Serpentine
British 
American
History
Early Years
Ophelia Haydern was born as a healthy child to Dr. Hans Haydern and his wife Beatrice in April of 1985. Throughout her childhood, however, it became ever more apparent that while the child was gifted, she also lacked any level of interest or ambition. All through middle school and high school, Ophelia kept taking shortcuts, cheated, hung out with the wrong crowds and overall became an insufferable and entitled person convinced that the world wasn't good enough for her. However, owing to her intellect, she still managed to stay at the top of her class even if her attendance and behavious left much to wish for. While most students were sitting up all night studying for the exams, she was having out drinking and partying with the other rejects, only to show up on exam day and ace every test. Many of her classmates called her "The bitch that Karma forgot about" due to her attitude. Eventually, Ophelia enrolled at MIT on her parents' behest, her father wishing for her to follow in his footsteps of bioengineering. KNowing fully well that as long as she tugged on her daddy's heartstrings he'd let her do whatever she wanted to, Ophelia agreed and went on towards University life in the states.
And did she love it. The states was much more fun than her "boring life" in England and Ophelia soon found herself surrounded by new friends, prompting her to drop her old posse like a bad habit. Just as before, Ophelia's cares was only for herself and her own fun. Late night parties, hangovers, one-night-stands, all of it. However, the higher standards and levels of MIT wouldn't quite allow Ophelia to live just of her talent anymore and she soon fell behind in her studies, gravely so. It got bad to the point where her parents decided to cut her allowance, meaning she could no longer pay for her exorbitant habits anymore. Ophelia was furious with them and sought comfort in the arms of her then-boyfriend, Takashi Hashimura. When the time came for Ophelia's final year at MIT and she was in need of a internship to finish her graduation thesis, Takashi approached his father, reknowned Bioengineer Cho Hashimura, about taking Ophelia in. Of course, neither Takashi nor Ophelia knew that the aging Bioengineer was actually a VIPER operative. Though seeing the ruthless ambition in Ophelia's eyes, Cho decided to give her a chance.
VIPER Years
Beginning her internship at VIPER, Ophelia's bright mind and desire for an easy life made her a perfect addition to the nest's research team, lead by Professor Hashimura. The professor was in charge of Project Venomfang, dedicated to creating a Supervenom that could be naturally processed from a mutated Venom Gland that would be placed within a human host, creating toxic supersoldiers. While gifted, Ophelia soon learned that to VIPER, she and everyone else in this nest were considered expendable commodities by her superiors and that in order to climb through the payscales, one would have to show them results. Suddenly urged on by ambition for a bigger paycheck, Ophelia decided to become a contender and worked tirelessly to make sure she was noticed, caring nothing for the repurcussions her quick success might have when VIPER eventually would put her research into practice.
While initially meant just to be an intern that fetched coffee, Ophelia eventually caught the eye of Professor Hashimura, and after a series of tests he eventually indoctrinated her into his inner circles, giving her the rise that she had always wanted. That Takashi and she had just announced their engagement might've helped with the professor's decision. However, both Ophelia and Cho gravely underestimated the other's ambition. As Project Venomfang was drawing closer and closer to completion, very much thanks to Ophelia's later involvement, the young woman soon discovered that Professor Hashimura was planning on using his influence to take all the credit for the work, including Ophelia's. Enraged, she went to confront the man at his laboratory, but the professor coldly dismissed her claims and even threatened her to keep her mouth shut. Furious at this betrayal, Ophelia decided that she wouldn't simply stand by and let it happen.
So one fateful night, she snuck back into her laboratory to collect all the data on the project and destroy any progress that VIPER had made thus far. If she couldn't have it, neither would they, instead she was going to sell it off on the black market to the highest bidder. However, Ophelia once again underestimated VIPER and ended up caught red-handed. Standing before a gleeful Professor Hashimura, she could only listen in horror as he announced that since their test subjects had all been terminated, she had "volunteered" to take their place for the final stage of the project. With no pardon, Ophelia was strapped to the lab table and subjected to the mutagen that was called Serpentium. Over the next few days, the mutation would slowly progress. Her skin flaked and was replaced with yellow scales, her corner teeth grew into retractable fangs and her entire being was slowly turned toxic. She was indeed a succesful prototype, but that was all VIPER wanted of her now. Planning on disposing of her, she was saved only by the timely intervention of Raquel Silverio, an UNTIL special operative who broke into the nest, working on an anonymous tip. Her intervention ended with the destruction of Project Venomfang, and the extraction of VIPER subject V-008, codename Serpentine. However, Professor Hashimura escaped the facility, taking with him a sample of the Supervenom they had created.
