father would say was an ‘expensive sound.’ The girl rounded the terrace, clomping on the terracotta drive. Natural break gone, the noise came suddenly.
It was her mother. Lea was screaming her husband’s name. She was in the car which was pushed back off the drive, a trail of debris strewn forth like Porsche breadcrumbs. The entire driver’s cockpit was...gone. Scooped like a giant jagged hand had torn it free.
The girl jerked forward after staring incomprehensibly and kicked something just as something else moved in her periphery. Dark eyes found her father sitting on the ground, looking stunned. Marchello was reaching toward her, mouth moving soundlessly.
‘Papa?’ she was as confused as he appeared to be. Nika looked down to see what she’d kicked. It was a leg. Her father’s leg. The world morphed into shades of black, gray and white. Her brow furrowed. She picked up the limb, gently, and ran through air that seemed to thicken at each successive step. The knees of her jeans tore on rough stone as she slid next to her father but the girl did not feel it. The leg. She did not see the blood. The leg was warm. She was still grasping her mother’s purse. Her mother always had a scarf… Marchello was pointing again though his arm had dropped to his lap. ‘Papa…’ She didn’t know what to do. Nika clawed through the bag; her mother kept everything in there. Everything to fix anything. Her father was pointing still, mouth moving soundlessly. She heard him in her mind, what he’d told her on a walk through the Vatican’s many halls.
“There are bad men in the world...bad things.”
It was as if she could feel the comfort of his arm on her shoulder now.
“Bad men?” She’d looked up into his somber face questioningly.
“Yes, very bad.” He smiled a smile she’d never seen before. “But your mother and I, we fight these bad men; the monsters.”
“Monsters.” She drew a breath in through her nose and frowned at the floor before turning a fierce gaze upward. “Then I will fight them too.”
He smiled.
Her father fell back against the drive. Color returned to the girl’s world. A shadow grew from her left; oblong at first, then widening into shoulders, a torso. Footsteps penetrated her fog, dull like a Vibram-treaded boot.
The girl turned her head slowly. There was a man six feet away, far enough to avoid the expanding crimson pool. His expression was haughty as arrogance poured off in waves. He rolled his head over his shoulder, looking toward the car. “Kid just brought her daddy his fecking leg, like he was gonna mend that? Hilarious!”
Another figure was near the car. Then the car was suddenly on fire. Lea screamed from within. The second man chuckled and stepped away from the heat.
“Little Atharim turn into big Atharim. Kill her.”
The shadow man turned his head back toward the girl.
In the purse her hand closed around the grip of her mother’s pistol, as if ordained. The man stepped toward her, leaned forward and reached out with a clawed hand. Time slowed impossibly again but in this moment, the girl felt unaffected. Nika withdrew the weapon, clicked off the safety, doubled her grip...aimed and squeezed the trigger.
She was in the woods behind their house. It was cold and they were hunting rabbit. Rabbit should only be hunted in the winter because of parasites, her mom taught her. ‘Aim for the eye,’ she said, ‘it’s more humane.’ “I thought you said, aim small, miss small!” Her mom laughed. ‘Yes, I said that too.’
Still grinning, the man’s head haloed a fine mist of pink...as well as varying sized chunks of similar hue, stark white bits of bone... Unfortunately her attacker had been leaning forward at the time of his death, weight shifted also forward, so he fell forward. A grown man’s dead weight eclipsed the seven-year-old and pinned her to the ground.
The Fire-man advanced.
Her mother was screaming still. Awful, raw screams of agonizing pain. Later Nika would recognize her own name. The sound would wake her in the night.
Leather-soled footfalls echoed in the courtyard. Terror shook her. She’d dropped the gun. She was pinned. The girl screamed animal-like and managed to wrench free her forearm. A small hand patted through the tinny wetness beside her, her father’s blood.
The footfalls echoed closer. He was yelling something.
