app 2011
Personal Information
Name: Siberia
Age: 19
Personal LJ: frostedbasilisk
Email / AIM / MSN: AIM: zombiesicles
Current Character(s): N/A
Character Information
Character Name: Manuela Hidalgo
Fandom: Resident Evil
Source: (Wikipedia or some other summary of the plot and character - only necessary if your character is from an obscure fandom)
Character History: The Resident Evil game series is actually very long and detailed, so it's hard to pick a place to start. For Manuela, it's important to go over some earlier events, but since one of them is basically a whole game, I'll just gloss.
This whole business started in 1967 when three men, Ozwell Spencer, Edward Ashford and James Marcus, founded a company called Umbrella Corporation. It was advertised as a pharmaceutical company, although it eventually grew to such a large size that it endorsed hardware, machinery, weaponry, and even food and cosmetics. However, it was, at its source, a way for the three scientists listed above to perform ( illegal ) bioengineering research on a peculiar strain of virus that would later be developed into what we all know and love as the T-virus. Obviously, this ultimately didn't end so well for a large number of plants, people and animals, eventually including our poor Manuela.
The grandchild of Edward Ashford, Alexia, is a scientific genius, and she engineers a new, more potent strain of the virus by combining the T-virus with an age-old virus found in queen ants - she names the result of this combination the T-Veronica virus. She injects this into the family butler to test its effects, hoping to see him gain power but also retain his sense of self; however, he mutates into a monster - his body could not coexist with T-Veronica, and it consumed him. Seeing this, Alexia forms a new plan; she injects it into herself and goes into cryogenic stasis for 15 years to allow her body to become used to and gradually learn to tolerate the virus. It works for the most part - her consciousness and personality remain, and she only mutates by her own command ( or when caused severe damage. A linear launcher will do that to you. ) A certain sneaky man named Wesker manages to get his hands on the T-Veronica virus and is thus able to disseminate it among others of his choosing on the black market.
Another sneaky man, this one much more misguided, a rich drug cartel owner named Javier Hidalgo, purchases the virus from Wesker some time later. His wife is deathly ill, and there is no way to save her with modern medicine. So Javier injects her with the T-Veronica virus, hoping that it will strengthen her cells. It does; however, just like what happened to the Ashford's butler, Javier's wife mutates due to her body's inability to coexist with the virus. She becomes a monster.
Devastated by the loss, but encouraged by the near-success of the T-Veronica virus, he turns to his daughter, Manuela. She'd inherited the same fatal illness that her mother had, diagnosed at age 15, and her clock was ticking. Javier was unwilling to let her suffer the same fate. He administers the T-Veronica virus to Manuela, too, but this time with a sick catch; in order to prevent the virus from quickly mutating and taking over her body, as it did with her mother, Javier has her organs transplanted regularly, keeping them from T-Veronica corruption. At least fifty young girls from the surrounding area in South America were kidnapped and killed to keep Manuela alive.
Manuela lives unaware of her morbid situation for a few years, sickly but content. The doctors merely performed their operations on her, with her having little to no knowledge of what was going on besides her father's assurances that it was all to help her. She did not know that her mother had been transformed into a creature; she was under the impression she had died of the illness. Nor did she know that she had been infected with the T-Veronica virus; it was only in the fateful year of 2002 that she noticed a strange rash of sorts breaking out on her arm. It was obviously unnatural, slimy and greenish in color, and she made her doctors tell her what was going on. At that point, she learned everything - the numerous girls that had been killed to sustain her and the deadly virus that lived inside of her - and she fled Javier's mansion in horror and anger.
Her plan was to flee to the village of Mixcoatl, just outside of her father's mansion, but her presence unintentionally brings the virus to the village in the form of Javier's zombies following her, bringing death to all its inhabitants. She makes her way to an abandoned church in the swampy land nearby, where she is encountered later by two US government operatives, Leon S. Kennedy and Jack Krauser. When they find her, she is not conscious, but instead singing in a near trance-like state. As soon as she stops, she collapses, and an enormous monster attacks. Leon and Krauser are left to fight and successfully defeat it. They bring the unconscious Manuela along with them, planning to use her as a guide to get to Javier's mansion, their target location. When she wakes up, she quietly agrees to help them upon learning that everybody in Mixcoatl has been killed.
When they get to Javier's mansion, it's obvious that Manuela couldn't have Simply Walked Into Mordor; there are zombies everywhere, blocking every entrance. All she can say is that they 'weren't there' when she came through. Her father wants to drag her back, and sends violent undead opposition Leon and Krauser's way at every opportunity; however, they refuse to hand her over, protecting her.
