Sierra Snowden is a hydrology student out of the University of Vermont.

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While in her sophomore year, Sierra's professor earned a grant to study glacial movement, a grant that also required diving to the deepest part of Vermont's deepest lake, Lake Champlain, for assessment of 'glacial scarring'.Since Sierra was also a certified Scuba Diver (and an accomplished swimmer), she was perfect for the job as a paid intern during the summer for this study. 

 

When the day arrived to go out on a boat to the deep part of the Main (largest segment of the lake), Sierra noticed something unusual in the equipment being loaded on the boat. It consisted of massive pneumatically-charged harpoon guns, dozens of large air bags for tethering and ascending something big to the surface, and more interestingly, a complex 'fish finder' radar and hydrophone system.  It didn't take long before Sierra realized this trip wasn't for a study on glacial scarring, but instead the hunt for the great mythical lake monster of Lake Champlain called "Champ".

 

Champ is the nickname given to an elusive presumably prehistoric underwater creature (monster, to some) that for hundreds of years has been seen by hundreds of other people (and even videotaped as recently as 2014) in and about the lake.  In 1982 and 1983, New York state and Vermont State, respectively, passed legislation to protect Champ for being hunted and bothered. As such, no one was allowed to even attempt to capture the animal (even P.T. Barnum at one point put a price on the monster's hide so it could be displayed in his shows). When it came to tracking and documenting the monster, folks had to get permission, yet none has ever been given to actually hunt it.

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Sierra's professor seems to have found a way of getting out onto the lake for 'glacial scarring' surveys, but it was evident that instead, he was going monster hunting.

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As such, Sierra confronted the professor about the equipment. He laughed her off and said it was all just a necessary 'precaution', to which he didn't elaborate on any further. After trying to get more out of his, the Professor in an agitated stated pointed out to Sierra that she could be removed from the team and have her pay revoked if she asked anymore 'stupid' questions about him monster hunting.  Needing the money (and more curious as to what was really going on), Sierra instead went along with the Professor's suggestion and boarded the boat...along with several crew, four of which were other divers...all with combat knives and other amazing weapons in their gear. 

 

This was obviously NOT going to be 'just' a glacial study trip.

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Once out to the deepest part of the lake (400 feet), the crew sent out two Remotely-Operated Vehicles (ROVs) into the water and started doing search patterns with the ROVs. Three hydrophones were also placed over the side, one for each thermal layer depth in the lake. The 'divers' then readied their harpoons, weapons and fold-out battery-charged water sleds in the water, ready to rapidly go after...whatever it was they were going to go after.  After about two hours of surveying the waters, the hydrophones started picking up sounds that almost sounded like a whale. Sonar tracking detected a large object at about 355 feet of depth.  At this point, the divers scrambled to life and went over the side, quickly mounting their water sleds and manning their weapons. Sierra knew for sure - it was definitely a hunt.

 

Sierra went up to the professor and got in his face demanding he stop the illegal monster hunt on Champ. He attempted to ignore her and then told her she was just brought along to add some 'validity' to their request to go out on the lake. Sierra pressed him for more information, finally resulting in the professor snapping and saying, "Screw it. It's not like a need you anymore. I'll just kill you and throw you over the side instead". Sierra, amazed at the statement, was almost frozen with fear...until she was him take out a gun. She kicked the gun out of his hand and rand to the boat's cabin where she heard the radio calling for the the Professor as 'Zenith Alpha'.

 

Sierra, now in relative shock, quickly pieced together that the professor was somehow working for Zenith Labs, a business that had a certain 'shady' reputation in the sciences, yet somehow, legally, always got out of trouble. The professor must be working for Zenith Labs...and their goal must be to capture and/or kill Champ for their own studies and autopsy. Sierra was not about to let that happen...however, 'Zenith Alpha' wasn't about to let her stop him.

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As Sierra fumbled with the mike to the boat's 'ship-to-shore' radio to call for help, the professor hit Sierra in the head hard, knocking her unconscious.  He then dragged her to the deck and tied two spare diver weight belts to her and tossed her over the side. The weights quickly dragged Sierra to the bottom of the lake, all the while the divers and the professor continued to chase and hunt for the monster. 

