Difference between revisions of "Duskwing"

IDENTITY:

Commonly known. She's stuck in this form. No mask or costume can hide it.

BACKGROUND:

The worst day in Martha's life was when she died. Not only she was murdered, but her killer was real netherspawn. A demon, but not a sexy succubus, or something similar, but malevolent creature of pure violence and fury - N'Hazzlukh was a real monstrosity.

Summoned by a bunch of wannabe occultist, he forced himself out of summoning circle, killed all those fools, and went on the killing spree across the city.

Martha was his last victim - she was working at the mall when she was attacked. She was almost ripped into pieces, and when beast finally died, thanks to joined efforts of policemen and local superheroes, her corpse was literally bathed in N'Hazzlukh's ichor and contaminaded with nether energies.

This not only resurrected, but also irreversibly mutated her - she's now permanetly stuck in body being a hybrid of her former self and N'Hazzlukh's physical form. And not really happy because of this, at least not until she learned that her look isn't that bad. And for some people it's even appealing...

History:

Before this violent change, Martha's life was average. Painfully average, as someone would say.
A quiet, nerdy girl without siblings, she was never a popular one. She was a bit overweight, she had a few friends, but not a single real one. She had a boyfriend who was cheating on her,and while she knew about it, she never told him anything being too afraid of losing him.
In the end, the biggest joys of her life were cartoons, video games and comic books.
She never was a good student, thus the only better job available for her was that of clerk at the mall.

Martha doesn't remember too much from her death. That day she was working till evening, tired and sad, because most likely her boyfriend was with another girl.
Everything that she recalls was a purple, towering monstrosity, her body being torn to pieces with its claws, nad her panicked last thought - "Oh God, please help me, I DON'T WANNA DIE!"

And she din't die, at least not for good.
She woke up in the morgue, at the table. And there this nightmare continued.
Martha found herself mutated, warped in the very way like this thing that killed her. There was little what policemen could do to help her, except for calling a mystic consultant, then UNTIL, for expertise. Soon it was proved that changes done to her are irreversible and she'd better to be used to it.

To say that it complicated her life is an understatement. Not only Martha no longer could be working at the mall, especially after the massacre done by N'Hazzlukh there, but also boyfriend finally ditched her, as he was now scared. And finally, not wanting her parents to know that she's now a human-netherspawn hybrid, Martha lied to family that it's an effect of a latent mutant gene activated because of being shocked with demonic assault.

In the end, now she was unemployed, with no sight of possible income and no idea what to do now.
And the only thing she could think of, sitting alone in apartment, was heroing. After all, she had now body like her favorite superheroines. Oh, and superpowers as well!

Well, wings were a problem. Well over thirteen feets at their full wingspan and almost twice wide as she was if folded. Moreover, she now had to be very careful with doors and handles. Or rather with everything, considering her superhuman, but not yet mastered, strength and absurdly sharp claws.

Martha hardly was a premier league hero. Powers and ethusiasm doesn't equal training. She had a brief session with superhuman trainer named Bronx, but little beside that. She was preparing for taking job as a superpowered bodyguard for certain filthy rich woman, Claire Thompson, but never made it.

Eventually, fate smiled to her with an invitation of posing for the latest Urbanwear calendar. Not being really surprised, considering her new amazon look, Martha also discovered that pay in this business is rather good - they offered her a twenty thousands of bucks for a single session. It was the beginning of her modeling career.

For some time Martha had a soul link with N'Hazzlukh due to being, technically, his supernatural offspring. It made a brief interruption to both of her heroic and modeling activities, when she was overwhelmed with his violent infernal urges, and she was roaming through the Westside destroying things. Fortunately, nobody was killed, and she was returned to sanity with the help of few heroes. In the process, a mystical hero named Jack Havelock finally cut her soul link with N'Hazzlukh for good.

In the end this loss of control only helped her. Not only she was finally free from demonic urges, but also last traces of mortality were erased from her body, making her a full netherspawn. It raised her powers, but also gave a limited shapeshifting ability - a handy thing, as now she could hide her troublesome wings. Another change was done to her skin. No longer being linked to N'Hazzlukh, Martha lost his purple coloration - shades of her skin turned into grays. And finally, she retained some of his fighting skills, making her more proficient with combat.

Occupation:

Martha earns her money mostly as a professional model. Given her statesque physique, she's hardly a fashion model, unless it's a sportswear. Dusky is doing mostly things like glamour shots, advertising, or album cover art. Sometimes, if pay is really good, she's doing mild adult shots, like posing in lingerie, bikini suits, or topless. If she's doing nude shots it's always arranged in such way that all naughty bits are covered.
She's also a professional superhero, not only because she's generally a good-hearted person, but also it gives her additional money - as few of her costumes are covered with advertisements.

Portfolio:

• Lichknight The Movie - May 2014.
  

Martha's first job as an actress, The Lichknight is a one hour long pilot of the new fantasy TV series. It was also released as a direct-to-DVD movie. It's a terribly cliche story filled with extremely bad acting, with only redeeming factors being passable music score and a really good actor playing the main villain. Doesn't help that Martha is really, really poor actress. The movie was literally smashed by the critique. Strangely, it sells rather well.

