Risen Dead of the Fields of the UnDamned
Special Agent of the Court of the Silver Censer
Description
~Society and life corrupted this sixteenish child. It stole her family, warped her body, and then let her die before puberty even ended. And now Enola is back, back with a furious vengeance. She almost seems like a walking cliché, but she exemplifies her “type” perfectly. Enola isn’t a copy, she’s a model. A one-piece, black PVC suit clings to her slim, underdeveloped shape neck to toe. The pants encase slender but firm, athletic legs. Her feet are hidden in soft, vinyl boots. The top is a zipped-up shirt with long sleeves and a wide collar. A utility belt is strapped around her waist, bearing any number of tools…or weapons. Of course, if she is carrying arms, she typically sports a reinforced leather duster to better hide them. Past the sleeves and collar of her suit, the only flesh she deems to expose is visible. Supple, spidery fingers boast an array of silvery rings. Her skin is fairly pale except in the course of strenuous activity where it seems to take on too much of a healthy glow. Thick ebony hair is usually kept high through braids at odd angles, although sometimes it’s allowed to sweep freely to the tense blades of her shoulders. Her youthful features stay cold to almost all people and things. Her black-painted lips are drawn intently and the brown eyes yearn in solitude. Her almond-shaped eyes hint at partial Oriental heritage, of course, but the “half-breed” status must have served to further enforce her loneliness. It seems, in fact, that her only recognizable companion is a scrawny black alley cat, whose attitude matches Enola’s. Most strangely of all, however, is the acrid, rusty scent of blood in the air around Enola - as if she breathes the scent out. And furthermore, for a brief moment, every step she takes leaves a footprint of dark, crimson fluid. The bloody steps fade before the mind can grasp the reality of this phenomenon, leaving no physical residue of Enola’s passing.~
OOC: Appearance 3; Death's Sigil
"Hi. I have a message.” (Pfft! Pfft!) “Don’t do it again."
History
Youth
Enola’s past is a complicated story of four parts so far. First were her days of childhood, blissfully ignorant. Second came the time of her re-education and the super-scientific tampering man forced upon her youth. Third came her unexpected, sudden, and brutal demise, and fourth stars her current state of rebirth.
Enola Eyi never knew who her parents were. She did not even have a name, this half-Chinese Beijing orphan. She was found with a pewter pendant of Victorian make and design. It bore no lettering, however. Besides that pendant, only a tag left on her baby basket reading “Eyi” -- which means “evil” or “ill omen” that upset the orphan caretakers (who weren’t particularly caring, as they were forced into this job by government lottery) was found. At the same time, it reinforced their spite for this unwanted baby and so they called her Eyi all the time. Needless to say, the child did not much appreciate the name, but never thought of a better one. She spent her first years cleaning the orphanage floors and bathrooms like most orphans were obliged to do. In her spare time, she practiced amateurish attempts at gymnastics and acrobatics. She based her hobby off of watching the Olympics. It was quite a shock to the girl when the People’s Summer Olympics Team required her to be transferred from the orphanage to their training facilities south of Beijing at the age of six.
Agent Enola
Away from that oppressive hell, she found herself in a new oppressive hell. Training was harsh. But this hell, she told herself, was at least taking her somewhere. She nursed dreams of an Olympic medal while impressing her trainers with an amazing natural flexibility, agility, fluid grace, and handle for the various maneuevers and tumbles. She was especially awesome to watch on the horizonal and vertical bars -- as natural as a monkey. All the while, she was called Eyi because that’s all that was listed on the birth certificate. By the age of twelve, she had gotten quite used to that name while exceeding all expectations of her potential as a “mere half-breed”. In just a few more years, it was believed that she’d be ready for the next Olympics. Of course, she felt she was ready now, and was becoming impatient and antsy. She wanted to win that medal, not just for herself, but to bring a pride to her country that she felt was lacking in many of her people. After a fairly unsuccessful tourney at the Summer Games of 1988, her trainers grudgingly admitted to her that they weren’t likely to ever let a “half-breed” compete on their behalf. It would not be in the spirit of the games, they taught - how could their be national pride with a gweilo’s bastard daughter representing their flag?
