Name: 

Cordelia "Delly" Holmes. Has gone by Cord, but uses "Delly" when she's going for that sweet and innocent look.

Codename: 

Whisper

Age: 

19

Gender:

Female

Place of Birth: 

Anchorage. Spent a few years there before winding up in the lower 48.

Affiliations: 

She has functioned as a small time dealer and drug runner for a Chicago gang, far enough to be considered a member of the gang. Delly doesn't have too many other ties.

Occupation: 

Former drug runner/dealer. Occasionally, she does a bit of criminal work for money. 

Appearance: 

She's around 5'7, with dark brown hair and light blue eyes. Delly has light, somewhat pale skin and features that seem vaguely Eastern European. She's got a round face with something of a pointed chin, and a few freckles on each cheek. She normally uses purple eyeshadow and dark mascara, which contrasts with her pale skin nicely. Her lips are thin and typically chapped, and her face is often windburnt or a bit scratched up. She prefers to walk with her hands crossed over her chest in a sort of protective gesture, and her eyes normally flicker around her nervously, as if watching for someone coming up out of her peripheral vision. There's usually an irritated scowl of sorts on Delly's face, and her default expression is one of sarcasm and annoyance. Her ears are a little small and tucked back close to her head, and she frequently pulls her back over them to keep it tied back in a ponytail or bun. She rarely lets it down, but when she does, her lovely black tresses can reach to her shoulders. Delly's not exactly rockin' the hourglass figure, and is instead rail thin, perhaps alarmingly so. Her ribs just barely poke at her skin beneath her shirt. To cover some of this, she usually wears several layers of clothing, avoiding a lot of form-fitting stuff. Delly walks quickly and briskly, and casts a shadow that always seem to be a little darker than it should be-and sometimes, it seems to dance and move ahead of her, as if it's predicting what she's going to do. She normally has a backpack slung over her shoulders, a small yet functional thing that is held together by silver duct tape in a couple places and has a few of her mementos tacked to the outside. Her sneakers are battered but reliable, and have endured many, many miles. Her hands are callused and her knuckles scarred. There are several tattooes on her body, ranging from gang markings up and down her right arm (normally concealed by long sleeves) and an intricate design down her back.

Powers:

Delly has an affinity for shadows. I say affinity and not manipulation of because she's not very refined, and couldn't actively command darkness to do what she wanted. However, Delly's shadow can certainly command her. The shadow that follows her everywhere she goes is less of a silhouette and more of a sentient being: and it employs everything at its disposal to protect Delly. The shadow is very powerful and essentially indestructible: after all, you can't get rid of a shadow. You can shine some light on it and make it go away, but it comes back when you turn the light off. Her shadow is, however, very reactive in nature. Delly is aware of its nature as her guardian angel, protector, and advisor, but she can't command it do things. Instead, it acts as a silent bodyguard, always waiting, always watching. The shadow's perception of the world around it is quite good, because it's in tune with the shadows around it. It knows of the person sneaking up behind Delly because of the shadow that person casts; it knows of the gun trained on her because of the darkness within the barrel. When Delly is threatened, her shadow will defend her in one of two ways. The first way is the "2-D" way, the "flat stanley" defense. In this form, her shadow doesn't leave the ground-it stays on the ground and merely lunges out at whoever's around her. If it grabs hold of the shadow of whoever's threatening Delly, it can cause rather severe phantom pain. In this form, it isn't capable of much physical damage: it can offer token resistance to Delly's attackers, mostly in the form of the phantom pain (and the rather eerie, dissonant feeling it causes when it passes over you-like a chill running down your back times a hundred). The second form is more potent, the "3-D" form. In this form, Delly's shadow rips up off the ground and takes actual form, that of a misshapen, arms-and-legs-that-are-too-long, demonic...thing. It's quite powerful, and capable of altering its form at will. Perhaps it's a dog, to draw less attention. Perhaps it's an eldritch-looking abomination that terrifies whatever mugger pulled a knife on her. Perhaps it's just an amorphous blob that isn't very intimidating, but serves well as a bulletproof shield. In this form, Delly's shadow is far more dangerous: it's capable of inflicting physical harm upon its opponents, and is more powerful depending on the darkness around it. In a pitch black room, it would be an extremely dangerous adversary; in broad daylight, it's a threat, but nowhere near its full capability. Delly's shadow, however, is not merely physical; it is psychological. Just as her body creates a place where the light cannot go, so does her mind. Memories that Delly has repressed, trauma she's witnessed, or darker things she's learned funnel into the shadow. It's sentient, and while it can't separate from its mistress, it can aid her with advice from darker experiences Delly's had. 

