Reggie Katz

Reggie Katz
Portrayed By	Tania Raymonde
Gender	Female
Species	Human
Date of Birth	May 1, 1983
Age	18
Zodiac Sign	Taurus
Aliases	Reg, Ratchet
Place of Birth	Detroit, MI
Current Location	Los Angeles, CA
Occupation	Grease Monkey
Known Relatives
Significant Other	None
Special Powers	None
First Appearance	Drifting Through Starbucks

One of L.A.'s homeless, Reggie is an off-the-books mechanic who has also picked up a knack for rigging up traps and weapons. She helps out Team Gunn in exchange for their protection.

History

The Basics

Regan Katz was born the daughter of a brilliant but troubled mother and a mechanic father. She learned to work on cars from her father, until her mother's drinking finally drove him away when Reg was eleven. When drinking was no longer enough to drive the voices away, her mother would begin falling in with dark magic users. Reggie got picked on frequently at school and had to learn to fight back. She started to use her mechanical aptitude to build traps and defenses, but one of them misfired and cost a classmate two fingers, she was expelled from school. Things at home were getting worse, especially when her mom's magic-abusing live-in boyfriend started wanting to use Reggie's innocence to serve his spells. She finally split at 17 and began roaming around the continent, looking for answers about this supernatural stuff her mom had become mixed up in. Her searching brought her to LA where she would eventually cross paths with a young man named Gunn. She fixed his truck and he saved her from some vampires. So they struck a deal: she helps out Team Gunn in exchange for protection.

Details

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Reggie Katz had heard stories of the brilliant woman her mother once was. It was a shame, they would say, what had happened to her. Mental illness, which had chased her her entire life, finally caught up. When the voices and thoughts would get too bad, she would drink. When she'd drink, she'd get mean. Without healthcare, the mental illness would remain undiagnosed and untreated. Even the few times they would pay out of pocket, the cut-rate and overworked doctors would see only the alcoholism, blame that for the problems. Sometimes her mom would get sober for awhile and those would be good times, but the good times became fewer and fewer.

So Reggie spent most of her early childhood with her father. A distant man, the only way he was able to connect with his daughter was through his work. He was a self-employed and off-the-books mechanic, rebuilding cars on the lawn and doing repairs for cash under the table. Reggie would spend most of her free time clambering around the old junkers with him, learning how to fix and rebuild cars. She had a natural aptitude for it and picked it up quickly.

Which would come in handy when her father would take off on them when she was eleven. Her mother was unemployable at this point. She couldn't even get her daughter ready for school, and more than once Reggie was bundled onto the bus without her shoes or still in her pyjamas, her mother ignoring her cries to the contrary. This would lead to a certain necessity to get tough fast, for the kids at school, like so many, didn't react too kindly to someone outside the norm. She learned how to throw a punch, how to keep her hands up and protect her core. She learned to fight dirty, to do anything it takes to keep herself in one piece.

At home, she would continue playing around on the cars, finding it an outlet, the one thing in her life she could control, that didn't turn on her, try to hurt her. And, of course, there was the fact that her unemployed mother wasn't exactly bringing in the big bucks, so she made a few bucks doing it. Not a lot, since there weren't too many people who wanted a preteen working on their automobile, but friends of the family would throw her work once in awhile.

Her mother had not yet hit bottom. In trying to find some peace from the voices, the impulses, she found herself mixed up in bad mojo. Reggie was soon given a lesson in the darker side of magic when her mother would start bringing these people into their home. Reg would stay out in the yard working on cars and tinkering until all hours, just to avoid finding out the finer details of what was going on inside.

Now into high school, things were only getting worse. So Reggie began to get creative, using her mechanical skills to put together booby-traps, just to protect herself. When people kept breaking into her locker and stealing her stuff, she designed a protective shield, a sheet of metal that would fall down in front of the door if it was opened without the proper precautionary procedures. It worked, but a little too well. She hadn't realized how sharp and fast the metal would be, and rather than just blocking her locker from the would-be thief, it served as a guillotine, severing two of his fingers right off.

She was immediately and irrevocably expelled. There was talk of legal action, but a few dark spells made that go away. They were done by a man who went by the name Howler. He'd moved in with her mother, slept in her bed, took away those last elements of security in house and home. And then there came talk of how Reggie owed him for saving her. She was pure and untainted, her blood, hair, saliva the very type to be used in these spells. She complied for awhile, but when there started to be talk of promising her to some demon in exchange for a favour, she wasn't entirely sure they were joking. She decided now was a good time to get out.