UNTIL Years
When Ophelia woke up again, she found herself in custody once more. But this time, it was with UNTIL. Battling with confusion, despair and grief, she eventually calmed down enough for the researchers present to explain her situation to Ophelia. They told her that having found evidence of her involvement in Project Venomfang might have her considered a culprit rather than a victim. They then showed her footage of the supervenom she had helped design ravaging a small town in rural eastern Europe. The combination of trauma, guilt and now fear of legal repercussions sent Ophelia spiraling into a depression and she even made an attempt at her own life, but was thankfully stopped by UNTIL operatives at the scene. Then one day, she was approached by the same woman that had saved her from VIPER. Agent Silverio sat down to speak with her on a few occasions, before ultimately giving Ophelia a chance to make up for her past. UNTIL scientists had been working with her blood to create a Serum for the Supervenom that Ophelia produced naturally, but they were lacking the proper chemical codes to succeed with their endeavor. Raquel, knowing that Ophelia was the one who had actually cracked the code for an ever-mutating venom, said this was her one and only shot. With no other option, Ophelia eventually agreed and it only took her a few nights of work to produce a working Serum.
With the Serum in hand, UNTIL was now prepared to fight against VIPER's next terror raid involving Professor Hashimura's own version of the toxin. Raquel brought Ophelia with her, despite urgings not to from her superiors, to face off against Professor Hashimura and his VIPER forces. When they arrived, they found that the professor had infused himself with the lesser Toxin and turned into the monstrous Nidhogg. A struggle ensued, with an enraged Ophelia flying into a berserker rage, releasing a toxin so potent and corrosive that the city itself started to fall apart around her. Ophelia was only stopped when Raquel struck her with a Cryogenic grenade, the cold sending Ophelia into shock and causing her to collapse. Though much collateral damage was seen, no casualties were reported due to the Serum developed by Ophelia. After the incident, Ophelia was given an official pardon on the condition that she stayed with UNTIL's Project Snakecharmer and helped them monitor VIPER's activity, particularily regarding the supervenom derivate that Nidhogg had created. Now repentant and wanting to redeem herself, Ophelia agreed to those conditions.
However, the transformation still haunted Ophelia and after a failed attempt at a reunion with her former fianceé, she ended up falling back into depression. The next few years all consisted of constant work and therapy sessions, however Ophelia's mental state grew progressively worse as time passed by and she eventually became obsessed with reverse-engineering her mutation. She tried many different methods, even going so far as to being provisioned with a Holo-projector to at least look human, but none of them yielded any form of tangible results. Distraught, Ophelia eventually tried to commit suicide once again. While in intensive care, she came into contact with Agent Qin Gongzhou, a martial instructor for UNTIL originally from Taiwan. As a master of Tai Chi, he helped her recover both physically and mentally from the ordeal, sharing his wisdom and teachings of self-lessness with her. Finally breaking free of her dark circle, Ophelia was slowly coming to terms with herself, returning to her work with a new goal in mind: To make sure noone else has to suffer through the same ordeal she's been put through. Perhaps it was karma, or perhaps it was just that her mind was now free of despair and self-loathing, but her research soon made a breakthrough and has since been on a steady course towards realizing her dream. Ophelia has since also picked up the mantle in between her sessions in the laboratory, heading out to make the world a better place as Serpentine, taking the name as a reminder of what made her this way and to turn it into something she could feel proud about.
Personal File
Appearence
Personality
Ophelia's personality type is INFJ; Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Judging, of the Turbulent variety.
INFJs tend to see helping others as their purpose in life, but while people with this personality type can be found engaging rescue efforts and doing charity work, their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all. /.../ Though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in. They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain – INFJs will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance.
