Villain Profile: Bitter Ember

Rachel, my Longbow friend, has been briefing me on some of Arachnos's new notable villains. She brought back some photos of this villain, Bitter Ember, who seems to have a mix of cold and fire powers.



Amber Rasmussed, aka Bitter Ember, is the daughter of Rachel Rasmussen and Charles Elgard, aka Doctor Coldsnap. Coldsnap was a hero who worked frequently with Portal Corp, which was where Rachel was employed as a scientist. Rachel fell madly in love with Coldsnap, but the feelings apparently weren't mutual. They had a short-lived relationship, but Coldsnap broke things off when it became clear Rachel devotion was a bit unhealthy. Charles never realized Rachel was pregnant.
Rachel left Portal Corp and took her expertise in temperature adaptation to Crey Labs. She worked at Crey for many years raising her daughter. Eventually Crey discovered Rachel had been borrowing some of their more experimental and expensive equipment to perform scientific experiments on her daughter. Rachel was obsessed with revenge on Coldsnap and Portal Corp and planned to use her daughter as the vehicle. She had altered her daughter's physiology and genetic makeup so she could manipulate temperature in localized areas. Amber was particularly good at drawing heat from one area and using the energy to expel flames or fire from her hands.
Crey Labs managed to track down and eliminate Rachel, but Amber got away. She had recently been incarcerated in the Zig for breaking into Portal Corp and stealing some of Rachels classified work, but was recently freed by an Arachnos raid.

This photo was taken recently from a bank security system:

Statesman's Strike

I have a friend who does surveillance for Longbow. She didn't participate directly in the Strike, but she recorded parts of it for the purpose of analyzing Arachnos' tactics and strategies. I managed to get her to drop a few pictures my way.

Here's a band of villains doing battle with Sister Psyche:


And here's another band of villains fighting a Longbow squad:

Combustigal's Mechanic

Lou Morales is a mechanic in Skyway City. Turns out he's the son of an old friend of my fathers, so when he went missing, grandpa decided we should check it out.

Grandpa is on friendly terms with Captain Vincent Nobles, a cop from the our precint, who told us to talk to Carla Brunelli in Skyway. Carla was lots of help. She put us on the trail of some Clockwork activity in Skyway, and it turned out those little wind-up guys had kidnapped not just Lou, but his family.

After freeing Lou in the sewers, he told me his family was being held back in his garage and asked if i could go see they were saved.



Okay, some some of these little wind-up guys aren't so little.

Punchie

An old friend of mine, PFC Punchinello, has been doing some work for Maria Jenkins in Praetorian Earth. He's been running up against some of their biggest bad guys, so he gave me a call to see if i could give him a hand. He also grabbed a great scrapper, Shizune, to join us.

Shizune had a couple things to take care of first, so Punchie and i took out Dominatrix on our own. I have a bit of a grudge against Dominatrix. Bunny, Muffy, and i discovered we're all clones of the Praetorian Miss Liberty, created by Dr. Amanda Forge, a scientist from Praetorian Earth. Dominatrix actually killed the Praetorian Miss Liberty, her mother, and is somehow wrapped up in this mess. Of course, Dr. Forge is missing and Dominatrix isn't talking.

Anyway, Shizune joined us later and we met up with Marauder. Big guy, but not so bright.


After defeating Marauder, Maria was able to locate the cave in which Tyrant was holding Statesman on Praetorian Earth and we grabbed the nearest portal to see what we could do to free him.

Tyrant really cleaned up this little hole in the ground of his.

Tyrant had Statesman held by some kind of energy restraints. We couldn't figure out how to free him so we politely ... er, asked Tyrant if he would do the honors.

States seemed happy to be freed and gave some well-deserved praise to Punchie!

Combustigal

I was recently introduced to Combustigal through the Paragon Big Sister Super Heroes program. She's a teenager at Galaxy High who's father was the most current incarnation of Incendiary Man in a long line of super heroes. Unfortunately, both her parents were killed by the Family shortly after she was born and she was raised by her grandfather, who had been Incendiary Man before her father.

Her grandfather tried to shield her from a life of fighting crime, but Combustigal accidentally discovered the secret room in her grandfather's home that hid his costume and the Incendiary Belt that was the source of his powers.

For a short time, Combustigal experimented with the belt on her own and even started an early career fighting thieves in her neighborhood in Galaxy City. But her grandfather soon discovered what was going on. After repeated attempts to try to sway his granddaughter, he finally decided to start training her to pick up the family's super hero mantle. She took on the name "Combustigal" and started battling crime in earnest.



I've been trying to help Combustigal by introducing her to contacts in Paragon City. Her grandfather's contacts are a bit behind the times now, even though he's done an amazing job training her.

I recently got this email from her:

You aren't going to believe this, Tiff, but I just got asked to join a super group! I was helping a small group of heroes fight some trolls in the Hollows. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay to the end of the mission because of my grandfather's curfew, but when I told them I needed to leave, Ruby Red asked me if I wanted to join the Super Group she was in! I have to do an orientation or something, but it sounds like its going to be really cool!

Anyway, I just needed to tell somebody! I've got to get back to studying geometry now (yuck!).