Miss Abyss
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Miss Abyss | |
| Player: @Miss Abyss | |
| Origin: | Mutant |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 43 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Mary-Elizabeth Dandridge |
| Known Aliases: | Abyssy |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 22 |
| Height: | 5'1" |
| Weight: | 105 lbs. (soaking wet) |
| Eye Color: | Dark blue |
| Hair Color: | Dark purple |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Registered hero |
| Place of Birth: | NYC |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Father, mother, two younger siblings (status unknown) |
| Known Powers | |
| Superhuman reflexes, limited ESP, dimensional travel (teleportation), ability to channel 'negative' energy | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Skilled pickpocket, headbanging, pugilist skills | |
| Equipment | |
| Leather trench, can of whoop ass, bad attitude | |
| No additional information available. | |
Miss Abyss is, well, Miss Abyss' first character in beta and live. She was imported from a Mutants & Masterminds game that was set in the Marvel universe, which made for some interesting conversions of history, trying to get it to fit CoH. The character's name in that pen-n-paper RPG was SO original: Shadow. (ROFL lolz, wth was I thinking? *snerk*) Obviously, when it came time to convert, the name Shadow was taken. WAY taken. The player wrote an amusing story about this, called What's in a name? (which is how I imagined Abyss coming up with the name--wasn't her, it was Doc). The name stuck, and ever since beta, it's been Miss Abyss instead of the lamer version.
Contents |
Origin
The punk who became Miss Abyss started out... as a socialite. Sort of. Socialite in training. She was adopted as an infant, and raised in the high society of New York. She was blonde haired and blue eyed, and just a prim and proper little girl, well on her way to becoming the next Paris Hilton rip-off.
Then, one day during a dinner party her parents were throwing, her mutant powers manifested... summoning a batch of demons from an alternate world. The dinner party, needless to say, was a failure, and when her parents found out their precious perfect little girl summoned these nasty icky demons (though it was by accident!) they freaked out. There was talk of sending her away to 'one of those places for muties'. While they tried to figure out what to do with her, they locked her in her room. They didn't know she could teleport. When they looked again, she was gone.
But where for a teen mutie to go? Not only had her powers manifested, but her hair turned dark purple and this... *stuff* kept coming out of her hands. It was all a little freaky... so she ended up sleeping the first few nights in an alley in the Bronx, until she started experimenting. Not only could she teleport, but she could see perfectly fine in the dark. She needed money, so... she became a thief.
Eventually, her activities snagged the attention of a *coughcoughX-menrip-offcoughcough* older team of superheroes who, now retired, taught younger mutants their powers. She was enrolled in their 'school' at the age of sixteen, after living on the streets for three years. Although she did well, she never did get back into learning from the books; her life lessons on the streets served her too well. They *did* manage to shove some morals down her throat, however, and she left to wander, a couple years later.
The Rikti invasion brought her to Paragon City. She *just missed* the invasion itself, but stayed on afterwards to, in her own words, 'beat some heads'. The appeal of being able to fight--in NYC, mutie or not, you had to act and be tough to survive for long--and not be arrested for it... instead actually being THANKED for it... was overpowering. At this point, she hooked up again with Doc Trauma, who was there to help as well, and, well, pretty much just hounded him as he was the only person she knew there.
A bare month later, and both Trauma and Abyss were contacted by the Phantom Solider for recruitment into his "hero" organization. Mostly, the best she could figure out, they were there to watch the real wild cards of this group, to make sure they didn't get out of hand. Or just to beat people up. To this day, she's not really sure.
Powers
Abyss' powers stem from her mutation. There are three aspects of this mutation, one mental, one physical, and one extra-dimensional... but all come back to a single source: the "Dark" Dimension. She has the ability to tap in both consciously and unconsciously to a dimension that is in perpetual darkness, and inhabited solely (as far as she knows) by demons...or maybe it's one demon. Or maybe the dark is a demon. No one's bothered to study it, and she doesn't care.
This 'darkness' touches every place that's dark, and because of her unique connection to it... if it's dark somewhere, she can see it. She calls it her "Esp" (actually pronounced as it looks, instead of the acronym E-S-P), which is a limited clairvoyance. Her last known limits of that was the edge of Pluto... but according to her, it's just a boring iceball, and she hasn't bothered to look any further. This is instrumental for when she teleports as she can 'see' where she's going. For short ports, she can go within line of sight without having to use the darkness, but for extra long jumps, she actually opens a portal to the Dark Dimension and travels through it, opening another portal back on Earth someplace where it's dark.
A relatively unused aspect of her power is that she can teleport objects and people to her if they are within close range and faintly obscured by darkness. Mostly, she's just lazy anymore and has decided that everyone else can walk, although she'll hone this skill by flicking quarters at people's heads and teleporting them back before it hits.
She can actively channel the stuff of this dimension through her hands, and lately through her eyes, to give an extra Oomph to her punches. She is not superhumanly strong at all, but the darkness surrounding her fists corrupts and corrodes, causing weakness in those it touches. As of late, she's been 'looking at people funny' and making them either cower in fear or just standing stock still. Of course, it might be the fact that a 5'1" teeny tiny woman is bawling them out and cursing like a sailor.
She also has preternaturally fast reflexes. She can, and has, dodged a bullet before... but is not even *close* to being the fastest being in Paragon City. Mostly, this is instinctual, honed through years of fighting. Her unconscious channeling of this 'dark dimension' stuff has given her a very rough resistance to most negative or dark powers, but that has never been tested fully, nor has she ever tried to channel her power in that way. Other than that specific resistance, she is as human as everyone else.
