Orchid (Killer Instincts)

Orchid, also known as Black Orchid or B. Orchid, is one of the main protagonists from the Killer Instincts games.

Orchid is a secret agent and highly trained assassin who boasts mysterious powers, Orchid was dispatched by a shadowy organization to uncover the truth behind Ultratech's activities.

In Killer Instinct (2013), she's a rogue counterintelligence operative who has embarked on a personal crusade against the megacorporation, and founded an underground resistance movement known as the Disavowed.

Orchid is the older half-sister of Orchid.

Appearance
In the original Killer Instinct (1994), Orchid is an athletic and dark-haired young woman wearing a green leotard that has the word "HOT" written on the side in yellow letters. The ends of her leotard feature a yellow lining around her thighs, and she wears green gloves and ankle-length, high-heeled boots. The boots also have yellow cut-offs and show extra weapons strapped to them. Orchid has a green and yellow headband wrapped around her head and wields two plasma-based eskrima sticks.

In Killer Instinct 2, Orchid had a slight redesign, with her leotard now possessing holes on the sides of her chest and cutting off at the 'v' between her legs, her boots extending all the way up to her thighs, and her eskrima sticks being replaced with electrified tonfas. She also has a pair of circular earrings.

In Killer Instinct (2013), she receives a complete design overhaul but in comparison to many of the other characters she retains a design largely similar to her original appearance. Orchid now has a pair of nightvision goggles atop her head, a green armored bustier over a white top, green shorts with a belt around them, black cut-off gloves while on her left upper arm she has a green strap of cloth wrapped around her bicep, bandages wrapped around her wrists and a mini-computer on her right wrist. She wears a single shin-guard on her right knee along with another strap of cloth, and ankle high, high-heeled combat boots. Orchid once more uses electronic eskrima sticks in battle.

Orchid's retro costume closely mirrors her original 1994 appearance but also mixes in minor elements from her KI2 outfit, such as boots and a pair of circular earrings which are much bigger than she had in the previous game.

Personality
A steadfast and intrepid servicewoman, Orchid's life changed dramatically when she was sent to investigate a RUMINTabout the sinister ambitions and sprawling web of influence of the supposedly defunct Ultratech. Quickly uncovering that the corporation not only remains active but in fact has never been as powerful, Orchid becomes targeted by Ultratech's enigmatic CEO, ARIA, after she gathers information that threatens to expose the full extent of the company's influence over governments, mass media, financial institutions and the military-industrial complex.

Soon disavowed by her own organization and labelled a dangerous rogue, the Black Orchid responds by making Ultratech's smears her own, and establishes an underground spy network of agents who were similarly brought to ruin by the megacorporation. Bereft of official support, under severe psychological strain and in constant danger, ARIA expected Orchid to falter. But the secret agent instead embarks on a crusade against Ultratech, and starts building out the Disavowed into a fully-fledged paramilitary resistance movement, bent on strategically sabotaging ARIA's operations across the world.

Pitted in a contest of wills against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, Orchid becomes increasingly volatile, until she is reunited with her long-lost half-brother, Jago; with the siblings resolving to support each other in their struggles, no matter the outcome.

Abilities
Trained for most of her life as an elite field agent for covert operations, black ops and wetworks by the Special Warfare Department of the US military, the mysterious and beautiful woman known as the Black Orchid combines the qualities of a special forces operative and an assassin, rendering her deceptively lethal. Orchid fights in a military CQC-style that emphasizes legwork, grappling and ground control techniques in order to subdue her victims, and utilizes various crowd control weaponry, such as stun batons and flashbang grenades, to control and disorient her mark before taking it down.

Because of a highly classified government experiment that has been performed on her paternal grandmother, the Black Orchid is capable of summoning a cat-like manifestation of energy (which she affectionately calls the "firecat") that obeys her every command and which assaults anything that's threatening her. Orchid has been known to assume this cat-like form of energy herself as well, implying the "firecat" in actuality is the extension of her own life force.

Trivia

 * The lyrics to Orchid's new theme song for Killer Instinct (2013), aptly titled "Touch Me And I'll Break Your Face", seem to be directed at ARIA (the colorful line "You'll never see me coming, bitch!" in particular), as they put into words B. Orchid's fearless defiance of Ultratech.
 * Similarly, the line "Please man, I'm outta your league!" appears a jab at ARIA's lieutenant, Cinder, who like Orchid has a distinguished service record in the US special forces in his backstory for KI 2013.
 * B. Orchid's famous "boob flash" Ultimate in Killer Instinct (1994) seems to achieve its lethality by inducing a severe case of Stendhal's syndrome in her male opponents.
 * Conversely, if the opposing character is another Orchid, she'll instead stomp her heels on the ground in a fit of frustrated jealousy.
 * Orchid's animation while shapeshifting into the "firecat" in the 1996 Killer Instinct 2 arcade game was recycled from the first game; if watched closely Orchid's sprite can be seen to revert to its original 1994 appearance.
 * The Black Orchid's "retro" costume in KI (2013) was to be modeled after her looks in Killer Instinct 2, but this idea was (a bit unfortunately) shelved and the retro costume was instead based on her first 1994 arcade appearance.
 * During development of the original 1994 arcade version of Killer Instinct, which at the time was under the placeholder name "Brute Force", Orchid was not yet created, and in her place were two scrapped female characters: Roxxy/Roxy Rave and Wanda.
 * When heard very closely in her intro, a voice can be heard talking to and supposedly directing Orchid from her unseen communication device, saying "Orchid, confirm visual." and "What's your time estimate?". This is possibly a fellow member of her underground rebel organization, the Disavowed.