Basic Stats

Name: Shadowstalker
Alias: Chris Shale
Height: 3’0”, 4’ if up on his toes and tail tip
Weight: 60 lbs
Eyes: green
Coloration Light gray, white belly, chest, throat. Dark gray stripes on back, arms, tail, and legs. Black ear tips, fingers, toes, tail tip.
Other Traits: Retractable claws. Fangs always show even when muzzle is closed.
Model: P16 SSE Mk. II Prototype
Purpose: Long range ground recon. Sniper support. Engineering.
Shadow's Voice: Johnny from Better Off Dead
Theme Song: Destination Unknown by Marietta

Theme Song and Personal Meaning

Shadowstalker's theme features the lines 'Never gone this way before, got to go it alone. Oh oh oh, Destination Unknown' and 'Have to walk the wire just to catch my breath' The meaning of these lines to Shadowstalker is in how they relate to the constant battle of being a monster and being a person, being a and being the maker of war machines while wanting nothing more than peace, and being forced to always look to the horizon rather than behind.

As a character, Shadowstalker is about as close to a totem animal as I have. Because of that thick tail, wallabies and kangaroos don't do moving backward all that great, so they are forced to always move forward even if that means going in a circle. He also has a lot of things I wish I had like good eyesight, musical talent, and more. His existence as a reaper is about as close to dealing with the idea of death as I have managed as I have no other faith. The idea that death and reapers could be means there could also be something beyond this life, and that is about as much religion as I do. I'd like to believe if I ever found something I felt I could believe in.

Initial Design and Testing

Unit Design

The P16 SSE Mk. II Shadowstalker was designed to be a small, lightweight, and long distance scout suitable for mass production and demanding sufficiently little resources during production that they could be considered disposable. The wallaby frame was chosen as it was low profile and capable of long range travel without mechanical assistance. Large cat components, including a mix of cheetah, tiger, and snow leopard were thought to help in agility, ferocity, and cold weather tolerance. The SSE designation encompasses the following:

Sniper

Small light-weight Gauss and particle beam weapons made it possible to equip the Shadowstalker with long range assault power and pointpoint support functions. The Shadowstalker comes equipped with advanced target tracking and long range targeting suites.

Spycraft

More so than its attack functions, the Shadowstalker was built to serve as a scout and infiltration unit. To accomplish this, the unit possesses a high processing capability and suitable interfaces for organic to machine interfaces to be establish as part of hacking and sabotage operations. Data acquired by Shadowstalker units are kept encrypted to prevent simple access.

Engineering

When and of the XXE series engineering units is not on the field, it is not kept mothballed or in stasis. Instead, the same processing capability used for its other functions are redirected to weapon and vehicle design suitable for enhancing its performance on the field and ensuring the security and success of the company.

Production Notes

The prototype proved to be very silent and difficult to judge until it was trained for communication using non-vocal media. For this purpose, he was provided with a flute as a test of his auditory systems. Acceptance and adaptation were swift, and when deprived of the flute, his natural range was used to imitate it, making it possible to integrate him into the broader harmonic encryption interface. Shadowstalker project lead Mark Sethering was brought in on suspicion of being a subversive, but proof was brought to bear to warrant his removal and the destruction of his design.

Role in the Escape from Tak'Nhet

Shadowstalker did not play a primary role in the escape of the P16 series from containment. He, along with the other engineering and subterfuge class units were instead pivotal in the rapid development and production of advanced weapons that allowed for their escape after the HC units had secured their unchallenged escape from the development wing and into the factory.

Life After the Escape

Void Infusion

As a manufactured organic unit, Shadowstalker did not possess a soul. This made him highly vulnerable to attack from those that could use him as a vehicle or as a tool. It so happened that he was captured and subjected to testing that he has never divulged to anyone, and this testing resulting in the vacancy being filled by void magic. This would later lead to powers such as leaching life away, causing rapid decomposition and corrosion to non-organic structures, and some metastable shapeshifting.

Offspring

Of direct consequence to the testing that produced his void form, Shadowstalker produced one organic offspring in the form of a electric/void vixen named Alexadra Stardust Marcus. Dr. Marcus went on to live a successful life as an alternative energy engineer and a general nuisance to the Society of Evil Doers on Spindizzy. The first Asreal, Sabre, can also be claimed as his offspring, and they have been the most successful in propagating their kind. The Voidwalker Malachie is a direct clone of Shadowstalker that was warped by the void energy present in all of Shadowstalker's cells, and he serves as the first of his race.

The Missing Years

Sometime after his life on Spindizzy and before he emerged in full force during the Hycyanth war, Shadowstalker went missing. During the span of the next few hundred years, he discovered he was not aging and only growing more unstable as a void entity. To control this, he ended up enlisting in the Army of Anubis and served under the ancient god of death for the better part of a century before transitioning to study under another pyschopomp, Charon. It was during this time that he gained greater control and stability with his unnatural powers, and when he returned, he brought this with him.

