Rebeca Vargas
Sobriquet: Captain.
Appearance: Rebeca is a beautiful, athletic Latin-American woman. Though handsome might be a better word for her hard physique, prominent facial bones and her almost proudly erect stance. Despite this or perhaps because of it, men of all kinds vie for her attention. Long before she had met her first vampire, the character of the words used by those close to her and strangers alike to describer her were of a distinctly predatory nature. Despite the passage of years, she radiates both physical and emotional strength. When time ceased to have it way with her, she was in her early forties and could best be described as a hungry cougar on the prowl. Rebeca's stature has more to do with her personality than with her physical height which only measures 5.5ft tall. Nor is she particularly bulky, as she probably only weighs 130 pounds, at the very most. However, regardless of whether she is subduing a violent prisoner or getting a little rough with a lover, she always surprises her opponent with her sheer strength, which far surpasses her obviously athletic form.
Rebeca isn't fond of the uniform, or any uniform, but she understands they are part of the job. Given her druthers she prefers tight, stretch to fit jeans, athletic tops and her beat-up old black leather jacket. While she doesn't mind going barefoot on the beach, she loathes flip-flops and silly footwear of all kinds. On the job she wears high-top athletic shoes as she hasn't outlived the pleasure of a heart-pounding chase down dark and dirty alleyways after a fleet-footed perpetrator. She isn't much for jewelry either, though she keeps the badge close to hand, the way a priest or nun might cling to the cross. However, when letting her feminine side loose, usually in pursuit of her chosen amusement for the evening, she has a very nice selection of body-hugging evening-wear to catch his eye. She does like perfumes and is something of a perfume snob. One piece of clothing she is never without is a gun. Whether its a compact snub-nosed hidden in a clutch or a thigh holster or the hand-canon she carries while at work. Rebeca compares keeping a gun within easy reach to having access to a condom: its better to have one and not need it, than need it and not have one.
Behavior: Rebeca can best be described as fierce. It doesn't matter whether she is engaged in combat or lovemaking, in the pursuit of a suspect, the hunt for evidence or standing up for one of her officers before a police tribunal. Another key word that describes Rebeca is loyal, almost to a fault, whether its family or police solidarity, or trying to save a friend or lover from themselves; she is loyal right down to the bone and only death or an outright betrayal can shake that intensity of belief. Rebeca has a mischievous sense of humor which explodes into full blown giggles or a uncontrolled belly-laugh when something strikes her the right way.
History: No truer statement could be said of Rebeca than that more blue runs in her veins than red, as she was born to be a police officer. That birth occurred during the summer of 1975, not long before the Christmas season. Her parents were both the children of police officers. Her father had been in uniform for only a few years when she was born. Her mother was an attorney before she married Rebeca's father, though for a time she remained at home to raise her children. Eventually she returned to her passion and rose to become one of Rio de Janeiro's first female district attorneys. It was in this atmosphere that Rebeca and her siblings, all brothers, grew up.
It would be cliche to describe how tough Rebeca became because she was the only girl in a pack of brothers, mostly because it was she who threw each of her younger brothers regular beatings. As they grew older, meaner and bigger, she could just be herself and cut loose on them. As in nature, the female of the pack was far more dangerous than the males, and in time they learned this lesson despite the machismo culture in which they were all raised. Rebeca was far from the ideal daughter despite the efforts of all her female relatives including her mother. Only her father could compel obedience from her, not out of fear or through force, but because she respected everything he stood for and believed in right down to her bones.
One night when she was ten, her father came home with another little girl in tow. That girl turned out to be Cassandra Fonseca. Rebeca's father was a patrolman assigned to a beat in the favelas bordering the district of Tijuca in the Northern Zone. To this day her father won't discuss the events of that night, but he brought Cassandra home with him that night rather than turning her over to the Brazilian version of social services. Which in light of what would likely have happened to her there, was a mercy. Initially Rebeca was jealous and then angry as her father asked her to let Cassandra stay in her room. Rebeca had never wanted a sister and definitely didn't like the arrival of a potential rival already fully formed and her own age. But, as days turned into weeks, and then weeks became months, the two little girls became fast friends. This process wasn't without violent upheaval or familial strife, but it occurred nonetheless, largely because Rebeca's father put his foot down and wouldn't give an inch on the matter.
