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PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER: Chicklet
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Yep
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: N/A
CONTACT: Aim: BardessOokami, Yahoo!: MLPBardess, Plurk: ChickletLarp, ChickeltRP
CHARACTERS PLAYED:
Tiamaris, Eli, Aqua
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Agatha Clay Heterodyne
CANON: www.GirlGenius.com
CANON REFERENCE:
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20111102#.VIGIq-SRlfw
http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Chronology_-_Volume_VII
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Girl_Genius
AGE: 20 Not sure her ACTUAL age in the cannon. We know she is in university, so theoretically 18-21 when the story starts, but they only focus on how much time has passed when time goes wibbly wobbly. So since it is unclear, I settled on 20, a reasonable age for her to go back to school after all the madness.
GENDER: Female
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: University Freshman
APPEARANCE:
She is tall, with blond hair that never behaves, green eyes that are usually showing signs of being one form of mad or another, large thin rimmed round glasses, and an outfit that usually has green as a primary color. Expect her to be covered in machine oil and/or grease at any given moment.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/bc2f1745bbbd494003ec480edc5c929a/tumblr_mg9bdloLuc1r13d21o1_500.jpg
PERSONALITY:
Agatha has learned to be brave, fast. The thing about learning to be brave, about being brave? She’s good at it. When there is someone to be brave for, she can do nearly anything.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20111228#.VIGRXOSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20121224#.VIGTyeSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070117#.VIGXOeSRlfw
The people she cares about are her courage, and she cares about a great many people. She will throw herself head first into danger to protect her town, her friends, her….ah…. Gil and Tarvek.
But that does not mean she is stupid or self-sacrificing. She fights hard, she expects to defend, or to stand back to back with someone, not to throw herself in harm’s way and hope to be a good enough meat shield. Agatha is brave enough to throw herself in front of a moving bus to save someone it was about to hit, but smart enough to manage to change the bus’ course by building a ramp, or blasting it with an emp, or tossing a clank into the wheel well to trigger the breaks. Of course, she is also RECKLESS enough to build a ramp, or toss a clank into the wheel well…. She has a slight issue with tunnel vision. She sees THIS project, THIS danger, THIS moment, and tends to loose a grasp on the fact that she might just be making worse trouble as she fixes one problem or another.
Reckless is a good word for Aggie, really. But it’s not her fault, she’s all sparky, all unbalanced. When a project interests - her enough – and seriously, making COFFEE did it – she forgets everything else around her. Not always, but often, and more and more frequently as she became more and more accustomed to her powers.
Agatha is also desperate to not be used any more. Between the Baron wanting to control her, her mother in her head, the Castle trying to convince her to let it be more blood thirsty, and Gil with his dad in his head, trying to “save” her…
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20121228#.VIGT6OSRlfw
Agatha is, at heart, a girl with good intentions and a more or less sweet nature that constantly gets challenged by her own mad boy tendencies and the fact that she can’t seem to get a single day of peace without having to fight, or run, for her life! She means well, but for as brilliant as she is, her single-minded focus can also blind her to what needs to be done.
Oh, and for your own safety… never EVER let her have coffee. You have been warned.
POWERS/ABILITIES:
Aggie has the spark. All her mutations come off of this. (Well, it is questionable how heterodyning actually counts…)
What this means:
1 - http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070608#.VIGU_uSRlfw The last panal:
With tools in hand, Agatha can build the impossible. She can create a small wind up toy looking clank that can learn enough to follow instructions, and to create more of itself. She can work with Gil to repair a flying machine, while it’s falling.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030625#.VIGVqeSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030627#.VIGVxuSRlfw
She can turn a circus into a death trap…
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/ggmain/doublespreads/ggcoll06_122_123.html
I’m sure you get the point. Short: Agatha can build very nearly anything she can dream up out of nearly any parts but….
2 – Sometimes it explodes…
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070613#.VIGW4OSRlfw
The bottom three panels.
Okay, so she can build anything, but not perfectly, sometimes it goes horribly horribly wrong before it goes right (if it goes right!), and often it goes completely out of her control.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070122#.VIGXXOSRlfw
Sometimes she wakes up unaware of what she has built, even, and she has to deal with the results when she wakes up. So it’s a neat power. Too bad she can’t control it….
3 – Minions!
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070528#.VIGX3uSRlfw
Some of it is personality, and some of it is an unintentional use of psychic mutation. Some people with low psychic resistance can get swept up into her frenzy. She asks people for tools, and there is almost always someone on hand to give them to her. Yes, the example linked is in Mechanichsburg, but there is also Molach, and we are told over and over that strong sparks attract minions… Now for RP purposes, this will be something up to the person playing with Aggie, they can choose to get caught up in it or not, and they can choose to become a minion once, or become like Molach if they keep getting tagged by her. It is something that will ONLY ever be done with player permission or to NPCs. It will be an RP thing only, and never forced on anyone whose player does not want it to happen.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040308#.VIL_euSRlfw
4 – Heterodyning – I’ll just stick it here.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070606#.VIGXuuSRlfw
Aggie has a weird not-music music in her head that she can hum or sing that helps her work, and makes her powers work that much better. Less control, more warping of the laws of physics. It is not a “sound” that anyone else can duplicate or use.
