Witchblade

Background
Sara Pezzini was born the only child of Frank Pezzini, a grizzled NYPD homicide detective. She did not know who her mother was. Her father died in the line of duty along with his partner in an ambush, and Sara was put into the foster care system. She grew to be isolated from other chlidren in it, learning that she could rely only on herself. In the rough and tumble orphanage, Sara grew to be a loner and a tomboy. Going to school through the system, growing up she played sports, went to a New York City high school, and held hr father in high regard. She wanted to be a policewoman, and upon graduating from high school with a number of discipline issues from being rowdy and fighting, she was accepted to the NYPD Academy.

She did well in the academy, graduating within two years. But hazing took it's toll on her, and to her teachers and to other students she was coasting on the reputation of her father. No matter how well Sara did, she never seemed to get credit or earn anything on her own merits. So she spent two years studying, performing, driving herself as hard as she could with seemingly little to show for it as far as respect went

Graduating the academy, Sara became a general patrol officer in the NYPD. Dealing with all the weirdness that was on the city streets in the world made her paranoid and scared. SHe saw the collateral damage from superhero battles, the outright slaughter a supervillain could perform, and all the chaos that grew out of the streets from it. During The Crisis she was on the front lines, caught up in trying to help keep the city at peace and deal with threats. She lost a partner that time - and took the blame for it.

Sometime after The Crisis, Sara applied to the homicide division like her father had. She was accepted (if only due to his name) and worked as a junior detective. She had a knack for it - both in connecting the dots of a crime and finding who perpetrated it and also getting evidence for the case. She did things by the book, unlike her father. Which did not get her much respect in the department, which was always a 'man's world'.

Working with her partner on a sting against a man named Kenneth Irons (an amateur occultist that had come into possessing the Witchblade and was trying to unlock it's powers) that had resources from the Kingpin (a fact Sara would not discover until much later), Sara and her partner would be ambushed. There, she would see her partner executed by the gangster in front of a crowd by Irons. In her desperation, somehow she formed a bond with the Blade and was able to call upon it's powers. Irons escaped, her partner was dead, and Sara had an ancient magical artifact that gave her no answers, just trying to take over her life.

Adjusting to the Witchblade made Sara's life perpetually chaotic. The Blade would randomly manifest at times, humiliating her and putting her at risk. She would have flashbacks to previous wielders. Her loss of another partner and being at the center of a gang shootout had her life looked at under a microscope by Internal Affairs. She would essentially be on her own, put into the backwaters of cases by the NYPD and the things no one else wanted to tkae or solve. Many of them would be weird, superhero related, and things on the streets that no one else wanted to deal with.

Feeling a sense of obligation, Sara did everything she could. SHe went after her assignments with an obsession, burying herself in her work. She closed cases to the best of her ability. She fought with the Witchblade. She made contacts in the local magical community trying to learn about it. She tried to piece together it's history through the random flashbacks it would give her. But most of all, she did things on her own. She was an outcast in the NYPD, she was too new at her life to reach out to any other street heroes, and she only peripherally worked with a partner who saw her as poison.

She pursued multiple individuals she thought responsible for the murder of her father, finding a deeper web of betrayals she could not quite close the case on. SHe would lose the Witchblade to Kenneth Irons once more, hving to come to terms with the fact that she was responsible for the weapon. She would make more foes and learn that what she did not know about it many others did. That it was an anceitn weapon that many hated, and many more wanted to possess. And that she only had scratched the surface of it. So having to dig deeper into it's history, and also learn what it could do while hating it. If only to make sure someone worse did not possess it.

Personality

 * Dedicated: Sara is a dedicated NYPD Detective. She is loyal to her job, and to protecting people. She's well aware there's a big, weird world out there and she's going to do her best to fit in with it. She's still adjusting to the Witchblade, and trying to figure out what it can do, but she's stubborn and won't let anything stop her.


 * Loner: Sara is generally a loner. She doesn't have friends, she makes her own path. Even with the Witchblade she's still trying to fly solo and keep her life as normal as possible. She's not the type to work well in teams or with others, and tends to be a fly by nighter who makes things up as she goes along.


 * Stubborn: Sara does things her own way. She's not prone to take advise or always liste to others who are more experienced. She's rather take her lumps and learn over from her own mistakes than be told what to do. She's aware she's not always right and her own methods aren't the best, but she wants control of her own life.


 * Controlled: Sara has learned to be restrained. A combination of her own willpower and the fact she is constantly fighting with the Witchblade for control of herself and it's power means she is very turned inwards and trying to restrain herself at any given moment. She does not handle the unexpected well or having the weapon gain control of her. She is constantly fighting.