Age/Attributes: 25 yo/ 6’5” 200 lbs Faunus (Shark Teeth)

Semblance: Blood Scent

Dinah’s Aura is highly sensitive to blood, granting increased strength and endurance when blood is in the air. The strength of this buff increases exponentially if the blood belongs to Dinah’s allies or to someone Dinah believes is innocent and/or meek. However, this can cause Dinah to tunnel vision on protecting others - disregarding any prior orders and her own sense of self-preservation.

Weapon: Trauma Response

A heavy, full-auto 12-gauge shotgun / wireless defibrillation device. In ranged combat, it can be loaded with explosive Frag rounds and/or low-power, electrical Defib slugs as both a nonlethal stun option and as a way to assist downed allies from a distance. Additionally, it comes equipped with a heartbeat sensor that can help Dinah monitor the physical health of any individual within a short radius.

Background:

Born to a pair of Faunus extremists in the far-flung, wild fringes of Menagerie alongside many siblings, Dinah was raised to hate Humanity and to kill anything that moves with guns, teeth and clubs. Dinah was an… unreliable… student. Despite being bigger and stronger than her kin, she often spaced out during lessons and was easily distracted by any moderate noise, unusual shape or strange smell. While she could catch and kill most wild animals with her bare hands, she would much rather befriend them - only taking her training seriously when the lives of her family were at risk.

When Sienna Khan ascended to High Leader of the White Fang, Dinah’s parents were pardoned from their lifelong exile from the organization and swiftly reinstated to their positions as Spec Ops commanders. Likewise, the Isurus kids were moved and integrated into the White Fang’s unofficial Combat School program.

There the Isurus brood gained a tenuous reputation of brutishness and savagery. They were all lumbering, shark-blooded monstrosities who preferred to solve every problem with tooth and fist. However, Dinah was different. While she was the biggest and strongest of her kin, she was also a chatterbox and eager to befriend her new comrades-in-arms - to the point of standing up to her own siblings to protect them. Her unusual friendliness was seen as endearing by her peers in spite of her strange ramblings and incoherent tangents. Paired with her skills in CQC and gaining the self-control to focus when necessary, Dinah was seen as a guardian and leader by her allies.

Upon graduating the White Fang’s Combat Program, Dinah was naturally placed in Special Forces under the command of parents, gravitating toward Search and Rescue. For the next few years, she spearheaded operations in Vale, freeing prisoners and rescuing recon elements from Grimm and Huntsmen ambushes with bravery and distinction. However, she also developed a concerning amount of sympathy for enemy combatants. In her eyes, the humans and their Faunus allies were not nearly as wicked as she was led to believe. While there were mean ones, she noticed many Huntsmen put themselves in danger to protect others, regardless of their races.

Her comrades simply dismissed her observations as part of her crazed ramblings, but a fellow officer, Adam Taurus, took notice of this small treason. Since childhood, Adam had despised Dinah for being “weak” in mind, believing that she had only reached her rank and popularity through nepotism. Being a shrewd operator, Adam knew that he couldn’t outright kill her himself without incurring the wrath of their peers and her parents. Instead, he would turn her into a martyr for the cause.

Days before Dinah launched a routine mission to extract an undercover asset in Atlas, the Atlesian Military would receive an anonymous tip from a “concerned citizen” leaking the entire operation with time tables, locations and even exact force counts. Immediately surrounded by Atlesian Black Ops and regular army forces, Dinah did her best to protect her men against overwhelming odds. In one final act of heroism, she would use herself as a diversion to buy her remaining forces enough time to escape

For the next two years, Dinah would be tortured in an Atlesian Blacksite deep in the Frozen Wastes of Solitas. In that frozen hellscape, she would silently endure, refusing to utter a single word to her captors.

One day, the muted sounds of suppressed gunfire would echo across the blacksite and Dinah would barely react when masked Operatives would break into her cell and sedate her. Her new captors would nurse her back to health, providing just enough gruel and rest for Dinah to recover. However, once she did, she found herself being forced to fight in countless battles without rhyme or reason, armed only with rubber bullets and training weapons against an unquantifiable force with live munitions.

After weeks of constant warfare and Dinah being at her wit’s end from sheer social isolation, her survival and performance would attract the attention of an unseen benefactor. The Director would pluck Dinah from her current assignment for her own machinations. Subjecting Dinah to psychological torment and suffering far worse than any pain she had suffered so far, the Director would achieve partial success in brainwashing the Faunus commando before placing her on Team ZHDW.

Psychological Report:

Despite the Director’s best efforts, Dinah is one of the most unpredictable members of Team ZHDW, willing and able to resist orders at some capacity, albeit in non-disruptive ways. She has retained much of her identity and personality over the years, bouncing back with unyielding resilience and positivity. Overall, her mental conditioning was still successful in getting Dinah to agree with the Director’s agenda and to be programmed with a few activation phrases.

Among her new Team, Dinah was overtly excited and eager to have friends again, showing immense (almost delusional levels of) respect and going above and beyond to impress them. Her and Whitney are “scar buddies” who enjoy sparring together. Fei is the “nicest human” she’s ever met and enjoys her passionate rants about justice and order. And Hallie is so wise and cunning, almost as wise as the Director herself… in Dinah’s damaged perspective.

In the field, Dinah is often kept in reserve to react to any shifts that may occur on a mission. Her skillset and instincts make her ideal for getting her Team out of tough spots, as well as rescuing civilians and HVTs along the way. Meanwhile, her weaponry and physical build make her a fearsome opponent against any foe, from CQC brawling to clearing waves of chaff. However, her heroic instincts can be a double-edged sword during operations, as Dinah will deviate from any plan in order to protect nearby civilians and will hesitate before shooting unarmed/surrendering combatants. The rest of Team ZH_W often plan around this, as moving to stop Dinah would cause way more problems for the Team.

Age/Attributes: 29 yo/ 5’5” 200 lbs Faunus (Octopus Arms)

Semblance: Tactile Analysis

Hallie’s Aura swiftly scans the surface of any object she touches (10m max range from point of contact), giving her instant knowledge of the surface’s properties. This can be used to find external weak spots, surface compositions and physical characteristics (melting points, malleability, conductivity, etc.)

Note that this effect doesn’t apply to what lies beneath the surface.

