Penny the Pyrohog

Once the Crown Princess of the Pyranic Empire, Penny the Pyrohog is a Troll and former front-line member of Reaper's Legion.

Physical Description

A buxom woman only recently back in figure after having a child, Penny has warm red fur like her father, streaked with teal marks along her complex quill structure. Similar to her younger brother Burn, she has sharp red eyes, although she is a fair bit more expressive through them than her brother. She often wears differing makeup, although it is always in colors accentuating her red fur and eyes.

Attire

Penny is normally seen dressed comfortably in a silver t-shirt and dark blue loose-fit jeans, with a brown belt holding her pants up, as well as a brown jacket and white sneakers. However, she owns a fairly expansive wardrobe filled with other clothes, and often changes as the missions require it.

Another frequent part of her attire is a pair of red gauntlets, with each metallic component lined with golden paint. These gauntlets sport two blades protruding from the back of her hand and reaching halfway back along her arm in a roughly thirty degree slant. These are her primary melee weapons, and as such are normally only worn when on missions or while training in the Moonbase itself.

History

Early Life

The eldest child of King Napalm Pyrinth and his wife Queen Inferno, it followed Pyranic Empire custom that she be heralded as the heir to the throne only until a male sibling was born. She was kept out of the limelight for that very reason, and although she still made public appearances alongside her family, she was never fully in the media spotlight. After the birth of the twins Burn and Draco two years later, Penny slid even further from the public eye, making a few appearances a year as her parents paraded around the heir to the throne and his twin brother. Due to this, despite being known as a princess, very few people were concerned when the pyrohog was enrolled into a private school after she turned five. She proved popular with the other children her age with her loud and excitable nature, and her father swelled with pride that his daughter could one day fill any role she desired in the Empire.

Decisions

Her early years of schooling passed by without note, while her skill in the control of Fire progressed at an extreme rate, as expected for a pyrohog of the royal bloodline. Soon after turning thirteen, she was noted as being a third-degree master of basic Pyrokinesis, and an intermediate practitioner of the advanced element Plasma. Finally, her father asked the young girl what path she wanted to follow with her life. He hoped that the diplomatic corps would entice her, or the idea of teaching and tutoring in Fire. Unfortunately, her first response was also her last - she simply stated that she wanted to become a soldier or a mercenary, with her preference being the fighter for fortune. In her eyes, it meant travel, fighting more bad guys, and actually staying on the same level as everyone else, unlike if she entered the military.

Napalm was crushed. His daughter wanted to become a military figure. To make it worse, she wanted to become one for money, not for her home country. On the one hand, he had his precious eldest child's dream presented to him. On the other side was the idea of her potentially fighting against her home. This was a stress on him, and he was clearly shaken as he tried to solve the issue of how to balance out the sides and find a solution. For two days he struggled to balance out his daughter's interests and the strength of his nation. Finally, he asked Inferno, hoping the woman had a reasonable idea. Instantly, the woman reminded her husband of her role as head of intelligence. Her idea was complex, and involved Penny training as a mercenary with a group chosen by the trio as a group. Once she came of age, the king would fake disowning her, giving the girl freedom and, to most observers, leaving her as a mercenary with no true affiliation. But, she would stay in contact with her mother through secret methods. A spy, keeping them informed about the mercenaries in the region, a method to predict when the country was being threatened through neighbors bolstering their forces with a hired army. Napalm was less than happy at the idea, but consented after a brief argument. By contrast, Penny was delighted and was only barely able to hide it from her parents before they told her.

