Varana

Margret Ngo was a Vietnamese-American first-generation cybrid from Sacramento , like many gen-1 cybrid, her parents were a pair of many foreigners who opted for artificial insemination in London's Royal Berkshire Hospital in the mid 1980's due to illegalities in America and Vietnam at the time, only to have her embryo accidently altered by PGI Research.

### **Personality**

Varana went through major personality changes as she grew, from a pretty regular schoolgirl she gained a rebellious and carefree attitude during her time in the Shellheads but later adopted a more empathic view of her fellow humans, cybrid, neo or utterly normal.

### **History**

Born Mihn Margret Ngo in Sacramento in 1984 after PGI Research had mistakenly preformed cybridisation to her as an embryo in England.

She grew up a normal child like many cybrid but started developing mutations as she began puberty, notably a tail, claws, a forked tongue and black and yellow scales on some parts of her body that began to slowly manifest when she was 16. While she kept it a secret for many months eventually her parents found out and horrified, they tried to lock her away in their basement, but the girl managed to escape and stole a motorbike where she lived as a thief on the road for almost a year. Somewhere along the line she became part of a gang called the Shellheads who accepted her despite her mutations.

It turned out the leader of this gang, Chel, was also a cybrid and gave her the nickname Varana after the *Varanus* subgenera of monitor lizard, and after years on the road came across rumours of the Genetic Victims Society, and travelled the US trying to find the mysterious man known as 'Mole'.

In 2003 Chel, Varana and the Shellheads met a neo by the name of Stray and through him eventually met Mole, but Mole refused to let the rest of the Shellheads become part of the society claiming that their gang were violent and thuggish criminals wanted by the police, but Varana had made her decision and decided to join Mole's group not wanting to use her powers for selfish reasons any more; Furious Chel vowed revenge on Mole despite a rousing speech by Varana on life choices.

During her years in the GVS Mole partnered Varana with Hue and together set out to find others like them in need in and around the Chicago area, not just finding and recruiting anyone who had been genetically altered, but acting as superheroes and helping out whoever needed it.

Months later, however word got out of "Hue and Varana" in Chicago and Mole asked them to stop helping normal humans as he believed this was drawing a powerful anti-superhuman movement in the city and the two were in danger.

Refusing to stop, and already questioning the fact that the GVS seemed more like an army recruitment drive than a charity Varana decided to set up her own group with Hue called the Genetic Mistreatment Agency, but was targeted and soon murdered by a fanatical religious group named Redemption who claimed responsibility for her death to Mole on the same day and that the GVS would be next.

### **Powers and abilities**

#### **Powers**

Varana was a first-generation cybrid who's mother underwent artificial insemination with accidently cybridised eggs, in Margret's case her genes came from a monitor lizard and gave her enhanced abilities

**Part-Varanidae Cybrid Physiology:** Margret developed a number of monitor lizard-like abilities and characteristics thanks to the mutation caused by her cytoplasmic hybridisation. She had physical mutations that included a lizard-like tail, a forked tongue, claws and black and yellow scaled sections on various parts of her body including up her spine, elbows, knees, knuckles, heels and around her temples.

* **Enhanced Senses:** Most of her senses were heightened to greater sensitivity than that of Humans but most sensitive was her sense of smell that was linked to a Jacobson's Organ that allows her to detect pheromones and other minute scents via a forked tongue.
* **Enhanced Agility and Reflexes:** She had quicker reflexes than any Human and her skeleton was particularly flexible and able to withstand greater impact forces.
* **Enhanced Strength:** Although not enormously superhuman, she could lift just under tonne with maximum effort, lift her own body weight using her tail or strike with enough force with her tail to break bricks.
* **Claws:** Varana had sharp, black claws on her fingertips, while these weren't fully retractable, they could retract enough for her to use her fingers functionally.
* **Accelerated Healing and Regeneration:** She can heal faster than normal humans and can also regrow entire limbs, but over a period of a few days.

#### **Abilities:**

* **Hand-to-Hand Combat:** During her time in the Shellheads she learned to fight hand-to-hand, mostly various boxing styles, aided by her superhuman reflexes and strength.
* **Bike Riding:** She is an expert at handling a motorbike, much more so than many normal Humans.

### **Limitations and Weaknesses:**

Margret never made up with her parents and always held a deep hatred for them, but also missed them, which put her at odds with herself many times, this led her to be somewhat judgmental against normal humans and hardly ever interacted with other Human members of the Shellheads, but after she left the gang she turned a new leaf and decided to move on.