Consequence

"You can't fight fate, but you can outrun the bitch."
Consequence
Player: Cauda
Origin:	Magic
Archetype:	Scrapper
Security Level:	High (40-50)
Personal Data
Real Name:	Alex Ellini
Known Aliases:	Catalyst (villain identity)
Species:	Human
Age:	25
Height:	1.73m
Weight:	65kgs
Eye Color:	Hazel
Hair Color:	Brown
Biographical Data
Citizenship:	United States
Occupation:	Hero!
Place of Birth:	St. Martial, Etoile Isles
Current Residence:	Supergroup HQ
Marital Status:	Single
Known Relatives:	Miriam Ellini (mother), David Ellini (father), Justin Ellini (brother)
Known Powers
Channeling and conjuration of negative energies, enhanced lifespan
Known Abilities
World class practitioner of kenjutsu
Equipment
Various edged weapons, PPD Scanner, Sands of Mu, ritual components, Assist! electronic assistant.
Footnotes
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"Fate is for those too weak to determine their own destiny."

Alex "Consequence" Ellini is an aloof, young woman who carries herself with a air of intellectual superiority that generates hostility and defensive behaviour in others, who tend to describe the hero as arrogant. This perception, however, makes her something of a poster child for alternative subcultures who consider the dark and mysterious avenger's demeanor something to emulate and aspire for. As a result, Consequence is a popular figure among the younger crowd and increases the support for The Watchtower as a whole.

Finding everything but her own designs somewhat trivial, Ellini most often wears an impassive expression that comes off as being bored. She is poor organiser, unwilling to devote time or energy to routine and as such, is not generally considered leadership material. This does not stop her from expressing criticism over decisions made by other members of the team, including authority figures Ridger and Loewenzahn. Her longest standing complaint, to date, is of the decision to base The Watchtower out of a King's Row basement.

Consequence is good at processing large amounts of information rapidly, and is considered an excellent 'outside-the-box' analyst. She is aware of her skill in find patterns and opening new pathways of inquiry, which makes it all the more frustrating for her that she has been unable to break herself free of her contract with the Blade Prince Tirses. She will not even entertain the thought that millennia of existence has made the demon more cagey and cunning than she might be. Everything and everyone is utterly expendable in her quest to escape the shackles of her damnation.

Oddly enough, Consequence has retained her sense of wonder for Paragon City and can be often seen admiring it in the way Dorothy once admired the Emerald City.

"Admit that tomorrow is never coming."

Born in St. Martial, but far from all the bright lights of the Golden Giza casino, Alex Ellini was raised with all the advantages one could expect for the child of two parents on Lord Recluse's Path of Villainy. Throughout her youth, Ellini was left mostly to her own devices and fell in with one of the local delinquent gangs, taking part in many of the petty power plays that brought her into conflict with the Rogue Isles Police (R.I.P) and other neighborhood sets. Though she was successful in comparison to many of her peers due to a strong sense of perseverance and high degree of cunning, Ellini did not earn any great degree of notoriety among the criminal fraternity, or governmental groups such as Arachnos or Longbow.

As time went by, Ellini's ambitions grew until she was taking part in raiding highly profitable targets such as banks, armoured trucks and other repositories for valuable goods. A lack of support infrastructure and the high cost of doing business in the competitive Etoile underworld meant that despite a few good hauls, Ellini was left barely treading water financially. The frustration drove the woman to attack larger and larger targets until one critical point when she and a small band of would-be thieves attempt to steal from the Bright Future, a cargo ship that traversed the dangerous Independence Port - St. Martial route at open sea.

The Bright Future's crew, accustomed to attacks both in and out of port, were better prepared than Ellini's crew suspected and overwhelmed the raiding party. A pitched firefight in the ship's cargo hold saw most of the crew killed, or in Ellini's case, captured to be turned over to the authorities in Paragon City. Ellini abandoned her colleagues at first possible chance and made her escape by stowing away elsewhere on the ship and sneaking off when the Bright Future docked in Independance Port.

Ellini, though unable to understand why, was filled with a sense of wonder by Paragon City. Though pressure from the authorities forced her to return to the Rogue Isles within days of arrival, the mere sight of Paragon was enough to deeply affect the villain, forever.

