Beth Winters
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| A former vampire hunter has become the thing she hunted. | |
| Beth Winters | |
| Player: http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/User:MostGhosts | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 41 and rising |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Elizabeth Annabelle Winters |
| Known Aliases: | Beth |
| Species: | Vampire |
| Age: | 24 |
| Height: | 5'4" |
| Weight: | 120 lbs |
| Eye Color: | Blue/ Red in Combat |
| Hair Color: | Pale Blonde |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | English |
| Occupation: | Ex-Vampire Hunter |
| Place of Birth: | London, UK |
| Base of Operations: | Kennsington borough, London, UK |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | None, all deceased. |
| Known Powers | |
| Telekinesis, recently learned some low level magic. | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Expert Archer and Hand to Hand combatant. | |
| Equipment | |
| Bow and Arrow | |
| Beth has been hunting Vampires since her family was killed and turned when she was 9. She recenly turned herself and it has turned her world upside down. | |
Contents |
History
Early Years
Beth was born and raised in Kennsington, one of London's wealthiest boroughs. She had two older brothers, a younger sister and of course her parents Mr. Archibald Winters III, a wealthy banker, and her mother the Lady Katherine Winters. On the night they were attacked and killed Beth was at a sleepover at a classmates home. 5 Vampires broke into her family manor to take revenge on her father's bank denying one of them a loan the evening before. The attacked with the intent to turn the entire family. The half thought out plot was that they would then be able to get the loan via blackmail of her father. The problem was that before they turned there was a scuffle and the vampires in a rage killed the family. The parents of Beth's friend were contacted the next morning by the police.
Beth attended the funeral for her family and was placed into foster care because she had no known relatives. Her inheritance was placed in a trust that provided for her food, clothes and education until she was 18. Upon 18 she would get the balance for whatever she wished. Three nights later though her family arrived to collect their missing daughter. They had all turned and were intent on making the young Beth a proper member of the family as they saw it. The foster family she was staying with were Vampire hunters and they protected Beth by dispatching her feral vampire family.
Teen Years
Beth never really recovered from that night, and would always bear the emotional scars from that. These manifested in an intense hatred of Vampires and she went on her first hunt a few years later after being formally adopted by her foster family. Beth soon became one of the best vampire hunters that London had ever seen. She killed the undead without remorse or second thought. She became so good that her adopted family would break into hunting squads with Beth being a squad unto herself. She was feared throughout the British Isles and parts of Northern France by all undead.
Coming to America
It was in Paris a few months after her 24th birthday that Beth's life would take a turn for the worse. She was tracking a new threat, a Vampire unlike any she'd ever seen before whose name was only Ricard. He had long black hair, spoke in a deep French accented voice and was turning hosts of Paris' rich and elite. Beth was asked for by name from every Paris hunting group. The thought was that if anyone could kill Ricard it was her.
Beth tracked Ricard for months dispatching those he turned and gathering clues. Beth eventually cornered Ricard on top of a non-descript building on Paris' west end. It was fittingly raining buckets and in the dark the two battled. Beth was soon out of arrows, Ricard proved too fast for her shots, but she was not out of tricks and when Ricard made a desperate lunge for her she stabbed him hilt deep with her favorite dagger. Sadly, she missed his heart, and she knew that it would not end well. Ricard, wounded but not out of the fight, pulled the knife blade out of his chest and with its blade drenched in his blood, he stabbed Beth in the arm with it.
Beth staggered back and fell to her feet, her face one of pain and horror. Sure that the vampire would be on her in a second to finish her off she looked around only to see him grinning like a cheshire cat, fangs glinting in the dark sky, from the edge of the roof. He pointed to the knife in her arm, gave a mock salute and then dove off the roof and out of sight. Beth in pain passed out for a moment and when she came to she was thinking clearer. She pulled the knife out of her arm and realized with horror that she may have been infected. Not wanting to risk it she grabbed a different knife out her jacket and with a calm determination severed off her own arm.
