CLEA DATA FILE
Team Identities:
- Nanami Ueda (Icewind)
- Noah Tremblay (Slapshot
CLEA Classification:
- Alpha Superior
- Tech Enhanced/Raider
Special Skills and/or Abilities:
- Can generate her own ice field (Ueda).
- Skilled skaters (both)
- Powered arm gives Tremblay increase in strength.
- Powered arm allows Tremblay highly powerful strikes – can send a standard puck over 500 feet.
- Tremblay’s later armoured outfit gives him formidable endurance and allows him to take huge impacts.
Limitation(s)/Weakness(s):
- Ueda’s ability requires moisture to be present in the air to produce sheet ice.
- If Ueda’s belt is damaged, her abilities quickly go out of control
- Tremblay’s internal components need charging on a regular basis. Shows of strength rapidly deplete stored power.
Rap Sheet/Criminal Traits:
- N/A
Notes/History
This vigilante partnership came about purely from a venue they both used but would never imagine that fate would actually bring them together.
Noah Tremblay had moved to New Tokyo due to his father’s work commitments. Constantly moving around whilst growing up had made the teenager angry and this was reflected in a rebellious nature. After being expelled from his third school for fighting Noah’s father was advised to seek help from a psychologist. Several sessions later Noah’s father was told that his son had suppressed aggressive tendencies from never being allowed to settle. Recognising the elder Tremblay could not simply give up work, is was suggested that Noah take up a sport to get rid of his excess “aggression”.
At first Noah was not interested in sport. It simply did not capture his imagination. Then a visit to the local ice rink changed that. He was almost a natural when it came to strapping on a pair of skates.
Eventually he took up ice hockey which was not only a sport but a descent outlet for his aggression as well. From then on school life settled down and his grades improved. Away from his education he became so good at hockey he was asked to play for the local amateur team, the New Tokyo Red Dragons
By the time he left school, others had noticed his talent and he was set to go for the big time. The dream of being a pro though would slip his grasp when he offered to perform an errand and take some money to the bank for his hockey team.
Whilst there Mr Mass and some other robbers decided to pay the bank a visit to make a withdrawal of all the safety deposit boxes. The group threatened customers and bank staff alike but Noah was not intimated. He’d stood up to bullies on the ice and though he knew the mouth giving the orders was an Alpha he decided to have a go at putting and end to the situation by cutting the head off the snake.
As he ran up to strike Mr Mass with his hockey stick. Noah may well have succeeded in his plan but the villain caught sight of him and grabbed hold of the stick and increased it’s density so much that the weight has too heavy to hold. In a cruel twist of fate, as Noah fell backwards, the stick fell on him and crushed his left arm. Mr Mass and his cronies then made their escape. The stick soon returned to it’s proper density but the damage was done.
Noah’s actions may have hailed him a hero in the eyes of the press but surgeons had some bad news for him. The bones were that badly mangled that they thought amputation was the best option. Losing an arm would certainly end his chances at becoming a professional player if they weren’t already gone. Then a mysterious benefactor appeared – Gary Wynter. News of Noah’s attempted heroism had gone half way around the world and reached him in France. Though he was the leader of the Phoenix Alliance, Wynter was actually acting on one of his Knight’s Forge “projects”.
The Forge had learned a lot about cybernetics from rebuilding Agent Alpha (Ring of Steel). Wynter and the other scientists had theorised that it might be possible to replace, damaged bones, tendons and muscles artificially without having to resort to amputation. Until then their ideas were only theoretical as they had not found a suitable test subject. In may respects Noah fitted the bill.
Using an alias Wynter posed as a Professor James Summer and met Noah in hospital. There he proposed an experiment that might restore his arm but there was no promise of success. The young man jumped at the chance and was taken to a special Knight’s Forge facility which was dressed to look like a medical establishment.