As a group, the three members of the royal family began to examine the different mercenary groups around. She suggested the Children of Supplicium, but the idea was scoffed at by her mother, due to the rather negative reputation the group held. She countered with a suggestion of the Disciples of Iblis, but Penny pointed out the group's extremist leanings and desire to resurrect the Chaos Beast. Finally, Napalm tired of the debate between mother and daughter, and pointed out the Sunlight Avengers. A mercenary organization with a good reputation and of reasonable size, plus a leader who would be willing to work with the Empire. The suggestion was the one to fit all the criteria, and from there, Inferno made contact with Nautilos Entrai, the leader of the group. While reserved at taking on a "spoilt brat" as a member, he agreed to witness her training in person. What the hedgehog was shown upon arrival to the capital was astounding. For five minutes, the girl simply demonstrated her skill against multiple opponents, each one a master Pyrokinetic in their own right. Despite her youth and inexperience, she managed to hold her own, defeating three of her five opponents in a mixture of elemental and hand-to-hand combat. Before long, she found herself assigned a pair of experienced mercenaries to tutor her in the skills of a mercenary.

Training

Some of the lessons her teachers covered were centered around anonymity. The weapons she was accustomed in using were rare or unique designs, which could quickly be traced to the royal family. As such, she joined one of her two tutors in a journey to a blacksmith's store, where he acquired for her a pair of red gauntlets with knife-blades along the back of the fist. He made it clear that he felt she would be best suited to close-quarters with weapons of this style, using her elemental powers and a ranged weapon for any fights she couldn't reach. The ranged weapon was provided by the Avengers themselves, a Mobian-produced submachine gun which proved a common sight amongst a wide range of organizations.

However, her training extended far beyond just elemental control and two types of weapons. She was trained to utilize almost any common infantry weapon type available, drive a variety of land vehicles, and calculate her own finances and the value of items in her possession, especially for dealing with the bartering Pickup Merchants. These were all skills that Nautilos believed were vital for a trainee, and they'd never had issue with his decisions. Under their tutelage, Penny grew into a busty, confident commando capable of outfighting most basic soldiers with just her gauntlets, and proved herself on a number of minor missions.

Meeting of Fate

Soon after her fourteenth birthday, Penny was visiting her parents after a training mission only to find a strange male pyrohog of her age standing in the room with them. His fur was Indian red, approaching rust-brown in colour, with orange streaks running back along his quills. His eyes were pale blue, and he dressed in the traditional style. He seemed quite polite and gentle, both uncommon traits in a pyrohog her age. However, something in her instantly felt smitten by the young man. Her father introduced him as Scorch the Pyrohog, a young man whom people claimed to be a demigod from his sheer talent and power, with Inferno even mentioning that the young man had mastered every advanced variation of Fire, despite only being fourteen years old. Out of disbelief, Penny challenged him to a fight. With obvious reservations, the young man agreed.

For Penny, it was eye-opening. She regularly sparred with master pyrokinetics as well as fighters skilled in other elements, and won a reasonable proportion of these through use of both Fire and Plasma techniques. Scorch was completely different. Every attack she launched at him was redirected into a wall or the floor, with not a single fireball striking the pyrokinetic as he guarded with flames the colour of cobalt. In frustration, she pushed herself further into the fight, with her flames rippling from the traditional red-orange into a vibrant green, her personal colour signature. Even with her emotion boosting it, the still-calm Scorch simply split the attack with a Fire Stream, one of the most basic attacks known. She upped the ante with Plasma techniques, but with the explosive might of her advanced element, Scorch was unharmed and unfazed as he overpowered each and every one with a shield of fire. Finally, she exhausted herself, and with a single, gentle nudge, Scorch knocked her from her feet. When her father explained that her aunt and uncle had hired the young man to tutor her cousin Molotov, she wasn't surprised. Molotov wasn't the strongest Pyrohog ever, but if he could learn to become as skilled as Scorch, she could only wonder just how strong he would become. However, Scorch wasn't at all afraid of the power held by the royal family, proceeding to ask Penny out on a date in front of both the king and queen, with a promise from the man that he would help train the princess into becoming a stronger fighter.

