Abraxas
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Author's Notes
Abraxas is a character I've had in various forms and identities since the early naughts. Her first appearance was as a shameless self-insert in early 2000, and she has developed quite nicely since then. I have built her story up over the years quite a bit, and as such she has quite an extensive character history. It generally takes quite a bit to open Abby up to folks she's unfamiliar with, thus everything you see here should be considered only from an OOC standpoint unless authorized by the, er, author. Please feel free to initiate contact on sight - I haven't ever had much of an opportunity to actually play her character ingame, and it would be lovely to develop some ties.
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Appearance
Abraxas stands at a mere five feet in height, making her appear to be somewhat less intimidtating than she would prefer. She has a slender build and well-toned muscles. Her eyes are slightly almond-shaped and wide-set. The right eye is a darker emerald green color while her left eye is pale jade green. The area surrounding her right eye is marred with very old-looking scar tissue, faded but still noticeable. Her hair is bright, crimson red, occasionally dyed with a few dark blue streaks.
Personality
Abraxas is a seemingly contradictory individual. While at first appearances she is stern and almost harsh in her judgments, anyone who spends a more lengthy amount of time around her is bound to see another side. With friends she is close to, Abraxas is a warm, caring individual. She has a very wry sense of humor and enjoys a good joke as much as the next person. Earn her trust and earn a devoted friend who will do anything she can to assist or help solve a given problem. She cares deeply for this world and the people who live here, and may not always show it, but is willing to do just about anything she has to in order to keep Earth safe.
Background
Abraxas was born Princess Mellissandre Jhenvie du Mendhai, on a small world closest to its star. This planet was far enough away from Earth that it never registered on any of the farthest imagery captured by our various space programs. Mendhai was the innermost planet of thirteen worlds that surrounded the star Irraiel. Twelve out of thirteen worlds were capable of limited interstellar and interdimensional travel. The thirteenth was far enough away from Irraiel that it wasn't capable of supporting life. (Or so they thought; this, however, is another story.)
Mellissandre was the youngest of eight children born to the ruling family on the largest continent, and therefore least likely to inherit the throne at the king's death. Mellissandre was instead found to have inherited a rare gift considered by many of their race to be more important than royal lineage - the touch of the gods themselves. She found out at the age of ten that she could manipulate and conjure fire and had an aptitude for sensing the emotions of those around her. She grew up as part of a very rare class of being on Mendhai, called Soulkeepers. They made up about 10-15% of the planetary population. They kept the memories of the dead of their world in their own minds, and would stay for a time with the bereaved to assist in the grieving process. This ability, along with other rare magical talents (for example, Mellissandre's previously mentioned), rendered Soulkeepers immortal. Thus, the memories of their dead were never lost to the Mendhaian people.
The Princess was in her second century of life when the Stranger came. Fascination with the Soulkeepers and their inherent immortality brought him to the planet Mendhai. He was greeted warmly, as in any of their first contact scenarios, and between his people and theirs were shared many scientific and social advances. All seemed well.
And then the Soulkeepers started disappearing. One vanished in the first year. Three within the next six months. Alarm spread throughout the Mendhaian populace. Mellissandre, who had been in touch in various ways with her fellows, began losing contact with the ones that were left until only she remained. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the Mendhaian peoples, across all the continents, began to grow ill. As a virulent, incurable plague swept across the globe, the Stranger finally captured Mellissandre, tearing her away from the Passing ceremony of a small, six-year-old girl. He revealed his ship and facilities, which had never been seen by Mendhaian eyes. Within the depths of the behemoth ship were all the other Soulkeepers, attached to various machines and testing equipment, all in differing states of decay, illness, and death. The Stranger, it seemed, wanted to find out what it took to kill something that was supposed to be immune to disease.
Mellissandre would be his finest work.