She was fit with a cybernetic prostetic by the Paris Hunter's League, who were never told how she lost her arm. She never gave them time to ask. She set off to find Ricard and all the clues told her she would find him in America. Paragon City, RI to be exact. She boarded a plane and headed over.
Final Showdown with Ricard
Beth tracked down Ricard three weeks to the day she took her own arm to save herself. Her cybernetic limb, rusted from never having been sealed properly and from frequent excursions in dank places, seemed to have been her saving grace. It provided her with increased strength and firing speed with her bow. When she caught up with Ricard he seemed amused to see her and kept inquiring about how she was feeling lately throughout the course of their battle. Beth triumphed in the end shooting him in the heart with a silver tipped arrow and then removing his head and burning it.
Beth Turns
Beth thought that her emergency surgery and subsequent killing of Ricard saved her from turning. She was in denial and so didn't think anything of the fact that she hadn't eaten real food for weeks since cutting off her arm. She met a vampire in Paragon City's Pocket D, Claire, who sensed a kindred spirit in Beth. Beth however, being still in denial, rationalized the strange vampiric tendencies that she was exhibiting and that Claire pointed out. She seemed to reach a break through when Claire exposed a hidden gobblet of human blood behind the counter of the bar and Beth had an unexpected reaction. Over the next few days however Beth had managed to convince herself that it was all a fluke and that she was still free of any possible vampirism.
A few nights later Beth had realized quite suddenly that not only could she not remember the last time she'd eaten she also couldn't recall what the last meal she had even was. She started to get the shakes and decided to go to Pocket D again, where the booze was free, and get herself drunk. She reached behind the bar and tried several increasingly potent alcoholic beverages and felt no effects. Beth's irratic behavior was noticied by Lucian Nestore, a half vampire, he attempted using logic and a smell test of her blood, that she was not only going to be a vampire but was in fact there already. It wasn't until Lucian convinced a nearby human to cut himself did Beth truly understand. She reacted instantly with fangs extending and irises turning red ((she can't see this particular physical effect)). Beth was in a near trance like state and if not for Lucian's interference would likely have attacked the man.
It was at this time that the conversation drew another of their kind, Shade, out of the shadows. The two finally broke through any doubts Beth had and advised her on both what was happening to her body and the best ways to satisfy her hunger without feeding on unwilling humans. Beth, for her part resolved only to use donated blood packs that were unusable by the hospitals for whatever reason. Claire, who had joined the trio after spotting Beth and company, told of the virtues of animal blood. This was met with disdain by both Lucian and Shade and in the end Beth liked the blood packs enough that she didn't want to consider other options.
Over the following days Beth's skin became paler and she mastered the use of her fangs (after a few comedic misadventures along the way in which they behaved contrary to her wishes). Her ears became pointed and the pigment in her hair faded over time as well changing her from a vibrant blonde to a more subdued hay colored hair.
Near Starvation
Beth struggled with a degree of self loathing she hid from her new friends. This was compounded with the realization that her friend Claire had returned to consuming human blood. Beth blamed herself partly for what she saw as Claire's abandoning her principles. Beth had secretly been avoiding any blood, whether human or animal and whether it is in a blood pack or not, unless she was around her friends. She had grown paler as a consequence and her fangs were extended much of the time, which she didn't ever notice. In an effort to take her mind off the hunger she began exerting herself more as a crime fighter, her new calling in life, which she now understands was counter productive. This culminated in a breakdown in Pocket D in which she, Shade and Claire hashed out Beth's feelings and Beth decided she had to fully accept her vampirism. She revealed that the whole mess of self starvation stemmed from an incident in which she almost fed on a fallen teamate in combat and was only stopped by being knocked back and to her senses by a grenade exploding nearby.
New Arm
Beth's shoulder near her mechanical arm had begun to itch furiously and she had become insatiably hungry. The two turned out to be related when, at the behest of her friends, Beth removed her prostetic limb only to discover that a small nub of an arm had begun to grow back but was restricted by the metal limb. She left it off and over the span of a few days the arm slowly grew back. Beth's deep hunger subsided and for a time it seemed that she would truly learn to master her vampirism without ever having to come to grips with the darkness that often comes with it.
