Details

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Personality

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Magical Range

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Ophirian Classification

Maria is classified under the Ophirian system of magic as a member of both the Synera and Maharlika tribe. Her mother's mixed heritage, initially not revealed to her, gave her the capacity to possess the magical range of the two tribes, with the ability to generate life according to the Syneran tradition and take life using Maharlikan spellwork.

Under OMA's classification, she is specifically described to have advanced capabilities in generating organic matter, with a particular talent in offensive magic to defend herself. However, given her allegiances to Munijoch, and her previous history with the country, OMA gave her Black Warning status due to troubling analysis indicating that she may not be easily controlled if she proved to be a danger to society.

Munian Classification

Maria is classified under the Munian system of magic as a Life-Pyros mage, wielding a combination of two magical rune types. Traditionally speaking, this is understood to be magic dependent on the warmth of the sun. This is a combination of magic that has become considerably rare especially following the Purge. Thus, many have come to admire and even respect her whenever she created life, usually in the form of flowers.

It is worth noting that despite the indication of possessing Pyros magic, she does not actively manifest this as part of her primary skills. The current hypothesis on this would be the fact that it is a recessive gene, and therefore only appears as a way to heighten her Life magic by facilitating growth. It is worth noting, however, that basic Pyros spells may work, but this is only used sparingly.

Magical Style

Generally speaking, Maria's magic relies upon idioms, wordplay, and popular slang of the time to summon magic to her and grow accordingly. This is a rather unorthodox approach given that Syneran tradition based off of epics, poetry, riddles, and songs to properly administer their magic. Upon migrating to Munijoch, however, she started to learn how to use her magic without uttering these words, simply conjuring them with thought alone. Nowadays, she can do it with ease, but may occasionally utter a phrase or two out of habit.

It is worth noting that should she be desperate, however, she may utter magic into existence by command alone, verbalizing her desires so that the magic would react to her. This method is only used rarely, however, since it would require a lot of concentrate on the exact words she wanted to use to conjure the necessary magic

In terms of offensive magic, she does not forge any organic-based weapons, instead relying upon vines and branches to twist to her command. They are capable of acting as extentions of herself for short and long ranged attacks, as well as making a barrier to shield herself from inbound attacks. Sometimes she may strike with pure, raw life magic using emerald bolts, but this is often used as a regenerative means of healing others.

Organic Matter Generation

Maria's primary magic is in forging organic matter, mostly plants and trees. This would make things such as gardening easy, but most attention is taken to when she uses this in combat. Her vines and branches are used as extentions of herself, making her capable of short and long ranged attacks so long as her voice can reach the area. Additionally, they may become hybrid plants according to her needs in the form of spiked vines, poison-tipped flowers, and thorn-filled buds.

Additionally, Maria can generate animals and insects, but usually relies on the latter for stun attacks. She is known to use fireflies to illuminate dark places and bees to temporarily distract opponents. If necessary, however, she may call for larger creatures such as wolves or even a large bear, but this is only used when she has little attacks left to execute.

Occasionally, she may be found performing basic terraforming spells, mostly in the form of splitting the earth or having it cave beneath the feet of an opponent. This is also rarely used as doing so requires her to exert a lot of energy.

Regenerative Capacities

Due to her lineage and the nature of her magic, Maria cannot easily die. Her body tends to regenerate her cells accordingly or leach onto nearby life forces to replenish itself, even at the cost of others. This secondary skill is believed to be something she learned from her mother, as these methods are mostly aligned to the Maharlika side of her family.

She's also capable of healing magic on others, but this may come at a cost of diminishing her own life force. It may also be rather tedious and take longer than people whose primary skills are in healing. This would hasten as she got more and more used to using this kind of magic in the warzone and around her husband. Nowadays, it would not take long for her to wave off an injury, be it a papercut or a bullet wound.

Magical Consequences

Maria's magical core tried to self-correct and heal her during the fallout from magical enhancements, only worsening her situation by making her barely stable. Currently, any form of magical exertion may lead to the appearing of emerald cracks on her skin, often differing in thickness and length as they spread over her body. As this progresses, it may continue to manifest in the form of moss appearing on her hands and arms, fungi, and even some of it turning to wood. This may happen at any random part of her body.