She would emerge a bruised, battered husk when she finally escaped. The last survivor of the Mendhaian world would spend a full fifteen hundred years in the bowels of the Stranger's ship, the subject of experiment after experiment. Each one surpassing the last in creativity and cruelty. It was with the last vestiges of her strength that Mellissandre managed to pull enough force together to rip a small hole in the fabric of her dimension and slip sideways into ours. She would find herself on a world several galaxies away. Over the next several years she was rehabilitated by a sweet and charming man with whom she eventually fell in love and was wed to. Shortly after the birth of their second child, the Stranger caught up with her and made certain she suffered for her escape - her mate and children, along with the rest of that world, were killed in a plague similar to the one that ended Mendhai. Mellissandre then spent the next four millennia running from the Stranger - who she renamed Soulkiller in remembrance of her people - until she finally lost him and found herself on a small, marbled blue gem of a world third in distance from its bright, yellow sun. The Soulkiller had destroyed all of her previous homes in an attempt to run her to ground, chasing her mercilessly from world to world. An odd form of energy-exhaustive interstellar and dimensional teleportation finally ran out of fuel on a wind-swept beach not far from where New York City would eventually be. When she landed, the year was 1711.
After spending three hundred years hiding from the populace of our world until she could gain an understanding of how things worked, our languages, our customs, and anything else she could garner, she eventually started coming out of the woodwork in small villages across the North American continent. Being very careful to stay out of any sort of limelight, she worked her way across what was developing as the United States of America, doing what she could to further the well-being of the young nation, always altering her appearance so as to remain unnoticed. She developed a fondness for law enforcement, which led her to a career choice on Earth that would shape her in ways she thought were no longer possible.
Eventually, she would find herself in San Diego sometime around 1980. Having developed an alternate identity and the appropriate paperwork as such, the last of the Soulkeepers was reborn as Andraia Renee Maxwell, a young and promising member of the San Diego Police Department. After a few years on a street patrol route in a run-of-the-mill patrol car, she was offered the opportunity for testing to advance to detective rank. With much hard work and study, she eventually obtained this goal and spent the next several years doing her part to keep the streets of the large city safe.
It wasn't until Doctor Destroyer finally made his move and destroyed so much of the Motor City that she realized there was so much more that she could do. Mellissandre - or Andraia, now - realized that the gifts she had hidden away for so long were gifts she could use in defense of humanity. They were gifts that she could use openly. Okay, she thought eventually, so the tights were a little silly, but the uniform is part of the job - and not just for a cop. It wasn't long after she realized just what she was still capable of that she resigned from the SDPD and moved eastward to what was left of Detroit. She volunteered regulary to help with the rebuiling of what would come to be known as Millennium City, and studied as much as she could about Defender and the Champions - and the other heroes who seemed to be coming out of the woodwork in droves to protect planet Earth. After much study, she realized she wasn't the only non-human interested in protecting this place. With some research and development, she finally found a suitable identity. Abraxas was an angel or being of legend, sometimes associated with mystic protections carved on stones, charms, or amulets. In other places, she read that Abraxas was an angel of vengeance, come to smite those deserving of retribution. She found that she appreciate the vagueness associated with the name, and the name itself. Given her own sort of rebirth, she chose the symbol of the phoenix to accompany the identity. One costume design later, and Abraxas was born.
It was an unfortunate coincidence that the Qularr invasion happened that same week. Unfortunate - for the invaders. It was a test of her resolve, and she passed with flying colors, earning the gratitude of Millennium City's mayor, police force, and citizenry. After the invasion had been repelled, Abraxas turned her attention to other places, hoping to do what she can to aid the world she now calls home.
Current Day
Abraxas was horrified to find out not long ago that the Soulkiller has found her again. He has apparently decided that destroying the Earth outright and reclaiming his prize is far too easy a fate for her. The Soulkiller has instead decided to torment his prize. He launches the occasional doomsday plot from time to time, knowing that she will have no choice but to personally arrive and stop him. Though she has so far managed to successfully do so each time, Abraxas faces each encounter with her own personal nightmare with no small measure of dread. Even so many centuries after her imprisonment, the memory of what he has done to her and so many other worlds haunts her dreams, and she knows that if she makes even the slightest mistake, he will catch her again, and this time there will be no escape.
As the encounters occur, however, something is changing within Abraxas's heart. She is finding herself tired of running and tired of his games. She has made a resolution to herself - Abraxas will not allow him to murder another world. She will stop him, or die trying, and she will take her revenge for the souls of her murdered family, friends, and homeworld. There will be no more running from the Soulkiller.
