Hanna Skarlett

Hanna's regular outfit

"*I'm a career criminal and a mercenary assassin, and you want me to fill out a form with all my personal details? Good f\*\*\*\*\*\* luck with that.*"
—Hanna Skarlett, signing up for the Battlesphere tournament
Veteran Red Scarf, CQC specialist, and owner of a dangerously short temper, Hanna Skarlett is not a vixen to be messed with. However, those she allows to get close to her find her to be surprisingly warm and kind-hearted.

## Appearance

Luxurious fiery orange fur with a white front of torso, neck, and lower jaw, a white tip on her large fluffy tail, auburn hands and feet, red hair with pink tips, black ears with white inside, and cyan eyes. Typically wears a black halterneck crop top, navy blue capris held up by a silver woven fabric belt with a red flame buckle, black military-style boots with red laces, and scarlet fingerless gloves. Usually armed with a pair of nunchaku made of hemp rope and red oak.

## Personality

Strong-willed, opinionated, and not afraid to speak her mind, Hanna also possesses a famously short temper, which more often than not gets her into trouble with both the authorities and the Red Scarves leadership. Despite this, she's earned considerable respect as a very capable scout and efficient assassin, though the Scarves leadership stop short of allowing her to ascend to the very highest ranks of the organization out of fear that she'll become a loose cannon.

Outside of her professional life, Hanna typically comes across as difficult and judgemental, but for those she allows to get close to her, she's warm, caring, and compassionate. And while she'll never admit it, she's secretly very fond of children and will do anything to protect them. And she will go further than that to protect her husband Rob, to whom she's been married for three years.

## Abilities and Powers

### Affinity

 *Stage 2:****Blaze Kitsune*** | Gives the user more control over Flame Body. Proper usage boosts strength, speed, and durability with little to no energy cost. | ✓

(Content to be finalized)

### Skills

* **Close Quarters Combat Specialist**: Hanna is a naturally gifted fighter, and with ten years of Red Scarf training, is now one of the most elite fighters on Avalice. Unfortunately, her skills are often let down by her temper and impatience, so she's never been able to ascend to the highest level.
* **Acute Hearing**: Even when her nature as a fox is taken into account, Hanna's ears are especially sensitive, able to pick up sounds inaudible by most. At first, she wasn't able to take advantage of this, but after working on her listening skills with her friend Maria Shanmao, she learned how to use her hearing to her advantage.
* **Cooking**: Hanna is a talented cook, and her specialty is an amazing spicy Sichuan-style chow mein.

## History

### Origins

Hanna was born in the year 1996 to Red Scarf parents Mike and Kathy Skarlett. However, after just a few short months, Mike and Kathy disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Thankfully, before they disappeared, they were able to leave Hanna at an orphanage in Shang Mu, where the young vixen would spend her early childhood.

From the start, it was obvious that Hanna wasn't going to be easy to get along with: her early years saw her involved in numerous scrapes with the other orphans. The problems only got worse as she got older, until, at the age of 10, the staff was forced to take action. By this time, it was too late for her to be adopted, but the staff never give up on a child, and Hanna was assigned a counselor to work on her temper and anger management.

At first, progress was slow, but eventually, Hanna responded to the counselor's efforts, and her behavior improved dramatically. After a year of work, she was given her greatest challenge: mentoring the younger orphans in the same skills she was being mentored in by her counselor. Initially, Hanna failed at the task, and her behavior started to revert. But once again, the orphanage staff refused to give up, and after a lot of hard work with the vixen, Hanna turned it around again, and eventually came to be loved and respected by the children she was mentoring.

### A Cruel Twist of Fate

Now 12 years old, Hanna is assigned as chaperone to a group field trip to the Kingdom Stone temple in Relic Maze near Shang Tu. Initially reluctant, Hanna is persuaded to go by the children asking for her specifically. The trip goes very well: Hanna and the children have a wonderful time.

