Nightstalkers

The Nightstalkers were a group of assassins many of which were once part of The Guild, but became a separate entity when they began to be funded by the Aoi family as their own private security. The backlash from the Guild made the group decide to renounce their membership to work specifically for the Aoi and the Tengu Society.

### **History**

The group was started during the frequent meetings of Guild members within Club Blue, the small group of assassins often worked together, and were close to Lady Aoi who herself often accompanied them on missions, to the point where she appointed the group her personal bodyguards, something many Guild members frowned upon as it encouraged faction loyalty, not to mention it put the Club Blue faction in clear pro-Yakuza stance. This pushed many Guild members to the conclusion that the Aoi family were themselves Yakuza; though the truth was they were only associates, which by Guild terms was within the few rules sustained within Lodges. However to ensure there would be no controversy, Riku declared that her group a separate and 'unrelated' entity to the Guild.

### **Purpose**

As no longer affiliated with The Guild, the group were free from the conditions of the Guild's deal, allowing them to go after political targets, they were often sent on missions for the Aoi family personally, much of which included Yakuza missions heavily and the group were said to be reminiscent of an old ninja clan; the group was also said to use the Aoi fortune to procure overseas missions often, under the law and may have even had enough sway to, if they wanted, topple governments. Doing so, according to Lady Aoi *"Would not be beneficial to any party involved."*

The Nighstalkers were very specifically sent to targets who were known to be well-protected or difficult to kill for whatever reason; this usually included high-ranking political allies of the Triads, military leaders, important business mediators or even the odd royal or two, occasionally they deal with superhuman targets or those who had enhanced allies as bodyguards and even supposedly *"demons and monsters"* , with the Aoi clan having Magi within the family, including Riku herself, although the true accounts of such incidents vary and are usually always covered up. But as such each member was highly trained and specialised and they were usually highly precise and mysteriously silent, appearing and vanishing like ghosts with little to no mess and certainly no evidence of their direct involvement.

### **Known Members**

**Darq** - Mysterious neohuman with power over shadow and telempathy, later married Volt but likely committed suicide when she foresaw the monsters their children would become.

**Haku Mura** - Japanese/Chinese Alt, feminine-looking so-called 'ninja' but highly vengeful and mistrusting. Was secretly working for the Triads and selling them secrets, was in love with Darq, promised to kill Volt after he outed him.

**Riku Aoi** - Also known as "Lady Aoi", Riku was the leader of the Nightstalkers; she was a magic user and swordmaster supposedly descended from the sole remaining ninja clan of Japan.

**Pentra -** A young Magi girl who was the cousin of Cali Summer, Jane was from a troubled background but had fairly well-off parents, but ones who were highly Catholic and disowned her and her older half-sister Lilly who was already a guildmember. She later discovered the Summer-Baldwins were linked to the Dawnshadow Coven and were themselves a dark cult known as The Followers of UmbraX° who shared Dawnshadow's interest in The Sideways for their own reasons. She considered Darq a 'sister' after meeting her through Lilly after she saved their life from a target she was hunting. She and Lilly fell out when Riku created the Nightstalkers and she left the Guild.

**Volt** (Honorarily) - He aided Darq on a few secret missions and she helped Volt move around without MI6 knowing; his presence as part of the 'stalkers whilst still being a guildmember was a worry for a few members and rather extrovertly not accepted by Haku, who's love for Darq made him highly jealous and suspicious of Volt's true intentions. It was actually through the Nightstalkers that Volt officially joined the Guild with Lady Blue recognising him shortly after.

**Yueliang Li** - A young Taiwanese sniper trained to be an assassin from a very early age, often known as The Lynx or simply "Li", the girl was not only the youngest former guildmember at 12-years-old, something many had an issue with, but was said to have had no true childhood, forced by her highly militaristic parents to become the perfect killer for the Taiwanese government. Li was said to be autistic but also remarkably intelligent, and considered a savant, she was also the only one of the Nightstalkers without superpowers. She later suffered some form of mental breakdown and she ran away as a teenager across to Japan, where she was found by Riku. Even as a teen saw everything as a game; with no true childhood she tried to have one on missions. After becoming relatively stable in the last few years she came into contact with both Talia Reid and Cerice Binks for various side-missions of her own, one of which was killing her own parents who were aiding a terrorist operation; Li felt they tortured her as a child and robbed her of a normal childhood and happily did the deed herself. Eventually Li quit the Nightstalkers and became a member of the Zodiac Department.