Leona Zolnerowich

> *"Born to fight, trained to kill. Prepared to die, never will. Keep low, move fast. Kill first, die last. One shot, one kill. No luck, pure skill."*
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> *"Looking over your shoulder needs to become second nature."*
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**Leona Zolnerowich** is one of the best spies and assassins in the world, in employment of a clandestine order bent on the exchange of classified intelligence. Leona is an experienced operative trained on two continents who speaks five languages and knows at least three ways to kill someone with her bare hands, being only 5' 5" and exceptionally dangerous. She was taught more than how to kill, she was made into the weapon itself. She became as automatic and unfeeling as a Kalashnikov, but twice as dangerous. Leona is beautiful, cunning, and remorseless.

Leona's is a face of contradiction, with round curves and hard lines, features both rugged and soft. Her eyes are as cold as the Empire City winter night and dark as her lips are full. However ironically, her face is heart shaped, with cheekbones so pronounced they seem to cast their own shadows.

## Biography

### Early Life

> *"When I was a girl, I had a fear of spiders. I was told they felt no emotion, that their hearts never beat. But I know the truth. At the moment of the kill, they are never more alive."*
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Leona Zolnerowich was born on November 22, 1984 in Stalingrad, Russia. At a young age, she was kidnapped by the KGB, who turned her and submitted her to neural reconditioning to turn her into a sleeper agent. At a KGB facility, she endured both an education and indoctrination into the world of spycraft. Leona excelled in this strict training environment and soon became regarded as a master spy and one of the world's greatest assassins. As a final ceremony to complete her training, Leona was sterilized, as to avoid any distractions and focus solely on her missions, something she deeply regretted later in her life.

### Assassin for the KGB

> *"What happened to make me like this? Where do I begin? I got shot at. Blown up. betrayed. Dropped out of planes. Attacked with knives. Hit by every kind of moving vehicle On the planet. Any other questions?"*
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Leona, as a peerless assassin, stalked her preys with deadly efficiency. Her expertise led to her growing threat to global security.

#### Highway Duel with Xander Mercury

> *"Adieu, chérie."*
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TBA

## Personality

> *"You can't really call it paranoia when that many people are actually trying to kill you."*
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The entirety of Leona's character is hard to distinguish based on how she lies and tricks people for a living. She is capable of convincingly portraying friendly and flirtatious, timid, vulnerable and scared. For the most part, she is a level-headed, strong-willed and independent woman. Leona normally maintains a controlled, almost emotionless persona to keep whatever she is thinking a secret unless she is around people she absolutely trusts.

A twisted assassin behind a scope, Leona isn't interested in simply killing her victims, but obsesses over killing them perfectly. She sees death as the single most important moment in a person's life, and strives to make each spectacular.

Due to her brainwashing, Leona has a malevolent disposition and is very detached from her sentiment. She shows no mercy for her targets no matter who they are and has a love for killing, claiming that it makes her feel alive. She also seems to possess vanity when it comes to her skills and looks.

Leona has a true killer's instinct and is willing to go to any means necessary to accomplish her goals, whether it be through attacks, murder, or blackmail. She has a dry sense of humor, and treats her opponents like a cat would treat a mouse, allowing herself to be involved in playful banter to a small extent. She actually enjoys the prospect of killing, but she is not without her own sense of duty, following the orders of her masters to the letter, despite how easy it would be for her to ignore them.

Leona seems fearless, calm, even, in spite of automatic weapons targeting the street around her. Leona has a restlessness, a need to fight, and a competitive drive.

## Abilities

Leona has a very specific skillset, and she doesn't care who she uses it for, or on. Leona has been trained for ballistics, military strategy and counter intelligence, and was valedictorian in gymnastics, shooting, combined arms, tactical, close-quarters combat, naval aviation, navigation, military engineering, and artillery.

When Leona's mind goes into overdrive, battle mode, the adrenaline kicks it up and she rides the surge the way she does everything: fast and hard, with no apology and no regret.

> *"No more secrets, but when was that ever something I could promise anyone?"*
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* **Master Spy:** Leona is a dangerous secret agent highly skilled in espionage, stealth, disguise, infiltration, and demolitions, apt at keeping secrets and working undercover. She often resorts to seduce men to obtain her goals while working undercover. She has developed relationships, some romantic, for the purpose of intelligence gathering. Leona has a highly developed instinct for avoiding mounted surveillance cameras, even before she has a chance to shoot them out. Leona has shown to be highly skilled in entering and leaving without being seen. She is able to break into heavily secured buildings.

