Natalia Nex
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Contents
The Story So Far
Natalia
Born Akil Kouri, the youngest of three. She lived a fairly idyllic life in the crowded, and temperamental, city of Giza. While they were never rich, they were always well taken care of by the income of her father who moved from tech job to tech job as they opened. It was in these happier times that she learned to sing and play music from her mother, always trying to skip out on school to learn more. It was one of these "sicknesses" feigned by her as an excuse to stay home, that would prove to be a saving grace. Deciding that she had little to learn from some field trip to a mouldering old temple she stayed at their family home, while her parents led her sisters and the rest of their class on the field trip. What happened on that trip is best left unsaid in polite company, suffice to say that the terrorist attack later became known as the Luxor Massacre. Left alone in the world at the tender age of seven she was saved from a life of foster homes by an American couple. The pair were tourists at the time, and had lost their own child in the same attack. Not knowing what else to do, she agreed to let the couple adopt her and bring her back with them to their home in Millennium City, a city no stranger to similar tragedies, an irony that was not lost on Akil as she grew and learned her new home's history. While by no means a troubled teenager, she rarely seemed to find much happiness in her new life, save the precious moments when she was alone with her music. Surrounding herself with tables of sheet music and her own voice she slowly began to truly realize her gift. Finally working up the courage to try her hand at the open mic nights at local clubs and bars. It was during one of these trips that she was discovered by a talent agent who roamed the city, looking for potential. Within a year she was signed to a major record label, and under her new stage name Natalia Nex, she had her first hit single, "Home is Never the Same."
Ka of Ammit
On the dry lands of Natalia's Birth, some thousands of years in the past, another woman once walked. A minor relation to one of the old queens, while she could not hope to advance any higher in her station, she wanted for very little. It was in one of the ancient clashes with the Sea People that this woman found her first taste of blood. While visiting a port city, it was attacked in the night by these pirate raiders. The entire house she stayed in was captured or killed, save her. When these pirates burst into her room, they were surprised to find not a cowering woman, but a small blade pressed neatly through of their throats. Arming herself with weapons from the raiders, she moved through the castle, originally intending to protect the others, but as she found more and more of her house's bodies her intent turned towards vengeance. By the end of that hot night, she found herself sitting in the open courtyard of the house, surrounded by bodies and covered in her enemies' blood. While this was her first taste of battle it would prove to be far from her last. As she returned to her own small city to rule, she slowly changed. At first her people thought that the attack had scared her into putting more of the city's resources and efforts into security. Though they finally realized the truth as the city's standing guard marched west towards the people who once attacked them relentlessly in distant nights. At the head of that army of guards, she rode. Against all the advice of her advisers and captains, she rode with blade in hand, and first in line. The guards who returned from her campaign of violence described her as a demon after the first blade tasted blood. For the remainder of her governorship of this city, she eagerly looked towards any excuse to indulge in her bloodlust, from minor border disputes to personally executing criminals. Yet, despite the stories, she was no demon yet and time ravages all mortals in time. She knew that her time was coming, and she know how heavy her heart would weigh on the scales against that feather. Her final command to her palace slaves was that upon her death, they should make all the proper rites, but that they should also prepare an urn for her heart. She commanded the heartiest among them to carry it as far from her lands as their feet, and ships, could carry them. A clever deceit that would hopefully allow her to slip past the judgement of Anubis' scales. After this command, she allowed time to take her, and her eyes closed, her body lacking that precious heart was placed into her tomb. Yet the old gods are not so easily fooled, when she presented herself to Anubis and revealed her ploy, the god was furious at the arrogance of mortals. With the words "You should have come with your heart, dying a second death would be a kinder fate by far." With that, the old god sent her spirit back to her tomb, and sealed it, so that only the blood of a true daughter of Egypt could ever open it. Also came the curse of the death god, the woman found herself with an undying hunger, recompense for the meal that she had denied Ammit, the devourer of heavy hearts.
