[Hider=Katarina Shade][Color=lightgray]
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Katarina "Kitty" Shade
21 | 5'7" | O+[/center]

[Sub][b][color=darkgray] A P P E R A N C E
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[I][indent]Hair as black as night and eyes bluer than the summer sky were the most notable features of Katarina’s face. She looks younger than her age and is often mistaken as a minor even though she stands taller than most women her age. Her face has a doll-likeness to it – soft angles, almond eyes framed by thick lashes, straight nose, and full lips – which may be perceived as innocence or beauty or both, depending on who was looking. While dolls represent femininity, the hell that she called her home for over a decade has beaten out the softness of a woman from her, and instead left a lean lightly muscled physique of a fighter who capitalizes on speed, agility, and accuracy instead of strength. She was oftentimes underestimated because of her size, but the woman can definitely pack a punch and put most men to shame.

Neither the unforgiving training at the Citadel, nor the scars her body earned was enough to take away her flirty nature. Outside of duty, she would be seen wearing dark-colored, often revealing, clothing. If she is wearing a button-down shirt, then it is safe to assume that it will be unbuttoned from the collar to the middle of her breasts, sometimes she doesn’t even bother. 
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[Sub][b][color=darkgray] P E R S O N A L I T Y
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[I][indent]A lot of wrong assumptions has been made about Katarina, most of which has to do with her physical appearance. First impressions of her include the adjectives shy, innocent, calm, rational, quiet, and patient. She is none of those. On the contrary, Katarina, or Kitty as her close friends call her, possesses a big, fiery personality. She has the confidence of a leader and a voice that demands to be heard. It could have been a good thing, but Kitty does not care to involve herself in leading or even guiding her fellow WARDEN in anything that is duty-related. She is content to just listen, wait for instructions, and execute the plan. This is because long-drawn analysis bore her. It was not a one-off incident when she was caught “praying with her eyes closed” during tactical planning sessions.
 
Nevertheless, Kitty is a fierce fighter who will plunge straight into the action and improvise the next steps rather than think things through and let fear and doubt take her. It’s not to say that she does not plan, she does. Her decisions are even based on sound logic. It’s just that she does not plan all the way to the finish line even though she intends to finish the race. Thus, she made several wrong decisions in her life, but none that she regrets. It was those invisible scars, she believes, that strengthens her soul.
 
What she uses her leadership charisma for has nothing to do with being a WARDEN. Kitty is happiest when she is faced with odds. She organizes bets between two sparring WARDENS and on her free time runs gaming night where other WARDENs test their luck with cards and dices. She is a gambler and a risk-taker, who is favored by lady luck. She claims that luck is her special skill, that it is an entirely new field of study that should be seriously explored by the instructors at the Citadel.

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[Sub][b][color=darkgray] B A C K G R O U N D
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[I][Indent] Katarina was the only child of the wealthy businessman, Bernard Shade and his third wife, Melissa. She had four older brothers with the eldest, Malcolm Shade, being a First Class WARDEN. Kitty was born and raised in Rassvet’s capital to a family who can provide for her every need and wants. Her early life was not a tragedy, but a story of a typical girl who was destined to die rich. She attended the most prestigious school in the capital and was educated in both the basic curriculum and other fields such as the music and the arts, where she excelled. Everything that she would ever want was handed over to her in a silver platter by one of her three nannies whose sole purpose was to make sure Bernard’s little girl was happy and well taken care of. 

Bernard Shade was a well-known supporter of Representative Arden Burcham, a member of the Royal Assembly. It was an open secret that Kitty’s father’s money and connections bought Burcham his place in the Assembly. In return, the Representative favored Shade’s business operations. Before Kitty was drafted to train at the Citadel, her father already owned several casinos in addition to almost having a monopoly of illegal substance in the capital and its neighboring cities. Bernard took pride in having the most efficient import/export network in addition to having the largest variety of illegal substances available in Rassvet. At a young age, she was exposed to the dealings of her father. He introduced her to politicians, suppliers, and dealers alike, because it was the intention of Bernard to someday hand over the business to his dear Katarina. It opened her eyes to a different side of Rassvet – a world of excesses and pleasures of the flesh, of the illegal and the rare. 

