Character: Terra

“Ok… I can work with this!” was the first thing I told Jessica. Maybe not the first thing, the first thing was, “Hi”, I think. Maybe “Sorry, was that your foot?” I don’t remember exactly, but NEVERMIND! By the time she wiped the blood off of the side of my Corolla hatchback, I realized she was serious, and I don’t mean like “Oh my god, that cop totally clocked me doing seventy in a fifty-five” serious. I mean, “Vampires slowly trying to kill people ” serious!

And then there were the werewolves.

She told me not to worry, except, I needed to duck because Holy Crap, there’s a werewolf! But yeah. I could work with this. All I needed was to get my head around it, which didn’t take long. It never takes that long… you just have to get motivated and organized. So I did that. She was fighting a war against supernatural forces that were so supernatural that no one even thinks of them as supernatural anymore, and I just needed to adjust my thinking.

And did I adjust!

I’m seeing things in a completely different way. My friends always used to get sick, but I never actual SAW the venom coursing through their veins before. Now, I can. My friends used to go off on each other all the time without warning, like, timebombs from Hell, and I always figured it was just hormones or astrology or something. Now, they’re hairy demons with milkbone breath, and I can work with this.

I just needed to adjust.

So Jessica asked for my help. At first, I didn’t know what a person like me could possibly do to help a person like her, but as soon as she showed me her organizer, I realized she needed more than two-sided axe heads, sharpened stakes, garlic, silver crosses, and a crap-ton of Red Bull. She needed someone to keep her between the navigational beacons.

I’m good at that. I like plans. I make plans. I stick to them. And if anyone lets me, I’ll freaking make sure they will too!

Jessica is letting me… it’s her fault.

So, there’s nightmares inside every corner of the real world now. I’m not even worried. I’ve got a plan for them too!

Between her personal trainers and her spiritual guides, and that guy in the kilt (I think something’s wrong with his brain, for the record), we’re going to keep her hacking and slashing.

And winning.

My name is Terra. I do a lot of stuff, but it’s Jessica’s stuff I’m here to keep square. I’m here for all of those points between A and Z. Here’s a hint… they don’t lie in a straight line.

Character: Lydia Englewood

Sorry for coming late to the character-party! And also, sorry for the length... It's super long. Sorry!

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Character: Lydia Englewood

So, here's the thing: I've been followed by the darkness my entire life.

I met him when I was 13: charming, smart, attractive... did I mention charming? He oozed charm. It came out of his pores. He was 16 and he liked me, gods know why. He held my hand under tables. He had these very soft, girlish hands. Like velvet. I loved them. The first time we kissed... I know this is like the dumbest thing to say ever, but fireworks went off. They really did. In my head, anyway.

One day, we were sitting on his bed, talking about...I don't know, something silly probably (we never talked about anything important), and he said to me, I wanna try something. I agreed. He took my arm, gently, lowered his mouth to my wrist and... Well. You can figure out the rest.

I think I cried out, but I couldn't hear myself over the sudden sound of beating blood. One two, one two, one two, pounding in my head like drums, like African tribal drums pounding in my head. My arm seized up; when I tried to move, I couldn't, so...I looked at him, panicked, and he looked at me, and...suddenly, I just didn't want to move anymore. And gradually, that African drum in my head became two African drums, and I realized I could hear his heart. I could hear it, feel it beating, our bodies pulsing a syncopated duet.

I was hooked.

At first, it was innocent...you know, once a week or so. He'd finger my wrist with that wry little smile, and I couldn't refuse.

Then it became more frequent. Probably because I...started asking for it. I'd nibble on his ear, brush my wrist against his lips--something subtle. He'd catch the hint immediately, probably because it was on his mind too (obviously. duh.), and he'd...you know.

Eventually we got creative. He started feeding on other parts of my body: my neck, my thigh, my breasts... I began to crave the throb of his blood coursing together with mine, the sharp slice of his teeth into my skin. He consumed me, ran circles in my brain. Like a drug. Like air. I would beg him, plead with him, please please please take my blood! And he did. How could he not?

I'm not proud of it. I'm really, really not proud of it. I lost a lot of weight. I was often sick, missed a lot of school... I almost didn't graduate. I looked in the mirror one day and thought, I don't know who I am anymore.

It was Jessica who saved me.

She was the sister I never had. When I cried, she was there. When I obsessed, she was there. She reminded me who I was. And with her support, I found the strength to leave him. I didn't know why he let me go then. I still don't. Maybe he really did love me, I don't know. But I'll tell you this: if I ever see him again, I'm putting a stake in his heart.