The next year was a whirlwind. Penny performed a few missions with the Sunlight Avengers clad in a disguise, while Scorch took the girl on a few short trips to meet some of the men and women who trained him in the advanced elements, while at the same time tutoring the girl himself. By the time she turned fifteen, Penny was held as one of the best-kept secrets of the royal family - a true soldier and elemental powerhouse. In her spare time, she helped Scorch tutor Molotov, and the two grew closer and closer, until a love blossomed between them. It wasn't immediate, but it was strong, forged in their mutual skill with flame.

Days of Destiny

Finally, her mother deemed it was time. The plan began to unfold. A number of arguements were staged within the family, to benefit the staff of the castle. Penny essentially moved into a rented apartment to put distance between herself and her parents. But, very quickly, things turned ugly. In a private moment, Inferno revealed a new portion to Penny's mission. She expected the girl to find out military information on the neighboring countries - Soleanna, the Terran League, the Empire of the Scarlet Moon, anyone and everyone within a certain reach. As Penny listened, she grew more and more outraged as her mother detailed why she wanted this information: she wished for the Pyranic Empire to one day return to it's larger, expanded size, even if that meant through invasion and force. Penny refused, and the argument turned physical. A brutal slap across the face left Penny bruised, with a few minor drops of blood around her nose and the sides of her mouth. Ironically, this one instance of abuse provided the perfect reasoning for the plan to progress, despite Penny's clear reluctance at Inferno's secret orders. Napalm made the announcement two days later, as Penny made her way out of the country dressed as a soldier of fortune, accompanied by her teachers.

Of course, within six months of her "exile", she hadn't reported into her mother once, so she found out at the same time as the rest of the world when her brother, Crown Prince Burn Pyrinth, was cast out of the castle, believed to be dying. However, while she was stunned and saddened for her younger brother, she noticed something odd. While Napalm seemed almost depressed, both Inferno and Burn's twin brother, Draco, seemed comfortable with the event. Alarm bells screamed in the young woman's head, but she suppressed it. She'd known that her mother had always supported Draco, even though Burn was the rightful heir. With Burn dying, the woman would see the son she preferred placed upon the throne. Draco was ambitious and had always envied his twin for his position. However, she passed it off, and the next six months were spent working with the Sunlight Avengers as one of it's foot-soldiers.

At the end of that first year, Penny was surprised by a visit from Scorch, and he wasn't alone, as Molotov stood with him. At first, she accused the powerful pyrokinetic of kidnapping her cousin, but the youngster spoke up first. He had evidence that Burn wasn't dead, and was never dying in the first place. Instead, Draco had claimed Burn had been stabbed with an ice dagger, and had "proven" it with a pool of water on the floor where he claimed the weapon had melted. However, Molotov was a computer expert and had resurrected deleted footage on the security console - Draco stabbing his own brother through the hand with a knife during unsupervised sparring. He had taken it to his aunt, but she simply passed it off as fantasy and refused to view it. Instead, he saved a copy and showed Scorch, who immediately suggested finding Penny, and then Burn after that. The two had snuck out of the capital together, with Scorch taking on the role of Molotov's protector until they found the mercenary camp where the former princess was living.

Joining the Trolls

She was seventeen, and a dilemma was on her hands. On the one hand, she had proof that her brother had faked an attack on his twin to get the other lad exiled to "die in peace", presented to her by a blood relative and one of the most powerful young men she'd ever met. On the other hand, she was trying her best not to get involved in her family's struggles, seeing her exile as a safety net between herself and them. Nevertheless, she felt responsible for some of the problems, and with both Scorch and Molotov there, her love for Scorch, her brother and her home won out. She handed in her resignation to a shocked Nautilous, then left with the two boys to try to find Burn's trail. To her surprise, it wasn't hard to find. Burn had walked right into the arms of a reported "global liberation group", and had become a member of an elite team of this group. However, that was as far as she could get, with most of her information sources passing on little further intelligence. She relayed this back to Scorch, and was prepared to try to regain her job with the mercenary band she had abandoned, but Molotov found the answer - he managed to hack into a G.U.N. database through a number of low-level data spikes, and had acquired the information that the trio needed - Burn was a member of The Trolls, one of the three members of the elite Team Reaper.

