Cricket
<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Cricket</default></title>
<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>
<label>Status</label><format><label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox>
Cricket is a member of Empire Eighty-Eight.
Personality
Cricket has made it a point to not have any of her injuries - even the permanent ones - healed by Othala.
Appearance
Cricket is described as a twenty-something girl with a gymnast's build, a blonde buzz-cut, and a metal cage as a mask. She has a scar from were she had her throat slashed.<ref name="Cast2">Cricket – Like Stormtiger, she was a onetime combatant in the underground fighting tournaments. Cricket is a young woman with vastly accelerated reflexes and the ability to generate and hear subsonic noises. She can use these noises to disorient and induce vertigo in her foes or use staccato blasts as a form of radar. She favors kama as a weapon – short scythes that can each be held in one hand. Covered in small scars, she wears a metal cage over her face and keeps her hair short. - Cast (in depth)</ref>
Abilities and Powers
Cricket's powers have two major aspects. the first is greatly enhanced reflexes that give here amazing reaction time and the ability to quickly move to her target.<ref name="list"> Vastly increased reflexes, personal sonar that could be keyed to disrupt others' senses -
Wildbow's Parahuman List</ref>
The second is a form of Acoustokinesis that allows her multible sound-based abilities. She uses a form of echolocation to orient herself in combat, making her one of the few people relatively unaffected by Grue's powers.<ref name="7.8e2">Then every bug in the area reacted to that sound I couldn’t make out, the one I’d heard when Cricket went after Coil’s soldier. It was loud enough for them to hear through the darkness, but… entirely out of my range of hearing.
I couldn’t say for sure, but I got the impression the ones closer to Cricket had heard it a fraction of a second sooner.
“Grue!” I screamed into the oppressive shadow. “Move!”
Cricket turned toward him and lunged in one motion, bringing both scythes down in an overhead swing. Grue moved out of the way just in time.
“She has radar!” I shouted, my voice barely audible to myself. Didn’t matter. Grue could hear me. - Excerpt from Buzz 7.8</ref> When projected continuously, it also has the useful side-effect of inducing nausea in humans, confusing the hell out of Skitter's bugs and even temporarily blocking Shatterbird's powers from working.<ref name="7.8e3">Again, that pulse emanated from her. She maintained it this time, and my bugs began to suffer for it. Their coordination suffered, they began to move slower, and their senses – such as they were in the darkness – began to go haywire.
After a second or two, I thought maybe I was starting to feel it too. A bit off-balance, nauseous. Grue was hunched over, his hands on his knees, but I wasn’t sure if that was Cricket’s power or the injuries she’d inflicted. From the way Cricket was moving, I gathered that she couldn’t see us. Was it echolocation? Did it not work if she simply blasted the noise continually rather than use it in bursts? - Excerpt from Buzz 7.8</ref>
Could also sense higher pitched sounds then normal possible for humans, such as the frequency that indicated Shatterbird was using her abilites.<ref name="I11Ee1">“You said something was wrong. What did you notice?”
“Sound. The glass was singing. Still is.” She pointed at one wall. Hookwolf followed the line to a building across the street and a little ways to one side.
His ears were ringing, but he doubted that was it. It would be something subsonic that Cricket noticed with her power, then. - Excerpt from Interlude 11e</ref> It is possible she would be able to hear things like dog whistle and similar.
Equipment
Utilizes twin kamas – miniature scythes found in some martial arts styles. Due to her throat being slashed, she needs the use of an artificial larynx to talk.<ref name="Cast1">Cricket – A member of Empire Eighty-Eight in her first appearance, Cricket sports a shaved head, a cage-mask over her face and twin kamas – miniature scythes. She can manipulate sounds beyond an audible range, disorienting her foes or serving her as a radar, and has enhanced reflexes. -
Cast (spoiler free)</ref> and then parahuman pit fighters.<ref name="I11e">Interlude 11e</ref><ref name="7.8e1">“Handle her, Cricket,” Hookwolf spoke, pressing a hand against his collarbone where a bullet had struck him. The scarred girl with the buzz cut dashed forward, reaching behind her back to draw two scythe-like weapons, each only about as long as her forearm.
Coil’s soldier turned to fire at the incoming villainess, but Cricket ducked to the right, then evaded left, in time with the noise of the gunfire. The distance between them closed rapidly. I didn’t see what happened next, as Coil’s soldier disappeared into the darkness and Cricket followed her in. - Excerpt from Buzz 7.8</ref>
History:
Background
Knew hookwolf back when they were both un-powered pit fighters.<ref name="Cast2"/>
Story Start
Staged ambush on the police barricade during the rampage caused by the E88's identities being revealed.<ref name="7.7">Buzz 7.7</ref>
Toyed with Skitter and Grue before being shot and needing to retreat. <ref name="7.8">Buzz 7.8</ref>
Post-Leviathan
Was able to interfere with shatterbirds powers using her sonar abilites when she came to tell hookwolf of his nomination.<ref name="I11Ee3">Shatterbird raised one hand, then frowned, her lips pursing together. “Hm.”
Cricket climbed to her feet. She was bleeding badly where she had exposed skin, and chunks of glass were partially buried in her arms and legs. There was the quiet rasp of her laughter.
“Pride goeth before the fall,” Hookwolf said, striding towards his enemy. “Seems as though Cricket can use her subsonics to cancel you out.”
“Seems so,” Shatterbird answered, rapidly backing up to maintain some distance from Hookwolf.
“And here I was thinking you’d won the lottery with powers. Incredible range, fine control, devastating force, versatility… and all it takes is the right noise and it all falls apart?”
“Guess the men who bought my power should ask for a refund.”
“No. Not interested in being conned into a game of twenty questions to figure out what you’re talking about. Not giving you a chance to figure a way out.” He punched one of his massive spears at her, and she threw herself to the ground, rolling beneath the impaling weapon. As she stood, she drew a gun from the folds of her glittering dress. She fired between Hookwolf’s legs at Cricket, the noise of the shots ringing through the air.
Hookwolf didn’t even need to look. He laughed, “No. Afraid my lieutenant is a little too fast for you.”
“Look out,” Cricket’s said from behind him, the artificial sound of her voice detracting from the inflection and urgency.
A tide of glass slammed into him. Standing on only two limbs, his balance suffered, and he wasn’t able to keep from being pushed onto his side.
“Wasn’t aiming at her,” Shatterbird said. She fired several more shots, simultaneously releasing a shard of glass from her free hand. Hookwolf turned, saw Cricket clutching her throat. She’d dodged the bullets, but Shatterbird had controlled the flight of the glass shard she shot at Cricket much in the same way she’d controlled the descent of the massive spike of glass. It had struck its target. “Just needed to break her concentration.”
Cricket collapsed, large quantities of blood spilling through her fingers and around her hands, where they clutched her throat. - Excerpt from Interlude 11e</ref>
Post-Slaughterhouse Nine
Would later interfere with accord as part of Menja's Chosen.
References:
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