Sadie

Basic Stats

Name: Sadie
Alias: Knife
Species: Human / Bright-eye Wererat
Gender: Female
Age: 24
Birthplace: The Bronx, NYC, Earth
Height: 5'2" (human shape)4'9" (hyrbid form)6" (non-anthro rat) 5'11" (Full Moon measured at front shoulder)

Appearance

Human

Dressed in baggy jeans, a black denim jacket, and one of any number of random band t-shirts, Sadie could easily go unnoticed as just another disaffected youth. Despite the wear on her clothes that all suggest a second hand origin, she is otherwise very well groomed. Her shoulder length brown hair spends most of its time jammed beneath a backwards facing black baseball cap and is thus kept out of her eyes. Dark brown, often piercing, and almost always dismissive, her eyes appear almost beady at times. At best, her clothing might let her sport a farmer's tan, and the young human has nearly always something in her mouth to chew on be it a pencil, a toothpick, or gum.

In her early twenties it seems, and standing about five feet tall, her figure has matured to produce the smooth, sweeping curves of hips and thighs as well as the modest, but very well proportioned, swell of her bust. Of course, with the look in her eyes, she'd be likely to uppercut the first person who tries to get close enough to take in more than a glance of them Then again, if someone made a living working third shift at a twenty-four hour convenience store on the bad end of town, they might be a bit like her as well.

Wererat

Standing at just shy of five and a half feet tall with shoulder length brown hair only a few shades darker than her brown fur, Sadie is not the friendliest looking rat in the world. Instead, she tends to remain on the defensive while using her posture and her rather aggressive personality make up for what she lacks in size and strength. A weathered black denim jacket and a black baseball cap are perhaps the only parts of her wardrobe to have survived her use with any grace. With partial splits along the seams her jeans have seen better days, and her t-shirt, a bargain bin special, bears tears as well that appear to have come from simple over-stretching. Cuts have been made in the side of her shirt to allow her petagium, or gliding membrane, some room, a trait that suggests she is not entirely rat or at least she is not a normal rat. The rest of it has been forced into her jeans while her jacket helps hide the rest as it seems so he a bit sensitive about this new adaptation. While fur covers her body, her feet, paws, and tail all bear little to no fur. Her tail, a long and rather stout appendage, is nearly as long as she is tall. Her body is quite anthropomorphic, and as such she has breasts which are not overly large, but the tightness of her t-shirt makes them seem larger. However, her brown, beady eyes bear a look that almost says 'don't even think about it.'

Non-Anthro Rat

At first glance, Sadie could be easily mistaken for a common brown rat. Roughly nine inches from the tip of her nose to the base of her tail with easily that much furless tail to match, she is almost what you would expect to find in a non-morphic rat. Dark beady eyes, a tiny pink nose, and slightly yellowed incisors don't really make her look friendly or docile, and her claws are just a little too stout for her species. Unlike other rats, however, she has petagium or gliding membranes that join the back of her forelegs to the front of her hind legs and allow her to glide from heights safely, a side effect of her species of wererat adapting to circumstances that occurred during her full moon transformation.

Full Moon

The full moon is a special time for Sadie. Even though Spindizzy lacks a classical moon, Sadie still transforms to this shape every twenty eight days without fail, and every time is a nightmare. Taking on the shape of a non-morphic rat three feet tall at the shoulder and twice as long in the body, she's not the biggest monster out there, but she is very fast and quite agile. Her hardened claws can tear through concrete and her piercing incisors can chew walls and even the thinner steel used in auto bodies. Trying to get the jump on her from behind would meet a painful end give the long bone spines jutting out from her spine and partway along her ribcage. This is the night when she can, and does, evolve new traits to try and get around any issue that blocks her on that night, and one such adaptation is her petagium or gliding membranes similar to that of flying squirrels. Violent and difficult to control, Sadie holds one secret that would make hunters wince: on this night and only this special night is she immune to silver.

Accumulated Mutations

Because she is a bright-eye, Sadie has a chance to mutate and gain new traits each full moon if selection pressure is applied. She currently possesses the following:

• Abrasive Claws Because she was often contained during full moons using bank vaults and other such structures, Sadie's claws have hardened and becomes textured enough to be able dig through concrete and scour her way through steel given time.
  
