Mirror Universes
Meme yoinked from camwyn:So many, if not all, of the characters we play are good men and women at heart. But in another world, where something went wrong, they become nightmares.
Mel slayer_fray
From an early age, Melaka Fray exhibited unequalled strength, speed, and fighting prowess. She took to the power naturally, and as they say, power corrupts. Mel grew up a dangerous, unchallenged bully, a nightmare for the older sister who raised her, and the personal tormentor of her less powerful brother.
But he was still devastated when they were fifteen, and Mel, running alone on the rooftops of the warren, disappeared, and later presumed dead.
Mel was indeed killed, by a vampire known as Icarus. But in killing her, he discovered something amazing, and turned her out of perverse curiosity. Now, she leads not just him, but all the lurks in Haddyn, against the attempts of her brother, who is armed only with the loyality of his surviving sister, knowledge of the war between humans and demons that stretches back centuries, and the prophetic dreams that can sometimes be relied on to tell him her next move before she knows it herself.
Renee interrogoiterum
Renee Montoya was not a bent cop. She was never a bent cop.
She was that other, perhaps more dangerous thing; a cop so straight that she cracked with the effort.
It started in No Man's Land, when she was sent by a man she idolised to work with the murderous Two-Face. When her dealings with that criminal ended up with her and her family being kidnapped and held captive for months - and all because Jim Gordon sent her to strike a deal with the devil. Then, she started to crack, and began to realise that perhaps Dent had a point with his desire for revenge on the people who broke him.
She watched as Harvey Dent killed Commissioner James Gordon for the crime of sending her to Two-Face.
There was nothing she could do, of course; no one blamed her for that. Everyone knows you can't reason with Two-Face. Renee watched Dent kill her friend and her mentor, because he forced her to. She was the victim; no one blamed her, and she was offered support from the force.
But something broke inside.
Renee became hard, violent, and began to lose her faith in the law for doing what was right. When Two-Face outed her, framed her for murder, and broke her out of prison, she accepted her place as an outcast, but not before firmly rejecting his advances - she is, after all, a lesbian. In the ensuing fight, and out of spite, acid was involved - if he couldn't have her, no one would.
Unlike Harvey Dent, Renee didn't lose half her face, she lost all of it.
She never returned to Delia, or her family, or the GCPD. Renee Montoya gave up her old life, with all it's complications and struggles, and she became the Faceless.
At first, the GCPD were reluctant to go after the Faceless, because she had a habit of going after people who most of them agreed deserved what was coming to them: When Jim Corrigan walked free for the murder of Crispus Allen, it was the Faceless who hunted him down and killed him.
She was the Bat's problem, but the Bat was missing; he left Gotham for a year, and a new contender rose to take his place - a woman. A woman who had personal history with the woman now under the tutelage of the Religion of Crime, who would soon rise to be its head, and who would be there during the Final Crisis, leading Cain himself back onto the Earth
Dinah Lance raptorcanaria
On Earth Two, Larry Lance was a brave, if occasionally cocky, Private Investigator who became a close friend of the Black Canary, and through her, the Justice Society. On Earth One, he was a selfish, back stabbing mob informant. Don't ask how he ended up fathering a child by the Black Canary, it's best not to know.
The Justice Society taught Dinah Lance everything they knew about of parental adoration and the desire to protect her from harm in the changing world. Her mother, however, was decidedly relieved that her daughter showed no inclination to follow in her heroic footprints, and was happy to dedicate her life to the pure pursuit of her martial arts hobby.
Which is where is went wrong. Because without the drive for Heroism into which to pour her talents, Dinah cared for little except mastering not just Judo, but any fighting technique she could learn, just for the Hell of it. She learned everything she could from her uncles, then left home to study under Sensei Otomo, Richard Dragon and even the O-sensei. When she began to exhibit a superpower, she ignored and suppressed it, because it got in the way of the pure expression of her art. She was soon tempted by assassination and mercenary fighting just to earn a living wage while she worked.
Since the death of her mother, the assassin has been operating under the name Black Canary, to the fury of those uncles who are still alive to see their devoted niece as a callous, unfeeling assassin. Having killed Lady Shiva, and defeated Bronze Tiger and all her former senseis in combat, she was for a long time widely considered not just the best martial artist in the world, but very likely unbeatable. Now, the world waits for her perhaps inevitable return to Gotham, to face the daughter of the woman she murdered.
