At long last, here we have the profile of my superheroine character War Wolf!

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Name: Erica Decker

Superhero name: War Wolf

DOB: June 6th, 1980

POB: Grant City, Maryland

Age: 32

Gender: Female

Species: Gray Wolf

Nationality: American

Height: 6’2’’

Weight: 165

Eye color: Hazel

Hair Color: Silver

Physical Appearance: A toned build, balanced between strength and agility. Silver shoulder-length hair.

Outfits:

-Black and crimson synthetic weave leather bottom and sleeveless top, reinforced gloves, boots, and bracers, black cape and eye mask.
-Long sleeves and warmer padding in the winter.
-Business suit, skirt, and high heels during her day job.
-Prefers jeans and tank tops while casual or at home.

Occupation:

-Owner of Decker Security Innovations, a designer and seller of personal security apparatus and property security network systems.

Areas of Operation:

-Grant City
-Colmaton

Weapons/items:

-Shurikens (12) in two quick-release compartments on either side of the small of her back
-Binoculars, foldable, with infrared and snapshot capability
-Flashlight
-Grapple gun
-Adhesive tracer bug
-Compact First-Aid kit
-Thin air filter/underwater breather with five minute oxygen reserve
-Folding knife
-Bolas
-Lockpick
-Explosive, flash, and gas discs: thin black pucks designed for breaching, confusion, and incapacitation, respectively
-Zip-ties

Personal Transport:

-Erica Decker: Black luxury sedan with hidden trunk compartment for her costume and a USP .45 in a locked glovebox compartment.
-War Wolf: Prefers to stick to rooftops. Black motorcycle for distance.

Powers/abilities:

-Years of combat and survival training from the US Army Rangers and private tutelage in various worldwide martial arts.
-Mastery in Jiu-Jitsu, Taekwondo, Ninjitsu, Judo, and Muay Thai.
-Expert proficiency with firearms, explosives, and electronic/computer systems
-Trained in combat helicopter piloting


Strengths:

-War Wolf is a masterful close quarters combat fighter, physically strong and agile, and holds expertise in multiple forms of martial arts. Additionally, she has high combat awareness and is quick-thinking, allowing her to think ahead in combat and utilize surrounding objects and the environment to her advantage.
-Skilled in most modern firearms, as well as utilizing and disarming common military-grade explosives.
-She is a seasoned war veteran and unfazed by heavy combat, violent situations, and extreme conditions.
-Her commitment to justice, crimefighting, and her cause is unwavering, given the tragedy that caused her to become War Wolf.
-Though she prefers to work alone or with her close ally Spectra, she possesses a successful background in combat leadership and teamwork.


Weaknesses:

-Lacks superpowers, relying solely on natural and trained abilities.
-Due to the lack of many supernatural or magical villains in Grant City, War Wolf has not yet adapted to defending against them, and is highly susceptible to them.
-Aside from the basic protection her synthweave costume and reinforced boots and bracers provide, she is vulnerable to blades and gunfire and must rely on deflection, avoidance, and stealth.
-She is serious and at times can be grim, her role as War Wolf one born of unresolved tragedy. This can make her appear distant to other heroes or even standoffish. Seldom does she relax or even attempt to have fun, whether as War Wolf or Erica Decker, her life devoted to her purpose.
-Can become extremely angered and possibly reckless if a villain mocks familial loss, especially situations similar to her own.

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Bio:

On June 6th, 1980, Erica Everett was born an only child to Colonel Lawrence Everett and Carol Everett in Grant City on the Maryland coast. With her father’s advisor duties in the US Army keeping the family travelling from one base to another and her mother working odd jobs to help save up for her daughter’s future, Erica grew up with few lasting friendships and a frequently empty house.

At seven years old, tragedy struck Erica when her mother died in a car accident while driving home from work during a heavy snowstorm. Colonel Everett, a hard and stern man chiseled from a military background and family tradition, found himself thrust into the role of a single father with a hurt and lonely daughter. Their mutual loss helped to bring them closer together, but still Erica found herself alone often, turning to either books or computers as she grew older. She became an avid reader, consuming every book she could get her hands on which, given the types of books her father left around the house, piqued her interest in military history and the soldier’s life. She found that her knowledge and interest pleased her father and the subject became a common talking point, which would lead to long conversations. Lawrence instilled in his daughter admiration for the highest ideals of military service, such as courage, selflessness, duty, and respect.