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Sierra's unconscious body landed at the deepest part of the lake; much in the shape of a crater. She rolled down the incline to the dead center of the crater to an old rotting wood and rusted iron chest that had a glow emanating through the gaps in the rotted wood.

 

When Sierra awoke, she immediately took a gulp of water and began drowning. She thrashed and thrashed trying to swim up, but the weights weighed down. She pulled one of the weight belts off of her causing it the belt to fall onto the old rotted wooden crate's lid which burst open wide upon impact. Sierra, amidst her panic, stopped for a second to see several circlets of glowing light blue light emanating from inside the box. The stirred-up silt and the box's debris made the viewing difficult to see what these 'circlets' were, but after looking back up to the surface (and not seeing the surface) she grabbed the only thing that might possible help save her, which at that moment seemed to be these 'circlets'.  As she grabbed them and tried to swim with them, an amazing thing happened - tendrils of a cold energy emanated outward from her, almost like wings. With a few movements of her arms, seconds away from blacking out, she attempted to 'fly' upward with these strange energy tendril-like wings. She felt herself fly upward through the water...and then...blackness.

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Sierra awoke on the shore of Lake Champlain on a large sheet of ice atop what was once a muddy cove- in the middle of the same warm, humid summer's day. She coughed up a lungful of water, gasping for air for the next few minutes, trying her best to catch her breathe and expel the water from her lungs. After awhile, she was able to breathe normally again.  That's when she noticed the ice underneath her. To her it wasn't cold. She looked down along the ice sheet out towards the water, where she saw chunks of ice floating out into the lake in a long line out towards the center of the lake. At the end of the ice line, there was what seemed to be a huge iceberg floating in the middle of the lake; an iceberg with  the boat she'd been cast from encased in ice at the very top tip of the iceberg.

 

Standing up, she saw the 'circlets' she'd mindlessly grabbed at underwater were now wrapped around her calves, forearms and shoulders, glowing a pale light blue hue. The circlets seemed to react to her when she touched them, changing to different hues of light blue and almost resonating, as if the circlets were almost alive.  Getting her bearings, and realizing things had taken a whole new dimension of 'weird' in her world, she tried talking to the circlets.

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Although the circlets didn't respond in voice or language, they seemed to resonate with vibration...almost like pitched humming. She asked the circlets what they were and for the next several seconds, they pitched and hummed quite a story; a story she had no idea to what was being said. Finally, Sierra motioned to the iceberg in the lake and asked if the circlets did that. They pulsed. She asked if she could somehow go out there to see if anyone needed help. They pulsed again, this time with those same light blue energy tendrils forming off her back and acting almost like wings. Her new 'wings' lifted Sierra up in the sky, flying her towards the iceberg.

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Sierra couldn't believe it.

 

She was actually flying.

 

With wings.

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While flying, Sierra looked behind her and saw what looked like a trail of snow emanating from the wings behind her. The thing was, she didn't feel cold at all; as a matter of fact, she didn't even feel the humidity or the heat; she felt like she was in perfect temperate balance with the air around her.

 

Sierra quickly realized she was at the iceberg's destination, hovering a few dozen feet above the iceberg. There, in the boat, she saw the professor and a handful of his shipboard crew encased in the same ice as the boat. In and about the iceberg, at different levels, she also saw the water sleds and the divers, all entrapped in the ice, but still alive (still breathing through their scuba tanks and masks). She asked the circlets if it/they could make the iceberg 'withdraw' and free the frozen people. After several minutes, the ice receded, leaving the boat damaged, but floatable and the divers safe, yet scared and franticly swimming up into the previously iced-over boat.

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That's when Sierra heard the wail of police sirens coming from two fast moving speed boats a few miles away.

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Not sure how she was going to explain any of this (nor knowing how to even believe any of what was happening), Sierra asked the circlets to fly her away somewhere safe...out to the woods near her dorm where she could at least get out of her wet clothes.

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Several minutes later, Sierra flew down through the trees behind her university dorm. She asked the circlets if they could hide, or not be seen, to which they receded to the surface of her skin, looking like blue tattoos on her shoulders, forearms and calves.  The blue tendrils also disappeared. Realizing she was still wearing her wetsuit, she dodged in and out of the shadows on the campus until she got to her dorm. Once there, she got to her room and quickly changed into regular clothes; clothes that covered her legs, arms and shoulders to prevent others from seeing the circlets/tattoos she was now sporting.  With that, she got a ride back to the lake's boat landing where they'd left from only to find a swathe of police cars, the FBI and what looked to be some agents from the world security organization called G.U.AR.D..  Knowing this was bigger than her, she kept her distance and watched from afar along with the other onlookers.

