Crushing Violet
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
While not my first character, Crushing Violet (earlier, Gal Storm) was my first that I really got into deeply. So much so, after several months, she's now my first (and onliest) 50.
| |
| Crushing Violet | |
| Crushing Violet | |
| Player: @Stormy Weather | |
| Origin: | Mutation / Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Dominator / Scrapper |
| Threat Level: | 50 / 2 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Angelica Bardoux |
| Known Aliases: | Violet Ranger, Gal Storm |
| Species: | Human (Evolved) |
| Age: | 19 |
| Height: | 5'9" |
| Weight: | Whatever she wants it to be |
| Eye Color: | Brown |
| Hair Color: | Red |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Student |
| Place of Birth: | Paragon City, King's Row |
| Base of Operations: | St. Martial |
| Marital Status: | In A Relationship |
| Known Relatives: | Prudence O'Toole-Bardoux (Mother, estranged), Eric Bardoux (Father, unknown), Melissa D'Courtenay (Possible ancient relation) |
| Known Powers | |
| Gravity Control, Ability to absorb and emit magical fire at close ranges. | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Confidential | |
| Equipment | |
| Confidential | |
| Currently studying nursing at Aeon University | |
Contents |
[edit] Origin
For a long time, Angie thought she had a normal life. Going rebellious in her gradeschool years, and coming to her senses once she was forcibly enrolled in Catholic School. But now it is known this is not true.
She was born to Eric and Prudence Bardoux. Her mother perfectly normal, but her father was secretly a psychic mutant, and gained his fortune by manipulating others. When Angie was 3, her father was found out and was arrested. But just before he was arrested, he went into his daughter's mind and walled her inside, and created a tough, rebellious personality to protect her. And to possibly avenge him.
All the fortune was claimed by the victims and the State. Angie's mother lost everything and they were forced to move from their spacious Founder's Falls home to the King's Row. Here, Angie's mother came under the sway of anti-mutant priest Father Tim.
Here, also, Angie grew up, getting a following of a gang of girls her own age that she kept in control. They only did minor crime, shoplifting, vandalism. But even that minor was enough at age 13 when the cops came upon them. Angie was able to escape, her mutant power of controlling gravity coming forward right than. But the cops recognized who she was, and so informed her mother.
And her mother, freaking out, decided to send her to Catholic School, where the devil inside her could be properly expelled. And, unbeknownst to almost anyone, inside that school was a counselor who herself was a mutant with psychic powers. She took rebellious girls and made them good again. And she did this with Angie, walling off the rebellious personality and creating a good girl one, and finding a way to block her mutant powers from coming forward again.
This lasted for over 4 years, until one day while driving, some idiot drove in front of her. Angie slammed the brakes and floated the car over the other one. She was so shocked at what she did, she lost control of the car when it landed and hit a streetlight. She kept the mutant powers a secret, as she knew her mothers feelings on the issue.
[edit] Life as a Hero
Her naivety led her to decide to be a heroine, and her lack of creativity led to the name Gal Storm, despite her powers being primarily gravity based. She scraped up her earnings from her job to buy herself a costume. She jumped onto the scene with great excitement and quickly nabbed Hellions and Skulls left and right, and found herself invited to Pocket D. And being 18, the idea of not being carded was very appealing indeed. It was here that life would take a turn for the young heroine.
[edit] The Downfall of Gal Storm
It was in Pocket D that she met various people and almost all fell into two distinct categories. Heroes who treated her, and anyone around them, like crap. And villains who were extremely polite and good conversationalists. So she obviously found herself listening to a lot of talk about 'living the good life' and how bank robberies hurt no one. And deep inside, the personality that was in charge before catholic school heard this and started to come back out, slowly merging with the good girl created by the counselor.
