Erri
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Just as a note, anything on this page would only be something known by the direct assimilation of the information from the sources recalled on the page (IE if it says the M.A.G.I. know then you could get such information from there. If it's on the news one day you could have heard it there). Otherwise this is just information that I've wanted to write up to expand on the character or to make note of things so there's less inner circle business for such a private person as Erri.
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Affiliations
-Raine Heartfall: Another phenomenon of time has occurred with this character. While officially Erri has promised to deny it in public, she shares a deepening relationship with Raine. An official resident of the Moonlight Path, the elf trains the girl in magic arts and uses her own meager powers and the help of Raine's thugs to venture through the isles and do justice.
-Robotic Spectre: While spending time in Pocket D with Raine to watch the girl's "turf", Erri has been introduced many times to a being worth noting. Since Five (or Brian as she's noted) falls into the category of ghost and machine, the elf cannot read emotions from him and without sounds to cue his arrival the elf often jumps at Five's voice. Despite this, she considers him as someone reliable and the only level-headed friend of Raine.
-Mitsugami Tanaka: While their relationship couldn't be called a friendship (or hardly acquaintanceship), Erri has slowly learned Mitsu's place among Raine's friends and looks to seek common grounds.
-Melanie Megaton: A girl who originally met Erri with fanatical enthusiasm and interest, the elf took on this one with the same patience she would show with anyone. They seemed to bond with each other to some degree and just by chance meeting Erri became a sponsor for this girl's journey as a hero despite walking a line of her own.
Appearance
Neither tall or short, thick or thin, Erri doesn't summarize any form of idealized beauty unless one's idea of perfection is a lack of notoriety. She idles somewhere around five and a half feet with narrow shoulders and modest hips. The elf's frame is considered small and even frail by most(especially those who break steel walls with their foreheads). Another standard of beauty undermined by the greater proximity to perfection is Erri's shape; even many human teens have come along with greater feminine curves than her. However, one grace that may go to her merit is her near-pristine, smooth skin that takes so little care to keep both soft and hairless. Of course, close examination might find her with a long-residing scar or two.
As any elf, she carries a pair of ears that are unlike humans with pointed tips. Even some other kinds of elves might find Erri's ears startling long but they also show a moderate deal of articulation with how they rise or shift at sounds that Erri finds curious or even droop when she becomes sad or melancholy. Many people can now see her lips which are a rosy pink to contrast the paleness of her skin but most still have yet to see her eyes revealed: a pair of dark brown irises with an almond shape that one might find similar to Asian humans.
Erri's hair was once a source of pride for its length and startling lack of knots, but at seemingly nothing more than a whim the girl named Raine had it cut down to a mere few inches. With the change of her hair, her style of clothing has also made a slow shift from all-covering to loose, comfortable, and the occassional dress or skirt to try and deceive others at first glance on just how old she might actually be.
Personality
Erri would be described as many things. Among them are catty, witty, and overall lighthearted, but just beneath the surface there is an intelligence that only came in hand with a natural arrogance for a creature who has lived very long. She is easy to converse with all types but relatively slow to build a substantial relationship with them.
Alongside this disarming quality is a complimentary one; she is slow to anger and never builds a grudge. Those who approach her can do little more than switch her gears into avoidance and she will even sooner just take the brunt of abuse than actually complain. However, this non-combative behavior doesn't make her what would be considered submissive as she is fairly direct in approaching her own interests or even intervening between vice and virtue that may be causing harm to those around her.
Powers
When M.A.G.I. was given Erri to evaluate, they found two specific roads of powers within her; one was that of a psychic of sorts but it seemed that Erri was a sort of sorceress in her own standings which let her fit in well with those of the department. Her most used and least subtle powers would be simple magic spell-casting. Erri is most proficient in illusions but has some minor destructive abilities and lastly healing which just seems about on par with taking a trip to the doctor.
What would be her less subtle powers would be her ability to sense the emotions of all living creatures. From the least intelligent animals to those beyond her own comprehension--if they have emotions, she can tell what they are. The range of this sense seems to be relative to her own focus and also gives her a supernatural sense of what space other beings are taking up or if they have harmful intentions with her. At will, she is also capable of manipulating the feelings of others. The range of emotions is dependent on the creature's capacity to feel, but the degree to which she can control them is based on their own psychic barriers as well as their sheer willpower to resist when they are aware of her control. For the most part she has mastered the use of this and with her own charisma has avoided many from noticing it.
