Maxine Cruz

**Maxine Cruz** (マキシン・クルーズ, *Makishin Kurūzu*?), also known under her alias **Lady X** (レディX, *Redi X*?), is a Villain and the founder of the Cross Faction.

She formerly served under the police force in Los Angeles before being discharged from duty after being accused of multiple counts of murder. Maxine ended up joining an underground organization and became an assassin for hire, working together with them for over five years, until the organization was disbanded, following the capture of nearly every member, save for Maxine herself.

Maxine fled to another state and founded the Cross Faction, continuing to act as an assassin who goes after high priority targets, such as high ranking political figures and Heroes alike. Maxine also uses her faction to distribute bounty rewards across the United States.

## Appearance

Maxine is a woman of average height and build. She has long hair, braided into a ponytail, with asymmetrical length, as the hair on the right side of her head is slightly longer than that on the left. Her hair is mostly white in color, but several of her strands, predominantly on the right side of her face, are painted black. Her most prominent features are her eyes, with her iris being completely black, and her pupils being colored red and having an X-shape instead of being round.

Her villain costume and usual outfit consists of a completely white jacket with gray detailing around the sleeves and collar, with a mixture of black and red in its color scheme. Maxine wears a black fur collar around her shoulders. She wears a flower-like amulet on the collar of her outfit, which resembles an X in its shape. Maxine wears a black tuxedo underneath her jacket, with long pants that have red frills at the bottom.

## Personality

Maxine is a very cold and quiet person, being very distant towards other people, even those whom she is well acquainted with. She shows very little interest in interacting with other people, unless it is a means for her to achieve a specific goal. She is well-spoken and rational, acting professional in almost any situation while only rarely ever losing her temper. Despite her lack of many social interactions, Maxine has very keen senses when it comes to reading someone’s personality and feelings. Being a great judge of character, she also knows when and who to trust.

Even before becoming a villain, Maxine has shown numerous signs of instability. When she was in the police force, Maxine was notorious for quickly resorting to lethal measures in order to take care of her targets. After she was discharged, she shortly joined an underground organization in order to work as an assassin, so that she could continue to work in the ways that she was the most effective in.

Despite being a villain herself, Maxine does not consider most villains she comes across to be potential allies. She acts similarly towards heroes, whereas she won’t consider them enemies upon first meeting them. It’s only when they actively try to get in her way where she starts to consider them threats. Since her business revolves around making money by assassinating high priority targets though, she will actively hunt those with a reward on their head, whether she had prior connections with them or not.

## Abilities

### Quirk

**X-Eye** (X目 (エックスアイ) , *Ekkusu Ai*?): Maxine’s quirk allows her to create and manipulate X-Shaped projectiles from anywhere within her field of view. These projectiles have both cutting and explosive properties upon impact. She can also control these properties by either having her eyes wide open, or clenching them shut respectively.

Maxine has a wide range of attacks from high vantage points or generally large areas. She is very experienced when it comes to the usage of her quirk, having effective methods of killing by piercing vital organs with the cutting capabilities, or even causing devastating damage by forcing her projectiles to explode. Being able to control them freely as long as they remain within her field of view, Maxine can easily overwhelm people, as long as they don’t hide behind something or are too fast for her eyes to follow.

Her quirk depends on her eyes and the range that she can look at. Being less effective in cramped spaces, or if her eyes are hindered in some ways, such as being blinded by bright lights or irritated by dust.

## Equipment

* **Protective Contacts**: When on a mission, Maxine will typically wear a special brand of contact lenses, not made to necessarily enhance vision, but to protect her eyes from various outside forms of irritation, such as dirt, dust or small debris.

* **Sunglasses**: Maxine will occasionally wear sunglasses to protect her eyes from the bright sunlight. Typically worn when she has to do something in the middle of the day and doesn’t want to be hampered by the light or its reflections.

* **X-Visor**: A special piece of equipment made specifically for Maxine, the X-Visor is an advanced tool that is capable of detecting the energy emitted by Maxine’s projectiles, and visualizing them even through solid objects. With the visor, Maxine is capable of controlling her projectiles, even if they are obscured by something such as a wall. The visor can only detect the energy sources created by Maxine’s quirk and nothing else.

* **Glock 20**: Maxine carries a handgun in cases where she is forced into close quarters, or is incapable of using her quirk due to being blinded. She is quite skilled with a handgun, as she received training back when she was in the police force.

## Trivia

* Maxine's appearance is based off of Arlecchino from Genshin Impact
* Maxine's first name has an X in it, and her last name means "cross". Referencing her Quirk.