This may not have mattered in the long run, if it was not for one morning that she went to the D, planning on being there for only an hour or so before heading out to fight crime. The club was nearly empty, and there was only a few people with whom to converse. Unfortunately for Angie, one was a man-woman in an Arachnos uniform who decided that Angie needed to grow up, and lose the teen-speak that peppered her vocabulary. This man-woman cornered her, grabbing at her shorts and tights, trying to pull them off all while exposing herself. Angie panicked and increased the gravitational pull around the Arachnos soldier by magnitudes until the thing was forced to let go. Angie flew to the elevators and escaped into Paragon, and disappeared for a couple of weeks from the Pocket D scene.
When she appeared again, she was full of a lot of anger and anxiety, the wall seperating the rebellious and good girl personalities breaking down, and a few of her friends tried to help her. One of them even went as far as letting Angie try to take it out on her. This didn't work, and Angie finally went out to fight crime for the first time since that happened. She came upon a warehouse full of Skulls and just lashed out, bringing the entire warehouse down on top of them, killing everyone inside. Including some of the Skulls girlfriends and a couple of kidnap victims.
Longbow reacted, and hard. They were chomping at the bit to make an example of a murdering hero and so they grabbed Angie while she was in mid-flight over Atlas Park and threw her in the Zig.
[edit] Life in the Isles
Unlike most prisoners in the Zig, Angie wasn't there long. There was a mass breakout, perpetrated by Arachnos, and Angie just stood there in her broken cell, dazed. She almost stayed in it, to serve her time, but upon seeing the Arachnos troops she knew she could only get revenge by being outside the Zig. She took the flyer and went to the Rogue Isles, dying her old hero costume in new colors and taking upon a new name: Crushing Violet.
It was here she found herself comfortable. She hooked up with the Displaced Ones, whose leader she had met in the D, and met Gatecrash who she quickly fell in love with. She found herself robbing banks, and enjoying it, enjoying even more the life the money gotten let her lead. And she still finds herself trying to be a hero, rescuing Isles citizens from the gangs (and worse) that plague it.
The only thing that she finds hard to stand are the Arachnos that are all over the Isles, and whenever she finds herself in conflict with them, she ends up using the full force of her gravity control and crushing them into pulp.
Seeking purpose in her life, besides just using powers for whatever reason, she enrolled in a Nursing program at Aeon University.
[edit] The Split
Eventually, after a guilt trip by a ghost that claimed to be one of her victims, the walls inside Angie split and the two personalities fought for control. The third, the little girl, stayed stuck behind her fortified walls. There was Angie, a little naive, heroic, feeling as like she did when she first started being a heroine. And there was Violet, crude, cynical, flirtatious and of course quite selfish. At least that's how it was at first.
Within a couple of weeks, the lines between the two personalities started to fade. Angie became a bit more crude, Violet a bit more caring. This quickly led to intense mental pain as her brain started to repair itself. Luna Firespeaker tried to help, using what healing gifts her fires have to try to soothe the pain and heal the damage, but this caused the pain to intensify as Angie's brain started to work overtime to repair the rift.
Eventually the two personalities reformed into one, and Angie has to live with the guilt of destroying her girlfriend's legs and the embarrassment of spending a few weeks dressing in the bright colors of a hero, in the midst of the Rogue Isles.
[edit] Joining branded and the Scarlett Saga
After the reintegration, Angie found herself needing stability and support. This led her to leave the Displaced Ones and join branded, which is larger and houses many of her friends.
For a long while, Angie's felt the need to belong to some cause greater than herself. And because of this, after meeting a being that calls itself the Goddess of Hellfire, a chord deep within Angie was struck and she worshipped this Goddess, but Luna guided Angie to tell the Scarlett Defender that she was being possessed by this Goddess, and the whole thing backfired on Angie. The Goddess attempted to turn Scarlett against Angie, and it worked for a time, but eventually Scarlett came around and Angie convinced her to go to the M.A.G.I. for help in getting rid of the Goddess. But apparently, the M.A.G.I. killed Scarlett when the goddess briefly took over. A death Angie blames herself for.