Weapon: Flesheaters

Modified pistols / bowie knives loaded with a highly illegal, flesh-eating mixture of silver, Mercury and modified Grimm Spawning Fluid (affectionately called “Ink” by Hallie.) In gun form, they can either fire concentrated blobs at high velocity or mist the air with Ink, obscuring line of sight and/or providing area denial. In knife form, Hallie can temporarily coat the blades in Ink or inject ink into targets, melting them from the inside out.

Additionally, the helical mags double as impact grenades that leave behind a thick, opaque Ink cloud upon detonation. Ink is a highly volatile substance outside of pressurized storage due to the paradoxical natures of both its active ingredients (silver is anathema to Grimm). This leads it to dissipate in minutes after exposure.

Background:

A Faunus orphan for as long as she could remember, Hallie grew up in the squalid streets of a Valean border town abandoned by her own parents. Even among other outcasts and Faunus, the young girl was ostracized and shunned for the grotesque, slimy tentacles that protruded from her back. Hungry and alone, she was forced to hide in the sewers and steal over-ripened scraps at night, cautiously avoiding patrols and other children.

Until one day, a guard caught Hallie pilfering cabbages from a sleepy merchant. Instead of beating her, the woman showed mercy to the malnourished child, giving her some candy and taking her hand. Unused to such kindness, Hallie blindly followed her new “friend” with silent obedience, gnawing at the chewy stick of taffy as they left the town behind. Distracted by the sweetness of sugar that kept her ever-present hunger at bay, the girl didn’t know where she was going or when her “friend” left her alone in the dark woods.

Unlike the guard, it didn’t take long for Hallie’s hunger to return and even worse than before. For days, the young girl wandered aimlessly, desperately looking for something - anything- to stave off starvation. Driven to Death’s door, Hallie began gnawing at her own tentacles, ignoring the excruciating pain just to survive another day. 

Before long, one bite became two, became an entire tentacle, became the rest of her tentacles.
In a rare stroke of good fortune, Hallie would stumble into a caravan of merchants before collapsing from sheer pain and exhaustion. Mistaking her for a human girl attacked by Grimm, they would rescue her before taking her to the city of Vale and leaving her at an orphanage.

While the beds were straw mats and the daily servings of gruel had more in common with glue than food, Hallie thought she had died and gone straight to the highest tier of heaven. She clung onto her new human identity tightly like a drowning sailor to a piece of driftwood. Despite reaching safety, the young girl would never truly feel safe, knowing that suffering and death was only a few steps away. To ensure her survival, the young girl would continue to cut off her tentacles as they kept growing back.

Like many orphans, Hallie was selected to attend Signal Combat School as she turned of age, demonstrating incredible resilience and willpower. However, her peers often complained about her strange obsession with Grimm. To Hallie, she felt she understood the demonic beasts at a fundamental level and even preferred them over her fellow classmates. They were driven to slaughter by any means, climbing over the rapidly decaying mountains of their dead and gnawing off trapped limbs just to get a whiff of human misery, and she was equally driven to do anything to ensure her own survival. Meanwhile, the kids around her were weak, crying and giving in after a light bruising or a mere broken bone.

At Signal, Hallie’s casual cruelty and talent drew the attention of the School’s newest instructor, Qrow Branwen. Seeing much of his absent sister in the maverick prodigy, Qrow took Hallie under his wing and trained her personally. Alongside combat and technical lessons, he gave Hallie a much needed lesson on ethics. As a Huntress, she wasn’t just fighting for her own survival, but rather the survival of all of Humanity.

Over time, Qrow carefully guided Hallie, treating her as a little sister, introducing her to his nieces and even convincing her to regrow her tentacles. In turn, Hallie idolized Qrow and tried her best to live up to his example. On the surface, it seemed that she was integrating well into society
During her time at Beacon, Hallie was still seen as silent and awkward with a somewhat disturbing fascination with Grimm, but was also loved by her Team and class for various heroic actions, saving students and even faculty on several occasions. Her knowledge on Grimm behavior and anatomy was second none, surpassing that of even Professor Port. After graduating at the top of her class, Hallie was naturally inducted into the Circle at Qrow’s recommendation. For years, she would serve Oz as both a solo Agent and in collaborations with her old mentor - specializing in cases involving Grimm.

One day, Qrow and Hallie would work together on a case like any other about a group of missing prisoners and a “haunted” cell block. Uncharacteristically wary and even a little fearful, Hallie suggested dropping the case after a few days, but curiosity pushed Qrow to dive deeper and deeper. He discovered morbid tales of inmates being dragged through the cell bars by a shadowy Grimm at the dead of night. This terrifying creature was as silent as a whisper, muffling the voices of its victims with one of its tentacles before recklessly breaking their bones and dislocating their limbs so it could slide them out.

With each new story and clue, Qrow’s suspicions slowly grew. Until finally, he confronted Hallie with an enormous pile of evidence pointing to her involvement in countless disappearances across dozens of prisons over the course of years.

Unable to hold her secret any longer, Hallie took her mentor to a secret lair in the outskirts of the Vale, hoping that he would agree with her if she told him everything from her perspective. Hallie confessed to kidnapping convicted felons to use in various experiments, feeding their lives and suffering to Grimm she secretly captured in the field. She enthusiastically explained to a horrified Qrow all the questions she was able answer through their sacrifices and how it would ultimately save more lives. How long can a Grimm go without feasting on misery? What types of emotional / physical suffering attracts Grimm? Would Grimm and wild animals work together to hunt humans? Etc.

And the experiments didn’t stop with the convicts, Hallie ran torturous tests on herself, ingesting Grimm ichor and burning skin with Grimm fluid. Each test pushed her pain tolerance to the limit and induced severe nightmares and fever dreams. 

As her confession / tour of her underground lab ended, Hallie searched Qrow’s eyes for any sign of approval. All she found was horror and disgust. Brought to tears by her mentor’s sheer disappointment at her life’s work, Hallie smashed a sealed glass flask on her work bench, instantly flooding the underground chamber in suffocating black smoke. Qrow would succumb immediately, overwhelmed by the intense burning sensation that flooded his lungs while his mind relived every single horrible moment of his life on loop, simultaneously. He would eventually wake up from this nightmare in the Emerald Forrest… and Hallie would be long gone.

