Background:
"Don't tell anyone, but in her teenage years, Melissa Cartwright was a Solitaire fangirl.  She bought the vintage jacket, dyed her hair purple, learned to do card-tricks, and even managed a messageboard for Solitaire fans.  When Solitaire 'died' and subsequently left T2M and Utopia, supposedly so did Melissa.  The depressed girl nearly dropped out of school, scrapped any plans of working hard so she could work for Project: Utopia and started following darker and more Gothic novox music.  Kids, heh.  Somewhere in the midst of her depression, circa mid-2005, she partied too hard and landed herself in the hospital.  Normally, one would expect the near-death situation to be the stimulus for eruption, but this was not the case for Melissa.  It was the inevitable confrontation and lecture from her parents that forced her eruption, and the consequent emotional-state of depression, abandonment and anger has driven the development of her powers.

"See, poor spoiled Melissa felt unappreciated and abandoned, so Melissa became someone you would want.  Eruption gave her beauty, that dark perfect hair, even strength and flight.  But that stuff's fairly useless to conservative, Californian middle-class parents, and certainly didn't help her go back to school.  And after her obligatory checkup at a Rashoud center, she refused to associate with Project: Utopia.  She tried modeling for awhile, but she was pretty emotionally unstable and chafed at the demanding expectations of that profession.  And gifted with looks but not with a singing voice, Novox wasn't an option either.  Her audition tape may be out there on the OpNet somewhere.

"So, in frustration, she tried out at an XWF match in Haiphong and found her true calling: violence.  Damn was she good in that first match!  All fire, no technique.  And she found she liked seeing the rest of the world, loved not having to deal with anyone who knew her from before, and loved venting all that darkness with a good smash-up.  For a few years, she worked as an Elite, having on-again-off-again relationships and living like a star.  But word is, somewhere along the way, she cracked.  Abandoned the life.

"Now our dark star's joined that Vigilance group.  I'd like to see how long before she quits that too."

Description:
Six feet tall, 140 pounds, all muscle and poise and grace.  Shade's powers seem to draw in light, turning photons into energy; when she flies, a black aura swirls around her legs and in her wake.  She has nova-strength and flight like Solitaire, but lacks her idol's extraordinary defenses.  Instead, when wounded she consumes enough light to 'restitch' her wounds.