History of Tempest Fist
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
This page is an extended history of the heroine Tempest Fist.
Contents |
Forged by Thunder
A Fairytale, A Facade
Laurette Ninon Merle was born April 22nd, 1986 in Avignon, France to Arnaud and Monique Merle. She was preceded by a brother, Leon, and preceded a sister, Marianne. As such, she was the second child and the first female of the Merle family. This may seem innocuous enough; however, that detail was an important, amongst many others, that would set into motion a number of events that would create a true heroine, born of triumph and pain.
Such an existence, however, seemed pretty far-fetched from the apparent circumstances of her birth. After all, Arnaud Merle, CEO and chair of the board of Merle Technologies, Inc, a company dealing in advanced technologies for various governments and security companies, was amongst the very wealthiest individuals in the world. Monique Merle, a stage actress who had been from the Bobino to Broadway, had largely stopped working all-together and was taking care of her children, and even then with some (perhaps unnecessary but helpful nonetheless) assistance. And it was far from the imagination that Avignon could be embroiled in serious conflict.
Materially, it was clear that Laurette wouldn't have to care for much. After all, the family owned a house just outside the city of Avignon that alone was extremely valued. A mansion largely in a classical Romanesque style, it had four extremely large stories, with more rooms that most people who lived there actually tended to remember regularly, and had itself a staff of sixteen. Further, it had a garden that spanned three miles, and was tended to by a staff of fourteen itself, all of whom lived in a corner of the garden in a comfortable smaller mansion itself. Arnaud had other houses spread throughout the globe, but it was this house in particular that
Without so much as a whiff of material issues, and with a caring parent (though Arnaud at the time was out away more often than not out away on business), there seemed no reason for conflict at all. However, if one paid attention, it seemed that something might be wrong, regardless. Perhaps it was in Arnaud's somewhat clear disinterest in his daughters, preferring to look all of the time at his son. Perhaps it was the strange, quasi-legal means by which Arnaud send to get his funds. Or perhaps it was just that feeling one gets when one is at a place where tragedy will happen.
Into the Grasp of Psychoanalysis
However, such a vision of a utopia for Laurette was broken quickly, at three years of age. About two months after her third birthday, Laurette was diagnosed with autism. Indeed, however, it was not the autism that might be said to truly be the catalyst for the coming squall. Rather, it was the reaction to the event that itself was the true coming of a different type of vision of her life.
After the diagnosis, Monique left Avignon with Laurette, leaving her other children with the staff at the mansion, and moved for three months with Laurette to UCLA, where there was set-up a clinical program for treating autism. After about three months there, Monique returned to France with Laurette, having completed the program. The return, however, was not as smooth as one might have suspected.
However, it has to be understood that the conflict didn't really lie with Laurette herself. After all, when she returned to France, she barely presented as autistic in her behaviors, though she still very much was and is autistic. She hardly did anything to warrant negative action at all, as a person, even if you weren't particularly accepting of disability in general. But it didn't really matter, at the end of the day.
Rather, what mattered was her father, Arnaud. In reality, Arnaud was a misogynist, narcissistic, and hateful individual. He did a good job generally hiding it, but he was in fact very much this way in general. Everything, you see, was construed in terms of him. He only had children so he would have somebody to pass down his genetics (he was actually hoping for more boys in case the first one he had was a complete screw-up, though two girls later made him change his mind). He wouldn't give so much as a dollar to another individual if he didn't see a distinct benefit for him. He never would have even considered something, in all honesty, like "all men are created equal", and not even necessarily "that they are endowed...with certain unalienable rights", though he never questioned that he had such rights and a quite a number more than that. It was to the credit of his charisma that he was able to conceal such an egocentric view as to not being apparent; indeed, Arnaud was a master manipulator in his own right.
Taken in this light, it was not surprising that autism would not go over well. Indeed, it was unfathomable that he would have let anything harmful touch his children, in any format. Further, it was impossible, in his view, that his genetics could have even allowed for autism. Given the conceptions of autism, he rather chose to blame his wife.
There is some good circumstance for this decision. After all, in 1960's and 1970's, such a view as introduced by Bruno Bettelheim, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, had commanded heavy influence in the United States. Blaming the mother for not giving due affection to the child, such a condition was described, as the title of Bettelheim's book will make clear, as The Empty Fortress. Indeed, many of the metaphors regarding autism, from "empty shell" to "kidnapped individual", comes from such a view of autism. Arnaud's view was developed, rather quickly, as such, and his view of his wife's culpability was made up well-before she returned.