Delly's shadow can also assist her in terms of sneaking about. In dark areas, it can't render her invisible, but it can darken and deepen the shadows a bit to make Delly a bit harder to see. This effect also reduces the efficacy of lights shined upon her.

Skills: 

For starters, she's tough. No, not tough as in "can totally take you in a fight" tough, but rather in the hardiness and mental durability that results from years of rough living. She's a survivor, and is quite street smart. While she's a bit on the malnourished side, she's spent most of her life walking, running, and otherwise straining her body, and is capable of really and truly hauling ass if the need arises. She's also quite street smart, and very familiar with Chicago: if she can get about fifty or sixty feet away from someone, barring any supernatural speed on their part, she's got a damned good chance of evading them entirely, as she knows the back alleys and side streets of the city intuitively. Delly's also familiar with both her former gang and its rivals, and is generally good at handling those situations. She's fairly skilled with a variety of illegal activities, ranging from lockpicking, to breaking into a car without setting off the alarm, to pickpocketing, to being a fly on the wall when a cop drives by. Delly's got a decent knowledge of improvised weaponry, and while she doesn't have any martial arts training, she's been in her fair share of street fights before, and she fights dirty. Biting, clawing at the eyes, sucker punches to the kidneys and groin. Delly may not be packing much muscle, but she can make somebody bleed. Delly's also pretty good with a knife, both in terms of handling it and being naturally dexterous. She doesn't have much formal education but she's sharp, and can spot a scam or a scheme a mile away. While she'd never call it such, she's decent at parkour, given that she's done a fair bit of bounding over dumpsters and jumping from rooftop to rooftop evading certain law enforcement officers/pissed off junkies before. She's also very skilled at sneaking about.

Equipment/Resources : 

Her backpack, which contains a few tools she's found useful throughout the years. There's a small set of wire cutters, a roll of duct tape, a bottle of vodka, a spare set of clothes, a few pill bottles which contain prescription medications that Delly does not have a prescription for, two belts, a prepaid cell phone, and a small lockpicking set. Delly also has a switchblade which she generally keeps tucked away somewhere on her person. She also has a .45 in her backpack, but she honestly doesn't know how to use that well and generally prefers to leave it as a last resort.

Weaknesses: 

First and foremost, her shadow is only capable of reaching within the length of Delly's normal shadow, give or take a bit. So if you're beyond four or five feet from her, you're pretty much in the clear (assuming it doesn't pick something up and throw it at you). As a result, her shadow's powers are mostly limited to defending Delly from threats-trying to use her power offensively is tricky, as she has a very limited range to work with, and getting up that close is tough. Rather, she prefers to let her shadow ward off any ranged attacks coming her way while she hauls ass away from a dangerous situation-she hasn't lived as long as she has by getting into fights she can't win. Second, her power is weakened by both literal and metaphorical light. Literal light will dampen its abilities a bit, but unless you have a truly overwhelming amount of light, it can't dispel her abilities entirely (and even if it does, the shadow will still be a whisper in her ear, telling Delly where to run to be safe). Metaphorical light messes with it additionally: people with truly idealistic intentions and a genuine desire to help are harder for the shadow to damage, but those people are extremely rare in this world. Most superheroes are doing what they do to stroke their egos, so the shadow's been coping just fine so far. Finally, the really dramatic stuff drains Delly's stamina, of which she doesn't have a whole lot-if it rears up to truly fight, she's going to be woozy afterwards, and probably want nothing more than to find someplace secluded, curl up, and sleep. Delly also can't actively control the shadow's offensive effects: she can ask it for advice or small favors, but she doesn't have the finesse to manipulate darkness quite yet. Hence why her subconscious handles it for her.

Psychological Profile:

Delly's bitter at the entire world, and perhaps with good cause. She's not really buying into the League, not really drinking the Kool Aid of heroism. She figures that it's a matter of time until the Feds shut them down, so she's ready to jump ship if the going gets tough. Delly's primary interest is looking out for herself, which is understandable. She's had a fairly rough life and has learned rather harshly that relying on handouts and charity gets you nowhere. To survive, you have to take what you need, and Delly hasn't missed a night of sleep over it. She would leave her life of crime were she able, but sadly, clawing up the rungs of society isn't quite that easy. She figures she could sign on with the League, make some serious change, and then disappear somewhere, but she considers it a generally bad idea. There are a lot of people gunning for those guys, and she's not particularly interested in that much attention. Delly, fittingly, prefers to operate from the shadows. She doesn't like straight fights, she doesn't like direct confrontations. If she talks to someone, she prefers to know something about them ahead of time; if she fights someone, she prefers to get the first hit in and make it good. Delly's not one to fight fair, and is brutally pragmatic when she must fight. If somebody was coming after her, she'd be totally fine letting the gas leak in her house (assuming she has a house in this scenario), waiting outside, and hurling a Molotov in through the window once her assailant stepped inside. She's learned that things like altruism, sticking your neck out for others, and trust, only get you stabbed in the back. As a result, Delly watches out for herself first and foremost, and doesn't bother too much helping others, unless it directly benefits herself. She has a soft spot for children-especially young girls-but otherwise isn't one to show a whole lot of kindness. She has a fair amount of disdain for the superheroes of the League, who seem to enjoy spending more money on fancy suits and planes rather than helping people, and, while she's not dumb enough to take them on, would certainly look the other way if she heard about a plan to do so.

