Summer Gale

Summer Gale is a Chinese mystic and a member of the Tiger Squad.

## Biography

Summer Gale was an orphan and a ward of the state in Guizhou province when, at the age of eight, she was abducted along with a hundred other girls by the sinister Doctor Yin Wu, the immortal and incredibly powerful evil wizard. He chose these children for their latent magical talents, and each one had at least some mystic potential.

The cruel Doctor Wu pitted these girls against one another in a brutal training program with the goal of finding candidates for apprenticeship. Wu forced the children to fight one another both magically and physically, teaching them just enough magic to arm them and then setting them on one another. After a year, this savage training left only ten candidates alive, and he took these survivors on as his apprentices, satisfied that they were both powerful and ruthless enough to serve him.

Summer Gale and her "sisters" were each taught one school of magic exclusively, in order to prevent them from ever rivaling the Doctor himself. Summer Gale's sphere of learning was the Lore of Water, and she learned great and powerful magic at the Doctor's careful tutelage. After ten years of apprenticeship, as she was nearing her nineteenth birthday, the Doctor had a sudden change of heart: he announced that only one of the ten girls could continue on their training as his true protégé, and the others would be used as human sacrifices for a dark ritual he had prepared to extend his long life. Summer Gale and her adoptive sisters rebelled at this, turning on the Doctor and engaging him in brutal magical combat. Even though the Doctor was outnumbered ten-to-one, his magic was far superior, and in the end only Summer Gale escaped with her life, fleeing the Doctor's palace in the confusion.

Swearing revenge, the sorceress found her way to Beijing, where she immediately appealed to the authorities for aid in destroying Doctor Wu. She was quickly inducted into the Tiger Squad upon demonstration of her powers, and although she has yet to exact her revenge on the cruel doctor, she eagerly fights him and his minions whenever they rear their heads.

## Personality

Summer Gale is dedicated to the cause of stamping out evil magic users, and can be just as brutal as the vicious Doctor Wu in pursuing that goal. But otherwise she is one of the kindest and most sympathetic members of the Tiger Squad, and cares for her allies, seeing them as her new family and going to great lengths to protect them. She is loathe to harm the innocent even indirectly, and has difficulty enforcing the Communist Party's orders when they conflict with her conscience. She has been reprimanded more than once for her "soft" stance on the Party's enemies, and her handlers watch her carefully for any signs of pro-Democracy leanings. Summer Gale is one of the most powerful members of the Tiger Squad, but her failure to faithfully carry out the Party's orders has left her as a relatively low-ranking member of the team.

Summer Gale prefers to fight with nonlethal methods whenever possible, but Doctor Wu's training has left her with a vicious streak that occasionally manifests in sudden displays of brutality when she becomes frustrated or afraid for her allies. She feels deep guilt over these incidents and fears she might truly be the Doctor's protégé in personality as well as magic.

## Powers

Although her mystic knowledge only encompasses the Lore of Water, Summer Gale has learned some of the deepest and most mysterious magic related to that area of knowledge, making her one of the world's most powerful spellcasters (albeit in a *very* narrow niche). She can conjure crushing deluges of water, take on a defensive liquid form, and even control the water in her opponents' bodies. She can teleport herself and her allies by surrounding them with water and then magically exchanging the position of that water with moisture anywhere else in the world (as a result, her "aqua-portation" does not function in particularly arid environments). She can summon water elementals, control the weather and tides, and even cause small tidal waves if she happens to be near a large body of water. She can also heal with the power of pure water and purge toxins from herself and her allies.

In addition to this potent aquamancy, Summer Gale also received a broader magical education in more basic mystic concepts, and can cast some weaker spells of a non-aquatic magic. This includes spells of detection, dispelling, and path-finding, among others.

## Weaknesses

Summer Gale's training was deliberately sabotaged by Doctor Wu, who wanted to have a trump card in case any of his apprentices ever turned on him (which turned out to be a very prudent measure). As a result, certain mystic words and relatively weak spells can totally dispel her magic, leaving her helpless. Although few know these incantations, anyone who discovered them could easily render her powerless.

Summer Gale's powers tend to be weaker in areas of extreme cold, and cold-based attacks become particularly effective against her when she takes on the physical form of water.