Erica Cross

Erica grew up on the streets of Chicago, her mother was a nurse, her father was a mechanic, but he worked part time for the local mafia, a sub family of the Castillo crime family that operated out of LA. When Erica was younger, Chicago was in something of a regression, much of the region was controlled by various mobs and syndicates. When she was 12 she was nearly killed by a drive by shooting, her mother sent her away to an Aunt in Boston who was very well to do thanks to her late husband's estate and his family connections.

She spent much of her early teens in an area similar to what she grew up in Chicago, but her Aunt had an estate that was nearly abandoned, save for equestrian and marksmanship training. One of the instructors show how easily Erica was able to handle a firearm and thought she would enjoy archery. As primitive as it was, she figured she had nothing else better to do and horses scared her at the time, they were twice her size.

For two years she spent most of her summer vacations and other breaks on the estate with her Aunt taking archery classes, as well as gymnastics and judo. She enjoyed the judo as it gave her some confidence that she could defend herself without a weapon, gymnastics was also a way that she could remain flexible and graceful, as she had begun to have a considerable growth spurt during her teens. As she got taller, she found she had considerable reach with a bow and could use and fire bows that grown men would have a hard time using.

When she was 16 an Olympic scout had watched her compete and offered her a spot on the American archery team. She was 18 when she competed in her first Olympics and while she didn't medal, she still caught the eye of many, due to her striking good looks and her skill. Considered to be one of the rising star Olympians, she spent the next four years training and taking distance learning courses. Just as she was about to compete in her first event, one of her teammates was targeted by a Tal'Shiar agent and murdered on the field with a sniper's bullet. Erica sprang into action, replacing the blunt target tip on one of her arrows with a heavier pointed tip used for wooden targets and shot the sniper from nearly a football field away, almost killing him instantly if it wasn't for the heaviness of the jacket he wore.

Starfleet Intelligence had taken Erica aside, congratulated her on her actions and explained that the team mate that was killed was an undercover operative. Given they were down a trained agent and an athlete who was getting close to a medal, they offered a field commission to Erica as an agent if she would work with them. Win or lose, she would have training, a job and they would continue to sponsor her athletic endeavors. She nearly refused, but then she was told that her father's lengthy criminal history would be expunged if he kept his nose clean, which he had done for a couple of years at that point. She always feared that one day he would end up in a penal colony for the rest of his life.

Erica went on to win the Bronze medal and a Silver medal in that Olympics. After the Games, she went to San Francisco to train with Starfleet Intelligence, while using the Olympic training center as a cover for what she was doing with her time. It didn't take long for the Castillo Family to find out that Erica was in the state and not much longer after that for her handlers at Starfleet Intel to put the Castillos on their radar.

After her training she earned herself a commission as a Lieutenant and 'surprised' her parents by graduating from Starfleet Academy. Her post graduation assignment was as an 'archivist', as she enjoyed learning history and enjoyed correcting mistakes. Of course, when she wasn't working at the Starfleet Archives or training, she was on field missions with Starfleet Intelligence. Gradually rising through the ranks as one of their more effective agents and support agents. While not a lead agent initially she backed them up, providing cover fire, sniper coverage and in some cases, extraction assistance. Her graceful acrobatic training and strong arm allowed her to get the upper hand in many fights.

Her next Olympics she managed to win three Silvers and one Bronze. It was then that she realized that she never really wanted the Gold, she wanted to be noticed but not idolized, as that wouldn't help her career as an intelligence officer. After that Olympics, Erica had managed to take out members of the Castillo Family that held Chicago in their grip and destabilized their organization to the point that Starfleet Intel was close to dismantling it. That is until a young Erica had been nearly beaten within an inch of her life by one of the higher ups in the Castillo Family and not only disabled her for almost year, but attacked her handlers and fellow agents. S.I. decided to back down for the moment while she healed.

