Swiftlet
Player: @Panthy
Character Build
Class Focus:	DPS
Power Level:	40
Research & Development:	Arms/Fighting Styles
Biographical Data
Real Name:	Charlotte Thorpe
Known Aliases:	Little Bird, The Westside Raven
Gender:	Female
Species:	Human
Ethnicity:	Caucasian
Place of Birth:	Cleveland, Ohio
Base of Operations:	Millenium City
Relatives:	Neil Thorpe (Father), Claire Thorpe (Mother)
Characteristics
Age:	17
Height:	5'6
Weight:	126 lbs (57 kg)
Eyes:	Blue
Hair:	Deep Red
Complexion:	Fair
Physical Build:	Athletic
Physical Features:	Deep red hair and intelligent, cynical eyes
Status
Alignment:	██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ Lawful Good
Reputation:	██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ Reputable
Identity:	Secret
Years Active:	3
Citizenship:	American
Occupation:	Freelance Journalist
Education:	College Degree
Marital Status:	Single
Known Powers and Abilities
Computer Expert - Hacker - Gadgeteer - Detective - High IQ - Exceptional Hearing - Master of Stealth - Escape Artist - Skilled Martial Artist - Proficient Acrobat - Strategist
Equipment and Paraphernalia
Cowl feauturing built-in radio devices and visor with multiple vision-modes - High-powered grapple and line-launcher - Gliding cape - Impact gauntlets - Utility belt - "Swiftblade" boomerangs - Bolas - Smoke pellets - Anaesthetic gas pellets - Explosive devices - Miniaturized dart gun - Variable binders - Lockpicking tools - Homing devices - Data storage devices - Multi-purpose UNTIL PDA featuring custom state-of-the-art hacking and decryption interfaces - "Watcher" V-4 Owljet Interceptor

Attributes
	Strength	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █		Endurance	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
	Agility	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █		Speed	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
	Fighting	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █		Projectiles	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
	Durability	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █		Resistance	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
	Intelligence	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █		Psyche	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
	Intuition	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █		Charisma	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
ReldinBox Template

Personality

Charlotte Thorpe.

Charlotte is, as you might expect, a reserved and introverted young woman. Though she can and does engage in social situations experience and habit have made her more at home at study or practice and she demonstrates a profound disinterest in the common diversions of girls her age. A tomboy by nature, she tends to dress for casual function when not in costume and rarely makes-up or indeed makes any effort to impress others unless it suits the demands of an assignment.

Whilst generally friendly and considerate in manner, she is extremely hard-working and takes her responsibilities as a crimefighter very seriously. In times of crisis Charlotte can be in equal parts reckless and standoffish, but a deeply-held compassion for all life, human or otherwise, informs everything that she does and she keeps a close eye on the heavy-handedness of her colleagues as much as her enemies.

As Swiftlet she is an observant planner, preferring to hang back and take stock of a situation before reacting. When pushed to fight she is quick, methodical and acrobatic, though always preferring the smart and silent approach. This mindset of preparation and looking before she leaps has helped her to tackle foes much larger and stronger than herself, even those with superpowers or other natural advantages which place them well above her own power level.

UNTIL records indicate that she is particularly resilient to mind-control and induced fear, having passed a number of stability tests and manipulation exercises without compromising her will to resist. That said, she has revealed a certain vulnerability when faced with the events of her childhood. Situations involving ambushes, abductions or physical restraint show a tendency to elevate her responses and provoke aggression. Psych. evaluations are inconclusive, but after a six-month observation period UNTIL specialists have cleared her for active duty.

History

Broken Bird

Charlotte Thorpe encountered the ugly face of evil early in her life. At the age of nine she saw her younger friend and neighbour Salim bundled into a van by a strange man. Having snuck away from home with Salim, and with no way to contact either of their parents, she made the decision to pursue the kidnapper's vehicle on her bike.

The stranger's name was Vasili Morlay, but he would later come to be known as the Wendyhouse Man, a predator now thought to have murdered at least 12 young people in Ohio and surrounding states in the previous decade.

Unbeknownst to both killer and victim the vigilante Nighthawk had been following in Morlay's footsteps having connected him to an unrelated case in Detroit and he was apprehended the next day, but not before Thorpe was forced to endure a terrifying night of cat-and-mouse in his squalid home when she was caught trying to rescue her friend.

