[center][img]http://img14.deviantart.net/2431/i/2014/258/d/6/black_widow___mock_comic_book_cover_by_christytortland-d7we8ql.jpg[/img][/center][center][sub]“Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the center of things. What do you think of it?” ~ John le Carré, [i]Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy[/i][/sub][/center] [sub][h3]Name:[/h3][/sub] [img]http://i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img] [color=darkgray]Наталья Романова, Наташа Романова, Наталья Романова-Шостакова aka Natasha Romanova aka Black Widow[/color] [sub][h3]Alignment:[/h3][/sub] [img]http://i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img] [color=darkgray]True Neutral or Neutral Neutral if you prefer.[/color] [sub][h3]Affiliation:[/h3][/sub] [img]http://i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img] [color=darkgray]Luther's Justice League although this is nothing but a front as her true allegiance remains with the Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации (Federal Security Service)[/color] [sub][h3]History:[/h3][/sub] [img]http://i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img] [color=darkgray][i]Officially the Cold War ended. Try telling that to everyone that was involved.[/i][/color] [hider=Ghosts of Stalingrad] [color=darkgray] The story of the one known as Natasha Romanova starts in Early 1943. The new year was not christened by fireworks, cheering or the marching of the armies this year in the City of Stalingrad. It was rather brought in by a sound that had become familiar over the last few months artillery shells and screaming voices. The Germans continued their defense in the city that was supposed to be only a milestone on the path to Moscow but had instead became their frozen tomb, as the Red Army pushed them back room by room, building by building. Caught in the middle of this brutal bought of urban warfare was the populace of the city. Those that hadn't fled when they heard the approaching Tanks in August, those that couldn't flee when their homes became battlegrounds. They hid in buildings, swears and among the dead and dying hoping that the Nazis would not find them. One such woman was caught with a small girl when the Germans torched the apartment building they were in to smoke out any Russian soldiers that may have been hiding inside. It was three in the morning when it happened and the woman had been trying to catch what little sleep she could in the small lulls between the fighting. They were a few stories up, because if the Germans entered the building they could hear them charging up the stairwell. It also meant that when the German Flamethrowers began to torch the bottom floor they could escape the blaze the conventional way. Instead the woman forced her way outside onto a frozen fire escape in cold and icy January Winds holding her sleeping daughter in her arms as she descended. Sadly halfway through the descent A German Sniper had spotted her and shot the Woman. She fell but in her last acts on Earth cradled her child and in that saved the Child from serious bodily harm. The landing in the hardened snow had awoken the child and so she began to cry in the snow alone. Luckily it was not the Germans that had torched her building that had found her, no instead it was the Russian Squad that had repulsed them hours later. The leader of the Squad was Ivan Petrovich Bezukhov and he and the rest of the squad would take the small girl in from the cold and give her food. Natasha Romanova became the [i]"littlest soldier"[/i] and would stay with the squad till the end of the Second World War, serving as their mascot and helper running messages and ammo between lines. Natasha remembers these times fondly. It was back when the world was simple. When everything was black and white. [/color] [/hider] [Hider=Department X] [color=darkgray] Following the dropping of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Second World War ended and the World entered the Cold War. Thus began the origins of Department X, a covert Soviet Agency designed to rival the Super Soldiers of the West such as the famous yet ill-fated Captain America. One of these projects was the Black Widow Ops Program. They took Russian girls - war orphans from across the ravaged USSR - and spirited them away where everyone would forget them. Natasha was one of many to join their ranks when Ivan reluctantly let the girl go into KGB hands once they learned of her and her potential. Here they were whisked away to become assassins ready to kill for the glory of the Motherland. And there they would stay in a base hidden deep away in the wastes of Siberia in a research station hidden deep underground. The training itself was harsh and of hundreds of girls that were whisked away over a few dozen made it through the program's initial phase. This consisted of physical condition everything from ten mile runs in the snow to hours upon end of seemingly endless body weight exercises. This was followed by combat training everything from various forms of close quarters combat techniques to firearms training among others. The girls were expected to be accurate above levels of standard soldiers within three months of training. After combat training they went into book learning, they learned military history, tactics, law, dozens of languages, cultural skills such as dancing, chemistry among others. And if they were even found to be leaking mentally they were beaten and forced to scrub the bathrooms until their scores improved. Eventually those one hundred or so that remained entered phase two of the program. It was here that the augmentation process began. Dr. Lyudmila Kudrin, a premier biochemist perfected what she called the new age of super sermons. The remaining one hundred were subjected to 48 hours of constant