Seraphine

Background

A Color Fixer who hails from the Nest of Wing M and the joint project of both M-Corp and K-Corp to make a genetically enhanced human being. The purpose of both Seraphine and Seraphim was to create a human being resilient to both mental and physical diseases—something that was mostly succeeded after her creation from a test tube. As a result of the joint experimentation that resulted in her birth, Seraphine is supernaturally strong and physically resilient, possessing a small healing factor that is only even more enhanced when she is hooked up to K Corp’s singularity. Along with this, her mental fortitude from M Corp’s experiments makes her calm and rational even in the most dire circumstances.

It should be noted however that as a result of their experiments, Seraphine especially cannot feel pain and struggles knowing when her body is damaged beyond normal capacity. This is mostly due to the combination of old K-Corp's experiments on her and M-Corp's moonstones functioning strongly on her. As a countermeasure recommended to her by new K-Corp, she is meant to disengage from combat if it passes a certain time threshold so she can be assessed for damage. This of course is mostly a way to monitor her and lower the cost of potential "repairs" on her rather than out of a genuine care for her. Another side effect of the experiments done to her is that Seraphine usually does not have strong negative emotions, which is both a good thing and a bad thing in the City.

Childhood

Seraphine was born in a laboratory test tube an effort to create a human weapon. As a joint product from both M-Corp and K-Corp, both her and her brother Seraphim were the only infants to survive the initial phase of the experiment. The rest of the experiments were deemed defective from birth and promptly disposed of. Raised in a lab, the two siblings, both technically the biological children of one of the head researchers, became rather close. Seraphine was always characterized by her outgoing personality while her twin brother Seraphim was known to be rather timid around the researchers. In that laboratory, Seraphine promised to stay with her twin and keep him safe.

Throughout their youth, the pair of twins were experimented on. While Seraphim took these experiments negatively, Seraphine took to the experiments and changes to her body terrifyingly well. Soon she was unable to feel pain entirely, and unlike her brother, her moonstones were actually functional. This led to Seraphine being far easier to manipulate and indoctrinate, making her far more favored by the M-Corp. She also excelled in nearly every test they set out for her. At the time she was only lacking in her regenerative capabilities, which her twin brother could do with much more ease.

At some point one of the head researchers, Metatron, grew a conscience. While he was given the order to treat them as lab rats, and for most of his time there, he did, guilt started to sink in. He looked at the pair of twins, knowing full well that they were his children and that he damned them to this fate. That is why one day he decided to rebel against those in charge. When the twins were being transported to K-Corp, he staged an attack from a Syndicate. Under all of this chaos, he managed to kill Mastema, the main head researcher in the project. To draw suspicion off of him, he also decided to injure himself too, leading to him having a prosthetic hand.

Unfortunately in all of this chaos, the twins managed to run out in a panic, getting lost in the Backstreets. During this chaos, a young boy saw Seraphine in the middle of all of this chaos and dragged her off to somewhere safe. In that moment, Seraphine briefly forgot about those around her, even her own twin brother. Instead, she simply chatted the night away with him, asking him questions about the world she never got to see due to her being confined in a lab for so long. In that moment, Seraphine knew freedom...

Eventually she was found by Metatron and the K-Corp staff who was escorting the twins. The boy was about to be hurt for taking such a valuable subject away, but the young Seraphine managed to convince them to leave him alone, calling the boy her friend. While Metatron failed in his attempt to let his children escape, he hoped somewhere that Seraphine's meeting with that boy changed her and gave her a taste of what was out there in the world. To his relief, it did. Her meeting with the boy planted a new seed of curiosity in her. No longer did she ask questions about the research, instead asking about the world outside of the labs and the Wings.

She was like a bird ready to fly from the nest, leaving her twin behind.

Fixer Career

Unfortunately for the researchers, Seraphine's curiosity and yearning for the world outside proved to be difficult even for M-Corp's influence on her. While they could easily manipulate her into becoming the weapon they wanted her to be, they could nothing to suppress the bits and pieces of her personality coming through. She was always an optimistic, bright young girl with an insatiable desire to know everything. While this was more easily manageable due to her only curiosities being about the world within the birdcage she lived in, the fact she now knows about the world outside of it made her quite difficult to manage.

Even stricter punishment and further experimentation could not do much to halt the progression of human emotion and her becoming her own person. In her usual manner she just took it all with a smile, not understanding why. The only thing they managed to change was the fact she did at the very least not question authority.