"Comparable only with such masterpieces like Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight or Dungeons and Dragons The Movie, this one hour long pilot of the new fantasy TV series pays healthy respect to the cleavages, male pecs and oiled muscles, as well as is full of PVC-made swords and other venerable staples of the genre.Announced for syndication this month, The Lichknight will be an epic tale of two heroes, played by Martha "Duskwing" Smith and Aaron "The Shaft" Coles, in their quest to defeat evil king-sorcerer Zulmas and his undead empire." - io9.com

"Titular Zulmas, played by Paul "The Cadaver" Milne, is the one bright spot of this otherwise unbearable piece of hogwash. Where the rest of the so-called cast tortures us with wooden acting and cheesy lines, he's ironic and full of self-awareness. It's depressing, when the only quality performance is delivered to us by actor known only from small roles in B-class horror movies. Alas, at least mister Milne proved that his disfigured physique doesn't prevent quality acting. Too bad the same can't be said about other actors." - metacritic.com

"Based on the series of equally bad fantasy novels, it's like Baywatch meets Dungeons and Dragons. Minus the entertainment value. Good thing? It's only an hour. Bad thing? It's the first of the series." - rottentomatoes.com

"I'm so excited, this is my first movie!" - said miss Smith. No worries, girl. Given your acting it may be as well your last one. Moviemakers had to rob every gym of the metahuman wanna-be-actor starlets. Number of shots when camera focuses entirely on pecs and cleavages truly sets a new record. Too bad they forgot to hire real actors. My advice? By all means, keep Milne. He's brilliant. But send back Smith and Coles to their proper jobs - posing in swimwear." - imdb.com

"After suffering through The Legend of Hercules and 300: Rise of an Empire I though I saw the worst movies of this year. I was wrong. The Lichknight is actually bad to the point when it migh be a cult classic in the making." - moviereviews.com

• Fetish Fuel Club Advertisement - November 2013.

She was contracted as a model for the Fetish Fuel club advertisements.
A set of the black and white photos was made, where she was posing in highly stylised leather and latex outfits.

• Uncaped - August 2013.
  

Produced by Farquar Publishing, it's a Playboy style magazine featuring female superhumans. Martha did highly stylised pictorial for August.

• Narcola Promotional Campaign - June 2013.

Martha has contract signed with Narcola, having their ads on few of her heroic outfits.
She was declared one of the Narcola's faces for year 2013.

• Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition - February 2013.

A cover and a pictorial, where she was posing in a, surprise, surprise, swimsuit.

• URBANWEAR Calendar 2013 - December 2012.

Martha's first modeling job, it was her pass to the career. It made her noticed by the industry.

POWERS:

In terms of powers, Martha is a rather high-powered flying brick. The only difference between her and more conventional superheroes is origin of her powers - all her abilities are of supernatural nature and powered by infernal energies.
In every respect Martha now is, and should be, considered a netherspawn, a demon. Nothing human left within her, save for her consciousness.
Even more, no longer Martha has a human soul separate from material body. Her physical form and mind are now merged into one supernatural substance, knwon as the essence.
The one thing separating Martha from demons is her human mind. She retained all her mortal personality, each and every thought and memory.
Being such hybrid gives her a rare advantage. She's native to both Hell and material plane.
Martha cannot be banished to the Hell, because human origin makes her tied to the material plane as any human would be, but also she cannot be expelled from the Hell, because demonic nature makes her as tied to this dimension as N'Hazzlukh would be.

Source:

In theory, Martha's mutation is a rare one. It was possible only by coincidence - her soul was still near her body, struggling against being passed to the afterlife, and N'Hazzlukh's essence was possessing her corpse, as he was fighting against being expelled to the Hell.
Being faced with loss of his material form, N'Hazzlukh did what many evil spirits would do in such situation. He attempted to possess any inhabitable body - and the nearest one was Martha's ravaged corpse. It was when things went wrong for him. While he managed to repair all the damage and make this body functional again, and event started to mutate it into his old form, he was now faced by Martha's desperate attempts to stay alive, as her soul was still lingering nearby.
In any other case N'Hazzlukh would have no problems with winning in the psychic struggle against an average mortal, but this time he was weakened by loss of his body and Martha was empowered by her panic and will to live.
In the end demon was forced back to Hell and girl regained her body, though now it was partially reshaped by N'Hazzluhk's infernal energies.

Limited shapeshifting:

Martha has very limited shapeshifting abilities. She can materialise and dematerialise her wings and tail at will, and in the very same manner her claws may be of various length. Her clothes, however, do not change in any supernatural way - which means that every her outfit must be tailored with wings or tail in mind if she wants to use them without damaging her clothes.
She can also make her horns bigger, or almost non-existent, but she can't get rid of horns completely - they are always on her forehead.
Rest of her body isn't changeable with this power, thus she can't look like a human.

Infernal strength:

Due to being powered by infernal energies, Martha has an immense level of strength. She can easily lift over 100 metric tons of weight. In fact, she has yet to encounter weight impossible to lift for her.

