Aurora 'Acuity' Granger

Name: Aurora Granger

Designation: Subject Acuity-17 'Augur'

Nickname: Acuity

Age: 13

Species: Mobian Kitsune

Gender: Female

Occupation: Nothing consistent currently, drifting and looking for a purpose she can somewhat trust. Was a victim, black-ops agent, and intelligence gatherer of the PMC called the Onyx Vanguard before it collapsed.

Appearance: Aurora is a twintail vixen covered in silvery gray fur. She currently stands quite tall for her age at 4'0", one of the most visible physiological markers of her time as a test subject. The other most noticeable markers are her eyes, an unnaturally bright blue that verges on glowing neon coloration.

Speaking of glow, her fur has a bioluminescent quality to it. This is often not noticeable when other background or ambient light is present, but her coat has been observed to output up to 400 lumens under normal circumstances.

Aurora's tails measure nearly as long as she does tall, and their soft fluff is regularly a source of comfort for her.

Appearance References:

Aurora's prior pictures were unfortunately in a setting without kitsune, so having more than one tail is left as an exercise to the reader's imagination.

First two pictures are from her time as a Subject. Note the explosive collar.

Who Am I?:

Glowy Kitsune:

And then is one more of her during her brief time as a field agent, in a bodysuit she still keeps and uses.

Determined:

Personality: Aurora's personality was bifurcated in the past due to the extreme stresses she underwent in preadolescent years. That is, she displays traumagenic discosiative identity disorder. As such she has two distinct personalities, as follows:

Equinox is the tougher of the two. She sets pretty high standards for everyone, including herself. To help deal with stress, she places a very high value on order, discipline, and self-control with the belief that even the worst storms can be weathered by an iron will. This also led her to be quite willing to accept a military-like chain of command, such as in the PMC that experimented on and trained her. Equinox, or 'Equi' to her counterpart doesn't usually show a soft side, but is very reliable towards those few she trusts.

Solstice is the more sensitive of the pair and highly conflict-averse. She, like many others before, wishes for the path of peace. For some time she found herself highly reliant on Equinox since the latter was the only one of the pair with any backbone, but she's begun discovering her own strengths. Solstice ('Sol' to her counterpart) possesses strong insight, and while both identities are trauma-scarred she likely has the better chance of readjusting to live a somewhat normal life.

Both headmates tend to be active at the same or similar times, though severe stresses can shut Solstice down while Equinox doesn't tend to take interest in anything which doesn't directly concern her or her orders. The DID was discovered while Aurora was still a Subject and the project psychologist intervened, but while the pair of identities came to tolerate and even trust each other to some level they still have occasional friction...almost sisterly, in an unusual way of sharing the same body.

When the pair can help it, they're generally not very up front about being distinct entities separated by DID, partly since it brings back bad memories and partly since both need each other to get by more often than they might like to admit. Both display a substantial strength of character in different ways - Equinox by her adamant determination to see her goals through, and Solstice by her unshakable moral compass.

Known Family:
- Jasmine Granger (Mother) (+)
- Ian Granger (Father) (+)
- Aki Granger (Elder Brother) (Alive)

Likes: Equinox holds tightly to a sense of structure and discipline. She makes a model soldier or agent, taking pride in doing well whatever she's doing. As such she has respect for command structure and respect for people who prove themselves competent to her. Beyond her 'work', she has some affection for tea, quiet, writing what she remembers, and physical exercise.

Solstice is generally the more open of the pair; she appreciates meeting new people and making friends despite her frequent shyness in doing so. She is very much a peace advocate because she doesn't want anyone else to get hurt. Additionally she likes to tell stories and has some appreciation for soda, fluff, affection, and problem solving.

Dislikes: Equinox doesn't have much taste for vulnerability in herself or anyone else. Being that she holds herself to a high standard of precision and discipline, her patience can be pretty slim for an opposing lack of professionalism wherever she sees it. Further, since she's accustomed to receiving directions and orders, having lost the support of a command structure has left her uneasy with newfound independence.

Solstice has a number of simple but deeply ingrained grievances, chief among which are her problems with violence. She doesn't want to receive or inflict anything remotely resembling her old trauma and will likely bail on a situation when conflict brews unless Equinox takes charge. Similarly she tends to veer away from people who have aggressive or commanding personalities, as at this point she just wants to be left out of other people telling her what to do so she can attempt to piece herself together.

Powers: Aurora has a central primary ability of note associated with Project Acuity, plus others she either is less practiced with or are predominantly passive.