It becomes obvious that something is wrong with Manuela, as she's quiet, distracted, and occasionally stooped over in pain, and Leon eventually wrings the painful truth about her viral infection out of her. Meanwhile, the pain in her arm is growing increasingly severe - a grim portent of her future. Leon and Krauser don't know how to help her, but they can't exactly just kill her, either. The only option is to continue further into the mansion with her guidance.
Manuela's doctors are found slaughtered in the halls as they penetrate deeper into Javier's mansion. They happen upon the room where Manuela was operated on, uncovering bodybag upon bodybag of preserved sacrificial girls. Sorrowfully, she says that she does not want to live if it means others have to die, but Javier suddenly appears, thanking Leon and Krauser for bringing his daughter back before siccing the church's giant monster (which they thought they felled earlier) on them. After they kill it, it becomes apparent that this thing, hideous and violent, was once Manuela's mother, and Manuela sees with crystal clarity what's going to happen to her soon.
Javier is cornered and desperate now, and he resorts to the last option he can think of - there's a giant plant infected with the T-Veronica in his secret garden ( where he must have kept the virus ), and he feeds himself to it. The two combine into an enormous monster, and Javier, still cognizant, prepares to smush Leon and Krauser with his mighty zombie tentacles. However, history repeats itself; Javier harnesses the great power of the T-Veronica virus, but it only lasts him minutes before the virus overtakes him and transforms him into a gigantic killing machine. Seeing all this, Manuela comes to a decision: she doesn't want to become a mindless killer, and so she throws herself into her father's warpath, preferring to die a human than live as a monstrosity. Leon tackles her out of the way of his attack just in time, but not quick enough to move out of the way from a second barrage of Javier's enormous crushing tentacles.
However, something is different with Manuela. Like Alexia, the virus was able to exist peacefully in her body, since Manuela's organs had been constantly switched over the span of the years. Manuela raises the arm that's been paining her, and as her father's tentacle strikes it, the blood released from her arm lights on fire - a characteristic trait of T-Veronica infectees. Unlike most infectees, though, Manuela is - to her own shock - still in control of her senses. The tentacle recoils, and Manuela and Leon survive thanks to her power. Despite the immense pain, physical and emotional, she assists her two government friends to defeat her father, using her own burning blood to bring him down.
After he's defeated, Leon and Krauser head back to the US, bringing Manuela with them. She's given to the government to be taken care of, with Leon's words ringing in her head - she has to go on and live, for the sake of all the other girls living inside of her.
......
Or she was supposed to go there, but after passing out on the helicopter, she awoke in the city of Nautilus instead, utterly confused. She's quickly educated on the city and what her being here means, and although she hardly considers herself worthy of what she considers to be a "second chance," she doesn't return home, knowing that there's nothing waiting for her on Earth any longer. After all, she destroyed all of it. Vincent Valentine takes her in, allowing her to stay at his house. Even so, she has a very difficult time coping - her entire world fell apart in just two days, and now she's in an entirely new one. Still, the people are kind, and aside from Vincent, she makes a sort of strange friendship in particular with Rion Steiner, a rather rough-around-the-edges amnesiac boy.
It quickly becomes apparent that Nautilus has a whole new set of problems for her to deal with. A variety of weird things occur, most of them staying at just weird (or embarrassing), but there are those that cause more trouble than others. Christmas passes quietly, but a wish-granting meteor shower causes some trouble for both Vincent and Rion, though she - once again - avoids trouble, and hates herself for it. Later, she sees Rion shorting out from his powers - losing control and nearly killing himself - and comes to see him, worried about his injuries. It's there that she learns more about his powers, their similarities - and, moreover, she reveals the truth of her condition to him. He promises to keep her from turning into a monster - and she makes him promise not to get killed by his own powers.
The city had been changing before then - the dark presence of Isis and her City of Glass called for the city to defend it, and, against Vincent's wishes, Manuela went to help. More than half the city traveled to the deadly City of Glass to stop Isis once and for all. And Manuela would quickly come to regret this decision.
It started off well enough. She had tagged along with Rion's team - after all, they'd promised to look out for one another, and the Solaris team was doing well enough, managing to unlock their designated gate. It wasn't until later that shit started to hit the fan. The team was separated, and Rion, after being shaken by the death of his close friend, V, encounters one of the more fearsome monsters - one that took the shape of those close to him before trying to devour his memories. He kills several of these Facedancers before running out of energy and power - and one remaining monster, in the shape of Manuela, overtakes him. The real Manuela arrives just in time to save him from death, brutally destroying her doppelganger - but Rion's memories were already gone. Defeated, she helps him hobble back to safety, half-dead. Isis is killed, but she is shaken, and Rion refuses to talk about his missing memories.