To say Penny and Scorch were surprised was an understatement. The Trolls were legendary for their stupidity, perversion and "immunity to death". The idea that the former crown prince of a nation could join them was foolish, until further information extracted by Molotov revealed that the four princes of House Thunda were also confirmed members. Unfortunately, it was at this point that his hack was traced. One second, the trio was fine. The next thing they knew, a G.U.N. agent stood behind them, holding an submachine gun to their backs. Penny reacted instantly, using an acrobatic flip propelled by a burst of fire to slice through the agent's throat. Even before he bled out, the trio had fled, now noted as "enemies of the state". Only one option presented itself - finding and joining the Trolls themselves.

The next six months pushed Penny back to her mercenary training. G.U.N. had assigned a team of agents to pursue and arrest the trio, and while Scorch's sheer elemental power would keep the agents at bay, it was Penny's training as a soldier that kept the trio moving, and allowed her to eliminate a few agents through both gun battles and hand-to-hand brawls with her gauntlets. Needless to say, the running exhausted the three pyrohogs, but also brought Scorch and Penny together as a couple. Finally, the trio were cornered not far from Troll territory by an elite team of powered troopers from the First Army Division. The situation was one they couldn't escape from. Scorch and Penny stood their ground in front of Molotov, hoping to at least win enough time for him to survive. By the light of their flames, some of green, some of blue, they gave each other what they felt was a final kiss and prepared to fight their way out. It wasn't required. Silver flames burst into the sky above them, and two fighters leapt from a sheer cliff. One of the two, the fighter with silver flames, was clearly Burn. The other young hedgehog was clad in black, and armed with a scythe that sheared through the powered armor as if it was paper. In seconds, the fight was complete, and the Pyrinth siblings reunited. Under Burn's promise they were no threat, the trio were transported to the Troll Moon Base, to await their fate.

To the trio's surprise, the troll generals were supportive, and at least one of them tried to recruit Penny straight away, without seeing what she could do. However, Reaper offered to take the three of them into his team, pointing out that he had recently acquired a fourth member, and could expand into a new force with the addition of these three - a new Troll Legion. Despite Toxic's desire to recruit Penny alone, the others were convinced with that, and allowed Reaper to create his legion.

Reaper's Legion

As members of the newly formed Legion, Penny and Scorch were thrust into an even closer relationship, but at the same time, the two were often kept apart by missions. This occurrence drastically increased when Reaper fell ill, afflicted by a psychic command from the past that was causing his cells to damage themselves. This forced Burn to take the reins on the team, with Penny advising him on almost every area due to her mercenary background until Reaper returned to health. At the same time, she kept helping Scorch with training the other pyrokinetic Trolls alongside Molotov. They found themselves drawn to each other, and roughly a year after they joined the Trolls, Penny discovered that she was pregnant. She stood down from active duty in Reaper's Legion immediately, although she remained on call for missions, even after the birth of her daughter with Scorch, Tinder. Now a mother and soldier alike, Penny has kept an eye on the brewing trouble in the Pyranic Empire, but has an agreement with Scorch and Burn - unless Draco makes the first move into a coup against her father, they wouldn't return to his aid.

Abilities and Equipment

Penny, like most members of the royal family of the Pyranic Empire, is a powerful pyrokinetic, with mastery of both Fire and experience in using one of it's advanced forms - in her case, Plasma. These powers form the root of her combat skill, although she is more than capable of fighting without it's use. During her mid teens, she unlocked her signature color of fire - a pale green, which is clear in both her standard flame and her plasma bursts.