Hallie would return to Mistral as a fugitive, scavenging once again to survive as she was hunted relentlessly by her former comrades and bounty hunters. However, she still remained determined to “serve” Humanity the best she could. Her experiments continued on herself and those came to hunt her, while she searched for a patron / group of like-minded individuals to assist her in her noble quest.

It didn’t take long for the Director to hear of her exploits and recruit her immediately. Hallie welcomed the brutal onboarding process with open arms, as she was eager to share her findings and methods with those with the stomach to accept them. No torture can compare to what she had already endured and what more she was willing to endure for Humanity.

Psychological Report:

Hallie was one of the Director’s most “unique” acquisitions; both the easiest and hardest to work with. The Rogue Agent freely and knowingly gave herself up to the Director and the Kaspar Clan with zero doubts or hesitation. However, all of the Director’s attempts to fully break and brainwash her have failed to change Hallie at all, even marginally. This has allowed Hallie to maintain complete and total independence. While this hasn’t stopped Hallie from remaining in line with the Clan’s interests, it has led her to communicate and even work with the Director’s rivals within the Clan. The Director has tried to mitigate these interactions by personally befriending Hallie through their mutual connections to Beacon… and having the rest of Z_DW (especially Fei) monitor her activities closely.

Among her Team, Hallie is well respected for her experience and internal strength. Fei admires her unwavering devotion to “heroism” and “justice”. Whitney is impressed by her kill count, the amount of suffering she inflicts and her extreme pain tolerance. And Dinah likes that Hallie is another Faunus who uses big words and likes to talk alot. In return, Hallie does respect her Teammates as strong and capable individuals, but sees them as a little “green” and believes herself to be a bit smarter. She likes Whitney the most for her martial prowess and sizable impact on the battlefield - though is put off slightly by her open sadism and warmongering tendencies. Outside of her Team, Hallie has been collaborating with the Kaspar Clan’s Warmaster, sharing her notes and formulas for the Warmaster to run on the newest batches of Clan Neophytes.

In combat, Hallie is Team ZHDW’s foremost expert in Grimm warfare and support specialist. She can predict Grimm movements at a macro and micro level, relaying crucial intel for her Team to take the most optimal path. She gets extremely excited when encountering new Grimm and will try recklessly to capture a living specimen whenever possible. Against human combatants, she is just as deadly, often claiming more “food sources” for her experiments. She will often use her Ink to obscure the movements of her Team and box in enemy forces. Even in her unhinged state, Hallie still tries her best to save civilians and well-meaning Huntsmen. Despite her falling out with Qrow, Hallie still loves him (platonically) and is convinced that he will see the wisdom of their actions one day.

Age/Attributes: 24 yo/ 5’9” 150 lbs Human

Semblance: Blind Eye

The heritable Semblance of the Zedong family and a byproduct of Ozma’s genetic tampering to counter stealth and special warfare tactics during the Great War. Blind Eye gives its user a passive, supernatural sense of awareness within a 30-meter radius, akin to a personal, ground-based radar. Within this zone around them, the user can detect the position and velocity of any object bigger than a fly in real-time.

Weapon: Midnight Song

A high caliber battle rifle using a modernized version of a Great War design along with an undermounted chainsaw bayonet. Fei was heavily inspired by the criminals and terrorists that she hunted when designing this weapon, seeking to dominate the battlefield through fear and intimidation. At range and in melee, it is a loud, brutish weapon with abundant stopping power and armor-piercing potential. The deafening bark of its gun and roar of its motor can terrify all but the bravest of enemies.

Background:

Born into a family of traditional Huntsmen in the heart of Mistral, Fei was trained in marksmanship, counter-espionage and Semblance control from a young age alongside her sisters, May (younger) and Rey (older). For generations since the founding of the Kingdoms, the Zedong family was renowned for their steadfast commitment to justice and morality… which earned them few allies and many enemies in the modern, corruption-riddled politics of Mistral. Unwilling to bend to threats or bribery, the Zedongs’ influence and power waned with time, weakened by assassination and sabotage from the very institutions they swore to protect.

Growing up in the dying gasps of her Noble Family, Fei and her siblings were still taught to operate within the law and strict moral boundaries, even as their peers and rivals thrived off of underhanded dealings and corruption. However, Fei was infuriated by her family’s stubbornness to adapt, perceiving the current state of Mistral as the result of her family’s unwillingness to engage in “necessary” tactics. They sat on the sidelines, while criminals ran the rest of the Kingdom and Haven Academy.

As a Huntress, Fei was a notorious loose cannon, constantly getting into trouble across Mistral for her unwavering commitment to righteousness. She would decline bribery, detain high-profile mobsters and even provide material assistance and support for vigilante groups. However, as Fei’s crusade continued, she became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of injustice and depravity endemic in the world. In response, she grew more violent and aggressive herself, getting into frequent fights with her sisters. Rey would constantly use her connections to get Fei out of legal trouble, while Fei was overly cruel to May for being “weak” and Rey for not using her strength to “fix” the Kingdom.

This frustration would come to a head with the disappearance of her elder sister Rey. While official reports claim she defected to the Branwen Bandit Tribe, Fei knew her beloved sisters well enough to know that they were incapable of such treason. After a careful and secretive investigation, she uncovered a grand conspiracy to have her sister assassinated in the wilderness, with multiple high-ranking Huntsmen and government officials being bribed or blackmailed by Raven Branwen to make it happen. In a fit of rage, Fei abandoned her creed and went on a murderous rampage, hunting down those responsible in the dead of night, leaving their bodies on grotesque display and sending the populace into a panic.

Her vicious crimes were eventually uncovered by her remaining sister, May, who attempted to arrest her. Alongside the rest of Team BRNZ, May ambushed Fei in the dead of night, barely managing to win as Fei couldn’t bring herself to hurt her younger sister or her friends.

After a sham trial, Fei was blamed for the murder of Rey and scores of “innocent” lives and branded an insane, psycho killer by the court and her own family. In disgrace, she was quietly whisked away to serve the rest of her life in a maximum security mental institute. However, like everything else in Mistral, things were not as they seemed.