Aurora was the pride of Project Acuity's biosensor research. The vixen's awareness of the world around her exceeds that of other organic beings, and presently even exceeds that of many electromechanical sensors. She can precisely and accurately measure nearly any physical or quasi-physical phenomena in her vicinity, though she may not always be able to interpret what she senses without some degree of prior familiarity. While she has a fairly high tolerance for incoming signals (part practice, part development), she can still be overwhelmed by excessive input. Unlike most people, she doesn't have the benefit of being able to subconsciously tune anything out - instead she has to consciously ignore one or more senses to reduce this burden, which can be render her less effective via signal overload. (See Weaknesses section.)

The project also discovered that her fur had a bioluminescent quality and that she could attempt to bend light to her will...but thus far, her photokinesis is relatively weak and tends to rapidly deplete her strength. At a minimum the ability is likely to take more practice.

Strengths: In light of the genetic tinkering done by the project, Aurora enjoys minor benefits to her dexterity, strength, and constitution, the latter most notably when it comes to resisting illnesses and toxins. This also ties into her unusual height for her age.

As noted under Powers, she is very sensitive to her surroundings. This appears to lend her a level of preternatural insight, especially into things that others can't directly observe. (For instance, Chaos energies, electromagnetic fields, IR or UV light.)

As a fighter she's no slouch, preferring her knife or unarmed combat when it comes to blows, though her training and aptitude tend to better suit her for stealthy operations than rushing anyone down with a weapon.

Weaknesses: The hypersensitivity that was forced on her, one of her unique strengths, can also be used against her. For some time after Aurora developed the level of senses she has now, the volume of input data threatened to overwhelm her mind. Migraines were a fact of life at the time, and she often found that she was forgetting things or struggling to focus.

Even now that she has a mechanism to limit her input data - focusing on a few senses and tuning out others, or maintaining a slightly above average perception in general - she can still be 'jammed' by input flooding. In areas with high levels of sound or light, for instance, most other people could potentially adjust to the environment or or gradually tune out the extremes. Aurora, in this same situation, essentially has to ignore her hearing or vision respectively for the given examples because too much input threatens her mind and she can't help paying attention without ignoring the sense outright. Similarly, she is more vulnerable than most to being stunned by sudden sensory changes.

Aurora also carries around a certain degree of social awkwardness. Being violently ripped from her family (twice) as a preteen, used as a test subject and tool, and ongoing psychological hurdles with little support network lead her to be somewhat reticent around other people and poorly socially adjusted. She can hold a conversation, but generally only until she runs out of things to say.

It may also be noted that she currently still has an implant in the back of her neck from her time in captivity. This was intended to be able to neutralize her for retrieval by discharging into her spine and temporarily paralyzing her. The frequency and command codes to activate this switch were thought lost when her captors lost their HQ and scattered, but as long as some survive who can say for sure?

Equipment: Notable is her favorite hoverboard, its appearance modeled after Extreme Gear. Mechanical engineering was not her primary area of expertise, but with some guidance from her former overseers she personally assembled the silver and cyan board that she calls reminiscent of the often snowy landscape where she was born. For the time being she does the maintenance herself so far as it's somewhat routine, gradually working on growing her technological understanding of mechanical engineering.

The vixen also carries a combat knife that she had during training, which is one of very few blades that she is comfortable using as a weapon. She's not particularly keen to go into details, though the blade is certainly an object of some sentiment for her.

Positive Relations:
- Herself, if that makes sense. While her two constituent identities don't always get along, the pair do share a level of trust despite regularly coming to conflict about methods or execution.
- If she finds her older brother Aki again, he's probably one of very few people she'd be able to readily trust.

Negative Relations:
- What remains of the Onyx Vanguard, aside from others who were test subjects at the same time. Mixed up with a confused sense of loyalty that was beaten into her but now slowly fades...she has a smoldering anger against the organization that tortured her, experimented on her, and trained her as its weapon. Particular vendettas are against the project director, a stoat named Hazel and her later commander, a crayfish named Abomi. Both are still at large.
- Insofar as the Vanguard (and her time with it) was a proxy for furthering the Eggman Empire's goals while keeping the latter's hands relatively clean, she has problems with the Empire.

History: Aurora's story started in the backwater subarctic town of Stonebrook. She lived a fairly quiet life through age 7. On the winter solstice, the day of her 8th birthday, Stonebrook held a celebration for the start of the season - same as every season.

