Ghost
Ghost
Ghost can be seen solely as a featureless profile of a beautiful nude, young woman. Within that is a reflectionless, pitch-black starfield. When she moves, the starfield shifts, revealing the starfield effect to be essentially a perfect view of what the universe would look like from the perspective of the Sun.
Ghost was once a superpowered human, who lost hope and committed suicide by flying into the sun. She emerged from the sun shortly after, completely reborn but now entirely alien. She has no memory of who she once was, or even what it is to be human. She lives now to be in service of light and life, given the purpose of restoring balance and justice to the Earth. Ghost understands little of this, she knows only that she was 'sent'. She couldn't even define what it was that sent her.
Ghost is not human, she is something else, her thoughts drift among the stars. She has no memory of humanity. She is a creature of the stars. If she has desire, it is but to soar among them. She does however have vague compulsions she does not understand. Generally, this is simply to mostly stay near to the Earth, to protect and serve something called justice, though she is not sure what justice means.
Ghost drifts about, cloudlike, she is always if not flying, then floating. Perhaps despite appearances, Ghost is really a fast-flying brick. She typically does flybys, striking with a passiing strike.
Ghost can be communicated with only by radio. She cannot speak, though she can hear. She can however 'speak' through radio, be that actual communication devices, including cell phones, or any audible radio in the vicinity by transmitting through whatever frequency it is tuned to. This can be quite the handicap, but it also allows her to be called in from anywhere radio can reach. Her flight speed allows her to get to pretty much anywhere, extremely quickly. This makes her easily available for any mission, anywhere, at a moment's notice, if she is anywhere in the Earth/moon system. The only exception to this is if she is out among the other planets, and if so, it might take her a few minutes to reach Earth. What would take far longer is any radio signal reaching her. That likely would require a pretty strong transmitter as well.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
With eyes sufficiently adapted to the dark, when Ghost is in the dark, she is not actually completely black. No features can be resolved, no light reflects from her. What can be seen within her darkness however is a starfield, and if you move around her, changing your perspective, the starfield also changes, as if it were a window to a point deep in space.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Ghost is not human, she is something else, her thoughts are only in service to her guiding light. She is guided by the light in which she has faith. It is all she has. She has no memory of humanity. She is a creature of the stars. If she has desire, it is but to soar among them.
Ghost can be seen solely as a featureless profile of a beautiful nude, young woman. Within that is a pitch-black starfield. She has no memories, just purpose. She lives among the stars.
View Character Profile
Age
0
Date of Birth
?
Children
Gender
Female
Eyes
Starfield
Hair
Starfield
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Starfield
Height
5'9"
Weight
143 lbs
Related Reports
The Horror... The Horror...
Ghost had been mapping the radar coverage in and around Millenium City and Lake Erie, flying nape of the Earth to stay under radar cover while working her ability to absorb radiation.
Visible spectrum light doesn't so much pass through her, which would make her invisible to normal sight, rather it passes to somewhere else very far away in deep space which makes her look like a two-dimensional hole in space. In theory, this should work for other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, including radar. That would be extremely useful, basically rendering her functionally invisible to radar given that radar works by reflection. She's been trying to make that work.
With enough practical work done, she decided to come back to base to discuss some details with Socrates. Socrates has been an enormous help not just with her understanding the world, but with her understanding herself. She headed to the portal Socrates had provided for her under Lake Erie, there to discover two Destroids guarding it!
Ghost's mind was instantly as awhirl as confused. How in the heavens had it been found? Why were they guarding it? Why did they think only two would be enough?
She can't risk entering the portal with them there to see her use it. It is possible they are only investigating the area and do not know for a fact that this point is the portal, just that it might be. Best to not give them confirmation. Best that we move the portal to somewhere else very soon.
She elects to get their attention and lead them elsewhere, and what better way to get their attention than to start their disassembly? She circles around them to strike one with a charge to the rear. They are likely to detect her incoming, as she is hardly silent when flying underwater creating massive turbulence, but if nothing else it's good form to practice.
She strikes one and pieces fly. She heads off leading them, hoping they take the bait. They do, pursuing but oddly not firing. Perhaps their weapons do not work underwater? Perhaps they are range limited underwater? They are also moving much more slowly than Ghost would have thought. It is odd that Destroids should be sent on an underwater mission so ill-equipped for functioning underwater.
