Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Davies" data-source="post: 8814693" data-attributes="member: 30538">Mercedes Blaze<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-tkKvrsN/0/0d71d075/S/39b52d07ccd0e07d1d7c4dff92a28c7d-S.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The arrival on Earth of the Sprawl has sent a wave of mixed panic and amazement through the technological community. While hyperbrains are capable of producing technology that equals or exceeds that of the Sprawl, their discoveries are difficult to replicate; in contrast, the advances of the Sprawl are mass produced. Acquiring such wonders, and learning how to replicate the infrastructure that creates them, has become a goal of many businesses across the world. The Sprawlcorps, who are currently demonstrating an uncharacteristic accord, are not making this easy for them, restricting access to the city state and bargaining fiercely with those representatives they allow in.Of course, this leads to some Earth-based enterprises seeking to use less direct and straightforward means to this end. An example of this would be the activities of Mercedes Blaze, ostensibly a Vice President of the Takagi Investment Group's American division and actually a corporate spy tasked with learning all that is learnable about the technology of the Sprawl. As the Takagi Investment Group is one of the many faces of the cabal known as "the Vision", it should come as no surprise that she has certain extraordinary advantages to help her to do her work.Mercedes has no memories of any childhood. On the rare occasions that she considers this, she has concluded that she was probably an orphan purchased (figuratively, and possibly literally) by her employers as an experimental subject for their cybernetic research, with all her memories flushed when they implanted her with the first versions of her brainmods, or during one of the many updates that have happened in the years since. She is unconcerned with this supposed loss, as these memories are useless to her work, which is all that she cares about. All that she can care about, really. Mercedes is well-aware that the experiments that created her, despite giving her abilities similar to those of a natural hyperbrain, were at best a marginal success in the opinion of the Vision. It was hoped that they would awaken parapsychic abilities, and her failure to manifest anything of the sort is a permanent black mark on her record that all of her successes as an operative have only slightly offset. She cannot afford any additional failures, as her makers could easily unmake her and would do so without hesitation.Therefore, Mercedes (and a small cadre of operatives she has built up in previous operations) are engaged in a variety of schemes in the Sprawl and have clashed with several of its self-proclaimed protectors in the last month. She has been able to report enough successes in these operations (and hide the evidence of any failures) to keep receiving the approval she needs to continue. A major success, such as obtaining technical readouts for the dimensional shift technology that the Sprawl once used, has remained outside of her grasp thus far.Mercedes is a villain. She is employed by a villainous agency and is utterly indifferent to the suffering that she causes in its service. She does not like to be thwarted, but would never bother to seek out revenge on those who did so; she only engages in violence as part of her missions or in self-defense. (Opportunistic revenge, as part of a mission or self-defense, is still on the table.) Further, she is loyal to her agents and would go to some lengths to rescue and protect them; even if one was to fail her in a major way and survive, she would probably just terminate their contract and arrange to have their mind scrubbed of any information about her. It is entirely possible that she might end up allied to Sprawl-based heroes on some future occasion.Particularly if they were to find out that somewhere inside her mind, locked behind her cyberware, is a fourteen year-old girl named Bethany Ryan.Mercedes Blaze -- PL 8Abilities:STR 1 | STA 2 | AGL 3 | DEX 3 | FGT 4 | INT 8/4 | AWE 6/3 | PRE 5/2Powers:BrainMods: Enhanced Advantages 6 (Assessment, Fearless 2, Jack-of-all-trades, Seize Initiative, Speed of Thought); Enhanced Awareness 3; Enhanced Intelligence 4; Enhanced Presence 3; Quickness 4, Limited to Mental - 27 pointsAdvantages:Assessment, Attractive, Defensive Roll, Equipment 10, Evasion, Fast Grab, Fearless 2, Grabbing Finesse, Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Jack-of-all-trades, Move-by Action, Quick Draw, Ranged Attack 5, Seize Initiative, Speed of Thought, Teamwork, Well-informed.Equipment:Body Armor (Protection 3, Subtle), Blaster Pistol (Ranged Damage 5), commlink, and 35 points needed for any given mission.Skills:Athletics 6 (+7), Close Combat: Unarmed 5 (+9), Deception 3 (+8/+5), Expertise: Science 3 (+11/+7), Insight 4 (+10/+7), Investigation 3 (+11/+7), Perception 3 (+9/+6), Persuasion 7 (+12/+9), Stealth 5 (+8), Technology 5 (+13/+9).Offense:Initiative +12/+8/+7Unarmed +9 (Close Damage 1)Blaster Pistol +8 (Ranged Damage 5)Defense:Dodge 9, Parry 9, Fortitude 5, Toughness 7/5/4/2, Will 9/6Totals:Abilities 44 + Powers 27 + Advantages 26 + Skills 22 + Defenses 17 = 136 pointsOffensive PL: 7Defensive PL: 8Resistance PL: 7Skill PL: 8Complications:Professional--Motivation. Secret Identity. Suppressed Memories.</blockquote>

Verification