Rayla Ventryli

Faceclaim owned by Atlas

### Education

* High School dropout. Varying circumstances barricaded her from finishing a proper diploma.

## Physical Description

### Identifying Marks

* Has a facial scar that has faded over time.
* Burn mark on her shoulder left as a parting gift from the Blue Suns.

## OOC Info

### Status

Active

**Rayla Ventryli** is a human member of the Council Recovery Corps and former Blue Suns mercenary. Born and raised on the mean streets of Earth, she's had to scrap for everything she has.

## Biography

***"Unfortunate way to be raised. Sometimes I wonder how she holds herself together. Made of solid steel, I'd say."***

Born on a snowy December day during the twilight of 2168, Rayla came from Earthen origins. Raised in the heart of San Francisco by the only family she knew, Rayla didn’t have the worst start to life. Her uncle, named Grayson Ventryli, treated her fairly well for the majority of the time he was around, and they both lived in a modest apartment amidst the bustle of the city. From the first moment she could walk, Rayla developed a quick fascination with exploring and hiding in places she knew she shouldn’t be in. “Quick little feet and quiet as a mouse”, Grayson liked to point out whenever he caught her in tiny spaces. As she got older and more adventurous with her activities, she was scolded on more than one occasion for attempting to sneak out and experience the surrounding city on her own. Grayson desperately tried to instill a sense of caution in her, but she hardly listened. It would appear her disobedient characteristic started early.

At age 5, Rayla was enrolled in local schooling. She was a smart student and paid attention to her classes, albeit had a developing habit of getting into trouble when she could. On several occasions, Grayson had been called in regards to a disturbance involving his niece, and several times he’s had to plead for forgiveness on her behalf. Among some of these charges were superficial vandalism of school property, organizing group cafeteria food fights, and sheer disregard of teacher authority. Phrases such as ‘difficult to control’, ‘unruly’, and ‘disruptive’ were thrown around throughout her years, but Rayla never intended malice or ill-intention with her earlier shenanigans. For her, it was all in the pursuit of fun.

On the topic of her biological parents, Rayla never got a straightforward answer. Whenever she asked or inquired about the subject to Grayson, she was always met with dismissive mutters and vague words. The most detail she ever received was that they couldn’t afford to take care of her and handed her off to him, then, in his own words, ‘fucked off’. However disheartened she was by this revelation, she never brought it up again.

It wasn’t until the age of 9 when Rayla’s life took a turn for the gutter. Grayson was on the precipice of losing his job, and once he did, her stable childhood life performed a complete 180. Now staring down the face of financial ruin, Grayson’s mental stability rapidly declined. Due to the heightened stress of their dire situation, her uncle turned to prescription medicine in search of relief. Such a decision led to an eventual addiction, only worsening the position they were in.

Homelife after that was disastrous. Her uncle’s growing substance abuse and inability to cope without it led to the conclusion of his ability to properly care for her. He grew withdrawn, spaced, highly irritable, and volatile with his outbursts that were never there before. What was once a home Rayla looked forward to coming home to, was now something she desired to avoid altogether. Her own anxiety skyrocketed at the cusp of her new reality, and as a result, her grades suffered tremendously. In addition to a barrage of new problems, Rayla’s behavioral issues kicked in at full swing. Her miserable homelife projected itself as lashing out at fellow students, starting fights for the smallest of reasons, theft, and destruction of expensive school property. Even her friend circle suffered dearly for her actions, and she ended up inadvertently pushing away those she was close to.

It was at the moment she was sitting in the office of her school’s principal, awaiting terms of either possible suspension or expulsion altogether, where Grayson brought up the details of their predicament. At the end of his rope and unable to deal with the new set of issues Rayla was bringing along with his own, he requested Child Services get involved. They did so in post-haste.

Rayla was crushed by the news. Not only by the potential thought of being placed in foster care, but by the fact she felt betrayed. The man who was her only father figure in life and one whom she loved had decided to give up on her. This revelation gave way to the start of her trust issues, and even to the present day she still finds it difficult to fully rely on someone. The moment her things were packed and she was carried away by a government service shuttle was the last time she ever saw Grayson and the home she had grown up in.

