Post by mary on Jun 13, 2012 4:42:36 GMT
Mary Embrey
Basic Information
Age: Well over 3,000
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Pansexual as far as physical attraction goes - though she really only has one 'soulmate'.
Rank:Wanderer
Canon/OC: Canon
Canon World/Face Claim: Hancock
Cbox Name: Scout
Other Characters:
Powers And Abilities
Strengths:
Mary is what is commonly referred to today as a 'superhuman'. Her abilities might in quite a few ways be compared to those of Superman, but where she's from, most superhumans have these abilities. Or had them. The most notable would probably be her incredibly enhanced strength. Mary literally is strong enough to lift a truck off the ground and hit someone over the head with it. Her reflexes in addition are similarly enhanced.
She's also capable of flight, though it's not quite so easy as it looks. She has to focus to keep control, and needs to be especially careful when taking off and landing lest she do a little more damage than she'd want to. Literally having thousands of years to practice, however, has made her pretty confident in this skill.
Along with these abilities, Mary is also incredibly difficult to seriously injure. If you're talking normal weapon standards, at least. Bullets bounce right off her, she can deflect missiles with a swipe of her hand - but of course more magically or otherwise enhanced weapons that she would not have dealt with before might be another story. When it's a strictly physical attack however, it's difficult to very seriously hurt her. Her accelerated healing and her immortality (she's lived for thousands of years) only add on to that.
Weaknesses:
Well first of all, Mary isn't the type to use her powers very often. She's not really looking to be a well-known "superhero" as they're called, she really just wants to live her life in peace. Should she be forced into combat however, there are several ways to beat her.
The most painfully obvious of these is her version 'kryptonite' - which actually literally happens to be another person. Her kind were made in pairs, soul-mates if you will, and are naturally drawn to each other. Her partner is Hancock - and she is designed, should she come into close proximity with him for too long a period of time, to slowly lose her abilities one by one. It was originally meant to be a good thing. To allow them to become human and live out their lives once they found each other. But these days, Mary's not really big on that idea.
Otherwise, while it's difficult to injure her with run-of-the-mill weapons, she can still be thrashed around. And she gets tired of it after awhile, so she'll probably back off if you're rough enough with her and the stakes aren't too high. Alternatively, if there is something - or someone, rather - worth fighting for, Mary tends to get reckless. There's nothing she fears more than one of her loved ones being threatened, and it's very easy to get her to do what you want by exploiting that.
Weapons And Equipment:
None really. She's likely to use whatever's lying around in a fight. And I mean whatever. Anything from kitchen knives to moving cars.[/size]
Personal Information
Personality:
Mary's gotten pretty good at the whole normal thing. To a lot of people, she doesn't seem like much more than your typical girl-next-door type. She's generally pretty sweet, at least to those she is familiar with, with a good-natured sense of humor and a spontaneous sense of fun. She strives for a domestic sense of normality; a good home, a family, a stable community, even though deep down she knows that these things will never really be within her grasp. At least not for long, anyway. She's immortal after all, and people tend to notice that she isn't aging after a decade or so.
Behind this image that she presents to society however, her true nature is a just a little darker. She's cautious by nature, and cynical too. It usually takes her a good while to fully learn to trust someone. And once someone has wronged her, Mary tends to hold a fierce grudge. Being vulnerable, and presenting that vulnerability to others, is something that really puts her on edge - for far too often, she's gotten hurt because of it. When she chooses to allow herself to become attached to someone, she often gets far too attached. And that's always bad for her in the wrong run. Detached as she claims to be, Mary is just one of those people who 'cares too much'. She is very emotional when it comes down to it, and her emotions only make her that much more...unpredictable. She's kind of a living embodiment of "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". She tends to throw a bit of a temper tantrum when someone really upsets her. Let's just say...never call her 'crazy'.
All in all, though, her heart is in the right place. Her decision to keep her distance from Hancock was very strongly influenced by the fact that as long as he had his powers, he'd be able to help people. Mary herself isn't really one for the public 'superhero' image, and perhaps its a bit selfish of her. She really only wants a normal life, though she does seem to have an inclination to help people in quieter, more subtle ways. She does get sort of snippy when what little balance in her life there is is threatened, but she's not totally incapable of putting other people before herself. You just need to push the right buttons to get her to actually care.
And despite being inhuman, technically (or perhaps more than human is a better term), the inevitable loneliness Mary has acquired is very much human. She's become...bitter, at least a little bit, especially over the last eighty years. She literally has all the time in the world, but no one to spend it with. Immortality isn't seeming quite so fantastic these days.
History:
Throughout history, Mary's people have had many names. Some have referred to them as 'Gods', others as 'Angels'. But Mary's never claimed to be a God, and she's far from angelic. Throughout time, she's watched her kind diminish and eventually die out...and it always ends the same. They found their partner, the one they're meant to be with, their soulmate. And they chose to spend the rest of their lives with them, to become mortal - they chose to die. Mary had never thought such a thing would happen to her...until it did. Until she met the man who was in every sense her other half, who completed her, who brought her happiness.
The two decided to be together, despite all that it would cost them. Only...they didn't seem to have very much luck. Each and every time things seemed to be going well, every time they finally seemed to be happy, something would go wrong. One of them would nearly get killed trying to save the other, their growing mortality making them incapable of defending themselves. And each and every time, they'd decided to separate because of it - for each other's own good. No matter how many times this sequence of events was repeated, however, they always seemed to find each other. It was inevitable. Mary herself once referred to it being like physics.
