Nightjar

Real Name: Suerte St. James
Hero Name: Nightjar
Title: None
Alignment: Lawful Good
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Race: Metahuman
Hair: Dark Brown
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 109lbs.
Blood type: O-


Suerte is an attractive woman with a lithesome figure, shoulder length brown hair, and unguarded chestnut colored eyes. Her father is of Italian descent, and her mother is Filipino, giving Suerte an alluring olive complexion.  When she manifests her wings, they are dark and speckled, the typical patterning of Nightjar birds.

Being in Florida, and living in walking distance of New Smyrna Beach, she tends to wear sun dresses, flip flops, and wide brimmed straw hats. Business attire is a suit jacket, blouse, tasteful skirt and heels.  Out in the field taking pictures is a denim and flannel affair.

As Nightjar, her costume consists of a skin tight, jet black jumpsuit, a black domino mask with white smoked lenses, a tan utility belt with four pouches, and black lace-up boots. She wears knee pads, elbow pads, and fingerless gloves, all black.


The Nightjar Symbol on the chest of the costume


Serious, mature, and determined, Suerte St. James understands the risks she is taking with a secret identity, and battling crime by night.  She approaches all things earnestly and fiercely as Nightjar, but is perhaps a bit too affable, tending to complement her foes rather than making clever banter or delivering snarky insults, that is, if she says anything in the first place!  

Outside of the Nightjar persona, Suerte is calm, soft spoken, and remarkably gentle.  Enjoying reading, fishing, or having conversation over a cup of either tea or coffee with an acquaintance.  Though not a particularly lively person,  she is an honest, kind friend through and through.


Suerte was born to Dom, and Analyn St. James on January1st 2010. Her name ‘Suerte’ is the Spanish word for lucky, as she was born before week 28 of her mother’s pregnancy, meaning her chances of survival were terribly low.  The nascent meta genes in her body were likely the cause of her living, and the early struggle for life forced the genes to develop faster in turn.

By age 4, Suerte’s Metahuman abilities manifested when she sprouted wings one night from her back while asking her parents for a cup of water.  This led to her being home-schooled until her middle school years, at which point she had perfected how to detach them, and regrow them at will. Her parents sent her to a private school, just to be on the safe side.

Though bespectacled since elementary days,  Suerte had an eye for scenery, and a gift for photography.  Coupled with her in secret aerial training, Suerte managed to snap pictures on one of her night flights of the Key Wildfire of 2025 in south Florida that consumed 913 acres. Realizing that one of the firefighters had passed out trying to halt the blaze, and was left behind, Suerte flew to him, and through immense exertion, managed to fly him out to safety.

Her rescue didn’t go unnoticed, footage of it making the news the following morning. Though she was nothing more than a hazy silhouette against the moon, her parents immediately guessed it was her.  Initially upset, they resolved that her power was something she couldn’t, let alone shouldn’t ignore, both parents revealing they too were metahumans, and heroes at one time in their respective youths, showing Suerte their old costumes, and newspaper articles of their exploits.

Explaining their decision to keep her hid, and sheltered from the world of heroes and villains was out of fear and concern for her, Dom and Analyn tell their daughter to become what they were, since the world still needs heroes, and she has proven to be one now herself.

With her parents’ knowledge and training, Suerte creates the identity of Nightjar in 2028, catching people out of free falls, and occasionally, retrieving the neighborhood cat out of a tree.


1. Reaction
2. Agility
3. Endurance
4. Strength



1 – Growing Wings:  If Suerte isn’t in her Nightjar persona starting a thread, her wings take one post in thread to grow from her back while she sheds clothes down to her costume beneath.  It takes one post to detach and jettison her wings from her back.  After detaching her wings she has to wait two rotations of posts in a thread before she can regrow them.

2 – Flight: Nightjar flies through the air with a 16 foot wingspan, utilizing a 56mph cruising speed. Redlining her flight speed, Nightjar can match the Peregrine Falcon’s maximum and dive speeds of 240mph.  Her max altitude is approximately 3000m (10000ft).