This time, however, hostile forces awaited the festival to carry out an ambush and raid the town on intelligence that propaganda and research efforts were being orchestrated from the remote location. Once the town's guard was lowered amidst the party, the attackers struck. Most of the residents were killed or captured in the ensuing fire. Aurora's family fled, but both Aurora and her elder brother Aki were severely injured by the fire while escaping. Behind them, the town was razed by the unquenched flames.

A weary band of refugees left Stonebrook, fleeing to the next remote town several days away by hike. Having been eluded by their targets, the raiding party pursued and attacked the refugees, killing the adults and scattering the children. Aurora watched her parents perish while hiding behind them, and fled while her elder brother was left for dead due to the extent of injuries he'd taken from the blaze of Stonebrook.

Aurora was recovered by a rescue party that had been sent in a response to a distress signal, received from Stonebrook once the fire became uncontrollable. Some few survivors were recovered, but others were lost in the tundra. Her elder brother Aki survived as his injuries from the second attack were fairly minor compared to the much deeper burn scars, but he remained unresponsive.

This largely formed the pattern for the following two years or so. The vulpine pair were taken in by a porcupine family, and a fractured sense of normalcy started to fuse back together. Aki eventually reopened his eyes, and though he needed respiratory assistance he could stand and get around again. It could have ended there, new happiness sown after tragedy.

It didn't end there.

Around age 10, having been identified as a likely candidate for Project Acuity by agents of the Onyx Vanguard trawling poorly secured medical record databases, Aurora was soon after targeted at the center of a kidnapping. She was taken by night, transferred repeatedly, often unconscious, until she was imprisoned in the Vanguard's underground research facility. Stories of her time could and have filled volumes, but note the following for summary:

While the general specifications of Project Acuity are chronicled elsewhere, the primary area of focus for Aurora was in sensory sensitivity in an attempt to build off her synesthesia. While she does carry scars from her days as subject 'Augur' - both physical and mental scars - she is considered such a success that her neural scans were passed up the PMC's R&D chain (and back to their Imperial clients) to help develop next generation sensor systems. The vixen herself has access to a wide array of fine-grained sensitivity.

There are, of course, drawbacks. Starting with her heightened capacity to perceive, one of the most major limitations encountered by the research was that the volume of input regularly threatened to overwhelm Aurora. She resolved this issue personally, out of necessity, by physiologically adapting a capacity to ignore selected senses at will...but not before the stress of living as a prisoner and compulsory test subject started to fragment her psyche. She's lived with DID since then (see Personality section), Equinox the tougher identity who took the brunt of stress while Solstice retained some part of her innocence but is almost scared of her alter. Even with psychological help, both identities struggle at times with migraines, broken trains of thought, forgetfulness, and emotional instability.

Much of the following two-plus years of research and training in captivity is unprintable. The only people who Aurora felt could understand her were the other Subjects, many of whom did not survive. She underwent training that aimed to strip her of nearly everything but her loyalty and her obedience - including lengthy, painful counterintelligence training.

About two and a quarter years after being captured, Aurora was told she was ready - she had become rather reliant on her captors and finished a small amount of additional training, aiming to prepare her for field agent duty as an intelligence gatherer and special operative. While the site's psychological staff expressed concern about qualifying an agent who was confirmed to have DID, the skills and abilities Aurora had developed were exemplary (particularly when Equinox was in command).

The young kitsune had a goal and a certain degree of freedom now so long as she carried out the orders she regularly received from her employers. She was sent from the base to maintain position and cover in the hub city Station Square. Thrust rapidly into adult life after having had much of her childhood marred, she remained quite busy trying to stabilize in her current situation. Unfortunately what little stability she managed did not remain for long.

Scarcely a season since she'd been distantly deployed on full-time duty, G.U.N. raids in various areas followed up suspicious activity potentially linked to the Empire. Most pertinent to Aurora, the Onyx Vanguard HQ was captured in a firefight along with some officers and a substantial quantity of sensitive documents. This severed her command structure, her wages, her goals, and her support network.

Aurora has been in a conflicted state in the couple of months since. She can't express loyalty to the Vanguard due to its sudden dismantlement...and the trauma she went through at its hands is not lost on her. At the same time, she has no special love for G.U.N. despite its involvement in taking down the Vanguard. Admitting she was related to the Vanguard, despite being predominantly a victim, would also carry risks of being prosecuted by the lawkeepers.

She's disinclined to continue potentially dodgy mercenary work which could hurt people similarly to how she was hurt, but also not really sure what to do with herself now. In the time since the Onyx Vanguard collapsed she's been independent, on her own, and unemployed, but though she was paid well as an active agent her funds are dwindling so she seeks some form of purpose once again.