Over the following days she noticed a change in the attitudes of her friends. She often wondered if such a change was happening to her. The whole group seemed less in control and she felt that she was somehow the cause or the catalyst. Her reasoning behind this was that their lives seemed pretty together before they met her. She kept these thoughts mostly to herself and the few times she did share them her friends assured her this was not the case.
Slip into Darkness
Beth had become slowly disillusioned with life in Paragon City and after having noticed how her friends were becoming darker she decided to take a vacation to New York City. While there she quickly ran out of money and figured she could visit one of her old hunter guild banks and access her large inheritance. She figured she would break through the vampire detecting wards and simply knock out any hunters that might actually be in the building. This turned out to be the worst decision of her young life.
Beth arrived at the guild bank and spotted only a clerk and two aged hunters on duty. She shot an explosive tipped arrow strategically into the bank so that the concussive blast would knock out the three hunters but not kill them. Things went south when she actually crossed the threshold into the bank itself. The magical wards sent off alarms to every hunter in the area. Normally this wouldn't have been too bad (New York City has about 6 active hunters, not counting the three knocked out on the floor of the bank) but Beth did not know that there was a convention in town and several hunters from all across the East Coast were in attendance. Beth was busy loading a back pack with money when the first three hunters arrived.
One of them vaguely recognized Beth and at first thought she was also there to stop the vampire. That was until he noticed her ears and pale complexion. Beth caught the look of recognition and horror on his face and knew that she would have to kill at least one person that night. She leaped over the counter in the bank launching herself at the hunter and knocking him into his friends. She was about to land a killing blow to his head when one of the knocked out bank guards came to and hit her with a fire extinguisher. Beth staggered back dazed and then... things really went bad. The hunter she'd meant to kill made a radio announcement on his walkie talkie as he was getting to his feet. He called all hunters and named his target... Beth Winters, former vampire hunter. Beth knew this was bad but she was still trying to think of a way to get through this without killing too many people when the same hunter launched a silver tipped arrow from a mini crossbow into her arm. Beth's mind clouded in rage at the pain of the arrow. She pulled it out and snapped off the tip.
She looked in fury at her attacker and in a fluid motion completely removed his head from the rest of his body with a ferocity she did not know she possessed. The 5 other hunters in the room (all the unconscious ones had regained their footing) looked at her with a mixture of horror and disgust. Beth felt her vision going red and instead of fighting it and blacking out as she'd done in the past...she embraced it. She came at the hunters in a blur of punches and bites and in a matter of seconds she killed all 5 men.
Covered in blood and in a small room covered in more of the same she decided to leave with her money, which in her near feral state she'd nearly forgotten, and a few of their weapons. She'd gotten about a block when the next group of hunters showed up. One man hit her with a water balloon filled with holy water. Beth blinked and stared at the man who stood there looking triumphant. Beth grinned devilishly at him; she walked slowly over watching with a strange sense of delight as the man's look of triumph slowly faded to one of confusion and then fear. She leaned in close and told him what he could not accept with his own eyes. His little gadgets and tricks... didn't work, everything he knew about vampires was wrong. The man learned the lesson too late though; Beth had snapped his neck after providing him with her little revelation.
The other hunters began to open fire with arrows. While Beth knew these were not lethal they still hurt, and she wanted to get out of the middle of the street, so she ran with inhuman speed down to a warehouse off the main road. The hunters followed thinking they had their prey cornered and on the run. They were wrong. When they entered the ware house Beth killed all but one of the hunters. The last one left, a young hunter who was wounded and scared shook in fury as the blood coated form of Beth approached. She walked over to him and held out a walkie talkie coated in gore. He looked at her with confusion on his face. She grinned sweetly and told him to call for reinforcements. He started to refuse, but she promised to let him go if he did. The young man shook and then did as he was told.