A small hand pushed at the cold .380. It slid. She clawed at it desperately…
An indescribable heat enveloped her, choking away the oxygen. She couldn’t scream but wanted to. Another long shadow grew, bobbing. Menacing. Her arm and hand were hot. She had the gun. Fired blindly. The first round blew into the corpse’s hip. The second passed harmlessly through the oncoming channeler’s pant leg. The third, his thigh. Nika heard him roar, barely glimpsed his stagger around her meat-blanket. That was enough. She willed her hand steady and emptied the magazine.
Lea had stopped screaming. The roar of intense fire filled the backdrop.
The man was making terrible noises.
Air came in greedy gulps. The weight atop her leaked warm blood into her hair, down her face and neck. Into her ear. Her back was slick with it too. A metallic, earthy odor. The girl couldn’t move. Nika sobbed around screams. Inhuman wailing drowned out all else until, hoarse, she could scream no more. Then there was only the black.
D.O.B: 6/26/2023
Origin: Forme, Italy
Current Location: Moscow
Height: 5’2
Weight: 105
Occupation: Assassin
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Loyalty: Atharim
Psychological description
Nika remembers life before the murder of her parents; those memories and feelings of love and inclusion are hers alone. She does not share them. Nor does she seek them out for fear of having what she loves ripped from her life once more. As Atharim operatives her parents taught lessons of right and wrong; good and evil. At age seven she experienced what those then abstract concepts meant in the rudest of ways. The destruction of her world reinforced within the girl an unparalleled work ethic...toward the eradication of the channeler menace. Her parents had also taught the value of practice and study; for this was the key to their own successes.
The Atharim took over her care and initially she lived within Vatican City, her schooling and training began with other children. Nika recognized the value of the lessons taught in direct correlation to what she’d experienced. She was a studious and model student, obsessing over each aspect of her training until it was mastered to her satisfaction. However, Nika was found to be too intense. She never played or seemed to have fun like the other children. In her physical training she did not hold back regardless of the opponent or odds. There was no balance.
A neutral group of priests took over her tutelage and removed the girl from the Vatican. They started her once more in the sport she’d once loved. Using it as a method of focus and an outlet, this they believe, turned her away from the path of destruction. Through the years she has excelled in both ventures; promoted through racing ranks as well as the Atharim early on. She was the youngest full factory rider at the premier level of motorcycling as well as the youngest member on many hunting teams. While the press calls her a darling-demon, whispers within the Atharim name her soulless. Had the zealots taken notice?
The Atharim have tested her countless times for serious psychological defects after questionable, if debatable, moral decisions in the field. Nika has no qualms about killing women and children. The channelers who murdered her parents were going to kill her too, regardless of the fact she was a child. They set the bar that day, not her. Some members of the Order maintain she’s insane. Some praise her dedication. More attack teams refuse to work with her despite her skill, letting rumors steer them. Nika has become the one they call for the delicate tasks no one else will touch.
This is fine by her.
Physical description
A professional motorcycle racer by day, Nika is as physically fit as any rider at the top level. At 5’2 and 105 pounds, she’s not busty or curvy but can cut an attractive figure when dressed appropriately. Her dark hair is kept buzzed short. Nearly-black eyes rarely soften in their intensity. The young woman’s dimpled smile though, if you can earn it, is worth the wait. In the public eye, she’s the humble rider; not generally showy or cocky but will defend her record with facts if pushed. She lets her on-track actions speak for her. Her bearing is confident despite scars from racing and her other vocation.
When on assignment, she uses guile and subterfuge as she’s easily overlooked when posing as a child, beggar or other destitute. A shaved head makes wearing a wig all too easy and she also conceals her identity from fellow Atharim. As her talent was recognized at a young age she was groomed to be an Asset. No file exists to tie her to the Atharim. She is not marked by the Ouroboros; a fact lost perhaps with the death of her second handler. Few still alive know her code name. Fewer still know who she is. She is a ghost.
Biography
Summers were always for family, her father often said. It was July of 2029...right after her birthday.