Moving back to Chicago, Erica met and fell in love with Barry Bartyn, she changed her name to Sophie LeFluer simply because she didn't want to make waves with the Castillos. But she quickly found out that Bartyn was involved in organized crime as well. Figuring that maybe she could take down the upstart family that took the Castillos place, she'd be able to eventually make some kind of difference. The slight face change and name change wasn't quite enough as she was blackmailed into helping Bartyn or else they would kill her family. Resigning from Starfleet Intel, at least as much as any agent can resign, she had three children with Barry and attempted to live as normal a life as she could within the kind of life she tried to get away from.

Roughly fifteen years went by, she and Barry were enforcers for a couple of different families, she stayed off the radar as much as she could, as she did have three children within a matter of four years, working off the baby weight with being her husband's support. It took until the kids were at least in their teens, although Clint was still only 7 but she knew she could give him a better life, that she decided enough was enough and worked with the local Police to take down Bartyn's handlers and... Barry himself. He was robbing a store with their first born son Barney who was still a minor, and Barry was killed in the attempt, Barney was very much a father's son and while he gave up, he still did time. Wanda, the second born was in love with one of the sons of the family they worked for and when she turned 17 they fled to New Sydney to elope. Clint and his mother tried to make a go of it, but she knew she couldn't continue as Sophie Bartyn and went back to her handlers at Starfleet Intel to help her.

They worked out a plan where Clint would be 'taken' from Sophie and Sophie would go to prison. In reality, they would allow her to resume as her birth self, changing her face back and giving Clint to a foster family, which was actually his mother's parents, of course her father was still a criminal, just very good at staying out of spotlight, but he was a bad influence on Clint and taught him to be sneaky and how to fight. Erica married one of her old partners in the Archery team, Aaron Cross and managed to get Clint back from her parents. Basically disowning her father, she tried to train her father's influence out of him, but he was in trouble quite a bit, but she wouldn't lose her youngest son to the life that had ruined her father and her own family, including her eldest son and daughter.

Clint grew up with his birth mother, thinking she was just his adoptive foster mother. Erica thought it best that she keep up that charade as much as possible, as much as it hurt her inside to see him look at her like anyone but his mother, but it was for the best. She didn't feel proud of the past decade and a half of her life and once he had grown up and moved out, she tried to turn him back to the one place she had found refuge, Starfleet Intel. One of her agents had approached him and offered to expunge his criminal record in exchange for working with Starfleet Intel. She had been following his exploits, he had certainly inherited her archery skills and her nearly perfect aim. He could have competed but his criminal background kept him from following in her footsteps, although in some ways she was glad, he was so hung up on keeping his father's last name that it made it far too easy for the IOC to find out his background.

Aaron had died in an accident and it was wrongly reported that she died as well, she was on assignment, but there were clothes, some of her hair and a couple of her false teeth that she had kept in a jar in an overnight bag that when the shuttle had crashed and exploded, they assumed that she had been pretty much vaporized on the impact, with enough DNA evidence to place her there. Erica dove deeper into the Agency after that, allowing Clint to move on with his own career and watching him from afar, proud that he had progressed as an agent and operative, but disappointed that he had become an agency assassin and had a much longer kill list than she did. Their assignments kept them apart for many years, until the Fall of the Federation.

Fearing the worst and given that Julie Lei was one of the hands behind it, she fled and eventually found herself on Terra Alpha and reunited with her son. Proud that he had survived the Fall and had been making a name for himself as a 'good man' for once, a man of integrity. She was also shocked that he had managed to marry a legend in the Intelligence community, the Black Widow aka Selene Lenara aka SO MANY OTHER NAMES, that she was almost unsure she was the real Black Widow until she saw her in action.

Rejoining her son and his family, she was offered a staff position within the Ryder Administration and was there to support her granddaughter Isabella Cross when she was eventually made President after the Capitol Incident. When those lost during the Capitol Incident returned and her grandson in law, Jon Price became President after Isabella and Nick Ryder abdicated, she decided that it was time to get back to one of her loves, archery and teaching. When Jon announced a new Olympics on Terra Alpha, she immediately said yes to training an Archery Biathlon team and even decided that she was still in good enough shape to compete with her students, who were some of her son Clint's. Clint secretly gave his mother the Cross Archery school and gym, in return for not giving him crap about how much merch he had made up, which suited her fine as her students became quite popular and people wanted to wear what they wore.