OOC
In essence, Shelke has never known any life outside of Deepground. From a very early age she attracted the attention of the Shinra corporation, who saw potential within the young girl and decided to use her for an ongoing project of the highest secrecy. She was taken by them shortly after the death of her mother. Her sister, Shalua, blamed herself for being unable to protect her and therefore spent most of her life searching for her. But it would be a long, long time before the two sisters were reunited. Ten years to be precise.
During that time, Shelke was forced to endure various experiments that enhanced her body and gave her unique abilities. The genetic modifications done to her (and the other future Tsviets) were similar to those that went into the creation of Genesis, the product of a project long since abandoned. Given the ability to perform Synaptic Net Dives, she was virtually "programmed" to be a gatherer of information. As with all programs, there was also a fail-safe device implanted within Shelke: a computer chip attached to her brain stem and linked to every part of her mind. Irremovable without causing Shelke's death and so subtly installed that not even Shelke herself was aware of it, it was capable to enforcing absolute, unquestioning obedience to those who were "authorized" to control her. This was done to ensure Shelke's loyalty to Shinra, eliminating the possibility of her becoming a liability. The experiments, however, left Shelke's body in a slow but constant state of deterioration; the only way to keep it in a stable state was to expose it to mako on a daily basis. Whether or not this stipulation was planned is unknown, but it nevertheless became another effective control, tethering Shelke even more to Shinra since natural mako sources were incredibly rare.
Not only was Shelke a project in her own, but she was a part of the much larger Deepground project - one hidden from everyone save the eyes of the President of Shinra, Heidegger (head of Shinra's military, including the SOLDIER program and the Turks), Scarlet (head of the Weapon Development Department), and Hojo (head of the Science and Research Department). Deepground once referred to a medical facility for injured SOLDIER troops, a place where they would be sent for care and rehabilitation. However, it was turned into a laboratory on the command of the President, who wanted to create an army of superhuman soldiers - not once letting the laws of nature or men interfere. Though it proved quite promising for solidifying Shinra's monopoly over Gaia, the process for creating the Deepground soldiers was by no means an effortless one. The morality rates were high, and those who survived but failed to react properly to the treatments were often left too damaged to be of any use.
As time progressed, it soon became clear that Shinra could not keep spending much needed resources on the Deepground project. The start of the war between Midgar and its neighboring nation Wutai sealed its fate. The efforts of Heidegger, Scarlet, and Hojo were diverted to the manufacturing of weapons and wartime machinery, as well as producing materia (small spheres allowing one to use magic) for use in battle. Shinra also spent more time developing its more publicized SOLDIER program - elite military units drawing their strength from the combination of mako (the physical form of spirit energy) and cells extracted from an extraterrestrial lifeform dubbed "Jenova." The Deepground project was abandoned and forgotten, its results sealed away in the research facility deep beneath Midgar. The Meteor catastrophe drove them even more into obscurity, as the debris from the destruction of Midgar blocked off the former entrances to Deepground.
However, two members of Deepground were not among the sealed. Two brothers, Weiß and Nero, had escaped the captivity of the facility early on and had blended into the mainstream SOLDIER program. There, their strength and cunning in the Midgar-Wutai war quickly secured them a place in the strongest SOLDIER force, codenamed "Ragnarok." But they were not content to simply remain tools of Shinra. Though Nero's investigation into Shinra's background had yielded files on the existence of Deepground, the majority of Ragnarok was wiped out by the "Restrictors," members of the 14th SOLDIER force codenamed "Lost Force" before the brothers could enact on any course of action. Weiß and Nero managed to avoid falling victim to the systematic slaughter, leaving the rest of Ragnarok to be destroyed.
While observing the Restrictors at their work, they noticed some of their members were far more formidable than the others, even by SOLDIER standards. According to what Nero found out about the Deepground Soldiers, they fit the profile almost perfectly. One in particular was a women dressed in all in silver. Tailing the Restrictors to the renovated Deepground facility, Weiß and Nero discovered that her name was Argento. And that she was not at all fond of her fellow Restrictors. Though the Restrictors' leader had all of Deepground's members implanted with chips similar to Shelke's, Argento managed to stay the exception to the rule. Together with Weiß and Nero, she conspired to overthrow the present regime.
