Cobalt Shade
BritishCurrently unclear
Contents
Description
On first glance, the hero known as the Cobalt Shade appears as a synthetic human, an android with a female phenotype. Standing at about 6 feet and 2 inches tall, with a slender yet curvy figure and featuring artificial, violet eyes, charcoal hair and a flawless, obviously synthetic, pale skin, one might easily take Monica O'Neil for an automaton. While this is not far from the truth, at least from a technological standpoint, the reality is somewhat different. Her body is fully synthetic, without any form of organic tissue, but the software running it, is either a consciousness transferred from a human or at least based on it.
Cobalt Shade has so far demonstrated the ability to project particle energy and levitation by the use of an internal counter-gravity engine, possibly assisted by jet-boosters, depending on the various modules of equipment and armor she's using.
She's not really widely know and doesn't crave the attention and while she is officially operating under the "Cobalt Shade" alias, Monica is not really making a secret out of what she is doing.
Background
Monica O'Neil was born in the town of Herford, Germany, as the sole daughter of an officer of the British Army and a teacher from Germany. As Monica grew up, she often moved between her parent's families, in the United Kingdom and Germany, but spent most of her youth with the family of an aunt of hers in a suburb of London.
As an adult, following her distant father's footsteps, she joined the British Army, where she was trained as a combat medic. At some point during her service in the army, she met and eventually married Aaron O'Neil, a paratrooper who, like herself, was a non-commissioned officer. However, their duties often kept them seperated over prolonged periods of time, they remained childless and eventually drifted apart after some years, resulting in a rather unemotional divorce and parting of ways.
When Monica was 32 years old, an unit she was assigned to was tasked with apprehending a rogue scientist, who worked on stolen cybernetic technology. The following events are blurry and partially missing in her memories, but she does remember that the operation went haywire. The scientist was expecting them and had already escaped with most of his work, but he left a force of cybernetic minions, laying in ambush.
Monica's unit was all but obliterated and the next thing she remembers is, being awoken by a troop of UNTIL troopers, who had moved into the lair as part of a mop-up operation. However, the body she awoke in was not her own. By means unknown to or at least not disclosed by UNTIL scientists, her personality, memories and consciousness were either transferred or converted into some kind of software, now residing in a female android body, which doesn't resemble her old self in the least.
Following the event, she was taken into the custody of UNTIL, where she was studied and helped to adapt to her new situation, which was - and still is - a source for an identity crisis for her. This is not helped by the fact, that a lot of her memories are fragmented or seemingly missing - for one, she doesn't remember of what military force she was a part of during that failed mission and the British Army lists her as Honorably Discharged. UNTIL researchers theorized this might be caused by a faulty or incomplete transference process, but it is part of the reason why Monica is questioning her humanity sometimes - wondering if she really ever was human or whether she is just a copy or an AI, which was programmed to remember a human life. Furthermore, UNTIL has classified all information pertaining the incident, which makes shining light on the events even more difficult.
After some time, she was moved by her UNTIL custodians to Millenium City, in order to make use of their facilities and to cooperate with the Harmon Industry Laboratories there, both to research and maintain her synthetic body. For the time being, she acts as an UNTIL agent on probation, under the supervision of UNTIL and Primus authorities.
Powers
Monica's body is significantly stronger and more durable than that of a normal human. When supplied with sufficient energy, an internal counter-gravity device allows for flight and body can move and jump beyond normal human levels.
Inside her arms, several weapon systems have been integrated; including a plasma cannon, a micro-missile launcher and a submachine gun.
Through the use of modular armour and equipment elements, these abilities can be enhanced or additional one can be added.
Since her mind is essentially software, she can't be read by psychics and has no detectable aura.
Flaws
Her body and armour modules depend heavily on power sources that need frequent replacing. Additional to needing her sources of energy replaced often, her lack of ability to heal naturally (her body may mend small bruises on its own) makes her dependent on the technological expertise of UNTIL and Harmon Industries engineers for maintenance.
As a synthetic being, her artificial nature makes her susceptible to expert hackers to a degree (her own security systems are well capable to defend against any lesser kind of threat), which is why she prefers to forego any kind of data connection to the outside in order to avoid this and keeps her virus definitions up-to-date during maintenance.
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