At age seventeen, Erica enlisted in the US Army, wanting nothing more than to follow her father’s footsteps. Scoring highly on the ASVAB, and with her self-taught computer and electronic knowledge, she became an Information Technology Specialist. Though she knew infantry roles were limited for women, she yearned to join a combat battalion. She kept fit and trained on her own time in marksmanship and unarmed fighting, as well as doing the best job possible in her ITS role and partaking in advanced training and paratrooper qualifications.

Three years later, Erica travelled to Grant City on leave to visit her father and rear-ended an unmarked police vehicle. The lupine Grant City police detective driving it, David Decker, could see that the uniformed woman was tired from a long trip and waved the fender bender off. He and Erica talked for a bit about their jobs and soon the wolfess found herself smiling, enjoying his company. When he shyly half-joked that he wouldn’t fine her for the car if she let him take her out to dinner that night, to his surprise she accepted.

Over the next several months, the two of them continued to see each other, taking turns to visit either in Grant City or at Erica’s stationing. Erica found joy in every moment spent with David and connected with him in a way she never had with anyone else. He was a man of honor and service with a truly good heart, a man she felt totally comfortable and safe with. A soul mate. Erica was soon able to transfer to Fort Detrick in Maryland, only a short distance from Grant City, so she and David could be together.

Though she couldn’t be happier with the relationship, the fact that it had become so serious made Erica stop and think about where she was and what she wanted. She talked with her father about her dreams of becoming a soldier like him, and fighting in a combat unit some day, and expressed concerns that she wasn’t ready to settle down. He told her that as much as she didn’t want to see his girl in harm’s way, he knew what it was to be a warrior at heart. His late wife accepted that of him. If a future with David was to work, he would need to hear Erica’s dreams and accept those of her.

On the evening of her twenty-first birthday, David took her out to a nice restaurant where he sensed Erica was nervous about something and asked about it. Fearful of his reaction to the career she wished to pursue, she hesitantly laid out her plans and desires to progress beyond ITS some day, and how she might be away for long stretches of time in dangerous situations. When she was done, David took her hands in the middle of the table to comfort her and told her that he knew exactly what kind of woman he had in front of him. When he released Erica’s hand, she found a diamond engagement ring in her palm.

Now happily married as Erica Decker, she was in for her next wonderful surprise when she became pregnant. Nine months later, she gave birth to a beautiful lupine boy, David Decker Jr.

The next couple years were heaven for Erica, love for her husband and son lifting her spirits as high as they could be. At age twenty-four, with her son two years old and her husband one of the Grant Police Department’s most successful detectives, she received a call from her father informing her that the US Army’s elite Rangers would be opening a round of the selection process to female soldiers as a trial of females in special combat roles. It was the call she’d been waiting for, the opportunity to become a soldier in an elite combat battalion. After a difficult goodbye to her husband and son, she set out to begin the long path toward Ranger School.

Months later, after the most grueling physical and mental exertion of Erica’s life, only fifteen percent of the women who applied remained and were qualified to attend Ranger School. In the end, Erica was one of three women assigned to the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, having proven herself a first-rate soldier. After a few last weeks of leave with her family, she was deployed to Afghanistan.

Though she saw plenty of combat over the coming months and performed admirably, she discovered through some of her father’s old contacts that the Army was being careful with her squad, keeping it in the less active combat zones for fear of their “test girls” screwing up and creating a public relations disaster. Upset that she wasn’t being treated like any other soldier, her anger was tempered by the discovery that the program had expected no women to pass selection, proving that she did indeed become a Ranger on her own merit and strength.
Erica’s father passed away later that year of persistent heart disease. Though Erica knew her father wasn’t doing well, the death still hit her hard. She was sent home for two days to attend the funeral, reuniting with her family for the first time since deployment overseas. David gave her something that Lawrence had asked him to relay in the event of his death, an oak box along with a note telling Erica how proud he was of her and the woman she had become. The note ended with the line, “In wartime, may this be a faithful weapon for you as it was for me. In peace, keep it nearby as a reminder that through the ravages of hardship, a true soldier never stops fighting.” Inside the box was a weathered M1911 .45, the handgun carried be Erica’s grandfather in World War II and Lawrence himself in Vietnam and Korea.

