Raquel "Hell-Fyre" Winston

=Biography=

Born in London on October 30, 1978, Raquel grew up in a single-parent household for the earliest years of her life. Her biological father was out of the picture before she was born, but her mother married an American high school teacher when Raquel was eight years old. The following year, the family settled in Kingsmouth, Maine - on Solomon Island - close where her step-father was a teacher at Innsmouth Academy.

Unbeknownst to Raquel and her mother, her step-father was [REDACTED]. Their happy family life was cut short when her step-father died in a mysterious car accident when Raquel was 16 years old. Her mother was devastated by the event, but Raquel could sense even through her own grief that there was something more to it than a simple accident. The City Council made sure the entire thing was swept under the rug, but Helen Bannerman - the newly-appointed sheriff - agreed with Raquel that something was off. Every effort they made to find out the truth was met with a proverbial brick wall, though.

Eventually, Raquel gave up on the search for the truth, but her inability to find answers for herself ignited a passion inside her to help find answers for others who were seeking the truth about their own loved ones they had lost. She attended NYU and obtained a dual-major degree in Criminal Justice and Criminal Psychology, then promptly enrolled in the FBI training program at Quantico.

The Illumination
In 2006, at the age of 28, Raquel suddenly found herself having intense migraines. They subsided after a couple of weeks, but following the time off she took from her job to deal with her health issues, she curiously found herself being assigned to a series of arson cases rather than her usual homicides. As she put the pieces of the puzzle together, she realized that she was the arsonist, but didn't know how it was at all possible since she couldn't recall ever being to any of the places where the fires were set.

That was when she got the call.

"We know what you've done," the voice on the other end of the line told her. Whoever it was then gave her an address before the line went dead.

She went to the address and followed the clues on what she thought was nothing more than a wild goose chase. Then she discovered the secure facility in the sewers under Brooklyn. She was promptly knocked out upon entering the facility, and when she came to she found herself restrained to a chair in some sort of lab. A voice - the same one from the phone call she had received - congratulated her on finding her way to the facility. She was then informed that she had been observed her entire life by the people who were holding her in custody.

She was given a choice: Join the Illuminati and put her newly-discovered powers to use for their benefit, and they would make sure that the case involving the fires quietly went away. Otherwise, she could refuse them and they would have to put her down before she could completely lose control of her powers and cause some serious damage.

Obviously, she chose the former. She was then introduced to the head of the New York office, Kirsten Geary, as well as the agent who would be training her to control her magical abilities: Alex McCall. Raquel didn't really care for either of them, at first. Geary was a stuck-up bitch and McCall was a drunk chain-smoker who obviously didn't want to be stuck there training her.

As the weeks went on, however, she realized that her anger was more about having basically been blackmailed into joining the Illuminati rather than either of their attitudes. For the most part. Geary was still a bit of a stuck-up bitch, but the more time she spent with Alex, the easier he became to deal with. He was still a chain-smoker and a drunk, but she couldn't help developing a soft spot for him - especially after he revealed to her what happened to bring him into the Illuminati.

Six months after her recruitment, Raquel was able to completely control her elemental talents to the point that she could start fires at the drop of a hat simply by thinking about it. She also discovered that her uncanny ability to read people was due to her being an empath. She returned to her job - which the Illuminati had made sure would be held for her - and found that she had been granted a promotion. With that promotion came new responsibilities, however. Responsibilities to both the Department of Justice as well as to the Illuminati which she would need to carry out almost simultaneously, at times.

There's No Place Like Home
As soon as Raquel heard about the "incident" on Solomon Island, she went straight to Geary's office and demanded to be sent in to investigate the matter. Her mother had moved off the island several years prior, but it was still her old hometown and she wanted to see for herself what was going on and help out however she could. Geary reluctantly allowed her to pursue the matter, though she had already sent numerous agents ahead of her, partly because she knew Raquel would end up going no matter what she said.

