Basic Introduction

Character Biography

Karina was born to Castin and Avilynn Paprik in the year 560SC (Since Conversion). Karina's parents weren't poor, but they weren't well-off, and as such were resigned to living in the underground slums of the Chonoli planet. Though this was bad due to the proximity to criminal activity and gang violence, there was a lone benefit in that Karina would grow up in the far less hazardous air of the more filterable underground. Her parents did everything they could to ensure she would never want for much, even if the toys, electronics, and clothing she sported were often hand-me-downs or secondhand.

Her early years were rather unremarkable; she was a bit of a hot-head, but cooperated well and excelled in her schooling. For all intents and purposes she was seen as a studious and gifted child, often allowing her bouts of frustration or confrontations at school to go unacknowledged. Why shoot such a promising student's future in the foot over petty squabbles between children? Besides, even if Karina was certain to end the fight, she never started them... unless you count indirect verbal provocation.

During her early tweens her life took an interesting turn, as she gazed upon the televised international fighting tournament for Chonoli. Fighters from across the globe (and sometimes their binary sister planet Alori) stepped up to the fighting stage to prove their worth and come out the other end with a prize and notoriety after a slough through the mosh pit that was often the preliminaries. Karina already had a slight interest in fighting -- no doubt why she so often won her fights -- but seeing the tournament unfold for the first time was a life-changing opportunity.

It was during the final rounds of the fight, watching these high-class fighters create dazzling displays of light and energy using Impulse that a change was affected in Karina. For the longest time, she'd gone through school aimlessly --- excelling just to do it, because it was a long-term goal to achieve. Now, though, as she watched the champion land the winning strike with an explosion so electrifying it made the broadcast flicker, she decided she wanted to become the fighting champion herself.

Her grades plummeted in the months and years that followed, time spent with her nose in a schoolbook replaced by hours at the local library combing through the local books and using the terminals to scour the intranet for any information on Impulse and how to access it naturally. Despite the phenomenon being known and broadcasted, though, it seemed that most accessible sources were incomplete or conflicted with one another. That meant that more time had to be spent plotting out everything she knew, finding the commonalities, and progressing with that as her guide.

Though her parents had observed her fall form academic grace, it took a long time for them to say anything. Becoming a teenager was bound to affect their daughter's focus on something like school, and at least she was redirecting her energy into something she seemed passionate about. When her grades became so bad that being held back was a real risk was when they intervened, though, to no avail. She just wouldn't budge, arguing that school would be useless to her for her goals, and instead asking time and time again to take part in the school's martial arts program. Each time though, her parents denied her request; that would be even more time away from her studies.

When Karina eventually got held back, a tense discussion exploded into a massive argument. Karina insisting that her parents had never truly cared about her passions, only how they affected her schoolwork and if they made her seem like anything less than perfect. Her parents countering that such things weren't true, and that even if they were, there was merit in being concerned when she'd have to repeat a grade now. Things were only made worse when her mother admitted to being opposed to her goals, due to how brutal those tournaments could be. When Karina's father expressed both support for Karina but also agreed with her mother's concerns, it was the final nail in the coffin --- the tension that had held steadfast for so long finally came to a crescendo, and a rift formed that couldn't be crossed.

Karina was grounded and her books on Impulse and fighting were confiscated until her grades rose, but that didn't stop her. Countless notebooks had been filled and stowed with ideas and analyses, and much of them were committed to memory. At this point, she'd been able to summon Impulse enough to shatter a glass without a single scratch on her; she didn't need those books anymore, she declared!

What she did need, though, was a way to learn to fight... and suddenly, living in the seedy Chonoli underground wasn't such a bad arrangement anymore. At various hours of the night Karina sneaked out of her house and scrambled into the streets to visit an underground fighting ring she'd heard of in passing a few times before. It was dangerous and illegal, but if her parents were to shut out her methods of legitimate learning, what else was she expected to do?

Karina got her ass kicked at first, there's no mistaking it. Time and time again she'd hobble or crawl her way out of the ring beneath uproars of laughter, clutching bruises and nursing her aching bones. Never did she leave though, not until hours had passed. Instead of dressing her wounds or taking care of herself, she watched. Observed. Learned. Analyzing fighters in the ring and taking note of repeated movements, trying to fashion together an idea of various fighting styles just by sight. She'd even break down her own fights, or what little she could remember of them before getting put on the floor.

