( ʀᴜɴɴɪɴɢ ᴄɪʀᴄʟᴇs ᴄᴀᴜsᴇs ʀᴇɢʀᴇᴛ )

Born to Winston and Marie Galloway in the North West of England, Kate's childhood was unremarkable until her parents adopted a second child when she was 5. From then on, she was part of unit, half of a sibling pair, and her parents instilled in her the importance of looking out for her new brother.

And so life continued, and she and Marc settled into the typical combination of bickering and willingness to fight for one another many siblings would recognise. While Marc's intelligence served him well at school, Kate was athletic and earning numerous medals for her local sports club. All seemed fine, and the Galloway parents had high hopes for both kids.

Unfortunately, life had other plans.

At twelve, Kate's life was turned upside down by the murder of her parents, a seemingly senseless, random act when they had gone out on a date. The killer was never found, and Kate and Marc were shuffled over into the custody of relatives. While the relatives were fine people, they were hardly equipped to deal with two traumatised adolescents, and her new home life was rocky.

Marc appeared to bounce back quickly, burying himself in his schoolwork and talking about how he wanted to go into forensics. Kate, on the other hand, tried and failed to plunge herself back into organised sports and instead tumbled into the world of underage drinking in parks, hanging out with the kind of people most parents would hate to see influencing their child.

Including a businessman. A handsome man in his late 20s, he was often responsible for hooking the group up with alcohol and various drugs, and quickly developed an unhealthy interest in this angry bundle of brown hair. He propositioned her, he can be another way to kill time in this shitty world and she can get some extra goodies when she wants.

Enticed by his offer, flattered by the attention and thinking herself mature, Kate agreed. For several months, they kept up their deal, until the day he arrived with a new drug for her to try out--

Hepatestryl. Well, an off-brand version, with unpredictable power manifestation and a risk of the user being turned to stone. Knowing that she spent her sober free time parkouring and trying to outrun her feelings, he suggested that she could end up with the kind of stamina and physical skills which would allow her to be even better at them before forcing the pill down her throat.

Instead, she ended up with Power Sensitivity — and, with no powers anywhere in the vicinity, it seemed as though he'd purchased little more than sugar pills — and the motivation to finally pull herself free from his grasp. It was a move that came at the cost of her friendship group but was otherwise managed with a surprising amount of ease. (She wasn't going to complain or think too hard on that.) Soon after, she dyed her hair pink for the first time in her life, drawing more ire from her school and feeling more like herself than she had for years. It was a short lived phase, true, but one which lifted some much needed weight from her shoulders.

At 16, she left school and applied to join the army.