Goonfire
I CAST GUN!!!
Name: Sofiya Pavlovna, a.k.a. Balalaika
Origin: Black Lagoon
Role: Administrator (Intelligence Dept.)
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Description:
Balalaika is a tall and fit woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Her most noticeable features are the burn scars covering half her face and her chest, which she received in Afghanistan. She usually has long, pink fingernails, a burgundy suit with a soviet military overcoat, and plenty of thin Russian cigars.
Personality:
Balalaika considers herself one of the dead, someone who missed her chance to die in Afghanistan but is otherwise a walking husk. She is desensitized to subjects that would make the average sensible person recoil in horror, such as gratuitous violence. However, she is honorable in that she repays her debts and respects military veterans. She is also disciplined and professional, though highly cynical.
Those who cross Balalaika find her methods of retaliation are swift and heavy-handed. She is a warmonger at heart, but not to the point of senseless violence; there's always a message to her aggressor, usually a warning. Unsavory as her methods are, she believes one can't argue with results. She dislikes people questioning her decisions or trying to dissuade her, though she lets one go on rare occasions for amusing her with their boldness.
Powers, and Abilities:
- Black Market Trade - Balalaika's syndicate, Hotel Moscow, is known for their illicit dealings. She is a savvy and professional businesswoman, but also really shady.
- Marksmanship - She is a top-notch sniper, capable of competing in Olympic shooting tournaments.
- Skydiving - She was a paratrooper during the Soviet-Afghan War, thus is experienced in the use of a parachute.
- Hand-to-hand Combat - She is strong and swift on her feet, capable of handling armed attackers with her bare hands.
- Terrorism - She is no stranger to bullying her rivals to get what she wants. She employs well-organized shock tactics to put her enemies in their place and makes examples of them.
- Deception - Balalaika's lies can be very consistent, with high-quality fake documents to corroborate them.
- Stechkin APS - Balalaika’s sidearm of choice. This select-fire 9x18mm pistol has a 20-round magazine and the option to mount a stock.
- Fake ID - These false papers claim she is Vladilena N. Vasilinov, a Russian diplomat. With this identity, she can waltz past many police officers without needing to stop or be searched.
- Cigars - Thin Russian cigars. She prefers these over cigarettes, and they are among her signature items.
- At the end of the day, she is a human—a skilled one, for sure, but not able to keep up with superhumans.
- When in doubt, follow the trail of 5.45 casings to Balalaika; Soviet weapons are her signature. She would be a lot more discreet if she simply used 5.56 and 9x19 like everyone else. Moreover, someone could mimic Hotel Moscow hits by using such weapons and blaming her.
- Her means are usually dark and brutal, which doesn’t win her any favors from more heroic characters.
Born during the Cold War, Sofiya was the granddaughter of a disgraced Red Army General. She joined the Red Army and served in Afghanistan under the assumption she'd have a chance to compete in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Instead, she faced the horrors of the Soviet-Afghan War and was tortured. Afterwards, the Soviets saw her and other soldiers as dysfunctional and unproductive, casting them aside. It was at this time Sofiya Pavlovna had died (in a metaphorical sense).
Around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sofiya and her old unit joined forces with other former soldiers and rose quickly in the Russian mob. She adopted her old nickname "Balalaika" and raised holy hell upon landing in Roanapur, Thailand. She carved out her own piece of the city of the dead and eventually came face-to-face with Mr. Chang, the head of the triads. Chang shot her and let her fall into the ocean in a gun fight at the docks, but she was saved by Dutch, a passing pirate. Since then, she’s used his Lagoon Company for all kinds of smuggling… but that’s a story unrelated to this one.
Balalaika’s universe was destroyed by an interloper on a previous case. She started off doing reconnaissance in the field, then climbed the ranks, seeing an opportunity for growth. She had to cut her vacation short at the height of the Black Void incident to provide artillery and sniper support. Her own offhand knowledge and support also proved helpful during the Bot Crisis, when CiMOS was hacked and the Intel department's servers were shut down to prevent a data breach. In the present, she has returned following a diplomatic mission to the Earth affected by said Bot Crisis.