The Remorseful Rogue/Return to Arachnos
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
((New Developments are from September 2007 on.))
Contents |
Dr. Shelly Percey's Work (and Ro's Blood Work)
This section contains major spoilers for the "Midas Touched" story arc.
Shortly after arriving in Cap Au Diable, having worked her way, so to speak, through Mercy Island and Port Oakes, The Remorseful Rogue met a troubled young woman near the Black Heart Hospital. Her name was Dr. Shelly Percey, and she needed some work done. She had a patient in bad shape, and needed some equipment to diagnose him. Arachnos wouldn't pay up, so it would have to be done illegally. After agreeing on a price, she asked Ro to steal the equipment from them.
Ro completed the task, and was sent again to another Arachnos base to find some information on the patient. He happened to be King Midas of the Goldbrickers, and his thick skin was making Shelly's treatment difficult. Ro, hoping to earn favor with the troublesome Goldbrickers, agreed to this task. So she and her men invaded a base used by Dr. Aeon, defeated all Arachnos personnel, and returned to Shelly with the information she needed.
Shelly was able to concoct a medicine for Midas' condition that could be absorbed through his skin, but before she could test it, there was trouble. Dr. Aeon found out about Shelly's experiments and sent the Goldbrickers, not knowing the medicine was for their leader, to destroy it. Terrified, Shelly begged Rosemary and her men to go to her laboratory and protect her research. With the help of Dr. Hydra, a Dread Ace and friend of Mick Hawkeye, Ro did as Shelly asked and went to her lab. After a harrowing fight, she was able to take out the Goldbrickers and keep Shelly's work from being destroyed.
Curiously, while going through the information, she saw that Midas' symptoms appeared the day after the diagnostic equipment was stolen. The disease was named "Percey Syndrome." Ro chose to ignore this, labeling it as a casualty of war.
The next time she saw Dr. Percey, Ro was thanked profusely - Midas' condition was better and Shelly's work could go on. She said to Ro, "Remember, you can trust me. I'm your friend." Choosing to ignore Shelly's sketchy information from the lab, Ro asked her for a favor: to examine her blood and tell her why it could be used as a mutagenic weapon.
Always ready to make a new kind of medical discovery, Shelly agreed, nearly leaping at the chance. Using the same stolen equipment from before, Shelly examined Rosemary's blood and found that it was indeed mutagenic, and not from natural - meaning, Rosemary's absorptive - means. That meant that at some point in her Arachnos citizenship, she was injected with some form of arachnid blood. Used to monthly injections of antivenin, Rosemary was certain that during one of them she had been tricked. Apparently, her pity of the Arachnoids was born in her own blood.
She thanked Shelly for this news, however disturbing, and moved on. She wondered if this was some kind of a sign - if her blood contained arachnid blood, could this mean that she was meant to live under Arachnos' protection (and that her escape was a mistake)?
End spoilers.
Seer Marino, Wretch's Rescue, and the Ghost Widow's Pardon
This section contains major spoilers for the "Oh Wretched Man!" story arc.
While working for Arachnos operative Marshall Brass, Rosemary was encouraged to talk to Seer Pia Marino of Mercy Island. Rosemary, who had spent a good deal of time in Mercy at Fort Cerberus, had met Seer Marino once before at a small cocktail party. Seer Marino was sitting alone and Rosemary joined her for a drink, but the Fortunata barely spoke. Instead of taking it as a snub, Rosemary sensed a deep sadness within Seer Marino.
When Ro met with her, the Fortunata pleaded for her help: she told Ro of a vision she had of her brother Paolo, a Wolf Spider who had fallen along with a Night Widow who had been Seer Marino's best friend. They, along with others, had died in a routine assassination that went wrong. The vision Seer Marino had linked Paolo to Wretch, Ghost Widow's protector, and Ghost Widow with the fallen Night Widow. Seer Marino asked Ro to go find old surveillance tapes in the building in which Paolo and the Night Widow were supposed to have been killed.
Seer Marino told Ro that if she would help her, she would tell her of another vision she had - one involving Rosemary and her future with Arachnos. Rosemary, who had lately been feeling very homesick for her former adopted people, was suddenly very interested. She would help Seer Marino anyway, but this news from the Fortunata was something she would greatly anticipate during her operation.