By the time the girls were in their teens, they were practically sisters. Rebeca showed Cassandra how to fight and they had plenty of practice with four teenage boys in the house. As it turned out, Cassandra was another little tomboy and this made for opportune camaraderie. The two girls actually had a great deal in common both in out look and in terms of skills which made for excellent competitive fun. What they didn't have in common was that Cassandra was from the street and had seen things by the age of ten, that Rebeca wouldn't seen until years later on her first assignment as a beat cop. But this meant that Cassandra had a lot to teach Rebeca, which didn't always please Rebeca's parents. The two girls were wild-ones and regularly found their way into trouble, but Rebeca had a knack for talking her way out of most of these situations, as such her parents only found out about a tiny fraction of the incidents the two girls instigated or reciprocated.
By the end of primary education, both girls had decided they wanted to be cops. At first Rebeca's mother and grandmother tried to discourage this idea, which only fanned the flames of teenage rebellion. It was Rebeca's father who took the girls into hand, by educating them in what it meant to be a police officer in Rio de Janeiro. Each day he trained them with firearms, self-defense and most importantly ethics. Rebeca was a quick study, but always fell behind Cassandra in firearms as she proved to have a deadly aim. As time passed, Rebeca's father began to teach them the more difficult aspects of being a police officer, the hard choices and difficult situations an officer might find himself in during a patrol. He regularly tested the girls in how to deal with these situations and each had her own style. Rebeca liked to fight her way out, use intimidation or the letter of the law to win. While Cassandra used reasoning, role-play and street etiquette to bypass the worst tests. In the end, it didn't matter to Rebeca's father how they managed to pass his tests as long as they thought their way through them quickly and thoroughly.
The Vargas household was a proud one as both Rebeca and Cassandra graduated from secondary education and chose to enroll in Rio's civil police academy. After their childhood experiences, the police academy was a snap and the two young women breezed through the training and classes. Their greatest challenge came from their overwhelmingly male classmates whose collective machismo didn't take well to being outstripped by a couple of twenty-something girls. That was a rough year for the girls, but they made it through and were partners for their first assignment - a nasty little favela in the Western Zone. While not exactly a reality check, it was definitely a test of their metal. They celebrated their successes in bar and clubs throughout Rio, but success ultimately separated them professionally. Rebeca's family connections opened the doors of command, while Cassandra turned more and more towards investigative services. After work they continued to hang together, but those times began to slip away as the job began to consume them both. That is until the fateful night of Cassandra's disappearance.
Rebeca bent every rule she knew and broke a few trying to find out what happened to Cassandra. It wasn't so much a police cover-up as it was a mystery to her superiors as well. The not knowing what happened to Cassandra ate Rebeca from the inside out. She turned hard and feral with coworkers and friends as she continued to pursue the investigation which quickly became a cold-case and was closed, especially to her. But life has a way of going on and despite the hole in her life, Rebeca had family, especially her father to lean on and to look after as the years passed. For Rebeca, if it wasn't a family issue, the job became her world as she turned her restless energy towards some positive and achievable end. She hunted down offenders, carried out investigations and sting operations, volunteered for extra duty and pushed the envelope all around. Realistically, there were two possible outcomes of this kind of behavior and her superiors in the civil police decided to reward it with command rather than watch a promising officer crash and burn.
Over a decade after Cassandra's disappearance she reappeared one night. Rebeca's world would never be the same as Cassandra began to aid her by night. The truth was right there in front of Rebeca, but being so close to it, she couldn't see the forest for the trees until a fateful conflict with a particularly nasty gang led to a street battle that went sideways. Rebeca ended up in the hands of one of Rio's worst street gangs and it took all her father's training and her own experience to stay alive long enough for a rescue to be mounted. But it wasn't the civil police who breached the filthy warehouse the Scorpions called home and saved Rebeca from a fate quite probably worse than death. Though she didn't see much, she saw enough to realize that friend wasn't quite human anymore. But her gratitude and feelings for Cassandra kept her from asking questions right away. In time, the truth came out, but it definitely was not what she expected. When the choice of a partnership with Cassandra presented itself, she didn't just jump at the chance, she followed her training and asked the hard questions. In the end though, she just couldn't let Cassandra go again, not after having found her again, and if the price was high, then she paid it gladly.
Recent Events: Rebeca has been given a truly difficult choice. Remain behind in Rio de Janeiro to live a mortal life among her friends, family and her precinct. Or give up all that she knows and loves to follow her best friend into the darkness. Of course, the choice was already decided for her long before she was even born.