5 – They call them “mad boys” for a reason –
Sparkiness has certain personality traits… Intense focus on a project, minor (or major) Megalomania, the firm belief that “because we can!” is an acceptable reason to do ANYTHING, a growing disregard for human life (though this one hits Aggie less than some others….)
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120912#.VIGaMuSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20130715#.VIDieuSRlfx
Sparks also often have rages, they often build things that make no sense to anyone but themselves, and some – Aggie being one of them – get an unholy glee about certain deadly machines or abominations of nature.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040510#.VIGbX-SRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20141117#.VIGb2uSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20141112#.VIGb_OSRlfw
Agatha has one other thing working against her at the moment. Her mother is in her head….
Lucrizia Mongfish is not herself a strong spark, but she has one machine that she has perfected so well that given time and tools, she can rebuild it anywhere. It allows her to back up a copy of herself into someone else’s mind, and take them over. This is the reason Agatha left, and is coming to Xavier’s. She is trying to investigate – carefully – if anyone there can help her get the “other” her mom out of her head. Lucrizia is unaware of what happens when Aggie is in control, and Agatha is unaware of what happens when her mother is in control. The trilobite necklace that Agatha wears is what allows her to keep her mother in check. If it comes off, Agatha “sleeps” while Lucrizia is free to use the body as she sees fit. Aware of this, Agatha guards the pendant better than her own life. She never takes it off. For anything.
Lucrizia can be used for tons of plots, if the mods want, I am totally open to swapping to her for a plot if a villain is requested. Given that she works with mind control, she could be a good foil for Xavier from time to time, especially since she inhabits the body of one of his students, and would happily copy herself into more than one…
I can write her a separate profile, if you wish.
AU HISTORY:
The Sparks were a community, to start. A bunch of early mutants and premutants in London during the Victorian era who decided to form a community based on similar mutations of increased intelligence and increased facility with technology. Over the years, this community grew, and began to build, to create. But many of the creations were dangerous, or unstable. Thankfully one of these… smarter… humans…. Realized that they were, themselves, a threat to regular humans. So he worked with the others and made a phase displacement device. It duplicated a large area of the world, the whole of the landmass group that includes Europe, Asia, and Africa. Thus the people were doubled at well, for that initial split. But then the two grew individually. The people of Pax Europa, were at first aware of what happened in the rest of the world, in the other Earth, the real world. However, with the genius grew a kind of insanity, and so those who controlled the connection, seeing the trend, severed it.
Any mod who knows Girl Genius may skip to the * * * if they wish, as between this and that, the history will almost exactly follow the story cannon. I am trying to be succinct, but there are YEARS of story to get through….
So Pax Europa grew. The people learned, evolved, flourished. Because this began before electricity was quite as prevalent, much of the technology they built came from steam, though electricity, when harnessed from storms, is in use by the bravest – or most fool hardy – of them.
The next generations of super geniuses bred, and began strong houses whose names would last for generations. One such house was the house Heterodyne. They were among the strongest of the sparks, of these super humans, but they were also the maddest, and at times, the evilest. They created things that no one would have thought to create before, and took great glee in destruction, death, mayhem...
Until the young masters, Bill and Barry Heterodyne were born. Bill and Barry rebelled against the family. Oh, they were sparks, and strong ones, so they were half mad, able to attract minions, the whole nine yards, except that rather than wanting to rule the world, or destroy the world, they wanted to help the world. They were heroes.
Their fame grew, they became known as “the heterodyne boys” and stories were told up and down Pax Europa of their heroism. They traveled with two constructs – Punch and Judy – and two… friends. Klaus Wulfenbach and Lucrizia Mongfish, both strong sparks of good families. Lucrizia, despite an unmatched desire for evil, and an unrivaled skill at achieving it behind the backs of the Heterodyne boys, fell in love with Bill, and decided to marry him, to try and join the good guys for real. “After all, they keep winning. There has to be something to their philosophy,” she told Klaus (in cannon).
But Lucrizia was quite the villain in her own right, working under the simple pseudonym “the other”, she helped Bill and Barry fight her own creations, and her specialty was mind control, devices to enslave people to her will. To the last, Bill and Barry never knew she was the one they fought.
And then one day… they were gone. No one knows exactly what happened. Klaus went off, spent 2 years getting married, having baby, presumably in France, and came back to central Europa in Chaos. “It was as if the Heterodyne Boys had never existed,” he commented.