Ro retrieved the tapes and rescued Mu'Rakir, who told her the story of the building. After the botched assassination the building became haunted. Mu'Rakir and others were sent to exorcise it, but during the ceremony, a voice cried out for help. Then a large mutated man emerged and began attacking Mu'Rakir's men. The ghost was the Night Widow, and the man was the Wolf Spider who had protected her. That was the origin of Ghost Widow and the Wretch.
Now definitely knowing that Paolo was Wretch, serving Ghost Widow - the woman Seer Marino thought to be her friend - the Fortunata asked that Ro retrieve his medical records. Ro was next met with Huntsman Ohanko, who said that he was working with Mu'Rakir and knew about Seer Marino's grudge against the Widow. When Rosemary returned to Seer Marino, the Fortunata said that she would meet with the men to learn why Ghost Widow denied Wretch medical care to become normal again. She sent Ro to steal information on the Widow from the Legacy Chain. The research said that Ghost Widow's soul was bound to something in the material world, and it was believed to be Wretch. Seer Marino was furious, believing Ghost Widow to be using her brother to extend her own life. She asked Rosemary to assist Ohanko, who was being questioned about conspiracy. Then Seer Marino would join him and Mu'Rakir in plotting against Ghost Widow.
Rosemary, who was by now feeling terribly nostalgic for Arachnos, was not exactly happy about a plot against her former mentor of sorts. Still, thinking of the vision she was promised, she did as Seer Marino asked, and went to assist Ohanko. After defeating guards protecting him, she noticed a body and was told that it was of an Arbiter who caught onto his plot. Ro was terrified as Ohanko revealed that he and Mu'Rakir were going to kill Ghost Widow and Wretch. Shaken, Ro returned to Seer Marino. The Fortunata realized she'd been betrayed, and had a vision of herself having been accused of killing the Arbiter. She begged Ro to go warn Ghost Widow of the betrayal before anyone could be hurt.
Ro had not seen Ghost Widow since she escaped from the Isles months before. She told herself that back then she wouldn't have cared if Ghost Widow had been defeated, but knew it was a lie - having been away for so long and being so lonely, she realized Ghost Widow was in terrible danger. Wanting to help Seer Marino and Wretch, she trekked to the Lonely Tower with her soldiers and defeated Ohanko and Mu'Rakir's guards. Then she found the conspirators themselves cornering Ghost Widow. In a harrowing battle, the two men were both defeated, and Rosemary's soldiers left the two women in privacy, reunited by this terrible plot.
Faced with Ghost Widow for the first time in months, Ro was scared that she would be turned in for her betrayal. But Ghost Widow sensed Ro's homesickness, and Ro actually found herself crying and asking for forgiveness for her dissent. Ghost Widow, knowing Wretch was in danger, offered Rosemary a pardon if she saved his life - not just for her dealings with Mu'Rakir and Ohanko, but for having run away in the first place and for being a loud and vocal dissenter. In this, Ro was not required to come back to Arachnos citizenship, but would be allowed to so long as Lord Recluse himself agreed to it. Ghost Widow said she would talk to him as soon as she knew her loyal protector was saved.
Ro was stunned by this, relieved that she would not have to run from Arachnos anymore, and that her days of running would soon come to an end. She believed in Ghost Widow's deal without question.
After speaking with Arbiter Diaz, who told her she and Seer Marino had nothing to worry about from Arachnos thanks to Ghost Widow, Ro was bade by Seer Marino as well to save her brother. She quickly gathered her soldiers and delved into the sewer where Mu'Rakir and his men held Wretch hostage. It was a close fight, but she dispatched them and retrieved Wretch, who remembered her from her days in Mercy Island. He told her he could not leave Ghost Widow's side, even for his sister.
When she returned to Seer Marino, the Fortunata told her she had seen her brother, but now knew it was best to leave him at Ghost Widow's side. She thanked Rosemary and kept her promise: to tell Rosemary of the vision she had regarding her and her future with Arachnos.
Seer Marino said that one of Ro's friends in the Dread Aces, Mick Hawkeye - whom she had also dealt with once - would be making a trip to the future soon to defeat Lord Recluse. She said she saw Rosemary in this future, living among Arachnos again. Rosemary, stunned by this revelation, and still grateful for her pardon by Ghost Widow, decided to take the news of Seer Marino's vision to Mick and ask for his help.
