Post by Teresa on Mar 13, 2007 3:22:43 GMT
Name: Teresa Anne Reign.
Nicknames: She prefers her name to be shortened to Tess and will also answer to her surname, since she's used to a certain amount of military structure in her life.
Race: Human.
Occupation: Hunter.
Gender: Female.
Skin Colour: Caucasian; light olive.
Age: 27.
Clothing: Teresa has an oddly mismatched wardrobe; she likes country type clothes, mixing and matching between dresses with cowboy boots, scarves and coloured jackets, she especially likes corduroy pants and loose jeans and most of hers are torn at the knees. She's heavily into music and wears a lot of baggy T-shirts with obscure band names on them, her favourite Tee is a men's sized Metallica shirt in black that she effectively borrowed from and ex-boyfriend and never gave back, but she calls it compensation rather than theft. When out on a 'hunt' or 'patrol' though she favours darker colours out of habit, there's really very little point to being particularly covert. That said she has a hip length leather jacket that helps protect her skin from scraping on concrete or asphalt and a number of pairs of black cargo pants. Though most of the time she'll wear Converse or Cowboy boots, when out 'hunting' she has a heavy duty pair of biker boots that have honestly seen better days; she likes them scuffed. To finish off she tends to wear a pair of black fingerless gloves in a vague attempt to protect her hands, on occasion she also tends to wear a brace on her right knee (usually when training/working out).
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 135lbs
Tattoos: Tess has a range of 'art'. The main 'piece' is a sun inspired tribal type design with a 'bleeding heart' at the centre that sits between her shoulder blades. A matching tattoo accents the bottom of her spine, in line with the one above it and her right bicep bears a small, horizontal gothic knot. The latest addition to the collection is a small wing just above her right ankle. All her tattoos are black.
Tattoos (clockwise from left): Shoulder blades, ankle, right arm, lower back.
Piercings: Her ears are pierced several times, through the lobes, but she doesn't always fill each hole with an ear ring. It's very hit and miss what she wears and when.
Jewellery: The Hunter wears a range of rings, predominantly pewter and sterling silver since Tess hates gold. If she wears necklaces she wears more than one and there's usually something of the 'cheap and cheerful; about them. They looks homemade; lengths of ribbon with a coin on the end or little precious stones and she's not fussy about jewellery, preferring something of an organic touch. The one thing she does wear without fail, even in the shower, is the somewhat clunky silver crucifix that belonged to her mother, it has been passed down for years and is extremely precious to her.
The Contego Pendant and chain.
Body Modifications: As could be expected, Tess has several scars from her life on the 'front line' so to speak. The right side of her neck bears a pale but noticeable scar running diagonally from behind her ear down and forwards; the result of a fight with another Hunter. She has another on her right knee from the same fight and her knuckles have a pale kind of sheen to them of many scars healed over time.
Hair
Length: Long; it sweeps easily to the bottom of her shoulder blades.
Style: Long and smooth with a loose curl, Teresa has never been fussy over style. Normally she wears it down, even when fighting but on occasion she will tie it up in a high pony tail, often times when she's working on her bike, playing guitar or cleaning her weapons.
Color: Black.
Facial Hair
Length: N/A
Style: N/A
Eyes
Color: Brown.
Oddities: None.
Personality: Tess is damaged, plain and simple. She has a very hard time trusting people; everyone she has ever come to lean on in her life as abandoned or abused her whether it be physically or emotionally and she wears a coat of armour around her heart these day, protecting herself with sarcasm and a quick temper to stave off any real attachments. It's not to say she doesn't make 'friends' or that she doesn't value those tenuous ones she has; she just knows that sooner or later she's going to lose them somehow and it will probably be her fault, directly or not. She's not selfish, in any way, which often comes as a surprise, she only 'wants' to destroy herself, not anyone else, and she sees the pushing away of people as a way of saving them from going down with her. For those close to her, as close as anyone can ever get, she is considerate and almost warm on occasion.
She can come across as mean, spiteful and callous at times and really she is all those things on the surface, but that's not all she is. Her heart is and always has been in the right place, corrupted as it seems to have been over the years of her life. She is deeply guilty for the things she has done; they make her sick to her stomach occasionally and fuel vivid nightmares. As a side effect she has become reckless, willing to put her life on the line for anything, any little thing that might lead to pain for herself physical or otherwise she seems to jump at, consciously or not. Somewhere in her head the wiring's messed up and she has a masochistic streak, often driving herself to exhaustion through training or hunting. The Hunter has a severe problem with authority figures, the betrayal in her past has left her bitter and resentful, to put it mildly. Unsurprisingly because of this Tess thinks all men are scum and doesn't trust them as far as she can throw them. She rebels with everything she's got and isn't above a bit of petty crime when a rage hits her; she can be volatile and impulsive in these times.
