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From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Khariss
@Alistara Theraslayne
Activity Level:	Active
Origin:	Mutation
Archetype:	Brute / Dominator
Primary Set:	Stone Melee / Fire Control
Secondary Set:	Fiery Aura / Fiery Assault
Threat Level:	50 / 13
Personal Data
Name:	Khariss
Alias:	None
Birthplace:	Unknown¹
Status:	Single
Relatives:	None (deceased)
Physical Data
Species:	Human
Gender:	Female
Eye Color:	None²
Height:	6'3
Weight:	76kg
Build:	Heavy Muscular
Distinguishing Features:	Fiery Eye Sockets Flame-Suppressing Glasses
Footnotes
¹Most records of Khariss' existence prior to her arrival at Paragon City have been destroyed by Crey Industries. ²Khariss has no eyes. Her eye sockets contain an endless blaze of flame.

Khariss can truly be considered a tragic hero. She became one of Paragon City's finest heroes and fought valiantly until she betrayed the city. It is unknown what changed her. Some say she had been driven mad through years of crime fighting with no positive outcome. Others believe that it was her power that corrupted her. Whatever happened, the Khariss that Paragon City once knew and loved no longer exists. Only the empty shell of the former hero remains.

[edit] Associations

[edit] Individuals

• Agent 3-X
• Julia Gunn
• Mistress Ohm
• Queen Xena
• Shi-Ran
• SoulTrain

[edit] Organisations

• Survivors of Vega
• The Last Bastion (Former)
• Inevitable Evolution (Former)
• Der Wille von Mahakali (Former)

[edit] Appearance

Khariss believes firmly in strength of character, in a literal sense. She bears a muscular frame and uses her gender almost intimidatingly. Khariss rarely ever wears "womanly" clothing (such as skirts, dresses, etc), viewing it as an inappropriate display of her power on the outside. She has, however, been seen wearing such clothing, though she won't ever admit to her true opinion on the attire. She only wears black and crimson. Her clothes are not costumes. She can occasionally be seen wearing a pair of custom crafted sunglasses.^[1]

[edit] Personality

Constant abuse during her eighteen years at the Sierra Research Facility molded Khariss into a woman of unspeakable anger and a mind filled with dark thoughts. Since the first Rikti War, she has shown more signs of psychotic ambition. She is quick to temper and enjoys provoking disputes. It has been proven several times that Khariss is an opportunist, utterly despising a loss in any kind of contest, whether it is war or merely a friendly battle of strength. She will willingly betray almost any ally if she finds that the opposition to said ally is clearly superior.^[2] Despite all of this, she is considered to be very civilised.

[edit] Powers

[edit] Stone Manipulation

The ability to summon and manipulate stone and earth was one that Khariss had always had, but was not aware of it until the power was unknowingly triggered by scientists. After awakening this power, Khariss studied it extensively, spending years training herself to control it. As she became adept, she chose to use granite as her signature stone weaponry. After leaving Paragon City, she adopted obsidian as her signature stone for its dark texture and the relative sharpness of the glass mineral.

Notable Stone Powers:

• Obsidian Maul^[3] - Khariss summons an obsidian maul as her main weapon of attack, if she chooses to use a weapon. She uses so much power swinging the maul that it tends to unbalance an opponent. The Obsidian Maul is always destroyed after it has been used. Khariss uses the maul in two ways:
  • Striking directly at her enemy
  • Smashing through her foe and into the ground they stand upon, creating a small tremor
• Obsidian Fists - Khariss can summon obsidian to encase her hands, acting like a glove. The Obsidian Fists have extremely sharp spikes on the knuckles and will pierce an enemy upon contact. As with the maul, the Obsidian Fists will break upon impact.
• Obsidian Missile^[4] - Khariss throws a large obsidian shard at her opponent. If thrown with enough force, the shard can shatter and injure multiple foes.

[edit] Fire Manipulation

There were signs that Khariss had some form of heat ability, as her body temperature was typically in the high hundreds to two hundreds during her earlier years. She acquired this ability the moment after her strange, black eye stones shattered and released the heat pressure that had been building within her body. She prefers to use fire defensively, but will occasionally use it offensively.

Khariss can also travel faster with the aid of her Fire powers.

• Fiery Leap - Khariss can use fire to launch herself into the air, boosting her leaping height, distance and speed.
• Blazing Flight^[5] - Khariss' ability to control flame allows her to fly, using fire to propel her.