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The police boats and a couple of other local boaters arrived at the pier a half hour later with her professor's boat in tow. Inside the boat, were still large chunks of ice...and the bodies of five people, including the professor's, all dead from hypothermia after having been frozen solid in the ice.  They were immediately pronounced dead on site by the police coroner.  Sierra cried knowing she'd caused five deaths; five deaths that she was believed to be responsible for. She knew the professor obviously tried to kill her, but she had no idea how innocents the others were on the boat. Were they complicit in trying to kill her? Did they even know what they were actually out there for? For all she knew, they were innocent folks that were most likely paid for the study's services, not knowing anything of the hunt for Champ or the professor's diabolic plot.

 

That's when Sierra realized that she hadn't seen the monster in the ice, nor did anyone say anything about any form of 'monster' being found out or near the professor's boat.  What was mentioned, however, was that the detectives quickly ascertained that the equipment on the boat, and the testimony of the divers who lived, all proved that the boat's crew was actually monster hunting for Champ - an illegal act punishable by prison there in Vermont.

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Over the next few days, while the media was having a heyday with this news, Sierra, as best she could, using the circlets to allow her to fly out to the lake, attempted to look for Champ or any signs of Champ, hoping that Champ was okay and that she hadn't hurt or killed it either. On the fifth night, after dodging police boats still assessing the site of the iceberg formation, as she was searching for Champ, the circlets started humming loudly. She stopped, several feet above the water's surface, about 10 miles from where the iceberg incident occurred, and that's when she saw a small horse-like head come up out of the water with a long, elongated neck attached to it.

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It was Champ.

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The circlets and Champ seemed to make vibrations and noises to each other; they were communicating. The circlets and Champ were talking to each other. What they were saying, she'd never know, but she knew that they both knew each other.  After a new moments of this, Champ seemed to acknowledge Sierra with a long look. Champ then seemed to 'bow' its head a bit, and then slowly slipped itself back below the water surface, with a final vibrational hum that Sierra believed was the circlets saying 'goodbye' to Champ.  Sierra swore she'd picked up an emotional 'vibe' between Champ and the circlets, feeling as if they'd said goodbye to each other for the last time.  Sierra cried as she cautiously flew back to her dorm room...where someone was already there waiting for her.

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After Sierra got to her dorm room, she immediately went straight to the bathroom to compose herself after crying and flying. She did not notice the caped figure of a man standing in the corner of her dorm room when she entered her dorm...or for that matter, when Sierra walked into the bathroom; it was only after Sierra exited the bathroom that she say the shadowy figure with the cape.  Sierra was about to scream in fright, but quickly realized...the shadowy figure was that of the new England superhero everyone now called "The Minuteman"; the leader of New England's own super hero team, the Yankee Minutemen.

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Stifling a scream, Sierra was still scared and shocked at his presence. As a result, the circlets activated themselves and expanded outward aggressively from her forearms, calves and shoulders along with a display of cold energy tendrils bursting from her back, all causing the temperature in the room to drop to below zero, creating instant 'snow' in the room's air.  The circlets seemed to be ready to protect her from Minuteman.

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And they did.

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In a massive burst of cold energy, coupled with a wave of cold air pushed on by the massive energy tendril wings, Minuteman was blasted out of Sierra's dorm room window and out over 40 feet away from the building and down onto the student housing grounds in an unceremonious resounding ice-covered crash.

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Sierra went to the window and looked out across the grounds to see Minuteman's condition. He was alive, yet struggling to get up, all while covered with a layer of ice.  Sierra then asked the circlets 'what did you do?!? Oh my God, that man's a killer! He'll kill us for that! We have to leave! Now! NOW! NOW!!!', to which the circlets hoisted Sierra up into the sky out through the window and into the night sky.  Minuteman did not follow. At least, not right away.