It's also noted that overexertion may lead to her growing antlers on her head. This does not appear to hurt, however, given different instances where she tried to tamper with them. These would be the last things to recede while recovering from a magical ordeal.

Recovering from magical exertion may take her hours, even days if it developed to the appearance of the antlers. This can be hastily remedied by taking some of her husband's magic. She can also be rather mute while recovering due to the exertion on her throat, drinking tea to try and soothe herself.

Besides that, her magic substantially weakens during the winter, during which nothing grows unless they're in controlled environments. At the same time, she can appear sluggish and lethargic from the cold, often sequestering herself to the bed or forcing herself awake by quickening her own heartbeat. Little to no of her magic would function during this time unless it was to improve her own being or others.

Story

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Maria Andrea of Quizon

Maria was born in the heat of the Mondragon Purge, a dark time in Ophirian history during which mages were hunted down and killed if deemed "too dangerous" by the Mondragon regime. Her father was a Null and hence had no powers, however her mother came from a powerful line of of mages from the Syneran tribe, a southern magical enclave known for possessing magic along the range of organic manipulation. Fortunately for her, however, she lived in a region of the country where the prominence of witch hunts were not that frequent.

The family lived in a business district where her father ran a bakery and cafe, where the home was situated above the establishment. Maria was no stranger to waking up to the smell of baking bread in the morning as her father got to work, and often found comfort in stumbling downstairs and taking one for herself. In the afternoons and on the weekends, she enjoyed pitching in and learning the tools of the trade from her father, who was more than happy to teach her how to command a kitchen. When she wasn't learning how to bake or doing homework, however, she spent her time experimenting on her magic, relying on the books her mother quietly hid beneath her bed.

Despite the Mondragon Purge ending when she was five, the underlying fear towards being discovered kept Maria from publicly practicing magic, mostly keeping it within the safety of her home. Unlike her mother, who possessed blood magic, her magic intially manifested in the form of growing plants. This was from a radically different spectrum as her brother, who inherited the magic of their mother. The lacking appropriate environment and direct teaching from elders left her to mostly figure out her magic for herself, developing spells based on slang, catchy tunes, and other idioms in the language. While her mother found this rather orthodox, it was a method that allowed her daughter to blend in with the rest of society, hence why she allowed her to further develop this unique spellcasting.

Unknown to her was the fact that her mother secretly established a movement striving to equalize the wrongs made against mages during the Mondragon Purge. This movement believed in reparations from the government, as well as new laws that would disallow such a thing from happening again. She did not know that this movement would gain underground traction, nor that it would eventually be what offsets a new civil war as she got older.

This movement would be known as Maharlika.

Wayfinder

The Ophirian Civil War exploded when Maria was close to finishing her degree in accountancy, during which all mages were screened and conscripted by the Office of Magical Affairs (OMA) to join the national effort. Both she and her brother were among the first who were picked up by OMA due to their suspected relations to the leadership, where both were put under truth tests to determine their allegiances. While in OMA's facilities, Maria admitted to being somewhat aware of her mother's meetings with who she thought were her friends, but remained mostly unaware of what they were discussing. Her brother, however, was more in the know of what was going on and expressed deep disturbance about their mother's plans. While taking into consideration both of their magical skills, her brother would be assigned to the medical unit of the Ophirian Golden Army while Maria would be assigned to the Wayfinder directorate of the Orion Initiative (ORIN).

Under ORIN, her directives were clear: look for information pointing to the location of missing civilians and operatives, many of whom were feared to be abducted by Maharlika. She was placed with a team led by Holiday Pietra, a Sugbuan mage who was masterful in forging hardlight swords and shields with a promising career as a Headhunter. Together, they were deployed to battlezones to search for missing personnel and equipment, as well as conducting reconnaisance against their enemies. Every other week or so, however, she would be placed under truth tests to ensure her loyalties lied within the government.