Biography: 

It's fitting that Delly was born in a place where shadows cover everything for so many months of the year: she has vague memories of the Aurora Borealis dancing across the sky, whispering softly to her, but not much else of Alaska. One day, she plans on returning back there, but for now, has to settle with Chicago. The circumstances of her arriving in Chicago are somewhat murky to her. Delly's early years are very fuzzy to her, which is mostly a coping mechanism. She has vague memories of flashes of light, being in pain, and being uncomfortable and alone, but not much else. Her running theory is that she was abducted, but she has nothing to back this up with, and the orphanage she spent a few years at after coming to Chicago knew nothing about her origins. Regardless, Delly quickly found that she didn't fit in with the other kids. She was behind on education, starting kindergarten a year and a half late, and never seemed to be able to make up the difference. After a short while, the orphanage began to face some budgetary problems and issues with being overcrowded: around age nine, Delly decided things weren't working out for her. She helped herself to some food from the pantry, a few goods lying around, and took off on her own.

Miraculously (depending on your definition of miraculously), she was taken in by a man named Darryl, who, despite being pretty heavily involved with a gang, felt kinda bad for the little girl. While they searched for her, Delly wasn't located. She considered going back, but Darryl had hot food, Darryl let her sleep on the couch (which was much more comfortable than her old bed) and Darryl, after a short period of time, actually seemed to give a damn about her. There was no going back. Unfortunately, a nine year old who's not in school gets into trouble very quickly, and Darryl found she'd been surreptitiously tailing him, wanting to be more and more like her adoptive father. As she grew older, despite his attempts to keep her out of that lifestyle, she wound up getting caught into it: and, despite the slight gender barriers that exist in the gang world, Delly proved herself more than capable. Her yearning for approval, desire to do better, and somewhat hollow childhood resulted in a very dangerous little girl, one who was being exposed to a lot of things little girls should not be exposed to. Such life experiences would go on to fuel her shadow a good many years later.

Eventually, inevitably, Darryl got his ass torn to shreds in a little misunderstanding over a couple of ounces of heroin. Vowing revenge for what was essentially the only family she'd known, Delly set about identifying and hunting down his killers. It was surprisingly easy: they were largely unconcerned with going unknown, and Darryl's friends (now her friends-she was running drugs and guns for them on a regular basis, easily avoiding suspicion as a thirteen year old white girl) helped point her in the right direction. There were three of them, and Delly killed them. She can't remember quite how (since the development of her powers, her memory comes and goes, the darker things lost to her), but she remembers walking out of a house, hands covered in blood, shaking unbelievably. It wasn't too much longer that she got arrested-while she managed to avoid apprehension for the murders, she did get caught with the drugs, and did a stint in juvy. With a fair bit of PTSD, guilt, and tremendous amounts of rage, any hope for a normal life was pretty much over. She became a full member of the gang and, for a while, found a replacement family of sorts. Other outcasts, other people who had endured pain and lost people. While they were people who were ordering her to beat the shit out of people, to run felony quantities of cocaine across the city, to break into people's homes and rob them blind, she had people who gave a damn about her. She became a valuable member of the group, quickly proving both an adept thief and competent smuggler. Delly-who went by Cord or Whisper, she uses "Delly" now because it sounds a little more innocent-did a lot of things she's neither proud or ashamed of. It was life. She did what had to be done. 

And then came the day she got her powers. At first, she thought she'd finally cracked-her shadow was fucking talking to her, dancing along the wall behind her. But it offered to take away some of the pain. To hide some of the horrible things she'd seen. It made them go away-which was a blessing not even her newfound friends could bestow upon her. While she stayed with the gang a while longer, she felt that since the development of her powers, she'd been somewhat alienated-and, not wanting to risk outright watching her relationships die around her, Delly left, using the superhuman registration acts as a plausible cover-she didn't want the Feds to find out about them through her, and the gang let her leave more or less freely. Since then, she's wandered the streets, occasionally keeping in touch with her old friends, but mostly pickpocketing and stealing to get by.