Regarding Auspicious Meetings
It was when Natalia had reached her twentieth year that she lost the remaining family she had. Her adoptive American parents were killed in a car crash, a truck had to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid one of the frequent battles between heroes and criminals of the city. Following this, she dropped completely out of the public eye, living for a time off the money she had made with her first two albums. Two years would pass before she surfaced once more, thrilling fans of her music when she announced a world wide tour. One of her stops would Giza, the city of her birth. It would be the first time she had been back since she was but a girl. The first half of the tour went wonderfully for her, making her remember exactly why she had gotten into the business she was in, once more finding solace in her music as she had in her youth. It was only when she stepped off the plane onto the dry soil of her homeland that second thoughts entered her head. The city was much the same as she remembered it, different stores here and there, but she still saw the phantom images of her family down every alley. Yet she swallowed all this and continued on as normal, resting in the city for a week before her show. It was only on the night before her show that she felt a sense of wanderlust. Slipping away from the hired security, she walked. Down the streets and alleys of her youth, reminiscing as her feet carried her. Finally she would reach the limits of the city, and still walked. Slipping her shoes from her feet, to feel the cool night sand between her toes. It only took a moment, when she paused to rest before heading back, for the sandstorm to kick up. The stinging winds wiped away her tracks, and the clouds of dust blinded her, and tore at her skin. It took only a moment for her to decide to risk it and venture into the sandstorm, unfortunately Shai and her domain of fate could always be counted on to be the cruelest of the old gods, and the woman set off away from the city, sinking deeper and deeper into the storm. She walked for what felt like years to her, trying her best to keep her skin covered and the stinging sand from her eyes, she finally chanced upon ruins. Were it not for the sandstorm, those ruins may very well have stayed buried beneath the sand for countless more years, yet they were not and Natalia thought she had found sanctuary. Most of the buildings were too broken to offer any real shelter from the storm, but in the center of the city there was a grand tomb, still mostly buried by the desert sands, with only the door showing.
It shone to the young woman like a light from heaven, a door, and shelter from the winds. It raised her hopes up to instantly dash them upon the rocks when she tried with all her strength to force the doors open. Trying futility for countless moments in the blinding story to force it open, finally she would realize how hopeless it was, and with a cry of frustration that would carry far on the winds, she slammed her fist into the carved stone. The blow split the skin of her knuckles and a splash of her blood, the blood of a true daughter of egypt, landed on the stone. With a rush of air that sounded almost like the sigh of some ancient god, the doors opened. Not knowing exactly what happened, but also not one to look a gift in the mouth, she quickly stepped inside the tomb. It would take only a moment for her to wish to face the stinging winds once more, as those stone downs shut once more behind her. Trapping her in the dark earth. That might have been the end for Natalia, if not for her company in the tomb. The Ka of Ammit, as the ancient noble had taken to calling herself when the hunger had driven her memories and sanity from her. It was only thanks to the occasional little burrowing thing that found it's way through some crack in the tomb's stone that she had not completely forgotten herself and instantly set upon the new presence in her tomb in a fit of hunger. It was in that god damned darkness that the daughter of Egypt heard a voice, a wretched thing begging, bemoaning the length of ages trapped in the dark. Yet something about the voice set the young woman on edge, a slight intonation in the voice that vibrated in the back of her teeth, like metal being scrapped on metal. It felt like hours that she sat down in the dark, with that voice whispering to her, yet it was mere moments. Finally she lifted her own voice to respond to the darkness, asking a thousand thousand questions of her own. What the daughter of egypt and it's former noble spoke of in that darkness is best left unsaid, but after a time they had reached an agreement. Natalia would carry the Ka from this place, in her own body. In exchange, the Ka's hunger and power would be at the girl's disposal, and would prove her salvation from the desert.
