MARION(ETTE)

[MARION(ETTE)]

[atrb=border,2,true] [bg=FFFFFF] ---------------------------FILE #575--------------------------- ♦ VIRUS ♦ ”MARION(ETTE)” -Distortion Drive- NAME: Asuka Nishimura AGE: 19 GENDER: Female SEXUALITY: Bisexual… would probably be the best way to describe it, since she will be attracted to whatever gender her ‘master’ happens to be. See below. TYPE: Marion’s ‘natural’ Virus form is that of a twistedly stylistic, self-animated marionette (hence, the name she has ‘chosen’ for herself upon gaining some measure of awareness after the digital conversion. It’s more of a description, than a name, but it’s the one thing she always remembers.) Like the horrific ‘big sister’ of the famous puppet Pinocchio (or a Jim Henson nightmare), she is the inanimate animated – not a ‘real person’, but ‘alive’ just the same. A view of her physical form is located at the top of the profile, but does not show the nearly invisible, retractable ‘puppet strings’ that are attached en masse to each ‘articulated joint’ (i.e., all the moveable parts) of her body. These are her primary weapons and will be described in the weapon section. As a marionette, Marion does not possess any particularly outstanding attributes. Her strength and physical endurance are slightly below average, and her agility is slightly above average. However, she is abnormally flexible, seemingly able to bend and twist her body into ridiculous positions without adverse effect to her own well-being. She does not generally possess the mental capacity for ‘strategic combat’, commonly going into a feral, berserk-like state when forced into a fight. Her natural instinct, when faced with any sort of confrontation, is to run, thus her normal combat abilities manifest only when she is cornered. Preferably, she sustains herself via the Distortion Blade method (below), but if forced to try and hunt-to-convert an individual in marionette form, she will do so, 100% of the time, by haphazard, unplanned, circumstantial ambush, usually against the ‘perceived weakest’ target she can find. (More info in the weapon section.)