After all the tests and studies were performed, the surgeons got to work. Fitting an artificial skeleton into living flesh was tricky enough but the procedure seemed to go well. However twelve hours into the operation, Noah’s body seemed to react badly to the invasion. Only the intervention of a back up plan consisting of using some Raider nanobots “donated” by Hawk (Ring of Steel) saved the experiment from total disaster.
Following the operation, Noah was transferred back to his original hospital. Over the course of weeks and months he received several visits from “Professor Summer”. Everything seemed to go well only Noah was sure Summer was hiding something because in some instances he could not get a straight answer.
After leaving hospital, Noah went back into training at the ice rink. Though his arm looked normal on the outside he knew it was not on the inside and it also “felt” different. Nevertheless he kept on working as he still wanted his shot at turning pro. However the more he trained the more strange things he noticed.
For a start his strength had increased in his left arm. This was not really a shock since he knew on the inside the structure was not “real”. As well as this his accuracy had also seemed to have doubled. It was like he could never miss a goal. Then one day he managed to shoot a puck ‘through’ the back of the net. This raised his suspicions so in the next follow up session with Prof Summer, Noah demanded answers.
No longer able to bury the half truths, Wynter came clean and explained who exactly he was but only did so after Noah promised to keep what he was being told a secret. Wynter admitted he had no idea that the experiment would enhance Noah so much. It was then that he suggested that Noah might have to abandon his chosen career as people “would notice” his strength and accuracy.
Though he hated to lose out on his dream, Noah, knew that his new found ability might be akin to cheating and there was no way he was going to be called a cheater. He did consider staying an amateur player but discarded that idea for the same reason.
Instead he decided to lie about his arm and tell people that since being injured he was unable to play competitively. Feeling sorry for him, the manager at the ice rink offered him a job as caretaker which he took. This gave him the advantage of still being able to skate, when nobody else was around. It was this rink where he crossed paths with Nanami Ueda.
She, had a dream similar to Noah’s only in her case she was a figure skater and wanted to become a champion. Since she lived locally, the rink was where she liked to train. Noah watched her from afar and secretly admired her. Then just like him, fate intervened and her dream was taken from her.
One night after training she simple disappeared. Police searched for her for four days until she was found unconscious on the other side of the city. She had no recollection of her “missing” time and as a precaution the authorities took her to hospital. Doctors then discovered numerous injection sites and could only conclude that someone had been experimenting on her.
CLEA saw the report and as there were some similarities between what happened to Nanami and other victims, the profile seemed to fit that ARGO was responsible. They wanted their doctors to study her and try to find out what the rogue scientists had done, but Nanami wanted to simply get on with her life and put what had happened behind her.
Just like Noah she returned to the rink and tried to move forwards with her goal. That at least seemed to be working for her but three months after her disappearance she was alone on the rink practising one night and things were not out of the ordinary. She left and Noah set to work cleaning the ice. As he made on of his sweeps he noticed on the steps leading away from the rink towards the women’s changing rooms there was a sheen of ice.
Curious as to what was happening he followed the trail of ice and found Nanami collapsed on the floor. He touched her and then pulled it back quickly because as he did so, he felt his hand nearly stick to her. She was incredibly cold. Nanami opened her eyes and was surprised to see the caretaker standing over her. Noah explained what he had seen but she did not seem to believe him.
In truth she did not want to accept what he was telling her as she knew it would mean something was very wrong with her . Nanami wanted to reach her goal of being an international ice dancer so ignorance to what had happened seemed the best course of action. Over the next few weeks she had a few more of these episodes but simply tried to pretend that nothing was happening.
Then Professor Summers visited her. She was furious that someone had called help on her behalf and had a pretty good idea who it was. No longer able to use ignorance she agreed to be subjected to some tests to get to the bottom of what was happening to her. The professor took her to what appeared to be a medical facility and ran a number of tests, one of which caused her to freeze the treadmill.