[edit] Frenzy

Prolonged combat or heightened emotions can force Khariss to enter a Frenzy, increasing her damage output to up to three times her normal damage capacity. As she slips deeper into her Frenzy, she loses control over her actions and will become reckless, even suicidal. These periods coincide with 'blackouts' in Khariss's memory, possibly as a subconscious self-protective measure. It is generally advised to avoid her during a Frenzy.^[6]

[edit] Weaknesses

• Khariss' body temperature is incredibly high but easily neutralized by extreme cold factors. She has learned how to adapt to environmental changes, but when exposed directly to ice or frost (sudden temperature changes) she can be weakened severely.
• Khariss is also affected by the same weaknesses the average human is, though she has a much higher pain threshold.

[edit] History

[edit] Origin

[edit] The Sierra Research Facility

Much of Khariss' life is a mystery, even to Khariss herself. She has never known her true name or her birth date. Khariss was abandoned at birth and rescued by an unknown couple who happened to notice her. They found her on the street with a thick cloth wrapped around her eyes. What they found when they removed the cloth was something they did not expect: two black stones in her eye sockets. Regardless, the couple took her in and adopted her as their daughter.

Her life took a sudden turn when her home was invaded by several men in business suits and flak jackets, their coats all bearing the name of Crey Industries. They demanded that Khariss' parents hand her over to them so they could study her. Her parents adamantly refused to do this. However, Crey would not be denied. They murdered her parents and kidnapped Khariss, taking her to the Sierra Research Facility in the deserts of California.

Several years after arriving at the facility, her mutation was triggered. Her eyes began to plague her; itching terribly and sometimes gave her terrible pains. Crey had been very interested in her eyes and studied them as often as they could. It happened to be during one of these research periods that her mutation further evolved.

She had been dragged away from her cell to a surgery room, where they intended to remove her eyes for their study purposes. When they removed her visor from her face, her eyes were cracked and glowing with a fiery colour. As the scientists attempted to pry the cracks apart, the eyes shattered and flames burst out from behind them.^[7] At the same time, a small, but noticeable earthquake occurred. Though Khariss knew otherwise, the scientists dismissed the earthquake as a natural occurrence. The flames, however, were treated differently. They did not appear to react to fire extinguishers or smothering. Their sudden emergence frightened the scientists so much, that they nearly froze Khariss to death so they could place her back into her cell without harming themselves.

[edit] The Awakening

Though she had been imprisoned in her cell again, Khariss felt incredibly powerful. Every time she was locked in her cell, she trained herself to use the fire her body created in an enhancing fashion for herself. She caused so much noise and damage doing this that she began to melt the walls of her cell, forcing the guards to move her to another cell made of titanium. After she gained enough control, she decided it was time to escape.

She made her escape by blowing the thick titanium door open with a powerful blast of fire from her body. As soon as she stepped through the door frame, she began her rampage through the facility. She murdered scientists, security and even innocents who happened to be there at the wrong time. Her last victim inside the facility was Security Chief Adam Lot, who almost instantly bolted as soon as he saw her. To prevent him from escaping, she stomped the ground and created a huge crack that rapidly spread throughout the complex, destroying terminals and equipment as it widened. While Lot struggled to rise, Khariss picked him up and tore his shirt off and pressed her hand to his chest. She forced her body temperature to rise and slowly burned the security chief to death. Finally able to embrace her freedom, she launched herself into the air and flew away from the facility, turning back only to watch the building collapse upon itself.

She wandered aimlessly for years before she felt comfortable enough to return to civilization. After doing rough studies of various locations in the world to live in, she settled on Paragon City, Rhode Island, where fate would lead her to darkness.

[edit] Paragon City

The first thing Khariss noticed about Paragon was the absurd level of crime throughout the city. She wanted to make a good impression on the city she would call her home, so she took up the mantle of the super hero. She spent years fighting against the criminal organisations that infested the city, believing she could make a difference. But she soon discovered that she was fighting a war that she could not possibly win. This sent her into a brooding depression, but no matter how much she was suffering, she continued to fight. After several months of battling both her depression and crime, she simply disappeared.

Just as Paragon City had forgotten about her, Khariss returned. Her appearance had radically changed over the months since she had been missing and she seemed angrier than she did before. She exhibited signs of mental imbalances, yet these were quickly dismissed when she returned to fighting crime. Underneath her calm demeanour, Khariss' thoughts were racing against each other. Inside her mind, Khariss knew she was about to do something that would destroy her legacy with Paragon forever. But she ignored rationality and willingly plunged herself into madness.

Khariss resumed her crime-fighting lifestyle but her methods had changed. She no longer arrested criminals and deposited them at the local jails. Instead she resorted to violence. She brutally murdered any criminal she caught breaking the law and even drove some of them to kill themselves just to get away from her. The heroes of Paragon knew something was wrong with Khariss but neglected to do anything about it. Khariss was shrouded in a darkness that no one was willing to accept until it was too late.

