Difference between revisions of "Undine Princess Doris"
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Revision as of 09:29, 15 July 2014
Power Grid | Translation |
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Contents
...in a galaxy far, far away
The alliance to resist the "Empress of a Million Universes"* was being ruthlessly exterminated to the last man. Inquisitor Rhemka V'hel had the last remnants of the rebellion cornered in a space station they managed to keep hidden from his intelligence network for a whole ten years. While they couldn't repel the inquisitor's forces, the last rebels stalled him long enough for an agent to escape with the rebellion's most zealously guarded asset: The Ark.
Strike One for the Inquisitor.
- [*] While aggressively expansionist, the actual count in Istvatha V'han's empire is closer to ten thousand and, being actual life as preciously scarce in the universe as it is, this may barely account to having perhaps a hundred races distributed in five thousand worlds under her thumb... but the title is sure lofty, so she keeps it.
Doris Galene
All little Doris has ever wanted was to make people happy. Medicine school wasn't exactly her calling, but it made her parents so happy. The track&field team didn't exactly make her happy either, but ever since high school her phys ed teachers told her she had talent for it; Westside High needed a medal, any medal, and at least the exercise was good to relieve stress. Plus, her athletic performance helped her grades to get a scholarship at MCU. Once in her freshman year in college, however, the stress was already getting the best of her and she was well about to crack. She was ready to quit that night, but she didn't want to even imagine the look on her parents' faces. She was distracted, and she didn't see the figure she had just ran into with her scooter in time to dodge him.
The figure wasn't human... not quite at least. It radiated light and was clad in a golden shroud, obscuring whatever few features would have been visible in its radiance. As Doris tried to tend to it, the figure just rested a small object in her hands. "Keep it hidden, keep it safe" the figure said, "For the Empress' scourge will come for it. They must not have it!" The figure vanished, leaving Doris full of questions, and a small blue sapphire in her hand.
All Doris Galene wants is making others happy. Now she carries with her the hope of a thousand worlds.
When God feels like punishing us, they answer our prayers.
The Hunt
Inquisitor V'hel has done an excelent job of rooting terrorists out within the Empress' domain so far, and his assignment was supposed to end here, but now the most important asset of the insurrects was on the loose. If he failed to retrieve it, the whole movement could potentially start all over again. Furthermore, he dared not show himself with anything but a complete victory in his hands, so he wouldn't return home until such had been achieved.
While the destination wasn't unknown, and conveniently one of the planets already marked for conquest by the empress herself, the travel was long enough to deplete all fuel cells, leaving him stranded on Earth. That's alright with the inquisitor, he still has his subordinates and can borrow additional reinforcements from the ranks of the Gadroon if he so chooses. Also he can't return without victory anyway, but once the ark is secured, he'll have all the energy he needs to power back his ship for the trip home.
Remka V'hel didn't take long in triangulating the Ark's location. Unfortunately for him, by the time he did, the Ark had already imparted the basics of its usage to Doris, and the nature of Millenium City had already provided enough opportunities for Doris to acquire experience in costumed escapades. And what was only supposed to be a lost-and-found stroll for the inquisitor turned into a fight which he barely survived.
Strike Two. Not only he failed to retrieve the Ark, but now its new possessor knew she was being hunted.
Front Page: Zero Dead
While the Inquisitor didn't know too much about this backwater planet, he knew enough given this world's previous history with the empress, and knew better than to draw the attention of the heroes of Earth to his attempts at securing a potential mass-destruction weapon of cosmic proportions, and so he and Doris played a relatively discreet game of cat and mouse for several months.
...and then the Lemurian invasion happened.
For better or worse, Doris had the misfortune of having been at ground zero when the Bleak Harbinger was summoned, turning her into the very first responder.
Inquisitor V'hel was aware that his prey was engaged in a losing battle. While he didn't plan to lift a finger to tip the balance of the fight either way, he had his agents ready to fetch the Ark from the girl's corpse as soon as she was dead.
As per the Inquisitor's prediction, not even the Ark could win that fight in such inexperienced hands as Doris', and soon enough she was technically down for the count and ready to leave the fight in the hands of the other heroes of Earth.
What the inquisitor's didn't anticipate, however, was the desperation of a latent empath who was suddenly very aware of the thousands of innocents dying all around her. Doris' desperation unlocked new powers from the Ark and, in a burst of "wild talent," all (friendly) broken bodies in a ten mile radius were repaired and the dead revived, civilians and fallen heroes alike.
While the averted calamity was enough help for UNTIL to win the day, the amount of energy unleashed during Doris' new transformation turned the Ark into a cosmic beacon that could be perceived by nearly any single power player in the galaxy for the time the burst lasted.
Tyrannon the Conqueror, having had his eye on this universe for a while out of rivalry with Istvatha V'han, saw something he personally found of interest.
