Dorothy Schmidt,[3] known publicaly as Night, was a member of Empire Eighty-Eight and the wife of Fog.
Personality
While charming and helpful to colleagues when in her civilian disguise these traits are considered a facade for her utter ruthlessness and killing intent.[4] Dorothy does have a liking for high heels, a parallel to the insectile limbs she walks on in her other form.[3] She has an unerring morning routine with planned dialogue, that she and her husband go through without fail.[4]
Relationships
Geoff Schmidt
It is unknown what feelings if any Dorothy has with her husband. As functional sociopaths[5] their lives are best described as ritually pantomiming the mannerisms of a happily married couple, bereft of "affection or fondness". Cooking set meals at set amounts and in a set weekly rotation. To outside observers their civilian disguises are boring in the extreme, the most interesting thing about them being that they owned a cat.[6] Their background makes it hard to parse their actual feelings for each other vs. the "shaping" that occurred under Gesellschaft.
Kayden Russel
Similar to her relationship to her husband it is unknown whether she follows Kayden out of trust and respect, and how much the Gesellschaft conditioning that ordered Dorothy to the United States in the first place. Nevertheless, she and her husband chose to follow Purity when E88 split, and only returned to the group in the first place because Purity had.
Appearance
Out of costume, Dorothy dresses a little too well for the situation, wearing a dress, lots of makeup, and jewelry.[4] Dorothy has pale blue eyes.[6]
As a cape she dresses entirely in black complete with a with a cowl, mask, hood, high-heeled boots, and a heavy cloak.[7] Her costume had no symbols or identifying marks, and resembled her husband's. Her mask leaves her eyes exposed.[8]
Equipment
As her transformation only occurs when she is unseen, Dorothy uses an assortment of tools to blind her foes, including flash-bangs, smoke canisters, and a large black removable cloak, embedded with mini-hooks on the outside, designed to cover and catch on her enemies, essentially a net.[9][8]
Abilities and Powers
Dorothy can transform into a horrifying monster when unseen. This is summed up by Tattletale as an inversion of the Manton Effect, a psychological block to prevent others from seeing her true form, though she admits that this explanation was incorrect.[10] Whenever Night reverts back to her human form she is instantly healed, effectively 'resetting' any damage she takes and restoring her to a "pristine" state.[7]
Alternate Form
Dorothy's monster form has inhuman speed, strength, and durability from the nigh-invincible exterior[3] of an amorphous "ink blot" body[6] that is paradoxically composed of sharp edges and has many long, insect-like[3] legs that end in claws. Taylor described her as a "multi-legged, hyper-agile, lightning quick death blender of blades and claws".[9]
These angular legs do not have proper joints, but can bend and stretch and turn inside out as it moves around. This allows Night to avoid being tripped.[9] Her body was seemingly covered in some sort of oily lubricant.[6]
Based on the admittedly inexpert opinion of Taylor, this form does not have any identifiable sensory organs analogous to sight or hearing. This does not seem to impede her, however.[9] A lack of oxygen and high pressure does not seem to impede Night's Breaker state, as she stayed completely underwater, out of sight, guarding the meeting place where the Brockton Bay parahumans gathered to discuss the arrival of a new S-Class threat to Brockton Bay.[11]. This raises questions concerning the amount of time Night can stay in her alternate state.
Dorothy's monstrous form has horrendous strength and speed, with more than enough to incapacitate any of Bitch's dogs, shattering their protective bone plating. Although her blades left cuts wider than Taylor's handspan,[8] she is still unable to cut through Skitter's spider silk costume.[6] Night is able to achieve high speeds in this form, but is able to make sharp turns unhindered by momentum and navigate obstructing obstacles easily.[9] It was so fast that Taylor briefly thought she had teleported.[8]
It is unclear if her transformation is psychological or physical; Skitter's swarm-sense does not trigger the effect, only conventional sight.[3]
Power Classifications
Night and Fog's PRT classifications are given in Sentinel 9.1 as "a Breaker 9" and "a Shifter 8 with Stranger 3", but it is unclear in the chapter which rating refers to which character.[2] Later comments by the author have indicated that Fog was the Breaker,[12] and that he has since changed his mind and would now consider Night the Breaker and Fog either a Breaker or Changer.[13]
History
Background
Night was trained, or more specifically, "made" by Gesellschaft as a "weapon"[4]. Dorothy first appeared as Nacht in Hesse, Germany, she was sent to Brockton Bay by Gesellschaft where she and her husband joined Empire Eighty-Eight.[6] They left for Boston shortly after Purity split from the group, two years prior to the start of Worm, but Kaiser thought she would gladly rejoin the Empire if Purity did.[14][15]
Story Start
She and her husband were seen later among the newly reassembled Empire Eighty Eight at Somer's Rock.[14]
When the E88's were revealed they took part in a rampage through the city following Child Protective Services removing Purity's Daughter from her mothers care. They humbled The Undersiders when they fought, only letting them go when Tattletale offered to take their leader to her daughter.[6]
Fought against the Endbringer that came to Brockton Bay, but was taken out of the fight early.[16]
Post-Leviathan
After Kaiser's death during the battle against Leviathan, Night and her husband followed their former leader Kayden into forming the Empire splinter group named the Pure.