But it all ended around the late 1920's when, in an attempt to stop a mugging, her husband was critically injured while trying to stop a robbery. He had his skull fractured, and when Mary rushed him to the hospital...it was only to find that he had amnesia. When he woke up, he didn't know her from anyone else.
Heartbroken but determined, Mary decided to take this opportunity to leave him once and for all so that they would both be able to live safe lives maintaining their powers, even if it meant they had to be apart. She laid relatively low from that time on, traveling around the world and just...trying to find a place for herself. That didn't really work out until, early in the twenty-first century, she met Ray Embrey in Los Angeles, California. Ray, at the time, was a newly single father - his wife having died in child birth. Mary felt an immediate sense of empathy for the man, and they eventually fell in love...at least, in a sense. As much as Mary could love anyone who wasn't her other half, anyway.
For a time, she was actually happy living with Ray and his son. She was able to live a normal, healthy life. That was, up until Hancock showed up: the city's local "superhero" who actually tended to do more harm than good. After Hancock saved Ray's life, Ray (who worked for a PR company) decided to take on the task of creating a better and more well-loved public image for Hancock. Ray was so enthusiastic about his new project, and his son adored Hancock as well - so it was difficult not to support the cause. There was only one problem: Hancock, though he did not remember, happened to be Mary's soulmate. And she was desperate to push him away, desperate not to go down that road with him again, not when she'd finally made a life for herself. So initially, she treated Hancock quite coldly - until one night, unable to help herself, she allowed him to kiss her...right before she was brought back to her senses and ended up throwing him straight through the kitchen wall.
With her own abilities revealed to Hancock, Mary threatened to destroy him if he revealed her secret to Ray. But Hancock refused to settle without answers, eventually cornering Mary and getting the whole truth out of her - or most of it, anyway. When she continued to be evasive of the whole 'soulmate' thing, Hancock threatened to tell Ray everything and took off...which resulted in Mary chasing after him, and a rather...violent fight between the two of them that resulted in a)Mary blurting out everything, and b) Ray witnessing her flying around town. The truth was finally out - for everyone. But before any of them had much time to process, Hancock was attacked by a couple of thugs. And the bullets that normally would have bounced off him? Severely injured him and landed him in the hospital. Mary immediately realized that their invulnerability was fading, having been in such close proximity to each other for this amount of time, and she told Hancock that he needed to leave before it got any worse. Unfortunately, a gang of escaped convicts, all of whom Hancock had helped put behind bars, chose this moment to attack the hospital - shooting and ultimately killing Mary in the process.
Hancock, his powers waning, nearly lost the resulting fight...surprisingly, it was Ray who managed to kill the thug who'd organized the attack. Realizing that the only way to save Mary was to give her her immortality back, Hancock immediately bolted - getting as far away from Los Angeles as possible. With the distance between them restored, Mary did wake up...and, despite all that'd happened, chose to continue the life which had up until then made her happy.
She enjoyed life with Ray and their son for a little while longer, up until recently, when the Game Master decided to pull her into his world.
Sample Post
“Please…help, someone help..”[/size]
“Shut up!”
The words were followed by a sickening crush, and Mary didn’t have to look (didn’t want to, either) to know what was happening in the nearby alleyway. Another mugging. The crime rate in this city was still somewhere close to ridiculous, even after everything that’d happened. It was a little bit sickening sometimes, what humanity stooped to. But it wasn’t her job to interfere. …It wasn’t. She’d promised Ray she wouldn’t pursue the use of her powers, wouldn’t put them all in danger by revealing herself like that. And she’d promised herself she’d do nothing to interfere with her finally halfway-normal life.
Promises were things that Mary did not break lightly. And she was not a crime fighter; she had no responsibility to step in when things like this happened. So why was it so difficult to drown out the woman’s cries? Mary quickened her pace as she continued on down the street, but try as she might she was unable to block out the continuous thoughts racing through her head. The victim was somebody’s daughter. Possibly somebody’s wife. Maybe even someone’s mother. Her jaw tightened, her fists clenching at her sides. Don’t do anything impulsive. She reminded herself insistently. You get involved, and it’ll be all over the news. Don’t…
But something inside her had snapped. Maybe it’d been the whole ‘mother’ thing, or maybe it was that tiny voice in the back of her head that she was still refusing to acknowledge (the one that said annoying things like “what would Hancock say if he could see you walking away from this?”), but in the next instant Mary had took off lightly from the ground, soaring up into the air and zipping into the alleyway.
The two men terrorizing the girl never saw her coming. She was no more than blur as she shot down and grabbed them both by the backs of their jackets, lifting them into the air, shooting upward, and then slamming them down face-first a good from a good fifteen feet in the air. She hadn’t been going quite fast enough to kill them - but they definitely wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. She eyed them in disgust for a moment before turning a level gaze on the girl.
“Go.” was all Mary said to her. The girl didn’t immediately move, just…staring, with wide eyes. Slightly more impatient, Mary cast her once more glance. “Go. And don’t forget to call the police.” And without waiting for a reply, she ignored the heavy instinct to fly off and as far away as possible…and calmly but briskly walked out of the alley.