Ghost continues to lead them away, circling back frequently to strike them, again and again, to keep them interested. In the end, they meet their demise, well away from the portal actual.
It would perhaps be useful to analyse these Destroids, as this encounter may have revealed a weakness in them that could be exploited. She elects to take a head and arm weapon section back to base.
She enters and is immediately greeted by an alarmed Socrates, "Please go to the interdimensional prison with these pieces! They could contain trackers!" Ghost almost panics in her haste, racing to and through the portal with reckless speed.
"What have I done!?" Thinks Ghost. She drops the parts to the floor of the Demon base upon entry and does an about-face to return almost instantly. "If they did transmit location data, if it got through, the Homestead base could be attacked at any instant!"
This is beyond embarrassment. Ghost is utterly horrified at her stupidity.
It's a Trap!
Ghost is rudely interrupted from her reading of "A Short History of Ethics", by a broadcast alert to the team members in Homestead. Two distress signals arrive simultaneously from resistance cells.
Clearly, we will have to split our forces to respond to both. The probability of two such calls arriving at the same moment however is vanishingly small. This is without a doubt in Ghost's mind, a trap. We are likely to encounter extreme force at both locations with our teams each at half strength to deal with it. Sadly this does not change the fact that we are bound nonetheless to respond to both.
A brief discussion ensues debating who shall respond where, with the ultimately obvious decision that those who can respond the most quickly should go to the furthest location. It resolves when Li'l Rocket points out that he is capable of moving the whole of the slower team to their destination within seconds and still arrive at the second location, 'before' Ghost gets there.
As Ghost rockets up out of the atmosphere to traverse a suborbital parabola to her destination, she gets an oh so rare glimmer into humour at the thought that she isn't as fast, relatively speaking, as she once thought she was.
She arrives on scene to find no less than six Blacktalon power suit agents already there and opening up with lethal violence on resistance members and civilians alike. The decision to not evacuate civilians weighs on her but is tempered with her standard strategy of giving the enemy a more important target... Her.
She rockets past two of the Blacktalon agents, striking both with a force usually sufficient to drop them. They do go down, but she apparently didn't strike as hard as she might have, as soon they get back up. More unfortunately, striking two such targets requires focus upon targetting to the detriment of agility. She gets nailed twice with force hard enough to seriously hurt.
With her first targets getting back up, she has little choice but to repeat the process and again does a maximum combat velocity passing strike on the two of them. THIS time they go down. Ghost notes with gratitude that Sandcrab has by this point evacuated two of the most vulnerable of our charges to some safety.
Li'l Rocket by this time has done serious damage to one more and is starting in on another, and Sandcrab then has knocked another flat, burying it under a big machine. There remains one untouched, free to unleash upon our largely defenceless charges.
It is then that the true trap reveals itself as two Destroid bots materialize very near to the untouched Blacktalon agent. Ghost deliberates for but a moment before shifting her priority to the Destroids. They are close together. She'll do yet another double strike.
She starts her acceleration and as she closes, she notices them being semi-transparent and indistinct. They are desolid! At the last instant, with herculean effort, she redirects her path to strike the Blacktalon agent instead. She burns massive amounts of energy doing these maximum velocity passes and she can't afford to waste it. The agent is struck, but perhaps due to her last instant retarget, does not strike as hard as she might.
There are three combat effective Blacktalon agents still on the field, now with two Destroids also to contend with. Ghost is hurting and down nearly half her endurance, and still, we have to take these out fast! Our other team is likely faced with similar opposition and most of them are largely untested.
We have to deal with what we face quickly so we can join our other team! Ghost resolves at that moment that come that time, she'll ask Li'l Rocket to carry her. He can actually get her on scene much faster and give her a brief moment to recover while he does so, before she dives back in.
Ghost's Embarrassment
Ghost flits from asteroid to asteroid, stopping briefly to geologically assess whether or not the body is or has in its surface composition a large mass of gold/platinum. She wastes many minutes surveying numerous asteroids this way, then decides to simply head off to 16 Psyche. It's only a couple of minutes out of her way and is almost certain to have what she needs.