Naturally, she was outraged and heartbroken. She threw all the temper tantrums she had suppressed over years of harsh and evidently pointless discipline. Her ruckus drew a lot of attention in the camp, but word of her behavior leaked out to another organization… The Chinese Technocracy was always on the look-out for fresh recruits. They decided to salvage Eyi before she wasted her life, and kidnapped her that summer -- under the guise to the People’s Team that she had run away. Through an acute regimen of mental and physiological conditioning, she was soon calmed down and made suggestible to the Union’s learnings. They didn’t teach her much, of course. They took her singlemost desire -- for public greatness -- and honed it into a sword of public protection. And they promised her that after a few years of service she’d be given a real life back. But ultimately, they intended to make a killer out of this innocuous, unwanted child. Those who opposed the Union of course opposed safety and were therefore wrong -- bad guys and evil-doers. All the missions they were preparing her for would be to eliminate these bad guys.
Eyi was exposed to more than conditioning. Her physique was honed into a weapon through hardcore military training. At first, it was harsh, but her years of Olympic training had toned her into amazing shape for her youth. She managed better than most adults did at the commando-level training. She was instructed in the finer points of martial arts, in the applicable uses of hop gar rather than demonstrative uses. Weapons and bare hands (and feet) took up the first part of her tutelage. Then she was moved onto modern firearms, particularly rifles and small arms -- but she was shown everything a soldier would learn. Even heavy weapons and parachuting were included at least once in the next two years of intense multi-level training. Once her standard training was complete, she was to enter a new phase. By this time, she was now a hardened and loyal cadet.
The next phase brought her into a world she hadn’t even realized exist. Super-scientific laboratories and research facilities both amazed and terrified the preteen. She was to be a guinea pig of the new line of nanotech cyborgs. Lacking the clunky metal parts of the mechanical soldiers, she would be host to hundreds of microscopic computer chips implanted in her very flesh to a variety of incredible, superhuman purposes. The implantation process, unfortunately, was rather painful even anesthized. But she got over that pain like she had gotten over everything else. She was soon transformed into something stronger and deadlier than any normal man or woman could be. Eyi was faster, stronger, and unerringly accurate with her expert combat techniques. Furthermore, improved training regimens were downloaded directly into her memory through this integrated nanotech system. Lastly, her aging was slowed to almost a halt to preserve her innocuous, innocent appearance. The process was a complete success and within a year she was ready for the field. Despite a few complaints and quirks, she was a masterpiece of cyber-nanotech warfare.
Eyi was set loose in Beijing first after a rogue research scientist who was intent on selling out to the American branch of the Union just to make himself a fortune. He had hired plenty of strongarm security specialists and was protected by electronic alarms and traps. The cyborg penetrated all these defenses, leaving piles of corpses within an hour of drop-off. The scientist himself was dead, shot in cold blood by a single bullet between the eyes. Eyi returned to the cheering welcome of her creators and for the first time in her life, she felt appreciated. So for the next year and a half, Eyi served the Beijing offices of the Union faithfully and effectively. She was soon a feared and renowned operative not only among the Technocrats but crimeworld and the so-called “RDs”, too: a sort of boogieman perpetrators try to laugh about til she’s walking in, suppressed pistols smoking, corpses lining the corridor.
However, the Asian Technocracy began to turn some attention to the West. The battle to reaffirm Eastern dominance in Asia as far as the realm of Enlightened Science was concerned was proving fairly successful. It was time to make a competitive push back into the West. Union agents from Asia were making some progress throughout the various cultural districts of American metropoli. From New York to San Francisco, Chinatowns were under subtle siege to assert Asian corporate and technological power. Sometimes, however, these competitions weren’t so subtle. Other powers resented the Eastern intrusion. Operatives were needed to keep things civil. Eyi was dispatched to America, transferred from one city to another. She did odd jobs and clean-up duties for her employers and more blood soaked her hands.
