Editing The Sanguine Squad: The Reformed (section)

==Q&A:==

'''Who mentored you in supervillainy?'''

The Blacksmith, a Silver-Gen genius roboticist and engineer who wants to force the world into a utopian state where it's protected and provided for by robots and watched over by an AI. They very much have a father-and-daughter relationship as well as teacher-and-student, compounded by Ash growing up without an actual father. Ash's mother knows him as Dr Smith, who pioneered the experimental procedure that saved her daughter's life and subsequently offered her an apprenticeship.

'''Who first showed you that you could do good?'''

Devil Drummond, although maybe not intentionally. On a mission from the Blacksmith, Shrapnel was in the market for anti-magic protection for their next job. In Drummond’s bazaar, she accidentally touched a broken oracular mirror that showed fragments of potential futures, and saw herself standing with a team of superheroes in gleaming armour, along with visions of herself in the Blacksmith’s utopia and herself walking through the ruins of Halcyon.

'''What was your goal as a villain?'''

As the Blacksmith's sidekick, mostly stealing tech and resources to help further his plans and provide a generous allowance for herself and her mother. But with a side helping of retribution against superheroes who she saw as corrupt or selfish or dangerous enough to deserve punishment, which thanks to her influences at the time was most of them. After the Blacksmith was jailed and she was operating on her own, one of her most infamous encounters was when she hospitalised Switchblade, a member of Brute Force, by tearing out her cybernetic implants.

'''What caused you to switch sides?'''

During her revenge-fuelled clash with the Sentinel, she saw him throw himself in the path of a school bus she’d flung aside, to save a schoolgirl bystander she hadn’t even noticed. That was when she realised how close she’d come to crippling or killing an innocent, just as the Blacksmith had two years ago, and how far she’d drifted from her original intent to help and protect people.

'''Why do you care about the team?'''

They’re not like anyone else she knows in the supers community. They’re not perfect, but they genuinely care about people, over and above any personal goals and self-interest. They’re the kind of people she wants to be, and maybe always wanted to be.

'''Blacksmith is still locked up, yeah? Do you visit? What's that deal like now?'''

He's still in jail, yep. Ash visited him once, just after he was arrested, when he told her that he had things in hand and not to come again for a while to avoid suspicion. After her confrontation with the Sentinel, she put in a request for a second visit, but it went unapproved. She has no idea what he thinks of her now that her first outing with the team has been in the news.

'''Who do you live with, or if you're on your own, who regularly calls or drops by to check on you?'''

Ash lives with her mom, who's smart but not supergenius-smart and works as a lab assistant/tech at Paragon Innovations, a research lab founded by a retired Silver-Gen robot hero. They get on well, although Ash's mom was concerned about her during her recent low period and doesn't always approve of her friends.

'''Who in the supers community do you have a crush on?'''

Besides Finch, who Shrapnel is not entirely over? Shrapnel had a string of clashes with Daybreak, a glowy humanoid alien with light-control powers. Shrapnel thinks they're pretty cool despite being on opposite sides, and some of their fight-and-chase banter has been distinctly flirty.

There's also Arquero, a cat-burglar Shrapnel worked with a couple of times. She's a thief, but she only steals from big corporations and the wealthy, and the money goes to the poor neighbourhood she lives in. And yes, she wears a hood and uses a bow. No green tights, though. As far as Shrapnel is aware that particular crush is one-sided.