Skirmish

California "Cali" Summer, known by her nickname 'Skirmish' was a magi bounty hunter and tattoo artist who worked for the Guild and her cousin Jane was also part of the guild until she became a Nighstalker, though Cali later became owner of the Summer Motel with her girlfriend Grace De la Garza after her mother Sandra died.

Cali is a proud and out lesbian with a strong masculine vibe.

### **History**

Born to Sandra Summer, an older member of the Guild, Cali was only vaguely ware of her magi heritage, while Sandra was also able to Tune, did not develop it, with most of her family part of a necromantic cult with the Baldwins, a cult that was said to have mixed the family genes in a somewhat incestuous way for years in an effort to make stronger tuning potential; the result, however made some of the Summer-Baldwins deformed; in an effort to escape the 'creepiness' of the intertwined families, Sandra fled across the country to Reno, where she had Cali with a member of the early Guild, a man who would disappear shortly after she was born.

Years later when Sandra's niece Jane also trying to escape the Summer-Baldwin necro cult after trying to resurrect an old dark wizard, she and Cali explored their magi potential and became bounty hunters for The Guild during their late teenage years.

When Sandra was killed, Jane suspected a member of their families' cult, The Followers of UmbraX°, and the two fought a wave of cultists and recruits from the family for years.

### **Appearance**

Cali was an outwardly bulky and stout, with short, closely shaved often died green hair dressing in baggy clothes and vests, she sported multiple piercings and both normal and magic tattoos. While she is stout, having something of a slight chubby paunch and rounded face, is also well-muscled on her upper arms and legs giving her a natural strength.

### **Personality**

Cali has a strong masculine, highly tomboyish personality and shares many "traditionally male" likes, such as racing, sports, boxing, hunting and shooting. She is highly protective over what is hers and is *"suspicious of everyone*", naturally analytical she is a highly focused fighter, both with guns and hand-to-hand combat.

She can be impatient and often quick to anger but balanced by her natural tactical stance on combat.

### **Powers and Skills**

#### **Powers**

**Telumigenic Exnihilomancy:** Cali was one of a handful of Humans with the ability to tune allowing her to sense and ultimately manipulate 'magical' frequencies that pour in from the greater universe. Not being as scholarly or interested in the finer minutia of mysticism, Cali chose to harness her magic in a more physical way; while this process took years to successfully develop, and is limited in only a few functions, has since learned to regulate her mana to allow her to need little else in combat. Cali developed special tattoos with her cousin, creating the ink, equipment and materials used in the process and rituals themselves over many years. Unlike Jane's tattoos, that let her focus magic into specially created guns, Cali's tattoos and focusing gloves let her manifest a powerful tactical assault rifle, dark grey with bronze highlights with her right arm and various types of ammo with her left. It is believed that the weapons and ammo she manifests are 'created' rather than summoned as this gun is utterly unique to her, created from both exterior aether and internal mana, combined with a small section of her life force. As such she can only summon this gun as the tattoo is specifically designed for this one spell alone.