• Petagium When trapped in an air column system, Sadie evolved the same sort of membranes that her not so distance coustins, flying squirrels, use. Her figure remains dominantly brown rat, but she possess the membranes from wrist to ankle on her sides that let her glide.

Sadie's Story

Earthly Origins

Sadie was born on Earth to a mother who had a habit of sleeping with every utility man in the neighborhood and a father that knew she was not his daughter but was too busy with gambling to care. Her family moved from the Bronx to Roxbury in Boston when she was still quite young. Sadie spent much of her time stuffed in closets so no one would see her or otherwise ignored. Sitting in the back yard of her home, she was in the wrong place when a neighbor shot a rat off her roof with a BB gun. The rat fell and scratched her arm, and this rat happened to have a name. Zeke was as close to pure-bred bright-eye wererat as one could get, and Sadie was immediately infected by the scratch.

Feeling responsible, Zeke stayed with Sadie to watch over her as a ward, teaching her how to be a wererat, and hiding her traits from her parents. When she was old enough to go to school, he hid in her bags and helped her learn. Sadie was not the best for book smarts, but some things she took to naturally. Thankfully, she had Zeke to see her through most of that until she was twelve years old.

Her father's gambling issues led him to borrow money from all the wrong places, and eventually collection agents showed up. These sort came with silenced pistols instead of subpoenas, and Sadie was once again in the wrong place at the wrong time. Seeing her as a financial obligation, Sadie was shot in the stomach, and she fell on the tiled floor of the kitchen. It was her first experience with regeneration, and it was also something Zeke had always feared. When pushed, Sadie tended towards the offensive, and as he body changed to a hybrid rat, she took a chef's knife from its block and attacked the shocked mob goons and her parents. With rat's speed and human rage, she killed both agents and left her parents cowering in a corner in a house filled with blood and bodies, and that was how she left home.

From then on, she stayed with Zeke. Zeke lost his standing with his home nest after the incident with Sadie, and the two were forced to manage as best they could. Zeke was a loving rat, but always like a father or a keeper and never like a lover. Still, he was all Sadie had, and with his help she survived high school and even started technical school to train as a mechanic. When the hunters came for them, Zeke made her stay behind, and he and many others perished trying to defend themselves. It was there Sadie saw what happens when magic and bright-eyes intersect, and it was also there that she watched the only person that cared for her die. The next morning, she found his hat and decided to leave Earth behind. She lived in slums for another two years before finding a way to hide on a ship and escape a world that had nothing for her.

Arrival and Discovery on Spindizzy

Life in the Slums

Without contacts, money, or much for marketable skills on Spindizzy, Sadie quickly went from tiny stowaway in a cargo hold to a penniless bum in the slums left in the wake of a zombie invasion long before her arrival. Out on the street she had two things going for her: excellent skill with knives, including throwing knives, and her ability to survive otherwise lethal injuries. In fact, Sadie's street name is Knife, and Zeke named her this for two reasons. The first was obvious and had to do with her skill with small blades, but the second was more philosophical. Zeke likened Sadie to a blade in that handling her the wrong way was a sure way to get yourself hurt or killed, but if you know how to handle and respect a blade, it can be your best friend in harsh times.

It wasn't for lack of trying to do something with herself, but Sadie struggled to hold a job for more than a few months which was generally long enough for her cyclical issues to force her back into hiding. Out on the street, she took to taking what she needed, and a hatred of organized crime led her to attack locations held by gangs or mobs for materials including food and drugs. Her seemingly immortal nature turned her into a shoot on sight threat, and as often as she hunted them, they hunted her back. In the end, it was life on an urban battlefield, and Sadie relied heavily on drugs like meth and PCP to keep her alert and ignore the pain of injury when in a fight.

Sadie was, and is, not all tooth and claw. Because of how she was treated as a child, Sadie is incredibly defensive when it comes to the welfare of children, especially the homeless. She lost plenty of jobs working on convenience stores by stealing food and basic medical supplies to tend to some of the orphaned children living in the slum with her. Sadie was never an angel, but she was one of few that stood up for those that couldn't fight. However, she couldn't get them homes or otherwise get them out of the slums, and every time one of them died, she collapsed inwards on herself.