Finding it harder than ever to say goodbye to David and her infant son, Erica returned to Afghanistan. The tension of battle, the loss of her father, and the crushing heartache of being apart from her family left her many lonely nights, sleeping on the cot with her face to the wall so her comrades wouldn’t see her subtly wipe away a tear now and then.

Near the end of her tour of duty, Erica’s company was scrambled when word came that a Marine chopper had been downed in Shahi-Kot Valley. Deployed with the goal of securing the crash site and rescuing survivors, the Rangers were met with unexpected resistance and Erica’s Blackhawk was damaged by RPG fire, forcing a hard landing nearly two hundred meters short of the crash site where the surviving Marines were pinned in a rocky pass, elevated enemy positions on both sides. Her head bleeding from a laceration sustained during the landing, Erica struggled from the lopsided chopper, bullets pinging against the chassis and kicking up dirt around her. With the intense fire preventing the other two Ranger choppers from landing, Erica’s squad was on its own for the time being.

But she knew the Marines didn’t have time to lose. After dragging the injured members of her squad behind cover, Erica led the two remaining operational squadmates into the rugged hills to flank the first elevated position firing down on the Marines. The three rangers destroyed the fortification, giving themselves cover from which to fire on the enemy shooters across the pass.

With her two squadmates providing covering fire and the two other Ranger choppers giving what air support they could, Erica broke cover and sprinted down to the Marines’ position, the dead enemies’ weapons slung over her shoulder and ammo in her pockets. She reached the Marines’ withered cover, despite having sustained a glancing shot to the shoulder and a round through her thigh, and found their ammunition to be nearly gone. Using the enemy AKs she’d hauled along, the Marines resumed steady return fire with the Rangers fighting alongside them.

Despite the added firepower, the enemy forces made one final push to overwhelm the crash site. Erica swallowed fear as the enemy combatants encroached ever further, her ammo running low once more. By the time the enemy were close enough for her to see the whites of their eyes, her AK clicked on empty, her M4 long depleted. Dropping it to the ground, she pulled her father’s 1911 from her leg holster and fired, driving back the gunmen about to make a move on her. Moments later, her final magazine nearly expended, the thumping beat of rotor blades rose above the gunfire. Half a dozen Army choppers soared overhead, bringing reinforcements from Bagram. The remaining enemy forces retreated, offering only sporadic gunfire as friendly troops landed and moved in.

Having suffered multiple gunshot wounds, lacerations, and trauma, the barely conscious Erica was medevac’d to a field hospital and stabilized for transport to Germany, and finally to an Army hospital in Bethesda, Maryland where David and David Jr. were waiting for her. During her recovery, she was shocked to be informed that for her actions in Shahi-Kot Valley, she was to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. She also received a six-pack of beer, the cans signed by each of the Marines she had fought beside, as well as her father’s 1911 and her tan beret sent from her own squad.

With her tour ending while she was still recovering, Erica knew she would likely be called for a second tour of duty within the next year and wrestled with the idea of leaving again, especially after her brush with death got her to thinking. She loved the Rangers, but she could see the strain it put on David no matter how well he tried to hide it, not to mention she was missing her own son’s childhood. At long last, she made the decision to request transfer and was sent to Fort Detrick as an ITS instructor where she would spend most of her time aside from three months each year as a squad tactics trainer at Fort Benning.

Relishing the fact that she could now be with her family, Erica spent all the time she could with her husband and son. When her active duty time came to a close, she decided to transfer to reserve status for the remainder of her service contract and pursue a career in Grant City alongside David. With her record, she was able to secure a job as a technical systems coordinator for a private security firm with which the GPD had a good working relationship. Her interest in security grew and soon she and David entertained the notion of starting their own firm when they saved up enough money.