She was exiting the motorhome, bag in hand, when the screaming started. It was her mother but Nika didn’t know it at the time. Shrill and drawn out in the same tone; it sounded like a tea kettle. The girl turned, flipping her long, wavy black hair over her shoulder and clomped up two steps to check the stove inside. No one had made tea since Sunday morning at the race track though, so her young features scrunched together and a mischievous brow arched the exact same way her father’s did when he was perplexed. Her mother always had a wry comment about that when it happened. The girl hurriedly kicked off her shoes; mom said nothing but God’s feet were allowed on her carpet then had gotten a good laugh out of her husband’s suggestive remark about now being a god. Nika hadn’t understood what that conversation ended up really being about although. Sometimes her parents spoke a different language, even if the words were all familiar. Grownups!
There was a trophy on the bench. It was golden and shaped like a great urn. Of course it wasn’t REAL gold; she’d asked the man who’d presented it to her. He’d laughed and said she could win one of those when she was older and racing for the great Italian teams. Her shrugged acceptance and thoughtful expression had made the man laugh even more. This was her first win in the upper division and her father was so proud. He’d been a motorcycle racer too, before she was born, and a famous one at that. His trophies lined their expansive basement along with checkered flags, banners and other racing memorabilia. Marchello Raskov, Factory Ducati. Sometimes he’d take her on rides through the mountains on the back of one of his bikes. She loved that more than anything. Well almost. Nika also loved her mother’s passion: shooting. Lea Raskov was the reigning Olympic gold medalist although the girl couldn’t ever get the events right. Long rifle and pistol? She knew it wasn’t the air events… While they had a range, also in the basement, mostly the girls shot outside. Dinner was often what they had hunted that day. Nika was not as interested in cooking the meals but was allowed to scamper down to the garage once their kills were dressed properly.
The girl hugged her trophy before placing it back on the bench. “I will win you many friends, as many as Papa has!” A dimpled grin sealed the promise and with a skip she was off to the galley.
Nothing was on the stove. The tea kettle was sitting on the counter, cold as can be. This drew a frown. What was whistling? Wait, it stopped. Or had it. Was it outside? She tried to remember if the noise had muted when she came inside. The girl squinted and tilted her head. It had started again. Hmm.
She slipped her shoes on, folding the heel in on one. That drove her nuts! The girl bent over and stuck a finger in the shoe to right that wrong only to be rewarded with a nail tear. The shoe was fixed though and so the child continued down the steps, unaware she’d stepped on a shoelace and pulled it loose. Really? Her nails were too short to tear. An examination proved otherwise and she nibbled at the offending digit while scooping up her mother’s heavy purse, which was why she’d come back to the motorhome in the first place.
The family had just returned from an epic month-long holiday which had included the beach, her last race of the season and, a trip to The Vatican. For two weeks. They’d done so much there too. There was a huge library and her mom took her to a range where she’d met a lot of priests…
So they were on their way to go eat dinner because there wasn’t any food in the house. Her dad had backed the motorhome into its garage behind the house but her mom had forgotten her purse. Anyway, her parents were waiting in the car...what was that noise? If it was the car, it was what her father would say was an ‘expensive sound.’ The girl rounded the terrace, clomping on the terracotta drive. Natural break gone, the noise came suddenly.
It was her mother. Lea was screaming her husband’s name. She was in the car which was pushed back off the drive, a trail of debris strewn forth like Porsche breadcrumbs. The entire driver’s cockpit was...gone. Scooped like a giant jagged hand had torn it free.
The girl jerked forward after staring incomprehensibly and kicked something just as something else moved in her periphery. Dark eyes found her father sitting on the ground, looking stunned. Marchello was reaching toward her, mouth moving soundlessly.