Raquel traveled back to her old hometown through Agartha, steeling herself for whatever she might find there. What she didn't realize, however, was that [REDACTED] had followed her and was as intent on keeping an eye on her as she was on finding answers.

=Personality=

Raquel has trouble opening up to people, due to trust issues which developed as a direct result of the cover-up surrounding her step-father's death. She also tends to bottle up her own emotions, while sometimes becoming overwhelmed by those of others who she uses her empath abilities on. This usually ends up with her blowing up at someone when they push her buttons at the wrong time. Her temper flares as hot as the fire she controls, but more often than not she immediately feels guilty for her outbursts and ends up apologizing profusely.

She's known amongst her fellow Illuminati agents for being more than a little stubborn and rather sarcastic at times, and many people see her as cold since she still holds a grudge over being blackmailed into joining. On the other hand, her fellow agents in the FBI see her as good-natured, friendly, and supportive.

=Relationships=


 * Evelyn Winston - Raquel has always been extremely close with her mother, stemming from the fact that Evelyn was a single mother for the first several years of her life. Raquel was born a month premature - an unusual thing for an otherwise perfectly healthy pregnancy - and had to have emergency surgery to correct a spinal problem shortly after her birth. Both of these events led to Evelyn being rather protective of her daughter until she was in her early teens. When Evelyn's husband died, she entered a deep depression that lasted better than two years. Raquel was afraid to go off to college, fearing that if she left her mother completely alone she might attempt suicide, but Evelyn assured her that everything would be fine. She got a job as a receptionist for Dr. Bannerman, which she held until she retired in 2005 and moved to South Carolina. Being so far away from her mother, Raquel doesn't see her as much as she would like (though it's become much easier since she joined the Illuminati because she can simply travel through Agartha) but they talk on the phone almost every day.


 * Rory Carteris - Rory married Evelyn Winston in the spring of 1986. He was a good man who Raquel considered to be her father since her real father had never been in the picture. He doted on her as if she was his own flesh and blood, and Raquel loved him. When he died, it hit her hard - though not as hard as it did her mother. She's always been suspicious about the circumstances surrounding his death, not buying the theory that he absent-mindedly drove his car off the road like the police report claimed. Though she finally gave up on trying to get to the bottom of what really happened, the entire situation still haunts her.


 * Alex McCall - The Englishman was brought in to the main headquarters in New York specifically to train Raquel so she could learn to control her somewhat out-of-control power over fire. He really didn't want to be there and made no secret of it, but turned serious about getting her abilities under control when she accidentally set his favorite jacket on fire - while he was wearing it. Raquel bought him a new coat and apologized for ruining his old one, and the two of them decided to start over with a clean slate. They ended up becoming more than just mentor and student as the months went on, developing a somewhat close friendship with one another.


 * Kirsten Geary - Raquel still has a rather antagonistic relationship with the head of the Illuminati operations in New York City. Geary is the one who always calls her with orders, and more often than not those orders only serve to complicate her life and threaten to topple the delicate balance she maintains between her "normal life" and her secret one as an Illuminati agent. Kirsten also knows all of the secrets of Raquel's past, such as [REDACTED] and that [REDACTED] is her biological father. The fact that Geary won't tell Raquel anything, no matter how many times she asks, really rubs her the wrong way. Raquel often gets the same "it's on a need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know" attitude when she asks Geary for more details on missions she's given which coincide with the cases she's working on. Whether she really doesn't need to know or Geary withholds the information out of spite is the question.

=Trivia=


 * Raquel was born on October 30, which is often referred to as "Devil's Night." Her code name within the Illuminati is meant to reflect both this fact and her natural affinity for playing with fire.
 * Even before she joined the Illuminati, Raquel often wore blue clothing.
 * Though born in London, Raquel is now a United States citizen. She gained her citizenship at the age of 21, while in college.
 * Having lived most of her life in the United States, Raquel barely has any remainder of her original British accent. However, it starts to come out more when she's speaking with others who have the same or a similar accent as she used to (such as Alex and her mother).