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With nowhere to go, Sierra went back to Lake Champlain and alighted on the shore, far and away from any residence or lights.  There she cried once again, knowing that Minuteman obviously knew her secret and that she'd most likely be hunted down for killing the professor and those other people on the boat, nonetheless getting implicated on hunting Champ (which she now started calling "Champy"). She wished she'd never taken than summer internship for the professor; none of this would've happened to her if she'd just stayed in her books and computers studying. Lost and scared, Sierra eventually cried herself to sleep on the lake's shore.

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In the early morning, Sierra awoke to a startle. She quickly realized she was already hovering in the air with the cold energy tendrils at full strength while the circlets pulsed with massive amounts of energy, all while making Sierra's body weave to and fro in the air - all in front of the same figure Sierra had seen earlier than night: The Minuteman.

 

This time, however, the circlets went into an 'automatic protection mode' rather than attack mode.  Sierra, quickly catching her bearings and seeing The Minuteman standing in front of her with his large gun drawn on her, yelled to The Minuteman, "YOU AGAIN?! Damnit, leave me alone!" to which the circlets started charging up to do another cold blast at The Minuteman.  Sierra, once realizing this, called out "NO! NO! NO! Power down, circlets! Power down! Do not zap him again! Stop it!" After a moment's pause, the forearm circlets energy level and lighting intensity faded and seemed to power down, but still leaving Sierra's wings glowing and pulsing menacingly.

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That's when Minuteman lowered his gun a bit; a gun that, up to that point, was a millisecond away from putting a round through Sierra's head.

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A note fell from Minuteman's trigger hand to the ground. Minuteman scrambled to pick it up and dropped an ink pen has was also holding; a pen he obviously used to right the note with.  With Minuteman still holding his monstrous gun at the ready, Sierra asked him, "What's that? Is that a note? For me?", to which Minuteman finally responded verbally, "Yeah. Uhm...I didn't want to alarm you. Again. I just wanted to leave you a way to contact me...so you could respond on your own time...and without me getting blasted out a window. Again. Or more likely into the lake...this time...well, you know what I mean.", finally seemingly talking to himself, he quietly said, "Yeah, that's calming everything right down. Yah, right down... oh God, I'm such an idiot".

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After what seemed like an hour's stare-off at each other, Sierra finally started giggling and then laughing...to which Minuteman, a man who never laughs...started laughing.

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After a few moments, they collected themselves and stood down. Sierra alighted back to the ground, with the circlets' energy/intensity looking far less menacing; Minuteman shouldered his "21st-Century Musket" (as he called it) and the both of them started talking.

 

Sierra told him everything that had happened to her, pleading and crying with him that she had no idea about creating the iceberg or killing the professor or the people on the boat and of course that she never wanted to hurt Minuteman either and that he simply startled her and the circlets and the circlets were just protecting her.

 

Minuteman then told Sierra that he'd been monitoring the movements of some Maritime Marauder pirates that had were looking for freelance work while their bosses were in jail. Those pirates were the same hired diving thugs from the boat. After looking into the professor's classified GUARD files, Minuteman said he'd discovered a number of 'coincidences' where the professor seemed to be involved on nearby when several different illegal alien or creature autopsies had been conducted. Sadly, nothing directly connected the professor to these instances, but in Minuteman's professional experience, it's all too rare to have that many coincidences occur in such a short time. Now, thanks to Sierra, he had all the proof he needed to ensure the authorities of the professor's illegal actions with Zenith Labs and their illegal monster hunting. 

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Sierra was initially relieved and then realized that most of the testimony Minuteman was going to need would have to be from her. That's when she realized, doing what she did, there was no way she could legally get out of this; she'd be going to jail.  Minuteman told her that was not going to happen - not in this case.

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For the next few hours they sat on the shore and worked out Sierra's 'alibi'.  Sierra was to be an undercover operative of Minuteman's; an operative that he was legally allowed to 'deputize'. One of Minuteman's new ice-powered heroes was to shadow Sierra and ensure her safety until they found the proof of the professor's illegal operations. Minuteman then interjected that she, Sierra, was discovered by the professor to be working for Minuteman, to which Sierra's life was placed in jeopardy, as evidenced with the gun he was going to pull from the lake with the professor's fingerprints on it. That's when Minuteman's ice-powered hero friend (which Minuteman simply reference as 'TBD' (To Be Determined)to Sierra about) saw that Sierra's life was in jeopardy and attempted to stop the professor from killing her, sadly resulting in the iceberg and the professor and his boat's crew's deaths, also stating that the crew were all part of the divers/pirates team hiring that the professor did, making all of the crew complicit in their illegal activities and the potential murder of Sierra/Ms. Snowden.