Seventeen when she left home, Reggie spent the next year travelling around North America. She was content to live out of a backpack, making money when she needed it with her tinkering, fixing things for cash. She had questions though, about this supernatural stuff her mother had become mixed up in. When signs seemed to point to Los Angeles as a place where she might find answers, she made her way down the coast.

Still wanting to stay off the radar, she bounced around from shelter to shelter and spent some time out on the streets, still fixing cars to earn enough to eat and buy what supplies she needed. Not stupid, she realized most of the cars she was working on were probably stolen, but in her book, morals would always take a back seat to survival. And surviving on the streets wasn't easy, being out there after dark. She had to start getting creative, building traps and makeshift weapons, so that she could sleep, even with one eye open.

One day, she happened to find herself in the right place at the wrong time, or the wrong place at the right time, or some other combination thereof. Out salvaging junk to use in her projects, she came across a guy named Gunn who was dealing with a stalled truck. She offered to fix it, and while working on it, they were attacked by vampires who had decided to get the drop on them. They managed to fight them off, and she discovered that Gunn seemed to know something of the answers she'd been seeking, while Gunn found that she wasn't totally helpless in battle against these foes. And so an alliance was formed, Team Gunn's protection for her mechanical skill.

Timeline

• December 21, 2001 Drifting Through Starbucks: Three drifters meet and chat in Starbucks.
• December 22, 2001 Punch and Pie: Team Gunn has a pre-holiday feast.
• December 26, 2001 Plan A: Reggie hips Gunn to what's happening… down on Skiiiiiid Rooooowwwww o/~
• December 27, 2001 So Very Awkward: Dan arranges a feast. Reggie thanks him in ways neither of them intended.
• December 30, 2001 Lip Service: Girls ain't nothin' but trouble.

Quotes

• "I earn my keep. But generosity is always helpful in that. People will pay more. And there's a lot of food. Except then sometimes they try to convert you."
• "If he's a warlock, I'd say he's already trouble."
• "And I haven't ever trapped a warlock before. I would want to do it right the first time."
• I don't trust [magic]. It makes the bad worse than it makes the good better. It doesn't take much to use it wrongly. And I don't understand it. I can't trust something if I can't see how it works."
• "People don't believe me when I tell them to steer clear. But you should probably tell the people here to stay away from that florist. They'll listen to you."
• "I think- I think maybe I should just go. There's something very wrong with me."

Trivia

• Mechanic: Reggie is an ace mechanic, and does repairs for cash under the table. She doesn't ask any questions and never screws anyone over, making her ideal for those who have perhaps acquired their vehicles through less than legal means.
• Builder: Reggie also starting building makeshift traps and weapons to keep herself safe on the LA streets. She'll do custom work for anyone willing to pay the price.

Friends, Foes, & Acquaintances

Team Gunn

• Gunn - The man, the myth, the legend. Or he might be if Reggie brooked with that sort of thing. But he's the boss and he's saved her skin enough times to appear on the very short list of people she can trust.
• Ava - Reggie isn't sure what to make of this magic weilder. She sort of likes and respects Ava almost in spite of herself, but would rest a lot easier without the shows of magic.
• Nicolae - He's won some respect for also not trusting magic, though she's not sure she believes that anyone can be trusted to use it well. But she's always happy for his help on her traps.
• Lilith - Another one of those supernatural types, but at least she doesn't go around wielding magic. And she's saved her from kissing a cursed Cordelia.

The Streets

• Dan - A fellow soul from the streets, Reggie knows Dan from 'around'. Itinerant folk have to stick together. Of course, things might be awkward now that she's kissed him twice without warning.

Others

• Nadira - Having only just met Nadira, Reggie doesn't know too much about her, but she seems friendly. And knows a lot about turkey.
• Cordelia - Reggie really doesn't trust her right now.

Hooks

• For Hire: A girl's got to eat. Reg will do what she needs to do to survive, and is happy to build or repair anything for cash.

Tunes

• Dark On Fire - Turin Brakes
• Shadowland - Youth Group
• Me Myself I - Joan Armatrading
• A Thousand Kisses Deep - Leonard Cohen
• Daylight Fading - Counting Crows
• Clumsy - Our Lady Peace
• Ice - Sarah McLachlan
• Live and Let Die - Guns n' Roses
• Fix You - Coldplay
• Basket Case - Green Day
• Tonight, Tonight - Smashing Pumpkins
• Devil's Dance Floor - Flogging Molly
• Make It Home - Juliana Hatfield
• These Days - Nico
• Little Drop of Poison - Tom Waits
• Set Free - Katie Gray
• Just Like You - Three Days Grace

Gallery