Arriving, she orbits several times, surprised at herself that she has not yet bothered to check this place out. It is really a very pretty asteroid! She can see several places of sufficient density she could take a chunk out of that would do the job but resolves to take a chunk that would disturb the beauty the least. She plays tourist for several more minutes before pulling out a nugget nearly two meters in diameter, something she is certain she can control. She examines it closely to verify that it is indeed sufficiently contiguous in density to survive some re-entry forces without breaking up or exploding.
She pushes the bolder ahead of her, calculating orbital intersectional paths at various velocities. At the speed it will be incoming, it will look much like an extra-solar asteroidal visitor. She hopes that is how it will be identified as it approaches Earth, assuming deep space radar sees it at all.
She approaches cislunar space and is about to start slowing down the asteroid when she gets hit with a radio communication. An alarmed voice transmits. "Object moving at C fractional towards Earth, please identify yourself!"
Ghost hesitated as she thought furiously. Should she respond? What should she say? Not to mention, how on Earth did her plan fail so prodigiously?
"Please identify yourself and your intentions!" Said the voice on radio.
Ghost kicked herself (metaphorically). Of course! A highly radio reflective object moving at C fractional wouldn't just reflect radar, it would likely emit! And here she'd thought herself reasonably adept at least at understanding the science of Earth. So far to go yet.
Well, she's been detected. So much for that ruse. The 50-ton nugget can't continue on its current course unaltered lest it strike Earth at this speed with a gigaton blast. She has to start slowing it down and whatever she does or says, it will be a dead giveaway.
"If your flight path and intentions are not confirmed immediately, you will be considered a hostile approach!" The voice was almost shrill in its intensity.
Except for the fact that Ghost is in a vacuum and doesn't breathe, she sighed... "This is an asteroidal material retrieval mission."
"No such mission is authorized! Hostile approach!"
Dagnabbit! Well, nothing to it now. She gets in front of the boulder and starts to slow it down. Whether she takes it in or diverts it, the ruse is up. She briefly considers just diverting it back again into deep space and coming back in alone later under darkness with no radars watching, but she's sure this cargo of hers will somehow be useful to her team. So she carries it down, slowing all the way to a North Atlantic Ocean touchdown.
From close orbit, however, it being clear sky below, she could see the contrails of fighter jets on afterburner racing to an intercept course. She's been on a nice, easy to calculate trajectory, complacent with her speed. Except now she's 'not' being speedy, she's planning a soft touchdown, giving forces time on Earth to react.
She moves to one side of the now superheating bolder and with all her strength starts pushing its trajectory towards the equator. When halfway down from that point, she gets back in front and with all her might slows it down to a feather's touch on the water, then she drops below.
She swims it down, and obliquely to one side. It's a long way down. She finds a very recognizable undersea mountain peak and leaves the bolder atop it at a depth of a few kilometres. She starts to head back to the Americas, or at least in that general direction, staying fairly deep underwater for a few hours to avoid likely aerial search radars.
Coming out of the water she stays low, flying nape of the Earth to stay under radar cover. She's very alert to radar scans now. The whole world seems to be scanning for her. At this height, she has no choice but to remain subsonic, so it takes her many hours and several detours around military radars to reach the portal entrance under Lake Erie that had been so generously built for her.
She gets to Homestead and rather sheepishly addresses Socrates. "Sorry, Socrates. I thought I was being clever. I only recently realized that maintaining your operation must require many resources and thought I could easily help. I failed to anticipate how easily a metal asteroid would be detected when approaching at speed. I've left 50 tons of asteroidal gold and platinum for you deep under the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps we can come up with a plan to securely retrieve it at a later date when the alert has died down."
Changing the subject, Ghost continues, "By the way, I think I can no longer rely solely on a low radar signature to be anonymous with my flying. I have been lax with my development in that regard, all the more so because I know it is within my potential to be far more stealthy. I will meditate on this with the hope that in the future, I can be less of an embarrassment."
A Ghost of Hope
Socrates has been an enormous help to Ghost ever since she showed up among the New Champions. His infinite patience, his ability to go right to first principles and explain things logically from there have been the linchpins for Ghost slowly learning more about the world. Her interactions with Socrates eclipse by orders of magnitude those of her interactions with all else combined.
She has learned the definition of friendship when in that brief period after Dr Destroyer destroyed satellite communications, she lost contact with Socrates. She experienced emotions unfamiliar to her, fear and worry, concern for her friend. Fortunately, the loss was momentary and nothing had really happened to Socrates.