1 – Power Loss (Flight): Nightjar can’t fly if her wings are bound or ensnared. If Nightjar’s wings are frozen (in ice), or smothered in heavy (tar, mastic), or viscous (oil) substances that drowns her feathers, she’ll lose flight.  Furthermore, should Nightjar’s wings be clipped, naturally, she’ll lose the ability to fly.  Should they be injured, broken, or defeathered, she’ll lose the ability to fly.

2 – Power Dampened (Flight): While Nightjar can still fly with water soaked wings (she lives in Florida), her max speed and altitude are halved.

3 – Nearsighted: Suerte is terribly nearsighted. While the prescription lenses built into her Nightjar domino mask counteract this problem, should the lenses get damaged, or the domino mask lost, she’s essentially flying blind.




Costume: Black, full body tights.
Domino Mask w/ Prescription lenses
Utility Belt: Flashlight projected from belt buckle, pouch #1 contains a weighted bola, pouch #2 contains a camera, pouch #3 contains a lock picking kit, pouch #4 contains 3 smoke pellets. Loops on the left and right sides of the belt hold Nightjar’s expandable metal batons.
2 Metal Expandable Batons

Casual Clothes
Prescription Glasses
Professional Grade Camera W/ Carrying Case


None


Professional Photographer: Suerte’s source of income, and often her excuse to be places that Nightjar needs to be.  Whether snagging scenery shots, wedding pictures, or images of criminals in the act, Suerte makes money while helping to make the front page.

Arnis Instruction: Trained in Escrima by her father, Suerte applies it to her metal batons as Nightjar, giving her that extra edge in close quarters combat.

Grace Under Fire:  Surprisingly calm, even in a fight, Nightjar’s quiet, steely mettle can be a little off-putting to some.

Lock-Picking: Her mother and father’s business of helping people get back into their homes, and cars, has supported the household since Suerte was a toddler, thus she has learned the skills herself.

Suerte is of Italian/Filipino descent. She is Catholic.

Theme Song: ‘So That I Could Rescue You’ by South FM


Nightjar circled like a vulture.

Back-lit by the moon, she wasn’t much more than a tiny shadow, a black outline against its pale, glowing yellow face.  With slow, easy grace she angled her wings, catching a current of wind that she used to descend.  Legs and arms held close, Nightjar brought in the span of her wings some and dove hard.
  Timing.  Timing and patience.  These and a bit of trust would see her through the nose dive.  It never stopped being a little scary, but it also never ceased to be an effective entrance, especially for what she was about to get into.
  The building she was aiming for grew fast, going from a minute square into an expanding, detailed rooftop devouring her field of vision. She exhaled, fanned her wings, and rapidly decelerated, reorienting from head first to feet first in a blink. Still, at her present speed, she would have to stick the landing.
  She rolled on impact, tucking wings and limbs in, becoming a ball of black and tossed feathers before colliding into the back of the shooter’s legs. His assault rifle flew from his hands as he fell, but the strap kept it in close proximity to him as Nightjar came out of her roll, jumping to her feet and lunging at her prone opponent.
  In answer, he immediately reached for the rifle, grasped it, and was leveling at her when she landed on him, pushing the rifle upwards.  The rattle of full auto sounded, drumming violently in Nightjar’s ears as she struggled to keep the muzzle pointed skyward.
  The shooter had already taken several lives, and pinned law enforcement down for the last half hour.  Advantages that came with the high ground.  Nightjar had up until a second ago enjoyed command of the air, but now she and her quarry were engaged in a ground game.

This was not to her advantage...

The shooter was 6’6’’ and stocky.  Nightjar had gambled on the roll taking the piss out of him, but the knee jabbing into her ribs, and the rifle butt to the side of her head indicated the risk didn’t pay out like she’d hoped.  Her foe leveled the rifle again at her, laughed from under his balaclava, and squeezed the trigger.
 
Kh-Click!

Ki-kink!

Ch-K-kink!

Much could be said for luck in Suerte’s life, it was her very name after all, but a rifle jamming after a half  hour of making horror had to be some sort of providence. Rising, and drawing her batons, Nightjar closed in and swung.

Repeatedly.

Over and over.

Until the target was out cold.