For years she flitted between foster homes. None of them were particularly homely or welcoming, nor did she treat them as such. She viewed all of them as mere stops along the way until she was old enough to strike out on her own. Rayla was far too troublesome to be considered by most adopters who came along, so she had written off having a legitimate family as a possibility.

It wasn’t until the age of 14 when she joined her first gang. It was at the beginning of a new rehoming and there was talk of collective crime in the area. Rayla, being as curious as she was, decided to scope them out for herself, managing to successfully sneak into one of their hideouts. When she was eventually caught, the members of the gang were initially impressed by her skills to find one of their locations and slink her way inside. They were so astonished, in fact, that they were swift to offer her a small place in their group. She willfully agreed.

Rayla ran with them for a couple of years, performing petty crimes in which her natural inclination towards stealth came in handy. It was during this time in which she met Lilliana, a girl of her age who had joined the same gang. She would quickly become the closest person Rayla had ever become attached to. Kind-hearted, soft-spoken, and considerate; Lilliana was everything Rayla wasn’t. They did almost everything together, and it didn’t take them long to find out that they had, more or less, experienced the same situations. Having such a deep level of relatability towards each other only strengthened the bond between them. With the arrival of Lilliana in her life, Rayla felt the happiest she had in a long time.

Though nothing good lasts forever. Nearing her 16th birthday, Rayla’s current foster home had become fed up with her extracurricular activities. Having just picked her up out of the local police station for the umpteenth time after she had been up to no good, the straw broke the camel's back. In addition to their frustrations, Rayla’s grades were near non-existent. She rarely showed up to school, if ever, and was heading for failure. Her foster parents threatened another rehoming should Rayla fail to straighten out her bad habits. At the mention of this, and not wishing to discontinue her affiliation with gangs, Rayla decided to strike out on her own.

In the early hours of her 16th birthday, Rayla had grabbed all of the belongings she could carry and snuck out of her foster home, taking a shuttle out of San Francisco and towards another city. She had convinced Lilliana to join her in the process, who didn’t wish to be left behind, and willfully followed her to wherever they ended up. The two arrived in a metropolis miles away from where they started, and nearly double the size. Having nowhere to go, both were confined to surviving off the streets, living meal to meal, wherever they could find one. Many months of hardship ensued for the two girls; the streets there were mean, rough, and fraught with danger. Even now, Rayla recalls those months as some of the most challenging of her life. Both her physical and mental fortitude were tested underneath the smog of the city’s air, and had marked the end of her childhood. Rayla had now officially dropped out of high school, and plunged headfirst into a life of crime and deviance.

It wouldn’t take long for the two of them to be noticed by one of the gangs in the area. Whether the gang saw an uncharacteristic amount of pity for the two girls or potential opportunity, Rayla could never figure out, but they had decided to bring them into their fold. At the portrayal of Rayla’s skills, they were more than happy to put her to work, quickly throwing her into a grueling training regime that would set her at her limits. Grueling, gruesome, and exhausting, Rayla soon came to realize that this group was no joke. The way they handled those that stood in their way made even her strong stomach churn. Black Bloods, they called themselves, and they were the most influential group of organized crime in the city. It was them who drilled a sense of ‘no mercy’ into her, them who instilled instincts of independence, brutality, and putting aside a moral conscience in favor of getting the job done. They taught her almost everything she knows about the underworld, and had consequently turned her into a weapon with a mind.

For another two years, Rayla kept up her work with them and soared through their ranks, even earning a bit of a smoking habit in the meantime. She was 18 when Lilliana came to her expressing thoughts of change, frustrated with gang life and seeking out. At first, Rayla was highly opposed to the idea, knowing the deadly implications that would fall upon the both of them should they leave. Though however much Rayla tried to convince her best friend to stay, she was adamant in leaving for another life. Not wanting to throw her friend to the fire alone, Rayla cast aside her worries about the potential consequences and agreed on planning their escape.