So he came in, and took over. He formed Pax Transylvania, and through his rather unusual methods, conquered most of the known world, ruling from Castle Wulfenbach – a dirigible fleet.
Now, what has this to do with our young Agatha? So glad you asked!
Agatha was young when she started to break through, when her mutant power of sparkiness began. Too young. Barry, who was laying low to raise Bill and Lucriza’s daughter – you guessed it, Agatha, built something in haste to keep her powers in check. Unfortunately, this device – a Heterodyne trilobite, also made it impossible for her to think coherently or focus. She would spend the next decade and change sure that she was stupid, and a failure at everything. She was driven by an intense urge to build, to create, but everything she attempted failed. And not even impressively. She was despondent.
Until the day the Baron came.
Granted, it was probably coincidence that the day she was mugged, her necklace was stolen, happened to be a day that the Baron, his son, his attendant, and a Jager monster all came to check on Agatha’s professor, Doctor Beetle. But the timing couldn’t have been worse, and couldn’t have been better.
Beetle saw that she did not have the sigil, knew what that meant and tried to get rid of her… anyway he could, and when persuasion failed, he threw a bomb at her. The baron’s son, Gil, saved her, by hitting it back at him, killing Beetle. As first meetings go, it was not the most romantic.
Agatha went home to the comfort of her parents-by-proxy, the constructs who raised her, Adam and Lilith. (You guessed it, Punch and Judy, but Agatha did not know that, nor did she know she was a Heterodyne, she always thought her last name was Clay.) When they heard the story – protective amulet gone, Klaus in town, they told her to pack, and fast, and they went out checking the pawnshops for her necklace, to no avail.
Agatha fell asleep, waiting for them to come back, and woke up, in the garage, in her undergarments, when the thief returned, blaming her for the death of his brother… The clank Agatha made in her sleep, to find the thieves, meanwhile was menacing the town. Gil and Klaus sent it back to it’s owner, and C-gassed the garage. Presuming Molach, the thief, to be the spark, they presumed she was some sort of lover/lab assistant and when they took him, took her as hostage against his good behavior. No one seemed to notice much how much the Jagers, who are oath bound to serve the Heterodynes, seemed to like her smell. “She smellz verra verra nize.”
In the castle, Agatha began to make friends, was forced to wear pants, and discovered, with help from Gil that she was, in fact, a strong spark herself. Speaking of sparks, oh boy were they flying when after defeating a hive engine that was one of the Other’s tools for enslavement, by TALKING to it, Gil proposed in about the worst way possible. This was exacerbated by his pushing famous hero, Othar, out of the dirigible. Given that Agatha later did the same, she still has not quite forgiven herself for how she reacted to Gil for that…
Gil’s disastrous proposal, and the arrival of Punch and Judy convinced her finally that she HAD TO RUN. Aided by her new friends, and the talking cat Krosp, Agatha followed Judy/Lilith’s last instructions to her – head for castle Heterodyne.
There followed a time (I really am trying to condense this, but this is YEARS of story, and I don’t know which mods know what.) where Agatha was on the run from Gil and Klaus, and she even managed for a while to convince them that she was dead. But Sparkiness of her caliber is hard to hide, and when you are the Heterodyne, things… happen.
She traveled with a wondering circus full of secret sparks, and met two people there who would forever change her life. Well, 2 people and three Jagers. The two people were Lars and Zeetha. Zeetha is a warrior princess from a lost land called Skifander who took Agatha on as her student, and has been “training” her since. The other is Lars. Lars who was just a simple man, no spark, no political power, no ambition, who died because of her. That was when she vowed that never again would anyone die for her sake, and she has pushed herself to the breaking point, and past, to keep that vow.
While with the circus, she also met one other group that would affect her forever, though they were not of the circus. She met Tarvek and Anveka, the heirs to the throne of the Storm king. Loooong history that can be skipped unless Tarvek gets apped, in which case his player can take this part over, but the Heterodynes and the line of the Storm King are inexorably linked. And Tarvek’s family lives for games of political power grabs. They were planning to float a fake Heterodyne and send her to Castle Heterodyne in Mechanicsburg to solidify their own power. At the same time, Anveka and Tarvek were working with a race of beings who served the Other as a religious figure, in a manner that I would only call similar to how the Jagers serve the Heterodyne if I was sure no Jager would ever be able to get to me…
They managed to get Agatha trapped, and into a device that put her mother’s brain, Lucrizia Mongfish, Aka “the Other” into her head. Anveka also wound up with a copy of Lucrizia in her head.
The Baron came personally to put an end to the chaos at the Stormking’s castle, and did not have cause to suspect what was to come next. As Agatha, Lucrizia managed to send a special new slave-wasp (they look nothing like the actual insect) into Klaus, making him the only spark ever to be enslaved in quite that manner.