At home she'd meditate and exercise, trying to build herself up in both mind and body beneath the suspicious gaze of her parents. Training her strength came far easier than harnessing Impulse though, with only the occasional odd crackle of blue and a rush of energy to indicate she was making any progress. School wasn't even a factor in her mind, and it became easier and easier to brush off the shouting matches that came with each time the chance of her being held back again was brought up. That didn't matter to her anymore, and the increasingly harsh way her parents would urge her and plead with her to set herself straight fell on deaf ears.

The resentment and anger fueled her; she turned it into power.

Her dedication paid off, as she slowly began to improve in the fighting ring. Instead of letting her abnormally short (for a Chonoli) stature be a hindrance, she used it as a strength. Her small size and increasing speed combined well with her passive and active analysis, allowing her to dance and weave within her opponents' personal bubbles and land targeted blows that a larger person would struggle with. That's not to say she won every fight, but she was finally winning some of them (and paying off the amassing debt that came with placing bets on herself that she couldn't afford to pay.)

By the time Karina was 16, she'd changed considerably. An effective and brutal fighter with a reputation amognst underground fighters for being excellent at adapting and even copying others. She'd become more hardened and tough, able to take hits that would crumple most people --- a side effect of her practice with Impulse, even if she'd still yet been able to manifest it unless sitting perfectly still and meditating. Her relationship with her parents was in shambles, but she'd long since stopped caring, much as she felt they had about her. Dropping out of high school probably didn't help much.

Unfortunately her fighting ring of choice finally got busted (and right as she was starting to profit off of her improved skill, too!), forcing her to seek out greener pastures. As soon as she found a new fighting ring to battle it out in, she got to work and once again began to build a reputation for herself. Except this time, it wasn't with people who'd seen her steady and arduous rise to the top; it was with people who knew little of her, and who were far more skeptical to someone of her stature running through their numbers like it was nothing.

Skepticism and tension built with every fight Karina won --- how was a tiny thing like her beating towering brutes nearly twice her size, or parrying bionic strikes that would've shattered a lesser fighter's bones? There had to be foul play, the fight organizer -- Poveda -- was sure of it. Either she was making deals with the fighters and they just weren't telling, or she had some way of weakening the people she was fighting. No way was a frail child like her running grown men and women through the wringer.

So sure that one night, when Karina was worn and weary, he stepped into the ring. He confronted her with his suspicions, and as expected she denied them --- after all, they weren't true. But Poveda wouldn't believe it, and so he fought without restraint. She'd either admit it and leave, or deny it and leave a cripple, or worse. But Karina wouldn't bow, she refused to let her relentless effort be perceived as cheating. She couldn't bring herself to lie about something so important. So she fought, tired and weary, and to her credit she held out for a while... but a while wasn't enough, and she couldn't hang on forever.

Her back was to the wall, and Poveda aimed to kill with a final strike. He was done being made a fool of, not on his turf. His fist flew, and mere inches from Karina's face, the girl felt time slow down around her. Any second she expected her life to start flashing before her eyes; that's what happened to people who were about to die, right? But instead, something else awoke in her.

As she'd felt hundreds of times now in meditation, she felt a spark. Something bubbling below the surface, an energy she often had to fight so hard to hold onto... but now it felt so clear, so easy to grab and take hold of...

...And so she did.

Poveda's fist barely even brushes the skin of her nose, that odd crackle of light bursting forth around her as she moved faster than anyone could blink. When her elbow rammed into his back it came with a sickening crack, and she wondered if her bones had shattered under the force of her own attack... while her arm did hurt, though, that wasn't the case. It was Poveda, staggering forward before crumpling to the ground that revealed what had truly happened: she'd broken his back, and effortlessly so.

Bile rose in her throat, nausea clawing at her in the shocked silence of the fighting ring. Still crackling with the energy that had let her cripple a man without hesitation, she blinked out of the arena, never to return.

Her attempt to silently sneak into her house was foiled, the speed of her empowered state bleeding off just in time for her to go tumbling across her bedroom floor. When her parents burst into her room to see what the commotion was, they were met with a horribly bloodied, beaten, and pale Karina. Their concern quickly gave way to anger though, when she began to expunge everything that had happened. That she'd been at an illegal fighting ring, and that she'd carelessly paralyzed a man with the same thing they'd urged her to stop learning ages ago.

The argument was one for the ages, as pent-up frustration from both sides came pouring out. Karina's parents ashamed and disappointed, mortified at what their daughter had done, and Karina so hurt and shocked that they couldn't even be there for her when she was at her lowest. Still high on adrenaline and full of discordant emotions thanks to what had unfolded, she lashed out and said some regrettable things. Insulting her parents, cursing at them, even accusing them of wishing she'd never been born. With all her remorse tied up in what she'd done to Poveda, she had none to offer to her parents, and that was enough for them to finally give up on her.

