Nicole Harley

Real Name:  Nicole Harley
Renegade Name: Contender N/A
Title: N/A
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Age: 38
Gender: Female, She/Her
Race: Human
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 198lb
Blood type: B







Nicole is the wise mentor figure in the hero’s story, the sagely old timer who teaches the rookies how to protect themselves. Decades of experience in some of the harshest villain circles lay behind those unphased eyes. Nicole always gives off a low-energy vibe, not every feeling pressured in any way, but calm as can be. It’s very difficult to get under her skin, if it’s possible. Nicole is a thunderous storm cloud that never makes a sound. The moment you stop paying attention, the thunder starts. Few people see past that stoic exterior, but even fewer know about where she came from. Nicole is mysterious, there are things that don’t add up about her when you think about them, but her ever-casual demeanor betrays zero suspicion if she’s questioned. The way she flies under the radar, even when she runs an entire gym on her own, often dissuades most prying eyes.





Today, Nicole Harley is a relatively normal gym manager and self defense trainer.  In another time, she was a mercenary. As a teenager, Nicole brought in money through underground cage fights. Her mother could barely afford to pay bills and keep them under a roof. They had no car, no “good” food, and every now and then the internet would stop working. Nicole needed the money. They needed it. The cage matches kept the lights on. Nicole just had to keep a convincing lie that she worked at a bike shop.

After she started hospitalizing people for money, people started taking notice of Nicole’s skill. By the time she was out of high school, a villainous recruiter offered her a sum of money that dwarfed what she earned now. It was the perfect timing, too. Nicole had graduated from high school only a week earlier. After a bit of negotiating, Nicole made plans to move out for what her mother believed was a college education she managed to scrape together.

Nicole took the name Contender, and started her mercenary career running protection jobs for black market deals and serving as a bodyguard for high profile individuals. It began as an easy way to make money, but every now and then a fight broke out. Contender’s skills in hand-to-hand combat outweighed even armed villains. It made her employers realize she was worth her pay. Before long, she had the privilege of more important jobs. Extractions, and assassinations.

She reveled in this.

Contender’s motivations went from putting food on the table to that of a soldier of fortune. The allure of money and power pulled her in deep. She took ludicrously high sums for private contracts of all kinds. Making a name for herself as a vicious, brutal merc who always got the job done, Contenders was a millionaire by the age of 25. Everything was going just fine for her, until it wasn’t anymore.

Day after day, Contender’s mindset grew heavier. Assassinations became easier in practice, but the blood never truly washed away from her hands. Sleep became harder. Actions became harder to justify, and eventually Contender began to question her actions. Her actions grew unspeakable, she couldn’t look at herself without feeling like a monster. The day came when she wanted out.

After she finished her final contract, Contender took the mask off and never put it back on. She faked her death, took up the name Nicole Harley and moved to New York. Roughly two years after that, she opened a gym known as Southwall, where she provided a place of refuge for anyone who might be walking down a similar path to her own. Kids with superpowers who needed a hand to nudge them in the right direction without the weight of the world on their shoulders, people who needed guidance, or just someone who enjoyed a good scrap.



Kinetic Mastery
The first half of Nicole’s powers give her a supernatural intuition focused on the movements of the human body. By observing how a person walks, she can calculate how to throw them off balance with the least possible effort, flawlessly predict how far they lunge when they punch, or even how competent they are at moving in a certain way. The longer she observes a person’s movement, the more accurate and easy these mental calculations become.

This power means that Nicole herself is capable of pushing herself to the acrobatic limit of human physiology. She can perform backflips with virtually no effort, land with the grace of a cat without thinking, and perform some of the flashiest moves you’ve ever seen. All without breaking a sweat due to the fact that her power reduces these things to intrinsic instinct.

Unhindered Endurance
The other half of Nicole’s power is a physiological immunity to internal forces exerted on her body. Nicole could run in a straight line for 12 hours and she wouldn’t feel remotely tired. Her muscles don’t weaken from exertion, her heart does struggle to keep up. In a fight, Nicole’s ability to stay in the fray and keep going is absolute.

No amount of exercise can tire Nicole out. Her muscles don’t strain under heavy lifting, meaning any amount of weight she’s capable of holding can be held virtually forever, so long as Nicole can eat and drink to give her body what it needs. The only way to cause damage to Nicole’s body is from an outside source, such as an opponent stabbing her or using an offensive power.



Doubled Down
Nicole’s powers allow her to reach the bleeding edge of what a human being is capable of in both movement and physical endurance. These mean she outclasses even the best Olympic athletes in human history. The catch, however, is that this doesn’t cross into the territory of super strength, or supernatural agility. Nicole is capable of lifting weights that reach over 210 pounds, but the average superhero with super strength could easily lift a few times that with one hand, or throw a tank like a basketball with both.

Similarly, her mental power lets her push movement to its absolute limit, but that limit doesn’t apply to someone who can jump across thousand foot gaps. Running at 28 miles an hour means she’s faster than most people on earth, but not faster than an actual speedster hero. When these types of powers factor in, Nicole is outclassed and must rely on strategy and tactics to come out on top.

Mutation Fallacy
Some people don’t have regular human bodies. Some people have four arms, skin made of slime or rocks, or they could have a transformative power like lycanthropy. These have the potential to throw Nicole’s mental ability for a loop. Her predictions may get sloppy or they may take more time to develop.

In cases where it isn’t clear if someone is “human enough” or not, it will be decided out of character on an individual basis whether or not Nicole’s power factors in at a decreased rate or at all.



Southwall is a public gym run by Nicole alone. Hardwood floors, concrete walls and open-hanging lights emit a very humane atmosphere when someone walks in. The Southwall contains all the exercise equipment a person could possibly need for any kind of workout, with enough that people don’t have to wait very long at all for a machine to be vacant. It also contains a section dedicated to self defense, where one can find boxing tape and gloves, punching bags, boxing rings and fall-breaking mats. Nicole regularly provides training for anyone willing to learn.

Oddly enough, “membership” isn’t a paid subscription like most gyms. You don’t roll out money to get in. The only requirement for being a regular patron is for Nicole to allow it. For this reason, along with the self-defense courses she personally oversees, it’s common for people as young as teenagers to be seen in Southwall on a regular basis. No one is really sure how Nicole manages this without paying people to keep the gym organized, but after the last time someone was inconsiderate, most people who witnessed the “convincing argument” she made think she has it under control.



What most people don’t see, however, is the second floor of the gym that Nicole and a select few just call the Backroom. This secret area of Southwall is set aside for those with superpowers, so they can train with them in a safe environment away from prying eyes. The Backroom looks mostly the same as the public area, but the walls are made of reinforced, blast proof concrete. Weights range from ten pounds all the way up to a thousand for the more brutish types, treadmills can be programmed for runs as fast as 300mph, and the punching bags are made of a special, inert fabric strong enough to withstand gunshots or even chemical warfare.

A third world war could take place directly over their heads, and the Backroom would be entirely untouched. It’s a safe place for those yet to find their footing in the world of heroes and villains, or for those who simply want to understand what their limits are. The only people who know about the Backroom’s existence are those who are in need of it, and those who Nicole can trust with the knowledge of her powers.








See: Stareater