Charlotte escaped death by the skin of her teeth when Nighthawk reached the scene, but tragically Salim was not so lucky. As the Wendyhouse Man's sole survivor Charlotte would come to know a deep and unyielding sense of personal guilt as she grew older, not to mention a compulsive fascination with her masked rescuer.

Grounded

In the following years Charlotte grew more withdrawn and aloof, focusing on her schoolwork to such an extent that the only friendships that she knew were with her parents and her therapist. In spite of her reserved nature and increasing alienation from her peers Charlotte excelled in her studies and in her fitness, her natural athleticism and agility earning her a number of awards for which she seemed to care frustratingly little. Work and practice consumed her night and day and in the midst of her online research she developed something of a gruesome fixation with criminals and the deranged, privately gathering clippings and even restricted case files for a menagerie of unsolved atrocities. To her parents it was a worrying pattern of obsession, insomnia and distraction. For Charlotte it was a quest for understanding, an effort to make sense of the events of her curtailed childhood. As she delved deeper into the nature of the criminal world what began as a morbid curiosity soon developed into full-on detective work. By the time she was eleven years old she had begun to foster a range of investigative techniques and she studied tirelessly in the methods of basic forensic science - the same methods that had led a certain hawk-eyed hero to rescue her just two years earlier.

By the time she entered high school she had already surpassed her peers in drive and intellect and quickly secured a foothold in the area of journalistic study, utilizing her talents for intuitive reasoning and cyber-intrusion to inform articles for her school paper. Whilst still at school she managed to get herself flagged as a person of interest by UNTIL for her attempted forays into their encrypted networks and government channels, a fact that remained unknown to her until recently. At 15 her father, an engineer, took a job at Harmon Industries and so brought his family with him to live in Millenium City. It was here in the so-called city of the future, a hotbed of superhuman activity and sinister corporations, that Charlotte began to cultivate the notion of becoming a masked vigilante.

An Idea Hatches

The first step was to fashion an online persona - a pseudonym by which she could act with impunity and report on stories that were too hot for a quirky high school publication. Nighthawk himself had long since vanished from the public eye, but Charlotte paid tribute to his legacy by adopting another shadow-dwelling bird as her emblem: the swiftlet. Small and smart, the swiftlet makes its home in secluded caves and uses a form of echolocation to ensure that the dark corners of the world hold no secrets.

Swiftlet's first year was a difficult one, not least because of her decision to drop out of school so that she could study from home and work freelance. Her parents chastised her about wasted potential, moreso when she took on a deadbeat job working as a typist for an older man downtown. In reality Charlotte was putting her potential to the best use that she could imagine. Writing articles about the cruel and corrupt could never satisfy her unless she tried to do something about it, a message reiterated by her new employer and the man who would become the young vigilante's staunchest ally and most demanding teacher.

The Cage.

Cage

"The world is so fixated with superhumans that you forget what ordinary people can do. We have our own monsters."

"And our own heroes."

- Cage and Charlotte Thorpe

The voice in Swiftlet's earpiece. Assumed by many to be nothing more than a sophisticated Artificial Intelligence, in truth the unseen and enigmatic Cage is quite real. A man of solemn demeanour and myriad skills both physical and cerebral, he has been Charlotte's secret mentor for the past two years. Pushing fifty, Cage is a curiosity in that he has no recorded identity even amongst UNTIL's extensive records and the truth behind his origins is a secret which compels Charlotte's investigative nature, but one that he seems determined to carry to his grave.

His only regular interactions are with his new protégé, who is determined to live up to his towering expectations. Under Cage's guidance, and after a series of rocky first meetings, Swiftlet has developed from a low-level hacker and cyber-vigilante into a skilled detective and formidable martial artist. With the benefit of his seemingly limitless knowledge of fighting styles Cage has helped her learn to take advantage of her sharp wits, natural agility, short stature and even her femininity. Together they have endeavoured to transform her perceived weaknesses into her greatest strengths, and with her mentor's technological genius behind her the budding Westside-based vigilante has begun to take her first strides into the realm of global superhuman threats.

Though Cage has welcomed UNTIL's sanctions of his young apprentice he remains adamant that she maintain her discretion and keep his involvement, even his existence, entirely confidential. This has at times put strain on their mentor-pupil relationship, especially in cases where Charlotte has been forced to test the boundaries of her integrity and offer half-truths or outright lies to gain UNTIL support. In spite of his apparent paranoia and questionable behaviour, Charlotte has come to understand the magnitude of the trust that he has placed in her as his only human confidant. Whatever the nature of his secret past, she has ultimately decided to return that trust and remains steadfast in her loyalty. For better or worse, she will not let him down.

