Good to see you again, my friends.
The time has come, at last, to introduce you to Empress Katrina Arnasis. Kat to her friends, and KA9 to the one who created her. She was created to join a story in progress on a world called Eden. It was in the greater CrossGen universe that dealt with the stories of the First and the Secundae. At first, I didn’t know what kind of backstory I wanted for her, so I started her off as an amnesiac. While it was cliche, it worked. I was able to coordinate with the other players in the story to build an appropriate backstory for her, and her journey became one of literal self-discovery.
There are so many parallels in Kat’s story to my own. I was deeply buried at the time Kat was created. My shadow didn’t know I existed, but created Kat anyways. There was one scene written where she was getting dressed for a ceremony. Other women said it sounded like a woman’s experience, as if written by a woman. The shadow was giving me a voice, without realizing it. Then her transformations as her journey unfolds are almost prophetic of my own journey to acceptance.
Then you look at my new story of Solandara, as I mentioned a couple of days ago. There’s a prophetic Empress in that story that is a direct parallel to Kat. While the underlying story is quite different, the concept is the same. A woman, who doesn’t know the truth about herself, destined to become something greater than herself. Here I was, hidden, unknown, and destined to be seen by the light.
Kat is a combination of light and shadow. Solandara is a combination of light and shadow. I was once hidden behind the shadow and am now embracing the light. It seems appropriate that I share Kat with you now.
Empress of Eden
Race: Genetically Engineered Clone
Sex: Female
Age: Appears 21
Height: 5’8″ (1.72m)
Hair: Long Auburn
Eyes: Green
Appearance:
Kat is a young woman, appearing to be 21 years of age, even though she doesn’t know exactly old she is. Her natural hair color is auburn, and she typically keeps it long, slightly past the center of her back. Her natural eye color is a deep forest green color. Her appearance, though, can alter, depending on her mood or desire. She is able to alter every aspect of her appearance: her age; her hair, skin and eye color; the length of her hair; her weight (up to 50 pounds either way); her height (up to 3 inches either way); and even her apparent gender (appearance only). While she has this ability, she generally prefers to keep her natural appearance. Despite this ability, there is one feature that she can never change, and that is the black tattoo “KA9” on her right wrist, just below the palm of her hand.
Powers:
Kat was genetically engineered to be an assassin capable of killing First with her bare hands. For this reason, she was given several abilities to help her achieve her goals. These abilities do not draw upon Universal Energies, making her more difficult to discern from a normal human.
Chameleon – She is able to alter her appearance, as mentioned previously, to fit into her surroundings. With her grey jumpsuit, she can even change her clothing to fit her appearance.
Voice Alteration – She is able to alter her voice several octaves to match the appearance she has chosen.
Telepathy – She has minor telepathic abilities, which are more for scanning surface thoughts with communication possible. It is mostly used to gather enough information to help her blend into her surroundings. She can also detect other telepaths so that she can mask her telepathic abilities from them.
Enhanced Senses – Her senses have been hightened to supernatural levels. With little concentration, her senses can allow her to sense (see, hear, smell) things that are miles away as if she were there. Her enchanced hearing will also allow her to hear conversations through walls as if she were standing in the room. In addition, she is able to see in almost complete darkness. As long as there is a trace amount of light, she would be able to see as if it were dusk or even full daylight (depending on how much light is available to her).
Rapid Healing – Her natural healing far exceeds that of normal humans, even to the point of regenerating lost limbs and other body parts, over time.
Enhanced Strength and Reflexes – Her strength and reflexes are that of the First. Since she was engineered to be an assassin of the First, her strength and reflexes were engineered to fit that purpose.
More recently, through an unusual interaction with the light, shadow and reality eggs, she had gained additional powers. She hasn’t yet discovered the full extent of these new powers yet.
Shapeshifting – Unlike her chameleon abilities, this power allows her to completely alter her appearance as long as it is roughly within the same parameters as her chameleon ability (ie she can’t shrink or grow too much). She doesn’t gain new abilities with the shapeshifting, as this is cosmetic only. It is possible, though, that the physical aspects grant her additional abilities (such as wings for flight, or blade like hands). Her jumpsuit is also now a part of her, which allows her to alter her clothing to match, or completely make the clothes disappear (depending on the nature of the shapeshifting required). She even has the ability to strengthen her skin to that of near diamond-like hardness.
Angelic Form – By using the powers of shadow and light that are now a part of her, she is able to alter her physical substance, turning her matter from solid to an ethereal light and shadow combination. The amount of light and shadow, and its appearance, can vary depending on her desire. While in this form, she is impervious to physical harm, as any physical attack would simply pass through her (as she is literally just light and shadow).
Personality:
Despite the genetic engineering Kat has undergone for an undetermined amount of time, Kat rejects her training. She hates killing, and does everything she can to avoid it. It isn’t always possible, she realizes, and when necessary, will use many of the powers at her disposal to accomplish her task.
Kat has an air of innocence around her, despite what she’s been through. She is far from niave, but still strives toward purity in her life. She strives to be fair and just in all her dealings, even in the face of insurmountable odds. She knows she isn’t universally accepted as Empress of Eden, a title she didn’t seek for herself, but she still strives to treat all her subjects equally and fairly.