As soon as Monique and Laurette returned home, Arnaud's nasty side became apparent in full, to the shock of most of his family. While continuing to treat his son well, he was abusive and aggressive toward both his wife and his two daughters. Quickly, the environment in the house turned to that of fear. In addition, he set up the circumstances so that Monique was effectively trapped with him in Avignon, as well as keeping her kids there with her. Utopia had turned quickly into a cage of psychoanalytic prejudice.
A Touch of Tragedy
During a cold, winter day, Laurette went up to her parents' bedroom, only to find (first, she thought) her mother, Monique, hung from the ceiling by a scarf. She saw no note, no particularly no reason. It struck her hard, clearly to find that the only person at the mansion who had the strength to advocate on her behalf was gone.
In reality, Monique had committed suicide for Laurette, and in reality her reasoning actually was correct. Arnaud had been particularly violent, and threatening to destroy "that wreck of a human being you created", and it was becoming more and more clear that Arnaud was being dead serious. Indeed, not long before, he had thrown Laurette over a balcony in a fit of completely unstimulated behavior, causing her to spend a week in the hospital, one completely hidden from any medical records. And it was hardly the first or last incident of physical abuse. Indeed, faced with the realization that Laurette, whom she had come to particularly admire over her other children in secret for her clear intelligence and willpower, would likely be dead, Monique took drastic steps. Knowing that Arnaud blamed her directly for all of Laurette's perceived problems, Monique correctly figured that if she wasn't around, Arnaud would see his daughter in a somewhat better light. Knowing this all correctly, she took her own life to save her daughter's.
However, unknown to Laurette, Arnaud happened upon Monique's body first, well before she was even there, something Monique hadn't really expected (his schedule had him out of town that day, but he ended up back in Avignon anyway). After the initial shock, he decided that he had to keep his reputation and status first, and thus quickly disposed of the suicide note Monique left, one that Laurette has never seen. Actually, Monique had written out the note first in a private diary that, as of now, none of her family is actually aware of. But, that aside, any explanation.
This also allowed Arnaud to make up the reason for Monique's suicide, and being the master manipulator he was, he played that advantage to the hilt against Laurette. He directly said that Monique had been upset with the "tragedy that you are", and that she had finally became too depressed. He made up a number of "conversations", "tearful moments", anything that he could come up with.
Now, ultimately, Laurette would come to disagree regarding that her "autism" was a tragedy at all. But at the time it was harder for her to tell, and even to this day, not knowing of Monique's suicide note, she still isn't sure this wasn't Monique's motivation for suicide. Regardless, her death had left her alone with an abusive father, and it was difficult for whatever reason.
However, Monique was actually right in practice. While Arnaud didn't then vindicate his daughter in any way, he assumed that she could potentially progress without the influencing factor of her mother, and thus began to see changes in her behavior that didn't really exist for the better. As such, Laurette escaped being mortally harmed by her father.
There were still difficulties, of course, and particularly if she exceeded her brother, which put her in a difficult spot. If Arnaud thought she was under preforming, it put her in harm's way, but if she did better than her brother, Arnaud felt threatened and hurt her anyway. Not only would this contribute to her brother's already rapidly-inflating ego, but it would lead her to become more withdrawn, paying enough attention to her brother's behavior to fall into that middle ground.
For what it is worth, her sister, Marianne, similarly withdrew for the most part, and in a more radical way. Completely afraid of exerting her will in a way that might draw her father's ire (not something she was unfamiliar with), she became a total wallflower, unable to easily say things in case she might get hurt. She similarly tracked her brother's behavior, doing the same act of being somewhat-below him in visible progress.
This pattern largely continued for a long while. Overqualified for the work she was being limited to doing, she would escape into reading at the library or to spending time in her own places within the expansive garden. She also began to find any possible ways that could be found to spend time, especially both with gymnastics and dance, quickly becoming great at both. Sometimes, she would slip out of the house and go to Avignon itself, careful to make sure her movements would never be noticed. This continued until she was sixteen, when yet another change was to occur.
Breakaway
At that time, she still continued to live in Avignon, and largely through various means of escapism had kept her head together, without losing her will in the process. In that regard, she had fared better than her sister, who had largely gone into escapism but also generally had developed problems expressing as much as her opinion on a tangential current event. For still keeping that, though, Laurette still remained the target of her father's wrath, and so things were always tense, at breaking edge.
