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Takako “Taki” Yoshida, known by her superhero alias of Battle Angel, was a Japanese-born member of the British superhero team Section P in Reality Z-25 31-H. She was a friend of Kate Five's.
Description
Physical appearance
Taki was a relatively short, but highly muscular woman with Japanese features. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) She was, to be exact, 5 foot 4. (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio She kept her hair long, and had curiously green eyes. She had scars of unknown origin running down her right cheek and the right side of her chest. In battle, she wore elaborate battle armour that boosted her strength and resilience; when at rest, she favoured simple, practical clothing. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
Personality
Taki was tight-lipped about her troubled past, but willing to discuss it with those close to her if they asked. It had left her determined to never be anyone's slave ever again, a determination to which she applied her more generally extremely strong force of will. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) Her greatest fear was having to return to a life of servitude. She kept up a hardened, taciturn appearance, struggling to open up to those around her, but sometimes let herself become overwhelmed with rawer feelings when she was alone, from weeping about elements of her past to romantic fantasies. She expressed romantic interest both in men (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio) and women. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
Powers & abilities
Battle Angel was a skilled physical fighter, able to use guns and swords as well as hold her own in bare-handed combat. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) She was trained in Shotokan Karate and Bushido” and, in her time with the Yakuza, was considered the most talented assassin in South East Asia. However, she had no particular supernatural abilities, excepting an unusual resistance to telepathic/psionic attacks due to having an unusually strong will, forged in the fires of her traumatic past. (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio)
Biography
Early life
Takako Yoshida was born in Japan, the daughter of a “renowned” landscape gardener, and grew up with three brothers. However, their formerly-affluent family fell on hard times, and Taki's father ended up deep in debt to the Yakuza. Eventually, when he missed one deadline too many, gang members murdered him in front of his family and abducted an eight-year-old Taki and her mother, selling them as slaves in the underground to recoup their costs. Taki struggled through a demeaning four years as a waitress in illegal clubs and casinos until one day, when a guest attempted to assault her, she defended herself with lethal effects. Her efficiency as a killer impressed her masters, who had her trained as an assassin instead. (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio)
As an assassin
Over the years, the teenaged assassin proved “too” good for her Yakuza handlers' tastes, bringing them unexpected attention as she becames something of a legend throughout South East Asia. They eventually decided to hand her off to international authorities in exchange for reduced attention on their other criminal operations. The “handover” took the form of what was to be a deliberately-sabotaged assassination, with Taki sent to London to supposedly assassinate Sir James Carey, who had actually been informed that she was coming and arranged for her arrest. On the verge of attempting the shot, Taki herself began to hesitate, reflecting that she was far enough from Japan that she could hope to escape reprisals for disobedience, meaning, for the first time, she had a choice whether to go through with it. Before she could make a decisive choice, a military team burst in on her location, managing to bring her down thanks to the presence of a Combat Psyker with telepathic abilities.
Though the Psyker's telepathic attack did knock Taki out, it also meant the Psyker's mind downloaded Taki's lifetime of traumatic experiences in an instant, which sent her to the hospital as well — from which she would later emerge as the supervillainess Sin.Drella. Meanwhile, Sir Carey visited Taki in the off-the-books place where she was being detained, and arranged to have her freed and records of her crimes destroyed if she would join Section P, the British Ministry of Defence's superhero team, which he controlled. She accepted. (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio)
In Section P
As part of Section P, Taki was given high-quality kevlar body armour and becoming “Battle Angel”. Over the following years, Taki grew to enjoy using her near-superhuman fighting abilities to protect rather than destroy.
Though struggling to become close to the rest of the team, (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio) she developed a friendship with her fellow Section P member Kate Five (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio) and a third member, Nexus Girl. The two behaved much like high school friends, staying up late together at HQ watching movies and being silly. They even formed a Sunday Night Roleplay Club where they played such games as Dungeons & Dragons. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio) Kate developed a crush on Taki, (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio) but refused to admit it, even to herself, as she still thought of herself as straight; (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio) however, Taki herself did notice it. Despite their bond, Kate failed to ask Taki about her past, something Taki would later resent. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
Battling a possessed Kate
One evening, while patrolling the streets of Cardiff, Kate Five became possessed by an alien symbiote which amplified the darkness in her subconscious. Concealing her state, the possessed Kate returned to Section P's HQ, where she sized up her fellow team-members as potential host for further symbiotes. She honed in on Taki, whom she followed into the showers where she was heading after a workout. There, Kate revealed her monstrous hybrid form and attacker her friend. Although Taki was able to briefly injure her, Kate and the symbiote's powers combined allowed the possessed Kate to overpower Taki and assault her, planting the seed of a new alien within her. Growing within moments, the new, blue-coloured creature attempted to bond with Taki's body, but she managed to throw it off and it hid down the shower drain.
Nexus Girl then arrived on the scene, attempting to figure out what was happening between Kate and Taki, only to be taken by surprise by the new symbiote and bond with it. Kate and the black symbiote were unable to persuade the symbiotic hybrid of Nexus Girl and the blue alien to listen to them, however, with the bonded Nexi instead electing to protect Taki, whom they saw as their mother. Blasted into the next room, the symbiote-bonded Kate killed veteran Section P member Aqua Marine as she made her escape. After her disappearance, Nexus Girl and her new symbiote bond-partner pledged to remain loyal to Nexi's friends and to help them track down Kate Five and separate her from the villainous symbiote. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
When she all-too-briefly recovered her sanity thanks to Centennia, Kate worried about whether Taki would forgive her. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise)
The Hunt for Kate Five
Six months after her transformation, (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 2) she ended up in Angel Falls, where she nearly killed Guardian Ms. Blitzen. After the battle was over, Taki, Sir James Carey, Nexus Girl visited Ms. Blitzen in hospital to try to get more information about Kate's newfound capabilities. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 3)