In her very first American city, San Diego, she met her first and to date only companion. In between jobs, she wandered alleys aimlessly. In the course of her walk one afternoon, she found herself followed by a curious, bony black cat. At first, she tried to frighten it off. But it wouldn’t relent, just meow. So Eyi adopted the cat, naming it “Gusui”. And from then on, Eyi and Gusui were almost inseperable. When not on a mission (and sometimes to her chagrin, during), she and her cat were together. She kept the cat well-fed and loved. Once, she coldly murdered one of her contacts’ bodyguards when they came to visit and the brute thought the cat that kept getting underfoot should be kicked.
But Eyi was disappointed. She found herself surrounded by more and more Westernization. Her own comrades were falling prey to the seductive allure of lacodonic high life and crude commerce. Indeed, in the West she had gotten a reputation matching that renown from back East. She was nicknamed “Enola” by an American corporative executive allied to the Asian Syndicate she mainly served. The name stuck thereafter. Though most of her Asian forefathers still called her Eyi, to everyone else she was known as Enola. She shrugged. Just a name. Neither name was her true name. She didn’t even have a true name. Her only link to a real life, a life without abandonment and murder, was that pendant she had kept since infancy.
Perhaps that was why it was so hard to pin the girl down. No one understood her, but were grateful for such a useful operative. She never complained even if her nanotech body occasionally did. Three years passed by and the tiny machines were apparently beginning to corrupt. Deep inside, she began to suspect her years were numbered. But the nanotechnicians responsible for her body assured her that with regular maintenance she’d be fine.
Death
They were wrong.
In the course of a particular mission in Little Asia, Kansas City, her enhancements went haywire. This anti-Mafia operation was botched and became an open gunfight. She was taking bullet left and right, though returning them full stock, of course! But she could feel…pain…and not from the injuries. Her body was freaking out. Maybe this was the 1 in 100,000 chance the technicians had discussed: that in the course of battle, broken skin may leak blood and in that blood may contain a key nanotech module that failed to resist the leakage. Surrounded by the corpses of her enemies, she began to convulse, and that was the only possibility she could suggest to home-base through the ear-piece communicator. She went into shock and before a Union EMS could arrive, she collapsed off the jetty into the Blue River and was washed away. Most of her innards turned to jelly. At age twenty, Enola Eyi was very dead.
The Union dredged for her body but at this time the Blue River was one of the most polluted tributaries of the Mississipi River. They found more chewed-up boots and dead rodents than corpses in that murky current. A team continued to search for her body for a month more, but after that it was certain she had decomposed (or been eaten) and the search was abandoned. In fact, her body was washed up into an sewer pipe during a rainstorm that raised the water levels. A group of homeless people found her and took pity, burying the apparent youth in a shallow grave on the river bank in the Little Asia region.
But Enola was not finished. She was too young to die! She hadn’t even grown up! She never graduated high school, attended the prom, nothing! It wasn’t fair! This was too much. This pissed her off. As her body convulsed, she shrieked and fought but to no avail. It was like she was trapped in a cocoon and that cocoon was her own impotent body. She beat and kicked and screamed and nothing happened. A crimson haze fell over her sight and her limbs pounded on a unbreakable sac of flesh and blood.
Someone else would have to break her out of that cell. And so someone else came. A circle of Lemurs came upon -- or were drawn to -- the Cauled Enfant. Hands of intent wrenched the fleshy sac away, freeing Enola with a gagged shriek of blood and pain. Her Reapers helped her to her senses, and soon guided her away from the spot. Her newborn afterlife’s tutelage began immediately. She learned the basics of being a ghost quickly and who and where to avoid. Of course, Enola voiced self-hatred, and her desire to be alive again. Though some in the Circle schooled her to accept her new existence, a couple whispered that perhaps a return was possible…
Early Years
The two conspirators were actually members of the local Puppeteers Guild. Their local master guided the Circle to Enola, who had the drive and will to Rise. Whatever the Puppeteers’ interest in the Risen Dead may be remains secret, especially from Enola. But she accepted the wraiths’ aid and began the training in those ancient arts that enabled one to interact with the Skinlands. Furthermore, she listened to their tutelage about how to strike deals with her own dark side, her Shadow, and their applications of Castigate aided Enola in these shady bargainings.
