Roll of the Dice/History
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
This is the in-depth background of Marianne Gravois, or Roll of the Dice. Enjoy! Or don't, I guess.
Perfect
Marianne was taken from a French orphanage by Arachnos at the age of three when a recruitment operative detected her psionic talent. Sent into the Fortunata program, her mind was molded and trained so that she could harness her powers of the mind and peer into the future, finding a safe path through an impossible web of probability and alternate futures nearly every time. An instructor in the program took a liking to her, and she quickly became the officer's pet project; no expense was spared in her training. She was tailored to become the Fortunata Mistress' successor in the training program, and her precognitive and telepathic abilities quickly became formidable enough for her to hold her own against even certain Destined Ones. Her skill with Blood Widow wristblades was equally as impressive; although she was technically a Fortunata, she was more than a match for some of the less skilled Night Widows. Rumor has it that Ghost Widow even took a moment out of her busy schedule to teach the precocious girl a few spells using the spectral patron's trademark soul magic.
Where We're Going...
Eventually, Marianne was pitted against a batch of new arrivals to the Rogue Isles, all of them neophytes in Project Destiny. Her assignment was to terrify the haggard jailbirds with her psionic abilities, and show them that Arachnos was one of the only things held sacred on the Etoile Islands. Her job went as planned; most of the new recruits were "scared straight", just as intended. Unfortunately, one of the arrivals was a delusional Through the Wormhole who, in a phobia-induced panic attack, struck out with his uncontrolled powers and trapped Marianne inside of a bubble of vacuum for nearly a minute.
The trauma of the sudden loss of air pressure nearly killed Marianne, leaving her with permanently damaged eyes, several ruptured blood vessels, and a phobia of suffocation that she still hasn't overcome. After the terrified destined one fled into a nearby alleyway, Marianne was quickly recovered by an Arachnos medical team. Although she survived the ordeal, she had permanently lost her natural eyesight.
For the next three years, Marianne was consumed with impotent rage and self-pity; she never truly became accustomed to her blindness, and it showed. Her powerful psionics were often preoccupied with keeping her away from dangerous obstacles, acting as a surrogate sense of sight for her, and her combat skills atrophied to the point where a simple Blood Widow was occasionally able to best her. She quickly fell out of favor with her mentor and became just another piece of cannon fodder for Arachnos.
Revenge!
Marianne eventually tracked down the man who had caused her to go blind. After discovering that he didn't even remember maiming her and didn't seem to regret his actions in the slightest, she flew into a rage. Using her impressive psionic abilities, she overpowered the telekinetic villain's own mental defenses and set up blocks in his mind, effectively crippling his powers until she decided that he had earned her forgiveness.
Her unexplained aggression, however, quickly drew the ire of most of Through the Wormhole's friends. Web, William Carrigan and Cenes, among others, took every opportunity they could to harass her and convince her to undo the damage she'd done to their friend's psyche. Their actions did little to sway her - she had been waiting for her revenge for three years, and she wasn't going to let it slip out of her grasp now!
This continued for a while, until the man who had blinded her, in a sudden burst of charity, told her that he had paid for cybernetic replacement eyes. Suddenly, her righteous rage was deflated, and her pent-up anger towards the telekinetic Filipino quickly petered out after her eyes were replaced and she was able to see again.
More on the way! Don't turn that dial!
(Actually go ahead and turn it, this'll stagnate for MONTHS before I finish it.)