Some people say she's too stubborn to be mind controlled. It's actually because most mind controllers don't bother.
Personality
Miss Abyss is an abrasive little beyatch. She will go out of her way to insult people and pick fights with them. However, when they do fight her--win or lose--she'll back down and treat them with a grudging respect, because not many people put their money where their mouth is. She swears like a sailor, and quite often, her player apologizes in advance for offending anyone.
Although not 'book smart', she does have a small education. She's not entirely stupid, but... well, she's dumb as a box of rocks, but can read and write and do simple math. Anything more complicated than fractions will leave her swearing and wondering 'why bother?'. She does have a rough street smarts that got her to live through puberty, but that's it.
Underneath the gruff exterior is a desire to do the right thing. She enjoys fighting--lives for it, in fact--but there's a very teeny tiny niggling bit of morals that covers her code of fighting. This is boiled down into two things: 1) It's wrong to kill, but ok to beat the crap out of them, and 2) Always root for the underdog. The second part is actually what got her into heroing in the first place, rather than remaining a thief. After all, who else is an underdog in a city of heroes? The common man. The common thug just needs to be thwapped.
In Her Own Words
She does have a few friends. Not many. Who could stand being around her that long? Here's her opinions of them, in her own words.
- Doc Trauma: He's ok. Kinda a wuss, but like, if he wasn't around to patch me up, I'd be a grease smear. *long pause* Plus, I can raid his fridge, so we're cool. And, uh... I mean... I don't *like* him, but I LIKE him... but I'm still not dating him to prove I'm not a lesbian. What? Aw, shut the f'k up man, I'm not gay!
- Phantom Soldier: Phanty. God's hitman. What more needs to be said? I don't mess with him, he don't mess with me. Besides, uh, you can't really *beat up* a ghost. He's dead already.
- Chill Yeti: Aw, Blake's ok. He's like, got this thing where he gets all emo if he doesn't get laid, but mostly he's up for busting heads, which is f'ing awesome. Doesn't like punk though, so he can f'k off when he's being a bitch.
- Absconder: I beat his head in once. He's a nub.
- Trevor Pillman: That was a TACTICAL RETREAT you sodding pisher! At least I don't hide behind my god damn robots, pansy!
- Graffiti Samurai: Dude can TEAR IT UP! Man, when I grow up, I want to be fast like him. Still has to use a sword though, which is gay.
- Paladin: Dayne's alright. He's like, a stand-up kinda guy. Really really bright though. I mean, punch-my-eyes-out-with-that-holy-glow kind of bright.
- Ireland Love: Next.
- Kyle Helsing: *laughs hysterically* I used to watch him hit on chicks in the Park... loser!
- Black Spiral Dancer: Wolfman Jack's ok. He's ... all with the killing thing, and so I think I need to bounce his skull off the pavement a few times and tell him to stop being a bad doggy. Or, you know, jail. Wait, no, the pound.
Trivia
- Miss Abyss, as explained in the first paragraph, is from a pen and paper RPG called Mutants and Masterminds.
- She watches Passions every day. Matter of fact, when Aeterna Firebrand and FUTURE launched their broadcasting signal interrupting all local broadcasts on the hour to give the city of Paragon their demand list, Abyss was incensed and hunted down Aeterna... because he interrrupted Passions. They fought each other to a standstill, with him declaring she was just too fast to hit, and her saying he was too tough to go down, He finally agreed any further terrorist demands would be made *after* Passions was over.
- She is a Super Reflexes scrapper without Stamina.
- She has never soloed a mission that gives experience.
- She brags (the few times I roleplay with her) about best one of the best thieves of all time. She has a picture of herself in Fort Knox standing in front of an anarchy symbol she spraypainted on a stack of gold bars. It was after that, in my little corner of the universe, that they installed anti-dimensional shifting in Fort Knox to prevent thefts. She didn't steal anything though... she just proved she *could* if she wanted.
- She's a wanna be punk. Missed the punk era by a couple decades, but she likes the attitude. In a pinch, metal will do too... anything hard and abrasive with a f'k you attitude.
- Because of her unique mutation, there are absolute no versions of her in any dimension. None. The idea is that the "Dark Dimension" touches all dimensions at once, and because she simultaneously exists within the Dark Dimension, she is theoretically in every dimension at the same time. Plus, the player doesn't want to deal with any Praetorian Abyssys. Abysses? Abyssi? Eh, whatever. So, no Praetorians, however...
- ...she does have an evil clone. Or rather, the Mutants & Masterminds version had been cloned. And the clone turned out to be a valley girl. It made for an interesting game. That clone was lost in the Dark Dimension along with other clones of the team at the time. Although, Monolith had killed a couple citing that they were "just fleshy robots" (in the pen and paper game, mind). This translated roughly into City of Villains, as when that came out, there were no Dark Melee stalkers. So, I tried her as a zombies/dark mastermind... and not only could I NOT get my name (Shadowbound) but the MM proved to be dull as hell. However, she may be rerolled as a Dark Melee/Willpower Brute...then my SECOND choice for a name (Shadowborne) was taken when I deleted the MM! *bangs head against desk* If they ever make a dark/dark dominator, I am in like Flynn!
- Abyss does not kill. She has no problems, however, with sending people to the dark dimension and leaving them there for a couple days before picking them up and hauling them to jail.
- Abyss does have a requited crush on Doc Trauma. However, this crush comes off like a fourth-grade boy. Ie, she picks on him, insults him, and steals his stuff (notably food from his fridge and once a television to drop on a Skulls head). If he had pigtails, you better believe she'd be pulling them. He likes her back, but she's so socially inept that likely nothing will ever happen.