Not long after, Rion decides to go back to Michelangelo City to try and fix his world, even with his memories in pieces. Manuela is worried, but for the most part, things proceed as normal. She receives a set of flower bulbs from Nautilus - unbeknownst to her, a few of them are infected with the T-Veronica virus. V, whom she has since befriended, invites her to stay at the Shadow Gallery where he lives - after all, Vincent hasn't been seen for months. After a bit, she takes him up on his offer, and the two of them decide to plant the dangerous bulbs together. Of course, they soon learn that Rion died when he went back home, appearing in Nautilus only as a fragment of himself, and Manuela, V, and a few of Rion's other friends go to Michelangelo City themselves to retrieve Rion's body. Rion's thoughts and spirit are in Nautilus - however, they are absorbed by his recently-arrived twin brother, Cain, who agrees to fork them over in exchange for protection of his life. Rion is finally back to normal, relieving poor Manuela a bit.
The flowers in the garden are quickly killed by the T-Veronica blooms, which steal all of the nutrients there. Manuela is depressed, but doesn't think too much of it - until the city is suddenly overrun with zombies. Manuela can only assume the worst - that it's the fault of those familiar flowers. She runs to use her powers to destroy them, but the city's state makes her powers out of control - and her worst nightmare occurs. She becomes a mindless and murderous monster. Multiple people take her on, and in the end, Rion is the one who lands the killing blow.
When she returns to Nautilus, she doesn't remember any of her time as a monster, and believes she has died... and is remorseful that she's come back. However, Rion yells at her, saying she should never think she should have stayed dead, and V comes to comfort her as well.
Even so, things seemed to be falling apart, and Manuela fell back to sleep not long after.
Character Personality:
Right away, Manuela gives the impression of being a quiet and rather deferential young girl; and for the most part, this is very true. It's likely she's been raised in a closed environment her whole life, with only family doctors and her father for company; as such, she's shy around others and not quite sure how to deal with them. This is not to say that she does not understand other people; in fact, she cares very much for them, and this may be another reason for why she is careful in choosing her words - she doesn't want to cause trouble.
Despite her reticence, Manuela is quick to grow attached to others and place her trust in them. Once she meets Leon and Krauser, she easily allows herself to depend on them and assisst them in any way she can, be it giving directions or alerting them to a monster's presence. She worries for them and believes in them, even though she has only known these two foreigners for a few hours at most. With her caring and optimism for other people comes a contrast in her sensitivity to 'right' and 'wrong.' Her willingness to side with Leon and Krauser becomes more surprising when one considers they are going after her father, effectively to kill him. It is obvious that she cares deeply for her father - she questions them more than once about why they're going after Javier, although she backs out from answering their returned questions each time due to shyness and a reluctance to burden them with her own feelings. After all, he has cared for her for fifteen years. However, the timing of Leon and Krauser's arrival matches up with her learning of her father's kidnappings for her sake and infecting her with the virus, things that shocked her enough to cause her to flee; and later, as she sees her mother turned into a monster and later, Javier himself, she realizes that he cannot possibly be in the right, even though he is her father.
It is not a sense of justice that causes this, but a deep empathy that Manuela has for the human soul. When she looks upon her tortured mother and her lost father, she feels not fear but a sense of tragedy for the loss of their self - most likely the reason she can fight so readily against him when he transforms. Manuela knows that she will become a monster, too, and that scares her not because she is afraid to die or afraid of hurting, but because she doesn't want to lose herself. As she says, "I feel this pain because I am still human, but if I were no longer to feel pain, then that would mean that I…" And just after that, she decides that if she can't stay a human - with a heart and soul - then she no longer wishes to live, throwing herself to the creature her father has become. Her own life does not hold much worth in her eyes - especially because it cost the lives of so many others.
The lives of others, though, she will go far out of her way to save - she only prevents her own death with her fiery blood because Leon would have died as well, and fights using her own blood ( against Leon's protests that she will die from blood loss ) because she fears for Leon and Krauser. Even though, at that point, she knows that she's not transforming, she still puts the lives of her friends far before her own. This gave her a sense of detachment from reality earlier in the game, where she seemed unaffected unless something jumped out; at this point, it is clear that she doesn't worry for herself, but only for the safety of others. After all, a monster jumping out was far more dangerous to Leon and Krauser, who were in point position and fighting the monsters, than it was to her.
So overall, while Manuela may seem shy and remote, she is, in fact, an extremely caring individual, although not in the typical manner and certainly with something of a martyr complex attached. Her greatest motivation is to protect those around her; then, herself, for the sake of those who died to allow her life to continue.