Beneath everything though, she is merely a lonely and lost young woman, a girl even and she does her best to bury that fact beneath as many off putting attributes as she can. Her finger is on the self destruct button; she's tired and she's struggling but she won't admit either to herself openly, she's conflicted and caught between making amends and tearing herself to pieces.
Weaknesses: Teresa is given over to particularly vivid and gruesome nightmares; skull splitting headaches, nausea and occasionally nosebleeds can affect her after these dreams; she has no control over them and they don't seem particularly helpful either. Physically her right knee often requires the support of a strap on brace after a fight with another Hunter left the ligament damaged; she also has to complete a set of exercises with it and a weight every day in order to keep the strength up. The lines between right and wrong have blurred for Tess, and she's often strayed into the latter without knowing it at the time and though she is remorseful of her bad decisions she can't seem to stop making them. Whether it's ending up taking the wrong guy home with her for the night, or vigilantism and petty crimes; some part of her likes the bad decisions and consequences, the other part of her hates and regrets them and that is the crux of her weakness. She's conflicted.
Abilities: Teresa is obviously skilled in hand to hand combat and is creative in her use of it; she trains mainly with bladed weapons and is an expert with most of them, but on occasion has carried guns, she's a crack shot with most weapons put in her hands. She has been known to pluck flying blades out of the air without injuring herself, she has the stamina of a long distance runner and the speed of a sprinter, the balance and flexibility of a gymnast; all her 'abilities' she has worked damned hard for since her youth and they are more of a way of life for her. Teresa is in the peak of physical fitness and her drive and conviction is undeniable when it comes to fighting. She is designed to be a warrior against evil, a weapon unto herself and learns fighting techniques with an almost sickening ease. Thanks to heavy training all through her childhood and teens, Teresa is highly proficient in capoeira and uses it in combat as well as a way to stay in peak pysical condition.
Her more normal abilities are restricted to playing the guitar competently, singing with a tuneful voice and being somewhat of a daredevil on a bike; she can dismantle and reassemble her bike with ease and sometimes does so to de-stress. She can also pull a pint of larger and construct cocktails with ease.
Weapons: Traditionally a wooden stake with a crucifix attached to it, Tess actually rather likes the tactile sensation of handling a stake and keeps one on her person at all times, even in daylight; she also makes sure to have a thinner, silver one on her at all times. She favours a Mameluke Sword which while hard to diguise when out and about is just right for her smooth, fast fighting style. A pair of Smith & Wesson 1911 pistols are her firearms of choice, merely from personal preference and she keeps them in top condition. Teresa often prefers to rely on her surroundings to provide weapons for her, no matter how creative they have to be.
Stakes.
Mameluke Sword.
S&W 1911 Pistols.
Prized Possession(s): Teresa owns a Prophet6 Cannondale Mountain Bike with she is extremely attached to and forever tinkering with. Her guitar, a Gibson Hummingbird from the 1960s is another one of the things she holds most dear and of course the third is her necklace.
Prophet6 Cannondale Mountainbike.
1967 Gibson Humminbird Guitar.
Home(s): An apartment on Cole's side of town, Tess is well aware of the boundaries.
History: Teresa was born in Denver, Colorado to Megan Reign in 1979, though she never actually met her mother who died very soon after the birth. All she was made aware of was that while on the surface Megan was a normal single mother; proud, self-assured and wanting the best for her daughter, at night she was also a Hunter.
Megan was part of a society founded by a group of women in the early western colonization of the Americas in the 1500s. The legends go that a group of fringe explorers were attacked as they made their way to their new settlement in what would become the north of the country to be America. The only survivors were the women and children, perhaps because they were not seen as a threat; the men had stood against their attackers and successfully staved them off, but those who did not fall in battle against the strange creatures died of their wounds or else were left behind to die, so slow was the progress for the party if the women were carrying them. Once at the primitive settlement that they had been journeying so long to reach, the women decided that never again would they allow such a massacre to occur; fuelled by grief and anger they formed "The Contego", a band of women who learned to wield weapons and how best to kill all manner of things that lurked in the dark.
This was the group that Teresa "Tess" Reign had been born into. She is the only living descendant of one of the women from the original group that formed hundreds of years ago, as far as she knows at least and is very proud of the fact too. Since that time, the 'Line' as become somewhat polluted. Men had been added to the ranks as the number of women descendants dwindled and times changed, making it harder as time went on to recruit women to the cause and so when Teresa was born she was surrounded by men.
The young girl was brought up the way no child should, as a weapon. A stake and a sword were pressed into her hands at an early age and she spent her time in a strict training regime, instigated by the man who had become her father figure, Leland Hyde. He was the one man she trusted above all others, she put her faith in his methods for teaching her and he showed her the 'affection' of a parental figure that she so desperately desired. By her early teens, Teresa was already an accomplished member of the group and was taken on the nightly 'hunts', treated as one of them. She was indoctrinated to belief she was special, better than a mere human, even though that was exactly what she was, the men filled her head with tales of The Contego and she believed every word with her entire being. Teresa would have laid down her life in a heartbeat for Hyde, as it was she did his every bidding and didn't question it, not even in the privacy of her thoughts.