At the “mental institute”, Fei was subjected to intense psychological torture and mental conditioning routines, gradually breaking her down and making her more suggestible to the whims of the “medical staff.” Weeks later, they began testing her marksmanship and acumen, interrogating her about her abilities, her family and her days as a Huntress. By then, Fei was in no condition to resist and divulged freely, explaining the many state and historical secrets her family safeguarded, along with her own personal secrets. Satisfied with the results, the staff escorted the Huntress from her cell to meet the boss.

The Director was a middle-aged, fit woman with long silver locks neatly wrapped into a bun. Her cold, teal eyes stared silently at Fei in her haggard patient uniform and straight jacket, carefully assessing her like a butcher to a lamb carcass. She finally spoke, claiming to be impressed with Fei’s career and potential. Her voice cracked with practiced optimism and softness that tried to soothe Fei’s nerves. Before long, the Director began to explain to Fei that they work for a secret organization responsible for maintaining order throughout the Kingdoms and protecting Humanity from hidden threats. All Fei could do was nod along and bend the knee in response. She felt compelled to trust this strange woman and follow her every command like dogma.

With proper rest, Fei’s old personality and impetuousness would return, but that compulsion would never go away, sticking in her subconscious like the Director had etched her will in stone. Not that the Huntress minded, under the Director’s authority, she was finally able to pursue true justice and protect Humanity without the red tape of corrupt bureaucrats or overly prudent laws. She stopped world-ending experiments in the labs of Atlas, cooperated with chivalrous Knights in Vacuo and purged “corrupt” Agents in Mistral.

Psychological Report:

Impatient and abrasive, Fei tends to act on what she feels is right, regardless of immediate or long-term consequences. She is naturally distrustful of others, especially other Agents of the Circle and Huntsmen, searching for evidence of corruption or treason and bluntly questioning their orders and motivations. However, she finds herself incapable of questioning her Director, implicitly trusting her every word and order. Since her career shift, Fei has developed feelings of unexplainable “wrongness” and nightmares, leading to increased levels of aggression and hallucinations of her dead sister talking to her. As a commander, Fei is able to keep these discrepancies in check for the most part, but every so often, her peers see her talking to herself and asking for forgiveness. Since her trial, she has been wholly focused on restoring her family’s (especially her sisters’) honor and establishing true order and “justice” across Remnant.

The Zedong family had once been a formidable adversary to the Kaspar Clan with members being able to successfully hunt Operatives in the years after the Great War and before the Faunus Revolution. Yet now, all the Director feels is pity for her Clan’s former rivals. Fei is the last ember of her family’s greatness and the Director has devoted herself to helping Fei restore her family - under the careful and hidden guidance of the Clan. Fei sees the Director as both a mentor and a mother figure, ever grateful for her benevolence and cruel lessons. As for her Team, Fei initially struggled to win over the trust and loyalty of her Teammates due to her age and seeming lack of experience. Only Dinah seemed to like her off the bat, but Dinah likes everyone. However, Fei was able to prove her mettle through bravery in battle… and her willingness to engage in savagery when necessary. Hallie and Whitney still have their apprehensions about her leadership on the surface and might treat her like a younger sibling, but implicitly trust her orders at the end of the day.

In combat, Fei is highly aggressive and persistent, preferring to be constantly on the offensive during any mission or engagement. While her family has traditionally used their Semblance for security or defensive maneuvers while sniping from afar, Fei approaches threats up close and personal, hunting them down like dogs. She is unflinchingly fearless against the horrid Grimm abominations and supernatural super soldiers she fights on a regular basis. Officially, the Director has Fei and Team ZHDW deployed on missions to study and combat Grimm anomalies in the wild, but frequently also sends them on clandestine missions across Remnant to disrupt Atlas’s reckless military research, investigate occultic organizations in Vacuo and forcibly “retire” political obstacles in Vale.

Age/Attributes: 26 yo/ 6’4” 180 lbs Human

Semblance: Runes and Thrall

A powerful Semblance inherited from her biological family line and corrupted by trauma and conditioning. Whitney can manipulate her Aura into snowflake-like Runes that enhance and alter the effects of Dust in a myriad of ways. They are a lesser version of Weiss and Winter’s Glyphs with limited range and incapable of making large ice constructs. Without the generations of secret knowledge and technique passed down the Schnee family from parent to child, Whitney’s Runes lack the refinement of modern Schnee Glyphs, resembling more the rudimentary forms of their ancestors. Instead, Runes can be used to generate obscuring fog within an area, boost Whitney’s personal mobility via localized time dilation or accelerate/decelerate projectiles.

Despite her lack of traditional Schnee training, Whitney’s superhuman willpower, lack of morals and sadistic fixations with violence has allowed her to brute force her way into summoning. Similar to Weiss and Winter, Whitney can summon constructs based on memorable foes that she has vanquished. Unlike her biological sisters, Whitney uses this ability to summon horrid, zombified mockeries of all the people she’s slaughtered (bandits, soldiers and even Huntsmen). Affectionately known as “Thrall” by Whitney, they may not have all the abilities of the originals, but they are far more powerful and coordinated than Grimm constructs. In order to “collect” more Thrall, Whitney must derive satisfaction from the kill AND be close enough to memorize the finer details of their final moments. Both conditions basically necessitate that Whitney lands the killing blow in melee.

Weapon: Aconite Malice and Iron Blossom

A hardlight bastard sword / Draco pistol built for close quarters combat. Aconite Malice is Whitney’s primary killing instrument. Its hardlight blade is surprisingly light in both sword and pistol forms, allowing for nimble swordplay and surgical precision at the cost of stopping power and parrying potential. Meanwhile, its Draco has been heavily modified and overpressured to fire as fast as possible with mags of high-velocity bullets.

Iron Blossom is a bladed buckler / flail designed for defensive techniques and to constrain foes. The steel teeth lining the rim of the shield are great at catching blades, as well as rending flesh to maim opponents. In its flail mode, it becomes even better at entangling weapons  or limbs, leaving foes open to attacks from the rest of Whitney’s arsenal.

Background:

In the distant past, Willow Schnee was pregnant with her first child. While she didn’t care much for her aloof husband, the young heiress was excited to be a mother and, with the help of her own father and servants, prepared her mansion for her firstborn daughter. Only Jacques refused to participate in the preparations and became more distant than ever. Every night, he withdrew to his study with several bottles of liquor and became erratic at any mention of the child.