Karina was allowed to rest and recover over the week, healing from her wounds and recovering physically, but when that seventh day came the door to her parents' home was shut hard behind her. At sixteen she was homeless, on her own and forced to roam the very same streets where Poveda's gang was searching to put her head on a pike.

Homelessness on its own was a bad enough plight for Karina. With little to her name and no money to speak of, finding a place to sleep at night or a meal to eat was just about the greatest challenge she had. Living in the Chonoli underground offered the sole benefit of having the occasional nook or hole in the rocks to sleep in, but after one too many nights where she 'd wake up after falling from an unpleasant height even those were treated with skepticism.

It was possible to pull favors from friends she 'd made in the old fighting ring from time to time, whether that be a place to recoup for a night and take a proper shower, or just a meal to get her through an otherwise foodless week. But as time went on, and Karina had nothing to offer in return, the favors and kindness began to dry up.

In order to keep from starving, Karina had to take on odd jobs and get income wherever possible. For the most part, these odd jobs were shockingly above board. With the rampant crime of the underground, it was easy to take up jobs as a delivery service for mom and pop stores that just wanted their supplies to arrive undamaged and not half empty.

These jobs didn 't pay much, but between the money she received and the occasional food items that were offered to supplement proper payment, they kept her from starving. She was gaunt, practically skin and bones, but her body spared those too from being eaten away in its desperate efforts to survive.

The worst nights were when she had a close encounter with Poveda 's men. Whether being spotted outright or narrowly escaping a small group of goons out for blood, the end result was the same: sleepless nights and nightmares of getting caught.

It wasn 't just her fear of Poveda and his manpower that kept her up at night, though. It was her own capacity to harm; the total lack of control over such a powerful ability that allowed her to paralyze a man. It was for that reason that – as much as she 'd have rather tucked the ability away and forgotten it existed – Karina forced herself to properly harness that ability --- Kansen, as she 'd name it.

Burning her waning food supply and energy only faster, Karina would spend nights meditating when she couldn 't sleep, trying to force herself to pull on that power and keep it from going awry for as long as possible. At first, barely able to hold it for a fraction of a second before it broke free in a painful burst of electricity, but eventually able to hold on it for longer and longer.

Meditation, Karina found, was a lot more peaceful to her than sleep could ever hope to be at this point. Even on nights where she did no training, she still opted to sink into a deep meditative state over a proper REM sleep --- much to her pleasant surprise, it offered a rejuvenating rest of its own, even if not quite as good as the real deal.

Karina knew her game of cat and mouse with Poveda would someday come to an end, but she didn 't expect it to be only a little over a year into her time on the street. Lethargically dragging herself back to one of her hiding spots for the night, she was faced with and cornered by a small number of his footsoldiers.

Determined to take her in after so long being given the slip, a fight started. Even in her exhausted state, Karina fared shockingly well against the group of three. It was practically burned into her, fighting knowledge becoming muscle memory as she fought as hard she could in the dark alley.

But her best wasn 't enough, and with a few hard hits she found herself backed into a corner once more. Her heart was in her throat, her mind racing, as she prepared herself for the very real possibility that she was going to die that night...

...Unless she did something really, really risky.

It 's what all of her practice and training was for, really. She wanted to be able to wield Kansen, that dangerous power, without having to worry that she might permanently injure someone or even kill them.

But, in that moment, when it was her only option, there was still a very real part of her that feared she wasn 't ready. That it would end the same, and that everything had been for naught.

But she stilled herself, dug down deep, and – instead of pulling on that power as she once did – she simply let it flow.

The dark alleyway was lit up as the lights above them became supercharged by some invisible force, like Karina had become a tesla coil radiating the energy that burned deep within. It was just as intoxicating to her as it was frightening, but she didn 't dare let it slip out of control. She pulled forth only a meager amount, enough to make a difference.

A strike to the side took down one of the three. A hard shove sent another into the opposing wall, knocking the air out of his lungs. A kick to the back of the final man 's knee buckled him to the ground.

All three staggered, but none injured --- at least, nothing that wouldn 't just be sore for a couple days and heal.

In that window of opportunity, that precious moment, she 'd vanish in a trail of fading blue lighting, and the lights above would burn out and leave the pursuing gang members in pure darkness.

Karina escaped with her life, but something much more monumental had happened in that moment: She 'd proven she could do it, that she could wield and control that power she once felt cursed by without fear.

Even if her struggles against Poveda and his men weren 't truly over, this marked a new era in Karina 's life, and she was ready to capitalize.