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From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Ashley Fox is as savage and brutal as the animals whose traits she was forced to inherit. Currently she takes on jobs given to her by her adoptive father out of Port Oakes. She harbors a strong hatred for Arachnos for what they did to her, and plans to one day make Recluse himself pay for it.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Mad Science

Arachnos called it Project: Chimera. The principle was relatively simple, they were intending to create the ultimate biological weapons. A human being with the strength of an ox, the toughness of a rhino, the agility of a tiger, and the acute senses of a wolf. There were many other animals that would be combined into the genetic cocktail as well, but the main tenets were nothing new. The only difference this time around is that the Arachnos scientists planned to use infants as their subjects in hopes that they would better take to the changes as they aged. Lord Recluse has never been credited with an abundance of conscience, so it is little surprise he approved of this plan on the condition that they produce good results. Recluse has never tolerated failure, it's one of the reasons he still reigns over the Rogue Isles.

The Arachnos scientists needed a group of at least twenty children in order to began their experiments, but there's not a large number of children running around the Rogue Isles these days so they began to look elsewhere. That's how little Ashley Fox came to be involved in this project.

[edit] Little Girl Lost

On a dark winter eve in Paragon City a very pregnant young woman was rushing down the street trying to escape from a gang of Hellions who were chasing her. She screamed as she ran and it attracted the attention of one of the nearby heroes. The hero attacked the group of Hellions, but a stray bullet hit the young woman. The nameless hero rushed her to the hospital but it was too late.

Ashley's mother died on the same operating table where she was born. Her father was anyone's guess, so she ended up as a ward of the state. She was being transported with various other infants to one of the state orphanages when Arachnos attacked. They killed the few adults that were along to take care of the children and then took all the children with them back to the Rogue Isles, where the scientists of Project: Chimera immediately began to put them through their experiments.

Ashley was dubbed PCS-13 and the genetic experimentation began when she was still only 6 months old. The testing and modifications went on for the next six years. Each differnt gene added to the cocktail that they were forcing on the children resulted in different effects. Some took to the treatment better than others, but Ashley was in a league of her own. Every time they added another attribute to her unique genetic makeup her body seemed to adopt all the greatest qualities inherent in it while instinctively throwing out the negative. After six years of testing and still not truly providing a worthy subject, short of Ashley, Recluse himself was becoming very impatient with the project. He ordered them to provide him with a perfected soldier within the year or they would suffer for failing him. This caused the scientists to speed up work with Ashley.

[edit] Overload

At first Ashley's body did what it always had, adopting genetic patterns for their strengths only. They decided to start doing weekly infusions of genetic material to speed up her progress. This proved to be too much for the, now seven year old, girl's body to handle. After the fourth week of this her body shutdown, and not even her newly acquired regenerative abilities seemed to be able to bring her back. Panicked at the loss of their strongest test subject the scientists disposed of her by dropping her body out at sea.

Unfortunately for them Recluse had finally had enough with the project and ordered it shutdown, and everything associated with it to be liquidated. Within a week all that remained of Project: Chimera was the body of a little girl at the bottom of the sea just outside Port Oakes.

Not all of the genetic data used for Ashley's treatment had been land animals. Many sea creatures' genetic data were added in as well. This particular part of her treatments had gifted Asheley with the ability to survive underwater indefinitely, which made it the prime place for her body to regenerate from the overload of genetic testing forced on her by the Arachnos scientists. It took about a month but the little girl, now eight years old, finally awakened at the bottom of the ocean. Anyone else would have panicked but she shared her instincts with those of all the animals with which she had been combined. She was still very weak though, so in the course of slowly swimming to shore her body shut down again.

She was close enough now, though, that she washed up on a small beach in Port Oakes right next to an old shack where a young man was standing reading a newspaper...

((Work in Progress))