But it would all go wrong on the return journey. Deep into the countryside between the cities of Shang Tu and Shang Mu, an oncoming vehicle slams into the minibus Hanna and the children are riding in, sending both vehicles down an embankment. Hanna loses consciousness during the crash and wakes sometime later to find she's the only survivor in the minibus.

The sight of the corpses of the children she cared for shatters her mind. Consumed by rage, Hanna attacks the driver of the other vehicle. By the time her senses return, the driver is reduced to shreds.

With her broken mind refusing to fully process the horror of what she's just done, Hanna calmly climbs out of the ravine and tries to flag down a vehicle to take her to Shang Mu. Not surprisingly, no-one stops to pick up a blood-soaked vixen staggering down the road. After a mile, the shock of what happened coupled with the numerous minor injuries she sustained finally takes its toll, and she collapses.

### Rescue and Recruitment

Hanna is eventually found by three bikers, who decide to help her by treating her wounds and taking her to their home. When the vixen does wake, she finds herself in a comfortable bed hidden by a wraparound curtain, where she is greeted by a strange male voice offering words of assurance. During a short yet informative conversation, the strange male reveals himself to be a member of the Red Scarves, an underground criminal organization specializing in covert black-ops and assassinations, and they've been watching her for some time. The male offers her a choice: return to the orphanage and forever hide her true potential, or join the Scarves and find out what she's truly capable of.

Hanna elects to join the Scarves.

### Hard Lessons

The normal period of basic training for all new recruits to the Red Scarves is three months, but such is Hanna's natural talents, she passes training in just two. And almost immediately, it looks like it was a bad decision: the early graduation feeds Hanna's arrogance, and she enters her first tournament utterly convinced she'll win.

The first round goes as expected: Hanna breezes through her match. However, the second round proves less smooth. Drawn against Rob Stiil, for the first time in her life, Hanna finds herself outclassed. Completely unfazed by the vixen's attempts at intimidation, Rob defeats her with relative ease, but Hanna's so unwilling to admit defeat, she dislocates a shoulder trying to escape an inescapable double armlock.

Feeling bad about the outcome, Rob visits Hanna in the medical wing, only for the vixen to lash out at him. Fortunately, Hanna's injury means she's unable to cause any harm, and the two part ways with zero love lost between them.

Thinking that's the last she'll have to do with the hare, Hanna is shocked to find she's been assigned a mission with both Rob and his best friend Danny Brock. Knowing she doesn't have a choice, Hanna goes on the mission, and initially, it goes well enough: they get in and arrive at their target with no real issue. However, the briefcase they were to steal is unexpectedly locked inside a strong combination safe. Knowing they lack the equipment to crack it, Rob and Danny are forced to turn to Hanna for help. And help she does; she cracks the safe in just thirty seconds thanks to her excellent hearing.

As they make their escape however, Hanna's recklessness almost gets her captured. Thankfully, Rob and Danny are there to help, and all three escape with the briefcase. During the escape, Rob reveals that Hanna could easily have beaten him in the tournament by using her unrestrained tail to unbalance him, if only she took the time to think through her options. And a week later, Hanna puts that advice to good use by defeating Rob in the second round.

The next day, Hanna finds Rob in the mess hall, much to the hare's annoyance. However, after a conversation in which Hanna surprises Rob with a startling confession about the truth behind her attitude, Rob and Danny agree to accept Hanna as their new friend.

### The Little Lynx

Now 13, and with a year's experience under her silver woven fabric belt, Hanna has rightfully earned a reputation as both a gifted fighter, a fearsome opponent, and someone not to be messed with. The downside is some think of her as cruel and heartless, but then they don't know about how Maria Shanmao came into the Red Scarves. And since Hanna's not interested in telling anyone lest it harm her rep, they will never know.

While on a mission in one of the poorer areas in Shang Mu, Hanna (working with Lexi Kyokan) spies a couple of thieves fleeing from a house. Deciding to bolster the evening's takings with a little mugging, she follows the thieves as they approach the alleyway where her bike is parked. The thieves then make the mistake of attempting to steal Hanna's bike and the one next to it: within seconds, Hanna has one thief pinned to the ground, Lexi holding the other at bay with her katana. After a very brief fight, the thieves flee, but not before revealing one of them had committed an unspeakable act with 'a kitten'.