Despite not having their star, the promoters carried on the show, praying fervently to gods old and new that the teams of people searching for Natalia would find her in time for her performance. It would be easy to imagine their shock, then, when the very girl they were searching for floated down onto the stage on great wings of green. She was still dirty, and her clothes ripped from the desert, but she did not hesitate in the slightest as she landed on the stage, stepping forwards towards the mic with the roar of the crowd welcoming her. After the show, and after she had cleaned herself, they all had wondered where she had gone, and what had happened. Her only response was that, "I have found the strength of my home."
An Uneasy Homecoming
Deciding to finish her tour, against the advice of both the record company and her own doctors, she finally returned to her second home of Millennium City. Though many were expecting her to take another one of her breaks, she began to pour herself into her work once more, starting on a new album. Despite the comfort she found in returning to her work, she was troubled and rested poorly in the night. The Ka's powers were not the only things she took with her from that tomb. She could feel the ancient spirit's hunger, building every day. She tried making grand dinners and feasting, and yet this did nothing to sate it. Since the woman had denied Ammit her meal of heavy hearts, she could only feed on the spirts of mortal things. The hunger, and Natalia's worry built to a climax till once night. After a long day in the studio, she was the last one left, and on her way to her car, she was jumped by several members of one of the local gangs. It was then that the Ka of Ammit took over their shared body, and when she was finished, there was naught but dust in the night air to mark that the men had ever been there. As Natalia returned to her senses, washing the ashes from her body in the shower, she realized that the hunger had abated. She realized the solution to her troubles. She took a few weeks of solitude to properly train herself in the Ka's powers, and how to hide exactly what was happening when she used them to an observer. Finally she went out into the city, making sure that a few photographers would be in the area, and brought the wrath of her homeland to the gangs of the city. Establishing herself as one of the newest 'heroes' of the city, thanks to some perfectly timed photo ops. Her official story is that she was blessed by the old gods, yet all the criminals she turned in to the authorities seemed slightly gaunter, and more listless than their fellows. Only taking bits and pieces of their essences to feed the Ka sharing her body. While for the most part this had solved her problems, occasionally the hunger would prove too great, and in those moments, a sickly green and black figure would stalk the streets, finding guilty hearts to gorge herself on. Yet, what the ancient spirt knew as a sin, and what the laws of this new world spoke of were two different things. But surely, for the benefit of this addition to the heroes keeping the city and the world safe, the occasional oddly man shaped piles of dust were a small price to pay.
The Powers of Old Hunger
- Soul Manipulation: Regardless of what a society calls it, she has the power to directly attack the spirit, or animating force of her enemies. With living mortals, this feeds the spirit within herself and fills them both with power and vitality. When used against non-living foes, such as mechanical robots, it simply tears as the forces that keep them moving, yet she gains no subsistence from this.
- Mockery of the Sun God: Due to the hatred the ancient spirit possessed when alive, and it's madness in the long years of death, it has learned the darknest magics of her home, and passed these on to her 'host'. Being able to spread directed pestilence that ravages the body and soul, shrouding herself in dark energy to increase her deadliness, or to grow great wings that are a sickly green mockery of Ra's own glorious golden span.
- Dual Ka: Thanks to having a 'passenger' in her body two sets of eyes see the world before her, occasionally this spirit will notice something that Natalia doesn't, or warns her of an attack coming that she missed.
- The Hunger Within: In truly dire moments, Natalia can force her own spirit to recede and allow the Ka to take full control of the body they share. It's in these moments, that their body shifts, growing to a statue-esque seven foot height, with skin darker than a starless night, and terrible claws. Recently, she had learned to allow the Ka partial control, where she binds her limbs with golden chains emblazoned with markings of the old gods to stop the spread of the Ka's form at certain points. In these moments, they seem to merge into a single entity, within that body. The difference between Natalia and the Ka melt away, replaced with a combined intellect and hunger, still more powerful than her typical frame, but tempered with Natalia's own conscience.
((This is clearly a WIP! Will be adding more shortly!))