She was staying with her sister in an Irish castle, outside Belfast. Her father had business there, and on whim had decided to take his family with him. To be honest, he just wanted to show Belfast to his son, and took his daughters to keep the appearance of fairness to outside competitors looking for such a thing to complain about. Thus, while the father and son were in town, the two girls largely spent time milling around in the castle.
It was her sixteenth birthday, and one that she would come to remember a long time thereafter.
Laurette had not been happy, to be sure. In fact, it was one of those days where she frankly had a headache, far away from accepting the circumstances of her life, as might be reasonably thought. She was quietly reading up near the top tower, trying to stop the swirling thoughts in her head, when suddenly a piece of a fence when flying through the window, causing her to start. Indeed, when she looked up, she realized, amazingly, she had been reading through the middle of a tornado, centered right around the castle.
Having no clue how a tornado literally had formed right above her head without her knowing it, she ran downstairs as quickly as possible, avoiding dislodged bricks and other debris from the castle. She made it down to the ground floor, when suddenly she was moved in a way she hadn't been before. Rather than heading to the basement, she headed outside.
Sitting outside the castle in the middle of the storm, she suddenly realized that the storm, though spinning wildly around her, was not actually affecting her at all. Further, despite her original thoughts, the debris was actually avoiding her, not the other way around. Having a inkling of intuition as to what was happening, she began to try and will the tornado away. Sure enough, the more she focused on this, the more the tornado began to disappear, and before long it was entirely gone.
Though she was thrilled while in the storm, she panicked when she saw her sister a second later. Indeed, amongst Arnaud's prejudices was a deep hatred of mutants. Unlike some of his other prejudices, this one had been formed more concretely, after having had a beloved aunt killed by a mutant serial killer. Now, however, Laurette was the one who was afraid of being killed, given all involved. It was clear enough to herself that she was, indeed, a mutant as well.
Unsure of what to do, Laurette formed a plan; she was going to go to Dublin, find a boat heading somewhere far away, and stay on that until she landed somewhere else. Not having a clear idea how to sneak on, she still began to run in that direction. Marianne, not having much a clue herself what to do, and concerned as her sister, ran right after her.
After some time, they arrived in Belfast. Faced with such a situation for Laurette, Marianne made one of the boldest decisions in her life. Taking a box, she quickly hid her sister in the box (more suddenly than she might have desired), got enough food for the journey, and hid own sister amongst a number of storage crates. Only four minutes after Laurette had been loaded onto the boat, it began to sail across the Atlantic.
Sure enough, Laurette was headed to Paragon City.
Blossoming in a Blizzard
A Stranger in a Strange Land
Soon, after an extremely rough journey on the ocean, Laurette found herself in Paragon City. It was not a warm welcome. Indeed, the very day she arrived, Paragon City had a torrential downpour, a blizzard that left a foot of snow, and two small tornadoes in the middle of the bay outside of Independence Port, clearly of her own accidental doing. She tried very hard, having little else to do, to control the weather around her, and by the end of the week no one had been truly harmed and the weather was back to being normal. Well, at least Paragon wasn't being harassed by random blizzard bursts or lightning bolts.
Indeed, however, it was still personally rough for Laurette, and it showed, unfortunately, as everywhere she went she was followed by heavy winds and occasional rain. She lived homeless in various locations in Independence Port and King's Row. She managed to scrape by without doing all of the less-desirable behaviors of the homeless, but it was a rough period of time. Nevertheless, being a survivor, she didn't complain about her situation at all, mentally or otherwise. It was better than being dead.
It was very weird, on personal terms. Indeed, she hadn't even been to the United States before. She had largely been taught English as if she was going to be in the United Kingdom, so she wasn't even knowledgeable about some of the words that were used, less than some of the customs and the like that might have made her more easily persuasive. Plus, it was Paragon, meaning that, while the city wasn't actually particularly violent in terms of crime rates, the continuing spiral of crime and justice was very bizarre to watch for a girl who had largely had been living outside of Avignon in a mansion.