The Slug sensed the power of an artifact he can use in conjunction of the Talisman of the Elder Worm to both restore his race and anihilate the hairless ape usurpers in one fell swoop.
Having noticed Elder Worms' renewed activity, the Roin'Esh have designs to manipulate events in another attempt to throw away the shackles imposed on them by their Malvan overlords.
All this, in addition to Earth's own power players, some of which may show interest of their own.
So much for discretion.
The real hunt now begins.
The Ark
The blue sapphire Doris now wears around her neck carries two treasures. The most important is the collective science and secrets of every world involved in the rebellion against Istvatha V'han. The Ark's second gift is the ability to empower its possessor to protect said secrets.
- The Ark locks itself to its current user on a quantum level, no one else can use it as long as its current authorized user lives, as it becomes locked to the user's body and soul.
- For those with enhanced senses or the proper sensors, the Ark gives readings not unlike magic, but not quite (magical girls are never magical).
- Possessing too much data crammed into a small space and too many layered, convoluted encryption methods, the Ark is too alien to be analyzed or studied by any means, be it arcane, technological, or otherwise.
Elemental Affinities
By itself, the Ark is little else than a glorified battery (if one with unlimited energy), but it has the ability of taking any qualities from its owner and take them to their maximum expression. In Doris case, the Ark took her elemental affinities.
Water Affinities
Doris herself has always been a "water type": Compassionate, loving, nurturing, empathic, and bends without breaking, yet daring and ultimately unstoppable.
- While transformed, she has Virtually unlimited control over moisture. She can manipulate existing water (including that inside bodies) and create it ex-nihilo.
- Doris possesses an ability not unlike "faith healing." She can cure others of disease and injury with only a kiss. While she can't bring back the dead, she can restore otherwise lethal injuries and revive people as long as they haven't been clinically dead for more than twenty minutes. She can use this ability without transforming as long as she is holding the Ark.
- Latent Psychic: She's prone to receiving spontaneous flashes of inspiration and realize things she has otherwise no means to know. While many of these come from the Ark occasionally sharing its knowledge with Doris* **, sometimes she can just come up with answers she needs to most problems.
- [*] What Doris doesn't know, is that the first thing the Ark did upon granting her access was re-writing large portions of her memory in order to download all of its data to her brain as a means of security backup. This data is only accessible in very small bits at the Ark's discretion. In addition, for reasons known only to the Ark itself, it keeps modifying Doris' memory at its discretion, adding, modifying, and deleting memories to the point one has to wonder whether the life she remembers is true. While seers and psychics may realize her memory has been tampered with, they have no way to undo the changes, or even infer what said modifications are (or who did them).
- [**] Doris originally comes from City of Heroes. Regardless of whether I intend to use that in-game or not, I left the possibility open.
Air Affinities
- Ever since she started wearing the Ark, Doris has no problems with her grades at all, having gained a peak-human ability for learning and memorizing. She has also become almost unbreakably cheerful, and is starting to become a "free spirit."
- While transformed, her sense of hearing increases with height, attaining super-human levels the higher she is above the ground. Doris has adopted Rencen's blimp as her "outpost", a height at which she can hear nearly anything in the city down to individual pleas for help or the sound of a pin dropping.
- While transformed, she can fall from any height harmlessly and her running speed is increased to that of an olympic medalist.
Mixed Elemental Powers
- Her wind and water affinities give her a limited form of weather control as long as she's at a coast.
- She's immune to cold and resistant to heat.
Celestial Form
Since the Lemurian invasion, Doris can resort to a "second transformation" which magnifies her healing abilities exponentially in addition of sprouting wings that allow her to fly at speeds up to 300mph. While in celestial form, however, the Ark can be sensed up to a thousand miles away. Unfortunately for Doris, she is not aware of this last part.
Power of Plot
In addition to being indestructible, the Ark can occasionally create additional phenomena that can pass for "miracles." These miracles can be virtually anything, but their most common form is a sort of Probability Control that makes sure that, no matter what happens, it always ends back in Doris' hands.
Doris is completely oblivious of this quality, which manifests only at the Ark's own discretion.
Trivia
- Threat Level: Alpha. While the full extent of the Ark's power is enough to be a cause for concern for Istvatha V'han's empire, Doris has no idea of how to exploit its full potential (nor she even imagines her jewel has any power beyond what she already uses). Furthermore, Doris never kills or even maims, she cooperates with authorities whenever possible, and is by no means interested in "watching the watchers" or otherwise "changing the world" beyond her little good deeds. Unless the person in front of her is a criminal, she's basically harmless.
- As a side effect of the regular "brainwashing" the Ark subjects her to, she suffers from flash headaches that come and go whenever something teases her true memories.
- "Doris" was the name of one of the undines (daughters of Poseidon). The undine Doris was also known as "the sea's bounty."
- "Galene" was the name of one of the nereids.
- While Doris doesn't exactly have a "theme song," the Ark's would be Storytime by Nightwish.