injections and around the watch hospital supervision. The chemical combinations were too deadly for most of the subjects and many died of complications and organ failure in the twenty four hours that followed. Natasha was one of twenty eight girls to make it through the procedure. As a result they were granted superhuman reflexes, strength, durability, speed, senses and an inhuman longevity. In short they had finally become the perfect assassins. Soon they were put into active duty and it was here that she met Ivan again. Having retired from the army he was picked back up again by the KGB for his considerable skill and was once again assigned to watch over Natasha, this time as her handler. [/color] [/Hider] [Hider=Rise and Fall] [color=darkgray] And thus the life of Natasha Romanova began to hit something of a period of 'normalcy' to it. Ivan and her began to serve the Motherland and KGB in interests around the globe. Natasha had a cover produced for her as a trained dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet which give her an excuse to travel and Ivan was the ever watchful bodyguard hired by her Father. Together the two danced a path of fire and blood across Europe and many of the West and countless traitors to the Motherland were killed by their hands. But do to their policy of leaving no survivors and no witness her cover was never blown and things continued to normal. She had her hands everywhere from Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. She killed politicians, generals, spies, and double crosser with a brutal efficiency. Some may have been confused by the ruthless and seemingly heartless behavior of the girl but it was all she knew. It was all she could do and having been force fed the soviet ideals from a young age, it was what she knew was right. During this time she ran into other products of her time. She would run across men and women like: The Star-Spangled Kid, Shining Knight, Miss America, Whizzer, Jack Frost and many of the men that would take the costume of Captain America. It was these defenders of the West that presented her and Ivan the real problems. Their powers and abilities defied even her own superhuman injections and many a times they would fate Natasha would have to vanish into the shadows. But as it turned out the USSR would not persist as long as Stalin had envisioned it to. The collapse was slow and lethargic like a corpse being taken apart by crows. Natasha's own life seemed to mimic this collapse when on a mission in West Germany Kingsley Faraday shot and mortally wounded Ivan leaving Natasha emotionally broken and shattered as she held her only friend and father figure in the rain as he slowly bled to death. It was in that moment that a fight that she had always been distance from became very, very personal as orders became a personal vendetta against the West. But soon the Dissolution of the Soviet Union began in December of 1991 and the KGB was replaced with the FSB. But agents like Natasha remained in service, for them the changing of the guard may have meant a loss of ideals and virtue but it never meant that the end of the job. Life continued but under a new rule under the Russian Federation rather than the USSR. [/color] [/hider] [Hider=Superhuman: The Present] [color=darkgray] In the 2010s the world changed with the so called "next generation" of heroes. Mutants and superheroes men and women changed by the power of atom, to become far beyond the normal humans that once walked the Earth among us. For one reason or another some believe do to the amount of atomic testing done there and other circumstances America had a huge population of these superhuman among their masses. This was a fact that many nations around the world became worried about especially former foes such as the Russian Federation. The Russians needed somebody on the ground to report back them, to feed them Intel. They needed to know what these knew God-men planned to do. And so they called in one of their best agents for the job. They called in Natasha Romanova. She hadn't been outside of Eurasia in a while at this point dealing with internal security issues that arose after the fall of the USSR. Unlike some members like the Winter Guard, Red Rocket Brigade and others she had remained in the shadows for the most part. Doing what she did best, make people disappear. And in the time she had grown from the young teenage girl who had killed her way through Europe, and all the old heroes of the West she had fought long ago where at this point confined to their wheelchairs and losing their minds slowly. Nobody remembered her, nobody knew her. And so she was sent into America. She found her way into the mercenary circuit first working alongside names that would become big in the business later down the rode, Deathstroke, Deadshot, and others. And slowly she assimilated herself into the spectra of Superheros and super villains of America none the wiser that she still was reporting back to the Kremlin. She even became an American Citzen. In fact she had infiltrated one of the most powerful Superhero organizations in the country if not the world. Lex Luthor's newly established Justice League of America. She joined sides with Captain America unaware of her experiences with his predecessors among others. She became part of a symbol of cooperation and hope for a new world. But beneath it all, beneath the double crossing, benath the spying for the Soviets she was still in America for one reason and one reason only. She was going to find Kingsley Faraday, no matter what path of bloodshed and chaos she had to make to do it. [/color] [/hider] [sub][h3]Supporting Cast:[/h3][/sub] [img]http://i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img] [color=darkgray] [Hider=Superhero Associates] [sub][b]Superhero