Parker LaCroix
Parker lived a normal suburban lifestyle near San Diego, California. She had a functional family who loved her, did well in school academically, and had plenty of friends. She was an avid lacrosse player and it earned her a full-ride scholarship to Seattle University and was accepted into their pre-law program. After one fateful event, however, her life was turned upside down.
As per required by collegiate sports, she was sent a letter in the mail to report to a medical facility for a full physical in order to compete. She dutifully complied and went to the facility mentioned in the letter. Nothing seemed amiss except for the very vague name of the company, which was only realized in hindsight. She was seen by a doctor who gave her a standard physical, but mentioned that she'd need some blood work done as a precaution to scan for illnesses. Somehow Parker's tests always came back inconclusive or lost and she had to have blood drawn a couple times. What she didn't know was that during one of these draws, she was actually being injected with a mysterious serum.
The day after her injection that she was oblivious to, Parker found that her performance on the field was better than ever. She seemed to have a sudden expert understanding of physics and was able to make some extremely lucky shots, some that involved bouncing on multiple, tiny targets from far distances away. Unfortunately, a week or so later, she started feeling quite ill with flu-like symptoms. When it kept her in bed for a couple days, she decided to call up the only doctor she knew in town and made an appointment. Coincidentally, they could see her right away.
The doctor performed a number of diagnostic tests and determined that she may indeed have a strange case of the flu and asked if she'd be amenable to a flu shot. Though she thought it strange considering flu shots were meant to be preventative, given how miserable she was feeling, she agreed. Miraculously, after just several hours, she felt completely normal. She went back to her normal routine the next day, her field performance continuing to soar.
A few days later, her doctor called for a follow up and when asked how she was doing, Parker replied that she was feeling much better. She even joked that she hoped to not see him again for a long time. The doctor chuckled a bit and answered pointedly, "Well, you probably won't. But just because your blood work came back as a bit of a rare case of the flu virus, I'm going to mail you a package of the same medicine you took here in my office so you have it on hand in case your symptoms return." The following day, a package from UPS was delivered with the medicine as promised. Parker put it away in her medicine cabinet, thinking it unlikely to need it given how she was feeling.
In a strange coincidence, about a week later, Parker started feeling twinges of falling ill again. This time, however, the symptoms seemed worse than before. After a day or two of misery, she dosed herself with the medicine she was sent and called her doctor. The receptionist mentioned that her doctor was out of the office for a few days, but that she was instructed to send her another package of the same medicine should she have used what she had. Parker agreed to it, and made an appointment to actually have the doctor see her when he was scheduled back in town. The day before her appointment, the doctor's office called to say there was a scheduling conflict and would Parker not mind rescheduling for the following week. Given she had her "flu epi pen" on hand, she didn't think a week would hurt. However, the cycle kept repeating itself: illness, injection, package, rescheduled appointment.
After a short while of the repeating pattern, one package was included with a message ominously stating: "Don't call us. We'll call you." and the next time she called the doctor's office, the line had been disconnected. Frantic, she went down to where the medical facility was, and found that it had been completely vacated. When she returned home, a package was waiting for her with the same medicine and another note stating "Take once a week at the same time, and you'll be fine."
For a while, she tried to avoid taking it. But once again, every time she missed it, she was rendered practically immobile with chills, fatigue, sweating, vomiting, insomnia, and severe headaches. She tried going to a different doctor, a reputable one (Parker made absolutely sure), but they couldn't find anything wrong with her. Every time she mentioned her symptoms, her new doctors looked at her with an accusing eye thinking she was just a drug addict.
Feeling embarrassed, Parker stopped going to doctors. The next package came as scheduled along with a note simply stating, "Enjoy your sports scholarship." That was when it dawned on her that something in whatever this drug was enhancing her performance on the field. Feeling violated, cornered, used, and like she was cheating, she made the radical decision to forego her scholarship, quit playing lacrosse, and even withdrew from school. This caused a major rift in her relationship with her family and after weeks of painful, heated arguments, they stated that if she was going to throw away such an amazing opportunity that she was lucky enough to get, she was totally on her own from now on. The final click of the phone was deafening.
It took Parker a couple weeks to dust herself off and start over. She moved out of the campus dorms to a modest little studio, got a job, and because she still refused to play lacrosse (though she did still throw a ball around with her crosse occasionally, usually just to see what crazy shots she can make), she discovered an underground parkour circuit. Since her enhanced physical abilities focused primarily on aim, physics knowledge, and balance, all of which comes in handy in parkour, she took to it immediately and became a regular face among the group.