She doesn't feel to bad about having to steal on occasion. Indeed, she had made sure she chose her targets well, and made a point specifically of targeting Family supplies in particular, making sure not to touch the holdings of any legitimate, ethical businesses in the area. Nevertheless, she certainly had enough to scrape by without having to necessarily go to the dumpster. Plus, she was still an illegal immigrant and a fugitive, no less, so any form of legitimate work was out of the question at that time.
She managed to get enough off of the Family to secure enough for an apartment for a few months, and so she bought a small place in King's Row that was very much a no questions deal. She lived like this for over a year, carefully taking from organized crime and budgeting enough to stay afloat, if hardly in fantastic clothing, while practicing on controlling her abilities. Indeed, she blended in enough so that, when her face was splashed all over various media, no one actually recognized her as that girl from King's Row.
A Heroine Rises
She was heading toward Independence Port from her King's Row apartment, when she came across a woman whose purse was being stolen by two Skull gang members. To be sure, she hadn't been unfamiliar with such occurrences, living in the heart of Skull territory. And, traditionally, she hadn't been able to do much about it. Sure, she had powers, but they weren't concentrated and predictable, enough so that it was as likely that she would be able to knock over the nearby building than the Skulls she was targeting.
But as she approached the scene, thinking about turning around, she realized that she had been getting pretty well-controlled with her ability to control the weather. The harsh weather had stopped following her all-together at this point, and she could actually release some energy without knocking over nearby objects. Now feeling for the woman, she made a motion and, using all of her will, tried to create gust right in front of only the two thugs.
As she opened her eyes, she was amazed. She hadn't sent all three of them through the war walls. Indeed, she hadn't even knocked over the woman or even blew away her purse. Instead, only the Skulls had been sent flying, and both were now unconscious on the other side of the street.
As the woman looked around for a costumed hero to thank for being saved, Laurette dashed into a nearby alley and went back to her apartment as quickly as she could. Gathering whatever resources she had left, keeping only her apartment and basic necessities, she manged to buy a costume from ICON, at least as much out of smart bargaining as the resources she'd actually gathered (they're flexible for eighteen year-old women wearing dirty sweaters and khakis), and the results turned out to actually be to Laurette's liking, generally speaking. In her new costume, she went over to City Hall and, keeping her identity secret as is legal for such entities, registered herself in the hero registry as Tempest. On an eighteenth birthday whim, she had become a heroine.
Indeed, it was only in the first week that she would prove herself and dramatically improve her quality of life in the process. The Circle of Thorns had captured four city council members, and was keeping them hostage in a building in Steel Canyon. When about twenty allied heroes began attacking the Circle, only to go into a stalemate, Laurette came flying down, using winds she was carefully guiding, and used a lightning bolt to break into the room where they were being held. Quickly taking down guards with a series of lighting bolts, she guided the hostages through the air by lifting them through the air, depositing them away in a safe location. A disaster averted by Laurette alone, the city council and surrounding heroes were grateful and also very questioning.
When one of the council members talked to Laurette alone, and realized her situation, he took action on her behalf, having been thankful for her having saved his life. He used his influence to have her removed from the missing person's index, while granting her US citizenship, and opened up doors for testing so that she might be able to go to college. That testing allowed her to enter Paragon City University within that month. Indeed, she finally had a new life, and was having the time of her life.
She quickly became a rising star amongst the hero community. Her ability to control the weather was unparalleled, and she learned quickly. She began to fight crime regularly, regularly participating in task forces and teams, while maintaining her autonomy as an individual heroine and student. On her own, she was a force to behold, taking on large number of individuals and dismissing them quickly with a flurry of wind and rain. Such powers, in the hands of many weather-altering heroes, would just baffle villains and make it difficult to fight. In Tempest's, they could legitimately defeat that group. Even before she started hurling the lighting bolts.
Full-Force Tempest
As people do something, they tend to get better at it. It was no different with Tempest. As she continued to fight, not only did she become even more skilled at directing her powers, she began to become tactically sound as well. Where once was a young girl with extreme power, albeit an extremely intelligent and mature one, there became a experienced fighter with extreme power. In a path she had never expected, she had become a true heroine in her own right.
