Seasoness
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| The Seasoness in all four Aspects | |
| The Seasoness | |
| Player: @ThePretender | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster, Controller, Scrapper, Defender |
| Security Level: | 32, 35, 38, 14 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Jera Marshall |
| Known Aliases: | Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 22 |
| Height: | 5' 10" |
| Weight: | 120 lbs |
| Eye Color: | Grey, Blue, Green, Hazel |
| Hair Color: | White, Blonde, Redhead, Auburn |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Roma |
| Occupation: | Student |
| Place of Birth: | Salisbury Plains, England |
| Base of Operations: | unknown |
| Marital Status: | single |
| Known Relatives: | Biological parents unknown, Adoptive Father - Tony Marshall, Adoptive Mother - Michelle Marshall, Biological Sister - Ether Elementa (real name unknown) |
| Known Powers | |
| Ice Manipulation, Plant Control, Fire Melee, Storm Summoning | |
| Known Abilities | |
| ' | |
| Equipment | |
| none | |
| Seasonal shapeshifter | |
Contents |
Origin
In a band of druidic gypsies traveling through southern England a woman became pregnant, and it was determined that she would give birth on a rare night when the Earth's ley lines were in perfect alignment. Following their ancient charge, the gypsies traveled to the ruins of Stonehenge on that night, performing a ritual of lost druidic magics during the birth. A child was infused with the essence of nature, her lifeforce bound to the Earth, making her a guardian of the world. They named the girl Jera, an old-Saxon runic name meaning "year." Knowing the child's duty could not be fulfilled in the nomadic life, they left the newborn at an orphanage in the nearest town. Two months later the child was adopted by an American couple, Tony and Michelle Marshall, and taken to Paragon City.
Life as Jera Marshall
One month after being adopted Jera began to change. Once a pale, grey-eyed, and unusually silent infant, she became a bright blue-eyed and active baby. The parents, believing they adopted a shapeshifting mutant, took the child to several genetic specialists, but nothing out of the ordinary could be found. When the child changed again three months later the process was repeated, but again nothing was found unusual in Jera. Every three months Jera's appearance changed without explanation. However, she remained healthy and never seemed disturbed by the change, so eventually the parents began to take it in stride.
When Jera reached age 13 the changes took on a new turn. Along with her appearance her personality began to change drastically. Fearing a mental disorder, or that their daughter had lost her mind from the shifting, Jera's parents began taking her to psychiatrists. Schizophrenia medication was prescribed, yet it only caused mental breakdowns and severe depression. When her parents finally took her off the medication they found that even the personality shifts did not bother Jera much at all, almost seeming as if it came naturally to her.
Life for Jera was fairly normal. She was a straight-A student all her life and had many friends, though because of the shifts they often did not recognize her, causing Jera to explain her situation repeatedly. Still, she weathered such events without any difficulty and moved on with her life, even graduating high school early and earning a full scholarship to Paragon City University.
Jera's Powers Manifest
On Jera's 18th birthday her shifting again took another new change. This time powers manifested suddenly, causing Jera to accidentally freeze her birthday cake as she blew out the candles (ironically granting her wish). As soon as it known that Jera had developed powers the City took interest. Seeing the heads of all the major City Hero branches, eventually Azuria of M.A.G.I. discovered her powers were mystical in origin. However, with limited knowledge of Jera's biological parents they were only able to speculate about old druidic nature magic, and her changes were perfectly in line with the equinoxes and solstices of the Earth, down to the minute. After a couple months of discussions and arguments with her parents, Jera learned to control her ice abilities and registered with the city as The Seasoness.
Jera worked in her Winter aspect for one month before her next shift came with the Vernal Equinox. At this time she learned that her powers completely disappeared the day of a shift until the actual shift occurred, afterward gaining entirely new powers. The city decided that each of the Seasoness's aspects would therefore have separate security clearances, since Jera was forced to learn her new abilities.
Seasonal Aspects
Winter
Personality
Jera's Winter aspect is often considered her logical side. Often known to be cold, calculating, and quiet, she rarely speaks and when she does only says as much as absolutely necessary. She seems shy at times, and typically does not participate in social events. This has caused her friends to consider her Winter side boring and unsociable. She stays dedicated to her life as a hero, and seems to do the job far more efficiently than her other Aspects.
Appearance
Winter is the one seasonal Aspect with an unusual appearance, having white hair, pale skin, and grey eyes, therefore her entire body lacking any color. She tends to wear baggy or thick clothing, always covering herself completely, and prefers white or blue colors.
Powers
Winter is able to generate extreme cold and ice. She typically uses it as a long-range projectile, claiming it a tactical advantage. She creates paths of frictionless frost in order to quickly slide from place to place. She has learned to completely encase herself in rock-hard, yet flexible ice as a form of body armor.
Spring
Personality
Jera's Spring aspect is typically a cheerful and bubbly personality. Always smiling and quick to laugh, she will leap right into any social event and even starts a few herself, and is known to be somewhat of a flirt. Her friends have taken preference to this side of her, usually looking forward to it during the Winter and missing it during the Summer. She takes her work as a hero in a very laid-back fashion, but still gets the job done.
Appearance
Spring is a fair skinned, blue-eyed blonde. Being the stylish aspect, she wears clothes that compliment her figure, and prefers bright colors of green and gold.
