Nicky Winters

Description
Nicky Winters is an attractive young albino girl, apparently aged about sixteen but with the poise and composure of an older person. She is wearing a light blue jacket, white blouse, ankle length dark green pleated skirt, and sensible rather than fashionable leather shoes.

Background
Nicky Winters was born as the Countess Nicolai De'Estes in the southern part of Italy in the year 1429 AD. Her mother died during the birth, leaving Nicolai to be raised by her father, the Count De'Estes, under the care of a nurse, Maria Blumberg. The Count ruled his estate with an iron fist and the young Nicolai had no friends of her own age during her childhood, the local population being far too frightened to risk any association with her.

In Nicolai's sixteenth year, her father arranged for a known vampire to stay in the family castle. The Count offered his daughter, and only child, to the vampire in exchange for the vampire instructing young Nicolai, once she had risen as a subservient vampiress, to use her powers to extend the Count's lifespan. The deal was struck between the vampire and the Count, and Nicolai was drained that night. For three days the girl's body lay in her bedroom. On the third night she rose from her death slumber and fell in ravaging hunger upon the castle guards, slaying all but one. While she was feeding on the guards, the older vampire, her new master, instructed her, as agreed with the Count, to extend the lifespan of her father. Nicolai did so but also extended the lifespan of her once beloved and still loyal nurse.

The sole surviving castle guard, having fled to the nearby village, informed the parish priest of the activities at the Count's castle. Mobilizing the village folk the priest lead them to the castle and set it ablaze. The Count and Maria escaped the flames, the Count by a secret tunnel, the nurse allowed to leave the castle gates by the villagers. The older vampire flew from the castle battlements in the form of a bat. Nicolai, newly risen and inexperienced in her vampiric abilities, was trapped and burned. When her body was found in the ashes and rubble the following day, she was buried in unsanctified ground with a wooden stake through her heart. A little over six centuries passed by...

Powers
The older the vampire the more powerful he or she is. That's the general rule of thumb. At a chronological age of some six hundred plus years Nicky Winters ought to be quite powerful. However, for most of those years she was buried under the ground with a stake through her heart. Nicky Winters isn't weak by any measure. She is stronger in some ways than vampires far older than her. But there are some common vampire abilities she has yet to develop.

Nicky can charm with a glance. Or strike fear into someone's heart with the same gaze. Make a victim see only what she wants them to see. Become invisible to any and all people. With a touch she can gradually and imperceptibly suppress a person's capability to resist her illusions and influence. Likewise, with a touch she can manipulate and exchange life energy with a living being, draining them of vitality, or healing them, at her choice. Nicky can transform into a vaporous cloud to pass through any barrier not absolutely air-tight. However flight in cloud form is not yet in her grasp. Neither can she change into bat form as yet.

She is supernaturally strong, agile and fast. Long incisors of course. Her body is resistant to inflicted injury to an extraordinary degree and quickly regenerates when not in sunlight.

Personality
Nicky's mother died while giving birth to her. Her father is an evil selfish vengeful psychopath. The only people who have ever shown her any affection, until very recently, are her long term nurse, Maria Blumberg, currently known as either Mary Brown or Mary O'Sullivan (both names are used), and Dancing Coyote. At the core of her being is a terrible loneliness. She's six hundred years out of date socially, of course, and having been buried for the vast majority of that time she hasn't had much opportunity to adapt to newer ways.

Culturally Nicky is right back in the days of feudal Europe. She's fully embraced the aristocratic viewpoint. Plus the hunger for power and influence that typified Italian nobility in the late renaissance period. However, thanks to the influence of Maria, Nicky also embraces one of the best aspects of the aristocratic mindset. She thinks of the general population as peasants but... when she has taken on responsibility for an area the peasants living in that area are – her – peasants. She feels a strong obligation to protect and provide for them.

Relations
Nicky's only reasonably close friends at this time are Mary Brown (Maria Blumberg) and Dancing Coyote. Dr Ian Ferguson at the Harrisburg clinic is close to joining that select group. The Harrisburg Watch are loyal and highly respectful to Nicky but just like officers and enlisted men, there's a divide of rank in their relationship that's hard to bridge.

Enemies she's not short of. The primary ones being her estranged father, the Count, who has made several attempts to punish her by destroying the city Nicky seeks, let it be acknowledged, to eventually rule, Quickstop also, of course, the vampire hunter who simply wants her dead. Random Factor was intensely hostile towards Nicky and his protegees, the Twins, have inherited Random's dislike of Nicky. There's a complex relationship between Spirit and Nicky. She respects and trusts him. Spirit, meanwhile, while occasionally working with Nicky towards a shared goal, remains uncomfortable around her. The city council as an collective fears and dislikes Nicky. Probably, if we are honest, not without some cause, given her history.

Colonial Bay City History
The Harrisburg Watch was formed by Nicky Winters on her return to Colonial Bay City, initially from gang leaders put under her mental control. When Nicky went to Stronghold this mental control obviously lapsed, but although some of the Watch members reverted to their old ways a surprising number of the Watch members had developed a willingness to serve their community and so stayed in it. The Watch numbers were stable for several years after Nicky went to Stronghold and then leaped upwards after the Horde Invasion, now being a member of the Watch gathered respect from the general population of the district.