Still, it took almost six long years before Enola knew enough to Rise from the grave. She learned quickly but was slow to accept her death and the world she found herself in. Of course, Enola knew enough that pointless hauntings were bad. The Union taught her that much. She frowned upon wraiths that broke the Mortuus Dictum with impunity. The original Circle that Reaped her had broken up or been broken up by enemies in the Necropolis. Only one of the Puppeteers, Jason Kell, remained with her as mentor. The time for her return drew near. She could feel it. Her Shadow supported the idea more and more. When New Year of 2002 arrived, she felt it was time. Her body was still intact, this much she knew. She wasn’t sure if that was because of the super-scientific tampering it underwent, or some ghostly magic that preserved her corpse. Either way, she no longer cared. Her time of service to the Union was over. It was time to serve herself as well as other people. Enola was ready for life.
Arisen
Enola and Jason parted and she took a deep and very much unneeded breath. Her Shadow’s annoying voice egged her to get on with it and so she did, leaping through the Shroud. Her ghostly soul successfully reunited with her body and then a quick struggle against all reality, she screamed once again in her shallow grave. Pale, slender limbs kicked their way out of the mud and muck. Once she could sit up and breathe the living air, eyes wide, she screamed again -- but her throat was a desert and no sound came out. Her hand slapped to her chest where lay the pendant she had borne all her life -- her only connection to a real life long denied. Therein, she felt, lurked her Shadow -- her dark, most selfish desires.
Enola was back but realized quickly and bitterly she was not really alive. She was just…back. It would be difficult to live when she was dead. To further make "life" difficult, she noticed she left even if for brief moments bloody footprints and traces in everything she did. She knew it was a taint of her P’o hidden away in her pendant, but she knew she could never throw the neckace away. Enola knew she didn’t want to throw it away. On the bright side, no one accounted for her death save for the detached Union and a group of homeless people most of whom had moved on or died. Still, Enola knew she had a lot of work cut out for herself. She had to find out more about the so-called “Reality Deviants”, which she was now one of. She had to reestablish herself as a feared assassin of scumbags. And most of all, she had to live those dreams that had taunted her for over two decades.
Enola first returned to the district of Little Asia. For the course of her last operation, she had established a safehouse in the slums. It was just a tiny studio apartment -- practically a closet with a cot. There she had stashed her arms. And to her delight, she found that her cache lay undisturbed. Even better, her only friend ever, who had accompanied her around the world, still lived. The scrawny black cat, Gusui, living off of the abundance of vermin life in that apartment structure, was there as if waiting for her return all along. Taking Gusui back into her care, Enola Eyi began a new life. And Enola will learn (sooner than later) whether or not her desires are a source of happiness and fulfillment or emptiness and damnation.
Recent Years
Enola ventured into Little Asia, exploring its night life. She discovered the 1000 Hells Club and its owner, Osada Matsuo. Serendipity at its finest, perhaps, for Osada was Risen Dead like herself. With his help, she became acquainted with other shen in the area. When he joined the Court of the Silver Censer under the leadership of more ghostly wraiths, Enola agreed to join, too. Now one of the Court's two "point men" Skinland agents, the girl wonders if it may be possible to balance duty with pleasure. Life is life.
The P'o
Her Shadow behaves like a whiny, annoying, spoiled, and demanding teenager. But her Shadow does a good job of erasing the line between the Id and Superego. This may ultimately prove to its detriment, but more likely it will cause Enola to teeter on the brink of selfish and derangement psychosis. It’s a gamble the Shadow is certainly willing to play. Time is against Enola and she doesn’t even know it. The Risen are only as immortal as their willpower. For now, the Shadow is letting Enola drive (for the most part). It sees an opportunity to spread its misery as Enola comes closer to discovering the shen of Little Asia. It’s wholly confident in its ability to bring Enola down, but a better challenge would be to drag a bunch of do-gooder supernaturals down, too!
Weakness
Bloody Name
Most of all, Enola hopes to live the life denied her before Fate caught up. She wants to live the life of a young woman. Unfortunately, she is not a young woman. She is a dead young woman. The irony of this denial once again presented may utterly destroy her clarity and dreams.
Likelihood of Corruption
High.
Though she's a young ghost, she's thrust herself into a world of pain. How long can her will last against a tsunami of Angst and fulfilled Dark Passions?