Character History
Erri has a history spanning nearly three hundred years, but in the most briefest glimpse people had heard of an elf named Erri Seregon. Once a hero and currently a vigilante of the Etoile islands, she came to the Rogue Isles after two years of fruitlessly searching for a cure to her curse in the United States (particularly Paragon City). While her journey did not find a natural member of the villains to deal with, meeting Raine Heartfall was both the end of her venture to re-attain her vision and to end her nearing sixty years of a solitary life. With her vision returned, the elf still remains cursed in lesser ways by her sister but has regained much of herself with her sight returned.
Image of Burden
Searching in Paragon City has come up with a dry well of options for Erri finally removing her curse. It is upon this basis and a few interesting books from the MAGI libraries that she decided her next option is to find her salvation in the Rogue Isles of all places. Unfortunately, entering the Etoile islands alone and attempting to bargain for information and possible de-cursing can quickly tarnish one's reputation. It is because of this that Erri knew she had to find a way to be there without being known there.
With the help of a villain named Glimmershade, a plan was quickly enacted to disguise herself completely and enter the world of villains. Using the vigilante name "Image of Burden" to avoid association in her work and also using sister's name as her own, "Tari`" began mingling with all sorts while blindly searching for her answer. Unfortunately, she has been constantly sidetracked by her sense of justice to at least balance out the overwhelming injustices she encountered while also helping her acquaintances with their problems.
Since an incident with Lightsparrow, Erri has sworn off her days wearing her beloved hero costume or disguising herself as the Image of Burden to search the isles and do justice without being noticed. The costume now only serves as parts for her debonair and heroic persona she takes when Reiko appears.
Trivia
-Erri has a special taste for fruit drinks. She also enjoys alcohol nightly but is such a light drinker she would end up having four glasses of punch to get one actual glass of rum or other drink.
-Her favorite foods often come in the form of vegetables, but her preferred meat is fish. This makes her an amorous eater of east Asian cuisine.
-The elf very rarely shows her face to others. It is not to keep herself indistinguishable as her long ears and hair seem to often give her away but because of her own reservations about giving off body language when she can't see it from others.
-She has a strong draw to music from the 70s and 80s, especially some of the innovative groups.
-Her supply of magical energy is self generated. Unfortunately, she has a very small amount and sometimes has had to come to making a decision of healing herself for a day or teleporting back from the Branded safehouse to Paragon City.
-Although Erri washes and changes clothes on a daily basis, most people never know what she is actually wearing. This is because of her use of glamors so she can change from costume to costume with ease.
-Somewhere in Paragon, a young hero runs about with one of her original cloaks.
-Originally her ears were actually going to be the smaller elf ears, but since they were less pronounced when she had longer hair it seemed like the right choice to give her a long, exaggerated pair.
News Clippings
After two years of having her license with very little incident, the first big news story of Erri was her apprehending Arbiter Irot on a Skyway assault by Arachnos. This siege ended fairly quickly and without incident when it was said that Erri directly engaged the arbiter and later dragged him to the PPD with the man sobbing. The media's attempt to question her was evaded but it was reported she spent some time in a hospital after the incident.
Just a few days after leaving the hospital, Erri was sighted again assisting in the apprehension of over a dozen Hellions who had transformed themselves into demons with a powerful artifact. She was said to be wearing a pants suit with a jacket and fedora; all white and with an orange armband at her right sleeve. Some of the heroes claimed that she was the first to arrive there and had lulled the demonized Hellions into a trance-dance to the rhythm of "Smooth Criminal" by Michael Jackson, but others insist the hero Lightsparrow had crashed into the middle of the party to take out the Hellion leader, Pyrefall, and thus had saved the day.
Hardly a week into her time on the Rogue Isles, Erri plotted and successfully pulled a heist on the Family in Sharkhead to weaken their grip on the Scrapyarders with whom she sympathized. Afterward, a bounty of two million (alive) was placed on the Image of Burden's head.
Just before the beginning of August 2009, breaking news finally came that put Erri at the public forefront at her activity for once. After Lightsparrow assaulted, detained and imprisoned her in the Kings Row PPD, she was released as there were no charges to make against what was an upstanding (if not unnoticed) hero. This quickly led to some searching of her history to find she actually had been present for multiple, cataclysmic moments in Paragon's recent years but most often avoided any media coverage of herself. Since this article, a small occult following has grown in the absent heroine's name while others call for Lightsparrow to take a psychiatric evaluation or have her license revoked for using it on what seemed like a personal vendetta.