When she grew old enough to become a Fixer, Seraphine proclaimed that she would become one, catching everyone off guard. As an experiment of both M-Corp and K-Corp, Seraphine initially found it difficult to do what she wished. However, she proved herself in combat against their best forces and her own twin brother who mirrored her in strength as a final test to show she could handle herself as a Fixer. It was there that she awakened her E.G.O., nearly beating her twin to a pulp.

As a show of good faith and a lack of understanding of her situation, she promised she would still help along with their experiments, allowing them to proceed with their monthly physical and mental checkups on her. With this, she was allowed to become a proper Fixer backed by both corporations. Unfortunately this fight would end up predictably hurting her bond with her twin, who followed in her steps even after K-Corp gained majority control over him while his sister stayed mostly under the control of M-Corp.

Before becoming an official Color Fixer, Seraphine and Seraphim worked as an unofficial Fixers separately as a test run for both K-Corp and M-Corp, joining two other Fixers with their missions whenever they had something big in an effort to help them out. These two Fixers would later become the Grade 1 Fixers Dong-Hwan and the Vermillion Cross. After she became an official Fixer, she quickly rose up the ranks due to her enhancements and E.G.O., letting her quickly catch up to them despite the pair being official Fixers much longer than her… And very quickly the three became their own little team despite not officially belonging to an office, growing very close as they continued to rise higher and higher up the ranks.

Seraphine seems to value those two more than anyone despite her having multiple friends and acquaintances across different associations.

Speaking of her friends and acquaintances, due to her pleasant demeanor and overall friendliness, the Ivory Feather is rather well liked… And unfortunately sometimes even looked down upon by others due to her naivete. If her friendliness and sometimes clueless nature does not endear those to her, it annoys them. At the very least she does not seem to mind one bit. Whether that too is a result of M-Corp’s experimentations remains to be known. Not even Serpahine seems to know the answer, nor does she seem to want to find out herself.

...And also, as a result of their upbringing and the fact that they were always pitted against each other, Seraphine later developed a more hostile attitude towards her twin brother who still tried to cling to her, not reaching an understanding with him until she was brought down into her own despair.

Traits

Personality

Seraphine is a young woman with an insatiable appetite to know everything. Simultaneously however, she never questions authority as a result of her conditioning. She is always chipper and happy. Being the face of M-Corp she had to always look good for their public image. She acts kind and friendly towards anyone and everyone, even those that Nest residents would deem lesser. Those who do not know her too deeply see her as either a kindhearted saint-like hero or a vapid and brainless puppet of M-Corp.

She is rather naive and has the tendency to annoy those around her on accident due to her inability to properly read the room. That being said, she is often given the benefit of the doubt due to her genuinely meaning well in most situations. The other Color Fixers, namely The Purple Tear and The Red Gaze treat her rather kindly due to knowing her better than most other Fixers and City residents. Most people who know her well in general are careful to accomodate for her, which she greatly appreciates due to her having some understanding and lingering guilt about how she comes off to people.

Appearance

Seraphine looks a lot like her biological father and her twin brother. She has lavender-white hair and mismatched eyes—one of them being a silvery blue and the other being a more vibrant violet color. She also shares her twin's freckles, a trait that likely belonged to the twins' mother. Seraphine is also rather tall and lanky, having a similar build to her twin brother, if not just a bit slimmer.

Her Fixer clothes are made by the same workshop that made Simon's outfit, the difference is that she helped design them. She also helped modify Simon's clothes to match more closely to hers when they married. The winged motifs across her outfit and her hairpins are her own idea as she finds them cute.

Apparently Seraphine does not know how to properly dress herself at home, with Dong-hwan offhandedly mentioning she just wears an oversized t-shirt and short shorts around her house... before remarking that maybe he should not have said that aloud about M-Corp's face.

Skills

As a result of the experimentation done on her, Seraphine possesses high mental and physical fortitude. While she lacks her twin's faster regenerative powers, she does have a much higher mental fortitude which helped her awaken her E.G.O. and maintain it without Distorting even through all of her challenges. Unfortunately due to this mix, she is unable to feel pain properly and is thus mandated to disengage fights to check for damages if she cannot finish a mission within a certain time frame. She also cannot feel heat or cold despite her body otherwise having proper physiological responses to being hurt, burned, or too cold.

Seraphine's wings are rather large as they need to properly carry her when she uses her E.G.O. They appear soft at first, and when one touches them outside of combat they are rather plush and feathery as expected of real feathers. However, when in combat, the feathers harden into armor like defense for her that she can easily use to protect herself. She also can rip her own feathers out to create weapons. This ability seems limited to the number of feathers she has and her own creativity... and of course, her own unwillingness to not "infringe on Workshop rules and patents" despite her E.G.O. being otherwise unenforceable.