She had begun to realize the number of ways in which her powers could be used. She created a variety of weather patterns that she practiced alone, then to be used on unexpecting villains, who soon found themselves, rather than just being pushed by the wind, being slammed by two jets of wind while having a blast of wind knock them down from above, and then being dragged through the air, even as they were falling to the ground. Indeed, her creations became elaborate and sophisticated, and it was difficult to figure out exactly what she was going to do with her abilities. Amongst the more memorable moments include smashing a Devouring Earth monster in with directed hail the size of mini-vans while destabilizing its balance with a small flood, floating a Council army through the air using six separate hurricanes that moved in a coordinated circle while being shooting at the army with thunder clouds, and pelting a Carnival of Shadows troupe with a blizzard, then a tropical monsoon, and then accentuating the wind so that the tents themselves became nets within a full-force fog.
She also became an extremely good leader. Even though, after coming to Paragon City, she never faltered in coming forth with her opinion, she became far better in being able to quickly analyze the abilities and mindset of her teammates and give directions. She also became skilled in analyzing enemy forces, quickly formulating weather patterns and coordinating her friends in response. She didn't always lead teams when there were other capable individuals, but was still valuable in using her abilities in a way that could specifically meet the plans of that leader, since she knew her abilities best, and was good at being able to give a desired effect even when the means that they asked for would have poor (or worse) results.
The other major thing was, as she became more practiced, the more precise the amount of force used in order to apprehend villains. Though this might be a given, she practiced more than many at making sure the job got done absolutely right, rather than in a rushed and hurried fashion. That's not to say she didn't act when she needed to, but she was careful to make sure that was really necessary.
Indeed, it became somewhat central in notes about her actions; despite her overwhelming power, she was careful to respect the rights of those villains she apprehended. Indeed, she became an outspoken advocate of maintaining the civil and human rights of those involved in superhuman conflicts, and while most heroes give a nod to that, they aren't always as outspoken as to fighting against unfair prosecution and wrongful imprisonment. She even spoke for those who had been unfairly harmed, given the crimes for which they were accused of.
Throughout her career, she continued to be an outspoken progressive, advocating for social programs frequently. She was seen as unique amongst heroes; while fighting for citizens against street gangs, she would frequently say that those very same gangs were the victims of socioeconomic influences, and that, rather than focusing on locking up such individuals more often, prevention programs would be the better way to approach the problem. It earned her some enemies amongst some established heroes, but the respect of others yet. Regardless, it was hard to say she simply fit into an "us-them" mentality.
Her family watched this rather distantly. She never heard from her brother or father, and was only alerted by letter that he had died just before her twentieth birthday. She did, however, get congratulations from her sister. They continued to communicate by letter, subtle enough not to draw the ire of the rest of their family. Otherwise, very little came in terms of personal communication from France, though Laurette found herself tracking the actions of Merle Technologies.
By her prime as Tempest, she was truly a rising heroine, becoming a star of Paragon City. Even throughout this, she continued to act as a student all the same, and was already doing graduate work in psychology and philosophy. As a very active heroine, and well accoladed and regarded, people expected Tempest to be around for a while. They may be correct, in a way.
Fall from the Sky
Another fateful day would come some two years after her eighteenth. By this time, her progress had been everywhere, and she had done what few heroes hoped to accomplish in her career, but it still seemed that so much more could be done with her powers. It wasn't going to be, in that sense.
She had only been working at Portal Corporation for a short period of time, though she had already had been to Praetorian Earth a number of times. Honestly, it was interesting work, though she was disappointed she hadn't yet been able to fight an alternate reality version herself, something she had honestly been looking forward to, as a means of seeing who that individual might be.
Suddenly, all of the heroes working with Portal Corporation were alerted at that moment, with a maximum security alert. Portal scientists were panicking. They needed high power, fast. Laurette was able to provide that. She decided to help them, no matter the cost.
It's largely a secret, as to what happened in that dimension, but the result was quite clear. She was thought to be dead, until some adventuring heroes found her in a coma on what is known as Tempest Quay outside of Peregrine Island itself. After a very trying, two-week run in the hospital, she came out of her coma, without any clear mental or physical damage.
However, it was not without cost. Though she now was awake, she had largely lost her ability to control the weather.
The week after she awoke was her retirement ceremony. It was well-attended and covered by individuals throughout the hero community, as well as those who knew her as a college student. Faced with platitudes regarding having completed her service into the work and thanks for her sacrifice, Laurette couldn't have felt more appreciated. But she also felt as if it was the end of something very important to her.
It wasn't, though.