Finally, the delivery date came, and Willow gave birth to her daughter without any medical complications with a host of the finest midwives Jacques could hire. However, before the new mother could see her child, the head midwife- a woman with long, silver hair and dead eyes- coldly informed her that her daughter had been stillborn. Her father acted quickly to comfort her, but she was despondent and refused to talk or eat for days. Jacques didn’t look the least bit surprised but couldn’t bring himself to see Nicolas or Willow for weeks, spending more time in his office and drafting his ambitious plans for the SDC. No one could understand the sacrifices he needed to make to get this far in life, and only he knew how many more he was willing to make to go even further beyond. In the Schnee household, all news and records of the pregnancy were covered up and destroyed by Jacques and his associates to help his wife “move on.”

In the following week, several prominent board members of the SDC would go missing on a hiking trip in Mistral, a couple of investigative  journalists were found frozen to death in their Mantle apartments and the law firm prosecuting a high-profile class-action lawsuit against the SDC would suddenly drop their case. For the first time since Nicholas retired, the new CEO of the SDC, Jacques, would have some breathing room to truly make his company flourish.

---

A little under two decades later, stories would emerge across Remnant of a malevolent ghost who ambushed and hunted warriors from the shadows. Unlike Grimm or bandits who usually preyed on the weak and hapless, this entity sought out the strong - stalking Teams of Huntsmen, hunting parties of Daybreak Knights and squadrons of Atlesian Black Ops from afar before pouncing at the most opportune moments. It struck seemingly without reason and didn’t stop until it had butchered its prey and harvested their souls. The only survivors being among those it had deemed “unworthy” of harvesting.

Lesser known was the young, eccentric traveller who went by “Whitney Kalahan”. Bouncing from town-to-town across all four Kingdoms, Whitney was a quiet girl with a gentle smile and the patience of a saint. She exhibited many peculiar behaviors; such as being unable to laugh or to read through obvious sarcasm, but those were typically excused as her being a foreigner unfamiliar with the local customs. She also frequented bars and saloons, seeking out conversation with veteran Huntsmen and Huntresses. With her pretty face and abrupt forwardness mistaken for “flirting”, many of these grizzled vets flirt back and share tales of their greatest feats to woo or entertain her. Little did they know that behind her smile, Whitney was cynically calculating their worth and how she was going to extract it.

For years, Whitney was able to successfully maintain her double life, even having a daughter, Winslow, to help her and pass down her knowledge/experience to. However, these continued successes made Whitney bolder, arrogant and more ambitious. Against the orders of her Clan, she would attempt to accelerate their plans in Atlas by kidnapping Winter and using her to kill both General Ironwood and Jacques.

Although she was able to successfully lure Winter out by killing an Ace Op and a ton of soldiers in Atlas, Whitney underestimated how resourceful and competent Lt. Winter was, losing the duel with her biological sister. She was only rescued at the last minute by Kill Team GORE, who was tasked with stopping the carnage Whitney started and to recover her for reconditioning.

For her insolence and foolishness setting back a decade’s worth of work and intrigue, Whitney was severely beaten on top of the injuries she sustained during her unsanctioned hunt. However, as the Matriarch was about to send her away for months (if not years) of brutal reconditioning, Spymaster Endora spoke up for Whitney, offering to watch over her closely in exchange for her assistance in operations. 

In exchange for babysitting the rest of Team ZHDW, Whitney wouldn’t be punished further for her insubordination and would even get to continue raising her daughter until she was ready for Phase 1 training.

Psychological Report:

By far the most hateful and arrogant member of Team ZHDW, Whitney naturally conceals her sadism and contempt for others with a faint smile across her lips. She finds immense joy in breaking the strong in mind and body before tallying them to her kill count - often collecting  a memento so that their deaths will live on forever in her mind (and Semblance). Toward civilians, she is thankfully disinterested in them, viewing their lives as not worthy to even acknowledge, let alone take. She is only slightly warmer toward her fellow Operatives, viewing them as equals (albeit rivals). However, she does have a soft spot for Winslow, seeing her as an extension of herself.

However, despite these quirks, Endora believes that Whitney is a critical asset that she can mature, without losing any of her killer instincts, by forcing her to interact and work with others. Should any member of Team ZHDW die prematurely, Whitney would be sent on a one-way ticket back to her immediate reprogramming. At first, Whitney was apprehensive and seethed with silent rage toward her teammates due to her circumstances, but she quickly grew to like them after the first few missions. Fei was a competent and creative tactician even by Whitney’s standards, capable of adjusting plans on the fly after unforeseen events. Dinah is a bit too talkative and light-hearted, but has more than enough bite to make up for it. Lastly, Hallie is Whitney’s favorite due to her sheer brutal pragmatism, seeing her research into Grimm behavior and physiology to be aspirational… just not in the ways Hallie would expect. Still they talk to each other most about new, innovative ways to feed their captives to the Grimm.

In combat, Whitney prefers to operate alone either as the flanker of her Team or the anchor with her kit allowing her to do both roles incredibly well. As a flanker, Whitney has high mobility and lethality in close quarters combat, while using her Semblance to summon Thrall Huntsmen and Knights to add more devastation to her flank.She can also hang back and use her Semblance to summon Atlesian heavy weapons teams to suppress and distract enemy forces. Due to her personal stakes in their survival, Whitney will go above and beyond to save her teammates, using her constructs to rescue them should they fall in battle.

Team STYX is a patchwork Team of Valean Agents handpicked by Special Agent Sierra Kings to assist in her investigations, as she seeks to root out corruption, and conspiracies against the global hegemonic world order. While many fellow Valean Agents question the invasive and heavy-handed techniques used by Sierra's crew, they have been instrumental in dealing with plots against Oz and Vale from the shadows, whether it is busting terror plots by Salem cultists or rebuffing infiltration attempts by Agents of Vacuo and Atlesian Black Ops. Sierra's eye for the finer details combined with her Team's collective firepower makes them a highly reactive and powerful strike force - even when there is little harmony within their ranks.