Associates:[/b][/sub] [b]Dmitri Pushkin: [/b] 'Rocket Red #4' and a member of the Rocket Red Brigade. This Power armor, jet pack using, vodka drinking Russian. A kind man with a love for American culture especially 'cowboy-movies'. As one of the few Russian Heroes active in America he is the occasional confident of Black Widow even though he little taste left in his mouth for the games of the Kremlin. [b]Daredevil:[/b] During her early years of American infiltration when was still working as a mercenary she met one blind New York City attorney known as Matt Murdock. Little did Natasha know that Murdock was the masked vigilante known as Daredevil. Though after being kidnapped by Bullseye, Murdock soon found out that Natasha was a little bit more than she was letting on as well. After a brief romantic fling the two broke apart. [sub]Requires approval from Daredevil player[/sub] [b]Captain America:[/b] Another member of Lex Luthor's Justice League. The Captain has no idea of Romanova's past. A little awkward for her as she has tried to kill other incarnations of him in the past. But that was before right? [sub]requires approval from Captain America player[/sub] [b]Alexi Shostakov:[/b] Black Widow's one time lover back when the Cold War was in full swing. He was trained as the Red Guardian, the USSR's response to Captain America. But he "vanished" under mysterious circumstances in the later period of the war. Thought to be dead. [/Hider] [Hider=Other Associates] [sub][b]Other Associates:[/b][/sub] [b]Lex Luthor:[/b] One of the founding members of the Justice League of America. As a member of the JLA, Black Widow has a working relationship with the man.[sub]Requires approval for Lex or Sup player. Or both I guess[/sub] [b]Nick Fury:[/b] Natasha knew Fury from his CIA days back during the Cold War. Back then they almost killed one another once or twice. Now well he's gone to ground and even if Fury remembers her, she's seemingly turned a new head in life. [/hider] [hider=Rivals, enemies, and targets] [sub][b]Rivals, enemies, and targets[/b][/sub] [b]Kingsley 'King' Faraday:[/b] Ex-CIA Operative, seems to have 'retired' after the end of the Cold War. Killed Ivan Petrovich Bezukhov and Black Widow wants him dead for it. He's seemingly vanished from the face of the Earth. But that won't stop her. She'll get him, eventually. Whatever it takes. [b]Nightshade:[/b] Eve Eden was King Faraday protege and a superhuman at that with the ability to manipulate shadows. She worked for the CIA for some time before quitting and going freelance. She's been seen around recently having popped back up after some years of silence. She's Black Widow's first stop in finding Farady. She's the first stop in revenge. [b]Black Lotus:[/b] Female Assassin for some reason or another she wants Black Widows head. Something to do with what she did during the war. Not that Natasha stuck around to really talk to her. [b]Leonid Novokov:[/b] Another KGB assassin, he went rogue several years ago and has been on the run ever since. Like all runaways Black Widow has a kill order on sight if he is spotted. [b]Petra, Marina and Yelena Belova:[/b] Other surving members of the Black Widow Project, once again the Russians have put a kill order on all of them to clean up their dirty little secretes. Locations are currently unknown. [/hider][/color] [sub][h3]How does the New Frontier version of your character differ from the original?:[/h3][/sub] [img]http://i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img] [color=darkgray]Paranormal ghosts may not exists (well at least in our world) but people are certainly haunted ghosts of the past. Last vestigial motes of could of beens and what ifs. This incarnation Black Widow that I'm aiming for is very much haunted by the Ghosts of the Past. I always figured it made sense given her character and her history. A child of war, turned killer, spy and assassin while others her age learned to like boys and did algebra. She's killed more men then many men will ever in their lifetime and she's watch her own world rise and crumble around her while she remained almost suspended in time watching those around her age and fall to a place where sane minds do not dare venture. And the Ghosts of her deeds haunt her, the are specters in her sleep and ghastly flashes across her eyelids when they close for a moment. And unlike the Black Window of mainstream, none of it just goes away because she falls for some boy. You don't just step away from a life of soviet doctrine being smashed into your head day in and day out, you don't just step away from the people that have become your family, you don't just defect because you might like a pretty boy. Black Widow is not a hormonal teenage, I've think she's gone past thinking with her sexual organs first. So yes this is a Black Widow that never left the KGB, that never defected who still holds alternative agendas, who carries secretes and operations behind the backs of her so called friends. And it's all because well I have a little morality tale in mind, to tell you the truth. A story of revenge (a tired and well worn concept I know) and a story of duality. So while even she has mission from the the JLA and the Russians, she has another mission one more personal, one I created by taking a father figure and a ex-spy that has sort of been forgotten by the DC Mythos to create a classic tale of revenge. But Revenge is never quick and it's never easy. So well we will see what will happen won't we? [/color] Post References: [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/88383-matryoshka-engel-x-hex/ic#post-3142259]Matryoshka [/url] [Url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3029403]The God Damn Superman[/url] [Url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3008647]Constantine[/url]