Pas·sion (noun) [pásh’n]
1. Object of Enthusiasm
The object of somebody’s intense interest or enthusiasm.
On the cold winter night of January 7th, 2099 Diedre Thornhallow came kicking and screaming into this world. Her lucky parents were Martin and Ophelia Thornhallow—a young, optimistic couple from east London. She was conceived without any unnatural selection methods, and the birth was a ‘natural’ childbirth.
And it showed.
Diedre was rather indrawn, and had a problem connecting on a personal level. Oh, she behaved nicely—did everything she was told in fact. This worried her parents so they took her to therapy twice a week. The therapist suggested that her parents take Diedre to as many social activities that they could, ballet, sports, chess club, etc. This worked, after a fashion, but Diedre was always overly passive in every friendship she made.
By age 7, Diedre was excelling in school, sports, dance, and gymnastics as was expected of her. After picking up Diedre from practice one evening, the car slipped on a patch of ice and plowed into oncoming traffic. Her parents died immediately in the ensuing crash, but Diedre suffered only minor injuries. Looking up from the backseat to see her parents bloodied and dismembered… changed Diedre. Before the ambulance arrived on the scene, she had fled the car and into east London’s network of alleys beyond.
2. Intense Emotion
Intense or overpowering emotion such as love, joy, hatred, or anger
Something inside of her had snapped, and from then on Diedre was a survivor. She fought tooth and nail for every scrap of food and every dry spot to sleep. She ran with many different street gangs, never allowing herself to stay in one place for very long. The summer of 2110 was hot, and Diedre was getting sick and tired of it - tired of the heat, tired of stealing for food, tired of sleeping in dumpsters, and tired of taking orders. So when Darrik the gang leader decided to take advantage of her budding 11-year old body, she decided to do something about it. She was polite about it, however, and let her good friend, the lead pipe, do all the talking. Once the two of them had everything sorted out, Diedre took charge of the gang and became notorious for her ruthlessness among the different street gangs of east London.
Unbeknownst to Diedre, and many other people around the world, in 2113 a Greater Demon had risen in the Floating Island City of Angelus. There, a man by the name of Nathan Carpenter, with a sword forged from one of the nails that held Christ to the cross, slew the Greater Demon. So great was their conflict, that the sword was shattered during the final blow. At the same time, a great magical seal was placed upon the spiritual world—restricting like a sieve what kinds of spirits could cross the boundary between this world and the next. And while the sword was not alive at the time it was broken, the energies used in the breaking of it birthed forth a new spirit in this world. It was trapped by the seal and it had no peers, but it had many enemies. It needed to hide and hide quickly so it chose the most unlikely person imaginable.
That same evening, Diedre’s ruthlessness caught up with her. Several kids, whom she had severely beaten for not turning in their protection money, decided to kill Diedre and they almost succeeded. The alley was dark, their knives were sharp, their spirits high, and their goal secure. Diedre was coming back from a drug house, when she was jumped. Her assailants gutted her, and left her for dead in a dumpster. She would have died, except that at the same moment the spirit from the sword was born, she opened up her soul and called out for help.
And the spirit possessed her—a willing subject.
3. Intense Enthusiasm
A strong liking or enthusiasm for a subject or activity.
When Diedre awoke the next morning she was changed. She still had that same fiery passion in her, but it had redirected her focus. She would fight, but now she would fight for a cause. She would fight for justice, for righting wrongs, for others, in defense of the innocent, etc. She radically changed the culture of her street gangs—instead of being predatory towards each other she moved them into a cooperative community. Some would say that the near-death experience taught her mercy, but she knew something deep inside was different. The nuns that offered children food on the street noticed something was different too.
Jennifer Smith, one of the nuns at the local convent, was a member of the Order of Enoch. She was their mainly as a recruiter for the order because the orphaned children were a great resource for the Order so she took a special interest in Diedre’s future. On August 31st, 2115, Jennifer asked Diedre to meet her at the convent. Not suspecting anything out of the ordinary, Diedre agreed. What she got, however, was far from ordinary. The nun had called in an inquisitor from the order to determine the nature of the spirit that possessed Diedre.
You can imagine their surprise when they discovered what it was. Diedre was surprised too, so surprised that she passed out! When she awoke, the Order offered her a job as a Monster Hunter. A job, she realized, she couldn’t refuse. For the next few years, she spent most of her time at the convent acquiring the education she had missed while growing up on the streets of east London.