When Summers next spoke to her, he had a face that did not indicate good news. He immediately dropped the façade and told Nanami that he was really Gary Wynter otherwise known as G-Wiz. Whilst she had heard of him, or rather his alter ego being with the Phoenix Alliance she was unaware of the Knight’s Forge, so he explained that his other “interest” involved supporting heroes via creating technology. The scientists working the the Forge had tested her and concluded that somehow she had been given Alpha abilities that allowed her to freeze moisture in close proximity to her.
The scientists reckoned she passed out because her abilities were not natural and each time kicked in at the maximum level so she was in fact going into a “burnout” condition, something all Alpha Superiors tried to avoid and always caused by over using their abilities. The news then went from bad to worse for Gay explained to her that his scientists had realised that the frequency of her powers randomly “firing” was increasing and in a matter of weeks they would be more of less permanently active. Since the human body could not cope with the strain that would inevitable kill her.
To save her life, Gary suggested that Nanami go into cryostasis which would give them extra time to work on the problem. Though she did not want to simply “vanish” again, she knew she did not have much of a choice and so agreed to the suggestion.
When she next awoke, five months had passed. By then the Knight’s Forge had found a solution to her “problem” and fellow scientist Alicia Knight (Night Rangers) presented her with a belt that had an oversized buckle. Alicia explained that most Alpha Superiors could have their abilities disrupted by electrical impulses which varied between individuals. Once they found hers they created a unit which would deliberately do this. As well as that it had the means to regulate how they worked giving Nanami control. With that done, she was free to return to her life or had the option of using her gift to help others.
Nanami chose the first option as she just wanted a normal life. Returning to New Tokyo though she soon realised that her ambition of being an ice dance champion though was over. That made her very angry so despite fact she still liked to skate she wanted to blame someone for what had happened. Since she had no idea of who had turned her into a human refrigerator she decided to blame Noah, the caretaker for calling on Wynter in the first place. Deep down she knew if he hadn’t she would have been dead but anger and logic never worked well together.
Over time her anger refused to yield so she decided to make use of it. Remembering the earlier suggestion from Alicia Knight, Nanami started to take to the streets at night after skating. Using her abilities she began picking fights with any scumbags she could find.
Sometimes she won and other times the street criminals won and soon Noah started to see bruises on her face. He knew she was angry, and he knew she wanted to blame someone for what had happened and had chosen him which was why he avoided contact with her. However he did feel concerned about where here injuries were coming from, so one night he followed her after she had left the building.
After about a mile Noah, witnessed her put her skates on and then generate her own ice rink before attacking a couple of drug dealers. This would not be a good night for her and since there was a sheet of ice on the ground he could not get involved without falling on his back.
The next night he came prepared with his own skates but this time she had more luck with the street criminals, so he stayed in the shadows. The following night he did the same and again she had no problems and Noah began to grow concerned that he might inadvertently stalking her.
About a week later though, disaster struck again, when Nanami went after a mugger. Despite the fact she had laid a sheet of ice and was skating rings around him the mugger was managing to put up a hell of a fight. This was his chance. Skating up behind her he dodged around Nanami and “checked” the mugger full on, sending him flying. Nanami did not look pleased at his interference and promptly left.
The next time she went to the rink, Noah knew things could be awkward. However he felt it was the time to talk. At first she ignored him but eventually decided to listen and realise that they had both been “damaged” by criminals and both had lost their dreams. At the same time both had gained some amazing gifts. Having finally opened up to each other Noah suggested that perhaps they could “work” together.
With her ability to generate ice and the power his arm gave him, Noah reckoned they could be formidable.
Though it took time for them to perfect their partnership, the pair eventually became known and feared by small time crooks as Icewind and Slapshot. Eventually the pair would cross paths with the Knight’s Forge again, when one of Noah’s arms began malfunctioning. Having taken too much physical damage from heroic activities after being repaired it was decided to give him better protection in the form of an armoured suit developed with tech donated from their “alien” friends. He also started to get supplied with “specialist” pucks which allowed him perform different offensive and defensive capabilities such as explosives and smokescreen. Nanami was offered a similar “upgrades” but she declined it after finding out it made her less manoeuvrable.