Then the Rikti invaded. The heroes of Paragon City set up their defense perimeters and begun their rallies. Before the entire hero army, Khariss openly vowed that she would make an impact during this war. Unfortunately, the heroes assumed that the impact would be made for them. When the Rikti began their assault, Khariss led a brigade of heroes onto the battlefield against the invading army, fighting with them long enough for them to start getting tired. When she saw the opening, she took it. Khariss and her brigade found themselves surrounded by Rikti after a short break in the fighting. Realising that this was the opportunity to strike, she turned to her brigade with a wicked smile and suddenly attacked them, killing all of them before they even had a chance to fight back. She continued through the battlefield, slaying every hero she could until the Rikti were forced to withdraw.

Many heroes had fallen that day and a good amount of those heroes fell by Khariss' own hand. Eager to avoid confrontation with the Freedom Phalanx, Khariss fled from Paragon City to the Rogue Isles, where she hid for years until she determined it was time to for the world to know Khariss once again.

[edit] The Edge of Madness

Study of the ruins of the Sierra Research Facility have presented some insight into the life of Khariss during her eighteen year stay at the complex. Though much of the data revolving around Khariss had been destroyed during her rampage, several pieces of data were found. Among them were five of Dr. Carl Jennings' notes on Khariss, an evacuation notice, and Security Chief Lot's personal digital assistant containing several audio recordings. The theory is greatly disputed, but many researchers believe that this was where Khariss began her descent into madness.

• Sierra Research Facility

[edit] Further Development

[edit] Revelation

The Second Rikti War brought Khariss into the company of the heroine SoulTrain, with whom she ended up collaborating with against the Rikti invaders. After some time working together, SoulTrain presented Khariss with several items she had procured from various abandoned Crey facilities in "Crey's Folly". These items were a dossier, a mangled device, and a set of schematics.

With the exception of an obvious conspiracy, very little information could be obtained from the dossier. It did, however, provide information on the 1500 men and women that served in Khariss' hero brigade during the First Rikti War. Each name listed on the dossier had the identical first name of "John" or "Jane", and all of the social security application dates were identical.^[8] All the signs pointed toward the brigade being assembled from Crey "Revenant" sleeper agents.

Since SoulTrain was unable to provide much more than basic insight into the nature of the device, Khariss took the items and sought out someone who could assist her in the analysis. This led her to Mistress Ohm, one of the few people Khariss knew had expertise in microelectronics.

The schematics proved to be a treasure trove of information. Ohm read through the diagrams and design notes, and discovered that the prototype device, a subsonic field-based "Rage Inducer", was capable of significantly altering a target's rage, stress, and paranoia levels, while slightly suppressing higher-brain functions, manipulating the subject into a living, breathing weapon. Several notes for a "Calm Inducer" for erasing the induced rage and replacing it with heightened lust or soothing had been prepared, but never utilized. A separate note at the bottom of the page contains an unanswered question of prolonged exposure to the Rage Inducer. A stamp on the corner of the schematics was found reading "SRF 14 November, 1979", the familiar logo of the Sierra Research Facility under the date.

The realisation came crashing down all around her. From the onset of her stay in the Sierra Research Facility, Khariss had been carefully manipulated and molded into the woman she would eventually become. If Crey had been able to implement all of the proposed functions in the schematics, Khariss would have been one of Crey's most powerful weapons, the prototype for an entirely new series of "Paragon Protectors".

It was also apparent that, as of the first Rikti War, Khariss was still being manipulated by Crey. It is unknown at this point if the company still has assets in place to monitor or control her.

[edit] Betrayal

Shortly after agreeing to assist Irmine with her plans, Khariss eventually became disgruntled and irritated with the woman's unusual and self-centered mannerisms. With the assistance of Run Riot, Khariss stomped on the communication device that linked her to Irmine and went her own way. Inevitably, the two have become enemies, a stance that Khariss seems to find more amusing than threatening.

[edit] The Rikti Captive

A recent assault against the Rikti mothership ended in tragedy when SoulTrain, an associate and friend of Khariss, turned up missing during the raid. Feeling partial responsibility, and a fury speaking volumes over her missing friend, Khariss immediately offered her aid to Chastity Blades and Feral Tigress. The trio, along with several additional allies, rescued SoulTrain, along with other missing Vanguard operatives, from their Rikti captors.

[edit] Trivia

• Alcohol burns up in Khariss' system almost immediately after consumption. She never gets drunk.
• Similar to alcohol, drugs have no effect on Khariss.
• Khariss spent eighteen years at the Sierra Research Facility. Day-to-day experiments were not conducted on her, however. She was kept in her cell most of the time.
• Khariss does not recall her age.
• Khariss' real name has long been forgotten. She chose the name Khariss shortly after her escape and has become very attached to it.

[edit] References