Karamäe Mikitta (Jumping Spider)

*enhanced with Mayhem

BIOGRAPHY

Military Spider
In their late 20s, Mikitta started military training. While they were accepted into the non-commissioned officer course they requested to be assigned to, they struggled greatly. Petteri Parkkonen, an officer cadet who commanded Mikitta’s platoon in the first half of the NCO course, impressed Mikitta with his work ethic and encouraging attitude.

Early on in the course, a presumed bug bit Mikitta. Following a week bedridden with presumed flu, Mikitta found themself first matching, then surpassing their peers in physical exercises, while previously they had lagged behind.

During their time as an assistant squad leader, Mikitta, by then a Corporal, was quite liked by their subordinates. They actively partook in the squad’s tasks (as opposed to being a total gona, a trait common among conscripts past the 180-day mark) and didn’t seek to disassociate themself from the younger conscripts, an attitude they modelled after Parkkonen. Mikitta completed their military training with the rank of reserve sergeant.

Jumping Spider
While Mikitta has fairly typical Spider-person abilities, they have prioritised jumping over web-swinging. The introduced mutation did not undo Mikitta's myopia, however.

Their first Spider-suit consisted largely of motorbiking gear, complete with the helmet, with only a homemade vest with a spider symbol on it. Later iterations added military gear, such as a plate carrier. The final iteration with a more classic Spider-suit followed their inoculation with a symbiote.

Mikitta owns a cyan-and-magenta motorbike, and has a pet Karelo-Finnish Spitz called Toarie.

Strange Bedfellows
Mikitta started linguistics studies at the University of Eastern Finland in North Karelia. There, they soon befriended Nasti Kravinova, the daughter of a hunting family and a fellow recent military training graduate (officer cadet→reserve second lieutenant). Nasti's family raised Karelo-Finnish Spitzes, a breed of hunting dog. Mikitta particularly liked one of the young dogs, Toarie, and ended up buying it. Kravinovs remained a significant part of the dog’s training, as Mikitta was unfamiliar with the particulars of training a hunting dog.

Wendish Villains
Mikitta’s first villain was the Rhino, whom they defeated by tricking him into running off the shore in the Jovensuu harbour. They then had to reel him out of the water because they couldn’t in good conscience leave the guy to drown.

The Jumping Spider persona arose as Jovensuu continued to be beleaguered by destructive individuals such as Omega Red, Powersurge and the Deadmaker.

Anomalous Affair
Their first anomaly was a rather skittish variant of the Lizard--a grown-up version of a kid Mikitta was vaguely aware of as the son of one of the teachers at their uni! (The family is a bit locally famous due to Martta Conners being a rather visually distinctive lizard-like mutant.) Mikitta managed to talk the Lizard down, and “protected” him from the Spider Society agents come to deal with the anomaly. They ended up accompanying the Lizard to the HQ and seeing him off, unwilling to just trust that these random people would do right by him.

Despite Mikitta’s initial suspicion, they were recruited to the Society. They had asked many questions, and based on what they saw and heard, they believed the cause was good.

Mayhem
Having caught the attention of the Wendish mafia(?), a destructive symbiote was smuggled across the border and brought into contact with the Jumping Spider. Surprisingly, the symbiote decided it liked Mikitta, introduced itself as Mayhem, and became part of Jumping Spider's "image" via acting as their spider-suit.

Hunter and Prey
Jumping Spider's most devastating opponent to date has been Kraven the Hunter. Not only was Sergei Kravinov the first person Jumping Spider killed, his death also impacted Mikitta's civilian life. While Nasti had previously considered her father's obsession with the Spider to be foolish, losing him to the vigilante changed her view on the matter and led to her adopting her late father's moniker... And taking on his last prey: Jumping Spider.