[edit] Changes
Relationship-wise, Angie got engaged to Gatecrash and then a little later, lost her due to extensive fighting, often about Angie's uncanny ability to get herself hurt when trying to help friends. She found temporary shelter with Ayapana but that broke quickly.
Shade Nefarious, an old enemy of Ayapana's, turned Aya into a statue and convinced Angie the only way to save her was to kill herself. So Angie took the dagger that Shade proffered and rammed it into her heart. Luckily, Thannatos had the ability to bring Angie back to life after Shade returned Ayapana to flesh. This caused her mental barriers to break down which left her in a precarious mental situation until Bianca Tallin gave her a potion that ended up rebuilding those barriers.
After weeks of tension, Angie and Woefull had a serious falling out after Woe decided she'd trade Angie to another group for someone she likes better. Angie left branded shortly after that and currently tricked Johnny Sonata into letting her stay in a penthouse in the Golden Giza.
[edit] Transformation
Angie formed a relationship with two women, Luna Firespeaker and Candle's Flame. These two women, both fire users, woke something up inside Angie. A battery of fire that her dalliance with the Goddess of Hellfire created. And these two began filling it.
This was discovered when Zomerana Angel did a scan of Angie, searching her soul, body and mind for defects. She found the magical fire battery that is connected to her, and found that Angie is but a created personality, or perhaps two created personalities merged into one and the real personality, a 3 year old girl, lies behind a great mental wall that is bristling with psychic traps. This has caused Angie some angst due to her being "Just a creation" and "not being real."
Scarlett showed up in the D one day, alive and well and perfectly happy to see Angie. They started spending some time together, and Scarlett ended up throwing a lot of her magical fire at Angie to see how much Angie could absorb. Angie was brought past her limits and erupted out of her body briefly, throwing off the excess fire much as a star would throw off solar flares.
And eventually, Candle's Flame got control of a business to Italy and stated her intention of moving there. Angie freaked out and mentally retreated, forcing herself inside the great wall in her mind. And this breach signaled to her father. Her father mentally projected himself, from Paragon, into Angie's mind and tried to dismiss her and put the 3 year old back in charge, but this failed to work and in response Angie destroyed the 3 year old personality and took full control of her body.
Or so she thought. But she quickly found that when she destroyed the 3 year old personality, she also destroyed her own body and now exists purely of energy, gravity and heat. In essence, a star. When this transformation occurred, a ripple went through the multiverse and at least two beings were caught within it, and were dumped into this universe from their homes.
This didn't last that long, as Zomerana Angel pointed out that Angie would probably very quickly collapse into a micro black hole or in some way destabilize. So Zomerana Angel made Angie a new body, anchoring her to it. And to make sure she cannot destabilize, the new body has limits on her abilities, so she's not as wide ranged as before.
[edit] The Troubles of Time
Angie slowly began complicating her life in two ways. First, she's been hanging at Pocket D and there she ran into Scarlett Defender, apparently live and well and with a dead goddess instead of a living one inside her. They've resumed their friendship. And at the D she met a cape named Everglades Mink, and they started hanging out a lot which led to both of them developing intense feelings for each other.
The second way she's been complicating her life is that she's been traveling into the future. She has found that she can't travel less than 7 years into her future, and everytime she travels, it is radically different. The only similarity so far is she has not yet been able to find any record of her being around in 7 years.
The knowledge of this effected her actions profoundly. She started to go to Pocket D even more, living it up and flirting outrageously with a few of it's other regulars. And second, she realized that less than 7 years was too short to spend half of it still in college. But still wanting that knowledge, and degree, she worked out a way to use her powers, pushing them to crunch 3 months of time into 5 hours. As she did this, she separated her emotional memory, and effectively froze it in place, walling it off from her. This let her stay determined and for 3 months she did nothing but study nursing, living off the energy of her being and not resting or eating at all.