Nicky Winters had a few years previous to her return to Colonial Bay City, taken control of the city by placing the then mayor and police chief under mental control. Using the public insecurity resulting from high profile criminal and terrorist incidents that she herself instigated with the assistance of Pride Tien Leung, Nicky got several emergency measures passed by the city council and had herself appointed as a special assistant to the mayor with direct control of the police. To hamper heroes who were starting to realize what she was doing, Nicky arranged a publicity campaign blaming heroes for the destruction resulting from the arranged incidents, with such success that some heroes left the city and others were forced to hide out in the sewers. Taking over Colonial Bay City was, to Nicky Winters, merely a test run for doing the same in Washington. So Nicky handed control of the city over to Pride and left the city, as she had agreed to do in exchange for his assistance. But without reinforcement of the mental control, heroes were able to break the mayor and police chief free of Nicky's influence and thus free the city from Pride's grip.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Nicky was working herself into the political scene and quickly acquired mental control of several senators and congressmen. Fortunately the Washington Patriots hero team had been warned by Ricky, a hero from Colonial Bay, to watch out for Nicky Winters, so she was eventually unmasked and forced to flee. Adding to her difficulties, a fanatical vampire hunter named Quickstop had started trying to hunt down and kill her. Needing a place to retreat to where she could restart her campaign to rule the US, Nicky secretly returned to Colonial Bay and set up operations in Harrisburg. Nicky used her abilities to heal, employing control of life energy, the reverse of her life drain feeding, and mental control, to make herself popular in Harrisburg by reviving the defunct clinic and stopping much of the gang violence. She also stopped the drug trafficking. By the time heroes learned of her return Nicky had the district firmly under her control. Nicky warned the heroes and the city police that she had sufficient control over the gangs to have Harrisburg burned to the ground if any moves were made against her.

Enter Dancing Coyote, an Amerindian shaman. Dancing Coyote had been helping out at the Harrisburg clinic before discovering what and who Nicky Winters was. He continued assisting at the clinic even after finding out about her and over time he and Nicky developed an amicable relationship. One of the influences Dancing Coyote had on Nicky was her switching to using blood from blood banks instead of from people for sustenance. While the stand-off between Nicky and the heroes continued, Quickstop located Nicky and made several attempts on her life. One such attempt involved Quickstop poisoning the city's blood bank with silver nitrate. Dancing Coyote saved Nicky's life during that incident, and the relationship between them became even closer, with Nicky moderating her illicit activities and behaviour in response to his disapproval of them. Nicky's father, also known as The Count, is a man of overwhelming irredeemable evilness. He resented Dancing Coyote's growing influence over Nicky and arranged an assassination attempt against the shaman. It failed and the revelation of The Count's involvement in the attempt resulted in Nicky disowning her father.

With the disappearance of the evil presence of her father from her inner circle, now being advised and guided by Mary Brown and Dancing Coyote, it became evident to those who were prepared to see, that Nicky, although having the attitudes of a medieval aristocrat, was not herself intrinsically evil. Wanting to legitimize her position in Harrisburg, Nicky negotiated, with Dancing Coyote and a reluctant Spirit as intermediaries, to serve a fifty year term in Stronghold to clear her criminal record. Although it has become obvious that Nicky can walk in and out of Stronghold pretty much as she pleases, she remains inside the prison except on those occasions when she feels Harrisburg's needs demand her presence.

Then came the Horde Invasion. With Starguard in internal disarray thanks to the incompetence of the acting Director, Roger Creighton, and the city council dithering about confronting the threat, there was a lack of suitable response early on when the invasion might have been easily contained. By the time a major effort was mounted to deal with the invasion the aliens had infected thousands. Harrisburg, left to fend for itself by the city council, sealed itself off the the rest of the city and managed to largely exclude the invaders. However, when the city finally woke up and started to fight back against the invading aliens Harrisburg was left out of the counter-strike operation. Driven from the rest of the city, the aliens descended in their thousands on the district and despite many individual acts of defiance and bravery the district fell. It should be noted that Starguard redeemed itself to a degree by mounting, under the leadership of Random Factor while Roger Creighton hesitated, a rescue mission that evacuated children and mothers from the besieged Harrisburg elementary school. One effect of their heroic resistance during the Horde Invasion was to finish the transformation of the Watch in the eyes of the population of the district from gang members with armbands to respected guardians of the 'burg.

The general feeling in Harrisburg is a degree of pride in their independence, and resentment of the way the rest of the city, and the city council, treats the district. There's a community spirit that's hampered not so much by lack of material resources as lack of skills and knowledge. During construction efforts by Paragon she'd have volunteers coming up to her asking if they can help. But mostly these volunteers lack any skills that can help. The Watch are respected and generally the Watch try to act in a manner to deserve that respect. Gang violence occurs but not on the streets, and the Watch will come down hard on any gang activities that stray outside the gang culture itself. Drugs are an absolute no-no. There is no tolerance for drug labs or dealers. There are a few people who dislike Nicky, claiming, probably with justification that the city would care more about Harrisburg if Nicky wasn't involved. But for most of the inhabitants of the district Nicky is a local 'hero' who stands up for them against everyone else.