Upon returning to Etoile, Ellini realised she no longer identified with the her home of St. Martial. She felt that her life, spent scraping for the next score was nothing more than complacency, a casual surrender the way things were in the place she inhabited since birth. The epiphany, as much as it sickened her, filled the young woman with a rage that she directed internally. Now that Alex Ellini had seen what it was like outside of her cesspool, she could no longer accept the scraps she was given. Being the Rogue Isles, there was no easy way to prosper legally, so she threw herself back into her old work of looting. No longer identifying those around her as neighbours, rivals or even human beings, she took what was needed with unrestrained savagery. In time, she and her rusty, bloodstained machete became notorious among the swamp-dwelling, down and out scum of St. Martial.

The fear and the riches almost placated Ellini, but they were never enough. While she was something in her locale, she cast her vision outward. All the real money, all the real power was in Babylon and beyond that, Grandville but all that seemed out of reach for a blade-swinging thug growing furious with her poor lot in life.

That was when she was approached, by her would-be benefactor.

Whether it was her ambition, or the mounting hatred it caused in Ellini, she became a beacon to the old gods of the Netherworld. Unable to contact her directly because of the protective wards that surround St. Martial, the demon blade prince, Tirses employed an agent to locate the criminal and make her the offer her gifts: the very peak of human conditioning and the chance to gain true power in the Rogue Isles, upon seizing this opportunity, to be granted a thousand years of youthful life. The contract seemed too good to be true, and in her hubris, Alex Ellini signed her deal with devil.

Ellini's benefactors changed the course of her future and shortly after, Lord Recluse's Fortunata Seers marked her as a potential Destined One, to be drafted into Operation: Destiny immediately. Under the watchful eye of Arachnos, Ellini began her life again as the villain Catalyst. She rampaged across the Rogue Isles, using her new power to crush enemies and take whatever it was she needed. Before long her Threat Level rose high enough to attract the attention of Arachnos' upper echelon and Catalyst was taken under the wing of the specter, Ghost Widow.

Ghost Widow instructed Catalyst in the ways of magic, until she could use the woman to help restore her to life through, trapping the soul of Ghost Widow's old enemy, Red Widow, and then gathering the components for an ancient ritual that would lead to her resurrection. Arbiter Daos, the first among Lord Recluse's servants, caught onto the plot and as punishment for enslaving Red Widow, had Ghost Widow's attempt at life thwarted through her very own student. ^[1] This betrayal enraged the Ghost Widow, who arranged to have Catalyst strike deep into Paragon City and then leaked the information to the hero, Infernal ^[2]. The two clashed in Founder's Falls, in a battle that completely demolished the city's centre square but eventually, with the help of The Legacy Chain, Infernal emerged victorious and Catalyst was imprisoned deep in The Zig. Ghost Widow, disavowed all knowledge of Catalyst's actions to Arachnos and the US, removing her Operation: Destiny.

The failure of her attempt to obtain power through Operation: Destiny marked the fulfillment of Catalyst's contract with the Blade Prince Tirses. The demon continued to honour their contract however and granted Catalyst her thousand years of life but, to her horror, it was time to be spent in the Netherworld.

Of course, Alex "Catalyst" Ellini had no intention of living up to that end of the bargain.

The demon had no shortage of pawns imprisoned inside The Zig and regular attempts were made on Catalyst's life. Even with her powerful physical conditioning, Catalyst was aware of her impending death, and the horror that awaited her in the afterlife. Needing to add another weapon to her arsenal, she bought instruction from a fellow prisoner on how to user her connection to the Netherworld to steal small amounts of negative energy, theoretically without alerting its infernal overlords.

When the chance to escape presented itself, via a messenger dispatched by the enigmatic criminal mastermind, Ridger, Catalyst set plans into motion. She arranged for her demonic master, Infernal and the Circle of Thorns to all converge on the point of her escape ensure their mutual destruction. While all three parties survived to one extent or another, Catalyst did manage to get free and disappear back into the city that had long played on her heartstrings: Paragon.

Ridger provided the means for Catalyst to mask her arcane signature, blinding the demon to her presence in exchange for her taking part in his new project, The Watchtower, a group of villains masquerading as heroes as part of a complex scam. He provided her with a new identity, the superhero Consequence which allows her to remain in Paragon City as long as The Watchtower continues to exist.

Though the Netherworld gods are unable to sense her directly, they use their lackeys on Earth to comb the planet looking for their lost prize and every time she is discovered, Tirses is able to sap draw away another minute piece of her life into the Netherworld. Unless she can either avoid ever being found again, or escape her contract permanently, Consequence is literally fading away from Earth. She obsesses, day and night on how to achieve either.

