Serra
Unavailable
Unavailable
Personalia
Name; Serra Pines.
Age; 20
Gender; Female
Current employment; B-tier Gladiator
Aliases; None
Ability (Click to Show)
Spoiler (Click to Show)
Spoiler (Click to Show)
Spoiler (Click to Show)
Apart from her stellar condition she’s on the weaker physical spectrum and in a direct test of might she’ll more often than not buckle. Furthermore, while she can throw a punch, she’s untrained and predictable, and wouldn’t hold up against someone with expertise. As such, she will often opt to maintain her distance at all costs.
Using her powers physically exhausts her, and since her body draws directly from her powers to regulate her body temperature, she will fatigue considerably faster in colder environments.
The source of her powers, her hands, are her weakness. Hurting her hands or finding a way to limit the effective range in which she can move them (handcuffs, for example) will seriously impede her ability.
Unironically, water is her greatest weakness. If her hands get soaked in water she will struggle greatly to muster even the simplest flames. While the water will evaporate swiftly, she is essentially out of action for as long as they remain wet. The gloves she wears help protect her tender hands from liquids but only do so much.[/spoiler]
Spoiler (Click to Show)
Not wanting to bear the burden of having to care for a child capable of accidentally burning them alive while they slept, they abandoned Serra in an orphanage. When that same orphanage burned down three months later, the baby was sent to one of the more specialized orphanages in Sierra Pines. Here, the caretakers took certain precautions so that the mistakes of the past wouldn’t repeat themselves.
The rest of her life past that point has been rather straightforward for an orphan in the big special city. Already from an early age her future in the city’s gladiatorial ring became apparent as she grew to become quite the fighter, often getting into small fights with her fellow orphans. Since it was amongst the caretakers’ tasks to prepare all orphans for a future in the city’s infrastructure, they took great interest in the little brat and groomed her as their prized little possession, sending her to the best teachers they could get a hold of.
The stars seemed aligned, but Serra’s powers soon outgrew her ability to control them and she turned into a great hazard for all around her. The caretakers had special gloves made just for the sake of inhibiting her power, but when it became apparent just how much it kneecapped her potential, the orphanage lost interest in her as a candidate gladiator. They believed her too weak to compete against the others.
So the people grooming her turned towards more promising candidates and young Serra was left all to herself. Because of this, she grew a great deal of resentment towards her old caretakers and took her frustration out on their new “favourite”. After the incident she was discharged at the earliest legal age, at 16.
Never having known anything else, the young Serra turned to the RHG corporation in search of work to do, and they gave her a job in an experimental variété show.
A few years passed and needless to say, she felt underwhelmed with what she’d become. The young lady decided that she was done playing by the rules and sought out a battle about to begin; Instead of letting the duel go its normal way, she challenged both gladiators at the same time and emerged victorious from the endeavor.
Since then she has been actively competing in the roster.[/spoiler]
Spoiler (Click to Show)
Spoiler (Click to Show)
Her black, fire retardant gloves run all the way up her forearm, and beneath them she hides two hands black as ash, with long thin pointy fingers. All other features such as wrinkles, veins and even nails seem to have disappeared from the hands and the smaller part of the forearm, and instead taken on an ashen texture. She only takes off her gloves once every week to change them.
Her gladiator’s attire is a reflection of her fiery and eccentric personality; Over her black gloves she wears thin, flame red ones. On her chest she wears a small top of the same colour, and on her legs she wears a slanted skirt over a black pair of leggings. On her feet she wears simple black boots. It should go without saying that this uniform is completely fireproofed.
When not out to fight, she dresses casually but lightly. Serra’s often seen walking around in shorts and sandals with white tank tops when the weather’s hot, a variety of shirts and t-shirts and boots combined with a skirt or jeans respectively when the weather’s just okay, and when it gets really cold she may sometimes be seen wearing a long sleeve or a sweater. While she tries to make sure that most of her clothes are heat resistant in some way or another, not all of them are since that’d just cost her way too much money and time.[/spoiler]
[Spoiler=Demo]
As she wove her way through a torrent of grannies, children, and other distant relatives of the tortoise, it crossed her mind that at this rate old age was bound to catch up to her sooner than her pursuer would. Then again, whose genius idea was it to go shopping on a friday afternoon? She’d known being ambushed by some hotshot-wannabe was just gonna be part of the drill, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.
Ramming through the masses cramping the alleyways, holding on to her groceries for dear life, Serra took another right and another left before emerging on a road again. In streets as narrow as these he was bound to catch up with her using his grappling hook any moment now. Unlike him, however, she knew these streets like her back pocket. There was a large, open plaza not far from here where she could level the playing ground in her favour.
She crossed the street, into another alleyway. It wasn’t as busy here. Surprising really, because the plaza ahead was usually bustling this time of day. She didn’t dwell on it as she tried to recall the way there. Yes, the surroundings were starting to feel familiar, she remembered now. Left, right, right, forward, right, left.
Then she slid to a halt, still clutching the grocery bags. Up ahead in the alleyway were a few garages, a fire escape and some apartments, but no plaza, and no way out. She could beat herself on the head if she understood a thing of it right now. She stamped her feet on the ground in frustration.