[/b]: This is Marion’s alternate virus form, functioning in much the same way as the “spore” form of hibernation formerly exhibited by hardy strains of various microbes in the ‘real’ world. A uniqueness assumed to be attributed to the random and unknown makeup of the ‘race’ called ‘viruses’, Marion is able to collapse and condense her physical form into the shape of an ornate, one-handed sword. An intricate blade, the physical properties of the sword are similar to a typical single-edged slashing sword. The sword is extremely durable (i.e., nigh-indestructible save for a perfect pinpoint strike on Marion’s chip), unbelievably light, and exceptionally sharp. Generally speaking, the same could be said for any sword wielded by any individual in the virtual realm and, truth be told, the first time anyone picks the sword up and begins using her, she will seem like any other virtual weapon.
The differences are a) cosmetic (see the picture at the top of the profile) and b) Marion’s ‘viral’ nature. As stated before, the Distortion Blade is a condensing and collapsing of Marion’s form and while she is in this form she releases only the faintest traces of Virus Distortion into her surroundings. An individual must be extremely sensitive to detect this Distortion release, and even then, individuals coming into Marion’s proximity are largely unaffected by it. The reason for this is because, for most intents and purposes, the Distortion Blade is Marion’s “shut down” form – a protective “pseudo-hibernation” that reduces her release of distortion and consumption of energy to almost zero. The counter to this, of course, is that she cannot project communication, she cannot move, and she cannot locate and consume energy (i.e. infect and transform others into viruses) of her own accord while in sword form. (Note that she can communicate, via words, mental pictures, or emotional waves, with an individual in direct physical contact with her.)
As mentioned, on first use the Distortion Blade seems like any other weapon, but this will change based on the outcome of the interaction between Marion and the individual that has ‘acquired’ her the first time she attempts to communicate with them. If the interaction is unfavorable to Marion, she will likely revert to her ‘marionette’ (‘natural’) form and escape at the first opportunity. On the other hand, if the interaction proves favorable, Marion is quite content to barter a deal with the individual, becoming subservient to them as a weapon and tool (and whatever else), in exchange for the promotion of her own survival – facilitated through the combat abilities of the Distortion Blade. (Ever the ‘puppet’, she relates best to the master-servant relationship, finding comfort and stability in the thing she is most familiar with.) The combat abilities of Marion’s sword form will develop overtime (i.e. through ability slot purchases), but the primary ability associated with the Distortion Blade is indicated directly by its name. Once the proper relationship is established, the Distortion Blade becomes a weapon of terror. On verbal command from her ‘master’, Marion is able to ‘charge’ the next Distortion Blade attack with – what else – concentrated Distortion force. Unlike the diffuse Distortion typically associated with a Virus, the concentrated attack of the Distortion Blade is extremely potent, capable of causing debilitating, excruciating pain, temporary paralysis and/or acute disorientation. Additionally, a successfully landed attack has the potential (at the discretion of the character’s writer) of infecting the individual with the Virus taint, causing a slow, pain-filled, miserable conversion into a Virus. If death is caused by a strike from the Distortion Blade, it occurs in this manner: the fatal strike immediately and completely transforms the individual into a Virus and then crushes it and its chip, converting the newly formed Virus/newly expired individual into pure energy that is absorbed by the Distortion Blade. 50% of this energy remains with Marion, thereby sustaining her as expected, and the other 50% is transferred to her ‘master’, as a kind of ‘tribute of servitude.’ This is an important aspect to consider, as every attack made by her ‘master’ that utilizes the Distortion Blade (whether with a special ability or not) drains a small portion of the ‘master’s’ energy and subjects them to minute amounts of distortion. This is a cumulative effect that must be balanced by inflicting the above described ‘viral death’ on other individuals from time-to-time, or the ‘master’ will find his or herself enfeebled and, ultimately, transformed into a Virus… (Other abilities, such as projectile attacks or defensive techniques, will become available as ability slots are purchased from the IC store.)
♦ A Touch of Normalcy: This is Marion’s “human guise” ability. A Touch of Normalcy allows Marion to temporarily take on a human form (see the picture at the top of the profile) and move about the other races “largely undetected.” Being unable to recall her physical appearance in the ‘real world’, Marion’s human form is an amalgamation of the “best traits” (by her fractured reasoning) of individual’s she has converted over the ten years since the digital conversion. The red/blue/blonde coloration and the ridiculous ‘hair halo’ may make it easy to identify her if an individual is aware of this form, but when A Touch of Normalcy is in effect, Marion is as ‘normal’ as any Leech (hiding their wings) or Siren in appearance. She is also able to suppress her innate release of Distortion (though not as efficiently as the Distortion Blade form). The problem is that she is exceptionally weak while maintaining this form, having no offensive or defensive capabilities to speak of. Additionally, she can only maintain this form for a few hours at most, due to how heavily it taxes her energy reserves. Finally, this ability is ONLY available if she has a ‘master’ commanding her – its primary purpose is to be the concealed weapon hiding in plain sight. (For example, she can instantly revert to a ‘charged’ Distortion Blade form on her ‘master’s’ command.) In order to activate A Touch of Normalcy, Marion requires ‘permission’ or a direct command from her ‘master.’ This caveat is likely a ‘mental block’ in her fractured reasoning, as that is the only explanation for why she cannot change into human form of her own accord.
[/ul][/size]
SUMMARY: A marionette, isolated by a nature composed of the fractured past and the distorted present, desiring only survival and the mandated direction of a manipulator.

RELATIONSHIPS:

[/b] – Deceased(?) – Marion’s most recent ‘master’ was a pathetic little runt of a Leech. ‘Salty’, as he was called, was honestly useful for only two things: whining and complaining. Nothing was ever good enough for Salty, and if something bad occurred, it was always someone or something else’s fault. His lack of utility and sour disposition always won him more enemies than friends, and his decidedly amateurish combat skills ensured that he was often on the receiving end of less than pleasant physical altercations. Truth be told, the very fact that he persisted 6 years after the conversion was astonishing, but luck only lasts for so long. Eventually, Issac crossed the wrong set of people and it was in his prolonged flight that he coincidentally came across a hibernating (read: in Distortion Blade form) Marion. Thinking the Blade was a stroke of luck (or fate), Issac was quick to snatch it up and take it with him as he continued to run. Marion, who was desperate from a long stretch of energy starvation, managed to play on Issac’s immediate fears and easily convinced him to become her ‘master.’ Unfortunately, she did not and could not have known what she was getting herself into. Although she was able to help Issac escape (read: destroy) his tormentors, the Leech was far from ideal, in terms of what was required for using Marion’s Distortion Blade form. He was weak-willed and afraid, running from nearly every confrontation. To further complicate matters, Marion – who was never asked to reveal her marionette or human form to him – as a tool, quickly became an easy target of blame for anything and everything that went wrong for Issac. The combination of no combat and constant verbal abuse equated to 4 years of misery, endured by the puppet strictly for the sake of survival (and because she cannot willingly break the master/servant relationship that she covets.) Ultimately, Issac’s energy reserves were exhausted, and the accumulation of Distortion from Marion converted him into a Virus, with Marion being set free and fully charged thanks to that conversion. It is speculated that Issac was part of the Virus swarm that currently festers between the village and Clocktower Boulevard, but it is suspected that he was destroyed during that conflict.
Note: Although she has the capability to develop non-master/servant relationships, this only occurs when she has developed a functional master/servant relationship. These ‘other’ relationships tend to develop with allies of her ‘master.’ Unfortunately, if she experiences an extended period of ‘freedom’ (i.e., on her own, without a ‘master’), her memory and mental capacity degrade back to their initial fractured, dysfunctional state, leaving her utterly isolated.
[/ul]INVENTORY:

[/i]
♦ <Reserved>
[/ul][/size]WEAPONS:

[/b]: Marion’s puppet strings are her primary combat tools, used for attacking and defending and, also, used for enhancing battle field movement. Nearly invisible as individual entities, the strings are innumerable, with veritable bundles attached to each moveable portion of her marionette form. When ‘segmented’ – i.e., when each string is acting on its own – the strings are capable of manipulating only fine motor movements – the curling of a lip in a smile or sneer, the twitch at the corner of an eye, ect. It is through combined efforts – literally, strings braiding together to become thicker, rope-like, visible objects – that the puppet strings are capable of both combat use and standard, overall movement. (For comic book fans, think Omega Red or Doctor Octopus.) The strings themselves are actually a solid manifestation of Marion’s Viral Distortion, are retractable (measuring anywhere from 2 centimeters to 12 meters in length), are capable of bludgeoning damage (whip-like) or piercing damage (when thrust at an enemy or structure with the tip of the string-bundle as the point of impact), and can be used to constrain a target, potentially creating a cocoon-like structure around them. Typically, this cocoon-capture is used to facilitate the conversion of a target/victim into a Virus. Since the strings are Distortion-based, severing them causes Marion no harm or discomfort, and the strings are capable of quickly regenerating with little additional energy consumption. Despite being Distortion, the string-bundles themselves are inefficient in facilitating a conversion of a target into a Virus. As mentioned previously, Marion will utilize the ‘cocoon-capture’ strategy on a weakened or ambushed target to facilitate the conversion. This is largely because her bite is her most potent ‘Virus taint’ delivery system while in marionette form. (She tends to latch on with her fangs once she has captured a target inside her cocoon.) Note that it is specifically her bite that ‘infects’ a target – the Viral taint is not contained in her saliva; rather, it is injected through hollow points in her fangs. As a result, receiving a kiss from Marion, for example, has no risk of causing someone to convert into a Virus.[/size]

[/ul][/size]HISTORY: Asuka Nishimura – a name long and not-so-painfully forgotten. A bastard child born to the youngest daughter of the head of the Nishimura Clan in Western Japan, Asuka was both a relic and a reject. The Nishimura Clan, an adjunct arm of the Japanese Yakuza, was known, in dark circles, for two things: ruthless efficiency and ancient eccentricity. Though part of the dark underbelly of Japanese society, the Nishimura lived and operated by the Code of Bushido. They were modern day samurai, from top to bottom, and that included the labeling and de-personification of their lesser, including those deemed ‘less desirable’ from within their own ranks.

Asuka was one such individual. From the moment she was born, she was a person in name only. She was raised to be a blade – nothing more, nothing less. Her existence was the way of the sword to the absolute exclusion of nearly everything else. She learned to read only so that she could receive written instruction. She learned to write not to communicate, but because the art form of calligraphy was considered to be instrumental in the proper wielding of the katana. She learned etiquette merely to facilitate her role and she learned honor to ensure she was the most cooperative of tools. There was, however, a problem. She learned ‘honor’ too well, and she proved to be too efficient for her own good.

It was a lifetime of service. A lifetime wearing, wielding, and being the sword. A lifetime of doing only for the Clan… but only as honor dictated, because to dishonor the Clan through dishonorable action was to die. Asuka operated through dictated protocol, never truly thinking for herself and also, never living for her own benefit. She engrossed herself in her role and, subsequently, in the ‘picture of justice’ that she inadvertently developed as a result of the only influences she had. Though she followed through with each and every order, the leaders of the Clan began to believe she was more trouble than she was worth. She was too disciplined and she held her beliefs and her code of honor too tightly for their tastes.