As she continued working under ORIN, she also tried to make sense of her mother's motives, too. It was no secret within ORIN that she was the daughter of one of the main leaders of Maharlika, and it was a fact that got the suspicion of everyone. Many would comment how she looked much like her mother, or questioned if she were a spy to her or not, despite the repeated tests she'd undergo to prove otherwise. Her mother's moniker as "Commander Songbird" often echoed in her mind as she toiled through the way, wondering why it went this way. She could not imagine her to be the violent kind. Nor could she understand why she'd want to provoke war against a government that's clearly trying to undo its mistakes. This growing confusion and resentment would propel her to joining the field missions in hopes of finding her mother and trying to reason with her.

Eventually, she'd get an opportunity at doing so when word spread of Commander Songbird's presence in the siege against Quizon, the region where Maria was born and raised in. When she received the list of missing civilians and personnel to search for, her heart stopped upon finding the name of her father on the list. She ended up breaking off from her unit to search for him in their home when she got close enough, running through the broken streets of her childhood before finding her mother and her father's body on the bakery floor.

Suffice to say, it did not go so well.

This was the last straw Maria needed to snap and yell at her mother, demanding to know what the point of this war was and what she wanted for an endgame. She ignored the way Holiday appeared behind her and tried to get her away, especially with being in the presence of Commander Songbird. Neither were prepared for when her mother would utter her lullaby, the same one that ensnared operatives and placed them under her spell.

Maria and Holiday disappeared from their posts and joined the long list of missing ORIN operatives during the war.

The Songbird's Echo

Under the control of her mother, Maria was a force to be reckoned with. What used to be simple manifestation of plant growth became refined to deadly offensive skills, taking advantage of the multiple forests around the country to inflict her mother's will upon unsuspecting soldiers. It quickly became commonplace for batallions, convoys, or even entire camps to be engulfed in vines, or even having the ground crumble beneath them. The amount of bloodshed left greatly contributed in weakening military forces against their movement, giving Maharlika a strong enough foothold to win more battles.

Besides being put under mind control, she was also placed under magical enhancements, which helped her better atune herself to the land beneath her feet. Maria was given a unit alongside Holiday known as the "Bellatrix Squadron", where she was given the name of Echo to symbolize both her place in the squadron's leadership and her relationship as her mother's echo. The unit would soon gain notoriety, with multiple attempts being made to capture or eliminate them, to no avail.

But the mind control was not at all that perfect. There would be times when she would wake up for long enough to realize the extent of what she's done, even when she couldn't even recall what she did or how long she's been doing it. She would sometimes remember her own identity outside of being Echo and realize the extent of her relations with Commander Songbird. Whenever she slipped from mind control she ended up going to her mother's office to reason with her, only to be put under the spell again after reading through her cards.

This would all come to an end, however, during a desperate flee from a botched mission. After stealing a helicopter and trying to make their way back to Maharlika's base, the squadron would encounter engine problems that left them with no choice but to crash. She was desperate to protect herself and Holiday, especially since they were both one of the most valued soldiers under the insurgency, but she had little magic to grasp while being thousands of feet in the air. Left with no choice, she had to forge a protective nest around herself and Holiday at the cost of the life forces of the rest of their unit, resulting in the helicopter crashing in a ricefield in Fernando.

When it was recognized that she and Holiday were part of a list of missing ORIN operatives, the agency was quietly deployed to retrieve their bodies from the wreckage, quickly spiriting them back to headquarters to be treated.

ORBIT

Since her disappearance from ORIN, a new director developed a program to retrieve and rehabilitate brainwashed ORIN operatives when it became clear that many were not completely in control of themsleves. Called the Operative Retrieved for Betterment and Immediate Transition (ORBIT) Program, the intention of the plan was to remove them from mind control, learn more about the inner workings of Maharlika using what they recall in memory retrieval procedures, and offer them the opportunity to reintegrate into society.

Maria and Holiday were brought in among many who were rescued, where they were detoxified from the enhancements and cleared from mind control using innovative methods deviced by the program. Their cases were unique due to being so close to the source of the mind control, as they relapsed multiple times and needed intervention through muluple procedures to ensure they were wiped clean of it. If they recalled anything, it was through great struggle, but what they did recall was enough to get an advantage against Maharlika.