No, no need to lose her cool now, though she assessed the only way to the plaza would be through whatever joker’s chasing her. Were she to fight him here her groceries would surely go up in flames, though, perhaps her groceries could save themselves. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a white can of deo before setting her eyes on the only way in.
Melancholy took hold of her-- it seemed almost like a waste to use this now, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or some bullshit like that.
Then the shadow of a figure swinging on a rope painted the sunlit wall ahead of her and a mere second later a black blur emerged from the corner in full swing. Serra threw her deo at him with all her might, followed by a swift fireball, and like a small hand grenade the makeshift explosive swatted him out of the air like a fly. Seeing her chance clear, she made a break for it, laughter rising from her chest she heard him crashing into a bunch of garbage behind her. Right where he belongs.
Going back the way she came from and this time taking a left where she should’ve before, the plaza was dawning into view in the distance. Snagging a phone from a careless passerby in her flight, she dialed the fire department in a rush.
“Sier--”
“Yes I’d like to report a big fire at Avanner Square, send some paramedics too okay bye!” and just like that she hung up.
She cast a glance behind her and indeed, the gentleman who had so selflessly loaned her his phone was trying his hardest to catch up with her. The smartphone in her hands, one of the newest models, seemed almost too good for the likes of him, but it wouldn’t be very ladylike of her to not show him some manners after all he’d done for her, so with a loud “Thanks!” she threw the device back in his hands. Whether he caught it or not was none of her concern.
There was plenty of open space on the plaza, the pavement was a mozaïc of bricks with a few trees sticking out of it, and the buildings on the side were little shops, a cafe and a restaurant. She carefully placed her bags on the side and discarded her sweater, preparing to fight her foe in tank top and jeans as she caught her breath.
Not a moment later the man in question swung into full view. At a lack of alternative targets, he fired his grappling hook right at Serra, but she clutched it out of the air and repaid his favour in kind by trying to smite him out of the air with a surge of flame. The same trick didn’t work twice on him, though, and nimble like a cat he landed on his feet a few metres away, his grappling hook falling to the ground a short ways behind him, the cable still resting in her hands. The inferno instead crashed straight into some sort of storefront and screams could be heard all around as people scurried to safety.
She finally managed to get a good look of him, his face, that of a young lad with crescent eyes and short black hair, was largely obscured by a dark cowl, and a black cloak dangled off of his back, largely covering the dark shirt and pants underneath. In his right hand he brandished one of those eastern blades, the name of it eluded her. With his boot heel he stamped out the smouldering tip of his cape.
Placing her hands on her hips, she began strutting about while maintaining her distance, eyes still locked with his. He seemed to know better than to charge right at her and started circling with her, though she could tell that maintaining his distance ran against his nature.
“What took you so long, champ? Were you waiting for your mother to finish your cute little outfit, or did you just find it in the dumpsters over there and decide to put it on?” He feigned his cool, but his eyes betrayed his frustration and she couldn’t help but feel a little smug and threw her head back in laughter. Then his eyes darted sideways and he made a break for his hook, but found himself cut short by a burst of flame striking right in front of him.
She maintained her assault and he only evaded the next one by tumbling forward. Before he could even get to his feet she threw another, which he barely avoided by throwing himself on his side. He jumped upright and tried to rush at her but a sizeable blast dissuaded him from that idea as he dropped onto his back, the blaze instead turning the tree behind him into an oversized torch.
And she did not let up, throwing fireball upon fireball as he danced around like a ballerina trying to dodge them all. She delighted in watching him scramble and her grinning turned into laughter. Then he finally gave up and slid to a halt not a long way off of a storefront.
“Whew, how’s that for a warm-up, hotshot?” She quipped at him as she took a moment to catch her breath and wipe the sweat from her forehead. He got up on his feet, cast a look behind him, and raised his arms in response. “That’s all you got?” He retorted.
Serra couldn’t help but chuckle in disbelief. Was he taunting her now? Perhaps the lad had some balls after all. Very well then, she answered his challenge by hurling a huge blazing star of fire straight at him.
He took a step to the left and let the inferno rush right past his smug face, straight into the two paper grocery bags Serra had so neatly tucked against the wall behind him a few minutes prior. As the contents of her bags exploded all over the wall her grin dropped to the floor like a brick and she stood there nailed to the ground in disbelief. This- This immeasurable tw-h..., this absolutely unbelievable cu-..
She snapped out of it and shook her head, and only now noticed he’d made a break for his hook once again. He was gonna pay, alright, and not only in the literal sense. Launching fireballs again, this time with the intent to hit, he proved more nimble than she’d at first anticipated and slid, tumbled and dodged his way past all of them before finally snagging his grappling hook off the ground where it’d landed. In an instant he’d launched himself back towards the storefront. Serra tried swatting him out of the air again with a blast but before she had the chance to he readjusted his course mid flight by grappling right next to her, the fire missing him by an inch.
Hastily she threw another as she scrambled to get out of his direct trajectory, but as he made impact and slid over the bricks he fired his hook at her legs, tripping her over and dragging her along as he came to a stop. With a kick she freed herself from the rope but before she could get up he’d already closed the gap and kicked her in the chest, pinning her to the ground. She raised her arm to blast him in the face but with his
:origin()/pre07/37ed/th/pre/i/2007/310/6/5/i_will_live_again_in_the_flame_by_thoraxtheimpalor.jpg)