Once she let her experience of time reassert itself, her body was pained and she threw up often for several days. Due to this she has vowed not to mess with time anymore. Unfortunately for her...Black Scorpion's people detected her time crunch and sent a couple teams to go after her while she was asleep in her apartment. They had used Ghost Widow's gathered intelligence about Angie's shut-down code implanted by her father, but the information was old and now obsolete. Angie barely made it out of there, killing every Arachnos soldier that was there.
[edit] The Loss of Powers
Angie currently has no home, and is constantly looking behind her back waiting for an assault by Arachnos troops.
In a handful of days, Angie managed to break Devanna Jade's trust, and almost lost her as a friend. She broke a vow made to Zomerana Angel, and seems to have lost her friendship. And, because of Arachnos' interest in Angie, she lost her lover Everglades Mink. These events, all happening so close together, caused her fused being to break in two, once again there is a Violet and an Angie.
This condition lasted for only a few days, as Terradigm and DJ came up with a plan to drug Violet and force the personalities back together. It didn't work as well as they hoped, and it wasn't until Luna came by that they were able to get Angie back to herself. Unfortunately, this process injured DJ, making her unable to use her powers, and thus seriously strained their friendship.
For a time, this caused DJ to break off her friendship with everyone and Angie's group slowly split apart. This found Angie slowly getting more aloof to people. A condition found to be caused by Angie inheriting the mantle of Goddess of Hellfire, a process slowly altering her perception of humanity and morality. And as she became more egotistical, she cast off her powers over gravity, as what does a goddess need with such a weak force.
And though it took a while. Angie noticed what was going on. And forced all that hellfire within her out of her. A transformative process that has left her completely powerless.
And as if that wasn't enough, the events of this led her to lose both her girlfriends, leaving her single and useless and alone.
[edit] Becoming a Vanguard Ranger
Angie disappeared for about 2 and a half weeks without telling anyone, trying to distance herself from her pain. She mostly was traveling to get rid of the leftover mystic residue left over by her experience with hellfire. And she ended up at Vanguard HQ quite a bit. While there she finished up her contacts with the FBSA over a pardon for her past crimes, on condition that she behaves herself from now on. Vanguard trained her, some, in the arts of being a Ranger for Gauntlet.
She has now begun operating in Paragon City. Though her home still often is in the Etoile Isles...Where she sleeps in the arms of Devanna Jade. She now often does shifts in White Plains now[1].
[edit] Personality
Angie is strong in a lot of ways. This strength leads to overconfidence and quite a bit of vanity. Her personality is in flux due to the recent splitting apart of personalities and recombining of them. So far one difference that has been noted is she is more willing to ask for help, and speaks better.
[edit] Powers
Currently she is powerless. As a Goddess, she saw no need for the powers granted to her by Evolution. So she expelled them from her. And when she expelled the hellfire from her, that left her almost powerless. All that she has is a weak field of anti-magic, that will stop many spells from being effected on her, but powerful casters can still get through. Beings who only see through magic sight, end up not seeing her.
The following entries on powers are kept only for completeness sake.
[edit] Gravity Control
Angie has the ability to control gravity, an ability she acquired both at age 13 and again at age 17. It seems as if a your standard mutation is the cause for this, but some people have their doubts.
She can increase and decrease gravity at will, and even create gravitational anomalies that connect to her subconscious as a way to help her gain the upper hand in combat. Due to her abilities, she can jump great distances, and even fly though her flight is a bit ungainly.
She also has the ability to rip a hole in space-time. Short distances of up to 100 yards at most will leave a living being that goes through one of these wormholes quite disoriented. If she tries for greater distances, anything tends to come out in pieces. Due to this, we think the appearance of several Arachnos bodyparts in Provence, France, was her trying to send them away from her.