Kat loves and respects Millennium and Honor’s Angel, the First who took her in when she arrived on Eden, scared and without memories. Part of her desire is to please them and do good by them. In many ways, she almost looks at them as parents.
Kat’s relationship with Zameal is confusing for her. She has feelings for him that she doesn’t fully understand. Despite the wall he appears to put around himself, she still finds herself inexplicably drawn to him. She values his advice greatly, and more importantly, she values his prensence. When he is near, she feels more at ease, more secure.
Despite Kat’s pure nature, there is a beast inside her mind, a beast born of the genetic engineering and training. It is a beast that Kat is forced to tap into when fighting incredible battles, such as that in Eden’s Core. This beast is pure instinct and malice. It is an intelligent force bred for killing. Even in the heat of battle, Kat is able to keep the beast in check, and only tap into it when absolutely necessary. If her mind, though, is distracted or hampered in any way, the beast could exert control and unleash its powerful bloodlust, fully utilizing every ability Kat has to accomplish its purpose. If this happens, as soon as Kat’s mind is no longer distracted or hampered, it will always force the beast back, as her mind of purity is much stronger than that of the beast’s bloodlust.
Background:
The full details of Kat’s background are lost in mystery, known only to the Grey Lady, Queen Liadan of the Grey Moon. What Kat does know is that she, her brother, and her parents were on a trip when they were in an accident of some kind. She assumes her parents died in the crash. After that, she and her brother, Kevin, were captured by agents of Queen Liadan.
After their capture began a long period of tests, experiments, surgeries, training, and brainwashing. She and Kevin were being changed, forced to become machines of killing First. Eventually, she found the strength to escape. She doesn’t fully remember the escape as her beast had taken control for a time, all she knows is that she escaped.
Soon after her escape, she awoke on Eden, underneath a great oak tree, with no memory of her time or training on the Grey Moon. Wandering from the tree, she soon met Ellysand at a celebration for their new Empress, Honor’s Angel. Kat was introduced to the new Queen and her husband, the regal Millennium, and she was immediately awestruck by them. The two gods took her into their home and gave her a place to stay, accepting her into their lives unconditionally. She was even allowed access to the Hall of Destiny to meet the former Empresses of Eden, which was an event beyond description for her.
If the world was a perfect world, Kat would have wished for a happily ever after at that point. Alas, that was not to be the case. Millennium had to leave on the business of the gods and even Honor’s Angel had business off Eden to attend to. Kat, with their dragon, Maul, were left in charge of their twin daughters, Danae and Pixie.
Not long after they had left, one of the former Empress, Ryvius, appeared to Kat, asking her to find some eggs of power to keep them from falling into evil hands. Thus began a quest, not only of finding the eggs, but keeping the children safe as well. The quest was not an easy one, and it was on the quest that she had met and started to get to know Zameal. The end of the quest wasn’t a happy ending, either. A battle in the region known as the “Grey Area,” a battle which saw Maul become possessed by the power of the Grey Egg, and turn against them. The end of the battle, while successful, saw the loss of both Maul and Zameal’s friend, Meekar. Kat even lost something as she regained many of the memories that she had lost.
Both Honor’s Angel and Millennium had returned to Eden for this final battle, and things appeared to have deteriorated with them. Honor’s Angel gave up her title as Empress, took her children, and left Eden and Millennium also vowed not to return to Eden until he had regained his family. Just before the end of the battle, Kat was forced into taking the title of Empress for herself, in order to defeat the Allulei who threatened Eden’s safety. Despite not asking the title for herself, after the battle, she officially became Eden’s newest Empress, and Zameal became the newest Protector of Eden.
Time passed, and Kat struggled with the weight of her new crown. She missed Millennium and Honor’s Angel. She was thankful, though, that Zameal always seemed nearby. He always was on hand with helpful tips and advice, and his presence always comforted her as she faced difficult decisions.
This period of peace, though, was short lived. Queen Liadan had taken the opportunity to attack Eden. On top of that, it seemed like Eden itself began rebelling, apparently in danger of destroying itself. That fact soon became apparent when Millennium returned claiming that aspects of himself were inside Eden’s Core, but instead of keeping the planet safe, they were fighting each other, causing the upheavals in Eden.
When they arrived in the Core, Zameal had used the powers of the shadow, light and reality eggs to give her wings to fly. This somehow caused an unusual reaction within Kat’s body, changing her from the inside out. Kat doesn’t yet fully realize the extent of her new powers, but can feel the power coursing through her body.
During the escape from the core, Kat and a new arrival, a boy by the name of Lyroane, were somehow transported to a place known as The Void. There the two learned that Eden was slowly turning to stone, and they needed to find Queen Liadan to try to find out how to stop whatever was happening to Eden. In disguise, both Lyroane and Kat went to the Queen’s base on the Grey Moon. On the moon, though, they encountered more than they planned, others that looked like Kat and her brother, Kevin. This led to a fight in Queen Liadan’s throne room that left Kat unconcious.
When Kat woke up again, she was back on Eden’s Gate, and Eden had turned completely to stone. To make matters worse, the boy mentioned something about items that could lead to destruction if they were found by the wrong people. Kat knew she would have to find these items to prevent the destruction of Eden, and find a way to restore Eden from the stone.
Kat’s story was never completed. The plan was to restore Eden, but the story ended as the community started to fade. Despite that, her legacy lives on in Solandara and through me.