She leaned close, whispered all her lovely plans in his ear for using her daughter’s body for credibility to rule all of Pax Europa by marrying and eventually killing Gil. Then she cooed over the fact that she found a Heterodyne symbol, Agatha’s necklace, in with Klaus’ stuff. Unable to resist looking undeniably like the Heterodyne, she put it on. The power in the necklace that had once kept Agatha from thinking now kept Lucrizia at bay. Agatha awoke.
Tarvek, ever playing more than one side, ever playing more than one game, helped her escape for reasons of his own.
Everything converged on Mechanicsburg. Klaus was badly wounded, no one knew he was a revenant, they brought him to a hospital there. Agatha headed there because that was her goal. Tarvek knew the fake was on her way, so he headed there.
And when news spread of the Baron being at death’s door, every two-bit spark with dreams of taking over Pax Europa headed there.
In Mechanicsburg, we learned that under no circumstances should Agatha EVER be allowed coffee again.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070613#.VIWhMhlrWhE
Gratuitous cannon share, because I LOVE that part. Yes, on the way to reclaim her castle, her birthright and possibly find a way to get her mother OUT OF HER HEAD, she stopped to remake a coffee engine. The positive side effects of this were that the people now believed she might well be the Heterodyne – given how they all snapped to when she gave orders, and the odd not music humming – and that Gil knew where she was, and could go help.
Eventually the Castle – which is alive, sentient, and has an older Heterodyne sense of humor – was host to Agatha, Zola (the fake Heterodyne), the “hero” Othar and his baby sister, Zeetha, two friends from Castle Wulfenbach –Slepnir and Theo – Otillia the Muse of protection, also known as Von Pinn, Gil, Tarvek, Molach (yes, the thief who stole her locket and started this mess), Krosp the talking cat, a number of prisoners, Violetta – Tarvek’s cousin, and Ariman Higgs. Who I am sure is a Jager… but… that;s just my theory. Do with it as you will.
The next two or three years – real time not story time (“Hy keep tellink hyu – it only SEEM like deyz been in de kestle a long time! Iz vot hyu call ‘relativity’, hyu know, ‘cause it like ven hyu relatives visit an dun go avay!”) – are mostly about fixing the castle, and fighting against Zola. The end result of which is that Zola gets a copy of Lucrizia in her head then escapes, Von Pinn winds up in a giant metal attack cat with unknown upgrades, Gil goes off to deal with the fact that he has been told his father is dead, and the castle is… somewhat fixed.
Which is when they can focus on the REAL battle, happening inside and outside Mechanicsburg. Between it and Castle Wulfenbach over head, between the rumors that the baron is dead and the castle has not yet accepted either Heterodyne as the real one, all the vultures are swarming, and these are sparky vultures, so they have clanks, and death rays, personal adaptations, and general monstrosities. Flying monkeys, anyone?
There is a pitched battle, that makes the one in the castle seem like cake. Agatha specifically demands cake, in fact, at one point. During all this, Klaus, who has been wasped by the other has done… Something to Gil, no one yet knows what at that point, that makes him not right. Agatha is about to do what SHOULD fix the castle enough to end the battle once and for all when he tries to convince her to give up and come away with him. She realizes something is wrong with him, and refuses. There is a sad moment when she and Tarvek both regret tht he got away, so they couldn’t help him. Which is touching given how much Tarvek and Gil fight. The people of Mechanicsburg, even during the siege, are betting on which she will choose to marry. The leading answer is “She’s a Heterodyne, she might just keep them both.”
Finally the castle is able to take care of all but the last bits, the last bits being mostly Maritellus, yet another one of Tarvek’s ill-fated relatives, trying to advance a Storm King/Heterodyne liaison in order to take over Pax Europa.
Agatha refuses. Several times. But she’s falling on her face exhausted. So he decides to kidnap her.
* * *
This is where the history changes from the canon. Quick recap – Klaus is a salve to Lucriza. Lucrizia has a copy in Zola, in Avenka, and in Agatha. The copy in Agatha is held at bay with the sigil. Klaus has done something to Gil to make him just enough off to not be trusted. And they’re all dead exhausted.
Caught up? Awesome. Here we go!
So Idiot wanna be Storm King (Not Tarvek, his cousin) decides to kidnap Agatha, with help of the leader of the Bloodstone paladins JUST as Klaus appears in Mechanicsburg with some sort of odd device. They drag Agatha towards a gate that is supposed to instantly transport her to a “safe” location where they can convince her to follow their plan. She gets shoved through as the device goes off. She gets shoved through alone – no Krosp, no Maritallus, Violetta.
