❝ i'm an arrogant asshole, but i'm also a sad piece of shit. make sense? ❞

Signy Herberts (middle name Annabeth) is the protagonist of New York Defenders. She is a high school student who works at Scoops Ahoy with Miles Morales. She is a high school student who gains spider-like abilities, as well as "glitching" and a telepathic link with Wit. She fights crime across New York City as the alter ego of Improvix, fighting for the adrenaline rush and for fun, wanting to become well-known as a vigilante.

PERSONALITY

Outside of her Improvix alter ego, Signy lives the life of a normal 16-year-old high school student. She has above-average grades and has a passion for forensic science. She has a tendency to be more outward about her personality, her arrogance and sarcasm her most prominent trait. She tends to use food as a reward system, eating a large bowl of ice cream from Scoops Ahoy after a job shift or finishing a test. After she begins her vigilante career, she starts eating desserts after her hero shifts.

Signy has an easy-going nature, and her sociability and the pleasant things in life makes her too easily influenced through her associations. She has a habit of throwing up peace signs, commenting on her chill attitude. On the flip side, she claims to be an absolute memelord, constantly doing the whip and saying, "*whips in white*." She also appears to be hung up on the Ugandan Knuckles meme, referencing it constantly. She sends an image of Dat Boi when she departs from an onlnie chat. She has no problem declining requests and offers from strangers, but around acquiantances and friends, she finds it difficult to say "no" and mean it.

Signy uses music as a work aid, as well as during entertainment periods. She often listened to '80s and '90s music with her friend group, memorizing songs with them and constantly having karaoke nights with them. She finds it difficult to study without music, and is unable to stay still without a distraction. She doesn't like creating tension and will try various means to avoid such situations. However, she enjoys others having tension between them, whether it be romantic tension or tension caused by an unfriendly situation.

Signy is very idealistic and creative, going all out for simple tasks. She already has a plan of what to do with her life - to live in a college dorm, get a doctoral degree in forensic science, and live in an apartment to live out her life in peace. She planned to live alone until she began dating Peter Parker.

Many times she makes promises she doesn't keep, although her intentions are always good. Signy likes most of her classes, but despises PE and foreign language classes. She is shown to be left-handed, as well as heterosexual.

APPEARANCE

Signy is a short teenage girl. She has a lanky build with not much muscle on her, although she gains a more muscular build when she's bit. She has blue eyes and short, bouncy dark-brown hair she's dyed ginger and short bangs swept to the side, as well as light skin with freckles on her face.

She is shown to always wear a replica of Jake Peralta's leather jacket, given to her by Phillip for her first birthday without him. Whenever she outgrows it, he buys her a new one. Although her fashion style is plain on days she doesn't feel like digging through her drawers, she's bought quite a lot of aesthetic clothing she favors wearing.