Infernal sustenance:

Martha no longer has any real need to eat, sleep, drink, or even breathe. Her existence is sustained entirely by infernal energy and as long as Hell exists, she doesn't need any of those.
While she do has a fully working humanlike metabolism, it's only a leftover of her mortal self. All human needs, like hunger or thirst, are originated only in her mind.
Being powered by Hell itself gives her also an immense regeneration. Her limbs, or even head, may be cut off, her body shred to pieces, but as long as her infernal essence exists she'll be recreated, usually near to place of her temporary death. While making her body non-functional indeed kills her, and she falls dead, Martha simply doesn't stay down for longer than for few days at worst.
Martha's stamina is also much higher than that of normal human. She can have a heavy workout, including fight, for hours without being tired and even then she regains her strength quickly.

Infernal durability:

Martha's regeneration is entirely supernatural and not limited by the laws of nature.
It's fast to the point when bullets from pistols and rifles can't pierce her skin, and even the most powerful conventional firearm are giving her little more than bruises.
Stronger non-magical effects and normal attacks empowered by magic can hurt her, though she'll regenerate anyway.
Her weaknesses are high magic and divine forces. Pretty much every spell or prayer harmful for demons won't be regenerated quickly, and the most powerful mystical attacks may eventually destroy her.
Martha is also resistant to diseases and poisons. Non-magical ones have no effects on her, and even the supernatural ones will fade from her in a few days at worst.

Lifeforce absorption:

The most disturbing, at least for Martha, power inherited from N'Hazzlukh is ability to feed on the life force of other beings.
She can devour mystical essence of other creatures to either enchance her regeneration, or temporary raise her powers. This ability works on mortal life force (but not souls) and on essence of supernatural creatures, like spirits, including demons, ghosts and elementals. It also works on magical constructs and undead, fuelling her with their magical source of sustenance.
Pretty much only souless non-magical opponents are unaffected by this power, robots being the most common example.
Martha doesn't like this ability and uses it only for fighting harmful spirits, as it is arguably the most gruesome of her powers. If victim has body and soul, this absorption could be simply lethal, but if victim is built only from the essence as many demons and spirits are, there is a fair chance that being absorbed will simply erase it from existence - a demon destroyed with this ability won't be sen't back to Hell, but very likely will cease to exist, as his very substance will be consumed.
To use this ability Martha must touch her victim's flesh. Even a cover made of thin fabric makes absorption impossible, thus armored opponents are more or less safe. On the other hand, this ability can be triggered with Martha's claws, and she's quite capable to cut through most armors.

Demonic senses:

Martha has enchanced sense of smell and hearing. She's also able to see in darkness or with no light source at all as clearly as it would be in the day light.
She also has a keen magic sense, allowing her to smell traces of magic and other supernatural powers, like demonic presence.

Absurdly sharp claws:

Martha's claws are incredibly sharp and durable. She's capable to cut through almost any substance. To this day only questionite and neutronium proved to be impenetrable for her.
As this a supernatural ability, it is very likely that a heavily enchanted metal plate also would be durable enough, but she has yet to encounter an opponent clad in this kind of armor.

Flight:

Martha's muscular leathery wings allows her to fly at speeds up to roughly 124 mph (200 km/h).
Obviously, she can't use this power with her wings hidden.

True names resistance:

Martha is roughly 50% more resistant against binding and summoning magic than any other demon, mostly due to her human origin. It takes about twice more of magical force to bind her than with any other demon at her level of power. And even then she can't be controlled for a prolonged time - it will take her a days at worst to break free from such spell.
Demonic contracts cannot be made with her, as well as she's completely resistant againt true names used for either subjugating or destroying her - because technically she doesn't have any.
Old human one doesn't apply to her present state of existence, and true name assigned to N'Hazzlukh and his possible offspring doesn't work because of her no longer being the one.

Demonic vulnerability:

Sadly, with all her powers, she's clearly a demon and vulnerable to many things that are harmful for her kind.
Spells and powers aimed against demons are working normally against her. Mystical barriers made for repelling such creaters have effect against Martha, though as any other demon she can struggle against this effect. Magical or sacred weapons forged for killing netherspawn are more harmful for her, in fact it's hardest for her to recover from wounds made with such tools.
Same goes for divine energies and spells designed for fighting demonkin.
And finally, powers like her own life force absorption may even destroy her permanently.

TROPES:

Absurd Cutting Power - Her claws.
Amazing Technicolor Population - She was purple. Now she's gray.
Amazonian Beauty - No, really. It's pretty self-explanatory.
Boobs of Steel- She has it. Bulletproof.
Clothing Damage - Martha's bulletproof. Her costumes aren't.
Cursed With Awesome - Martha used to whine about her change. As if she lost anything of value.
Cute Little Fangs - Except she's clumsy enough to have her tongue bitten.
Effortless Amazonian Lift - Better watch for your door. Or furniture. Or anything.
Fanservice - A demongirl in leotard? Pretty much this.
Most Common Superpower - Definitively she's a high-powered hero.
Statesque Stunner - Models usually are tall, but Dusky crossed a few limits.
Thou Shalt Not Kill - Martha's pretty adamant with not using lethal force.