invinciblemods

[theladyunicorn]

Maria Travers BASICS NAME: Maria Joanne Travers KNOWN AS: Maria BIRTHDATE/AGE: October 1 1920 | 95 PB: Jacqueline Bisset PERSONALITY Maria first and foremost is a lady. She was born in a time when women didn't have the freedom that they did these days and it shows in how she behaves. She isn't completely dictated by that though. She enjoys spending free time sewing and knitting but she has also developed a love of technology and movies. She's something of a conundrum to many people. At first, she appears dainty, polite and the sort of person who hates to see any sort of action. If you knew her though, you would be aware there was a whole another layer or two to Maria. Maria while polite and dainty at times can be incredibly fierce at other times too. She has a fierce temper, though she learned to control it when she was young she can be quite scary when she does actually lose it. It is rare, but those who see it learn never to set her off again. Having come from a rich household, Maria can be rather arrogant at times though over the years she has mellowed somewhat. She can still appear arrogant though, an act that she has learned to put on over the years. Because of her gift of slow aging, she has seen the majority of her friends and family die so she tries to appear standoffish in an effort not to be hurt by becoming to close to people. It doesn't really work though. Having her as an instructor brings out even another side of her. She's fierce, she's determined and she will push you until you break and then keep on pushing you as pain is only a mental weakness that can be overcome if you push just that tiny bit harder. She thinks that everyone is capable of succeeding no matter their skill or background and she is determined to prove to all new recruits that is the case. "My power is useless" isn't an acceptable answer to her. All powers are helpful one way or another it's just a matter of refining and training them until you discover what it is if it isn't obvious at first. As a retired operative, Maria is skilled at putting on differenct acts. While her power isn't as 'helpful' as others it allows her to pretend to be much younger than she is and therefore allow her to get into situations that she wouldn't be allowed. In fact, when the DMS first started she was often going undercover and their 'eyes and ears' in the outside world, reporting back to the higher ups of what was happening. Now though, she is retired and while she keeps up some of the contacts she made during that time she is more focused on passing on her skills to the next generation. Slowed aging or not, her body is just no longer capable of what it was used too. HISTORY Maria Bush was born in a time completely different to this one. She spent her earliest years in the aftermath of World War 1 where women were just starting to gain some sort of freedom. She grew up with the likes of famous people Dame Nellie Melba, Nat King Cole, Glenn Miller, Billie Holiday and other famous Jazz musicians which is the music she still prefers to this day. Not, as she calls it, that headache inducing stuff or those singers who can't sing but think they can, which are popular now. They allowed her to develop a love of music and by the time she entered her teens she was quite a well respected singer in the local community as well as a trumpet player. She enjoyed dancing and sewing and often made her own clothes, especially during the depression. School for Maria, was a secondary nature. She learned how to read and write as well as basic mathematics but she also learned how to keep house. When she graduated from school, while she hoped to become a famous singer she knew it was more likely she'd either become a seamstress given her talent for sewing or a secretary like many girls of her generation did. When she was sixteen, the world changed forever. Metahuman's were discovered. For the time, the news broke in America fairly quickly though Maria remembers scoffing at it, calling it complete utter rubbish if you asked her. A person with superpowers? Complete nonsense. Little did she know that she would turn out to be one of them as well. Despite this incident, life continued normally for her and her brothers (and parents) for the next three years until the second world war broke out. Maria, though she didn't live through the first knew just how devastating it was, lived in trepidation as reports of what was happening continued to come in through the Wireless and newspapers. Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and America joined the war. Her brothers John and Richard, aged 30 and 33 respectively, both joined up immediately and went to fight. News of their deaths reached the family within two weeks of each other, both having died less than a year later. The news devastated her parents and they both ended up dying less than a month later. The news of Hiroshima disgusted her and for awhile she was ashamed to be American. Still, the war was over and their lives could move on. At the end of 1946, she married her finance William Travers in a small ceremony and less than a year later their first child Alice was born. Alice was quickly followed by a number of other children, two who unfortunately were stillborns much to their distress. Mary (born 1950) and Albert (born 1954) both survived as did Lucy (born 1955). By this time, Maria had come to two conclusions, one that Metahumans were actually real and secondly she was one too. It wasn't obvious but given that she was thirty-five at the time of Lucy's birth and she still looked to be in her early twenties, rarely got healed and her injuries as seen by the broken bone she suffered and healed from completely within a week she knew that there was something different about her. William, loved her unconditionally though and it helped that he had a power of his own too - the power of invisibility that he had developed during the war. A power that had saved his life from the enemies. 