Sombra
| Sombra | ||||||||||
| Player: @heartstringsk3 | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| Biographical Data | ||||||||||
| Real Name: | Maya Isabella Moreno | |||||||||
| Known Aliases: | La Sombra | |||||||||
| Gender: | Female | |||||||||
| Species: | Human | |||||||||
| Ethnicity: | Hispanic | |||||||||
| Place of Birth: | Miramar - Tamaulipas, Mexico | |||||||||
| Base of Operations: | Millennium City | |||||||||
| Relatives: | Cisco & Rosalina Moreno (parents), Francisco & Teresa Moreno (grandparents), Javier & Cristina Barrera (grandparents) | |||||||||
| Characteristics | ||||||||||
| Age: | 19 | |||||||||
| Height: | 5' | |||||||||
| Weight: | ~110 lbs. | |||||||||
| Eyes: | Brown | |||||||||
| Hair: | Dark brown | |||||||||
| Complexion: | Dark, smooth, soft-skinned | |||||||||
| Physical Build: | Average, slightly pear-shaped | |||||||||
| Physical Features: | Pretty, heavy accent | |||||||||
| Status | ||||||||||
| Alignment: |
Lawful Good | |||||||||
| Reputation: |
Reclusive | |||||||||
| Identity: | Secret | |||||||||
| Years Active: | ~8 years | |||||||||
| Citizenship: | Dual citizenship Mexico & United States | |||||||||
| Occupation: | Baker | |||||||||
| Education: | High School Graduate, Millennium Culinary Institute Graduate | |||||||||
| Marital Status: | Dating | |||||||||
| Known Powers and Abilities | ||||||||||
| Invisibility, Teleportation, Shadow Constructs | ||||||||||
| Equipment and Paraphernalia | ||||||||||
| Pepperspray, cell phone, taser glove, various tools | ||||||||||
| ReldinBoxMini Template | ||||||||||
Contents
History
Mexico
Early in the fifteenth year of Maya Moreno's young life, she suffered the unique terror of brushing her teeth in the bathroom of her house one second, and brushing her teeth in a city back-alley the next. It was only the first in a series of misadventures, the girl randomly disappearing from home, school, malls, and finding herself somewhere else in the city against her will. Or, while not quite as bad, simply vanishing from sight and having no idea how to be seen again. Maya and her parents were terrified; not that she was a metahuman, though that was a concern, but her lack of control of her new powers was a clear danger to the teen. Her social life was thrown into chaos as well; depending on personal views and opinions, her friends and acquaintances abandoned her, feared her, thought she was so cool, wanted to get to know her better, challenged her to fights, races, or asked her to beat up their personal nemeses with her new powers. Maya just wanted things to go back to normal, she didn't want all the attention!
Over the next year, Maya withdrew. She stopped hanging out with friends or even really going outside, besides to school. What was the point when she could be anywhere else at any moment? She lived in fear that the next random jump would be the one that put her far out in the ocean, or underground, inside a wall, out in space, even, for all she knew. There were a few reliefs, though. For one thing, the bus drivers and police around her hometown and the nearby big cities began to recognize her and hear her story, many of them keeping an eye out for her and giving her free rides home. And no matter where she ended up, she was still a teenage girl, and her ever-present phone could reassure her family and friends that she was okay. But it was no way to live.
United States
Millennium City in the United States was the biggest center of metahumans in the Western world. Surely someone there could help her! It wasn't easy, but the Morenos decided to pull up roots and emigrate to the States. It's possible that Maya's condition helped expedite things, and by the time she was sixteen the family had relocated to a Westside apartment complex. Her father, a construction worker, easily found work in the perpetually-damaged city. The nearby Ravenswood Academy Renaissance Center campus offered limited free tutoring for inexperienced metahuman teens, and through this basic training course the teenager began to get a hold of her abilities.
The new high school was... difficult to adjust to. Maya's grasp of English was spotty, and she desperately tried to teach herself enough to get by. She was given help in the classroom, of course, to get through her lessons, but socializing was a different beast. Most people simply ignored the new girl, while some targeted her for jokes and casual mocking. Others had ulterior motives for wanting to get closer to her, and the genuinely friendly were a little put off by the distant, shy girl. With pretty average grades and requiring extra linguistic effort, she didn't even become a favorite of the teachers. She wasn't hated, no, or even disliked. She was just there, that one kid that no one really knew.