POWERS AND ABILITIES

Powers

• SPIDER PHYSIOLOGY: After Signy's bitten by Alchemax-139 "Wit", she gains the proportionate physical capabilities of a spider. With her newfound heightened abilities, Signy deliberately holds back from participating in sports, refusing to join the tennis team again.
  • WALL-CRAWLING: Signy can adhere to walls, ceilings, and other surfaces in order to scale them and doesn't use any adhesive gloves or fabrics to do it. This ability allows her to stick to almost any surface when willing herself to, as physical contact with said surfaces creates a locking connection necessary to support her body, even when she is inverted above the ground. Alternatively, Signy can make individual portions of her body adhesive. She can only make her hands and feet adhesive.
  • SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH: Signy possesses considerable superhuman strength, due to it being the proportional strength of a spider. Althoughs she is relatively untrianed, her top strength is around 8 tons.
  • SUPERHUMAN STAMINA: Signy's body is highly resistant to the build-up of lactic acid in her muscles, allowing her to be physically active for considerably longer periods of time than the average human. She can only exert herself for so long before the excessive build-up of fatigue toxins will begin to wear her down.
  • SUPERHUMAN DURABILITY: Signy's body is inhumanely resistant toward impact force.
  • SUPERHUMAN AGILITY: After Signy gains her powers, she becomes as agile as a spider, being able to make movements that would be extremely difficult for a normal human with great facility, capable of swinging around on thin spider-webbing and jumping great distances and heights without difficulty. Her bones, muscles, and joins have more elastic strenth and durability, allowing her to perform gymnastic and contortionist maneuvers without damaging her bone structure.
  • SUPERHUMAN SPEED: Signy can run and move much faster than an ordinary uman and is adept at dodging quickly.
  • REGENERATIVE HEALING FACTOR: Signy's increased metabolism allows her to rapidly heal and regenerative from harm faster and more extensively than normal humans can recover from.
  • SUPERHUMAN EQUILIBRIUM: Signy possesses a heightened sense of equilibrium which greatly enhances her balance and coordination. Signy is able to adjust her position by instinct.
  • SPIDER-SENSE: Signy's brain intakes and responds to stimuli at an accelerated rate, alerting her to dangers around her as a 6th sense. This awareness functions on a subconscious level, thus alerting Signy of dangers she cannot readily notice at first, allowing her to effectively dodge and counter incoming attacks in combat, including projectiles aimed at her from a blind spot. This ability also doesn't seem to work on individuals Signy doesn't subconsciously consider threats. Her spider-sense also reacts when Wit is in danger.
  • ORGANIC WEB GENERATION: Signy is also gifted with the ability to organically produce her own silk webbing from glands within her forearms, limited by her body's health and nutrition. The silk is released through a spinneret near each wrist containing a central web spigot orifice used for web-slinging and drag lines, supplemented by several radial minor spigots for other types of webs connected to specialized glands; she can from her wrists' organic webbing (without web shooters).
• PSYCHIC COMMUNICATION: Signy has a psionic communication line with Wit, essentially rendering them capable of having comprehensible conversations with each other using their minds. They can't read each other's minds or execute any action with the normal telepathic ability; only dialogue is possible.
• GLITCHING: After being imbued with multiverse essence, Signy can "glitch" in the real world. When in distress, her glitching is more random and uncontrollable. It's extremely tiring and she can only glitch a few feet at a time, which is why she prefers swinging around. Her glitching is powered by the multiverse, allowing her essence to be traveling through the interdimensional realm while it apears to her as just teleporting.
• DIMENSIONAL VISION: After being imbued with multiverse essence, Signy can see alter appearances of people. For instance, Peter can appear to be glitching out and having Spider-Man (Earth-616)'s appearance, or maybe even Spider-Man (Earth-19999)'s appearance. Signy can't control this, and it gets worse when she's in distress. When she dreams, she usually dreams of events that occur in other universes, whether it be events taking place in the past or present. She cannot see into the future.
• LIFE LINK: When Signy is bit by Wit, their lifelines become connected. It doesn't supplement them with any special abilities, it only kills one when the other dies.

Abilities

• GIFTED INTELLIGENCE: Signy is an intelligent scholar, excelling in all of her classes.
  • INVESTIGATOR: Signy is a very curious individual, her arrogance fueling her tendency to get herself into trouble once she becomes a vigilante.
  • TACTICIAN: Signy draws from pop culture when formulating strategies, but knows full-well when a pop culture strategy is unrealistic. She knows basic physics and can usually predict when a tactic isn't going to work. She enjoys creating "special moves" when daydreaming.
• COMBATANT: Signy's style is extremely undeveloped and sloppy, only relying on her abilities, improvising, and imagination. Although she tends to go overboard on collateral damage because she can't control her abilities, she claims it gets the job done. Her main inspiration of fighting techniques is from her idol, Matthew "Matt" Murdock/Daredevil.
• MASTER ACROBAT: Due to her superhuman agility, Signy can perform acrobatic and gymnastic feats, such as flips, with little effort.

EQUIPMENT

• HOMEMADE IMPROVIX SUIT: Signy originally wears a handmade suit while operating on the streets of New York City. This suit was created with the intention to help Signy conceal her identity.
• POTTER SUIT: Signy later uses an upgraded and much more refined suit designed by Melvin Potter to better protect her from harm. This suit is highly durable, allowing her to be nearly unfazed by an opponent's attacks and recover more quickly from being hit.

FACILITIES

• HERBERTS RESIDENCE: The Herberts Residence is an apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, home to Signy and Sapphira Herberts.
• STERLING RESIDENCE: The Sterling Residence is an apartment in South Jamaica, Queens, home to Signy and Phillip Sterling.
• ANDREW JACKSON PRIVATE SCHOOL: Andrew Jackson Private School is a high school that Signy, her best friends Peter, Gwen, and Eddie attend as students. It also has an Academic Decathlon, annually competing with MSST. The school as well has its own TV show hosted by Jessica Drew.