Perl/Pulse

Pain. Pain was all she could remember. Pain and the cold of a laboratory. She was never given a name. She couldn’t even be sure that she was born. Her entire life was spent having god knows what injected into her, being cut open and sewed back up like a stuffed doll, and tests, thousands and thousands of tests. She was one of the many experiments the less moral scientists of Sidero had conducted in an attempt to replicate the magic and species of the inhabitants of Laetus. She was one of the unlucky few who survived into adulthood.

The experiments run on her were new, not just injecting serums and adding new cybernetic technologies. The scientists had found something in one of their many deep space scans; another life form, unlike anything they had come across on either Sidero or Laetus. This particular life form was formless, almost like a liquid. The scientists had no idea what to make of it, but it showed signs of intelligence, and a strange binding capability. It seemed almost as if this life form could latch on to another. They scientists wanted to find out what would happen if it were allowed to do just that.

The scientists had taken a baby, one of the many abandoned newborns left without a hope, and brought her to their lab. They had injected her with the substance, initially leading to disappointing results. The baby seemed fine, at least at first. She was healthy, she cried, she ate, and she played. The scientists felt as if they had become baby sitters, and were considering leaving her up for adoption, a lost cause. However, further tests revealed that the substance was still in her blood stream, and it seemed to have grown, molding itself to her biology.

As the years passed she was studied extensively, put through rigorous tests and training to see what kind of abilities or changes the alien might have given her. They took copious samples of her blood, testing in every way they knew how, finding nothing, until one day it seemed to awaken within her. They found her holding her head and screaming in pain and fear. Tests and questioning revealed there was another voice in her head.

The alien within her would lash out whenever a scientist came to draw blood or run a test on her. From her arms came tendrils to choke and beat the scientists. She was impossibly strong and fast, and seemed to take no injury. Within her mind, she felt the alien trying to protect her, and together they planned an escape. They broke out easily, together, as one.

She is thin and pale from being indoors and receiving most of her food through a tube. She has dark hair down to her shoulders and haunted eyes. Her eyes used to be a dark brown, but ever since being bonded with the alien now living within her, her eyes have taken on a purplish hue. The purple color increases when her passenger is taking control. When she is using the abilities of the alien, such as creating tendrils and firing off spikes from her body, the formations they create are a similar purple. If they wish, they are able to coat themselves in the alien, making a sort of suit out of it. The "suit" is form fitting, like latex, but not quite so shiny.

In a world so full of technology, the alien was slowly able to incorporate themselves into different tech, and make it a part of themselves. Since then, the woman and symbiote pair have become a woman/symbiote/cyborg. Together, they are Pulse.

I was not until later that she met Saphira, who named her Perl.