As it turned out, Argento was more than just a genetically modified soldier in Deepground. She had been an instructor to the Deepground forces before they were sealed away. As such, she was part of the group authorized to control Shelke. Though Shelke had been implanted with the Restrictor chip as well, the one created by Shinra was designed to override any such influences. On Argento's command, Shelke hacked into the mainframe linked to the chips in each and every Deepground member, switching their loyalties from the Restrictors' leader to Weiß, Nero, and Argento. The Restrictors were easily overwhelmed, and Weiß took control of Deepground. For the next few years, he focused on overhauling Deepground to suit his wishes and desires. Though all the original members were awakened, Weiß nevertheless still kept their existence a secret from the world.
Soon Weiß became interested in awakening the final WEAPON (self-defense mechanisms created by Gaia to deal with threats to itself). Omega, as it was called, was created for the purpose of evacuating the Lifestream from the planet when the plane was in danger of destruction. To do this, Weiß commanded Deepground and the Tsviets (the highest ranking elite squad within Deepground, composed of Weiß, Nero, Rosso, Azul, and Shelke) to seek out those who had not been tainted by Geostigma and kill them. Doing this would provide a pure outflow of life, thus tricking the planet into thinking the end was near. However, Omega's awakening also required its antithesis: Chaos, whose purpose was to scourge the planet of all life (in essence, to gather the entire Lifestream) before Omega could ascent to the skies. At that time, Chaos laid dormant within a man known as Vincent Valentine, restrained by a sphere of refined anti-matter known as the Protomateria. It was decided that Vincent must be located and the Protomateria removed from him in order for Chaos to be unleashed.
To find Vincent, the data of Lucrecia Crescent - someone who had known Vincent closely in the past - was uploaded into Shelke's neural network. This enabled her to quickly track Vincent to a town called Kalm. Since the Tsviets were not yet finished with creating the pure Lifestream, Azul the Cerulean and a troop of Deepground Soldiers were sent along with Shelke to invade Kalm and kidnap and kill the necessary victims. When they found Vincent, he managed to escape due to a slight hesitancy on Shelke's part. In a normal person, the moment could have been put down to merely being unprepared.
But Shelke was not a normal person. She was supposed to be completely obedient to the Tsviets' will, and thus such a pause shouldn't have been able to happen. Azul sent Shelke off by herself to track down Vincent again. When she was gone, Azul immediately contacted Weiß and told him about Shelke's lapse. They determined that the data Shelke had absorbed into herself - basically Lucrecia's memories and emotions - was the source of the interference. However, they could not pull Shelke out of action at this point because they still needed her to locate Vincent and the Protomateria. In the end, Weiß gave Azul two sets of instructions: eliminate Shelke if she made such an error again, and eliminate her once the Protomateria was recovered. In other words, he didn't want to risk all the information contained within Shelke falling into the World Restoration Organization's hands, since it would certainly be used against Deepground. Weiß also told Azul to relay the first part of the instructions to Shelke, as "motivation" of sorts.
Shelk tracked Vincent to the WRO headquarters, but soon lost his trail again. While searching for him, she encountered her long-lost sister, Shaula, who pleaded with her to remember the brief time they spent together. But this time, strengthened by a determination not to fail again and the compulsion of the chip, Shelke had no room for pity or remose. She struck down her sister and left her for dead, moving quickly to locate Vincent. But she found she had lost them once more. It was at that point she was called back to Deepground.
Though Shelke knew something was in store for her for failing, she did not expect simply being told to locate Vincent again - this time through a Synaptic Net Dive. However, once she had found him, Weiß secretly gave Rosso the information so that she could track him down and retrieve the Protomateria instead of Shelke. In the meantime, Shelke was kept occupied by Weiß's order to ransack the WRO databases for any useful information. Upon finishing this, Shelke was told to locate Vincent and take the Protomateria from him (not knowing Rosso had already done this) and then return to purge herself of Lucrecia's data. Weiß had planned for Vincent to destroy Shelke first, since she would fight him with absolute ruthlessness, or Rosso if Vincent did not.
Luckily for Shelke, however, it was then that she was abruptly taken away to Econtra.