Natalya Fashkova

> "*I only believe in one thing: Justice!*"
> ― Natalya Fashkova revealing her belief in justice
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**Natalya Fashkova**is a rogue CIA agent and a Russian international student at the St. Louis University of Missouri. She is also an intern at The Riverside Gazette, also known as the Nightcrawlers. However, she has a secret night life: being a rogue agent, she commonly hangs out with other rogue CIA agents, known as the Raptors.

## Biography

Natalya Fashkova had a rather rough background. Her mother was abusive and frequently shamed her for her "hairdo", believing that no man would want to date a redhead.

Having had enough, Natalya ran away from home, where she later ended up in Operation Blackfish, which offered her a chance to "rise above" her enemies.

Her first mission with Blackfish was assassinating a prominent, but corrupt Russian politician named Alexei Bulganov, who was found to have made illegal deals with Chechen separatists. During said mission, she found and confronted her abusive mother, eventually killing her when the latter angrily assaulted her after the latter revealed herself to be a supporter of said Russian politician and that she had killed Natalya's then-boyfriend Igor after he threatened to rat her out to the police. Following this, Natalya went on a killing spree against the Russian politician's inner circle, which climaxed when Natalya personally eliminated Bulganov.

A few months later, during another mission for Operation Blackfish, this time to assassinate an African dictator, Natalya suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of the conditioning and disobeyed orders. She ended up slaughtering not just the African dictator, but his entire family as well (disobeying a direct order not to harm innocent civilians in the process).

Though she was reprimanded for her actions, she stayed on the team. That was, until an infamous mission with Tamara Sultanovich caused Natalya to realize the extent of Operation Blackfish's own corruption: Fashkova and her allies found evidence that the CIA was using an illegal behavior-modification program to break down ordinary people's morality and essentially brainwash them into becoming effective nearly unstoppable living weapons. The last straw for them was that such experiments were done against the subjects' will. Outraged at having been lied to, Natalya and her allies went rogue, with the CIA deciding that Natalya and her allies had to be silenced so the truth behind Blackfish stayed secret. However, Natalya and her allies were able to outwit their assassins and escape, eventually going off the grid and disappearing.

Years went by, and in 2017 she abruptly resurfaced in West Rome.

### Vapor in the Wind

Natalya is introduced in the story Vapor in the Wind, where she meets French tourist and police officer Laurette Sorel and various other fellow tourists, who band together to protect a mentally troubled woman from assassins loyal to the a murder cult that worships Slenderman.

### Later adventures

In 2017, it was revealed that Natalya had participated in Operation Snowstorm, a top-secret experiment to test a new drug known as the Necro Serum. She returned to America showing strange behavior like spontaneous angry outbursts and loss of appetite (courtesy of the body becoming accustomed to the serum). Sometime after this, it is revealed that Natalya Fashkova had become a Christian: she accepted Jesus as her Lord and her Savior sometime towards the end of the year 2017.

## Personal details

### Habits and beliefs

> "*My father would always comment on how I am quiet one moment and outgoing the next. He thought it very self-contradictory of myself.*"
> ― Natalya Fashkova describing her seemingly erratic personality changes
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> "*Ignosticism: the idea that the question of God's existence is meaningless, and so is arguing about it, since definitions of God cannot be proven to be either true or false. So you come to me, saying, 'I let the Bible define God' or 'I let the Qu'ran define God' or 'I let the Vedas define God.' Here is the problem: none of you can either prove or disprove your definitions of God as true or false, no matter how clear your holy texts define Him. So you are all just wasting your time talking to me about His existence, because you are unable to prove or disprove whether your definition of God is true or false. So unless you give me a CLEAR and CONCISE definition of God, don't even bother telling me He exists.*"
> ― Natalya Fashkova elaborating on her worldview (Ignosticism)
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Natalya is both an introvert and an extrovert. Sometimes she can be very outgoing and social, but other times she can stay quiet for long periods of time. She is so good at staying quiet that she has a tendency of leading people to forget her presence until she speaks.

For most of her high school years until her freshman year of college, Natalya was an Ignotic, believing that the question of God's existence has been rendered meaningless, because there's no clear definition of God and you can't prove OR disprove any of the existing definitions of God as written in the various holy texts from the various faiths, no matter how clear they seem to be (i.e: The Bible's definition of God may be clear in the text, but you can neither prove or disprove it to be true or false).

However, later on in her life, it is revealed that she has accepted Jesus as her Lord and her Savior.

## Powers and abilities

### Powers

* **Superhuman Strength**: Operation Blackfish left Natalya with superhuman strength that made her a rival to Ellie Cohen: she could easily throw people through walls much like Ellie could during fights. Her superhuman strenght allows her to rip mounted weapons off turrets, carry a .50 caliber sniper rifle in one hand, and even dual light machineguns! Furthermore, Operation Snowstorm left Natalya's enhanced body with even more enhancements: she could rip someone's heart right out of their chest.

### Abilities

* **Master Spy**: As a former Blackfish agent, Natalya was one of many agents who was a master of disguises. She coud easily fool anyone simply by dying her hair, applying makeup and prosthetics, and even wearing contact lenses of different colors.
* **Master Martial Artist**: Operation Blackfish trained Natalya in multiple fighting styles. She currently uses a mixed martial arts style that incorporates Systema, Judo, Silat, and Krav Maga, among many others.
* **Marksman**: Natalya has been described as a master sharpshooter, even before she was an operative of Blackfish. In one instance, she was able to shoot and kill an enemy that nobody even saw until he was down. As a Blackfish operative, she became a rather lethal assassin, able to shoot through walls and kill people with little to no warning. She was also able to shoot *through* somebody else to kill a target.
* **Master Assassin**: As a Blackfish assassin, Natalya has a rather solid kill record, though not as famous as other ex-assassins like Tamara Sultanovich. Prior to defecting from the CIA, Natalya had at least 42 confirmed kills.
* **Multilingualism**: Natalya can speak multiple languages, including her native Russian, English, Mandarin (oddly, she cannot speak Cantonese), French, Irish, German, Afrikaans, and even Pig Latin.

## Trivia

* She is the first character to have a known history of child abuse.
* She, like Nikolai Kalinin, often speaks with broken English. However, also like Kalinin, her English eventually improves.
* Her soft drinks of choice are Coca-Cola and Root Beer.