After Ridger brought The Watchtower together, Consequence's first task was to subtly blind the city's seers to the true nature of the team and the motives of its mysterious leader. She achieved this, where possible through the arcane arts, rendering her comrades invisible to the scrutiny of the city's divination network immediately prior to acts that would disrupt the tapestry of fate, and by carrying out the occasional murder when Paragon's attention was focused away on rescuing an incarnation of the new year. She carried out her mission with complete success, but her efforts to conceal The Watchtower were not sufficient to keep Rogue Isles monster, Werian from tracking down their leader, Loewenzahn in the name of an old family grudge.

Consequence was caught in the middle of the battle between the two men, and defended Loewenzahn from the onslaught as best she could. Even with their efforts combined, the two Watchtower 'heroes' were unable match Werian for raw power. Loewenzahn was killed, his neck broken bare-handed by the titan. Consequence's hands were crippled, leaving her unable to wield her sword and defend herself, but alive.

"We have made the future obsolete."

Connie's relationship with others

Livelight: The two faux-heroes have schemes that barely intersect, and never seem clash. They are casually accepting of eachother's presence in a "well, we're in this together" kind of a way.

Loewenzahn: Loewenzahn and Consequence are the only two members of The Watchtower who seem to know the details of eachother's pre-hero existance. The two are often heard sniping at eachother, when they can get away with it, but otherwise seem to support eachothers endeavours. Consequence's support for Loewzenzahn as field leader for The Watchtower seems to be very much "better the Devil you know..."

Polymorph: The altruisitic visitor to Earth is simply beyond Consequence's ability to understand. Polymorph's ignorance of The Watchtower's real agenda already has Consequence walking on egg-shells around her, but throw in that Polymorph is actually nice to Consequence and the dark avenger feels as if the world is no longer making sense. Though Polymorph is in no danger of making Consequence repent her evil ways, the alien does make her reconsider what she already "knows".

Psi Havoc: Psi Havoc and Consequence simply do not get along. Due to his split psyche, Psi-Havoc represents a wildcard factor within The Watchtower that Consequence simply cannot control, which unsettles the hero. Havoc, the violent personae enjoys baiting Consequence, who retaliates by bullying the gentler personae, Harvey, which she rationalises as kicking Havoc while he is down and helpless.

"A knife in the dark is worth a thousand swords at dawn."

Being something of an intellectual dilettante, Consequence's powers come from two opposed sources, her life as a petty criminal in St. Martial and the minor magic she has learned since signing her soul over to the devils of the Netherworld.

Any lightweight, edged weapon, from a rusty machete to an impervium blade, becomes infinitely more deadly in Consequence's hands. The finesse required for such weapons compliments the hero's greatly enhanced agility and penchant for improvised strategies. Unlike many sword wielders, Consequence places no particular sentimental value on any one weapon or type of weapon and many suspect that if the team hadn't insisted on her using a more civilised weapon that Consequence would be marching around Paragon City, hacking off limbs with a butcher's knife.

By virtue of her sympathetic connection with the Netherworld, Consequence is able to summon negative energy to significantly weaken incoming attacks, cripple her enemies and meld into invisibility. As she is gradually absorbed into the other realm, her connection grows stronger and she is able to summon greater amounts of energy to perform increasingly difficult tasks.

Quotes from others about Consequence.

"Mother BEETCH!" -Ukranian Ultima, after one too many Communist jibes.

"So let's propose a little project, shall we? Let's see if you can find, somewhere within you, in the coming months, to fail to be boring ." -Werian

• The three phrases to keep in mind when playing Consequence are "I will", "I will not" and "Cannot stop".
• The animal Consequence has most in common with is the Coyote, a mixture of it's fierce and trickster aspects.
• Has been known to "borrow" Eventide's catchphrase, "second to none".
• Was originally a Dual Blades/ Fire Armour Brute, that had escaped Hell itself. Made it to like, level 15 or something.
• Then became a Katana/ Dark Armour Scrapper than made it to 30.
• My first Hero to take Super Jump.
• Has difficulty reading word-for-word, but excels at getting the gist of a written work with but a short glance.

1. ↑ Ahem, sound familiar?
2. ↑ Whether or not Ghost Widow selected Infernal because she was aware of Ellini's ties to the Netherworld remains unknown.