Character Diamond
Goal-Oriented
Ophelia always keeps her eyes on the price, focusing all of her efforts on the task at hand, be it a short-term goal such as saving civilians from the clutches of a supervillain, or a more dire and lengthy undertaking such as her own pet project of curing mutations in humans. She dislikes the idea of working without a proper cause and will generally steer away from trivialities if she can help it, and she has very little patience with those that do not take their role as a Hero seriously or with dignity. While focused on the goal however, she does not think that the end justifies the means, especially not of those means are in direct opposition to what one aspires towards. This puts her in a strong conflict with many, of not all vigilantes that roam Millenium city. A side note of this is however that she tends to get competative, especially when it comes to sports or other recreational activities. She never sets her eyes on losing, after all, and goal-oriented as she is she will focus all her efforts on winning.
Self-Conscious
Noone is more aware of Ophelia's appearence than she herself, and it's something that's slowly eating her from the inside out. While she's mostly come to terms with her mutation, she couldn't deny that part of her wishes to be a normal human being again and this is partly the reason for her tireless vigilance in working towards a "cure" for people in her position. Her self-conscioussness is also directed internally, especially considering her checkered past. She's extremely cautious with her actions and especially her powers, as she's well aware of the repercussions they might have. She constantly monitors herself and never leaves home without several vials of serum strapped somewhere to her body, just in case.
Repentant
Ophelia is convinced that the experimentation on her and the subsequent mutation is some sort of karmatic punishment for what she did while working for VIPER. Her feelings of guilt is the primary reason for her pursuing the path of a superheroine, as well as the reason why she's never given up on finding a cure for the mutation. Far as she's concerned, Ophelia claims that the day she finds the cure is the day she'll forgive herself for her past sins. Until that day, she will work only for the sake of others, and never for her own sake. This causes her to be rather self-sacrificing and altruistic, always considering others before herself even if she doesn't like to show it. She doesn't like the idea of being looked upon as a martyr, as that isn't punishing enough for what she's done.
Reserved
Ophelia is generally reserved and collected, both in speech and mannerisms. She tries her best to remain professional in all situations, rarely allowing her emotions to show and even more rare is sharing her true feelings with others. While she's certainly willing to listen to others and help them with their problems, she generally keeps her own emotions shut in so as to not get pitied. Through being reclusive, she punishes herself further by keeping her own emotions locked up as tightly as she can muster. To her, the importance is not her own well-being, but that of others, and she has her priorities set and have no interest in changing them anytime soon.
Meta Data
Powers
Ophelia's genetical information has been spliced with the DNA of several different serpents, spurring drastic differences in her physiology as well as her appearence. Most notable is the fact that her body is covered in smooth, snake-like scales instead of skin. Her muscular structure has also changed as a result of the mutation, becoming more elastic and capable of enhanced contractions, thus making her stronger and capable of exerting a greater deal of physical force than your average human could muster. She's also gained an enhanced sense of taste, to the point where she can use her forked tongue to pinpoint scents her nose cannot pick up, making her apt at tracking an individual. While her vomeronasal organ is the same as a human's, using her tongue allows her to gather airborne in greater quantities at a time compared to inhaling through the nose. She's also developed a set of infrared-sensitive receptors across her entire Retina, making her able to percieve the radiated heat of objects. This is however stronger the less direct light that surrounds the object, thus being more useful during nocturnal hours.
Ophelia's mutation has given rise to two distinct types of venom glands within her body, one located near her heart while the other kind are mutated lymph nodes. The latter kind produce several protein-based toxins that bleed into the lymph fluid and spread across the lymphatic system, eventually reaching her blood plasma and even sweat glands. The neurotoxins created this way usually remain at a very low concentration during rest, however stress and adrenaline rapidly increases the production and concentration of toxin within the lymph fluid, causing the Venom to become more potent as Ophelia becomes stressed. Continous exercise of skeletal muscles accelerates the flow of lymph fluid within the lymphatic system as well, thus increasing the concentration of toxins within Ophelia's body. The toxin leaves Ophelia's body through her sweat glands, located beneath her scales. While at rest, the scales constrict over the toxin which causes it to not evaporate as perspiration, however when the muscles beneath the dermis become active the scales loosen, releasing the toxin into the air around Ophelia. The second kind of venom gland is located near her heart. This venom is a Hemotoxin and isn't connected to her blood, instead having separate vessels that are connected to Ophelia's fingertips, toes and two mutated retractable fangs located where her upper canines used to be. Muscles around the vessels allow for a greater control of injected quantity, and through sudden constriction can also fire the venom out of the vessels across short distances, making it possible for Ophelia to spit venom at aggressors. This toxin also has the benefit of becoming corrosive when under prolonged contact with air, to the point where it can corrode through dense metal with ease. This makes it an effective weapon against non-organic beings as well. As a side effect of her lymph nodes having mutated into poison glands, Ophelia's also gained a strong immunity to just about all foreign agents, partly due to her venom's constant process of mutation which her body adapts to at an increasing rate but also due to the fact that anything organic that enters into her bloodstream is usually killed off by her toxins before it can affect her.