Unusually for a member of a noble house like the Pyrinths, Penny carries no customized, ancient or unique weapons. As part of her mercenary training, and emphasized by her exile, Penny chose to rescind her right to the royal family's vault. Due to this, her melee armament consists of a pair of Red Brawlers, a set of common red-painted gauntlets with sharp blades running from the back of the wrist to the knuckles. Likewise, despite being able to carry a Pyranic Army-exclusive firearm, she chose to instead purchase a Stauten-Krauzach Skirmisher Submachine Gun, due to it's somewhat common appearance amongst mercenary forces. Despite the lack of rare weaponry, Penny has proven to be a devastating fighter with these weapons - accurate with the submachine gun and skilled with the bladed gauntlets. Indeed, in close combat she has proven herself to be more than a match for most swords wielders using those gauntlets, alongside her pyrokinesis.

Notably, both of Penny's elemental powers share weaknesses. Offensively, she cannot to do very much to Earth and Water wielders, as the majority of her techniques fail to penetrate earthen walls, and while strong, the majority of her attacks fail to boil water faster than a hydrokinetic can direct it at her. However, in both cases, her opponent has to beware certain Plasma techniques, which can cause major issues with their detonation. However, due to the construction of Plasma, a Geokinetic with training in Magnetism can prematurely detonate her Plasma attacks, gaining the elemental advantage.

Physically, it is a fair bit harder to defeat her. Penny is a competent fighter in close-quarters, and a skilled shot with her submachine gun, with training of a level comparable to a G.U.N. Agent and enhanced with her experiences. Due to this, if her opponents don't possess her elemental weaknesses, it is advised that they attack as a group.

As a side-note, it is known that Penny was trained as a diplomat as well as a soldier, and carries a full set of ten Flame Crystals in a sealed belt pouch, which could be used by any of the three Pyrohogs, as well as any other compatible beings, to transform into a Flare-tyle Super Form.

Fire Techniques

• Blast Burn
• Charred Sting
• Crater Mouth
• Fire Gate: Hellfire
• Fist of the Dragon
• Flame Charge
• Flaming Spindash
• Heat Crash
• Inferno Slash
• Re-flame
• Steady Firebreathing

Plasma Techniques

• Blast Blade
• Burst Shield
• Gyro Drill
• Plasma Whip
• Plasmic Field
• Spiral Bolt

Elementless Techniques

• Barrier
• Crusher Spindash
• Energy Bone
• Hidden Power (Chaos-aligned)
• Hyper Beam
• Mega Punch
• Screech
• Tackle
• Twin Play - alongside Molotov

Transformations

As with the other three combat-ready pyrohogs in Reaper's Legion, Penny has been seen using a variety of Fire-based transformations. However, since she stood down from active duty, she is the rarest of the three to see transformed.

Flaming Penny

Burning Penny

Blazing Penny

Flare Penny

Vulcan Penny

Personality

Penny is often regarded as a loud, boisterous young woman with a startling ability to look on the positive, "warmer" side of events. However, as a trained mercenary, she is well versed in "Murphy's Law", where anything that can go wrong on a mission will do so. Due to this, she is often regarded as a wealth of strategic information, and is just as capable of thinking and commanding on her feet as Reaper is. She is noted to be loud, even on the battlefield, with the only thing capable of quieting her down being the presence of a loved one.

Despite everything she's experienced, Penny is a fierce defender of her homeland and family, with a desire for her father to remain in control of the country, despite being exiled from there. Due to this, she has no respect for her mother or Draco, simply due to the fact that they have tried to push her father from the throne. Since becoming a mother, she has focused her defensive instincts into her new family - her partner Scorch and their baby, Tinder.

Relationships

Friends

• Scorch the Pyrohog -
• Burn the Pyrohog -
• Molotov the Pyrohog -
• Reaper's Legion

• Reaper
• Anne the Power Hedgehog

Allies

• The Trolls
• Sunlight Avengers - Uncertain if they still class her as an ally, after her resignation.

Rivals

Enemies

• Pyranic Empire

Notes

• Penny is designed as a recolor of Victoria, the female counterpart to Vicious the Dark, specifically her first variation.