Emma Summers | Nihil
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Species: Human
History: In the year 1986 a new kind of weapon was bred in the wind-swept desert of Afghanistan. The pressure of the Cold War has been on a steady rise, and it soon exploded in conflict. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan created a new warzone for the US to fight a proxy war against communism. Naturally they sided against Russia, supporting the Afghani Mujahideen. This war served as the backdrop of a highly illegal and highly unethical experiment conducted in the dark depths of the US Military-Industrial Complex by a secret group of researchers, unknown to all but a very select number of US Government officials. The question was simple: How does one create the perfect soldier? The first solution was technological: A serum that greatly increased the physical capabilities of a solider, additionally bestowing them with a number of 'super powers' that would aid them in their job. The second was much darker. In science there is an experiment that is considered taboo. Dubbed "The Forbidden Experiment". What would happen to someone if they were deprived of exposure to language of any sort? The researchers designed an evocative experiment: A child deprived of human contact. Taught by machines. Gradually exposed to the world through video and picture. Kept in peak physical condition. Raised by technology to be a soldier that had no regard for human life or their own life, instilled with unflinching obedience. Combined with their newly invented 'super-serum' this child was to be the ultimate soldier. The child had no name, but the researchers gave her a nickname: Nihil. A Latin word best described as meaning 'the absence of anything'. Nothingness.
It was at the age of twelve that Nihil was given her first mission. The Soviet–Afghan War was already over, but the Cold War was still on and researchers were eager to see the fruits of their labor. An operation was called by the general who was privy to the details of the experiment, buried in layers of deniability. The mission was simple: Capture a Soviet outpost. It was a task for a group of highly trained soldiers. Instead a little girl was sent in.
The mission, needless to say, was a success. Nihil proved to be highly capable in combat, and it seemed that all the programming and experimenting had indeed created the perfect soldier. As time went on the US's 'secret soldier' went on more missions, always proving successful against the most unlikely of odds. Every time it was the same: She'd receive her orders, be dropped into the hot zone, carry out her mission, exfiltrate, and then return to isolation, or to the training room connected to her cell, but she still always never saw a single person. The only times she had human contact was through the scope of a rifle. The only voices she heard where the screams of her targets. But something had to give, the shroud of isolation couldn't be kept forever. There was one variable that the researcher's couldn't control: Themselves. They weren't bad people... or maybe they were, but they felt remorse. Some of them were unable to handle the kind of research they were doing. Some were entirely uncaring, seeing Nihil as nothing more than a subject. But almost all of them were quelled by their paycheck. Almost.
One of them faced the ultimate struggle: Love. One of the researchers who spent countless hours observing Nihil came to feel a strange paternal affection for the girl who he had twisted into a soldier. It happened slowly, but it happened nonetheless. One day Nihil was sitting in her cell, as she always had, when something unexpected came through the slit in the door that had always delivered only food: A flower, and a note. The clean, white, sterile, surgical cell, devoid of anything but the basic necessities of life and a computer screen through which she had been educated had suddenly been invaded by a small speck of color. The facility rose in a panic. Their carefully controlled experiment had suddenly been thrown askew. The never anticipated one of their own going so far in mutiny.
Nihil picked up the note, felt the paper. The words which she had only ever seen etched into a computer screen. Researchers scrambled. She couldn't read it, they couldn't let her. It would likely destroy their work. As the mutinous researcher had been carried away, the door to Nihil's cell opened and for the first time she had seen a face on the other side of it. A stern face, a human face, reaching for the note. Suddenly her world had been thrown into question. Thoughts that never came to her, question that she had never come to ask. Who was she? Who were they? What are they? Who are the people she killed? Why did she exist?
Something snapped inside her. She understood that they did something wrong to her, the note made it clear. The girl easily overpowered the researcher, slamming his face against the wall and leaving a bloody smear. Their experiment was over. How could it succeed? No one can stem the very basis of human nature. They had reached too far. The girl they bred for war, of course, had no problem escaping from their confines after that. What was once a sterile research lab was sullied by blood. No one in the research staff, not one of the guards, nor one of the numerous other unholy experiments, not one of the janitors, or the maintenance workers, or the soldiers lived. They had created a monster.
An unfeeling monster that wanted nothing more than to feel.
As she emerged from the depths of the facility she emerged into a unknown environment. She had only ever known desert and mountains and the lab. This place was different. The mountains reached taller, scraping against the sky above. The ground was not sand, but concrete. Around her stood none of the 'Soviets' she had been taught were the enemy. Instead she was surrounded by people. Unfamiliar people. Numerous people, countless people. They stared at her: A teenage girl soaked in blood, carrying a rifle, clothing tattered. One of them called the police. Nihil was already gone, running away into a world she knew very little about.