Thankfully they seem to manifest over her clothes without issue, likely due to her E.G.O. just naturally being apart of her as is. Of course it is still connected to her, and if she could feel pain she would be able feel how much it hurts to rip her own feathers out. Her feathers grow back within the week and she usually only needs to rip out one or two to form her usual weapons.

The wings Phina has are an obvious correlation to her desire for freedom. She manifested it long ago, and it is only still half-manifested. It was her burning desire to be free and explore the world outside the birdcage she was in that let her awaken her E.G.O. With that said, it is very clear to see that her environment heavily influenced her E.G.O., with her being able to create weapons in a similar manner to how she was herself created to be a weapon. It is her own buried recognition of her trauma, and the pain she is meant to feel when she rips out her feathers is meant to reflect that.

After she comes to the realization of how horrible her life is, she finally manages to awaken it fully. It is mostly the same, except she has more wings and is unbound by the same limitations she held herself too before. She always had potential, she herself just needed to fully awaken to it.

Relationships

Seraphim

Her twin brother, Seraphim. Originally the two were really close, but over the years they drifted apart due to Seraphine choosing a different path than him. Even when he followed her, she was still intent on leaving him behind. They were initially rather close as children due to the pair being innocent and carefree back then, not understanding their situation fully. Unfortunately as the years passed, they started to slowly drift apart as a result of Seraphim slowly realizing how horrible their life is while Seraphine still remains ignorant to it. No matter what Seraphim did, he could not break his sister out of her conditioning, leading the rift to grow further as M-Corp and K-Corp continued to drive the two apart with their experiments.

This eventually boiled over with Phina and Phim being incredibly violent with each other in their duel that decided on whether or not they were fit to be Fixers. Phina, seeking her misguided idea of freedom, nearly killed her twin. At the time, she would have been fine with it too if it meant she got to do what she wanted. Of course, due to their superhuman ability to heal as a result of K-Corp's technology being so ingrained in them, the fight lasted a while and Seraphim would eventually walk out fine from this ordeal, albeit mentally scarred.

Desperate to still have a connection with her, he followed in her footsteps. The only difference is that he mostly walked alone. Seraphim also managed to become a Color Fixer faster than she did, earning the title of "The White Whistle" while she was still a Grade 1 Fixer. Still she did not pay attention to him, and their interactions were uncharacteristically cold and hostile on Phina's part. She instead clung to her new friends and family, leaving her old one behind.

This changed the day Dong-hwan visited the Library. Phina suffered the worst breakdown she ever has in her life in that point, but due to her moonstones, she was left unable to fully process all of it. Instead she just mentally shutdown and requested to be left alone while her husband dealt with everything around the house. When Phim visited her, Simon opened the door and let him in. This was the first time in years that Phina let her twin get close to her without any hostility. She was just too tired at that point and did not want to lose anyone else now that she knew what loss felt like.

Phim gave Phina something to focus on other than her grief of losing a close friend. Together they ate a meal and for the first time since the incident, Phina was happy. Unfortunately for her this happiness would not last as husband went to deal with the Reveberation Ensemble, leaving Phina alone and a widow. Once again her grief and new understanding of these painful emotions pushed the two closer. Now she finally could understand to some degree how her twin felt, and she could only feel sorry for how she had treated him throughout the years.

After the Library was expunged from the City, the twins are on a much better terms and have a healthier relationship with each other. Due to him being one of her only family members left, she is rather protective of him and judges his taste in men, claiming that as the technically older sibling, and as the one who was married and thus has more relationship experience, that she knows better than him when it comes to love. Technically speaking, she is right as her twin has atrocious taste in men.

Their father seems quite happy that the two are finally getting along again after all of these years.

Metatron

The twins' biological father. He did not know their mother well as she was a researcher who left the project soon after donating her eggs. Metatron is one of the head researchers in charge of the joint project between M-Corp and K-Corp, the other being Mastema. While at the start he kept to his word to not care for the twins outside of them being lab rats, as the two children grew older he began to feel guilt eat at him for bringing them into the world to be used as tools and weapons. That is why he rebelled against M-Corp to the best of his ability. That is why he killed the one who wanted to put them through a much deeper hell. That is why he cut off his hand to make it look like everyone had been attacked and wounded.

That is the extent of a father's love for his children. Though at the same time, it was his own way of atonement.