They had planned to book passage on an illegal shuttle that was bound for an unknown off-world location, all underneath the guise of secrecy. They were just about to leave when their plans were discovered by another group member, and Rayla was unable to stop them in time to halt the inevitable. With the subsequent collapse of everything they had worked towards, Rayla had grabbed Lilliana and bolted towards the shuttle, in the desperate hope of outrunning certain death. They almost made it too, and that fact is part of the reason why the incident still haunts her. The two were feet from boarding their goal when Lilliana was shot by a pursuing gang member, dropping her on the spot. Unfortunately, Rayla had no time to do anything but pick up the limp body of her friend and carry her the rest of the way towards the ship. She was successful in boarding, and her pursuers were unable to follow as the shuttle departed. Lilliana had died in that shuttle.

Rayla arrived on Omega on the morning of October 13, 2186. Grief-stricken and heartbroken by the death of her dearest companion, it took all she had not to break down, but she persevered. The station she had found herself on was much alike to the world she had grown up in, so it wasn’t overly difficult for her to acclimatize to her new environment. She easily discovered work, selling herself as a solo mercenary, and developed a network of clients who hired her to do their own dirty work. It was during one of these jobs where she acquired her facial scar, having suffered a varren attack through an encounter with the Blood Pack. Rayla still isn’t overly fond of varren.

Rayla was 19 when she was discovered by the Blue Suns, who took notice of her admirable skills and invited her to join them. Noticing the opportunity, Rayla accepted. Much like her earlier gang years, the Blue Suns were swift in their desire to throw her straight into more training. Although she was apt in her capabilities at this stage, the Blue Suns were focused on refining her skills even more. She recalls the ordeal being just as burdensome as her training with gangs, though exceedingly more professional. For the most part, she enjoyed it.

The year was 2187 when an organization named G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N decided to make an obtrusive entrance into her life. She had, of course, heard about it before, through quiet whispers across the station and in idle conversation throughout recreational areas. Rayla decided she never had a reason to care, as she always had her own problems to sort out. Whenever the name was brought up with her in an attempt at discussion, she constantly brushed it off, deeming the whole thing as irrelevant to her position and in no need of extensive consideration. Rayla would soon find out she was wrong. If she could blot out the memories of those creations ripping through bodies, she would, but to her misfortune, she was designated to a Blue Suns squad in the effort to combat these beasts. They had ultimately failed, as all had, and were sentenced to witness the orbital bombardment of the station in a last-ditch attempt at vanquishing the invasion. It had worked, and Rayla was left to help pick up the pieces of the destruction G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N’s intervention had caused.

Rayla had been in allegiance with the Blue Suns for a year when she was approached by another, far more secretive organization. They had taken special notice of her work, proclaiming a grand amount of avidity towards her abilities and how she could be of dire service to their needs. Rayla was initially reluctant, as not much was known of this corporation, and they appeared hellbent on mystery. However, once the amount of credits she could potentially receive was revealed, that was all the convincing she required. They called themselves The Ring, a powerful underworld fighting ring that specialized in all sorts of nefarious exploits. Since they were held in such a discrete area of the galaxy, she was only very rarely able to perform for them in person, otherwise kept close ties to them from her place on Omega. Her additional side affiliation with this group remained a closely guarded confidentiality throughout the entirety of her mercenary work with the Blue Suns, and still is to this day.

At 22 years of age, Rayla had decided her time on Omega was nearing its end. The station had grown tiresome for her, and the smog that always seemed to stain the air grew into a gradual annoyance rather than a familiar comfort. The Blue Suns grew monotonous and she grew restless, craving an out. Rayla felt trapped on Omega and wanted to experience something new. Due to her relatively good standing with the mercenary organization, she was initially hesitant to leave, but the news that old enemies from Earth had sniffed out her presence gave her the final push to relinquish her title and start fresh. The only question was where? The Ring had offered her a full-fledged place in their ranks, but she declined, as she felt it was far too much of a commitment too soon. After some extensive searching, she had eventually found her answer on a September day in the year 2190, in the form of an advertisement. It was a volunteer relief organization run by the council, calling themselves the CRC, and provided her the perfect gateway to leave the station.