In 2117 when she was 18, she moved to Vatican City in Rome and Greggor Unvannsen (Could be Nathan Carpenter or Sister Carmen) began to apprentice her in Monster Hunting. She was a poor student in the classroom, but she was an excellent study in the martial arts and began to expand her repertoire of divine powers. By the time she was 20; she exited her apprenticeship and went out on her first mission.
4. Strong Sexual Desire
Strong sexual desire and excitement.
The team consisted of a priest, Johann Salvator, and the mission leader, David Connery – a fellow Londoner. David’s company was a welcome one after having been around foreigners for the past few years—very welcome. David was Diedre’s first real love, and their relationship was both an exciting and passionate one. The constant travel, danger, and success drove them very close together, often leaving Johann out in the cold.
The missions for the order were relatively simple, and rarely involved any serious offenders. Investigate this killing, investigate that hate crime, uncover this local “white magic” cult, etc. David handled more of the delicate work—the talking and thinking, Johann made sure things were done properly and handled the redeeming aspects of their missions, and when things got violent, Diedre stepped in to take care of business. Their missions took them all over Europe and Deidre enjoyed the sightseeing as much as the missions themselves did.
Her last mission was an absolute failure. The order hadn’t done their Intel well enough to know that their “wizard” was a real one. Allesville, a small town in southern France, had had a rash of disappearances of first farm animals and then people in the latter part of 2121. Diedre and her companions had tracked the wizard to his basement and when the trio confronted him about his evil deeds, Jónn Lughlin summoned an entity “from beyond.” The trio was drastically outmatched for such a fight but in the end they defeated the monster. Not without a price, however. David was bleeding out on the basement floor, and the wizard was still making good on his escape. Diedre chose at that moment to heal David, and the wizard took the opportunity to deliver the killing blow to Johann.
Upon their return, they were broken up by the Order and assigned to different squads. Diedre was placed on “reserve” duty… the leadership in the order had changed over the last few years and they were getting more and more passive in their dealings with the supernatural—missions like Diedre’s made their point for them. Since then, she hadn’t seen or heard from David and life was getting extremely boring.
Until recently.
5. Outburst of Emotion
A sudden outburst of an emotion such as rage, hatred, or jealousy.
In the spring of 2122, Diedre received a strange letter. In it was a one-way ticket to a floating city called Angelus, a pre-made resume, and a job offer from Angelus PD XSWAT. Her desire for excitement got the better of her, and that night she snuck out of the Order’s barracks and boarded the plane for the Island City. Who would sit next to her on the plane, but her old teammate and lover, David?
He explained the situation to her—not everyone in the Order agrees with the direction that the current leadership is taking. David is part of a sect within the Order that wants to take a different approach to the supernatural… not just labeling everything they don’t understand as ‘evil.’ David also explained the real story behind the spirit that dwells within her, and that certain members of the Order had divined that the spirit would be needed within the city of Angelus in the very near future. He had arranged for her to join XSWAT—the same way the sword had served the city in the past.
Exciting! She would finally be seeing some serious action again! Double entendre included!
6. Indifference (Antonym)
Lack of interest, care, or concern
Unfortunately, neither was true because David had to leave as soon as they arrived in Angelus or else his absence would be detected, and the squad Diedre was in rarely saw anything worse than the local Yakuza Boys who were usually nothing more than reckless youths.
Needless to say, she grew even more restless. She started hanging out in the Docks, primarily at a tough bar called Koiguchi. Han Ha, the bartender, was in the middle of a local gang war when Diedre walked in one evening. The bar sat in a contested gang area between two minor bosses. Upset that a white woman would just walk into their bar, the invading gang decided they were going to make an example of her.
She made an example of them. She thrashed the gang boys with a sound beating and humiliated them in front of the defending gang members. Xen Ng, boss of the defending gang, made her an honorary member of the gang that night. She drank several of the defending gang’s members under the table in the ensuing celebration.
This did, however, cause some problems with the XSWAT Internal Affairs department. During the process of the long interviews, piles of paperwork, and reprimands, Diedre met a paper-pusher in IA by the name of Neville Longbottom. Diedre decided to take advantage of his rather sheltered and introverted nature. So to make a long story short—the court martial paperwork got lost somehow. In fact, any trace of it has disappeared completely. In addition, Diedre has been up for promotion several times since then—the paperwork ends up on her commanding officer’s desk every month or so. She usually fails, however, the personal interview portion of the promotion. Her file is so stellar, in fact, that it was brought to Director Renuka’s attention by Hal when she formulated the infamous list for Mitch’s Bitches.