 Team Facts:

• Each member of Team STYX is named after a river and primarily alludes to cursed weapon in history/mythology.
• Sierra may have installed hidden cameras and listening devices in the barracks dorms of each of her Teammates.
• Tomoe likes to give her Teammates flowers that she grows on base. Sierra tosses them in the trash, Ylsa keeps them in a vase near her dorm window and Xoe mistakes them for extra rations and eats them (she really likes the purple ones)
• Ylsa is the oldest member of the Team (30 yo) and Xoe is the youngest (19 yo)

"Torch their homes, slaughter their young and, most importantly, don’t let any of them escape…" - The Matriarch

Throughout the vast wildlands and ruins of Remnant, seemingly endless hordes of Grimm roam. For every monstrosity that is slaughtered by Huntsmen, ten more seem to take its place, crawling from the shadowy recesses of nature. Within caves, dense foliage and even ancient ruins, specialized Grimm set up and maintain the spawning pools from which their endless ranks are constantly being replenished.

Classified as the “Jorogumo”, these spider-humanoid Grimm serve as the engineers and custodians of each Grimm horde. In their base form, these Grimm are almost never found outside of the nests that they care for, devoting a majority of their time, weaving defenses and expanding the sizes of their nests. Despite their more passive role, the Jorogumo have hair-trigger tempers ready to go off at anything that disturbs their meticulous work. Even the newly-formed Grimm that emerge from their pools are not immune to their wrath. If any of them make the mistake of trampling on a Jorogumo’s web, their brief existence will come to a violent and painful end as they are repeatedly stabbed and torn limb from limb in a mad frenzy. Ironically, this obsession with their own territory makes Jorogumo incredibly prone to infighting, straight up murdering each other and letting rival nests dry out. Though on occasion, multiple older Jorogumo may agree to expand in different directions to avoid such conflicts.

Compared to the Nuckalvee, the Jorogumo is not as flexible nor as durable. Instead, it relies heavily on territorial defenses and advanced mobility to win its fights. Its webs aren’t lethal but can serve as motion sensors informing the Jorogumo of the exact locations of intruders and obstacles that can slow the progress of any attacker. The older Jorogumo may even use their webwork and the acoustics of their surroundings to mimic the shrill scream of a woman or child to pull intruders deeper into an awaiting ambush. Fire is a crippling weakness for the Jorogumo and can cause them to flee in terror at its presence - though this often leads to more problems down the line.

Unlike most other Grimm, Jorogumo don’t evolve into their “Alpha” state with age, but rather through circumstance. When a Jorogumo’s nest is purged but the Jorogumo remains, it undergoes a berserk metamorphosis as its overwhelming rage and hatred twists its physical form. The Jorogumo loses its ability to produce spawning fluid in exchange for even greater strength, perception and sadistic intelligence. In this state, these Alphas become lone predators, beelining to the nearest human settlement to terrorize. Instead of attacking right away, the Alpha Jorogumo wait until midnight before slipping past and kidnapping villagers at random. From there, the Jorogumo uses the terrified cries of its hostages to lure rescuers into a death trap of webs and tight corridors that heavily favor the Jorogumo’s strength and wall-climbing abilities.

When sieging a Grimm nest, Huntsmen are advised to move as a Team, placing explosive charges as they go. They are also advised to bring along the appropriate gear (flashlights, flares and blades for cutting through webs) and encouraged to follow a doctrine of cautious advance until they eliminate the Jorogumo. However, many veteran Huntsmen have cleared enough nests to be able to solo blitz them and reach the Jorogumo before it even has time to formulate a counterattack. Meanwhile, less morally conscious Huntsmen may take the easy way out by simply burning out the nest to claim the bounty and letting any potential survivors be someone else’s problem down the line.

Age: 30 yo | Attributes: 6’8” 230 lbs Human

Semblance: Death Match
Ylsa can focus her hatred on a single target within eyesight, instilling a myriad of psychological effects and buffs on herself and her mark. From an outside perspective, there is no visual sign / change that indicates her Semblance is active. From the target’s perspective, their vision darkens and blurs, while they go deaf to all surrounding noise. The only thing they can see and hear clearly is Ylsa and the thunderous beat of her wrathful heart as she draws closer. Ylsa becomes transfixed on her target, sensing them through walls and low visibility. She takes significantly reduced damage from outside distractions and can only be hurt by her target. Theoretically, the “Match” ends when Ylsa’s hatred is sated. In practice, this usually means either the complete annihilation of the target or Ylsa’s Aura breaking. Ylsa can only have one target at a time, but there is no cooldown as her anger can never be satisfied.

Weapon:  Mark XI Warblade
A highly advanced battle rifle/greatsword issued to Atlesian Marines. Its rifle form fires caseless, high-velocity munitions in rapid bursts while its sword form uses superheated Hardlight Dust to burn and slice through most materials. Ylsa’s blade has been significantly corrupted from the time spent in the Forbidden Continent.

Background:
(Former) Gunnery Sergeant Ylsa Slidr was born the youngest child to an impoverished family in the slums of Mantle. Growing up, Ylsa became very familiar with violence as it permeated every aspect of her childhood, from witnessing the endless cycles of gang warfare, riots and heavy-handed state repression on the streets to living with her abusive parents at home. Every day was a desperate battle, keeping her head low, evading gunfire and enduring the drunken wrath of her family long enough to make it to the next day.

At the age of 16, long after her older siblings had run away, Ylsa quietly scoop what little possessions she had and enlist in the Atlesian Armed Forces, hoping to find a better life. Lying about her age to get accepted, she quickly became smitten with all the aspects of military life; a steady supply of lukewarm meals, heated rooms and most importantly, a “family” made of people just like her. Meanwhile, the life skills Ylsa developed in her childhood translated well into her new profession with the discipline and fortitude she demonstrated in training impressing her instructors. Once she completed the standard 13 weeks of training, the newly minted Private Slidr would be assigned to the Atlesian Army’s Recon Element, an elite cadre of no-Aura soldiers who work closely with Specialists on a variety of missions, providing tactical and logistical support when needed.
Over the next decade, Ylsa would run through countless operations with distinction and rise through the ranks. Despite having no Aura, her quick thinking and bravery would save Specialists on several occasions from Grimm and other formidable foes. However, she would also lose numerous close comrades. The mental toll eventually led her to develop Aura of her own.