But now she had powers that she could mostly control. They weren't impressive, like the heroes she saw flying around or flinging thugs, but she could still pretend to be one of them! Westside was a pretty bad area, after all, and needed all the help it could get. But first, a costume! No, first a name, then a themed costume! She chose La Sombra, The Shadow, dropping the La for simplicity. She ordered a dark, simple Day of the Dead mask online and a black bodysuit to go with it. It was perfect! She added some detailing to the bodysuit herself to make it more intimidating and hopefully scare off bad guys, then hit the streets, using her invisibility and teleportation to find people in trouble and give them a quick escape!
That first outing, when she saved a woman from a mugger, was a thrill. She proudly gushed about the experience to her concerned parents, who, understanding the joy it brought her and the relief it gave that nameless woman, cautiously allowed her to continue her shadowy excursions, as long as she promised - made a solemn vow, really - to never try to fight anyone or anything, and to never put herself in danger.
To someone who can teleport, "being in danger" is pretty open to interpretation.
Superhero Life
Sombra has since started sneaking into Club Caprice to gawk at the colorful characters within, circumventing the bouncers at the door with her powers. She mostly remains invisible while on the premises, at least until she meets someone to talk to. She's made a few heroic friends in her visits. Also, in an effort to better protect herself, she has purchased a black tube of pepperspray. Besides being a comfort to have, it's come in handy several times!
Other than preventing assorted muggings and attacks, escorting people safely home from bars or work, and rescuing pets, Sombra had only a few major cases in her solo career. Two involved the same gas station in Westside, the first time stopping a robbery with her friend Winter and the second time trying to face her first supervillain alone. The powersuit-wearing criminal, disappointed by Sombra's rather meager attempts at driving him off, managed to knock her unconscious. The heroine woke up later, tied to a chair in an unfamiliar basement, and was rescued by an escaping fellow prisoner. This incident frightened Sombra deeply, though she managed to work past it. She also tried to aid in the defense of the Adventurers team when UNTIL attempted to bring them in, but was quickly caught and temporarily detained until (ha) she could escape.
Not long afterwards, she joined the Adventurers officially, and has participated in many more daring heroics. Now older and more experienced, there are hints that her powers are more complicated than they seemed....
Whatever Happened to the Woman of Shadow?
Maya's time in the Adventurers has been long storied. She's fought giant robots, extradimensional demons, mad conquerors, a race of fishmen beneath the Greek island nation of Cretoa. She's time traveled, met her own son from the future, even lead the team briefly. A year or two into her heroic exploits with the Adventurers, she met a boy, Marshall McAllister, at Westside High, who took an interest in her, showed her kindness. He turned out to be the superhero Blue Fox, who coincidentally joined the team soon after, where they discovered each other's identities. They've been dating ever since.
One notable experience was when Maya began noticing a... shape, when she teleported. Her warps are quick blinks, but she'd see it flash out of the corner of her eye. She could see it more clearly while invisible, it would just appear as long as she remained so. But it was getting closer. Purple, glowing eyes burning from a black, elongated human silhouette. And when it got close enough, it struck. It was a being called Gloom, a monster or god or lost soul trapped in the shadow dimension Sombra travels into for her powers. It sought to take her, possess her, and use her as a vessel to enter the real world and spread its darkness across the land. She had to face it alone as it manipulated the shadows into semi-solid tendrils and grasping hands. In desperation, the heroine reached out and focused... and used the same powers to defeat Gloom, slamming him into a wall and causing him to burst into mist.
At one point, over a year later, Sombra faced the sorcerer swordsman, Foresight, who used a magical spell to slice the heroine in half; rather than blood or viscera, however, she split into two Sombras. Foresight escaped, hoping that creating an evil double of the hero would keep her busy. However, either from a mistake in the spell or a trait of Maya's, neither of the two Sombras were evil. One was brash, confident, and dominant, while the other was shy, anxious, and compassionate. The confident Maya quickly named the other her Isabela. For more than a month, there were simply two of her, a development her boyfriend was quite excited by. They almost considered staying split, though the longer they remained apart, the more headaches they started to get. Maya gladly continued being Sombra with a new, bolder attitude, while Isabela was happy to work their day job at the Flour Power bakery.