Soon after, David became embroiled in an investigation into Don Marelli, head of the Marelli family, an alleged crime syndicate that had evaded law enforcement repercussions with bribes, threats, and assassinations. Refusing to give in on the mob that had been a thorn in Grant City’s side for so long, he stayed on the case and rejected a sizeable bribe attempt, turning it into more evidence against the syndicate.

On July 27th, 2006, at 11:00 AM, just outside Federico’s Café in downtown Grant City, Erica Decker’s life changed forever.

The Decker family had just finished an early lunch and stepped out onto the street corner when the black sedan slowed in passing. Erica had just finished smoothing out a tuft of fur behind her son’s ears when she turned and saw the gleaming violet eyes in the back seat, gazing at her with gleeful anticipation from behind the metal maw of a submachine gun. The calm morning erupted in gunfire, a hail of bullets shredding the front of the café. Struck in the abdomen, Erica collapsed, losing blood fast. But her injury was forgotten when she saw the bloodstained, still bodies of her husband and son lying on the sidewalk beside her. The sight would never dim from her memory.

Erica was consumed with devastation and grief, feeling as if she were trapped in an inescapable nightmare, dealing with the police during the day and weeping into her son’s pillow at night, his scent fading with each passing day. After their funeral, she sat on the floor of her bedroom, her 1911 on the carpet beside her, the loneliness of the empty house crushing her. She took the gun apart, cleaning each piece, delaying what she knew she would do once the sidearm was put back together. However, while rubbing solvent over the inside of the slide for the third time, she felt scratches in the metal. Holding it up to the light, she spied something etched in the steel, something she’d never seen before. She recognized the moniker from the stories her father used to tell her; it was a nickname given to her grandfather by the men under his command in World War II, a name Lawrence always uttered with a hidden grin of pride and respect.

War Wolf

Beside the name was a fresher etching of a Roman numeral two, no doubt added by Erica’s father when he took possession.

Before she could do anything else, a knock at her door summoned her. Detective Barrett, a colleague and friend of David’s had come personally to inform her that they had a suspect: Violetta, one of the most deadly assassins in the world, but she’d gotten away clean and they had no leads as to her location. The car used in the shooting had been abandoned, but traffic cams showed it parked at a restaurant known as a Marelli front before the shooting. A pile of evidence had been compiled linking the shooting to Don Marelli himself, but the evidence was “lost” before it could be catalogued.

Erica refused to accept that, demanding action from police and using every connection she had to try and get someone, anyone, to go after the Marelli syndicate and pursue Violetta. All she received were empty promises and frightened excuses. Detective Barrett pulled Erica aside and showed her their full file on the Marelli syndicate and the private army of enforcers at their command. Every crime they were suspected of. Every person dead at their hands. Every bit of misery they’d burdened Grant City with. And no one could touch them with the money, power, and connections they had.

Erica returned home, viewing Grant City with fresh eyes. David had been at war all along, same as she, only his war was with the crime and corruption that plagued the city they both loved. But whereas her war ended with a return home and a loving family, David’s war claimed his life before he could find victory.

Returning to her bedroom, Erica knelt beside her disassembled pistol and began to put it back together, her mind no longer dwelling on self-destruction but rather how to finish what her husband started. The oak box for the 1911 lay on the floor near the gun and a corner of the note left by her father peeked out from beneath the lid, catching her eyes. Erica pulled it free and read the note once more.

“…through the ravages of hardship, a true soldier never stops fighting.”

She realized that the war for Grant City needed a soldier, one who could fight without vulnerability to corruption and be unburdened by the yoke of bureaucracy. One who could take the fight to criminals and villains and strike the same fear in their hearts as they did to the populace. One who could show the frightened citizens and stagnant police that there was someone willing to push back against the encroaching darkness.

Her eyes taking on sharp focus in her renewed purpose, Erica took the folding knife she kept in her end table and carved a single line into the handgun’s slide, turning the Roman numeral two into a three. She then reassembled the 1911, replaced it in its case, and put it away in her closet.

As far as those who knew Erica were concerned, she disappeared after that for nearly three years. The streets of Grant City were a different battlefield than the mountains of Afghanistan and required a different kind of soldier. She travelled the world, seeking the most rigorous training she could find to expand her martial arts knowledge, forging through dangerous lands and giving every breath of her spirit and body to improvement. She learned of nonlethal combat and stealth, how to balance war with mercy, and how to rise victorious over her enemies without killing. If she was going to fight this war, she vowed to do it how David would have wanted, with the criminals brought to justice.