Mick Hawkeye's Trip to the Future and the Rose Widow's Appearance
After her work with Seer Marino was done, Ro called Mick Hawkeye and asked him to meet her near where she first met the Fortunata. Speaking in an unusually stunted voice, she asked the man - who had become one of her closest allies in the Aces - to tell her of his trip to the future. She asked specifically that he tell her once his mission was done, whether or not he saw her there, and whether or not Lord Recluse said anything about her, if Mick had the chance to mention her name.
Mick agreed, but said that his trip was not for a couple of weeks. Ro spent those days biting her nails and awaiting her friend's departure and return.
When next she saw Mick, it was during a stressful time within the Aces. Their leader, the Crimson Cutlass, had fallen ill, and none of the other captains would tell anyone else how. Ro heard that Mick had completed his trip to the future, and found him and his men guarding the Aces' airship warehouse.
In the two weeks between her of Mick and seeing him again, Ro had gone to visit Ghost Widow once, grateful for her pardon. She was still not tied officially to Arachnos, but remained "cordial" with them for now (as she would say several times to different people). Ghost Widow reminded her that she meant what she said about speaking to Lord Recluse about Ro's Arachnos citizenship and a possible "olive branch."
While at the Lonely Tower, Ro went by her old apartment there and picked up several of her old possessions, including her favorite white dress - the one she wore most while strolling the grounds of Mercy or Spider City whilst living under Arachnos' custody. It was this she wore when meeting Mick again.
Mick said that he did see her in the future, fifteen years from now, curiously wearing a dress much the same as the one she wore right then. He described her directing Fortunatas and Night Widows, but avoided her squadron, and instead focusing on the task at hand - defeating Lord Recluse.
When Ro asked him whether or not Lord Recluse had said anything about her before his defeat, Mick had this to reply:
"I asked'im about you. He just laughed and said 'If you were looking for her, you're too late.'"
Ro had no more questions to ask after that. Mick reminded her that the future was never definite - that was the meaning of his trip there - but, having lived among Seers and Mu Mystics for a year, Rosemary could not deny her buried beliefs in omens anymore.
She spent the rest of the night guarding the warehouse with Mick and his men. She wondered whether or not a pardon from Lord Recluse was still a possibility.
Ro's Pardon and Arachnos Citizenship: Official...
After her tiring adventure rescuing Wretch, her sudden reunion with Ghost Widow and her pardon, and Mick's description of the future, Rosemary was feeling very conflicted and quite depressed - worse than usual, as she had always felt some depression since her escape from Arachnos. In a reckless mood, deciding not to wait any longer to hear about whether or not Ghost Widow had spoken with Lord Recluse about a pardon "from the top" (and not just one from Ghost Widow) or Rosemary's citizenship reinstatement (which would have to come from Recluse), Rosemary took the ferry to Grandville. When met with the customs officer, she presented her ID card and was immediately arrested - a wanted woman, finally captured.
She was taken to the central tower immediately, where she interrupted a meeting between Lord Recluse and Black Scorpion (and his protégé Silver Mantis, one of Ro's most disliked villains from her past). Lord Recluse ordered Black Scorpion out, but not before Mantis made a nasty comment about "the Rose Widow's return." Not afraid of her anymore, Ro used the guards' hold on her to propel herself upward and land a kick at Silver Mantis' cheek. The woman attempted to fight back, but was stopped by Recluse and again ordered to leave or to expect dire consequences.
It is not exactly known what all transpired between Recluse and the Rose Widow, except that Rosemary would later go on to say that she fully expected to be executed after her sudden escape and the reckless dissent of Arachnos that occurred for months afterward. Instead, having been told by Ghost Widow of Ro's successful rescue of Wretch and of Ghost Widow's personal pardon of her, Recluse agreed to reinstate her citizen's ID - with a few conditions, of course.
