(( This is the character background story for my Tanker that I'm going to be making in i11. It's also for my sisters Scrapper (She's Lillie in the story). I just wanted to post it here and see what you guys think, any advice for it would be greatly appreciated. I'm still new to this whole writing thing, so be gentle. =p))
Story for Nox Viridian:
Growing up in a small town is never easy when you're... different..
Born in a backwater, one stoplight burg in Southern Georgia, Annabella Marks grew up relativly normal. She and her twin sister Lillie had a lot of friends at their school and were active volunteers at their Church. The year they celebrated their 16th birthdays tragedy struck. Anna was hit by a drunk driver while walking home from a friends house. Thrown more than 20ft, she slammed into the brick wall of a nearby house. To the amazement of everyone, Anna lived. Not only that... she was barely even hurt.. A few cuts and a broken wrist were the only injuries she suffered. When her wounds began to heal far too rapidly to be normal, talk started circulating through the small God-fearing town. Rumors were started... It was being said that the Marks girl was some kind of freak... One of those.. "mutants"..
Several months passed and life seemed to be getting back to normal for the Marks twins. Anna and Lillie were once again happy and healthy, enjoying life. Neither of them thought anything of it when Lillie decided to stay a little longer after school one day, to catch up on some classwork she had missed. Even though they usually walked home together everyday, Anna wasn't concerned about walking home by herself that afternoon.
Taking a familiar shortcut through the woods, Anna hummed to herself as she walked home. Her mind preoccupied with thoughts of homework and chores, she never heard the people following behind her... When she was grabbed from behind, her first thought was that it was her sister playing a joke. But she quickly realized that the rough hand closing over her mouth was not that of her twin. Struggling fiercly, fear and panic gave her an inhuman strength. She had almost gotten free from her captor when another pair of hands grabbed her, she fought as best as she could, but she couldn't break the holds. She kicked and tried to scream as she was lashed to a tree trunk, her hands bound tightly with thick rope. She heard the footsteps of several people behind her, their voices were mere whispers but she could make out their words.
"Are you sure about this...? She's just a child..." one man's voice said from somewhere behind Anna. This question was quickly followed by a heated argument, several different voices debated back and forth, and for a moment Anna thought she just might be safe after all. Her hopes were quickly dashed when she heard a loud crack sound through the woods. Even without being able to see Anna knew instantly what the sound was. The loud snapping sound had come from a leather horse whip being cracked against a tree trunk... Terror blacked out most of the conversation that continued behind her, but Anna could hear one voice very distinctly... The voice of the local Catholic Priest... Father James..
"This creature is no child of God! She is an inhuman demon and we must excorsize this evil from our town lest we all be tainted by it!" The Priests words were followed by a blinding pain like nothing Anna had ever felt before. The crack of the whip across her back brought Anna out of her dazed state. Screaming in agony, she tried to pull her wrists free from the rope that bound them around the tree trunk. Again and again the whip tore across her shoulders, strips of her blouse and soon after, her very flesh, were being torn from her. The Priest screamed words of damnation down at her as he lashed at her back, now covered in deep gashes, her blood staining the ground. All sense of time faded from Anna, she had no notion how long she had been there, the pain blurred everything out. Nearing the edge of her conciousness Anna never heard the shout of shock and pure rage that echoed through the woods behind her.
Having stayed behind at school to finish some classwork, Lillie had never expected to find her sister still on the wooded path that they used as a shortcut on their way home. What she saw before her was a sight straight from a nightmare, her twin sister was tied to a tree, Father James stood behind her with several other townsfolk gathered nearby, a bloodied horse whip was in his hand. Unable to believe what she was seeing, it took Lillie a few moments to register what was going on. When she looked again at her sister, bleeding, her back and shoulders just a mass of shredded flesh and muscle, a rage like nothing she had ever known surged through Lillies viens. She screamed at the top of her lungs and blindly charged at the Priest, on instinct she lashed out with her leg and kicked him in the midsection, sending him flying.
The other townspeople began to close in on her, but she turned on them now, fighting them off one by one as they rushed her.
As the attackers started to run off into the woods, Father James limped away, one hand clutching his ribs. Lillie turned and ran to where her sister knelt, her wrists still bound with rope. Lillie quickly worked on the knots that held her sister to the tree trunk, tears flowing down her young face as she saw, -really- saw, what had been done to her twin. Anna was barely concious, her eyes staring blankly ahead at nothing, and as much as Lillie tried, she could not get Anna to respond to her. Fearing that she might bleed to death, Lillie wrapped one of her sisters arms around her own shoulders and began walking as fast as Anna could move towards their house.
Four Months Later...
On the eve of thier 17th birthday the twin sisters, Anna and Lillie Marks, packed their bags. Anna, now badly scarred from the brutal attack she had suffered, packed her clothing into her suitcase in silence. After the "Incident" as the townsfolk now called it, Anna and Lillies parents had each of the 4 men who had attacked Anna in the woods that afternoon arrested. Things in the town had died down a little, but the Marks sisters were now outcasts, hated by most everyone. Their parents had decided that the town simply wasn't safe for the girls, even with the Priest and his fanatics in prison. They had decided that the only thing to do, was to send the young sisters to a city where people like them, where mutants, were accepted. And so, the day before they turned 17 years old, the sisters boarded a train bound for Paragon City. The so-called "City of Heroes" was widely known as a haven for people with abilities.
After arriving here in Paragon, the sisters came to the decision that the best thing they could do with their lives would be to dedicate themselves to becoming Heroes. To take control of their abilities, and use them to help people in need. To show that even though they were different, even though they were mutants, that they weren't monsters. Now they fight for this city, in the hopes that through their actions maybe one day people will see that even people who are different can be good too. And that things like what happened to Anna that dreadful day, will never again happen to someone, just because they aren't the same as everyone else...