Transitioning from Recon to Specialist was a natural process for Ylsa. Given her extensive service (and lack of connections to the Academy), General Ironwood moved her straight into his elite Black Ops forces. In Black Ops, Ylsa began to struggle for the first time in her illustrious military career - not due to a lack of competency, but rather due to the dubious ethics of the missions her Team was sent on. Blackbagging “speech terrorists” in front of their families in the dead of night, killing police or even other Huntsmen in foreign operations and feeding prisoners to Grimm weighed heavily on Ylsa’s mind. Though her survival instincts kicked in, preventing her from acting on or even vocalizing her hesitation out of fear of knowing that she would be executed as a traitor if she ever did.

One day her squad was sent on a special mission by General Ironwood to investigate a secret research lab near the core of Atlas that went dark. Upon entering the facility, her Team was greeted by rivers of blood dammed by mangled corpses, as Grimm ran rampant throughout the claustrophobic lab spaces and vents. Ylsa and her comrades systematically began clearing rooms as protocol, but the Grimm were strong. Augmented with bionics and other twisted sciences, these nightmares tore through the Black Ops Team like savage wolves on sheep.

Drenched in blood and gunpowder, Ylsa never noticed she was the last survivor left as she continued to fight her way deeper and deeper into the facility. Pure adrenaline was all that was keeping the pain, horror and fatigue at bay.

Eventually, the lone Specialist made it to the central laboratory and epicenter of the chaos. There a giant portal to the Forbidden Continent spewed forth ancient Grimm like a gaping wound. Against direct orders to preserve the lab for any usable data or research, Ylsa rigged the facility’s neutron generator to implode and annihilate everything before stepping through the portal and taking her chances in the wild.

At the end of her wits, Ylsa was overwhelmed with pure rage. Rage at the General for sending her here. Rage at the scientists for playing Gods. Rage at herself being a coward and a knowing pawn in their hideous game.
She bled the legions of Grimm to a standstill with blade and fist, until nightfall when she faded into the blasted landscape. No plants grew on the accursed soils of the Forbidden Continent, but life did flourish through macabre and twisted ways. Warring packs of cannibalistic wolves patrolled the blackened hills and plains, while opportunistic vultures the size of Nevermores blotted the skies day and night. The barren lands offered little cover to hide or shelter. It was eat or be eaten.

The weeks felt like decades as Ylsa trudged along, slaughtering animals and Grimm alike. Rest was rare and brief, as the Marine constantly needed to remind the vultures that she was not their food. After a month, she finally reached the coast with enough bones and bloated corpses to build a raft to drift away from the blasted continent.

Later rescued by a Valean merchant vessel, Ylsa would immediately give herself up to the Circle authorities in Vale and confess her story and guilt to a bemused Sierra. Expecting to die for her many sins, Ylsa was surprised when the young lady investigating her offered her a job instead. It would be dangerous, frontline work with significantly less material support than what she had in Atlas, but it would allow her to make up for all crimes she committed before.

Psychological Report:
Despite the madness and trauma that grips Ylsa’s mind, she still maintains a quiet and implacable exterior outside of combat. While she seems unreadable on the surface, her primary concern is to atone for her past and to keep her wrath in check. As the oldest member of the Team, Ylsa feels a unique obligation to keep Sierra and Tomoe safe. She isn’t much for words, but does hang out with Tomoe to meditate and actively assists Sierra in her investigations. Meanwhile, she can’t stand Xoe, seeing the silent Faunus for the monster that she is. In Xoe, Ylsa sees everything that she hates about herself - a mindless war machine who can only kill and destroy. And, unlike Ylsa, Xoe really *loves* what she does.

In combat, Ylsa is Team STYX’s frontliner, attracting enemy attention and agro away from civilians and her Teammates. The second-most military-minded on the Team, she is surprisingly strategic about her rage, selecting the most optimal times, locations and targets to go berserk in battle. Ylsa’s combat endurance is unparalleled, able to maintain peak intensity for days, but also mentally degrading as her mind is gradually consumed by flashbacks. Ironically enough, there have been a couple occasions where Xoe has had to find and extract Ylsa after battles where she gets “lost”, being the only one skilled enough to do so reliably and safely.

Age: 19 yo | Attributes: 5’4” 145 lbs  Faunus (Platypus Spurs)

Semblance: Off the Grid
Xoe’s Aura can convert itself into electrical energy that her body can siphon off of, replacing the need of respiration and even allowing her to temporarily function without a heartbeat. Additionally, her Aura is hyper sensitive to electrical fields, allowing her to sense nearby electronic gadgets with pinpoint accuracy. The full extent and functionality of her Semblance is a closely-guarded secret by Xoe.

Weapons: Wetworks
An experimental, suppressed bullpup rifle of unknown origins. In addition to being a versatile gun with the compactness of PDW and the power of a Vacuoan Rifle, Wetworks also comes with a suite of useful gadgets stored within its chassis - a dive knife, blowtorch, boltcutter, glass breaker, and spade. Additionally, Xoe also carries throwing knives laced with detcord for more explosive punch and sabotage.

Background:
Not much is known about Xoe prior to her service to the Valean Branch of the Circle as her files have been heavily redacted by some unknown authority or have gone missing. However, in her years of service to the Circle, Xoe has made a name for herself as a competent and bloodthirsty Agent, engaging in numerous solo missions, fighting pirates and aquatic Grimm off the shores of Vale and Patch. The briefings and specific details of each mission are kept obscure with Xoe being curt in her mission reports and most of the records being destroyed shortly thereafter. The only information that seems to survive are Xoe’s kill counts.

Due to her high lethality (and suspicious behaviors / activities), Xoe was the last member Sierra picked to be part of Team STYX, attempting to put her superior martial prowess to better use and to investigate her true motivations and actions more closely.
Her backstory would end here - if it wasn’t for Sierra’s investigation shining more light on Xoe’s origins.

After secretly obtaining Xoe’s DNA and sending it to a lab for analysis, Sierra was able to deduce that Xoe was born to a small Faunus village off the coast of Menagerie due to her close genetic links to the local population. But, when surreptitiously introduced to cultural artifacts from the region, Xoe genuinely seemed confused and did not know what they were, leading Sierra to believe that Xoe didn’t grow up there. Additionally, her lack of tattoos and perfectionist tendencies makes it virtually impossible that Xoe was taken in by pirates or White Fang raiders.

