Biography

Born in Millennium City, Krysta was a frightening child. White as a sheet and eyes shining red within black pits, she was shunned before her life had truly begun. Despite that, her parents loved her. They saw their daughter as simply their daughter and cherished her, in turn Krysta treasured her parents, the only ones who treated her as something more than a freak.

Growing up she grew to realise she could see the talents of those around her; she could perceive everyone in their element, doing what they were best at. She herself had no talents. Rejected at every turn she dared not join clubs or play sports. This fostered an infectious jealously within Krysta. The older she got, the more her envy grew until she reached out to the images she saw and found she could take them.

A school sports day, sat watching the 100m Sprint, she watched the best runner in school, reached out for their talent and took it. She smiled as they tripped and fell, their talents stripped away, their ankle twisted. To add insult to injury, she volunteered to take their place, publicly appealing to the crowd that she could win and to believe in her. Those who despised her saw an opportunity to humiliate Krysta, and supported her appeal.

Krysta won the race, using her stolen talent, winning over the student body and of course, winning a trophy.

The remainder of her childhood encompassed much of the same, though she became more subtle. Stealing intelligence to pass tests and such. She coasted through school, never earning anything, never working hard but just taking the fruits of other people's labours.

She told nobody of her abilities and nobody noticed. Gradually she cast her eyes to the sky, watching heroes and finding she could see their powers too. Found she could take them and become a hero herself, if only for a little while. But heroic life didn't strike her as lucrative, and having been rejected by the world from the start, why would they accept her now?

Instead she turned her gaze to the underground. She made inquiries with the Westside Gangs, though had no intention of staying with them for long. She wanted to build up her name, gain a reputation as a useful ally in the criminal world. She experimented with her powers, seeing how she could manipulate the talents and powers of those around her. She could find she could bestow a stolen ability to someone else, rendering not only her enemies powerless, but her allies stronger than ever.

This lead to the realisation that she could strengthen her allies purely through exerting her influence over the image of their ability. Sharpen it and nurture it at the cost of her own stamina. All of this built up her reputation and she became respected within the Westside Gangs.

Eventually she was contacted by a villain known as 'Ruin'. He offered her money, security and 'purpose'. It was an opportunity to rise above the scum of society picking at scraps from the bottom and rise into the big leagues of villainy. Krysta agreed without hesitation, taking up the name of Guide's Eye. Initially the partnership worked like a well-oiled machine. Krysta could disable heroes and Ruin would dispatch them with unerring accuracy with his rifle. But Ruin began to get bored. Krysta made everything too easy. There was no challenge in hunting a powerless hero. This lead to Krysta's first infraction.

Krysta had never needed to take a life, it was much easier giving trigger-happy gangsters the right to execution than doing it herself. She understood the necessity of tying up loose ends but tried to keep her hands clean. So when Ruin captured a hero and handed Krysta a pistol to execute them, she refused.

By day's end, Ruin had gouged out Krysta's right eye, mocking her that if she was called "Guide's Eye, why do you have two of them?" Ruin believed this action to have secured Krysta's loyalty, as from then on, she never defied an execution order, always shooting a helpless victim in the forehead when told.

Ruin began to hunt heroes that countered his perfect accuracy with a rifle. Barriers, lightning reflexes, magnetism and so on. He would engineer traps to secure the kill and outright refused to use Krysta unless his trap failed. Whenever his trap failed, he would order Krysta to disable the target and execute them.

One such occasion happened. Ruin's trap for a hero possessing the ability to reflect projectiles failed and he ordered Krysta to execute them. Ruin watched from behind as Krysta raised her gun at the helpless hero, crippled by bullets to their ankles. In the moment before she fired, she returned the hero's power and shot him at such an angle that the bullet bounced back and ripped through Ruin's abdomen.

With that shot, Krysta set forth on the path of redemption.

Powers

• Identify - Guide's Eye can focus her sight and perceive the most powerful ability or talent of whoever she looks at.
  
• Steal - Guide's Eye can temporarily steal a power or talent she has seen through Identify. Whilst stolen, the original owner loses their power or talent. The effect lasts thirty minutes but she can refresh the time limit by Identifying the original owner again.
  
• Loan - Guide's Eye can boost the power or talent of an Identified target. However she becomes linked to her target and any losses in stamina are shared between the two.
  
• Fence - After stealing a power or talent, Guide's Eye can transfer it to another target. This has a fixed thirty minute time limit and cannot be refreshed.
  

Weaknesses

• Human - She is an extremely fragile human.
  
• Cannot Steal Everything - Her powers have clear-cut counters. There is only so much her body can emulate. Innate physical strength earned through science or training cannot be stolen, same goes for additional limbs. Knowledge of martial arts can be stolen but she herself is physically weak and cannot utilise that knowledge fully. Technology-based foes need not fear her abilities.
  
• Telepathic Attack - Her mind is unguarded.
  
• Obvious Blind Spot - She only has one eye.
  

Statistics

Tropes

Appearance

• Red Right Hand With a red and black eye it's already clear she's an unpleasant individual, but this is doubled by the absence of her other eye.
  
• White Mask of Doom Her mask has only one eye-hole and is pure white save for the red circle on the forehead. For someone seeking to be a hero, this is an oddly eerie choice of mask.
  
• Eerie Pale Skinned Brunette Her skin is deathly pale, a side-effect of her mutation along with her unnatural eye colour. She's had issues with sunburn all her life.
  

Personality

• Sour Outside, Sad Inside Guide's Eye is mean, rude, belittling and is extremely stingy with any sort of positive interaction. She often makes off-colour jokes about how certain people or situations make her want to drink bleach. She has a cynical outlook of the world and sees no reason to engage with people beyond fleeting moments. After all, she can only trust herself.
• Reformed But Not Tamed Though Guide's Eye has now taken the path of heroism, she has retained her villainous characteristics.
• Friendly Enemy Despite now being a hero, Guide's Eye herself actually holds very little ill will towards villains, even going so far as to share a drink with a VIPER soldier. She understands the villain perspective and that people can be make decisions necessary to survive while also being 'wrong.' She respects those who remain on the side of evil, those who would willingly brand themselves enemies of society. She acknowledges that in some ways, that is incredibly brave. However her respect for those defying the law stops at those who take lives for pleasure. Killing can be a necessity, but never should it be a joy.
  

Combat and Skills

• Power Parasite Power Stealing is her primary combat ability.
  
• Super Empowering She is an asset to her allies, able to power them up in battle. This can be combined with the afore mentioned Power Parasite to bestow stolen abilities.
  
• Magical Eye Her eye allows her to identify abilities and talents.
  

Morality

• The Atoner Guide's Eye is making an honest effort to make up for her villainous past. But she runs the ever present risk of giving up and abandoning her redemption.
  
• Nominal HeroWhile she is atoning for her past deeds, that is purely the only reason she is a hero. She has no vested interest in saving people, nor is she loyal to any lawful organisation. She is fighting to save herself, nothing more.
  
• Dirty Business Guide's Eye has done some bad things in the past. Parts of it she took pride in and enjoyed. Others she was given no choice and is haunted by to this day. Worse still, she acknowledges that sometimes when she was ordered to execute an innocent, she took a little pleasure in ending a life. Knowing that, she refuses to take lives if she can help it, for fear of indulging a side of herself she despises.

Soundtrack

WIP