Soon after that she found herself taken back into the fold of the US Military. Escaping wouldn't be that easy. It had been something they had prepared for. They could track her, of course. But things were different as she returned. She came to learn the name of the general in charge of the experiment: Brook. General Dalton Brook. He, like many of the researchers, came to see that the experiment was a mistake, so he extended an offer to reintegrate her into society with support from to government. The price was simple: Nihil's secrecy. No one would know where she came from. She wanted to know what life was like outside of confinement. She agreed.
She was soon re-educated, placed into an apartment, taught how to live like a 'normal' person. They gave her money. They gave her freedom. They gave her a name, Emma. They even let her join the VA. She was technically still a veteran, after all. But it wasn't enough for her. How could it be? She soon came to recognize what they took from her. What she could never get back. She was still a warrior, no matter what they did. She still couldn't feel like any other person. She still couldn't know what it was like to really be normal. So she disappeared, again. This time she made sure they couldn't follow. She used her powers to escape, again, and never looked back. She also promised herself one thing: She would exact revenge upon General Dalton Brook.
After that she slipped into the criminal underworld. By day she kept on her mask: The mask of a normal person, pretending to feel the emotions she could never feel. By night she was a rouge. Her powers made her a natural fit. She still only knew how to be a soldier. Assassination was her trade. She still felt nothing when she took a life. She felt no remorse. She wanted to hurt the people who hurt her and the people who didn't hurt her. She wouldn't be satisfied until everyone bled. But one thing still kept her sane. One thing kept her from being a psychopath: The memory of the flower and the note she had received from the one person who had loved her. The note she still kept with her. The note no one else would ever see. Part of her wanted to hurt, but part of her wanted to feel. Part of her wanted to discover the emotions she never knew.
As the years went on she felt her life become meaningless. She only lived to live. The feeling still wasn't there. She came to realize he joy that she once thought she felt when she killed was false, engineered by the researchers. She still wanted to kill Dalton Brook, but it seemed unattainable. He was half a world away. She felt trapped. And then one day during her 'late night activities' she was caught by a hero. Captain Power. She could've escaped. It would've been easy with her powers. But she gave up. She let herself get caught. He was confused, but took her in. And that was it. She was sent to prison, buried behind layers of security designed to prevent her escape. She couldn't be stopped. Ironically her powers made escape quite easy for her. But she didn't care. It was just like old times.
"I can leave whenever I want."
Personality: Nihil is devoid of emotion. She strives for it, but it's always out of reach. She's only felt emotion twice: Hatred for the people who authorized the experiments conducted on her, and a small moment of happiness hen she read a letter penned by the only person who has loved her. She is almost entirely apathetic towards existence, only driven by her goal to kill General Dalton Brook. She has no friends, has never tried to make any friends, and is seemingly unable to make friends. How can someone with no emotion have friends? She's entirely confident in her abilities, convinced that nothing can stop her, no matter how incorrect that might be. She rarely speaks, and isn't very easy to work with, instead preferring to operate solo.
Powers/Abilities/Skills/Talents: Nihil's principal talent is mastery with almost all forms of weaponry. She is a highly skilled marksman, able to use a sniper rifle to make shots that no normal human can make. She has a supreme reaction time and can slow her breathing to the point where it is almost impossible to discern if she is actually alive. Her senses are also highly heightened, furthering her skill as a marksman. Her skill with guns is so great that she can shoot the individual blades of a helicopter while they are in motion. She has been trained in the art of 'gun-kata', a form of martial arts that integrates hand to hand techniques with gunplay and the statistical study of a gunfight, allowing her to very accurately predict and then react to the patterns that her enemies will use, making her a very deadly foe against groups of enemies. She is of course, by extension, highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat and swordplay. The serum given to her also has imbued her with more 'super-human' abilities. She is more durable than an average person, able to survive a number of gunshots or a long fall, has strength comparable to a man twice her size. One of her principal abilities is they power to move at speeds that are almost imperceptible, appearing as little more than a blur. Additionally she can jump much higher than the average human, around the height of 20 feet. This allows her supreme mobility, letting dart quickly across the battlefield in a blink of an eye.
Weakness: Nihil's first weakness is her highly heightened senses. Although this at first seems to strictly be an advantage she is prone to sensory overload, extreme smells or loud sounds can have highly adverse effects on her. Additionally it is worth nothing that although she is more durable than the average human, unlike many super humans she is still very susceptible to gunshots or other physical damage. She might be durable, but she is very far from invulnerable. Finally the super-serum has had some adverse effects on her. She is prone to intense migraines, which in the past has not served her well in battle. The serum may have more negatory side-effects that remain unseen.
Secret Hideout: Nihil has no secret hideout, only a shitty apartment,
Relationships: The only feeling Nihil has for any person is the hate she feels for the General.