In addition to mere painful teleportation, she has found she can travel through time without the necessity of the Ouroborous crystals. Unfortunately she began with little control and has, on occasion, traveled 20 years in the future when she meant to travel 2 months in the past. She has started to test this ability frequently, gaining more control but being unable to go forward in time less than 7 years. However due to this, she's been coming up with the odds of possible futures.
[edit] Energy Assault
When Angie joined Vanguard, they supplied her with a pair of gauntlets that create a small containment field. Inside that field she has found she can use gravity in a way to smash small particles together at high speeds, creating anti-matter. She then can use her gravitational abilities to fling the anti-matter energy out to an enemy.
[edit] Broadsword & Shield
Both are technological innovations pioneered by Vanguard. Due to her powerless nature, they have decided that they wanted her to continue the fight against the Rikti, and so have helped train her in a fashion that lets her still fight. The armor is lighter than impervium, and gives her some assistance in fighting, but it's limited. Mostly for movement and being able to hold the shield and sword. Vanguard hopes to put this technology inside their standard suits soon.
[edit] Affiliations
[edit] Allies
Devanna Jade is Angie's best friend and lover, due to the fact they are so much alike. They currently live together.
Kendra Danser is a young lady Angie met recently and started to fall for quickly as they talked privately. It is a question of what will happen when their interests collide, as Kendra does work for the PPD.
Luna Firespeaker is Angie's most recent, and greatest, ex. They remain great friends, and due to that Angie unloads a lot of her worries on Luna, unfortunately Luna has too many of her own and a rather fragile mind.
Everglades Mink is a cape that Angie met in the Arena in Pocket D. After a fight, in which Angie barely won, they started talking and hanging out quite a bit in the D and have fallen in love with each other. Unfortunately due to her living in Paragon, Angie can't see her as much as she'd like to, and Longbow has informed her that if she ever wants to go back to Paragon, she does indeed have to serve her time in the Zig. All of Angie's Vanguard work doesn't mean squat to them. The two have broken up, rather harshly now, and Angie is convinced Mink is one step away from being a Malta agent.
Devanna Jade is Angie's best friend, due to the fact they are so much alike. They currently live together, non-romantically.
Mitsu Tanaka is a friend of Angie's that she keeps pissing off, almost as if she can't control her mouth around her.
Casual Goth is the team leader of the Displaced Ones, the team Angie used to belong to. They have a pretty stable friendship, despite Angie's leaving the group. Angie has not seen her in some time and is getting worried.
Zomerana Angel is someone whose proven her friendship to Angie many times over...and someone who has confused her and hurt her deeply as well.
Staci Coldwell is another exile from Paragon. She was one of Angie's closest friends, but they have grown apart, and this could woman could end up wanting to make Angie pay for that.
Scarlett Defender is an old friend of Angie's who lives in Steel Canyon. Once thought dead, she has somehow come back to life
Terradigm might be a friend of Angie's. Angie recently threatened to kill her, so that friendship is obviously strained.
[edit] Fiction
Crushing Violet/You can never go home again - Angie goes to Paragon, meets with her mother, finds out what happened to Scarlett.
Crushing Violet/Postcards In Time -- Snippets of Angie's life Pre-Isles, told from varying points of view.
Crushing Violet/Echoes -- Angie arranges a meeting with Ghost Widow, to seek a new power to try to get Shade off her back.
Crushing Violet/The Final Claim -- Angie loses Claire, but gains control of her destiny.
Crushing Violet/The Attack -- Black Scorpion sends a team of Arachnos to bring Angie in. It does not go well for them.
Crushing Violet/Two Similar Objects -- Angelica decides Violet Starlight's soul could be what she needs to become a goddess.
Crushing Violet/Choices -- Angelica chooses between humanity and becoming a goddess.
Crushing Violet/Normal -- Angie ends up being attacked by an Arachnos agent on the streets, and is offered training by her rescuer.
[edit] Endnote
- ↑ My computer died, so she's gone to be a background Vanguard Ranger until I can afford something new