Her time in Nautilus has improved her self-confidence just a little bit, mostly by virtue of friends like Rion and V, who have told her point-blank that she deserves to live. While she doesn't quite believe herself, she believes them, and that's enough for her for now. It's helped to draw her out of her shell - she's better at articulating herself now, and a bit less wary of speaking in front of people. However, going back to Sleep placed her in government holding for some time - so she's withdrawn, just a little bit, once again.
Powers:
Manuela's powers are only in her blood, and will likely stay that way - she doesn't want to be a monster. If she were to mutate herself, she could get the whole Claws and Tentacles deal most Resident Evil monsters have, but she wants to be a human. However, her T-Veronica infected blood bursts into flame upon contact with the air, and it can be flung as a weapon. It's her only real ability. Obviously, she can only use this talent sparingly, or she'll die from blood loss. Her skin is also more fire-resistant than a normal person's.
Similar to Alexia's ability to control other T-Veronica-infected creatures via hand motions and her voice, Manuela's singing pacifies other infectees - this is how she made it out of Javier's mansion in the first place. It should be noted that her singing occasionally causes her pain, sometimes to the point of passing out, most likely due to the fact that the body naturally rejects Veronica and vice-versa. As her body and the virus continue to intertwine, this effect will presumably wear off, although her dislike of what she has become might hinder its development somewhat. ( the T-virus and its related branches are notable for often having mutations and effects closely linked to the mental state of the victim, with the exception of the Ourobouros virus. )
The T-Veronica virus also keeps the effects of her fatal illness at bay, effectively keeping her alive. Most people are killed or brain-damaged and mutated by T-Veronica; the only way to make the human body exist with the virus is for the two to somehow survive long enough to develop mutual tolerance. It took Alexia 15 years for this to happen; however, for Manuela, it's only been one or two. How is this possible? A lot of the characters in-game question it. However, Alexia Ashford makes a note that her brother 'woke her up late' - this implies that 15 years was actually longer than needed to develop a tolerance for the T-Veronica virus. Additionally, it may be possible to assume that Manuela's genetic makeup is more receptive to the virus, or even that Manuela's inherited illness gives her a predisopsition towards it. These are only possibilities; there's no canon confirmation ( and probably never will be ) other than Manuela having a particularly strong 'soul,' which points towards the 'mental state of the victim' thing I mentioned earlier being a part of it.
You could call her a zombie on technicality, since she's infected with the same virus as the rest and should really be dead.
In Nautilus, she was forced to fight more, causing her arm to mutate further - the entire member is now mutated and insect-like, and it's difficult to cover up. She tries her best to anyway.
Samples
First person:
[ for a moment, the video feed doesn't show anything; just a blank wall and some shaking as the communicator is handled. Then, it turns around to show a new face - or an old one, as the case may be. She looks just a little bit different, though not really any older - more groomed, perhaps, and just a little bit more tired - but, though her voice is as shy as ever, Manuela's eyes have a slight glint of happiness in them. ]
H-hello - hello again, Nautilus. Um, since it's been a long time... If you remember me... I'm glad to see you again. [ timidly, she glances away, apparently a little bit embarrassed. ] I didn't mean to disappear like that... not without saying goodbye to everyone, at least. I'm... I'm sorry. But I was able to come back, so I think... I think that means that it's all right.
Everyone else... My name is Manuela. And this is... my home. [ after a moment, she quietly adds: ] Thank you.
Third Person: When had she gone back to sleep and found herself finally arriving in America? Everything had become so vague around then, and her memories were blurred and uncertain - it was almost as if all of Nautilus had been some kind of bizarre dream, wonderful and tragic. When she'd looked at her arm again, it had been as it was before she'd Woken. As if nothing had happened. And that was the loneliest and most terrible thing of all.
They weren't unkind to her there. They were cordial enough, kept her warm and fed, sometimes poking and prodding at her, taking samples of her blood when they figured out how to do it without burning up their needles. If she asked them questions, they would answer them - what day is it, how long have I been here, what is happening in Amparo?
When will I leave?
That one, they couldn't answer.
She heard whispers of a girl like herself - one who'd been there for years and years and years, who couldn't be let out because of her illness. When she thought of that, she was sad, but she accepted it - her lot in life. She was dangerous. She could become a monster. In the dream of Nautilus, she remembered what had happened to her arm, and the strange plants that had bloomed, and she didn't want that to happen here in the world she'd called her home world. Sometimes, she would write to herself - they let her keep a diary, though she wondered if they read it - of faces from that world, friends, smiles and tears.
Because she still believed that this was the dream. After all, she was missing her bracer. And one morning, she would wake up and see them all again.