> *"Combat is about controlling conflict, putting the battle on your terms. You should always be acting, never reacting."*
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* **Master Martial Artist:** Leona is extremely skilled in the field of martial arts, having mastered arts such as karate, judo, aikido, savate, boxing, lucha-libre style wrestling and multiple styles of kung fu. She has easily taken down many enemies, such as dozens of security guards and armed pirates. She displays her impressive skills in conjunction with her marksmanship and tactical training, enabling her to take down several enemy operatives with only a pistol on numerous separate occasions. Leona's strategy is to use her agility and arsenal of counter-attacking spin kicks to take her opponent down. Leona knows how to disengage a Glock with a drop kick to the wrist, a handy skill for specific circumstances. Her fighting incorporates and takes full advantage of her proper use of physical forces, momentum and leverage, as well as her knowledge of anatomical weaknesses and pressure-points and her strength, executing it all at very high speeds. Leona's primary fighting style consists of Systema, Capoeira, Muay Thai, Shin-Do, where she harnesses her opponent's energy and uses it against them, Wing Chun, which uses her opponent's strength against them, ideal for smaller people like her, and Jeet Kune Do.
	+ **Staff Mastery:** Leona carries a pair of expandable batons that combine to form a bo staff. This allows her to quickly use both long range and close combat techniques. She is highly skilled in different forms of stick/staff fighting. Using her staff she is able to quickly take out multiple armed soldiers in mere seconds.
	+ **Knife Mastery:** Leona is skilled in using knives at close combat. She can throw knives with great precision, being able to kill someone holding a gun at her before they could even fire.
	+ **Sword Mastery:** Leona showed considerable expertise with a sword in her duels with Xander Mercury. Leona is shown to be very efficient in swordsmanship, able to wield two blades simultaneously with deadly accuracy. She is able to swiftly take out multiple enemies unscathed. Leona has calluses on her right hand consistent with being Kuroda-trained swordswomen.
* **Master Acrobat:** Leona incorporates gymnastics and acrobatics into her fighting style as she battles opponents. Leona knows how to do a flip kick into a front flip with a full three sixty rotation. Leona is capable of scaling buildings and running from rooftop to rooftop easily. She displays impressive acrobatics while entering and leaving buildings.
* **Master Assassin:** Leona is very skilled in the art of assassination, considered to be one of the most dangerous assassins in the world. She is a gifted assassin armed with undisciplined fighting skills, and completes her missions to the letter.

> *"The key is not to hesitate. When you have the shot, you take the shot. That's how you stay alive. It's how you keep your people alive."*
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* **Expert Markswoman:** Leona is considered one of the finest snipers on the planet, and is a very accurate markswoman skilled in sharpshooting. Leona was taught it only takes one bullet to kill a person before she was taught the Russian alphabet. She has displayed high accuracy, being able to kill most of her enemies with a single shot. When it comes to handguns, Leona favors those of a high caliber. Leona was taught how to change out the barrel and action of an assault weapon in seconds and to modify her trigger so it broke like glass. Leona likes to wound her targets; it draws out medics and other soldiers, to let her kill more of them.
* **Skilled Pilot:** Leona knows how to drive a motorboat.
* **Multilingualism:** Leona is fluent in Latin, Russian, English, French, German, Chinese, and various other languages.
* **Gifted Intelligence:** Leona's intellect seemingly puts her on par with Xander Mercury. She possesses the ability to quickly process multiple information streams and rapidly respond to changing tactical situations.
	+ **Master Interrogator:** Leona is incredibly skilled in the art of torture. She uses carefully aimed strikes to the bridge of the nose, along the shoulder blades, and right underneath the chin to break a man, along with emotional torture. She is able to do a "reverse interrogation"; while she seems to be in danger, in truth, she is getting all the information she wants to know.
	+ **Master Hacker:** Leona is an accomplished hacker with a wide range of contacts. On many missions, these skills are utilized for intelligence gathering and data interpretation. Leona sees things in unique ways, and is a master at pattern recognition and analysis; in other words, she picks up on patterns that others do not notice. She can hack into most computer systems without tripping any firewalls or security.
	+ **Expert Tactician:** Leona is a highly capable tactician, able to set traps to counter ambushes. She is also very observant. Leona's strategy is to use her agility and arsenal of counter-attacking spin kicks to take her opponent down.
	+ **Expert Scientist:** Leona has a degree in biology. Leona utilizes this knowledge during assassinations, such as when she puts pressure in just the right areas above the forearm to form an embolism in the medial antebrachial vein, causing an air pocket to reach her victim(s)' heart(s). Leona is strong enough to break someone's neck, which takes about 1,250 foot pounds of torque. Leona is also pretty good at taking an immobilizing shot at the right hamstring that won't kill her victims, but will make them wish she did.