Jess didn't know what he was. I didn't tell her. I couldn't. I didn't want to taint her with the knowledge I now had: that shadows lie beneath. I didn't wish that on her. I didn't wish that on anybody.

When it happened...her change...I was devastated. The shadows had fallen again, this time on my best friend, and this time there was no escape. The Wolf was in her now; she was the Wolf. There was no running away, and no simple stake-in-the-heart solution.

Over the years, I've battled many creatures of darkness. They kind of follow me. My dad says it's because I'm so sweet. Heh. I have this theory it's because I knew about them now. They could smell it, that knowledge. I've struggled for a long time against the darkness. It's been a difficult road. And I've grown stronger.

When Jess was...changed...I made a vow: I would support her as she had supported me. I would help her through the darkness. And help her kick the ass of any vampire that comes her way. You know, I get behind him, you stake that sonofabitch!

We don't always keep in touch, but I am always there. I think she knows that. I hope she knows that. I am there in a pinch. When needed, I drop everything I'm doing and show up strong. I am there with support and aid. I am the Sidekick.

Our lives are totally badass.

Character: Madadh-alluidh

I met Jessi during my third year in college. The year I transferred to a new school. A new state. A new beginning. We met at a club full of different people. People who were searching for meaning in their lives and ways to express themselves. Many of the people in this group were scarred for various reasons. Jessi was full of love and light. Like a shining beacon in the darkness. I knew we would become friends. I knew she would understand.

I had been struck by Abiding Evils early in my life. Each time a little worse than the next. I had a darkness in me that I had no idea how to control. Or if I even wanted to control it. It felt so good to let the animal loose. To let myself go. To lose the human inside of me and let the animal have free reign.

Jessi was one of the few people that accepted both the animal and the human sides of me without question. She supported me during all my dark times. After my second year there we became roommates. Her and her now-husband but then boyfriend were part of my pack. I felt safe. I was always afraid that my darkness might be infectious I never dreamed of what would really come to pass.

I woke in the middle of the night to screams of agony. I recognized that sound. The air was still and pregnant with the Abiding Evils. I knew she had been claimed but not by my Wolf. By a far more sinister Wolf instead. We took her to the hospital, not knowing if there was anything they could do for her. Eventually her physical wounds began to heal. But I know as well as any other beast that the physical wounds are only the start. It is the emotional wounds—the wounds to the soul itself—that are the deepest and most difficult to heal. She had stayed by my side when few others would and so I would do for her. The Abiding Evils continue to strike out at her—trying to tear out her soul. But we won’t let that happen.

Together with our other allies we work to control our own dual-natures as well as to find and help others. Remember you are not alone. There are many others just like you and me. Every day I learn new ways to reconcile my two natures and prove that good CAN come from the animal within and that the Abiding Evils can be slain.

I am Madadh-alluidh a Night Huntress. You can call me Mad.

Character: Jamie Arktis

There is only one thing you need to know about me: I never give up. Ever.

I trained hard to fight the Evils in one of their manifestations. I spent three years walking the streets of a major city, looking for those whose minds, rather than bodies, held the Beast, who had become pariahs, shunned even by their own families. Those I found I helped to fight, to try to regain some semblance of themselves. Some improved, though they will never be the same. Some lost their limbs. A few lost their lives. And I started to lose my faith.

I started to realize that the weapons we were using to fight were woefully inadequate. I started advanced training in the hopes of finding the right combination, whatever it might take to prevent the loss of any more minds, any more souls, to the Evils, but instead I'm finding how little we really know.

I've known Jessica for a long time, since long before the Beast. It's a testament to her strength that the Beast hasn't changed her. I've never seen anybody fight like she does. She's the only one I've ever seen who can hold back the Beast--she says it's because of the magic, but I know it's because of who she is, who she's always been. Who she's destined to be. I do what I can to help, but it's not much. This isn't the Beast I was trained to fight. I don't have the right weapons.

But it's different this time. Because if anybody can beat it, Jessica can. Because I won't let a lack of weaponry make this fight harder for her. Whether I have the training or not, whether I have the right tools or not, I will help her fight, no matter what, because I know she can do it. Even if we have to make our own weapons this time.

I am the Armorer. And I never give up.

Ever.

Character: The Medium

"They always come to you."

The words of the Oracle rang through my head the first time I encountered Jessica. I knew the sound of anguish when I heard it – and for a moment, my horrible past enveloped me into the cry resonating in every fiber of my being. It was a moment later I realized that, for the first time, this cry was not my own.