Beth kept her word, allowing the man to walk away unharmed. Then she waited as more and more hunters arrived. None survived and when the police finally arrived hours later it was nearly impossible to tell how many had been killed. Beth's own count stopped at around 33.
A Kind of Remorse
Beth returned to Paragon City a changed person. She knew that on some level what she'd done was wrong. She felt sorry for the way she had killed the hunters, but not for their deaths. It was a strange feeling. She began to look at the others in Paragon differently separating people into groups based on whether she could feed off them with no guilt and whether she'd feel bad about it if she did. She decided that she'd not feed on innocents and instead focus on criminals. Beth had hoped to run into her friends Lucian, Shade and Claire. However the few times she ran into Claire and Lucian they seemed to be dealing with serious issues of their own and she did not feel that she needed to burden them with hers. She hadn't seen Shade since she returned.
Dark Beth
Beth's complete fall began when she found out Lucian was going to the Rogue Isles for reasons she understood, but was not happy about. After he was gone for a long time Beth grew concerned and decided to go look for him. She discussed ways to get into the Isles with her friend Alice who had been there before. Beth began to let loose a bit more to convince the powers that be that she should be allowed into the Rogue Isles. A few drained corpses later and she was in.
The Rogue Isles were like a drug to the rudderless vampire and she soon found herself engaged in killing and murder on a frenzied scale. She attacked hero and villain alike and was even called a blood goddess by a gypsy woman in the Carnival of Shadows camp in St. Martial... well before she killed her. Beth had gone bad, and she liked it. She would have been lost forever, revelling in blood and murder had fate not intervened.
The Light
Beth saw the light, quite literally actually, recently. She was out hunting in St. Martial one night and she came across a figure in an alley. As was the case with her at the time she attacked first with the intent not to bother with questions later. The only thing she recalls after that is a bright light, some strange music and mumbling, wings... or maybe feathers. She woke up the next morning in her hotel room in the Golden Giza with no recollection of how she got there. Her room had been purged of all of the trophies she'd collected and all that was left was a single blood pack in the fridge. Beth extended her fangs and bit into the blood pack, and pain shot up the left side of her face. The pain was so powerful that she screamed. Had this been anyplace other than the Golden Giza it likely would have drawn attention... but that is a bit normal there. Beth felt in her mouth shaking and her left fang was chipped so that the point was gone and it was nearly shorter by half. Her right fang was still untouched. Beth tried to remove the fang, knowing that a new one would grow back, but it would not budge. Beth finished the blood pack with the right fang and felt no pain. She then went to shower and as she retracted her fangs she felt two things. The first was a near perfect sense of joy as the fangs withdrew and the second was a wave of overwhelming guilt.
Guilty as Charged
Beth's shower lasted almost four hours. She spent most of it on the floor weeping as she relived the horrors she had caused her victims.. one by one. When this seemed to end she staggered out and got dressed. She found that she lost the desire to wear some of her most skimpy outfits and instead donned a tank top, some jeans, tennis shoes and a necklace... then she tied her hair in braids and put on her sun block and went outside. She must've walked about 20 miles before she even knew where she was going. She spent most of that time lost in thought. She wound up in a cemetary where a few of her recent victims were buried. She spent the rest of the day there apologizing to various graves. She wasn't even sure if they were her victims or not... she just wanted to make sure they all knew she was sorry.
Current Situation
Beth's walk on the side of light was somewhat short-lived. Halloween night she came across a Shaman that seemed to know a great deal about her. This man healed Beth's chipped fang removing the curse that caused her pain. Beth fought against her urges valiantly for a week, but in the heat of battle she fed on a Hellion... and that has started her downward spiral all over again. With the curse lifted she can now feed on anyone she so chooses... and Paragon City is like a buffet.
Info for interaction:
- Beth is dangerous to most humans now, as she is a very hungry vampire, having been deprived of fresh sources for so long.
- Beth's eyes are Blue again, unless she is fighting, then they turn red.
- She can drink large amounts of liquor and feel nothing.
- She is often quiet now, lost in her own thoughts.
Theme Song
"We Own the Night" By The Donnas