Mel slayer_fray
From an early age, Melaka Fray exhibited unequalled strength, speed, and fighting prowess. She took to the power naturally, and as they say, power corrupts. Mel grew up a dangerous, unchallenged bully, a nightmare for the older sister who raised her, and the personal tormentor of her less powerful brother.
But he was still devastated when they were fifteen, and Mel, running alone on the rooftops of the warren, disappeared, and later presumed dead.
Mel was indeed killed, by a vampire known as Icarus. But in killing her, he discovered something amazing, and turned her out of perverse curiosity. Now, she leads not just him, but all the lurks in Haddyn, against the attempts of her brother, who is armed only with the loyality of his surviving sister, knowledge of the war between humans and demons that stretches back centuries, and the prophetic dreams that can sometimes be relied on to tell him her next move before she knows it herself.
Renee interrogoiterum
Renee Montoya was not a bent cop. She was never a bent cop.
She was that other, perhaps more dangerous thing; a cop so straight that she cracked with the effort.
It started in No Man's Land, when she was sent by a man she idolised to work with the murderous Two-Face. When her dealings with that criminal ended up with her and her family being kidnapped and held captive for months - and all because Jim Gordon sent her to strike a deal with the devil. Then, she started to crack, and began to realise that perhaps Dent had a point with his desire for revenge on the people who broke him.
She watched as Harvey Dent killed Commissioner James Gordon for the crime of sending her to Two-Face.
There was nothing she could do, of course; no one blamed her for that. Everyone knows you can't reason with Two-Face. Renee watched Dent kill her friend and her mentor, because he forced her to. She was the victim; no one blamed her, and she was offered support from the force.
But something broke inside.
Renee became hard, violent, and began to lose her faith in the law for doing what was right. When Two-Face outed her, framed her for murder, and broke her out of prison, she accepted her place as an outcast, but not before firmly rejecting his advances - she is, after all, a lesbian. In the ensuing fight, and out of spite, acid was involved - if he couldn't have her, no one would.
Unlike Harvey Dent, Renee didn't lose half her face, she lost all of it.
She never returned to Delia, or her family, or the GCPD. Renee Montoya gave up her old life, with all it's complications and struggles, and she became the Faceless.
At first, the GCPD were reluctant to go after the Faceless, because she had a habit of going after people who most of them agreed deserved what was coming to them: When Jim Corrigan walked free for the murder of Crispus Allen, it was the Faceless who hunted him down and killed him.
She was the Bat's problem, but the Bat was missing; he left Gotham for a year, and a new contender rose to take his place - a woman. A woman who had personal history with the woman now under the tutelage of the Religion of Crime, who would soon rise to be its head, and who would be there during the Final Crisis, leading Cain himself back onto the Earth
Dinah Lance raptorcanaria
On Earth Two, Larry Lance was a brave, if occasionally cocky, Private Investigator who became a close friend of the Black Canary, and through her, the Justice Society. On Earth One, he was a selfish, back stabbing mob informant. Don't ask how he ended up fathering a child by the Black Canary, it's best not to know.
The Justice Society taught Dinah Lance everything they knew about of parental adoration and the desire to protect her from harm in the changing world. Her mother, however, was decidedly relieved that her daughter showed no inclination to follow in her heroic footprints, and was happy to dedicate her life to the pure pursuit of her martial arts hobby.
Which is where is went wrong. Because without the drive for Heroism into which to pour her talents, Dinah cared for little except mastering not just Judo, but any fighting technique she could learn, just for the Hell of it. She learned everything she could from her uncles, then left home to study under Sensei Otomo, Richard Dragon and even the O-sensei. When she began to exhibit a superpower, she ignored and suppressed it, because it got in the way of the pure expression of her art. She was soon tempted by assassination and mercenary fighting just to earn a living wage while she worked.
Since the death of her mother, the assassin has been operating under the name Black Canary, to the fury of those uncles who are still alive to see their devoted niece as a callous, unfeeling assassin. Having killed Lady Shiva, and defeated Bronze Tiger and all her former senseis in combat, she was for a long time widely considered not just the best martial artist in the world, but very likely unbeatable. Now, the world waits for her perhaps inevitable return to Gotham, to face the daughter of the woman she murdered.