My own heart had made that sound many times in the past as I watched loved ones decay, and I knew - though I had most of my training with the Enduring Blaze still in front of me - that this person was my first charge. My passion to learn about the unexplainable pain I had witnessed, and the dangerous whispers of evil temptation I had experienced led me to study the texts of the Enduring Blaze. My suffering led me to the Oracle, who taught me the role the Abiding Evils – all three of them - played in my life. So too did Jessica’s suffering lead her to me for help and relief.

Jessica met me not in person, but in a chatroom discussing the latest political storm overtaking the country. During what was a very pleasant conversation, I suddenly felt the same impulse of anguish I had experienced for the first time only months before. Moments later Jessica excused herself from the keyboard, and explained briefly that she was “experiencing pain.” I got goosebumps. “I KNOW YOU!” I exclaimed, and brought her into a private channel to reveal myself, and explain that I wasn’t a stalker. Fortunately, it didn’t take much convincing. My gut told me it was safe to share the Enduring Blaze’s mission in depth.

The Demons recognize just how big of a threat we are to the mission of the Abiding Evils. The Enduring Blaze keeps a relatively modest presence because of this – learning from many witch hunts past and present. The reason we are a threat is because we learn how to re-purpose the tactics of the Abiding Evils for the greater good – dissipating the venom of the vampires and altering it to support life instead of steal it.

We deal extensively with the rage of the Werewolves as well – bending the primal anger and fear into a discerning love of the pack. In addition to our commercial presence (we are a major sponsor of the Global Healing Conference, under a different name), we work underground to spread information to combat the Demons’ influence on the political system. While the Oracle and the Elders are practiced enough to be legally safe from the Demons’ grasp, I am not. I must remain underground for the time being to be safe from the Demons.

I am technically still a beginner - though at the beginnings of the Oracle’s time teaching, I would have been considered knowledgeable enough to practice on my own. Even though I have much to learn, this will not stop me from helping Jessica with every ounce of knowledge I possess for as long as I possibly can. Using the internet as my main form of communication - to explain what I know about channeling and re-purposing the energy of the Evils – even as I protect my identity, it is not without bemused irony that I call myself…

The Medium.

Character: Courtney Strayweather

Structure is key. Structure of mind, structure of body. Together they can make you strong. Strong enough to keep fighting. Strong enough to send the Evils running for another day.

After years I learned this, but too late. Too late for the one that counted on me. Jeremy. He had fought back the Evil’s for years. I trained him, but let him be a boy too. My mistake.

He became the Beast. He’s now a part of the darkness that threatens everyone. There’s no Jeremy left, only the Beast seeking its next victim.

I thought I was done with all this. Packing up, telling the fight to go screw itself. But my “retirement” didn’t last long.

Jessica came out to a last lecture I was giving. Basics, not that anyone cared about the basics anymore. But she did. She was so full of knowledge, but was seeking more. Becoming strong. Caring. Smiling back the darkness that threatened everything she was. She was a light.

But a fragile light.

That’s where I came in. Together we spoke for hours as I learned of her fight. How many battles she had won single-handedly already. It was amazing. She was amazing.

She wanted more. More fight, more tools, more structure. She was the one. The one that could beat it all. I could see it in her eyes, her mind and her soul.

Together I will teach her all that I know, and most importantly, work night and day to provide the structure that destroys the path of the Beast within.

I am Courtney Strayweather. I will not fail this one. She will make the difference.

Character: J.P. McHaggis

I met Jessica after the attack... the Evil had damn near killed her. But she survived, because she's too damned cussed to let the Evils win. She found me at a Global Healing Convention in the campgrounds outside of Middle-of-Nowhere Bumfug, PA, playing my pipes in my battle-green kilt among the mud-covered tents, the hemp-smoking neo-hippies, and the crystal-dripping New Agers who were convincing themselves that the Earth loved them and wanted them to be happy.

I know better.

So did Jess.

My name is J.P. McHaggis. I'm a shaman. I don't mean that in a native American sense, that all Western Americans seem to assume. I was born in Argyle, moved to Soho when I was four, Bruges when I was six, then finally Portland, Oregon, by the time I was thirteen. Why did I move so often?

The Abiding Evils had taken my mother from me, and my father fought for the rest of his life to keep the Beast at bay. He lost his fight before I finished high school...

Since then, I have spent my adult life learning how to beat back the Beast. I've learned one of many ways to leech away the Vampire's venom. And it's the last thing you would possibly imagine... sound.