‘Papa?’ she was as confused as he appeared to be. Nika looked down to see what she’d kicked. It was a leg. Her father’s leg. The world morphed into shades of black, gray and white. Her brow furrowed. She picked up the limb, gently, and ran through air that seemed to thicken at each successive step. The knees of her jeans tore on rough stone as she slid next to her father but the girl did not feel it. The leg. She did not see the blood. The leg was warm. She was still grasping her mother’s purse. Her mother always had a scarf… Marchello was pointing again though his arm had dropped to his lap. ‘Papa…’ She didn’t know what to do. Nika clawed through the bag; her mother kept everything in there. Everything to fix anything. Her father was pointing still, mouth moving soundlessly. She heard him in her mind, what he’d told her on a walk through the Vatican’s many halls.
“There are bad men in the world...bad things.”
It was as if she could feel the comfort of his arm on her shoulder now.
“Bad men?” She’d looked up into his somber face questioningly.
“Yes, very bad.” He smiled a smile she’d never seen before. “But your mother and I, we fight these bad men; the monsters.”
“Monsters.” She drew a breath in through her nose and frowned at the floor before turning a fierce gaze upward. “Then I will fight them too.”
He smiled.
Her father fell back against the drive. Color returned to the girl’s world. A shadow grew from her left; oblong at first, then widening into shoulders, a torso. Footsteps penetrated her fog, dull like a Vibram-treaded boot.
The girl turned her head slowly. There was a man six feet away, far enough to avoid the expanding crimson pool. His expression was haughty as arrogance poured off in waves. He rolled his head over his shoulder, looking toward the car. “Kid just brought her daddy his fecking leg, like he was gonna mend that? Hilarious!”
Another figure was near the car. Then the car was suddenly on fire. Lea screamed from within. The second man chuckled and stepped away from the heat.
“Little Atharim turn into big Atharim. Kill her.”
The shadow man turned his head back toward the girl.
In the purse her hand closed around the grip of her mother’s pistol, as if ordained. The man stepped toward her, leaned forward and reached out with a clawed hand. Time slowed impossibly again but in this moment, the girl felt unaffected. Nika withdrew the weapon, clicked off the safety, doubled her grip...aimed and squeezed the trigger.
She was in the woods behind their house. It was cold and they were hunting rabbit. Rabbit should only be hunted in the winter because of parasites, her mom taught her. ‘Aim for the eye,’ she said, ‘it’s more humane.’ “I thought you said, aim small, miss small!” Her mom laughed. ‘Yes, I said that too.’
Still grinning, the man’s head haloed a fine mist of pink...as well as varying sized chunks of similar hue, stark white bits of bone... Unfortunately her attacker had been leaning forward at the time of his death, weight shifted also forward, so he fell forward. A grown man’s dead weight eclipsed the seven-year-old and pinned her to the ground.
The Fire-man advanced.
Her mother was screaming still. Awful, raw screams of agonizing pain. Later Nika would recognize her own name. The sound would wake her in the night.
Leather-soled footfalls echoed in the courtyard. Terror shook her. She’d dropped the gun. She was pinned. The girl screamed animal-like and managed to wrench free her forearm. A small hand patted through the tinny wetness beside her, her father’s blood.
The footfalls echoed closer. He was yelling something.
A small hand pushed at the cold .380. It slid. She clawed at it desperately…
An indescribable heat enveloped her, choking away the oxygen. She couldn’t scream but wanted to. Another long shadow grew, bobbing. Menacing. Her arm and hand were hot. She had the gun. Fired blindly. The first round blew into the corpse’s hip. The second passed harmlessly through the oncoming channeler’s pant leg. The third, his thigh. Nika heard him roar, barely glimpsed his stagger around her meat-blanket. That was enough. She willed her hand steady and emptied the magazine.
Lea had stopped screaming. The roar of intense fire filled the backdrop.
The man was making terrible noises.
Air came in greedy gulps. The weight atop her leaked warm blood into her hair, down her face and neck. Into her ear. Her back was slick with it too. A metallic, earthy odor. The girl couldn’t move. Nika sobbed around screams. Inhuman wailing drowned out all else until, hoarse, she could scream no more. Then there was only the black.