Recluse's warnings were paternalistic: Ro was told not to work so "loudly" anymore, and to keep a low profile if she did work. Then, putting a finger to his chin, he wondered if he couldn't find a more suitable (and less troublesome) occupation within Arachnos for her in order to discourage her noticeable freelance mercenary work. So even though Ro missed her days as "the Rose Widow," it was not a place to which she expected to return - at least, not this soon. And, with her strange brand of empathy working its hardest, she realized that it seemed obvious to Recluse that her days as his Pygmalion production had come to some kind of a pause. Her hard-earned abilities which she'd learned to fend mostly on her own had struck Recluse in two places: his damaged pride, and yet another new brand of admiration of her.
After this strangely low-key conversation - considering Rosemary had been hunted for months and, Recluse revealed to her, could have been crushed by Recluse as easy as her mother had been a year before, having been under strict Arachnos supervision the entire time - Lord Recluse only bade Ro a simple farewell and she left Grandville, returning to Hollow Victory's apartment in Port Oakes. After thinking about what had happened for a few days, Ro realized she was worrying about what to do about her always-troublesome alliance with the Dread Aces - another problem creeping up on her.
But on the flip-side of that, Ro was also elated that she would have some sort of official, if low-ranking, position within Arachnos. She realized that it would not be the same as it was, but the thought made her feel so very excited. She would say publicly that it was because of the ways she could betray them and help those in need - such as the Dread Aces - but later, confessing to Hollow Victory, she said that wasn't her main idea when thinking about this new chapter of her life. It was just good to feel like she could somehow go home again.
... And Offically Disapproved Of: Breaking it to the Aces
Two weeks later, not yet having been contacted by Recluse, Ghost Widow, or their subordinates - and, keeping a low profile now as she'd been asked to - Ro worked up the bravery to broach the subject to the Aces' leaders. Not surprisingly, the Aces to which she told this new development - Jet Nitro first, and then the Crimson Cutlass - were not happy with her. She knew they had always been suspicious of her then-former ties to Arachnos, but now it was serious to them. Really serious.
In her discussion with the Cutlass, Ro was questioned deeply about her interaction with them and her loyalty to the Aces. She said, despite her deep longing for the old surroundings of Arachnos, that in this position, with a full pardon for her dissent and a reinstated citizen's ID, that she could benefit the Aces much greater and easier than before.
"So you're saying you want to go back and double-cross?" asked Crimson, not seeming to believe Ro's insistence that she could do this.
Ro considered what the Cutlass asked of her - it was a hard thing to think about, as she didn't really like the thought of betraying Arachnos just as she returned to them - at least, not so soon anyway. And she realized she'd only really want to be doing it for Amelia and Eve, who had been having trouble obtaining resources and medicines in the last few weeks.
So, in a cryptic manner, she described her new situation to the Crimson as this: "At best, to them... I'm that spoiled brat who went out and wrecked her parents' car. I'm grounded. But I'm not being hunted anymore. The spoiled brat is keeping her mouth shut, basically."
Ro did not mention Recluse's strange (and elating) idea of a "more suitable" occupation within Arachnos - just restated that she was not working for them in an official position as a mercenary or operative (or a spy). She used the word "cordial" to describe this, and it vexed the ones she spoke it to, but it was the only word she could come up with to properly explain her new relationship with her old allies.
Then, to divert the conversation from her admission of semi-loyalty to the Spiders to another subject, one she thought the Crimson Cutlass would like more, she reminded the lady pirate that her citizen's ID could get her places she couldn't go before. After hearing this, the Crimson Cutlass considered Ro's position and allowed her to remain in the crew, seeing as how this would indeed benefit everyone. With Ro's citizen's ID, she could basically ask for whatever she needed, no questions asked. (As long as it wasn't too much - Ro did not want to call attention to herself.) C.C. asked Ro to get information on Arachnos shipments, and deliver goods and supplies to their warehouse. She also asked for money, as the airship was still on the ground at this time.
Ro was immediately amenable to all of that. "I want to make this as... beneficial, I guess, for the crew as it is for me," she said. "And if unloading some supply houses or shipments or some of those ungodly H.R. Giger-fucking-a-volkswagen Arachnos flyers is what I need to do, I'll do it."
And so Ro's reinstated "cordiality" with Arachnos - and her ever-changing one with her always suspicious crewmates - took her into deeper territory within the Rogue Isles and her own ideas of loyalty.
Back to The Remorseful Rogue.