* **Munisha:** From the tattoo on her right side arm she can create a weapon roughly resembling a Heckler & Koch HK33; one of her favourite guns; directly into her grip. While her right tattoo summons only this weapon it can be equipped with multiple types of ammo impossible for a standard gun, is equipped with a powerful scope with night-vision and thermal capabilities and a small detachable bayonet that can pierce steel. The weapon is four times more powerful than even the most fine-tuned and modified assault rifle. Munisha is created empty and so must also summon an ammo clip separately; this, unlike her gun lets her manifest different types of ammo within a similar clip.
* **Ammunisha:** She creates curved, greenish ammunition clips that fire 7.62×39mm rounds as standard upon manifest with her left tattoo, directly into her hand. After years of practice she can create these without outward incantation but has to incantate when she desires a different ammo type.
	+ ***"Ammunisha; 12"*:** Creates a clip that fires 12mm rounds, slower but highly powerful and much longer range.
	+ ***"*Ammunisha; Frag"*:***Creates a clip that fires slightly explosive rounds.
	+ ***"*Ammunisha; Flame"*:***Creates a bottle-like clip that allows her to gun to blast a stream of green flame from the barrel.
	+ ***"*Ammunisha; Grenade*:"*** Creates clips that fire small but highly explosive time-delayed spheres.
* "**Manalibra":** A mana-balancing technique use to manage her internal mana for various effects including increasing the efficiency of her manifestations with her biological processes.
	+ "**Coniunctis"*:*** This let her temporarily increase her own mental focus, enabling better aiming at longer ranges and increasing her reflexes at short.
	+ ***"Deprehensio":*** This spell lets her precisely detect enemies and the environment within a KM radius and retrieve information about them in high detail.
	+ ***"Suisana"*:** Lets her increase her own healing rate, stamina and endurance for a short time allowing her a limited form of self-healing and increased and temporarily sustained recovery.

#### **Skills**

* **Skilled Boxer:** Cali is a champion boxer and has floored men twice her size and weight.
* **Skilled Tattoo Artist:** Her use of mystic tattoos to act as a partial focus and protective system against negative magical energies on her body has allowed her to become highly talented in applying normal tattoos to others and has a naturally steady hand.
* **High Intelligence:** Despite her outwardly boyish brutal attitude, she is very intelligent, analytical and has a high eye for detail.
* **Bilingual**: She can speak English and Spanish.
* **Hunting and Tracking Expertise:** Her time in the Guild has made her highly competent in finding and locating targets.
* **Highly Skilled Tactician:** Her natural analytical mind and focused work ethic, despite her impatience and hot temper, has made her highly tactical in battle.
* **Gun Maintenance:** She has intricate understanding of how to maintain various forms of projectile though she no longer needs to use her existing and somewhat outdated rifles that belonged to her mother, still regularly maintains her pistol.
* **Tattoo Equipment Maintenance and Construction:** She learned to construct a tattoo system from scratch and can maintain regular tattooing equipment.
* **Expert Markswoman:** She has learned to fire her pistols and assault rifle with extreme precision and speed, becoming a top-tier close and medium-range expert.

### **Weapons and Equipment**

* **Foci:** **Rifle Summoning Tattoo "Munisha":** Skirmish spent years studying magic with Pentra where they did early missions for The Guild, although she was not as scholarly as her cousin, together they learned to create mana-harnessing ink by combining magically-imbued chemical ingredients from scratch during rituals. She applied these tattoos with Jane's help to her right arm and were composed of a black abstract technological-looking shape edged in dark copper around her forearm and across the back of her hand and palm; When in use this glows a bright orange.
* **Foci:** **Ammunition Summoning Tattoo "Ammunisha":** She also has similar shape tattoos on her left arm, slightly smaller that over half of her forearm and hand that let her summon ammo cartages for her summoned rifle, but this is edged in green. The black of the tattoo glows a bright neon green when in use.
* **Foci:** **Mana** **Compression Gloves:** Skirmish also uses two specially made fingerless gloves to aid in the process of manifestation.
* **Tactical Pistol:** She owns a Springfield Armory XD-M OSP that she calls "Sandra" after her mother, as an emergency side-arm should she be in a scenario where she cant use Munisha, though she rarely has to draw it.
* **Grenades:** She also owns several brought grenades, usually for an emergency.

### **Limitations and Weaknesses**

Like all magi she needs a focus to properly control and sustain her spells, in terms of Cali not being a particularly scholarly or well-learned individual, from where most forms of magic have their strength, she has had to use several focal techniques and spent years developing and properly harnessing them.

Her tattoos let her summon her gun and ammo, but as she has spent the majority of her time and practice developing this magic, has no other extensions of magic save her 'manalibra' techniques that give very quick and temporary physical improvements.

Cali can be quick-to-anger and contemptuous, which can affect how much mana she uses and the success of her spells.