Incensed, but unable to pursue the thieves, Hanna and Lexi decide instead to check on the kitten. They arrive back at the house just as the kitten's parents return, and elect to head around the back of the house to listen in. What they hear horrifies them both: the parents pin all the blame on the child. When the parents leave the child alone, Hanna is convinced the only possible course of action is to rescue the child from their hellish life.

With Lexi's assistance, Hanna finds the child is a 12-year-old female lynx, bound, gagged, and naked, her torn clothes strewn all over her bedroom. As quickly as they can, they take the girl with them, away from her unfit and uncaring parents and to Red Scarves HQ, where after several hours, Hanna eventually manages to get the lynx talking. Initially, the lynx is scared and confused, but the more she talks to Hanna, the more she realizes that the life she'd led for the last 12 years is over, and she has a new, much better shot at life.

During the bulk of Maria's time in basic training, Hanna doesn't get to see much of her, but as the lynx's training nears its end, it's clear she needs help, and Hanna is assigned the task. The vixen works tirelessly, and in less than a week, she triggers a transformation in Maria. Where once the lynx was nervous, scared, and withdrawn, she's now confident, outgoing, and a joy to be around. The change is so effective that Maria exceeds all expectations, and blazes through her graduation mission with flying colours. And she wouldn't have succeeded if it wasn't for Hanna, a fact Maria is eternally grateful for.

### Draconic Rivalry

About a year later, Hanna first hears about a special new recruit when Maria, unable to contain her excitement, wakes her up annoyingly early one morning. When Maria reveals the new recruit is a dragon, Hanna immediately starts dreaming of meeting this dragon in a tournament, and defeating them.

She doesn't have to wait long: just two months later, the dragon, having passed basic training quicker than Hanna did, has entered their first tournament. Hanna finds out at the unveiling of the draw, and isn't amused. Just after the draw is revealed is when Hanna first comes face-to-face with Sash Lilac, and immediately, the dragon makes her intentions clear: she's here to take Hanna on and defeat her. But Hanna's having none of it: she makes it clear she's not about to lose to some scrawny upstart who looks so fragile she'd snap in a stiff breeze.

The day of the tournament, Sash's first opponent is Maria, whom she dispatches swiftly and without mercy. Suffering a badly dislocated shoulder, Maria concedes before Sash can injure her further. Hanna is infuriated by the brutal manner in which Sash treated Maria, and vows to crush the dragoness.

After visiting Maria in the medical wing, Sash finds Hanna, and the two have a conversation after which Hanna realises that not only is Sash not intimidated by her in the slightest, she's succeeding in intimidating her. With some effort, and knowing that if she goes into the fight with lowered confidence will make sure she loses, Hanna steels herself.

In the second round, Hanna and Sash face off against each other, and neither gives any quarter. Hanna does all she can, but there's no denying the truth: Sash is the superior fighter, and in a very violent match for an exhibition tournament, she quickly establishes superiority. However, Hanna refuses to concede, even after Sash's attacks have left her with severe injuries to her hands. Instead, Hanna challenges Sash to use her best move.

The Dragon Boost propels Hanna out of the arena and into the front row of seats, fracturing a collarbone, cracking three ribs, and leaving multiple hairline fractures in the right hip in addition to the broken metacarpals already suffered in hands stripped of most fur and some flesh.

Later, in the medical wing, Hanna vows to train harder than ever when she's recovered in order to get payback on Sash. Yet every time the two have fought since, Sash has always prevailed.

### More than Friends

Some months later, Hanna's mission success rate takes a worrying downward turn, especially considering she normally works so well with Rob. Yet for some reason, they continue to choose to work together. It was inevitably going to end in tears, one way or another. And when after a particularly bad failure they nearly tear each other to pieces in the main courtyard of RSHQ, Hanna and Rob are issued with a final warning: learn how to work together, or face ejection from the Scarves.

