Task Force: Vanguard

Angelina Knightley’s birth was difficult.

Her mother, Emma Williams, suffered a great deal of pain during a long labor. Severe bleeding followed Angelina’s birth. And Emma Williams died shortly after giving birth to Angelina. The cause of extreme pain during labor and the severe bleeding following birth is unknown.

Angelina remained at the hospital for several weeks after her mother’s death. Her father, Rory Knightley, brought her home in the beginning of May. Rory Knightley spent the next four years trying to raise a small child and provide a stable income.

Eventually, the strain of being an only parent caused Rory to move closer to his mother, Pamela, in New York. Pamela provided a mother figure in Angelina’s life. Furthermore, Rory was able to find work as an accountant without constantly worrying about his daughter.

The arrangement seemed to work for several years.

Once Angelina turned eight, she seemed to develop bruises easily and often claimed she fell off swings or down stairs. Angelina also started to act out. She was sent home twice from school for stealing another girl’s lunch money. The school also sent home a letter stating that Angelina was copying other students’ art projects and homework assignments.

Her behavior at home wasn’t much better. She was an unruly child who wouldn’t listen to her father or her grandmother. Angelina also complained about nightmares. She often recounted dreams of her father dying in vivid detail.

Social Services eventually stepped in at the request of Angelina’s school. Angelina was removed from her grandmother’s home. Away from her grandmother, Angelina stopped developing bruises and stopped claiming she fell off swings or down stairs. However, the nightmares of her father dying continued.

After a brief psychological evaluation, Doctor Isabelle Walker decided Angelina needed to spend time at a mental health institution. Angelina spent six months at a hospital as her father fought to reclaim parental custody. The vivid nightmares of her father’s death appeared to recede during Angelina’s stay at the hospital. She also stopped acting out.

Rory Knightley reclaimed custody of his daughter just before Christmas. As a special treat Rory took Angelina to the New York City Zoo. Angelina thought the zoo was wonderful, and everything seemed to be going well. Until Angelina fell asleep in the car and woke up halfway home; hysterical, she kept insisting her father was going to die.

Rory pulled off the road and went to comfort Angelina. He didn’t see the drunk driver until it was too late. A blue Mini Cooper hit Rory and slammed into his Ford Escort. Angelina’s side of the car was badly dented, but Angelina survived the incident. Her father did not.

Angelina bounced around in foster homes after her father’s death. She started to act out again; taking money from other child and copying school assignments. A storekeeper even caught her shoplifting a red sweater. The vivid nightmares also returned. However, Angelina no longer dreamed about her father’s death.

Numerous accusations of theft and the reappearance of nightmares forced Angelina into court mandated therapy. The psychiatrist working with Angelina prescribed antidepressants. Despite the therapy and the antidepressants, Angelina still continued to steal things. But the nightmares became less vivid.

In time, Angelina got smarter about who she stole things from. She stopped stealing toys and money from the other foster children, and she started stealing from other low-level criminals. Eventually, Angelina took several hundred dollars from a man with enough guts to follow her home.

At her home, Angelina met Adam “Mozart” Rollins who liked her nerve. Mozart taught Angelina to forge paintings and other items. Eventually the two ran off together and embarked on several cons. As Angelina became more confident in her abilities, she started pulling larger and larger cons.

Eventually whispers about Angelina Knightley and her involvement in several robberies caught the attention of FBI Agent Jack Reacher. Jack spent three years tracking Angelina down. He burned through several of her aliases and found four of her safe houses.

Right before Jack Reacher boxed Angelina into a corner, she disappeared.

All mention of Angelina vanished, and Jack was left without a solid lead. However, after studying several surveillance tapes in a new string of crimes—supposedly unrelated to anything Angelina Knightley was involved with—Jack noticed a resemblance between the woman caught on security tapes and Angelina.

The woman on the security tapes and Angelina had different hair, different eyes, and even a different breast size. But the woman’s facial structure and Angelina’s facial structure were the same. Jack Reacher renewed his search for Angelina and eventually found her getting ready to leave the state of New York.

Angelina was arrested on her twentieth birthday.

Many of the crimes Jack, and other members of law enforcement, pinned on Angelina did not stick. However, one charge did stick. Angelina was formally charged with forging and selling a Raphael painting. (The original painting has yet to be found.) Angelina received a three year prison sentence.

Life in prison was not easy. Angelina’s ability to change parts of her appearance was exposed as a metahuman characteristic rather than an elaborate illusion. Once exposed as a mutant, Angelina went through several paranormal psychological evaluations. In many of her evaluations, she was prompted to demonstrate her mutant characteristics.

Some of the paranormal psychological evaluations were government sponsored. However, other evaluations were less legal. Angelina spent a lot of time in the prison infirmary after her paranormal evaluations. She also started to have vivid nightmares again.

Eventually, the stress of prison life and the evaluations reached a tipping point. Angelina escaped from prison, posing as a security guard. She didn’t make it far before Jack Reacher caught up with her. Terrified of going back to prison and exhausted, Angelina made a bargain with Jack.

If she didn’t go back to prison, she’d solve his current case for him. Jack took Angelina up on her bargain. However, once Angelina told him who she thought was behind a string of bank robberies and why, Jack sent Angelina back to prison.

Four months later, Jack came to see Angelina in prison with a new bargain. Instead of finishing her sentence in prison, Angelina could finish her sentence at the FBI working as an unpaid criminal consultant. A tracking anklet would be used to keep her within a five mile radius of the FBI building in New York City.

Desperate to get out of prison, Angelina took Jack’s offer.

Angelina’s relationship with Jack was uneasy. They didn’t work together very well in her first three weeks as a criminal consultant. In fact, they spent a lot of time at each other’s throats. Over time, Jack mellowed and Angelina became less prickly.

With Angelina’s help, Jack was able to close his cases with a 94% success rate.

For the first time in her life, Angelina developed something of a normal routine with Jack. And she was able to experience the normal social world. She started to develop working friendships with some of the other agents in Jack’s unit. Unfortunately, her romantic interest wasn’t as tame.

Angelina and Jack started to secretly see each other. And just as Angelina’s first year of working with Jack was coming to a close, the couple was caught. Jack was suspended while an investigation team decided what to do with Angelina. After several weeks of investigation, Jack was demoted and reinstated elsewhere within the FBI. Angelina was going to go back to prison, but at the last minute Angelina’s new FBI Handler got wind of a mutant taskforce in California.

Because Angelina was well-known for her ability to partially change her appearance, and because she was an invaluable source of information about other criminals and criminal operations (as well as rumored to be able to see the “future”), negotiations with the new California mutant taskforce started.

Angelina was eventually accepted into the new taskforce as a criminal consultant.