Agatha… has heard stories about Europe. Real Europe. She was one of the few who had begun to think maybe they weren’t stories. Finding herself in a world where there were no dirigibles in the sky, where she almost got run over by a car on a busy street, where shop windows have teles all over…. She believed.
Especially when her amulet fell off and she discovered a limit to her mother’s reach. Here in Europe… she was FREE. Lucrizia was gone from her mind!
She realized that she could build a way home. Presumably. But she wasn’t so sure she should. Something was wrong with Gil, and he needed her… but…. Whatever was wrong came from Klaus, who was wasped. And Agatha had the Other, had her mother, had Lucrizia Mongfish in her head when she was home. Would she return as soon as Agatha did? Going back now… would not be safe. Yes, Lucrizia was in Zola also (she did not know about Avenka, if I recall correctly) But Tarvek knew about Zola. She would have to trust him to deal with Zola, and to help Gil. The castle could keep everyone safe from most threats… so now she had to keep them all safe…from her. Until she could grow strong enough to stop her mother once and for all.
She learned one thing quickly, reading the news and listening to the odd tele in this new world. She learned that anyone with any superhuman anything who needed help and came in peace could find it in a place called New York, with a man called Xavier.
So she made her way across the pond, and headed for the mansion, determined to repay him for his assistance with some upgrades to whatever needed upgrading. Or maybe building him a few battle clanks. She’d figure something out. If he could help her.
As she traveled, though, she learned that his place was a school. A university. She hadn’t been to classes since Beetle was killed. It would probably be a good idea to show up as a student first, right? To prove her value before asking for favor? And maybe she could learn what she needed without asking at all!
That decided, she obtained some tools, including a wrench large enough to be a bat, that she built a small death ray into – because a girl has got to keep a small death ray on hand for all emergencies after all, and a spanner she wore like a blade on her hip. She made a few small mindless clanks to keep her company, and checked her necklace constantly. Thus armed, she entered the school.
Rp link: http://xavier-institute-ooc.dreamwidth.org/25836.html?thread=1353708#cmt1353708
Network Post:
[The camera comes on, shaking at first, rocking as if someone is holding it clumsily, finally it focuses on her face. She is standing there, grinning at the camera, giant wrench over one shoulder.] "Okay, so I was thinking that what this school needs is a giant clank. It will look like a time keeping clank, and seem harmless, but of course we'll be building it to defend the school. What do you think? If you want in, bring all the tools and parts you can to the front lawn in fifteen minutes. Oh, and could someone bring a thermos of coffee?"
[The camera shudders, falls, and dies.]
PLAYER: Chicklet
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Yep
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: N/A
CONTACT: Aim: BardessOokami, Yahoo!: MLPBardess, Plurk: ChickletLarp, ChickeltRP
CHARACTERS PLAYED:
Tiamaris, Eli, Aqua
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Agatha Clay Heterodyne
CANON: www.GirlGenius.com
CANON REFERENCE:
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20111102#.VIGIq-SRlfw
http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Chronology_-_Volume_VII
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Girl_Genius
AGE: 20 Not sure her ACTUAL age in the cannon. We know she is in university, so theoretically 18-21 when the story starts, but they only focus on how much time has passed when time goes wibbly wobbly. So since it is unclear, I settled on 20, a reasonable age for her to go back to school after all the madness.
GENDER: Female
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: University Freshman
APPEARANCE:
She is tall, with blond hair that never behaves, green eyes that are usually showing signs of being one form of mad or another, large thin rimmed round glasses, and an outfit that usually has green as a primary color. Expect her to be covered in machine oil and/or grease at any given moment.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/bc2f1745bbbd494003ec480edc5c929a/tumblr_mg9bdloLuc1r13d21o1_500.jpg
PERSONALITY:
Agatha has learned to be brave, fast. The thing about learning to be brave, about being brave? She’s good at it. When there is someone to be brave for, she can do nearly anything.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20111228#.VIGRXOSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20121224#.VIGTyeSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070117#.VIGXOeSRlfw
The people she cares about are her courage, and she cares about a great many people. She will throw herself head first into danger to protect her town, her friends, her….ah…. Gil and Tarvek.
But that does not mean she is stupid or self-sacrificing. She fights hard, she expects to defend, or to stand back to back with someone, not to throw herself in harm’s way and hope to be a good enough meat shield. Agatha is brave enough to throw herself in front of a moving bus to save someone it was about to hit, but smart enough to manage to change the bus’ course by building a ramp, or blasting it with an emp, or tossing a clank into the wheel well to trigger the breaks. Of course, she is also RECKLESS enough to build a ramp, or toss a clank into the wheel well…. She has a slight issue with tunnel vision. She sees THIS project, THIS danger, THIS moment, and tends to loose a grasp on the fact that she might just be making worse trouble as she fixes one problem or another.