There were consequences from being under enhancements, too. During withdrawal, Maria experienced intense abdominal pains and high fevers that resulted in bleeding. The way her body tried to shutdown while struggling to keep itself alive led to her going sterile and her magical core becoming highly unstable with its attempts to self-correct. This instability would later manifest as emerald cracks through her skin, worsening the longer and harder she pushed herself to use her magic.

The two were merely the third and forth operatives to make it through the restricted ward, after which they were transfered to regular housing to be around the other ORBITs. Living with her confusing feelings regarding her mother bogged Maria, especially when she could hardly even remember any definite things about her childhood. Her resentment towards the insurgency ran deeper than the rest given this, so much that she easily accepted a suggestion by the director to become a Special Operative under the Sigma Orionis unit, a special team designated for all ORBITs should they desire to return to active duty but no longer suited their previous designations.

As a Special Operative, Maria was adept at extraction especially when the people needing it required medical assistance. She was best at getting out of sticky situations with most of herself intact, even if at some occasions she had no choice but to pull a few triggers or let loose a few vines to escape. While it was dirty work, she felt this was a way to repay her debts to the government and everyone she's wronged.

She would later move out of ORBIT housing to temporarily share an apartment with Holiday out in Sol. While there, she fought to have her family property returned to her, even if it meant showing up in court and declaring herself the daughter of the Songbird. The court cases was long and often dragged through the hours, and she usually felt exasperated by it, but she winded up being granted the right to the bakery and the remaining bank accounts under her parents' names, even if it meant also taking on the unpaid debts they had to the bank.

Meissa Squadron

The war was ending by the time an entire city went dark.

Zamorez seemingly disappeared overnight, the entire place shutting down and locking itself from the national government and the rest of the country. With no eyes and ears within, fear came that the city might've been invaded and taken by Maharlika, despite the lull of silence from their side of the war. When it became clear that things may worsen and the war may kick up, the president activated the Orionids Protocol, which called for the special deployment of a Meissa Squadron composed of qualified personnel.

It was suspected that for an entire city to disappear, some kind of corrupting magic was involved. Given the fact that Zamorez was also the ancestral grounds of Synera, the same tribe she and her mother were from, Maria was offered an opportunity to be deployed to the region as part of the squadron. They presumed that sending her back to the lands of her lineage would also give them a strong footing against the Songbird, who would equally be at the peak of her power. She would be sent to Zamorez alongside Holiday, who insisted to come to dole out revenge against her mother.

It took a week. During this time, they encountered a mysterious figure named Vivian, who claimed to be knowledgeable of the magic that kept the city under control. True enough, the city managed to go under a complicated mind control spell, a powerful kind of Abyssal magic that was near impossible to break without murdering the Songbird herself. The Squadron had to fight their way through while trying not to kill as many civilians as possible, eventually finding themselves before the city hall at the center of it all. Maria managed to get ahead of everyone else during a mad sprint to the building, during which she had time to confront her mother, who sat atop the mayor's office.

It did not go so well.

While paralyzed under her mother's spells, she tried to reason with her to back away from Zamorez, trying her best not to succumb to it even if it felt tempting to do so. Despite it all, she did not want to kill her mother, nor did she want to hurt her in any way. That did not stop, however, her other team members from eliminating the Songbird themselves, leaving Maria to grab her and try to keep her awake for long enough to attempt to heal her.

Her mother refused the treatment. With her dying breath, she pulled her close and whispered "You wouldn't mean it anyway."

The Songbird died in her daughter's hands.

Maria won the battle, but at what cost?

FLAN War Observer from Ophir

Prior to being deployed to Zamorez under the Meissa Squadron, Maria was already undergoing training to represent Ophir as a war observer for the Foreign League of All Nations (FLAN), with the objectives of observing the civil war occurring in Munijoch and determining what kind of help Ophir may send should allying with one side of the war prove beneficial to their future. Following the death of her mother, she was soon sent out to Munijoch alongside Bishop Castro, another observer from the same ORBIT program. To disguise their identities from other observers and Munijoch, both were issued IDs that indicated they were from the Ophirian Golden Army, with Bishop being a mapmaker and Maria being a field medic.

