Selkirk, Stormcrow

Physical Description and Characteristics

Stormcrow is a sturdy young she-kat. Originally on the plump side, she has kept in better shape since joining the MBI, but still has a bit of a tummy due to her eating habits. She has naturally scruffy yellow-gold fur, and heavy golden-brown hair that reaches a few inches past her shoulders. Her eyes are dark gold and slant slightly.

Stormcrow is a fairly casual dresser, going for t-shirts and jeans with her trademark black hightop sneakers. She usually wears her hair loose under a headband, but ties it back for field work, where it has a tendency to come undone the more intensely she uses her powers. Unlike many of the female agents, she loves dressing up, but lack of funds keeps her from doing so too often.

Like most teenagers, Stormcrow is still growing and figuring out who she is. Her past has given her a deep longing for love and stability: fighting within a group makes her miserable, and if someone shows her kindness, she can be loyal and trusting to a fault. Authority figures are a source of conflict for her: she feels compelled to defer to them (although she has been loosening up with time), but she will react fiercely, even violently, to anything she sees as confining or controlling her against her will.

Stormcrow is not a coward, but the dangers of Megakat City often leave her emotionally (and physically) shaken. Although slow to forgive, she can be protective of people she sees as being in situations like hers.

Abilities

Stormcrow is a magical pyrokinetic. She can generate fire and heat from her hands, and shape the fire as long as she “holds” it. She mostly uses this power to throw fireballs as a weapon. Stormcrow cannot control fire she does not generate, and if the fire she generates catches on something, she loses control over it.

Stormcrow’s pyrokinesis has an odd side-power: the ability to “condense” her body, and anyone she takes with her, into a dot of magic energy, and zip in a straight line in any direction. In this form, she can pass through almost any form of matter. However, she has to be extremely careful where she stops: if part of her body re-forms inside solid matter, such as a wall, that part will “merge” with the matter. Not only is merging very painful, but if vital organs merge, she could die.

Since her powers are magic-based, Stormcrow is vulnerable to the same things as other mortal magic-users. Aside from this, she is an ordinary she-kat of average strength and stamina.

Relationships

She has come to see the MBI as a second home and family, but remains close to her mother Dana, friend-turned-stepfather Bexa, and younger half-sister Sethunya.

Past History

Elizabeth was born in Cymric City, a university town a hundred miles to the north of Megakat City. Her parents, Geoffrey Merle and Dana Selkirk, had married out of high school, but Geoffrey left before she was born. Dana and her daughter moved in with Dana’s mother, who helped to raise Elizabeth while Dana went back to school. Elizabeth’s grandmother died when Elizabeth was 7. To help bring in money, the Selkirks took in a boarder: a young author named Abexami Kgosi.

Elizabeth had a happy, if somewhat chaotic kittenhood. Her mother and Bexa got her interested in art and reading, but they tended to let her run wild, and Elizabeth wanted a stable adult presence. When Elizabeth was 11, Dana became a professor of art history at the university. The next few years were the first truly stable life Elizabeth had known, and she still clings to the memory of that time.

It ended when Elizabeth was 15, and Dana met and married Keith Thomason, a very respectable accountant. Keith resented Elizabeth from the start, and she returned the feeling, especially after he made drastic changes to their home and took every step to cut her and Dana off from the outside world, and from each other.

The final straw came the night Keith forced Bexa to move out. Elizabeth and her stepfather got into a violent argument, and when she grabbed his arm, his sleeve burst into flame. Keith claimed assault and shipped Elizabeth to St. Agatha’s Institute for Difficult Girls, where she spent the next four months in a state of shock, unable to figure out what had caused the fire.

When the winter holiday came, an elderly tom-kat came to St. Agatha’s and took Elizabeth out, claiming to be her grandfather. This was Prof. Oliver Graywalker, an old friend of Bexa, who had planned the rescue. Elizabeth told them about the mysterious fire, and Graywalker recognized what had happened: the rush of emotion had woken latent magical power in Elizabeth.

She spent the next six months in hiding with Bexa and Graywalker, learning from Graywalker how to control and strengthen her still-weak power. Keith did not seem to be looking for her, but the three knew Elizabeth could not stay in Cymric, and made plans for her to go to Megakat City until her 18th birthday, figuring she’d have a better chance of staying hidden there. Elizabeth packed her things and headed for the city, where she took the name Stormcrow Merle.

Once “Stormcrow” arrived in Megakat City, she spent several weeks living on the streets, until she was attacked by Rilth, and met the newly formed MBI. At first, Stormcrow was reluctant to talk to the agents, fearing that they would send her back to Keith. However, when they not only protected and welcomed her, but also gave her a job as the Bureau’s receptionist, she grew to trust them.

When Stormcrow fled from Jack Spinner, she missed her weekly check-in call to Bexa, and he came to Megakat City to find her. After Rilth was defeated, Bexa decided to stay in the city to watch over Stormcrow, and they moved into an apartment together. Among other adventures over the next few months, Stormcrow traveled through time, broke out of prison on Devil’s Island, went on the run from the NSA, helped bring McGrath back from the dead, grew to giant-size to fight Swytch, and taught Tansy and Assana to make smoothies.

With help from Wanda Forge, Stormcrow and Bexa eventually managed to get Dana away from Keith, and brought her to Megakat City. The three of them lived together at first, a mixed experience for Stormcrow; although she was glad to have her family back, she’d gotten used to being independent, and Dana being uncomfortable with her daughter’s job didn’t help. When Dana and Bexa began a relationship, Stormcrow took the opportunity and moved in with Gracie Patterson.

Stormcrow’s 18th birthday came while she was away helping her mother. She returned to the MBI and applied to become a full agent, and after passing basic training (without using her powers), she earned her badge and uniform.

Where Character is Concurrently

Stormcrow has mostly overcome her past doubts and settled into her career as an agent. A firm believer in “with great power comes great responsibility”, she sees law enforcement, especially the MBI’s brand, as the best way to make use of her magic. However, while she enjoys her job and is friends with many of her co-workers, she knows that she isn’t as good an agent as most of them, and deep down, she believes that the Bureau only keeps her on because her powers are useful.

Even though she lives on her own, Stormcrow finally has the stable family she’s always wanted: her mother and Bexa have married, and she recently became a big sister. Her family’s safety, however, is yet another worry.