Over the years the ages old group of Hunters had become fractured and rife with infighting that the modern materialistic world instigated and fuelled; each 'cell' wanted to over power the others, claim a territory over a city as their own ground and the fighting of 'evil things' became a secondary task. Hyde was perhaps the most ambitious of all the leaders however, seeking to reunite The Contego with one head Hunter and a sprawling mass of 'territory in which to hunt. The thrill of the kill and the power he had amassed had gone to his head, having the last remaining blood-connection to the original women hardly helped either.
When it came to the in fighting between the divided group, Teresa proved a worthwhile 'investment' on Hyde's part. She killed without thought, fought without reserve and possessed an inner strength that not one of the men could match such was her belief in her cause and her heritage. They 'owned' Colorado, Utah and Wyoming were next on her mentor's list of territories to claim and shamelessly he declared war; Teresa was his General, at twenty years old. She was on the front line of every petty skirmish, embroiled in a war that she was blind to the reasons behind and soon earned a name for herself as one of the most brutal Hunters in the entire structure. But such a title was not important to Teresa, only pleasing Leland mattered in her heart and in her mind, protecting the sanctity of her 'family' and her 'Uncles' as she had come to call the men who raised her.
Four years into what had snowballed into a drawn out campaign -many members of The Contego had gone into hiding- Teresa discovered something that tipped her world upside down; a letter from her late mother. In it she wrote the truth and how she feared for her own life. Megan Reign had been murdered by Leland after Tess had been born when he had learned that she intended to leave the profession behind in order to raise her daughter naturally, away from the evil she had had to fight since her own youth. The pieces all fell into place there was proof in the letter that Tess could not rebuke and with the revelations the young Hunter snapped.
It was a shock to all of them all just how much fire was in the girl; Teresa was not as under Hyde's thumb as he had expected, and she returned to their home in a vengeful fury. She cut a swathe through the building, not killing the men who tried to stand in her way but making sure they were missing one of their five senses or a kneecap or two. In an emotional climax to the years of deception she came to fight Leland himself. Their years 'working' together made the battle long and bloody, they knew each other's moves so well but with emotional drive, teamed with youth Teresa was soon shaping up to be the victor, until Leland revealed that he was her father, her blood father. Once more he had underestimated her and this information instead of placating her drove her over the edge. Leland came close to slitting his own daughter's throat at one point before she realised just how far he was willing to go to survive and make his insane vision of the furture come true; with new found conviction she fought on where he imagined she'd back down. But even in such a state, she couldn't bare to do more killing; there was enough blood on her hands from innocent humans.
In his destroyed office, with the sounds of crippled, agonized men ringing through the interior of the building and her father unconscious in the shattered remains of what was once his desk, Teresa simply curled up in the corner and waited. She didn't even know what she was waiting for but as darkness finally fell she realised that she had to get out, immediately. She grabbed her guitard form her room, shoved her clothes in a duffel bag and left Denver, she went out of state and into hiding.
Since the war, the numbers of Hunters in The Contego has dwindled dramatically, there are likely to be only ten to twenty or so left, numbers were closer in the region of sixty, maybe more when Tess was growing up; there hadn't been an official Counting for around hundred years since the group had fallen into such disarray.
After a few years of roaming aimlessly, Teresa has settled in Los Angeles, having chosen it for its anonymity more than anything else. As things stand, she is carrying out her 'mission' and hunts most nights, but now she is looking to destroy all the men left in The Contego too, she wants to return to the original intentions of the women she is linked with through time. She doesn't kill them, they are humans after all and she still carries the burdens of all the lives she has taken; she simply... puts them out of commission.
She hunts vampires most nights but also rogue werewolves should one come to her attention. She leaves packs alone as long as they keep to themselves and don't come after her first, and tends to weigh her decision over who she targets depending on age. The younger the wolf the less control and therefore the more danger they pose, that's her philosophy at least, she tends to focus on those who make enough of a ruckus to get noticed. Teresa is willing to spend time observing wolves -though she knows that is a dangerous pastime should she be noticed- in order to gauge her need to intervene. Those roaming the city on the nights of the full moon she sees as her duty to eliminate, the city is for humans in her head, wolves running in the outskirts and the wilderness beyond she could care less about; The Contego is about protection not anger and she accepts that lycanthropes are people most of the month. Vampires and the men who have invested her heritage are the real monsters.
Teresa lives in an apartment in Cole's territory and keeps her head low, she works at a diner during the day to pay the bills and had occasionally been known to tend bar should she need the extra cash. The Hunter neither knows nor cares whether her father is still alive, she carries a burning hatred for him and has told herself that if he ever find her, if he's looking for her, she won't hesitate to take his worthless life.