Swaying the Storm
Sitting in the Eye
Even then, of course, it was hardly as if it was possible to go back to normal life. Only two weeks after her retirement, she was nearly kidnapped by Crey agents outside her new Founders' Falls apartment, only to be saved by a nearby hero (Crey, of course, denied ever trying to kidnap Laurette). After that, she packed a revolver at all times, but even then she knew that it wasn't enough if someone really wanted to come after her. Even with the support of the city's heroes, she always was aware, at some level, that she was a target.
But the biggest change was by far within her. After having been used to confronting the Circle of Thorns on a daily basis and making trips to places like the Shadow Shard, she sometimes had a different perspective than many her age. It made her ultimately less judgmental and more committed than her peers. Not that she had many of what one would safely consider intellectual peers, but even that aside there was something that was clearly different. As it turned out, you take the girl out of the heroine, but you can never take the heroine out of the girl.
So she continued along her path as an academic, even as she developed further into various fields. She found herself drifting in some ways back toward her heroine side, reading books about the occult or about various advanced devices that heroes used. But, largely, she focused herself into the humanities, something sorely at times in a city which focuses so much on technological advances. And it wasn't a totally uneventful journey.
One day, she joined her psychology professor for a conference in Beijing regarding the emergence of superpowers in various areas in Asia. After the conference, which hadn't been all that productive, she found herself in an alley. Suddenly, a woman in a bright red cloak came into the alley and beckoning to her. Against her better judgment, she followed the woman. The woman lead her to an ornate shop tucked into the alley, painted with colorful Asian designs. The woman went to a stand outside the cart, and picked up a small coin purse. Looking at it for a few seconds, she handed it to Laurette.
Laurette, confused, took her purse and left back toward her hotel room. Deciding that it was eccentric, but largely helpless, she decided to actually put some spare change in the purse. She reached in with some coins she had with a hand, looking to put them gently at the bottom of the purse. As she did, though, she found that she hadn't found the bottom, while her hand was engulfed, which itself was larger than the bag. Further attempts to reach the bottom engulfed her arm up to about half-way, and she found that the space was wide. Inside the bag was a little jade phoenix.
Amazed by the little bag, she took the bag to SERAPH and MAGI, to look for anything harmful. It was determined that the bag was a small-pocket dimension, and that otherwise it had nothing harmful. Figuring that they were telling the truth, Laurette was happy. After all, she got a free bag that was far better than anything one would normally buy, and anything she put in there still felt extremely light.
Other than the bag, she still had some interesting considerations. She found herself asked as something of a "civilian veteran" who was also an academic, and her opinion was solicited frequently for commentary on hero-related advances and events. She still retained the Omega Clearance that she had as a heroine, which she occasionally used for purposes solely of interest.
And the jade phoenix turned out to be something else all together. One day, she went to sleep holding the phoenix, only to find herself on the astral plane, fully conscious. It turns out that if she slept with the phoenix, she could go to a specific space on the astral plane. Calling the space her own, she looked up various design materials on Chinese castles and design, and after some time she had filled the space with a full astral castle, which she then situated as to protect her mind.
Even with all of this, though, she still felt a little empty. She felt, despite nearly having given her life, that there was more that she could do. She wasn't sure what, but she felt that she could.
But she hadn't guessed she was going to be a heroine again.
Jumping Into the Blitz
Even though she now had a bag that could plausibly carry a bazooka, Laurette wanted to have an easily accessible form of defense that wasn't easily taken away from her, or something she could drop. To that end, she decided to work on martial arts, for both the defense aspect but also for the physical and mental benefits. She had no clue how far she was going to go.
She settled on practicing various tricking movements, using the movements of gymnastics that she learned as a girl, as well as that of dance. Looking at various videos of martial arts heroes throughout time, she began to develop her own style based on the movements that she learned as a girl. She began to gel the movements together as effectively as she good, using information though physics, hoping to create her own style that would work for her.
And it turned out she was good at it. "Good", really, is a major understatement. Despite the total level of unorthodoxy of her style, she found she was able to match some fighters. She was able to call up some of her martial arts friends to help her test out the style, and, quickly working out the bumps and bruises. Soon, she was actually able to match them in her own right, all in an extremely quick period of time.
Soon, she had plastered martial arts posters across her wall, giving her quick access to martial arts information as she practiced. This turned out to be the ideal atmosphere for her, and she began to grow at an even more rapid rates. She quickly developed into a master of several Chinese martial arts, and then developed a system by using their strengths with her own innate mindset, emphasizing certain arts over others. She even began to research extensively the personal quotes of strategists and martial artists, some more obvious like Sun Tzu, but some less obvious like Wu Rong and Lu Xun.