1952, was a year that once again changed their lives as a Metahuman nearly caused world war three. It therefore wasn't a surprise to either her or William that the United Nations passed a law making all countries track their 'superheroes'. American upon forming the DMS in 1954 as a result of the Metahuman Security Act, required all people with powers to register. William and Maria did just that without any fuss. Because their children were so young and both she and William had their own powers, the family, to her relief was kept together. William was the first one of the two of them to be trained as she had recently discovered she was pregnant with Lucy when the law came into effect. She was therefore the first official resident' of the DMS. It wasn't until two years later that she began her own training as an Operative though in the intervening years she had worked with the first of the Agents in discovering the limitations of her power. Her first mission, in 1958 was to infiltrate a College campus as a 'student to discover what the general populace was thinking of the Metahumans, especially after one nearly caused the third world war. She as also often tasked with discovering unregistered Metahumans as especially in the early days not all of them were willing to do so or they just didn't want to admit that they were one. These tasks allowed her to become adept at acting as well as hand to hand combat and even allowed her to train to use a gun and other weapons encase the situation called for it. The majority of these assignments were simple infiltration where her cover was never blown though. During this time she worked with many different Agents as required including Agent Rogers who would become one of DMS's most successful Agents. As the years passed, their children turned out to be Metahumans too much to their delight and were soon living their own lives as they grew older. The one major one happened in 1970 when she went undercover at an Anti-Metahuman Rally on the outskirts of Chicago. She was more observing it than anything but the rally got out of hand and someone recognised her from her first mission back in 1958 as she only looked a few years older than she did then. Obviously, they threw a fit and they attacked her. Maria, shaken reacted and defended herself as best as she could but she ended up being trampled with three broken ribs, two cracked ones, a broken pelvis and a concussion from it. William threw a fit when he learned what had happened - accepting the dangers and actually having them happen were two completely different things. Still, Maria kept on going on missions for the DMS but they were extremely careful and she was always well prepared for whatever they might encounter. In 1987 though, their lives changed again. William by then had retired from active field work as they were both well into their sixties by this point. Maria only appeared to be in her forties though which worked, though by this point she seemed to be the same age as their children which was rather disconcerting at times. In the attack that occurred when Anderson (she refuses to call him an Agent) escaped, she lost some of her friends and team members that she worked with. His turning his back on them and the formation of APEX shook them though it wasn't until the mid 1990s with the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge that they realised just how bad it was. It wasn't until the death of William in 1997, that she decided to slow down with her field work but it wasn't until three years later when she nearly lost her life during a mission that she fully retired from the field. She has spent the past fifteen years living at the DMS facility in Chicago which has been her and her families home base since it was founded (though she has worked all over the country during her time as an Operative) teaching the new Operative trainees all that she knows. She teaches stealth, hand to hand combat and weapon training as required. She's happy to assist elsewhere as need be too. When she isn't working, she spends her time with her family if she can or relaxing with either a book or knitting. METAHUMAN RESIDENTS CODENAME: Lady POSITION: Operative Trainee EMPLOYMENT: Trains Field Operatives POWERS: Power Class: Delta She ages slower than other people USES: + Has a longer life + Heals quicker than others for minor injuries and also rarely gets ill + Appears younger than she actually is LIMITATIONS: - Heal from anything worse than second degree burns quickly - Can't impart her longevity to other people - Can't suppress pain Views on Supers: Is the system right? Broken? Is it for his/her own good? Does he/she deserve to have full freedom? Having lived through the entirety of the Metahuman history, Maria is more than happy with how things are done. They work so why change it? Views on Agents: Are they necessary? How have they treated him/her? They treat her fine and respect her and she respects them. Given her history she completely sees the need for them. OOC NAME: Alex EMAIL: theladyunicorn@gmail.com AIM: aladyunicorn WRITING SAMPLE: Just a link, please.