Unlike most countries, Ophir sent two observers on opposite sides of the war because the country could not conclude who was more in the right and their historical relationship was too valuable to simply ignore. Bishop was assigned to the WhiteBlood side of the war, while Maria was sent to the Munijoch Rebellion Group (MRG). Under the MRG, Maria was put under the protection of General Joseph Yslenski, one of the main leaders of the rebellion alongside General Victor Malkov. She was mostly based in the group's compound in Rio de Vatica, where she got up close and personal with the action under Joseph.

Initially, she had heard whispers of how Joseph was the rebellion's secret weapon, dubbed "Death's Crimson Hand", but never fully understood this until their first battle together, where she witnessed him take down an entire building using superhuman strength alone. Watching the flames collapse its foundations, she could not help but be horrified at the monster of a man, especially when it made her unsure on whether or not she should report his dangerous magic or not. The fact strained their relationship until he further explained how he had no idea of its origins, and proved that he was in full control of this magic.

Their relationship would ease and their work would continue, with Joseph soon winning another major city and expanding the borders of the rebellion's control. She managed to document the atrocities made by the WhiteBloods in their failure to secure and rescue civilian lives out in the battlefield, and often lauded the rebellion for their rehabilitation efforts. As the years passed, Maria got more and more familiar with the man behind the power, recognizing that he truly was remorseful for what he had to do, and that there was more to him than initially thought.

At the same time, she became familiar with the "magical lady" that the rebellion frequently consulted, who turned out to be Vivian in disguise. Often the two would discuss the projected events of the war, Joseph's magic, and whether or not peace could truly be achieved. It did not take her long to put two and two together and note that Vivian was the Ascendant One, purported child of the Mother of Magic, and the mother of Joseph.

She'd be lying to herself if she said she wasn't getting attached. Joseph was rather charming, and friendly, and saw her as she was. During the slower parts of their work, he would often share stories about the culture of the country, and in turn she would speak of hers. When she was later given the approval to use her magic to heal others, he found it to be a wonderful and fascinating thing, something she previously did not think she'd hear from anyone.

Maria would later learn that her affections were reciprocated when he accidentally mixed in a letter in her daily paperwork, where he admitted to his feelings towards her. When she got ahold of the letter, she spent a long time reading it over and over, pondering the words, trying to think of how best to reply back. Obviously he did not mean for her to get this, nor was he aware that it happened in the first place, so she eventually slipped it back in his things and spent the rest of her time figuring out what to do.

The day Joseph got his response would be on the trek to the City of Progress, the capital of the country and the place where the final stand ought to take place. While grabbing his water to get a drink, he noticed a letter wedged in his belt in her handwriting, indicating a response to the letter he sent her all those weeks ago. The message was rather winded, and sounded more like a ramble rather than a composed response, but the endgame was obvious: a clear, responding yes.

Just as he turned to call for her from the front of the trek, the heavens opened and the humming of planes broke the chill in the air. The first bomb struck where Maria stood.

Believing her to be dead, Joseph was struck with grief and proceeded to tear through the barricades of the outer rings of the city one by one, hoping to get a headway using the rage that burbled in him. In reality, Maria managed to quickly forge a shield for herself to avoid the worst of the bomb, and had been pushed to the sides by the blast. While he was busy crashing into walls, she tried to heal as many soldiers as possible while rushing to get to him before he could hurt himself.

It would be night when he would even begin to slow down, the pyres of his wreckage a testament to his grief. Maria would find him after running through countless blocks of destruction, calling his name and trying to seek his life force among the ruins. Maria rushed to him fast enough to catch him just as he collapsed, using a strength spell to drag him out of the city and back to the camp.

After healing him up and putting him down in a cot, she ended up crawling in next to him, curling up by his side and observing the way he twitched in his sleep.

It appeared the observer finally chose who to side with.

Ophir's Dirty Secret

As she fell in love with Joseph and entered a relationship with him, a single problem remained: how to tell him that she wasn't what he thought she was.

It was one thing to tell him that she was an ORIN operative. It was another to specify that she was a Special Operative, a different kind of agent who did not legally exist in any database. It was harder to explain the fact that she spent several years under her mother's spell, doing things she did not want to do and used as a weapon by the person she loved. At best, her existence was best marked off as a redacted line in a government briefer. At worst, she was a ghost story.