Erica returned to Grant City a changed woman, every moment of her life in the Rangers and abroad ready to be dedicated to the purpose fighting the war for Grant City, and especially hunting down Violetta and bringing down the Marelli family. With the money she received as part of her police widow’s benefit, Erica bought an old piece of property on the outskirts of the city after researching real estate and discovering that the former owner had built a sizeable bomb shelter beneath the building during the Cold War. From the empty land rose the concrete, steel, and glass home of Decker Security Innovations, the company Erica and David were to create together.

Erica’s two lives in Grant City progressed side by side. In public, she started a successful security and secure network systems firm, using her skill in computers and electronics to provide personal security devices of her own design as well as incorporating property security systems. She purposely sought out suspected mob and villain fronts, aiming to earn their business and secretly spy on their operations. Additionally, she has remotely gained access to the GPD network and secure files.

In private, Erica spent her time in the repurposed bunker, setting up a command station and building her new combat attire and equipment from her own designs. The bunker felt like her real home, her new outfit like her real skin, and the mask like her real face. Erica Decker of DSI was just the public face of her true self, the soldier who would never stop fighting until the war was won.

Soon, a new figure stood silhouetted against the dark nighttime Grant City skyline, keeping an unwavering vigil over the crime-ridden streets, delivering swift and brutal combat to those who would harm the innocent. She delved into the city’s darkest corners where police dare not tread, fought the criminals they were stymied from pursuing, stood between the greatness her city offered and the evil that would tear it apart. She is an unyielding defender, a sword and shield of justice, a warrior of the night.

She is War Wolf.

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Personality:

Erica Decker is charismatic and professional, a model businesswoman. Decker Security Innovations has become very successful and whatever money doesn’t go into supporting War Wolf’s mission is donated to various charities. She attends parties, networks her business, and rubs elbows with anyone who might be a valuable contact. However, Erica works hard to keep this façade believable.

Though she puts on a mask to become Grant City’s heroine, War Wolf is Erica’s true self, a serious, tragedy-scarred, unquestionably dedicated soldier who feels at home in the city’s shadows fighting the war that claimed her husband and son. She can be grim in demeanor and curt, but her dedication to justice and honor is unflinching. She considers herself in service to Grant City and is willing to give her life in its defense, even if that means saving one random person.

In combat, she is direct and forceful, aiming to take down the opposition as quickly and decisively as possible. Since she is not superpowered and must rely on evasion, utility, and instinct to overcome her foes, she tries to study villains and take a tactical approach to a fight when possible. When up against a new foe, she will fight defensively at first, learning her opponent’s weakness as he or she reveals it. Though she will retreat if tactics call for it, she is extremely resilient and unyielding in combat and will take a beating if she must in order to win the day or save a life. Her hatred for crime and villainy lends her extra resolve to fight and sustain injury in her determination to take down an opponent.

Erica still considers herself married and wears her wedding ring even while out as War Wolf.

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Relationship with Bureau of Superheroes (Colmaton universe):

War Wolf is accustomed to working alone or with her sidekick and confidant Spectra. Her reasons for becoming a hero and her continued mission make War Wolf a very intimate role for Erica, one she is unwilling to cede control over to any outside influence, including the BOS. She has a history of dealing with corruption in other government and law enforcement agencies and tries to keep the BOS at arm’s length.

However, her transition to the city of Colmaton in pursuit of Violetta has made Erica realize that allies are needed to combat the powerful villains occupying the city. Though she is willing to work with BOS agents when the need arises, she does so with a healthy dose of wariness. She is, however, more inclined to trust BOS heroes with an honorable military background.

Regardless of her unregistered status and her feelings toward the BOS, Erica recognizes that she and the individual registered heroes are on the same side in the fight against Colmaton’s villains. She wouldn’t hesitate to aid a BOS agent in trouble at the hands of criminals or villains.

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War Wolf belongs to me
Colmaton belongs to  train
The BOS belongs to  mojorover