Nicole Jinghua Mao

Jinghua Mao, better known by her alias, Nicole, was born in Huixing City in China- an overpopulated, overcrowded and impoverished hellscape full of pollution, smog and crime. Left to fend for herself at an early age, she eventually found solace in a group of like-minded individuals- a criminal girl gang called The Red Comets.

The Red Comets- particularly her charismatic partner as a junior member, Mei Lin- had an immediate effect on her. With them, she felt empowered, and had a purpose- what the local government and police would ignore, the Red Comets would fix. Using her surprisingly in-depth knowledge of mechanics and engineering, and her knack to hit punches precisely where they needed to be, Nicole and Mei rose through the ranks of the Red Comets, until eventually she became the right hand woman to Mei as vice leader of the whole gang. It was at this point that the two became lovers, and things took a turn for the worse.

A virus broke loose through Huixing, and many of the poorer inhabitants began to drop like flies. When Nicole voiced her concern to Mei, she naturally complied, and devised a plan to take matters into her own hands. Nicole was given a hit squad, and several hospitals to target- something she did ruthlessly and effectively, stealing the cure that was being developed and kidnapping the doctors developing them. Mei explained that by doing so, the Comets would have a monopoly and said cure- a cure the poor would receive for free, while the rich would need to bid for the same.

This ultimately turned out to be nothing more than a facade.

Nicole noticed after a few weeks that as time passed, the streets were growing quieter, and people who came for the cure did not show up again. She confronted Mei, and found the unsettling truth- Mei had been accumulating a hoard of mind controlled zombies, things that used to be the people who'd come to the Red Comets for healing only to be experimented on by Mei to fuel her morbid fascination in the line between life and death, and control of said line. Nicole was, and had always been, simply a weapon for her- a way to beat people into a pulp to experiment on afterwards. Their relationship had been a lie, a way for Mei to get what she wanted. And by now, Nicole had outlived her usefulness by asking too many questions. Mei set her servants on Nicole, but she escaped- sans and eye and an arm. 

Ashamed of what she'd contributed to, terrified of Mei, and filled with horror, regret and most importantly, rage, Nicole was a changed woman. Gone was the cool and calculated act- she knew better now than to trust logic- emotions, instinct and reflex are everything, and together they tell her one thing, and one thing only- the best way out of any fight is anger. After building herself a new, fully functional arm which she fondly refers to as "Big Punchy", she spends time drifting from city to city abroad, stealing to survive if she needs to; hoping against hope that she might one day be brave enough to take on Mei again and free Huixing City.