Upon her announcement of her desire to leave, the Blue Suns were understandably disappointed. They begrudgingly separated her from their ranks, and relieved her of her Blue Suns tattoo with an acid wash. Rayla was officially solo again. In an effort to clear up her less than satisfactory records for a chance of acceptance, The Ring was happy to assist in cleaning up any dirt that smeared her name and had any potential of denying her entry. Not long after, Rayla had quit her smoking habit, packed her bags, and boarded a shuttle towards the Resurgence and a new future.

## Personality

***"One word to describe her? Contumacious."***

When it comes to talk of Rayla, it’s common to overhear words such as cruel, defiant, cutthroat, roguish, withdrawn, lost, and gorgeous with a catch. Many people say many different things, but one constant stands clear: the woman isn’t built from soft material.

A big contributing factor to her habits would be her upbringing, and as she was raised in an unsatisfactory manner, she was therefore left with a plethora of unsavory traits.

Callous and uncouth, Rayla has a tendency to be emotionally distant. Due to the majority of her childhood being as harsh as it was, social skills such as emotional vulnerability and expression are typically foreign to her. She finds it strange how easy some people find it to establish solid connections, while she’s left behind struggling to formulate anything resembling lasting friendship. Very few find it easy to look past the walls she’s built around herself, and rarely deem her worth the effort of breaking them. She never blames them.

A rebel at heart, Rayla rarely takes the beaten path. Always the one to be more unconventional with her approach to situations, legality and a healthy moral conscience are of little concern to her. Her upbringing instilled a hard sense of independence in her, and she’ll be damned if she ever allowed anyone a chance to take it. “No strings”, is one of her common rules of thumb. With whatever she does, Rayla tries her best not to get too attached to those she comes across. Easier that way, she tells herself, as it allows her more opportunity to cut ties should she ever need to run again.

One of Rayla’s stronger forms of expression would be her emphasis on freedom; her oh so precious “room to breathe.” It is unusual to catch Rayla in a place she stays in for longer than five minutes. Constantly on the move, one can only wonder what she’s attempting to escape from. If the subject is ever brought up, Rayla immediately clamps up, never daring to relay previous events or intricacies of her past. Not only is Rayla a highly private individual, but she veers from the possibility of ever recounting her younger years. Such a topic is never light for her, and dear to her heart a person would have to be should she ever decide to open up. Her lust for escape is only heightened by the fact she feels shackled to the ghosts biting at her heels.

Rayla’s inclination towards reckless behavior can be attributed back to the fact that she has difficulty establishing and holding strong emotions. Her subconscious tendency to bury feelings and replace them with a stony indifference is compensated by her urge for the dangerous. Constantly on the lookout for something that’ll get her heart beating, it’s no surprise that she’s using these impulses in pursuit of a distraction. A lot of emotional baggage is sitting in that chest of hers, and she’s trying her hardest to keep it locked and forgotten.

Despite her other habits that may cause a disliking towards her, Rayla has a few redeeming qualities. Fun-loving, thrill-seeking, and endlessly gentle to those few she inevitably ends up caring about; she’s not entirely heartless. If she were to be caught in a good mood, Rayla can be charming, easy-going, and quick with a dashing smile. Those who love a good thrill find it exhilarating to be in her presence, as she seeks out only the most blood-pumping experiences. Spend too much time with her and she can be a drug for the adrenaline junkies.