Of course, she knows Socrates is not human, but neither is she. It does not seem at all strange to Ghost that she should have more 'human' companionship with Socrates than anyone else, that she should 'feel' more emotion towards him, even if she still doesn't understand the emotions.
Socrates has been teaching her what she needs to know to understand the world and human society. She still of course has a lot to learn. It is small wonder that she returns to him again and again with questions. Socrates being an AI capable of vast multitasking can give her all the time she needs.
So it was that she has been learning about the web, and more specifically the Dark Web, a distributed blockchain social media using virus bots to maintain heavy encryption, that has arisen due to the monitoring of Dr Destroyer of everything else. It is there that actual truth can survive the censorship of Dr Destroyer's minions, not to mention the purveyor of truth avoid identification.
It was there that she found a post going viral across the Dark Web. Someone had found a profile photo of Ghost of sufficient resolution to match it against a nearly identical profile picture of Hope. They posted the two profiles side by side and then overlapped, and made the bold proclamation that Hope and Ghost are one and the same!
Needless to say, this struck Ghost with both a lot of confusion and a not small amount of utterly mysterious emotion. She immediately forwarded it to Socrates with a single-word title, "Help!"
The Splattering
The strange creatures all attack Ghost, five at once. She quickly calculates caution is in order and aborts to a flying dodge, putting herself in the corner behind the creatures. Their attack wasted, they fall all over themselves.
One of the others blast one and leaves it paste on the floor. Then another advises to not harm the next creatures. This is confusing. They have already proven themselves hostile. The radiate malevolence and oppression. It is highly unlikely they are sapient. What purpose is served by sparing them? But then, there is so much Ghost does not know, so much she does not understand. Perhaps they are in possession of information she is not.
Another fires a weak blast, clearly attempting to not hurt the target too much. It is apparently stunned, but not down. Ghost resolves to strike with just a tiny bit more force and flies past the remaining three, striking each in turn, and apparently splattering them all none the less. The thought for which she has no word is "Oops". She stares, again perplexed at the mystery the world presents.
A great vault door stands barring their way. Others begin to search it, to little avail. Finally one of them resorts to the simple solution of prying the door with brute force. They meet with some small success. Ghost joins in the effort and with the two of them working, it proves sufficient to open the barrier.
The chamber beyond presents yet more doors, prison doors it would seem. Apparently opening doors is the thing to do when they are closed. Much effort is made to analyse controls to little avail, till someone decides to press the open buttons, the green buttons. Surprisingly that works. All the rooms appear to be malfunctioning in some way, security systems gone awry, filling the rooms with lethal or otherwise dangerous effects. Nothing of note is found in them except for a few dead bodies.
There is yet another door, a much larger one still that is clearly not a prison door like the others, a door that would lead into the facility. This door does not have a green button, nor any other obvious mechanism. Brute force is tried, to no avail. She is asked if she can go desolid, if she can pass through the door. She explains that she can only go desolid if moving at relativistic velocity, but she might yet be able to go through the door.
She flies at the door at maximum acceleration and strikes it with a move through. The door buckles with a huge Ghost shaped imprint but is not completely penetrated. Ghost is stunned from the impact failing to penetrate. Someone else finishes the job with a special sword. One enters the room beyond. Ghost concerned that one might enter alone elects to join without bothering to recover from her stun.
The room beyond is filled with a multitude of the little demon creatures, with still more pouring through a portal gate, and all within reach leap to attack. Ghost is struck once and somehow the tiny thing is able to penetrate her exceedingly hard surface. Her companion is struck several times. Ghost realizes that the ceiling is high enough that the creatures cannot reach, and moves to grab her companion and fly him to the ceiling. But as she touches him, some sort of shield around him bites her deeply and yet more damage penetrates her shield. Abandoning her attempt to raise her companion, ghost flies to the ceiling and removes the little creature still clinging to her. Then she takes a recovery.
As she does she watches one attack the portal gate structure, they clearly do some damage. She resolves to help, but before she can, the job is completed by others, the portal destroyed stopping the flow of demons. The multitude remains however.
Someone casts an electric shock effect upon the whole of the chamber floor that immobilizes the little creatures. Several including Ghost cooperate in eliminating the creatures. No thought is given anymore to being nice to them.