However, to her father’s dismay, Kitty was among the children who were discovered to possess “desirable traits” that would make a good WARDEN. More specifically the rare ability to draw other beings from the mist for a period of time and influence their actions according to her will. And thus, even Bernard Shade could not do anything to prevent the inevitable. Kitty, the little princess who knew nothing about the world outside the comfort and security of her father’s wings, didn’t take it kindly at first. She pleaded to her father to either save her or kill her, because what Malcolm went through was not something she would ever dream of experiencing. Her brother Malcolm was the one who talked her out of the idea of killing herself and giving up too soon without even trying. He was on the same situation as her fourteen years back, anyway, so he claimed that he understood her. He was also a spoiled ten-year-old boy when he entered the Citadel.

It was because she had no other choice, and maybe her brother’s encouragement, that she left the comfort of home to live among strangers without her daddy and her nannies. It was not easy to adjust from being a spoiled little lady to a soldier, but she found out that there was no other way to live. She had to adapt or die. And the notion of dying in a place like that did not sit well with her so Kitty chose the former. She cut her beautiful long hair short, which to her was a sign that she was ready leave the life of comfort behind and finally accept her fate. 

Despite her rather slow and reluctant start, Kitty discovered a new addiction in the Citadel. She discovered that adrenaline, though not a drug, was perhaps as addictive as one. Just as her brother predicted, she enjoyed fast-paced sparring sessions and the challenge of being faced against an opponent much older and stronger than her. While her strongest spells had to do with summoning, she rarely used it, and would rather fight her own battles using her fists and swords, or even long-range weapons, altering her body’s composition from flesh to stone to steel to fire, whatever she feels like using for her advantage. And thus she got used to wearing bare minimum, because there was a high chance her clothes would rip or burn away. But when she did have to display her summoning, it was more likely to summon human-like beings to be her temporary servants and help clean her room. 

But she learned that the Citadel was not all hard work and training. As the saying goes, they trained hard and partied harder. She had lost count of how many times had she woken up on the floor of an unfamiliar room or forgotten the entire nights worth of partying or gambling or both. There were more than one occasion when she got beaten so hard because she could barely walk straight. And yet she had no regrets. 

Also something she would not regret was the network she built with like-minded WARDENs, which was shut down a few months before her graduation for admitting minors. It started as an innocent game night to pass the time after training and study hours. After a year it operated in two facilities, then four, then seven. Like her father’s casinos, it spawned like mushrooms on a dead log. The operation gave her life a semblance of normalcy, a glimpse of what she could have built had she not been drafted as a WARDEN.

Then graduation day came. Katarina, acknowledged for her skills in both magic, combat, and rather questionable leadership style, she graduated as a third class. There was no question about her skills in both magic and combat. There was no question about her ability to lead as well – she built and ran little gambling sites all over the Citadel and even held periodic operations review like a real boss. She was told that she could have easily been second class if she used this talent in a “positive” and “productive” manner. She had no regrets.
Kity was happy to have graduated at all, having accomplished her goal to not die inside the Citadel. Besides, she had made plans with some of the closest friends she made in the past decade to travel and see the country that they would lay their lives for. Why not?
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[Sub][b][color=darkgray] C O M B A T
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[I][indent] Kitty favored melee style fighting than long range, because the adrenaline rush felt more significantly real when she can look the enemy in the eye. She was not as big as most melee fighter. Instead, she uses magic to alter her form, her weapon (if necessary), and boost her strength. Her weapon of choice is the katana or anything light, long and with a thin sharp blade. She would carry three of them in a fight. One on each hand plus a spare. Her size allowed her to move fast, effectively dealing with multiple enemies from many directions. Her summoning magic will probably be her last resort as it takes much from her strength than she would admit. When asked how she does it, she would describe the process as bringing something from far away to where she wanted it to be and being able to manipulate the creatures to some degree. It’s like teleportation, but not used on herself.[/indent][/I]

[Sub][b][color=darkgray] N O T E S
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[I][indent]N/A[/indent][/I]
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