Pretty soon, she was truly a master martial artist in her own right, only having practiced for three months.
Orchestra of the Wind
However, that was to change one night. She had just finished her first PhD in philosophy, and was working on her second in psychology. Working late one night at her flat, she heard the sounds of one of neighbors screaming. She quickly identified the sound as the Circle of Thorns recruiting ritual.
Rather than thinking to call another hero in the area, Laurette acted on instinct instead. Going right through her open window, she jumped out of her flat and onto ground level, landing gracefully next to the Circle of Thorns. Using her yet-to-be tested arsenal techniques, she moved straight into a flurry of motion, quickly defeating six mages without getting so much as a scratch.
It took her a few minutes to realize that she had taken down foes that would easily defeat most new heroes, and had done it without too much difficulty. It took her a few hours after that to realize that, if she had done that, she could reasonably become a heroine again. It took her a few more days to realize that she really wanted to do just that.
Once she realized how much she wanted it, she still took a little time to see if it was anything more than a fancy, a flush of feeling after having acted again and nothing more. But the feelings of fulfillment persisted, and she decided that it really was the right thing to do. She went down to City Hall, having decided on her new name, and that day went to ICON for the creation of a new costume, with a trenchcoat for protection and clothing flexible enough to accommodate the flexibility needed to perform her martial arts techniques.
Tempest Fist hit Paragon with a silent vengeance of a returning veteran who really knew what she was doing. She tried not to make a big deal of her recurrence. She worked with law enforcement individuals quietly to take down street gangs. Later, she began to also work with more powerful enemies, using precision to fight the Freakshow, and then her mind to fight the Malta. She was everywhere in a flash, and rumblings of a great, new heroine began to float around the city's underworld and elsewhere.
It was a few weeks into her new crime fighting career that a witness identified and reported this new heroine as Laurette Merle herself. Laurette herself was well-aware when this happened, because she found her university message system clogged with messages asking whether she was, in fact, the new heroine Tempest Fist (anyone could have reasonably identified her, but the way she operated made such images unlikely). After some time pondering exactly how to approach this, Laurette decided to come clean through the newspaper, confirming in an interview that she had become a heroine again.
Many heroes were genuinely shocked. In their minds, Laurette had done more than enough for the city and, despite nearly dying, she was back at it again. Others wondered how she quickly learned to become a martial arts master. Still others applauded the return of that heroine who had so gracefully advocated for justice for all. One thing remained constant.
There was no one in sight who questioned her determination in making the city a better place.
She of the World
Her abilities as a martial artist has proven to have had staying power, and combined with her prior experience she soon appeared as a valuable heroine in her own right, even without her powers. Some people still question how she could have gathered such extensive martial arts experience in such a short period of time, but she hasn't bothered to answer such questions. It's not as if they'd believe her, anyway.
On a particularly fateful day, Laurette heard a frantic call being made over the police radio in King's Row. She rushed over there, to find that a teenager was manifesting incredible psionic power. Using the jade phoenix, she allowed her astral space to be used as an anchor for him, and once he had limited his consciousness to that space she worked with him for a straight week on putting in some self-imposed mental blocks to control his power, and continued to work with him to control his power. He eventually took up the mantle of the hero, as well, as Oneiro.
Very recently, Laurette, after some thought and consideration, applied for and was accepted into the Zenvious Foundation. She's started working as the Mental Health specialist there, something she's still getting very used to. She's very glad to be there, and it's an interesting first step for someone who hadn't joined a group in her entire career, up until now, for a variety of reasons.
Within the Foundation, she made a number of acquaintances. Notable amongst them is Black Ashes, who works as the Foundation's primary medical clinician. They've established a friendly working relationship, though Laurette made clear, despite Black Ashes' personal interest, that she wasn't interested in a romantic relationship. During her time, she teamed up with Wynter Maiden (also known as Daria St. Claire) to help psionically remove a memory block from Rubix. They were still in the process of doing those operations, but so far they had been successful.
However, a major change occurred under her feet yet again. Around the time the Zenvious Foundation was disbanded, she was attacked in her apartment. No one knows exactly what happened with the fight, and whom the assailant was, but Laurette disappeared. Oneiro has been leading an investigation as to her disappearance that is still ongoing.