The trouble erupted during a time of internal strife in the Clan during her nineteenth year. Asuka’s grandfather and the head of the Nishimura Clan, Takayama,was assassinated by subordinate rivals. The reorganization of the Clan proved stressful to the girl, but she adapted as she was expected to... until the very first official Clan meeting post-reorganization. Those now in charge of the Clan intended to finish what they saw as ‘clean up’ up of the remnants of the old guard, and staged a ‘slip of the tongue’ to set Asuka’s predictable reaction into motion. She was read like a book because she was ‘by the book’, and the moment it was known to her that her ‘master’ had been assassinated, her ‘logic’ went into action. A samurai without a lord was a ronin; and a ronin’s only purpose was to avenge the loss of his lord, and then take his own life or to die trying. As soon as she took her first step forward, her actions were called to a halt. Surrounded by men with firearms and wielding only a katana, Asuka could do little but bide her time and hope for an opportunity to at least strike at the ‘head’ of the dishonorable band. She was verbally dissected by those in attendance. Her existence was brought into question and destroyed. She was a puppet, nothing more than a tool, and she had outlived her usefulness. Her ‘honor’ was a fairy tale – a fantasy engrained into her because it was ‘useful’ to those ‘pulling her strings.’ Her ‘dishonorable’ birth was made plain as well. …And she could not, in such a terrible moment, process any of it. The breakdown was piled on, and on, and on, until, finally, her identity fracturing upon itself, she found herself left with nothing but instinct. Instinct sent her forward; a single shot to the gut dropped her like a block of lead in water. It was not an immediately fatal shot, and it was not intended to be. Stripped of her identity and her sword, her body was unceremoniously deposited into a basement cell of the Nishimura mansion. She was to be left to die, whether by blood loss or sepsis.

But before that could happen, the digital conversion occurred. Where many were converted over in full, the fractured mind and half-dead young lady was converted in slivers... and when those slivers tried to come back together, they found that the pieces did not properly fit. Thus, the Viral Marionette was born in place of a fully realized individual, a twisted, broken shadow of what had been in reality was released on the digital space.

SEE THE LIGHT:

• Unshakably Loyal (to her ‘master’ and his/her allies, anyway)
  
• Childlike - able to find joy in simple things
  
• Quick Evolving (in mental capacity and maturity; only while under the control of a ‘master’)
  
• Rather Low Maintenance
  
• Extremely Strong Willed (when following orders, anyway)
  

FEAR THE DARK:

• Feral (when not under the control of a ‘master’)
  
• Childlike – prone to emotional fits, short attention span
  
• Possessive/Jealous (of her ‘master’; potentially of gifts/items in the future)
  
• A Virus – she has no choice but to be destructive
  
• Incapable of planning – blindly follows her master’s orders
  

GIVE IT TO ME:

• Her chosen ‘master’, when she has one, unconditionally
  
• Being considered ‘useful’ or ‘worthwhile’ – i.e., any praise at all
  
• Being satiated (i.e., immediately after receiving energy – or post-battle, as the case may be)
  
• Stable, civilized environments (kicks in after a period of maturing once she has a master; the more feral she is, the less she appreciates it)
  
• Katana – the Japanese sword holds a special significance to her… one she rarely re-remembers, and is also quite quick to forget
  

GET IT AWAY:

• Being alone/isolated
  
• Being cornered
  
• The prospect of being banished
  
• The cycle of forgetting and reverting back into a ‘feral’ creature
  
• Betrayal
  

IN MY NIGHTMARES:

• Being betrayed by her ‘master’ - a repeat of the end of the real world for her
  
• Failing her ‘master’ – failure is not an option
  
• The prospect of an eternity of isolation
  
• Death without realization and awareness – i.e., being killed while ‘feral’
  

IN MY DREAMS:

• Permanent co-existence with a ‘master’
  
• Absolution (no specifics) with unending stability
  
• To simply be forever recognized as ‘adequate’
  

OOC NAME: Ky – like the Guilty Gear character.

AGE: -_-; eh. I have two degrees and am about to be a doctor of pharmacy, so…

GENDER: Male.

HOW YOU FOUND US: Was here before, came back on the revamp e-mail? I think I originally found it through an ad on some other site I was on.

OTHER CHARACTERS: Jessie Santangelo

ANYTHING ELSE: A ‘manipulator’ is the proper name for a marionette’s puppeteer, hence the use of the term in the ‘describe your character in a sentence’ section.
Marion’s theme song could be ‘Isolation’ by Alter Bridge.
Marion’s file number is representative of the number of syllables required for each line of a haiku.

FACE CLAIM:
♦ [size=1]maria, WITCH BLADE - [color=FF44C1]Marion(ette)[/color][/size]
[/blockquote][/font][/size][/color][/td][/tr][/table][/center]

[TEARSOFNIGHTFALL]

A very unique character~