The Hycyanth War

Shadowstalker was a prominent and feared person during the war. His technological expertise when combined with others of his kind resulted in an explosion ot technology made to defend against and slaughter the Hycyanth. However, with highly advanced Hycyanth remained a match for them throughout all 3000 years of the conflict. First built on the TNV Intrpid and later made much more dangerous as the core of the TNV Merrimack, his advanced gravitic weapons were capable of crushing planets and even causing supernovae.

The Hycyanth referred to Shadowstalker as The Scourge for his death defying abilities and the power to do extensive damage to the partially organic Hycyanth ships. He is also known for leading the Voidwalker assault on a Hycyanth planet resulting in all organic life being erased from it prior to the full firing the the TNV Merrimack's gravitic cannon resulting in the destruction of an entire star system containing extensive shipyards.

After the War

After the war, fear of Shadowstalker, and a few others, was so great that it hindered peace talks. In the end, the only people who could contain SHadowstalker safely were the Voidwalkers who shared his dark energy if to a lesser but more stable degree. The wallaby spent the better part of a century silently kept in a few room where he could be monitored, a sentence he never objected to or fought against. In the end, he saw it as repentance for his actions in the war however they may have been justified, and he only wanted peace. Peace for his kin, and the peace of death that seemed it would never come to him.

Eventually Samael, an angel of death, came to Shadowstalker and laid claim to his soul. Shadowstalker's body was found resting quietly in a chair, and his death was confirmed. He left only a recording behind stating he hoped his passing would secure a peace that was long due, and he begged his kin not be blamed or feared for what he had done. The recording is kept to this day in the wreckage of the TNV Merrimack as part of the grave and memorial it now represents.

Life as a Reaper: Dead and Loving It

Shadowstalker exists at this time as a reaper with the task of securing and protecting souls during their passage from this world to the next they are destined for. He is considered to be a defensive reaper as his abilities to 'attack' consist primarily of defensive measures and wards to keep his souls safe. Because he was a master of time and space travel, and because he was the cause of billions of deaths, Shadowstalker is known as a Cataclysm Reaper. He is called in dor natural disasters and acts of war or genocide where death tolls range from hundreds to thousands. To accomplish his task, he produces time echoes that appear as clones that act on their own, and when their function collapses again, the combined experiences of the echos becomes one once more. Shadowstalker is not deployed often, but it is always a hard task when he is. He sees this as finally being able to use his dark soul as a force for good, and he takes his job seriously.

Of Waffles

When Shadowstalker is not on the clock, he can often be found in a local waffle house getting waffles and coffee. He is sociable, gentle, and generally well mannered and matter of fact. He usually hides his robes and scythe as other items on his person, benefits of the job, and he will take occasional tasks as a ferryman for those of the living seeking to cross to the land of the dead and return. He does not use much of his old technology if at all, and he does not give away the secrets of the things he once made. He does, however, life his back scratched.

First Reaping

Shadowstalker's First Reaping was a very difficult affair, but it is also a huge part of who he is and what he now does.

Reassignment to Search and Rescue

At one point Shadowstalker stopped receiving orders for new disasters and ended up falling in with Spindizzy locals Maynard and Kandra as they took on the task of doing deliveries for the Dead Letter Office. Shadowstalker felt this was suspect given the nature of the deliveries and his work, but in each delivery he saw something of salvation for souls that might not otherwise find it. Even he set the path of a soul to a different direction because of the delivery he was charged with. He expected the usual to pick up again once he was finished, but he never received more assignments.

After a few weeks, a letter instead of the standard post-it note was left for him. The letter was written in ancient Egyptian and came from the office of Anubis. It was deemed that after his work over the ages as a cataclysm reaper that his soul was deemed ready for reassessment, and judgement had already been passed. He would no longer be a cataclysm reaper, but he was still not worthy of any final resting place in the planes beyond. Given his experience as a guardian for souls both under Charon and Samael, it was decided that he would be moved to the Search and Rescue department which specializes in retrieving souls that had, for whatever reason, not been given the chance for fair judgement. He would also, when the task warranted it and he was charged with such, be in charge of forcefully removing interference up to and including revoking immortality from beings such as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, etc...

Because Shadowstalker's skills focused around defensive abilities mean tot protect a target, he would be assigned a partner who specializes in offensive capabilities. Ivy Lee , a feathertail glider, would be joining him. She has her own story regarding her afterlife, but the important detail is that she serves Sekhmet and has been trained as a warrior by her. For better or worse, the two would be paired until such time as a reassessment was deemed necessary.

Tak'Nhetians

Races

Technology

Spacecraft
TNV Weapons

Shadowstalker

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