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With this 'stretched truth', Sierra agreed that it was the better solution for all, so long as Minuteman swore to her that each of the boat's crew were actually pirates that were actually dangerous enough to really want to kill her, to which Minuteman said, 'Yes. I can't believe there to be any other truth about them.".  Sierra and Minuteman then worked out their elaborate plan to introduce the new ice-based hero to back-up the story and then bring Sierra in from 'safety' so that Sierra could then testify to the rendition they'd discussed.  As such, Sierra and Minuteman agreed to a new superhero codenamed for the ice-based hero: Snowfury.  

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Snowfury's background wasn't far from the story that Sierra told Minuteman about the circlets (substituting Atlantic Ocean for the lake and pirates in place of the professor), but left out where exactly she'd been dumped and found the circlets based on 'classified security reasons' and of course to support the Superhero Registration Act's protections for the secret identity for whom this new hero, Snowfury,  actually was.  Minuteman told Sierra he had the means to quietly and secretly 'backlog' her superhero registration into the government database and get her the credentials she needed, ensuring that Sierra and Snowfury would have no direct connection other than through this mission. After getting Sierra a new costume (and a white haired wig), Minuteman leaked the 'stretched truth' version of the story to his sources.

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The next day, Minuteman, Sierra and Snowfury (making her maiden public debute), played their parts perfectly. The media ate up the news of the new hero, Snowfury, and pummeled her with a hail of questions, one of which was 'are you a member of Minuteman's team, the Yankee Minutemen', to which Snowfury did not have an answer, only for Minuteman to eventually interject, 'She's in training'.

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After all the hoopla died down and Sierra (and Snowfury) were cleared of any potential wrongdoing, Sierra became a bit of a campus celebrity. She was invited to parties, hit on by cute guys and interviewed by nearly every town paper in New York and Vermont. The one question Sierra got asked over and over though was 'did you see Champ? Does Champ really exist?', to which both Snowfury and Sierra (obviously, separately) stated that neither of them believed in "sea monsters" or the tall tales of any, nor did they see any 'monsters' there at the lake other than the crazed professor himself, adding that if they (Sierra or Snowfury) themselves had found said 'monster', they'd both hoped it was allowed to continue to live unencumbered and be free to live without ever being hunted or bothered by humanity. Ever. The state governments, of course, created four new laws about hunting Champ, all of which were unanimously passed by each state's elected officials.

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Today, Snowfury has become the newest (and youngest) member of the Yankee Minutemen. Sierra continues going to college at the University of Vermont and is working towards a Masters degree in Hydrology.  When the call comes in, Sierra dons her Snowfury costume and wig and goes out to make the world a better place, helping save innocents, stop evil and aid her fellow teammates, the Yankee Minutemen in protecting New England. She is happy with her new superhero life and feels more self-confident than ever before.  The circlets and Sierra are slowly starting to learn a basic form of communication through humming and gestures, but full all-out conversation is still a long way to fruition.

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In regards to Zenith Labs, once again, they evaded legal responsibility in any 'connections' with the professor and his 'stooges'. Zenith Labs, in a huge media presentation, showed their 'sympathy' towards Sierra's harrowing plight, offering Sierra a full scholarship towards earning her masters degree. Sierra publicly turned it down and has since actively protested (or organized protests) against Zenith Labs every chance she can.

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On a side note, a formal complaint was recently filed (last month) with the Vermont State Police and the State District Attorney by the law offices of Seth Jenkins in representing one of the families of one of the crewmembers onboard the Professor's boat that fateful day. The formal complaint identifies that one of the crewmen, Jeremy White, had no association with pirates or had a criminal record, outside of teenage mischief and marijuana use, and that Jeremy's death was considered a 'wrongful' death, thus demanding for a formal investigation going forward to identify whether actual murder or manslaughter charges need to be brought upon the registered hero, Snowfury, or not.