Metatron was unable to free them that way, with him being forced to bring them back into the birdcages they were in before. The difference is this time at least one of them knew that he was looking out for them. When his children ran off into the Backstreets, he found Phim before everyone else and comforted him the entire time, apologizing to him as a father. Unfortunately he could not do the same for Phina, who was found first by K-Corp staff.

From that point onward, he did his best to mitigate the damage done to them. He wanted them to at least have some level of freedom and self. He scrambled lab results. He lied. He conveniently got rid of any staff members who questioned him in private. While doing this, he continued his cold and distant act of a researcher, pretending as if he did not care for his children. At the very least Phim knew it was an act to protect them. Phina was none the wiser, but at the very least she did not seem to care. For better or for worse, she started to see it as normal.

Unfortunately he could only protect the two of them for so long. After the pair became Fixers and Phim ended up getting dragged to K-Corp against his will, Metatron did his best to support Phina. He tried to make her live a comfortable life in the Nest. He was the one who arranged her meeting with Simon and Dong-hwan as Fixers. He is the one who handles all of her psychological tests exclusively, meaning at any point he can lie in his observations—after all, he has gotten rather good at lying and faking results. Whenever he could though, he made sure to check up on his son without making it too obvious.

Metatron sincerely loves his kids and deeply regrets helping in their exploitation. If he could, he would take them both and run off. Unfortunately, it is too late for them to do so as they would all end up killed. Continuing to work in the system is the only way he can keep them safe, so he still continues to work even in his old age in an effort to make sure no one can use them ever again.

The Vermillion Cross (Simon)

Simon was the name of the boy who managed to rescue her from the chaos that day. He pulled her out of the Syndicate's grasp and dragged her to safety. While they were there, Seraphine, or "Phina," as she introduced herself, continued to ask him questions about the world. Simon did his best to answer every question for her despite him initially being put off by her openness. He told her about the City and the District he lived in. He taught her of the world around them and it opened her eyes for the first time in her life. As the hours passed and day turned to night, the pair grew rather close as Simon finally found some peace and comfort in a friend for the first time in a long while.

Unfortunately their peace did not last as Seraphine was eventually found by K-Corp staff. The two of them were dragged out, with Simon about to be killed due to allegedly "kidnapping property of K-Corp." Seraphine managed to stop it though, with her standing in front of Simon and declaring that he was her friend and that he saved her from the Syndicate attack. Still that was not enough to fully stop them. The only thing that really did stop them was Metatron arriving with Phim, who told the men to stand down and not to upset Seraphine. He argued that doing so would "ruin her willingness to cooperate with them in the future," but the look he gave Simon before they left was apologetic.

Years later, Simon became a Fixer working alongside his friend, Dong-hwan. The pair rather quickly rose up the ranks with Simon already being a Grade 3 Fixer around the time he recieved a special request from M-Corp. Seeing the familiar logo after all of these years and the cash prize attached to the commission, he took it and brought Dong-hwan with him. There, he met that girl again. She was grown up now, and when she saw him her eyes lit up. She called his name and ran to him, taking the researchers around her and Dong-hwan off guard.

From that point onward, the trio worked together as Fixers, with them mentoring her through it. Together they rose through the ranks with Simon becoming a Color Fixer, one with the title of the Vermillion Cross. Phina took a little while longer to become a Color Fixer due to her naivete being percieved as something that might hold her back on missions. However, after another year or so, she managed to grab a title of her own soon after her twin, becoming the Ivory Feather.

Soon after this, her and Simon got married. Over the years of working together, they became rather close with them saving each other in missions often. The fact that they met as children only helped strengthen their bond, and it was no surprise to the researchers that she eventually fell in love with him. They made a great team, with the pair always working together to handle missions. It was encouraged to hire them together as well, as Simon was now technically under the protection of a Wing due to his connection with Seraphine. He was essentially meant to help her in battle and keep her safe, so hiring them together when one only wanted Seraphine was ideal. The same went the other way around.

Eventually the two started a family, with Seraphine giving birth to a son who, much to Metatron's relief, looked more like Simon than her. While not the perfect parents by any means, they tried their best for their son. Simon was slowly starting to phase out of being a Fixer in an effort to focus more on his family by that point, starting a garden in the back of their house as a hobby and as a plan for the future. Their eight year old son, Gabriel, gave the pair of them hope.

Unfortunately for the both of them, Dong-hwan's sudden death after being sent to the Library caused Seraphine to crumble. Never before had she experienced such grief, and when it happened to someone so close to her, it hit her hard. What made things worse was that Simon had a work call. Not wanting to bring his wife who was in no mood to fight, he chose to take the mission himself... Resulting in him never returning home, even after the Library fell. Of course his death greatly affected her, causing her mental health to spiral.