A Dark Night

"That headline again," droned the television in the corner of the dining room to which all eyes in the Thorpe household were glued. "The one-time Champion and superhero, Nighthawk, has been identified at the scenes of no less than ten major super-crimes in Millenium City. The MCPD's Chief Surhoff warns all citizens to be on alert for the masked vigilante, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. I've been your anchor Cole Steadmann, and from all of us here in the studio... goodnight and God bless."

The television winked out before Charlotte's eyes and the sound of rattling cutlery and a scraping chair told her that her father had finished eating. She looked to her own plate, where sat most of her cooling dinner. "I'm telling you, it's not him."

"You don't know who he is, Charlie. Nighthawk's been gone for years."

"I know his style. Everybody does, and this isn't it."

"People change. Besides, he was always a bit of a whacko. You were probably too young to remember how everybody was calling for his arrest before he disappeared. He's too extreme."

Charlotte hadn't been too young. "And Defender isn't? He shoots rockets from his shoulders."

"But Charlie, Defender has to take on these guys who threaten the whole planet. His team has international support. Nighthawk goes out whaling on street thugs and muggers every night, there's no sense to it. It's a violent compulsion, he's no better than those gangs he grapples with."

"Not everybody who is evil wears entrails and speaks in monologues, dad. You like Defender because he's colourful and he's obvious, but you can't expect that from these gangs, or the mob. You don't see it but they control this city... and they do it right under the Champions' noses because they know how to get things done on the sly and the guys in charge don't advertise themselves. Have you ever even set foot in Westside?"

Her father paused at that, and Charlotte felt her mother's eyes on her too. "Have you?" he asked.

Charlotte had long since become an expert of deception, but as always when faced with the prospect of lying to her parents she felt as though she'd been reduced to a stiff-jawed child. "I... no, I haven't, and I wouldn't because it's a warzone down there. The police can't put those gangs down because there's just too many, new mobsters and maniacs are getting press-ganged in every day. The only way to turn young and desperate people away from those gangs is to show them that they're not the biggest kids on the block, and that they don't have a monopoly on fear."

"Well, that doesn't seem to be working for Nighthawk either." And with that, her father rose from his seat.

"Because there aren't enough like him," uttered Charlotte under her breath.

Her father had already left the room, but her mother sat watching her still. They were the slow eaters. "He's a dangerous guy to admire, kiddo."

"He saved my life," she sighed in defeat. "Nobody believes me, but I know it was him."

"Nobody believes you? Hey, if you say it was him then I'm not gonna argue with you. Your dad is too old-fashioned, but Nighthawk is okay by me." she gave Charlotte's hand a reassuring slap before continuing with her meal. "What do you think? You're our resident investigative journalist, is he being set up?"

Charlotte gestured to the deceased television screen with her cutlery. "Defender doesn't sound convinced. These incidents have exploded all over the news this week. On his worst day Nighthawk would never draw that kind of attention. It could be anything right now... a shapeshifter, an artificial imitation... Nighthawk had plenty of enemies. If somebody is going to all this effort just to frame him then they must have serious pull... and something to gain from making an a-list hero the target of every cop and PRIMUS soldier in the city."

Her mother only smiled dryly, before arranging her knife and fork together on her empty plate. "You should write an article for your paper about all this. A nice controversial story to get you snapped up by one of those stations."

"Yeah..."

Charlotte was way ahead of her. Infact, she was longing to get back to her room and the three-page draft already sitting on her laptop. She spent a few silent, painstaking minutes finishing off her cold meal before sliding back her chair and rising to her feet in order to stack both plates on her forearm.

"Thanks Charlie."

She began to trundle out of the room, but paused at the window to look out across the city. The towering structures of Downtown Millenium City glittered under a clear midnight sky, themselves overshadowed by the immense monolithic skyscrapers which circled the Renaissance Center. Nestled somewhere amidst the cacophonic urban chorus was the sound of blaring police sirens. Her trained ears told her that they were speeding towards Westside, as they often did, but on this night Charlotte couldn't help but wonder if they'd been sent in force to apprehend the hooded vigilante who had been her childhood hero. Her eyes roamed the gleaming cityscape before her.

Where are you?

Aspect of the Hawk

Birds of a feather flock together.

Skills and Abilities

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