### Exceptional Skills

* **Singing with Strings:** One of her more surprising enthusiasms is Rayla's ability to play the guitar, with a pleasant voice to match. Her way around the instrument, in all its various forms, is not something to be glossed over. Taught by a dear childhood friend of hers, the stringed instrument holds a substantial amount of sentimentality to her. For her, it's more than just a mere way of portraying skill; it's about emotion, individuality, expression, and connection, in more depth than she could ever provide with words. Others have inquired about her skill in this area, and have wondered if she'll ever go pro. She has always declined.
* **Street Cat:** Given her many encounters with the law, Rayla was forced to develop a proficiency in parkour at a young age. Always running, leaping, and rolling over obstacles allowed room for quick development in agility and acrobatics, and she has since grown a sense of pride with it. Many find it difficult to keep up with her in this area, and have been known to comment on her uncanny ability to lose almost anyone astoundingly fast. She has escaped many consequences this way and has no intention on allowing any of them a chance to catch up.
* **As bad as they get:** Growing up on the streets has given Rayla a myriad of resourceful habits and a keen sense of survival. Give her a stick of chewed gum and she'll find a million ways to use it, in a million situations. One previous associate remarked on her ability to open a secure lock with nothing more than a bent toothpick - "Wicked good, that one. If ever her choices catch up with her, make sure to check her pockets, or she'll be gone before you've even closed the door."
* **A fist kissed by God:** A cold day in hell it would be for Rayla to lose her enjoyment out of hitting people in the face. She relishes the chance for a good hand-to-hand fight, savoring the experience more than what could be considered appropriate. While most might like to spend their quality time by the beach sipping a cocktail, Rayla's pastimes of choice include clenched fists and a punching bag. Years of excruciating practice have given her a fine set of skills in this regard, and she had little desire to slack on what she's acquired. Tie with her and earn her respect; beat her and she'll consider proposing.

## Physical Description

***"If I wasn't so afraid of her jumping me, I'd ask her for coffee."***

At first glance, one might categorize Rayla as the ‘hot-headed, rough, bad girl gone rogue, wayward soul’ type, and they would be absolutely right. What Rayla presents, she brings to the table in equal force.

Standing at 6ft with a domineering aura to match, it’s hard to see her as anything but intimidating at first approach. Leather jackets are a staple, fingerless gloves a must, boots a necessity. Everything about her screams “rocker girl” with little sense of stability or strings. Those deep, blue eyes of hers drown underneath a sea of hardened walls and icy exteriors, unyielding to most. Dark irises with a darker countenance; that far and distant look she has is hard to shake, even for the most lively of individuals she encounters. Little warmth is derived from her frigid gaze, and few find it easy to maintain stable eye contact.

Her facial expressions are not left out from such a vast storage of reticent habits, and she has often found herself unintentionally scowling or frowning should her mind drift elsewhere. It’s not uncommon for others to point it out to her, relaying the fact that she’s been burning a hole in the water bottle for the past 15 minutes. A subconscious trait, but one she cannot control, nor has the care to.

The scar on her right eye does little to deter that initial assumption of unapproachability, leaving a noticeable trail of marked skin. Though it has faded over time, it is still something she is reminded of every moment she looks in a mirror. If it’s ever pointed out, Rayla is quick to wave it off under the pretense of pride and satisfaction with the mark, in inner disregard to her deep-seated insecurity with it. She doesn’t do much to hide it as there isn’t much to be done, but if ever asked if she would go back and alter the change of events to prevent its happening, she would in a heartbeat. There are many other, lighter scars dotted across her body, but those pale in comparison to her fixation on the former.

Slim and toned, Rayla has acquired a body slaved over by many. Years of the hard life have shaped her physique to be well-built and capable of many physically strenuous activities. Couple that with her natural features and she won’t deny that she’s considered quite attractive. Chestnut hair, a scattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose, and a captivating smile that could melt a million hearts. To say she doesn’t use this to her advantage at times would most certainly be a lie.

Should she find herself on a mission or in a firefight, Rayla has a preference to avoid too much armor, or any at all. Her argument towards such a decision would be that it hinders her ability to move as effortlessly as she does without it, therefore crippling performance. A choice she’s paid for, many times over, but risks the extra exposure in favor of quick feet and flexible movement.

### Armament

* Combat Knife
* Dual Omni-Blades
* M-15 Vindicator

### Abilities

* Adrenaline Rush
* Blade Armor
* Shield Boost
* Tactical Cloak