## Weaknesses

* **Human Vulnerabilities**
* **Sonbuca:** The KGB planted a post-hypnotic trigger word that would neutralize her, putting her into programmed sleep, and won't wake up without a counter-trigger.

## Equipment

### Attire

> *"No one can hide from my sight."*
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* **Visor:** Leona's recon visor allows her to see the heat signatures of her targets through walls and objects for a moderate amount of time. Her Recon Visor detects a broad range of electromagnetic radiation, making enemy heat signatures visible.
* **Suit:** A light-fiber, moisture-absorbing jumpsuit, sometimes coupled with an army surplus jacket.
* **Snowsuit:** Leona's "snowsuit" is a CBRN (Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear) state-of-the-art mop suit that only resembles snowgear; really, it is lined with filtering charcoal and striped with M-9 detection paper so she can gauge what is being thrown at her in any given hot zone. This comes with goggles including a mouth guard flipped down from inside, like a collapsible gas mask.
* **Rucksack:** A ruck containing an M183 demolition charge assembly with enough C-4, sixteen charges in all, to flatten a city block, if that's what it comes to.

### Weaponry and Gadgets

* **Kinamura Sniper Rifle:** Leona's versatile sniper rifle is ideal for scope-aimed shots at distant targets. Should targets close to medium range, the rifle can also be fired in fully-automatic mode. The modular design of this rifle allows the barrel to extend and retract easily so the rifle can switch between sniper and fully automatic mode. This rifle is accurate up to 2000 meters, and the bullets travel 980 meters per second. Leona sometimes laces her 7.62 millimeter bullets with curare (strychnos toxifera), a kind of rare and deadly poison.
* **Grappling Hook:** Leona launches a grappling hook towards the location she’s aiming at – when the hook connects with a scalable surface, she’s quickly drawn towards it, allowing her to expand her view of the battlefield and evade or flank targets.

> *"Did that sting?"*
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* **Venom Mine:** Leona adheres a swiftly-arming venom mine to nearly any surface. When a target wanders within range of the mine’s motion trigger, it explodes, delivering poison gas to any enemies in the vicinity. The Venom Mine's hooks allow it to be attached to nearly any surface.
* **Glock 26:** The Glock 26 handgun is Leona's weapon of choice. Leona keeps a suppressor, more commonly known as a silencer (invented by Hiram Percy Maxim in 1902) in her utility belt, which dampens weapon's sound at the cost of weapon damage, and screws this onto her pistol to avoid detection.
* **Ka-Bar Tactical Knife:** Leona stole this during an assassination, when she was hired to kill a man in Tangier, from one of the French thugs.
* **Orsis T-5000:** A military marksman rifle that fires .338 Lapua Magnums (for high value targets), rounds that do not come cheap, as they can eat through five layers of military body armor.
* **CZ 805:** Her Czech assault rifle for real gunfights.
* **PP-2000:** Her Russian submachine gun for more discreet firepower.
* **Heckler & Koch P30:** Her German pistol for always. Her pistol is always German, even when she traded her HK out for her Glock, just like she was taught.
* **SIG Sauer P220:** A handgun firearm holstered under her shoulder, the SIG has seen her safely through countless altercations and performs tasks without hesitation. The bullets in her pistol can travel at over a thousand meters per second.
* **RPG**
* **Minigrenades**
* **Miniaturized Smoke Grenades**
* **Fencing Blades:** Leona rigged a couple of old fencing blades she had, now extendable and retractable.

## Relationships

### Enemies

* Xander Mercury
* Duncan Grey

## Trivia

* Leona parodies Marvel's Black Widow and Overwatch's Widowmaker.
* Leona is known for her tendency to never hesitate.
* Leona likes orchids.
* Leona hates pierogis, being lied to, and improvising.
* Leona plays for keeps.
* Leona admires persistence, especially Xander Mercury's.
* Leona's skin cream formula is ethyl paraben and sodium laureth sulphate.
* Leona's special ammunition is custom-made, hand-loaded, .32 caliber, hollow-point copper-jacketed fragmentation rounds.