By the time Rock, and Aina from the SED, found her, she was living in the attic of a condemned building drinking vodka and tequila, tossing back drugs by the fistful, and sleeping with a shotgun in her arms.

First Encounters with the SED

The first encounter with the SED was actually with Morticon while he was passing through the relatively lawless strip that Sadie haunted. A minor confrontation quickly escalated into a show of lethal force, and Sora, who was covering Morticon from a distance with her .50 cal rifle, shot Sadie when the rat drew her blade. A solid hit through the chest put Sadie down, but only for about half a minute before her regeneration became sufficient for her to stand again. At that point Morticon was at her mercy and driven into the sewer tunnels. This encounter, however, would not be how she started working with the SED.

A very first heavy Aina was dispatched to deal with Sadie. What Aina was not prepared for was seeing a young female tigress end up dead due to malnutrition and otherwise trivial illness. Sadie forced Aina to help her bury the child as 'no one else here will if we don;t.' Laying to rest a child of her own species changed something deep inside Aina. Some days later, Aina would return to try and find Sadie. the children that were squatting with her were both dead, and Sadie barricaded herself in the attic curled up in a corner with her shotgun. The wererat had nothing left, had no will to go on, and no means to kill herself. Aina took it on herself to take Sadie away from that place, and with Sadie tucked on the back of her motorcycle, she took the rat from the slums.

Rock and Knife

Sadie suffers from relatively severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and one rough night is all it takes to fill her dreams with nightmares she's trapped by them even when awake. This presents a dangerous situation for Aina to diffuse when Sadie is regularly balling herself up in defensible positions with guns or blades. In addition to this, Sadie is a meth and PCP addict and an alcoholic, all compensatory measures against her PTSD. Aina, who proves able to take any abuse Sadie could dish out, slowly weaned Sadie off the hard drugs and got her down to at least beer as a source of alcohol. Aina became the one thing that held Sadie's world together, and that is how she came to be known as Rock. Aina was the rock, the foundation, on which Sadie stood, and without her, Sadie would be right back where she was.

Rock has since been able to stabilize Sadie further by supporting her on full moon nights. Only once they lived together in an apartment did Rock discover Sadie's irrational fear of kitchens that goes back to her being shot as a child, and once again Rock was able to slowly help Sadie face her fears. Sadie's greatest fear, that of infecting Rock, was eliminated by the meddling of the spirit rat, Plethorat, and his ability to hook Rock up with a very special allies of his that imbued Rock with the power of a druid. As a user of nature magic, Rock was now in a position to care for Sadie no matter what.

Bright-Eye vs. Traditional Therianthropes

Evolutionary arms races have been a part of all life since its beginnings whether or not it was guided by other entities including gods and spirits. A predator learns a new way to hunt, and the prey finds a new way to survive. Humans learned to use tools and tactics to outsmart and even prey upon the world's predators including wolves, tigers, and bears. As civilization grew, the primal spirits imbued the old predators with new tricks, and they created the infections that made werewolves and more. Powerful and hidden among the ranks of mundane humans, they enjoyed a time where they dominated the food chain, and there was a therianthrope for nearly every large predator from the legendary werewolves and weretigers to the less known werethylacine. Given time, humanity responded with the powers of the arcane and the divine to root out these hidden adversaries and drive them nearly to extinction. However, that only meant it was the primals time time adapt.

There are only four species of bright-eye therianthropes: wolf, tiger, bear, and rat. The rat, a surprising twist in the evolution of therianthropes, often thrived in cities with recruitment rather than hunting being their focus, and they carried on into the bright-eye lineage. Bright-eyes are named because of the pale yellow-green glow in their eyes when they are active, and they are caused by a different infectious agent than older were-creatures. They also are the only creatures of their type that actively evolve on every lunar cycle, and they have been selected to hunt and destroy sources of arcane and divine power.

