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Known Background: In the late 1970's, Anton Breié and Elisabeth Gilbert were married, despite his nocturnal activities as le Lion Noir, Montreal's resident costumed vigilante. In the mid 1980's they had their second child, a daughter, Annette. Annette grew up in the shadow of her older sister Sylvia, AKA La Chatte Noire I, who her father was training to become a crimefighter like himself. Annette, while receiving martials arts training from her father, did not receive any actual crime-fighting training from him, and had a pretty normal childhood. Annette was always very interested in machinary and gadgets, and also was very interested in fashion and modeling (which along with her extreme good looks lead her to begin a modeling career in her mid-teens).
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About the same time Annette was starting her modeling career (in Montreal mostly, though occasionally her mom might take her to New York for a shoot), her older sister started to lose interest in the whole superhero "thing" (Sylvia had easily mastered the physical aspects of being a crimefighter, but never quite had the proper mindset for it), and when she turned 18, she left for Empire City to become an actress and "live her own life", retiring from her role as La Chatte Noire I.
Disappointed by his oldest daughter (and with his youngest daughter Charlotte obviously being way too young to be his sidekick), Anton asked Annette to become his aide instead. Annette, always somewhat jealous of her sister being her daddy's "favorite", leapt at the chance. However, while Annette's mindset on being a crimefighter was much better than Sylvia's had been, her physical capablities were not nearly as good as her sister's were, since Annette just wasn't as naturally atheletic or as atheletically inclined as her older sister - a situation that wasn't helped at all by the fact that she had also taken up smoking because of the influence of her modeling friends (and the fact that her mom, her main female role-model, hadn't quit smoking yet at that point didn't set a good example to dissuade her either).
Realising that Annette was never going to be as good of a martial artist or athlete as her sister Sylvia led Anton to think of other ways to maximize her crime-fighting abilities. Knowing Annette's inate skill with gadgets, he put her under the tutalage of Techno-Wizard to hone her gadgeteering abilities. Eventually she improved to the point that Anton became much happier with having Annette as an junior partner (overlooking Annette's one notable vice, which he couldn't get her to quit) then he ever was with Sylvia, who tended to do her own thing, would sometimes talk back, and was just generally not a team player like Annette. Annette happily served as her father's aide for a few years, but eventually fate intervened, and tragically, Anton who was past his prime, was killed as Annette watched the one time her father was too slow.
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After her father's death, Annette, despite her mother's protests, coninued being La Chatte Noire and took over for her father as Montreal's resident crime-fighter, while simultaneously in Empire City, her party-girl, actress sister, feeling guilty for not being there to help her father, came back to help Annette as la Panthère Noire. While not overjoyed to see Sylvia again, given the situation, Annette accepted her help, and Sylvia eventually proved to be a great asset in helping Annette in her crimefighting career.
A year later, Sylvia, seeing that the situation in Montreal seemed to be under control with her sister in charge, decided to leave Montreal and return to Empire City, where she returned to acting and also found out about the Crusaders in nearby Williamsburg and decided to join their team. Around this time, Charlotte, starting to show interest in martial arts, started learning Savate from Annette.
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After a couple years, the Havok incident occurred, and the Crusaders were defeated. Sylvia, being a victim of the Thunder Twins and seeing several of her friends die, decided to leave the team and retire from crimefighting, returning home to Montreal to recover and dropping her heroic identity for good. When Sylvia came home to Montreal, she brought her ex-teammate Ampere (also a victim of the Thunder Twins) with her to recover as well. Eventually Ampere became good friends and almost like family with Elizabeth, Annette and Charlotte as well as with Sylvia.
After a few months, with her older sister retired from crimefighting but volunteering to continue Charlotte's savate training and Ampere eventually getting back on her feet after a couple months to fight crime in Montreal, Annette decided to leave Montreal and join a superhero team. Since Annette was both a "LOC-blocker" and also had trained under Techno-Wizard, she thus knew many of the people on the Champions of Justice and as a result decided to join the COJ to work with people she knew and admired.
After joining the Champions, Annette developed a relationship with Stuntman (with him being a fellow gadgeteer and all she felt attracted to him). Though she enjoyed her relationship with Stuntman, La Chatte Noire had a hard time in the COJ, not having the best luck in fights with supervillians. However, while her superhero career was proving problematic at this time, Annette's modeling career boomed and she finally went international. Then, after being on the team a while, there was a bad accident and Annette nearly died, save for Dragon's intervention. However, between his then novice magical skills and her earlier exposure to one of Madame Y's experimental retro viruses, there was an unforseen effect.
The virus stuck in Annette in a cougar-human "hybrid" form. She dropped the "Noire" from her name, her relationship with Stuntman and modeling career ended and she left the COJ to join the recently restarted Crusaders. Eventually, with some help from Dragon, who had provided moral support to her after her change and breakup with Stuntman, she learned to shift back to her human form and also into a full cougar form.
She eventually left Denver for her native Montreal, and after a brief experiment with her own team during the Algolian Invasion, rejoined the Champions of Justice. There she found the situation much better than it had been before. So much better that she and her teammate Andrew Zeein, or Dragon, became involved. They tried to keep it a secret. After they were wed they left for another dimension. Upon their return, Annette discovered that her youngest sister Charlotte, having been trained to also fight crime had adopted the identity of La Chatte Noire III, leading Annette to assume the name la Lionne Noire.
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Personality: Despite the fact that Annette is a famous model and superhero, she often tends to be a bit reserved, but she's still always willing to go out of her way to help just about anyone. She's very intelligent and tends to be very curious about just about anything (especially any sort of gadget, machine, engine, or weapon), and also has a playful, often silly side (she's sort of curious and playful like a cat). She's very family oriented, and has good relationships with her mom, Charlotte, Linda (who she considers to be like a sister), and despite past differences, even her sister Sylvia. Annette is totally devoted to her children and husband Andrew.
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Powers/Tactics: La Lionne Noire spent a number years as a non-super, martial artist and gadgeteer crime fighter. As such she was fairly talented in the art of Savate (French Kick Boxing), and a great many other gymnastic, thieving, and general crime fighting skills, along with being able to invent and use all sorts of amazing gadgets, technological devices and weapons. She has also become a kind of were-cougar, though maintaining more control over the change than would be expected. In her lycanthropic form she becomes superhumanly strong, fast and resilient, but unfortunately her lycanthropic nature also causes her to be vulnerable to Silver. Her senses are also become much sharper, though more sensitive, in her animal form. When she assumes her full cougar form she is powerful, magical beast. She becomes larger than any of the big cats, and strength and resiliancy grow tremendously as well, at a cost. The drawback is that as she becomes a quadraped, her Savate skill become useless. Finally, although not able to use magic at will like her husband Dragon, she does know the basics of magic, magic rituals, and especially the construction of magical devices.
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Appearance: Annette Breié stands 5'11" tall tall and weighs 165 lbs. (She's the tallest of the 3 Breie sisters). She is wirey and athletic looking, not bulky. She's a natural blonde with fine features, great bone structure and blemishless skin. She also has great camera presence and was a natural for modelling. In her animal form she becomes covered in golden fur and her features become more feline. Her ears become pointed and repositioned as her skull changes shape. Her eyes become catlike, though they remain blue. She can control the degree of the change, looking anywhere from a catlike person to a full cougar.
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