Without orders from leadership to break cover and officially dispense her services to the rebellion group, Maria found herself in a guiltying position of actively lying to Joseph about her activities. To compensate, she would quietly slip information from ORIN to Val Rodriguez, the head of intelligence for the rebellion and the only one aware of her identity as an ORIN operative.

At the very least, she thought she would be given the opportunity to tell him herself. Fate was not kind during a mission breaking through the barricades Joseph was previously working on, when she took a direct hit during Joseph's battle against a WhiteBlood Knight. When her body refused to cooperate and even rejected medical intervention, he was left to call the number given to him to get more information about her, boggled to find it leading to the director of ORIN, James Cueva.

With instructions to locate a flash drive in her things, Joseph learned the nitty gritty of Maria's life on ink and paper. While she was recovering from her injuries, he grew more and more bitter about the fact that she lied, that she led him on, and wondered if she truly loved him or not.

Was this all a ruse? Was she under orders to love him?

The bitterness would magnify upon her waking up, during which she was put under house arrest while Malkov was unsure what to do with her. He highly disapproved of her lying, despite the fact that she was not in control of it. During this time, she was interrogated by Joseph, Val, Malkov, and other people regarding her activities as an ORIN operative, her allegiances, and what she's been ordered to do regarding the rebellion. She found a lot of the line of questioning distressing, even if she insisted that her intentions were pure.

These circumstances forced Cueva to officially give her the green light to offer her skills to the rebellion group, citing that doing so may preserve her position as an observer. To prove herself, she was offered a rather straightforward mission: retrieve a mole whose cover was blown within the City of Progress, by any means necessary. She'd be kept under the watch of Val while shadowing her, even going so far as to keep her under a blood binding spell to ensure she would not do anything untoward throughout the mission.

It turned out that Maria accomplished her mission extremely well, going by Val's approval of her methods, albeit magical. It would be enough for Joseph to realize that she truly meant no harm, finally seeking her out after weeks of silence. As they laid together in bed, he let her know that he understood her lack of control over the situation, apologizing for his coldness towards her.

Subject M

The rebellion was not the only one to doubt Maria's loyalties.

At around the time that she was attacked, the Ophirian government was growing suspicious of the way her reports deviated from that of Bishop, especially given the fact that Bishop's narrative was backed by a majority of observers sent to the war. Given the fact that she was also romantically involved with Joseph, they wondered if she was no longer serving under their interests, or if she was censoring anything about her side of the war.

In the years that followed, Maria would attend inquiries where she would be questioned about the events that transpired in her reports, her relationship with Joseph, and her opinions regarding the civil war. At the same time, she continued her work as an observer, sending consistent reports to both FLAN and Ophir regarding the movements of the rebellion. When it became clear that they had a winning edge and that the end of the war would be imminent, interest shifted on why she would hide the fact that he had magic, espeically magic that was dangerous enough to level cities.

During the proceedings, she uncovered that all of the observers on the side of the WhiteBloods were in fact under a complicated mind control spell, the kind that was stronger than her own mother's. The realization of this became harder especially in trying to prove it, given that most identifying methods of the magic had to be done in person and any means to approach Bishop would be too dangerous for her. Eventually, however, she was given the chance to meet them in the dead of night, where they confronted her for her inconsistent reports and tried to attack her. Injured, Maria barely scraped through with her life, ending up leaving Bishop in the woods where they met while trying to save herself.

She became a person of interest following the disappearance of Bishop. However, she would later be cleared when Bishop mysteriously appeared along camp borders, most likely by Vivian's intervention. After sending them back to Ophir, Maria would continue as the sole observer of Ophir, with her reports being cleared as the most "accurate" one of the two, despite the clear fact that she withheld information on Joseph's magic.

Following the end of the war, Maria resigned from her position as a Special Operative, prefering instead to become a civilian in order to marry Joseph.

It was quickly made clear to the investigating team just where her loyalties lied.

First Lady of Munijoch

Mother of Dreams

Exiled Wife

Celebrant of Rage

President of Munijoch