Physical Differences

Bright-eyes are all slower and weaker than their traditional relatives, but they still vastly exceed the skills of normal humans. The primary benefit that a bright-eye possesses is its regenerative abilities. A bright-eye can regenerate entire limbs in minutes or sometimes less. Unless they are saturated with silver or decapitated, they will rapidly regenerate. As long as the head is attached to the torso, bright-eyes can survive loss of all four limbs and half their torso. The power needed for this, which is evident in the glow in their eyes, comes directly from the primal energy plane. This makes them creatures of natural magic.

Lunar Cycle and Evolution

Bright-eyes are tightly bound to the lunar cycle even when on worlds that lack moons. It is more precise to say that they start their cycle in sync with the one who infected them and proceed on a perfect 28 day cycle from then on. Four main stages can be identified as unique in the cycle.

Waxing Phase

During the waxing phase, which corresponds to the time between new and full moon, the bright-eye's body grows increasingly active and begins causing a plethora of random mutations that remain mostly silent until the full moon. As the full moon draws closer, bright-eyes get more anxious and active, and this is when they are most prone to infecting new members rather than killing targets outright.

The Full Moon

At the height of their power, the bright-eye enters a stage of greater power and assumes a shape that is unique to the cycle. They are larger, stronger, and for that one night, they are immune to silver. In fact, any silver in their body will be purged on the full moon. What is most extraordinary though is their evolution on that night. Trapped in a vault of stone, they will evolve better claws to cut their way out. Trapped underwater, and they might grow gills or some other means of becoming amphibious. Every full moon is a chance, not a guarantee, that there will be an evolutionary change. These changes persist with the individual but are not passed on to new infections. There is insufficient data to know if they may pass some of them on to live births.

Waning Phase

After the full moon, the bright-eye's body is riddled with mutations, and if not pruned, they could actually kill the bright-eye. The waning phase is a powering down from the full moon to the new moon, and it provides time for their bodies to trim out unneeded or dangerous mutations and reestablish more normal physiology.

New Moon

Unlike the older types of therianthropes, the Bright-Eye has a New Moon phase as well as a full moon. During the new moon, bright-eyes are forced to assume their native shapes, and their regenerative properties are greatly diminished. This forced them to lay low for a few days surrouning the new moon and provides the final reset and preparation for the next cycle.

Virus and Infection

The virus or other means of infection that traditional therianthropes seems to be species linked and this could be a reason for how difficult it has been to identify and neutralize them. Bright-eyes, however, all come from a single virus that can yield four different species.

The virus encodes a small genome with only a few proteins that are responsible for targeting, packaging, and generation of the bright-eye. While virus can be made in any cell, the infectious variant only occurs in the presence of saliva where enzymes cleave several coat proteins and make them active. This is why the bite is the most potent route of infection. Claws, usually on the fingers, become infectious due to compulsive nail-biting behaviors that spread the virus from mouth to fingers. The virus remains viable for several days after leaving the body but can be cleared from objects with detergents.

The proteins not responsible for new infections and spread in the body instead produce a new, tiny organelle in the cells that consists of several small rings to form a barrel like structure. The hallow in this structure forms a portal to the primal energy plane and becomes the link that provides the bright-eye with all its energy. Cyclical variation, tied to the lunar cycle, varied the output of these organelles leading to the observed phenotype. It is possible for the channel to produce so much much power that it can fuel the whole cell and therefore body meaning a bright-eye could survive some time in space or underwater without dying, but they become unresponsive without normal metabolism as well.

Reaction to Arcane and Divine Powers

As mentioned before, the bright-eye is an answer to the involvement of arcane and divine power. When a bright-eye is hit by an arcane or divine spell, their primal energy conduits are cast wide open, and they will immediately adapt to the attack that was used on them. For instance, a fireball won't kill a bright-eye but instead turn it into a huge hybrid monster of flame that tracks the caster and kills it before proceeding to attack anything else in the vicinity. This transformation comes wight a steep price in that the bright-eye will fight and mutate until it is slain or mutates to death. Unlike the full moon, this can occur out of cycle and is thus lethal. Only primal magic, that of druids and shaman, can shut down and save a bright-eye once it goes off. Druidic and shamanic magic do not cause this shift in form because they are of the same type as the bright-eyes power source. It is worth noting that psionic powers do not set off this reaction either, but a psion cannot save a bright-eye from magic-poisoning.