Reckless is a good word for Aggie, really. But it’s not her fault, she’s all sparky, all unbalanced. When a project interests - her enough – and seriously, making COFFEE did it – she forgets everything else around her. Not always, but often, and more and more frequently as she became more and more accustomed to her powers.
Agatha is also desperate to not be used any more. Between the Baron wanting to control her, her mother in her head, the Castle trying to convince her to let it be more blood thirsty, and Gil with his dad in his head, trying to “save” her…
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20121228#.VIGT6OSRlfw
Agatha is, at heart, a girl with good intentions and a more or less sweet nature that constantly gets challenged by her own mad boy tendencies and the fact that she can’t seem to get a single day of peace without having to fight, or run, for her life! She means well, but for as brilliant as she is, her single-minded focus can also blind her to what needs to be done.
Oh, and for your own safety… never EVER let her have coffee. You have been warned.
POWERS/ABILITIES:
Aggie has the spark. All her mutations come off of this. (Well, it is questionable how heterodyning actually counts…)
What this means:
1 - http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070608#.VIGU_uSRlfw The last panal:
With tools in hand, Agatha can build the impossible. She can create a small wind up toy looking clank that can learn enough to follow instructions, and to create more of itself. She can work with Gil to repair a flying machine, while it’s falling.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030625#.VIGVqeSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030627#.VIGVxuSRlfw
She can turn a circus into a death trap…
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/ggmain/doublespreads/ggcoll06_122_123.html
I’m sure you get the point. Short: Agatha can build very nearly anything she can dream up out of nearly any parts but….
2 – Sometimes it explodes…
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070613#.VIGW4OSRlfw
The bottom three panels.
Okay, so she can build anything, but not perfectly, sometimes it goes horribly horribly wrong before it goes right (if it goes right!), and often it goes completely out of her control.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070122#.VIGXXOSRlfw
Sometimes she wakes up unaware of what she has built, even, and she has to deal with the results when she wakes up. So it’s a neat power. Too bad she can’t control it….
3 – Minions!
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070528#.VIGX3uSRlfw
Some of it is personality, and some of it is an unintentional use of psychic mutation. Some people with low psychic resistance can get swept up into her frenzy. She asks people for tools, and there is almost always someone on hand to give them to her. Yes, the example linked is in Mechanichsburg, but there is also Molach, and we are told over and over that strong sparks attract minions… Now for RP purposes, this will be something up to the person playing with Aggie, they can choose to get caught up in it or not, and they can choose to become a minion once, or become like Molach if they keep getting tagged by her. It is something that will ONLY ever be done with player permission or to NPCs. It will be an RP thing only, and never forced on anyone whose player does not want it to happen.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040308#.VIL_euSRlfw
4 – Heterodyning – I’ll just stick it here.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070606#.VIGXuuSRlfw
Aggie has a weird not-music music in her head that she can hum or sing that helps her work, and makes her powers work that much better. Less control, more warping of the laws of physics. It is not a “sound” that anyone else can duplicate or use.
5 – They call them “mad boys” for a reason –
Sparkiness has certain personality traits… Intense focus on a project, minor (or major) Megalomania, the firm belief that “because we can!” is an acceptable reason to do ANYTHING, a growing disregard for human life (though this one hits Aggie less than some others….)
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120912#.VIGaMuSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20130715#.VIDieuSRlfx
Sparks also often have rages, they often build things that make no sense to anyone but themselves, and some – Aggie being one of them – get an unholy glee about certain deadly machines or abominations of nature.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040510#.VIGbX-SRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20141117#.VIGb2uSRlfw
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20141112#.VIGb_OSRlfw
Agatha has one other thing working against her at the moment. Her mother is in her head….
Lucrizia Mongfish is not herself a strong spark, but she has one machine that she has perfected so well that given time and tools, she can rebuild it anywhere. It allows her to back up a copy of herself into someone else’s mind, and take them over. This is the reason Agatha left, and is coming to Xavier’s. She is trying to investigate – carefully – if anyone there can help her get the “other” her mom out of her head. Lucrizia is unaware of what happens when Aggie is in control, and Agatha is unaware of what happens when her mother is in control. The trilobite necklace that Agatha wears is what allows her to keep her mother in check. If it comes off, Agatha “sleeps” while Lucrizia is free to use the body as she sees fit. Aware of this, Agatha guards the pendant better than her own life. She never takes it off. For anything.
Lucrizia can be used for tons of plots, if the mods want, I am totally open to swapping to her for a plot if a villain is requested. Given that she works with mind control, she could be a good foil for Xavier from time to time, especially since she inhabits the body of one of his students, and would happily copy herself into more than one…
I can write her a separate profile, if you wish.