I play my pipes with an alt metal band that tours North America and Europe, spreading the specific harmonic convergences that feed the soul and beat the Evils into submission. At least for a while.

When she heard my music, she felt the venom release its hold. And I knew what she was the moment she spoke to me. She had that look... that need to feel normal. Those eyes that understand what is Evil, and what is not.

I try to keep her human, every day though I'm across the world. Hers is a tough case... the venom is deep in her blood, and she has the double affliction... the Beast bite that threatens to turn her into what my father had become.

But that's not going to happen.

Not on my watch...

Character: First Draft and Missions for Allies

I was just like you once.

I had a normal family - well, normal by the modern-day standard, which probably isn't all that normal. I did a little traveling, had boyfriends, went to college. I spent my time consumed with all the mundane, boring minutia that occupy the time of those who don't know better.

And then everything changed.

I discovered, purely against my will, a whole other world, living right on top of this one. A world of darkness and terror and such amazing things that I never thought could exist. A world of vampires, and weres, and demons that live in the shadows of our lives, pulling strings and creating machinations right up to the very top of society. Nearly eight years ago, while walking home from a summer course on macroeconomics at university, I was attacked. A beast that moved with inhuman speed overtook me, mauled me, and left me bleeding on the cement. I don't know why it left me alive. Maybe it got scared off. Maybe I just didn't taste very good.

The doctors said it looked like an animal attack, but I knew they were wrong. Fire ran through my veins, and pain unlike anything I had ever experienced wracked my body. I felt different. Something moved through me, slithering under my skin. The docs released me from the hospital, but I didn't get better.

I changed.

Scared, hurting, and not knowing what was happening to me, I thought I was going to die. An animal lived inside me now, one that I could not control, and when I changed, the toll on my body was unbearable. Fortunately, a group of people found me soon after I left the hospital. They had been attacked too, and they taught me about my new life, and this other world. Some of the other newbies couldn't take it, and left to go hide away from everyone, to give up and moan the loss of who they previously were. For a while I felt like joining them.

I learned that I had been attacked by a werewolf, and that its virus now infected me. I learned about the Abiding Evils, about the secret movements of demons controlling our country, about vampires spreading their disease, and about the rage that my Wolf brought forth. I learned small amounts of magic, learning to concoct potions and spells to soothe the Wolf and keep me me. I learned that the same thing that made me strong, that made gave me incredible power, could also cripple me if I lost control. The more I learned, the more I wanted to fight.

Over the better part of a decade, I've built up my knowledge to fight these dark forces. And I've gained valuable allies to help me. I used to be like you. But now I'm a Were, leading a double life as a creature of light and darkness, and I fight for you, though you'll never know it.

My name is Jessica, and I am a Night Hunter.

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So I'm open to suggestions, and to any other ideas besides Night Hunter - Erin also suggested Shadow Hunter.  Thoughts?

Missions

I thought rather than assigning missions to people, I'd post what I needed help with and let you all decided what you wanted to do.  Here's what I've got so far (I know some of you have already volunteered for some of these, so no worries, we'll just make a record of it in the comments):

-Come up with rewards (small and large) for achievements
-Research medical info
-Find me good food to eat that adheres to my soft-foods and Crohn's restrictions, and is nutritionally balanced
-Txt me to remind me to get up and walk around during the day at work (between the hours of 8am and 4pm Mountain Time)
-Help me with WoW
-Keep me motivated for a little exercise at least 3 times a week
-Coordinate mission/achievement-giving and brainstorm other missions/achievements among other players both to give me and for each other
-Call or email me 3x per week
-Tell me funny stories or find me funny stuff on the Internet
-Help me with web programming
-Find me good music
-Help me clean my house - this obviously has to be local people, but I thought maybe we could have a big cleaning party and Matt said he'd bribe participation with tasty food
-Help me learn stress management techniques AND USE THEM
-Help me to not overexert or overexhaust myself

Feel free to add to this list - sometimes I think you guys know better what I need than I do.

*Terminology: I use "missions" to signify the things I've asked you all to help me with,as well as the tasks you given me to do, and "achievements" to mean something kind of one-and-done. In WoW terms, missions would be like quests (both for you and for me) and achievements would be, well, achievements.  Matt knows my daily routine, so he and JP can help coordinate what missions or achievements to give me, or you can look at my Superhero To-Do List.

I hope this makes sense.  Any thoughts? Feel free to claim missions in the comments - and don't worry, multiple people can claim the same missions! :)