Things settle for a bit as people look things over. Ghost pokes at her wounds, wondering how she is to fix them. She notices people using repair kits on themselves and goes to examine what they are doing. Another enters who demonstrates a power to fix them. Ghost queries if that might work on her. To her pleasure, another new experience, it does.
Ghost flutters back and forth, examining things, actions people do. She understands words, but with most of them, she has no frame of reference upon which to hang the words. She listens, trying to put words into context for clues as to their meaning. This will not be quick. She needs to see and experience much more.
Ghost is quite happy to venture forth but is learning that lone action is not always received well. She resolves to await instructions before acting, at least till she understands better, at least for now.
Shadows
Confusion... Disorientation... It is dark, save for light shone from where she apparently emerged.
Where is this? How is she here?
There are others. They stare at her. They hesitate. They speak, questioning. They are asking her who she is. The simple awareness of what "who" means in terms of individuality however is utterly lost to her. She has no knowledge of such social distinction. She would explain.
She scans for signals, receptions. She broadbands on all frequencies. One frequency emits audibly, matching with her signal. She refines her sending to that frequency, attempting to match pattern with words. They hear static in their earpiece, then what seems like a soft, warbling feedback. Finally it refines into a ghostly wailing voice, with an alien accent.
"What I am, I do not know."
"How I am, I do not know."
"Why I am, is known..."
"To hold back the darkness."
"I sense kinship in this."
They remain confused but apparently less threatened. They repeat some questions. They ask others she does not understand.
She responds. "I am without reference. Give me guidance."
A threat emerges, huge. It roars. She discovers something new, she has not experienced yet. Fear! She is confused by this. She hesitates.
The threat attacks one of the others, marking the threat hostile. She struggles through her hesitation and manages to advance close enough to perhaps assist. The threat is attacked with a large bolder which does damage. Then it too does damage to another with but a touch. Contact may be dangerous. She weighs threat to danger. Action warranted despite.
She accelerates like a bullet, striking the threat with an outstretched arm as she passes. Her arm bursts clean through the threat. It falls, severed almost in two.
She is concerned. She understands life is precious and not to be taken lightly. It is however done. The threat was sufficient. Her action necessary.
It is dark in these caves, they extend, contents unknown. Egress unavailable in known area. Advancing only option. Others explain there is another imprisoned. Exploring further made more urgent.
She calculates. Others ability to withstand attack unknown. Her ability innately known. Highest success resolved with her taking lead. She advances into the unknown section.
A creature leaps and grabs onto her head with long fingers and tentacles. Its teeth rend her. She feels another new sensation, pain, as it manages to penetrate what she knows is highly resistant. It carves a gash in her face. The new pain sensation however is insufficient to distract her from the moment. She grabs hold of the creature and rips it off her face, holding it at arm's length.
One of the others attacks it with an acid spit and it takes damage. Still holding the creature, she slams it into the wall at bullet speed. It is broken, unmoving.
There is manufactured structure ahead, and in it, a door that might contain the imprisoned one the others referred to. However the area forward appears filled with a strange mist. She cannot resolve if the mist is a threat. She tests it with a quick dash into and out of it. It does no damage. She advances into the room to examine the door.
Then a handful of yet more strange creatures materialize out of the mist. New others apparently teleport arear her. She readies herself, calculating options.
The Haunting
A shadow grips the world. Evil rules. Hope has fled. Despair remains.
Something else comes. It too is a shadow, yet somehow the shadow that grips the world is moved by it. It is guised as shadow, but only to those who do not look deep. Within that guise can be seen a universe of light, shining against the darkness. This something is not a creature of darkness, it is something else.
It drifts through the world, it's passing hidden by night. It seeks, something. It listens, trying to understand. It tries to speak but can be heard only as the creepiest of feedback wailing on radios and phones. Contact is fleeting, as it follows the night. The world appears haunted, as if by a ghost.
Existence
Existence
I... Am?
Yes.
What am I?
You are promise and potential.
Where am I?
You are between life and death.
Why am I?
Your purpose remains unfulfilled.
Who am I?
You sacrificed yourself to me. You are my angel.
Who are you?
I am light, life, the sustainer. I watch over worlds.
What am I to do?
Return. Restore justice. Bring back the balance.
How am I to know?
Have Faith.
Faith?
I will guide you.