Thankfully the presence of both her brother and father brought her back to her senses, and with the return of Dong-hwan, she finally felt some level of stability in her life again. She still misses her husband, but understands she needs to do what is best for their son instead of continuing to sulk. At the very least she still has others in her life to help her move forward through her newly experienced grief.

Dong-hwan

Dong-hwan and Phina did not get along at first. When she ran up to Simon and hugged him out of the blue, he immediately did not find himself liking her much. She seemed like an ignorant kid who would only slow them down in a fight, and he was very quick to make his stance on her known from the start. Perhaps in this arrogance, he decided to challenge Seraphine to a one on one duel to see if she really was up to snuff. Unfortunately for him, Seraphine, who has been fighting duels against her similarly powered twin brother, was quite easily able to defeat him. In fact, she nearly dislocated his arm before Simon and Metatron hurriedly pulled them off each other (with Metatron and Simon promptly apologizing for the other's violence).

Though the fight did reassure him that she could handle herself in a fight and would not slow them down, Dong-hwan still did not like her. He still found her annoying and her naivete to be infuriating. She never was able to read the room, she always asked questions on the smallest things, and perhaps worst of all to him, she always clung to Simon. This of course meant it was far more difficult for him to work together with his friend, much to his annoyance.

However, after all of the missions he has had with her, he gradually began to understand her, and she eventually began to level herself out. At some point he realized that she was not used to interacting with outsiders, so he forced himself to be more patient with her and explain to her things she did not know about social interactions. He also was never really fond of working close with M-Corp and K-Corp, seeing them both as shady Wings who were exploiting some "dumb, ignorant, annoying girl." Dong-hwan actually seemed to get more angry for her sake than Simon did at times, occasionally snapping back at both M-Corp and K-Corp when they were too rough handling Phina or if they were doing something that he deemed "wrong."

At Metatron's request however, he toned it down. He did not trust him much at the time, but he could tell he did not want the trio to get in trouble and for Phina to be cooped up in the laboratory again. He did not seem too happy about it though. He made that clear enough.

Over the years, him and Phina grew rather close, with the pair often bickering. In fact, it was probably his fault that Seraphine started to develop the habit of occasionally talking back to others... or just in general understanding the concept of sarcasm. In their own way, they cared for each other. When Simon and Phina married, he was happy for the two of them, glad to see his two best friends living their life. That was when he decided to split off from them, citing that he did not want to be their third wheel and that it would be awkward if he did so. Plus, he said, he has a restaurant to run now, and that they should visit it some time. He also promised to visit them often after they had a son together.

Dong-hwan's death at the hands of the Library was what made Phina's whole worldview shatter. For the first time in her life, she experienced grief and loss as she cared for Dong-hwan in a similar way that she did Simon. When Simon soon followed, she nearly fell apart at the seams if not for the presence of her family. Soon after, Dong-hwan of course returned into her life, and when he showed up at her door again, she threw herself into him and cried.

The pair now live together as it was what Phina decided was best. Dong-hwan was quick to agree, noting that she probably needed help taking care of her son now that was a widow. They are the only ones they have left, after all. For Dong-hwan especially, Phina and her son are the only people he really has left to turn to since he is so used to living life alone.

Are they dating? Who knows. They do not really seem to act all that different with each other according to those who know them.

Notes

• Yes she is autistic.
• Her bond with Dong-hwan can be read as romantic or queer platonic I do not know yet. They are close though. I accidentally jumped on the Donphina train as soon as my friend suggested it oops. Dong-hwan would probably shrug if you asked him what their relationship was and say "well she needs someone to help her take care of her kid." Probably accidentally calls her his girlfriend at some point because he gives up correcting people that they aren't technically dating.
  • Unrelated to Phina but I headcanon Dong-hwan as AroAce and formerly part of the Kurokumo Clan and sort of childhood friends with Sayo. Sayo has a crush on him and he rejected her after giving her a chance. He is truthfully unsure how he feels about Phina but he does care about her deeply at the very least. Does he love her? He is still unsure.
• Seraphine later gets a crisis of identity arc where the moonstones start to fail and she realizes just how horrible everything done to her was. Probably starts asking Dong-hwan and Metatron incredibly existential questions late at night. After reaching a tipping point, she awakens to her full E.G.O., which looks mostly the same except her wings look like Olivia GBF and she has multiple wings this time.
• In general she has a lot of GBF character inspiration. Specifically from the Angels. I want her boss theme to be Zero.

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