AU HISTORY:
The Sparks were a community, to start. A bunch of early mutants and premutants in London during the Victorian era who decided to form a community based on similar mutations of increased intelligence and increased facility with technology. Over the years, this community grew, and began to build, to create. But many of the creations were dangerous, or unstable. Thankfully one of these… smarter… humans…. Realized that they were, themselves, a threat to regular humans. So he worked with the others and made a phase displacement device. It duplicated a large area of the world, the whole of the landmass group that includes Europe, Asia, and Africa. Thus the people were doubled at well, for that initial split. But then the two grew individually. The people of Pax Europa, were at first aware of what happened in the rest of the world, in the other Earth, the real world. However, with the genius grew a kind of insanity, and so those who controlled the connection, seeing the trend, severed it.
Any mod who knows Girl Genius may skip to the * * * if they wish, as between this and that, the history will almost exactly follow the story cannon. I am trying to be succinct, but there are YEARS of story to get through….
So Pax Europa grew. The people learned, evolved, flourished. Because this began before electricity was quite as prevalent, much of the technology they built came from steam, though electricity, when harnessed from storms, is in use by the bravest – or most fool hardy – of them.
The next generations of super geniuses bred, and began strong houses whose names would last for generations. One such house was the house Heterodyne. They were among the strongest of the sparks, of these super humans, but they were also the maddest, and at times, the evilest. They created things that no one would have thought to create before, and took great glee in destruction, death, mayhem...
Until the young masters, Bill and Barry Heterodyne were born. Bill and Barry rebelled against the family. Oh, they were sparks, and strong ones, so they were half mad, able to attract minions, the whole nine yards, except that rather than wanting to rule the world, or destroy the world, they wanted to help the world. They were heroes.
Their fame grew, they became known as “the heterodyne boys” and stories were told up and down Pax Europa of their heroism. They traveled with two constructs – Punch and Judy – and two… friends. Klaus Wulfenbach and Lucrizia Mongfish, both strong sparks of good families. Lucrizia, despite an unmatched desire for evil, and an unrivaled skill at achieving it behind the backs of the Heterodyne boys, fell in love with Bill, and decided to marry him, to try and join the good guys for real. “After all, they keep winning. There has to be something to their philosophy,” she told Klaus (in cannon).
But Lucrizia was quite the villain in her own right, working under the simple pseudonym “the other”, she helped Bill and Barry fight her own creations, and her specialty was mind control, devices to enslave people to her will. To the last, Bill and Barry never knew she was the one they fought.
And then one day… they were gone. No one knows exactly what happened. Klaus went off, spent 2 years getting married, having baby, presumably in France, and came back to central Europa in Chaos. “It was as if the Heterodyne Boys had never existed,” he commented.
So he came in, and took over. He formed Pax Transylvania, and through his rather unusual methods, conquered most of the known world, ruling from Castle Wulfenbach – a dirigible fleet.
Now, what has this to do with our young Agatha? So glad you asked!
Agatha was young when she started to break through, when her mutant power of sparkiness began. Too young. Barry, who was laying low to raise Bill and Lucriza’s daughter – you guessed it, Agatha, built something in haste to keep her powers in check. Unfortunately, this device – a Heterodyne trilobite, also made it impossible for her to think coherently or focus. She would spend the next decade and change sure that she was stupid, and a failure at everything. She was driven by an intense urge to build, to create, but everything she attempted failed. And not even impressively. She was despondent.
Until the day the Baron came.
Granted, it was probably coincidence that the day she was mugged, her necklace was stolen, happened to be a day that the Baron, his son, his attendant, and a Jager monster all came to check on Agatha’s professor, Doctor Beetle. But the timing couldn’t have been worse, and couldn’t have been better.
Beetle saw that she did not have the sigil, knew what that meant and tried to get rid of her… anyway he could, and when persuasion failed, he threw a bomb at her. The baron’s son, Gil, saved her, by hitting it back at him, killing Beetle. As first meetings go, it was not the most romantic.
Agatha went home to the comfort of her parents-by-proxy, the constructs who raised her, Adam and Lilith. (You guessed it, Punch and Judy, but Agatha did not know that, nor did she know she was a Heterodyne, she always thought her last name was Clay.) When they heard the story – protective amulet gone, Klaus in town, they told her to pack, and fast, and they went out checking the pawnshops for her necklace, to no avail.
Agatha fell asleep, waiting for them to come back, and woke up, in the garage, in her undergarments, when the thief returned, blaming her for the death of his brother… The clank Agatha made in her sleep, to find the thieves, meanwhile was menacing the town. Gil and Klaus sent it back to it’s owner, and C-gassed the garage. Presuming Molach, the thief, to be the spark, they presumed she was some sort of lover/lab assistant and when they took him, took her as hostage against his good behavior. No one seemed to notice much how much the Jagers, who are oath bound to serve the Heterodynes, seemed to like her smell. “She smellz verra verra nize.”