Knowing they have no choice, they both agree to a mission to prove they can learn to work together. It doesn't start well: they argue while planning the mission. But it seems facing the possibility of being ejected from the Scarves is just the push they needed to work through their problems, as the mission itself proceeds with surprising ease. However, it's not without difficulty: they're forced to flee into a nearby wood to evade capture.

Hiding in a small cave just large enough to contain both of them, they wait until the pursuing police officers abandon their search. Relieved their mission succeeded, they emerge from the cave and take a moment to reflect on the fact they've rediscovered how to work together. As they reflect, they can't help but flirt with each other. Hanna challenges Rob to explain his flirting, and quickly gets him to admit he fancies her. As he's apologizing, Hanna surprises Rob by abandoning all pretense and kissing him passionately.

With the tension between them finally gone, Hanna and Rob share a second kiss, then wonder why it took them so long to just admit they're into each other. Unfortunately, this proves to be bad timing, as the cops return and capture them.

The following day, having been broken out of jail and returned to RSHQ, Hanna and Rob are forced to explain their failure to the Scarves leadership. Expecting to be ejected from the Scarves, the new couple is surprised when they're told they'll remain members and retain their ranks, though they will have to endure some form of punishment. And it's quite an unusual punishment: three days' vacation, during which they're forced to wear facemasks and mittens, meaning they're totally unable to explore their newfound passion for each other.

They make up for it when the punishment is over though.

### The Brevon Crisis

2014 was the year that changed Avalice forever in a week of chaos later termed the Brevon Crisis. Two days after the King of Shuigang was murdered, Hanna and her friends are recruited by Spade to take part in the largest and most ambitious raid the Red Scarves have ever attempted: breaking into the Kingdom Stone temple in Relic Maze, and stealing the Stone itself. Despite their doubts, Hanna and her friends agree to the mission.

The following day is the Kingdom Stone Heist itself. Hanna and Rob are allocated to one of the foremost units, driving deep into the heart of Relic Maze, while their friends Maria, Danny, and Xander are assigned to a different unit tasked to clear the way into the heart of Relic Maze. Thanks to the support from the Shang Mu army, the heist proceeds smoothly, and it's not long before Hanna and Rob break through and meet Spade at an opening cut into the top of the Kingdom Stone chamber itself. The young couple keeps watching while Spade retrieves the Stone, then help him load it onto a truck. Once Spade is gone, Hanna and Rob reunite with their friends and retreat to Jade Creek, and the lakeside home of Maria, Danny, and Xander.

The following morning, after Rob, Danny, and Xander fetch the group's ATVs and motortrikes from Shang Mu, the group decides to investigate the base that appeared in the lake a few days prior. Under cover of darkness, they infiltrate the base. once inside, Hanna accompanies Maria deep into the base, where they find a construction they quickly conclude is a torture device. Before they can retreat, they're forced to hide from a couple of guards on patrol.

The guards are unlike anything on Avalice however: they're alien beings housed inside a liquid tank mounted in an armored walker noticeably larger than even the tallest Avalician. WHile hiding, they witness the guards testing the torture machine. The brutality of the machine is too much for Maria to handle, and her exclamation, which very brief, alerts the guards to their presence. Luckily, the guards are diverted by an alarm elsewhere in the base, allowing Hanna and Maria a chance to escape.

As they leave the chamber, they find the two guards waiting for them. Fortunately, Maria's speed allows her to take them both out before they can attack. Unfortunately, the vent they dropped from is too high to reach, so they're forced to find another way out. Unable to decipher the controls, Hanna tries buttons at random until an opening appears in the floor, setting off several alarms in the process. Mercifully, the opening leads to a chute which dumps them both into the lake, where they reunite with their friends and flee, hiding to ensure they weren't followed before returning to Maria, Danny, and Xander's house.

The following morning, after finding out Mayor Zao isn't paying after the Kingdom Stone was taken by Spade to Shuigang, Hanna and Rob return home, ending their involvement in the Brevon Crisis.