Whatever might have happened, their hand was forced when Gloom appeared again. This time without warning, it ambushed Sombra during a fire rescue, literally climbing inside her and taking over her body; apparently, being only half a soul had left her more vulnerable to its influence. She became a dark monstrosity, gathering power to dominate the world. Passive, nervous Isabela was forced to become Sombra, and using an enchanted sword purchased from the same sorcerer that split her, she was able to recombine them and trap Gloom.
Sombra remains an active Adventurer.
Personality
Maya is usually a bubbly, excitable girl, prone to babbling in Spanish as she forgets to translate herself - because of this, she's started mostly talking in short, direct sentences with a heavy accent. She's friendly and happy, with a maternal love of helping and comforting others. She also has a mischievous streak, enjoying startling people by appearing behind them out of nowhere or poking them invisibly! She can be kind of a brat sometimes, but paradoxically, she's very apologetic when she scares people. She's apologetic in general, and hates making others feel bad. She's quickly flustered by attention, and also scares or startles easily. She tends to have low self-confidence and underestimates herself. Maya is slow to anger, but when she snaps, usually due to friends arguing or being insulted, she gets a brief surge of fierceness before inevitably getting embarrassed and self-conscious.
After a decade, Maya has become much more fluent in English. She retains her accent, as a personal choice to keep a part of her heritage.
Although not technically a pacifist, Maya isn't a violent person, and she hates fighting, or even the idea of training herself to fight beyond some simple self-defense techniques. Even when friends or innocents are in danger, she prefers to aid in their escape rather than leap to their defense. If forced to fight, she is generally timid and desperate, resorting to schoolyard techniques like shoving, tackling, or barrages of wild punches and slaps. Usually she opens with a burst of pepper spray, and if desperate will try wild swings of a collapsible baton she keeps in a pouch. Her teammate Stinger later upgraded her right gauntlet to have a decently-powerful taser built into the palm, which has saved her many times since.
Among Maya's hobbies are baking (she genuinely enjoys it, even after making a job out of it), swimming, gaming, and is in a D&D group with friends from culinary school. She plays a gnome cleric, if anyone's asking.
Powers
Teleportation
Maya has the ability to teleport, both to anywhere within visual range and to anywhere she has been and knows how to get back to within a mile or so - meaning that she can't (or shouldn't) teleport very far if she has no idea where she currently is. Fortunately, her powers have some kind of built-in safety or sense that prevents her from materializing inside a wall or object; when this would happen, Maya finds that she is automatically shifted slightly to the nearest open space. She's not really aware that this happens, and is frequently worried about appearing inside a wall, or tree, or furniture. Maya's teleportation isn't quite instantaneous, but is very fast, barely a second; her body shifts into another dimension as a "shortcut" between points. Her teleporting is accompanied by a tiny popping noise as air rushes to fill the void she leaves behind, and a very, very slight breeze as her body forces air out of the spot she materializes.
Maya can also take objects and people with her when she teleports. Originally, she only has the power to take one other average-sized person (or comparably-sized object) with her, roughly 200 pounds as an estimate. After frequent use, she has increased this range slightly, and can take two or even three people if they're light enough; this drains her energy quickly. She lacks the fine control to, for instance, teleport a weapon out of someone's hand without taking the person along. Similarly, she also lacks the control to teleport herself out of someone's grip without taking them with her. Her biggest weakness is that she cannot escape if she's strapped, chained, or connected in some way to an object too heavy to take with her.
Teleporting takes a lot of energy, and can tire Maya out quickly if she overuses it.
Invisibility
Maya's invisibility is remarkably effective. Although she doesn't know how it works, by shifting her body partially into the same dimension she uses to teleport, she can become undetectable to most usual means. When she is invisible, Maya cannot be seen visually (obviously), produces no scent or heat, and her body makes no sounds, including footsteps. Since she isn't entirely in the material world, she can throw off, but not completely fool, senses that rely on physical presence, such as echolocation, detecting air currents or pressure changes, sources of gravity, etc. Her powers aren't magical in nature, so magical detection has no effect. She is rather easily seen by those able to see dimensional energy or rifts, however.