Sierra would reach a second breakthrough after carefully examining Xoe’s spurs through combat footage and hidden surveillance cameras she had wired in Xoe’s personal dorm. As a Faunus, Xoe seemed to have inherited platypus spurs. However, female platypus spurs are vestigial and fall off shortly after birth. Xoe’s current spurs are steel bladed prosthetics surgically implanted into the empty sockets. While these prosthetics are well-fitted and meticulously designed to retract into Xoe’s heel at will, whoever placed them there did not do so for Xoe’s comfort. Even with Aura, the sharp metal blades constantly rubbing against Xoe’s flesh is mildly painful at best, especially when Xoe decides to extend or retract these blades. This modification was added solely to make Xoe a better killer. Sierra has only seen such thorough, single-minded devotion to murder once before.

Psychological Report:
Outside of her spotty, official records, most of what is known about Xoe comes from witness statements from other Huntsmen and Circle Agents. Before joining Team STYX, Xoe’s reputation was a mixed bag. Some Huntsmen Teams were grateful for her lifesaving interventions and professionalism, while others were more disturbed by odd lack of visible emotion, sparse communications, and disturbing affinity for extreme violence. The few veteran Agents, like Professor Port and Oobleck, that have personally seen the aftermath of Xoe’s work would describe her as a “depraved serial killer”, while many others suspect her of being a spy. However, they are unable to prove her criminality in any official capacity.

On Team STYX, Xoe is an awkward fit socially, only being liked by Tomoe, who often has one-sided  friendly conversations with her. While quiet and unassuming, Sierra keeps a close-eye on Xoe and will constantly ask prodding questions in effort to learn more about her. Meanwhile, Ylsa openly disdains Xoe for her suspicious behavior and will physically bully her. Despite these interactions, Xoe always keeps a calm head, barely even noticing the harsh treatment. Instead, Xoe is more focused on her mission and “improving her metrics” (increasing her kill tally).

By Sea, Air and Land, there is no battlespace where Xoe can’t dominate. She relies heavily on stealth and surprise, striking against her foe’s vital points and fading from view before they can retaliate. In water, she is especially potent, thrashing and drowning her targets like a crocodile does with its prey. Her lack of oxygen bubbles and incredible swimming skills give victims little warning before they are dragged away to watery graves. On land, she uses her mobility to secure high ground and engage in flanking maneuvers to gun down opponents with precision, automatic fire. In close quarters, Xoe favors using her dive knife along with her steel prosthetic spurs in brutal melee combat. Additionally, the extra tools in her kit allow her to assist the rest of her Team in infiltrating defenses and opening up new pathways in urban environments, even if they hardly ever get to see her.

Age: [REDACTED] | Attributes: 5’4” 145 lbs  Faunus [REDACTED]

Semblance: Off the Grid

Xoe’s Aura can convert itself into electrical energy that her body can siphon off of, replacing the need of respiration and even allowing her to temporarily function without a heartbeat. Additionally, her Aura is hyper sensitive to electrical fields, allowing her to sense nearby electronic gadgets with pinpoint accuracy. The full extent and functionality of her Semblance is a closely-guarded secret by Xoe.

Weapons: Wetworks

An experimental, suppressed bullpup rifle of unknown origins. In addition to being a versatile gun with the compactness of PDW and the power of a Vacuoan Rifle, Wetworks also comes with a suite of useful gadgets stored within its chassis - a dive knife, blowtorch, boltcutter, glass breaker, and spade. Additionally, Xoe also carries throwing knives laced with detcord for more explosive punch and sabotage.

Background:

Not much is known about Xoe prior to her service to the Valean Branch of the Circle as her files have been heavily redacted by some unknown authority or have gone missing. However, in her years of service to the Circle, Xoe has made a name for herself as a competent and bloodthirsty Agent, engaging in numerous solo missions, fighting pirates and aquatic Grimm off the shores of Vale and Patch. The briefings and specific details of each mission are kept obscure with Xoe being curt in her mission reports and most of the records being destroyed shortly thereafter. The only information that seems to survive are Xoe’s kill counts.
Due to her high lethality (and suspicious behaviors / activities), Xoe was the last member Sierra picked to be part of Team STYX, attempting to put her superior martial prowess to better use and to investigate her true motivations and actions more closely.

Psychological Report:

Outside of her spotty, official records, most of what is known about Xoe comes from witness statements from other Huntsmen and Circle Agents. Before joining Team STYX, Xoe’s reputation was a mixed bag. Some Huntsmen Teams were grateful for her lifesaving interventions and professionalism, while others were more disturbed by odd lack of visible emotion, sparse communications, and disturbing affinity for extreme violence. The few veteran Agents, like Professor Port and Oobleck, that have personally seen the aftermath of Xoe’s work would describe her as a “depraved serial killer”, while many others suspect her of being a spy. However, they are unable to prove her criminality in any official capacity.
On Team STYX, Xoe is an awkward fit socially, only being liked by Tomoe, who often has one-sided  friendly conversations with her. While quiet and unassuming, Sierra keeps a close-eye on Xoe and will constantly ask prodding questions in effort to learn more about her. Meanwhile, Ylsa openly disdains Xoe for her suspicious behavior and will physically bully her. Despite these interactions, Xoe always keeps a calm head, barely even noticing the harsh treatment. Instead, Xoe is more focused on her mission and “improving her metrics” (increasing her kill tally).
By Sea, Air and Land, there is no battlespace where Xoe can’t dominate. She relies heavily on stealth and surprise, striking against her foe’s vital points and fading from view before they can retaliate. In water, she is especially potent, thrashing and drowning her targets like a crocodile does with its prey. Her lack of oxygen bubbles and incredible swimming skills give victims little warning before they are dragged away to watery graves. On land, she uses her mobility to secure high ground and engage in flanking maneuvers to gun down opponents with precision, automatic fire. In close quarters, Xoe favors using her dive knife along with her steel prosthetic spurs on the back of her heels in brutal melee combat. Additionally, the extra tools in her kit allow her to assist the rest of her Team in infiltrating defenses and opening up new pathways in urban environments.

Iron Squirrel has fled the nest.

Deploying Silent Dingo for high-priority intercept.