Post-Slaughterhouse Nine
Night was eventually forced to leave Brockton Bay, with the rest of the Pure, due to pressure from outside Villain groups.[17]
Post-Timeskip
Dorothy was trapped by Gray Boy, though she is kept company by her husband.[18]
Trivia
- Her and her husbands name comes the Nazi program Nacht und Nebel, Night and Fog.[19]
- It is possible the Night's breaker state represents something that was recorded during one of the previous cycles that the Shards have access to.[20]
References
- ↑ I have a slightly different take on Breakers than I did as I wrote that part & the comment. The story itself is unchanged because you can effectively flip the two characters around, but I'd call Night a breaker and Fog a Changer (or call them both breakers, depending). I've also left it as is with the idea that the PRT are always going to be a bit wobbly with classifications (and especially numbers) given the lack of complete information they have. - Excerpt from a comment on Reddit by Wildbow.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 “And this second group, The Pure, is the second offshoot of that Aryan group, I take it?”
“Small but powerful. Their leader, Purity, is a Blaster 8 and Mover 4.”
“Yeah, there’s a Breaker 9, a Shifter 8 with Stranger 3 and a Master 6 in that group? I buy that they’re powerful.” - Excerpt from Sentinel 9.1 Cursader is the Master, Night is the Breaker Cite error: Invalid<ref>tag; name "The_Pure1" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Night, Dorothy Schmidt – Can transform into an inhuman creature with enhanced speed and strength and a nigh-invincible exterior, but only when unobserved by conventional sight. Heals entirely on transformation. Fog’s wife and Purity’s staunch follower. Night wears a black costume with a hood and an array of tools that allow her to blind an enemy, from a cloak embedded with hooks to snare to flashbangs and smoke grenades. Has a liking for high heels, a parallel to the insectile limbs she walks on in her other form. - Cast (in depth)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Interlude 18.y
- ↑ Colony 15.4
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Buzz 7.10
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Night – Wife to Fog, dresses herself in a black cloak and heeled boots. Serves under Purity. When not directly observed, heals herself to pristine condition and becomes a durable monster with enhanced speed and strength. - Cast (spoiler free)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Buzz 7.9
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Colony 15.2
- ↑ “What the fuck is this woman?” I asked, “Tattletale?”
“You know how the Manton effect could maybe be a psychological block that comes parceled with our powers?”
I nodded, once.
“Okay, well, imagine that this woman got powers that let her turn into something so wrong that she’s got some sort of mental block that keeps her from transforming if anyone can see. Maybe because she’s so ashamed of being seen like that. When nobody’s looking, though, she’s a monster. Lightning fast and all sharp.”
“That’s…”
“Not even remotely close to the truth,” Tattletale confessed. “But it’s the best I can offer you. Don’t take your eyes off her.” - Excerpt from Buzz 7.9 - ↑ Night stepped out of the lake, between our parked boats and onto the roof, water streaming from her cloak. Had she been the just-in-case measure if an incoming boat hadn’t known the signal? She would be invisible in the pitch black gloom beneath the water’s surface, which would mean she wasn’t in her human form. - Excerpt form Plague 12.2
- ↑ Fog is (like many breakers) a sub-class shaker, in that his breaker power has a shaker (and stranger) side effect (the broad cloud of semisolid fog he generates). Much like Shadow Stalker. You can see 9.1 for brief mention of these breaker sub-classes, I think. - Queen 18.5, comment by Wildbow.
- ↑ I have a slightly different take on Breakers than I did as I wrote that part & the comment. The story itself is unchanged because you can effectively flip the two characters around, but I'd call Night a breaker and Fog a Changer (or call them both breakers, depending). I've also left it as is with the idea that the PRT are always going to be a bit wobbly with classifications (and especially numbers) given the lack of complete information they have. - Excerpt from a comment on Reddit by Wildbow.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Hive 5.1
- ↑ Interlude 3.5 (Bonus)
- ↑ Extermination 8.2
- ↑ Monarch 16.5
- ↑ Sting 26.6
- ↑ Night and Fog, for example. I was searching for terms and symbols related to white supremacists, nazi Germany, the KKK and so on, when I came across the term ‘Nacht und Nebel’, German for ‘Night and Fog’. That was my starting point. The idea behind the term was that Hitler issued a directive to suppress dissent by having enemies in occupied territories disappear, spirited away in the night with no records or messages passed on to the family about their fate. The fear and concern over what happened to these individuals served to cow the local population into submission. - Comment by Wildbow, click to see their mental process on Buzz 7.10
- ↑ As one, they traveled. The distance was immeasurable, the passage of time impossible to convey. There was no standard, for there were realms they had traveled where time and space operated on different levels. - Excerpt from Interlude 18.z
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