Maya's voice and breathing are still audible when she's invisible, and she can still touch others, by intention or accident, such as bumping into people. It's possible this is only because she thinks this should happen.
Although she cannot do it all day, compared to teleportation, staying invisible doesn't take too much effort for her anymore, and she can spend upwards of an hour undetected. Like teleportation, she can also make another person invisible with her, as long as they remain in physical contact, but this greatly increases the energy needed. Cloaking an extra person is also notably less effective, often suffering from a "flickering" effect caused by split-second failures in the dimensional shift that ruin the invisibility. Moving also hurts the cloak, causing visible ripples and distortion in the air.
Shadow Manipulation
A far more recent ability, Maya has found that she can control shadows, using them as portals to the dimension she gains her powers from, which she calls by many names depending on her whim: the Dark Dimension, the Shadow Plane, the Upside-down, the Shadowfell, the Dark Place. So far, she is able to coax simple forms to emerge from nearby patches of shadow, usually featureless tendrils or small walls, though she has gained the control to form slightly more complicated shapes, generally "designing" them to be creepy, like skeletal arms and hands. She can also manipulate shadows themselves as a type of shadow puppetry, such as making her own shadow distort into a clawed, fanged monstrosity.
Maya uses this power in simple ways, generally using the tendrils to wrap around and hinder foes, create a quick wall to block an attack, or cause a glob of shadow to cling to someone's eyes and blind them. However, these constructs are not particularly strong, and are incredibly fragile. Anyone with just a bit of applied force can tear them apart or burst through them, causing them to evaporate into a quickly-dispersing dark mist.
Skills
Maya has few skills that are helpful in her superhero life. She has no talent or skill in combat, though friends have at least taught her how to throw a proper punch, she doesn't have any particular observation or investigative skills, and she's not overly intelligent. She's never held a gun, let alone fired one. She can barely fire a slingshot, not that she owns one! She's weaker than an average person, not very tough, only mildly athletic in that she can do some jumping jacks or sort of climb a knotted rope, and has zero mental defenses. What she does have is a lot of heart and determination! She's also gotten better at being stealthy - she gets a lot of practice!
Maya is a good cook, though, and very handy at sewing - she proudly tells others that she made her own original costumes (minus the masks), and has crafted dresses, scarves, or sweaters for a few friends. She enjoys the work, and at one point was seriously considering a career as a seamstress or tailor, though in the end decided to attend a culinary school after graduating high school, with a focus on baking. She also plays the recorder somewhat well. She is also a partially-trained dancer, thanks to Cassandra Olsen.
Maya is a decent detective, generally good at investigating scenes and making deductions. She's wiser than she might seem, with a keen sense of empathy.
Affiliations
Sombra has met several friends from sneaking into Club Caprice, as well as her adventures outside. The most notable are probably Red Spider, who took on something of a mentor role and is attempting to train the teen to fight and get out of tight spots and Winter, her fellow teen heroine, new best friend, and sometimes-partner! She is also a member of the The Adventurers, and thus on good terms with her teammates, especially the aforementioned Spider, Catfight, whose daughter she often babysits, Blue Fox, her boyfriend, and Rubber Bullette and Sparrow Hawk.
Costumes
Sombra's current main costume is a professionally-created suit, though she is responsible for the design. It was provided as a gift by her mentor, Red Spider. It features a hooded mantle, black tights with neon purple, skeletal patterns, a deep red sash tied around her waist (partially to cover her rear), and a black courier bag full of snacks, water, and random tools. She also wears elbow and knee pads.
Her original suit consisted of a black bodysuit with a white skull pattern stitched onto the chest, and a stylized skull mask that she continues to wear. She also has a handful of variant outfits: a light, sleeveless white summer suit for hotter weather, an early-career "armored" suit with painted football padding, and, thanks to a wealthy friend, a [i]real[/i] armored suit for underwater (or even space!) adventures. Later she had a real armored suit built, bone-like padding to protect herself better. This suit features a red poncho for her hood that hangs off her back as a cape. She also tends to alter her suits for holidays, such as a witch or Santa hat.
Besides her mask, her artificial rose pinned to her hood is always a part of her ensemble.