Skills
Ophelia is a researcher first and foremost. She specializes in the fields of mutations, primarily Bioengineering and Biochemistry. She's also dabbled in toxicology due to her mutation. Having spent the last 8 years of her life on a tireless crusade to find a cure for unwanted mutations, she's risen to become one of the premier individuals in her field and an authority on the subject within UNTIL. Since taking up the mantle of Serpentine, she's returned to daily exercise in acrobatics and gymnastics, something she was an avid practitioner of during her teenaged years. She's also trained in Tai Chi, using it as a means of relaxation and self control.
Affiliations
Friends and Allies
Raquel Silverio - The UNTIL special operative that saved Ophelia from the VIPER nest 8 years ago. Ophelia feels like she owes the woman a great deal and seems to have nothing but respect for her, looking to her as sorts of a mentor figure. As a Special operative, Raquel generally drifts between projects to where she's needed, but the two women still has a strong friendship to this day and occasionally team up in the battle against VIPER.
Hyena - Ophelia first met the manimal together with Angus while the two of them were out for a drink and invited other heroes along. Afterwards, she met with him once again while searching for Angus' lost familiar among a swarm of undead, together with Katsuo and Sir Gallant. She's since teamed up with the canine crusader on a few other occasions, fighting mutant mercenaries and even the hulking Ankylosaur, often trying to act a voice of reason to Hyena's more ferocious and confrontational nature. His reckless nature is enough to give her a headache, though there's no other partner she'd rather be fighting alongside out there.
Angus - Ophelia first met the ginger scotsman along with Hyena. Despite his juvenile bickering with Hyena (Which, admittedly, she finds somewhat amusing) she trusts him well enough to shape up when things go from bad to worse, as she's seen proof of before. She's aware of his apparent immortality, even though magic is a field beyond her in many aspects.
Detective Lydia Grayle - Lydia and Ophelia are pretty much birds of a feather, both having been turned into manimal mutants against their will. The two women hit it off from the very start and has become fast friends since, helping eachother out both as heroes, professionals and friends. Ophelia feels a great deal of kinship with the feline heroine, due to their similar backgrounds.
Katsuo - Someone Ophelia would refer to as Mr. Sunshine and Sparkles, ironically. While she's not above appreciating his brutal honesty, she finds his lack of tact, maturity and consideration of others' feelings to be both juvenile and unbecoming of someone supposed to be the Champion of the common man. She has little patience for this man.
Enemies
Oppinions of Serpentine
Any thoughts about Serpentine? They go right here
Miscellaneous
RP Hooks
- Serpentine was once with VIPER. Though it's a time she'd rather forget, some shadows from the past might well be around to haunt her.
- Ophelia Haydern has now been working for UNTIL for almost 8 years and has become one of their foremost figures in bioengineering and evolutionary biology. Her team has even developed a theoretical prototype for reversing early-stage mutations.
- As a recognizable name on the subject of mutations, she's appeared a few times in scientific publications and on TV.
- Serpentine's not exactly difficult to pinpoint due to her mutation, making her identity public.
Trivia
- Has a Sweet Tooth, but dislikes strawberries for some reason.
- Has an extremely effective metabolism and can go long periods without eating, often only feeding herself once a week or so.
- Sheds her skin once every two week. The used scales are then taken by UNTIL to be made into Acidium, a leather-like substance that is extremely resistant to acidic corrosion.
- Knows Pole-dancing, but outright refuses to tell why she learned it. Same goes for Knitting. And Accordion.
- Keeps a Pet snake, a Yellow-bellied Sea Snake named Cecil. He's been mutated with the same Supervenom she has, although to a lesser extent.