Powers
Spring has been given control over plant life, seemingly able to telepathically communicate with it. She uses it to ensnare and trap her opponents, and even using hallucinogenic spores and pollen to incapacitate or confuse. She has even managed to bring some plant life to levels of sentience, namely in a giant venus fly trap she has named "Vernal." She has learned that giant lily pads can be used in a trampoline-like fashion to reach great heights and move from place to place.
Spring also has notable healing abilities.
Summer
Personality
Jera's Summer aspect is hot-headed and aggressive, usually in an angry manner. She will engage in social occasions, though her usually foul mood almost always causes a bad ending for her. When asked why she has such a bad temper she usually just answers with a glare, though she has pointed out that either her Summer aspect is disliked because of her mood, or that she has her mood because her Summer aspect is disliked. Only a few have been able to understand her Summer aspect, and these people she looks on favorably. She tends to be far more aggressive when fighting criminals, usually injuring several in the process.
Appearance
Summer's personality is only complimented by her appearance, which takes on the stereotype of the fiery redhead with green eyes. Preferring to wear black and red, Summer dresses to appear tough, yet also accentuating her figure.
Powers
Summer is able to generate extreme heat and flame. She prefers to be in close combat, effectively manifesting flame weapons to strike with and covering her entire body in fire for defense. She creates small, controlled explosions at her feet and back in order to move at high speeds.
Autumn
Personality
Autumn is known as Jera's creative and artistic side. She speaks far more eloquently than the other aspects and acts more sophisticated. She is relatively quiet and somber, but has no trouble in social situations, and does occasionally seem to enjoy being a show off. It is notable that while the other aspects often refer to each other as if they were separate people, Autumn does not follow this trend and always refers to each aspect as herself. Her style as a hero compliments her personality, as her combat tactics are more graceful and extravagant than the others.
Appearance
Autumn has the appearance of earth tones, with tanned skin, hazel eyes, and auburn hair. Even her clothes, which take on a more simple and casual style, tend to be in dull earth tones with only a few brightly colored accents.
Powers
Autumn has been given control over wind and weather, able to create powerful gusts, lightning storms, and even miniature hurricanes or tornadoes. She is also able to generate lightning at will, striking her enemies from a distance. Her power over the air grants her the ability of flight with powerful whirlwinds.
Seasoness and Elements
After a couple of seasonal shifts, Jera's mystic hero friends, namely Runecraft and the Midnight Mage, began to notice a theme to her different powers. Her powers were manifesting as the four base elements Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. During any of Jera's seasonal shifts these mystics were able to see invisible runes appear around her that apparently represented the coming element and season. Taking what knowledge she had of the ritual that gave her powers along with this new information, Jera found scraps of a legend leading back several centuries concerning a guardian of nature and a powerful "Aspect of the World." She even found photos of an old parchment detailing both the ritual and her own abilities.
She noted a symbol in the center of the glyph and wondered at its meaning, as it remained unlabeled. She tracked the symbols back to Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy, which stated that along with the four natural elements there is one unnatural cosmic element known as Ether. However, Jera was unable to find any more useful information.
The Great Nature and the Ether Elementa
One day during the Spring aspect, Jera was called on by a powerful entity. She called herself the Great Nature, an Aspect of the World and true essence of its power. The Great Nature told Jera she was destined to be a guardian as well, but there was a threat to be dealt with. The Aspect detected an unnatural force corrupting the land and called on Jera to put a stop to it, hinting that she had some connection to this dark power.
Jera found that elementals were being corrupted and driven mad by a dark energy. Upon retrieving a mote of this energy and showing it to the Great Nature it was determined to be ether, the fifth dark element Jera found in the glyph. The Aspect told Jera this ether was coming from a single source, and only she could put a stop to it. The Great Nature herself was prevented from assisting, as the corrupted land was no longer under her domain. However, the source was far more powerful than Jera could manage, and with her approval Jera was aged a few years, as her powers grew with time.
Finding the most corrupted land, and therefore the location of the source, Jera met a villain called the Ether Elementa. During the battle, Ether Elementa revealed to Jera that they were twins, and she claimed to be the one sacrificed at the druidic ritual, infusing her with the dark element. Although Ether was defeated, she managed to escape. The Great Nature restored the destroyed land to its rightful state and left Jera with many new questions and no answers.
Ether attempted to attack Jera moments before a seasonal shift, when she is at her weakest. Despite the large gathering of her hero friends, there to observe the shift, Ether would have had no trouble getting to Jera if not for the intervention of the Great Nature herself. Ether immediately fled, and the Great Nature stayed to protect Jera until her new powers had arrived. She revealed that she was once a mortal who was granted the same abilities as Jera though the same druidic ritual centuries ago, and that she eventually transcended her humanity and became a part of nature. It was said that Jera would one day undergo this same transcendence, at which time the Great Nature would ascend again to an even higher plane of existence. The Great Nature also explained that the creation of Ether was no accident, as she too has a dark elementalist counterpart that ascends existence with her in order to maintain balance within the world. After the seasonal shift (which both Jera and the Great Nature underwent), the Great Nature left Jera assuring that Ether would not attempt another attack during her weak times now that she knows she is under constant guard.