In the castle, Agatha began to make friends, was forced to wear pants, and discovered, with help from Gil that she was, in fact, a strong spark herself. Speaking of sparks, oh boy were they flying when after defeating a hive engine that was one of the Other’s tools for enslavement, by TALKING to it, Gil proposed in about the worst way possible. This was exacerbated by his pushing famous hero, Othar, out of the dirigible. Given that Agatha later did the same, she still has not quite forgiven herself for how she reacted to Gil for that…
Gil’s disastrous proposal, and the arrival of Punch and Judy convinced her finally that she HAD TO RUN. Aided by her new friends, and the talking cat Krosp, Agatha followed Judy/Lilith’s last instructions to her – head for castle Heterodyne.
There followed a time (I really am trying to condense this, but this is YEARS of story, and I don’t know which mods know what.) where Agatha was on the run from Gil and Klaus, and she even managed for a while to convince them that she was dead. But Sparkiness of her caliber is hard to hide, and when you are the Heterodyne, things… happen.
She traveled with a wondering circus full of secret sparks, and met two people there who would forever change her life. Well, 2 people and three Jagers. The two people were Lars and Zeetha. Zeetha is a warrior princess from a lost land called Skifander who took Agatha on as her student, and has been “training” her since. The other is Lars. Lars who was just a simple man, no spark, no political power, no ambition, who died because of her. That was when she vowed that never again would anyone die for her sake, and she has pushed herself to the breaking point, and past, to keep that vow.
While with the circus, she also met one other group that would affect her forever, though they were not of the circus. She met Tarvek and Anveka, the heirs to the throne of the Storm king. Loooong history that can be skipped unless Tarvek gets apped, in which case his player can take this part over, but the Heterodynes and the line of the Storm King are inexorably linked. And Tarvek’s family lives for games of political power grabs. They were planning to float a fake Heterodyne and send her to Castle Heterodyne in Mechanicsburg to solidify their own power. At the same time, Anveka and Tarvek were working with a race of beings who served the Other as a religious figure, in a manner that I would only call similar to how the Jagers serve the Heterodyne if I was sure no Jager would ever be able to get to me…
They managed to get Agatha trapped, and into a device that put her mother’s brain, Lucrizia Mongfish, Aka “the Other” into her head. Anveka also wound up with a copy of Lucrizia in her head.
The Baron came personally to put an end to the chaos at the Stormking’s castle, and did not have cause to suspect what was to come next. As Agatha, Lucrizia managed to send a special new slave-wasp (they look nothing like the actual insect) into Klaus, making him the only spark ever to be enslaved in quite that manner.
She leaned close, whispered all her lovely plans in his ear for using her daughter’s body for credibility to rule all of Pax Europa by marrying and eventually killing Gil. Then she cooed over the fact that she found a Heterodyne symbol, Agatha’s necklace, in with Klaus’ stuff. Unable to resist looking undeniably like the Heterodyne, she put it on. The power in the necklace that had once kept Agatha from thinking now kept Lucrizia at bay. Agatha awoke.
Tarvek, ever playing more than one side, ever playing more than one game, helped her escape for reasons of his own.
Everything converged on Mechanicsburg. Klaus was badly wounded, no one knew he was a revenant, they brought him to a hospital there. Agatha headed there because that was her goal. Tarvek knew the fake was on her way, so he headed there.
And when news spread of the Baron being at death’s door, every two-bit spark with dreams of taking over Pax Europa headed there.
In Mechanicsburg, we learned that under no circumstances should Agatha EVER be allowed coffee again.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070613#.VIWhMhlrWhE
Gratuitous cannon share, because I LOVE that part. Yes, on the way to reclaim her castle, her birthright and possibly find a way to get her mother OUT OF HER HEAD, she stopped to remake a coffee engine. The positive side effects of this were that the people now believed she might well be the Heterodyne – given how they all snapped to when she gave orders, and the odd not music humming – and that Gil knew where she was, and could go help.
Eventually the Castle – which is alive, sentient, and has an older Heterodyne sense of humor – was host to Agatha, Zola (the fake Heterodyne), the “hero” Othar and his baby sister, Zeetha, two friends from Castle Wulfenbach –Slepnir and Theo – Otillia the Muse of protection, also known as Von Pinn, Gil, Tarvek, Molach (yes, the thief who stole her locket and started this mess), Krosp the talking cat, a number of prisoners, Violetta – Tarvek’s cousin, and Ariman Higgs. Who I am sure is a Jager… but… that;s just my theory. Do with it as you will.
The next two or three years – real time not story time (“Hy keep tellink hyu – it only SEEM like deyz been in de kestle a long time! Iz vot hyu call ‘relativity’, hyu know, ‘cause it like ven hyu relatives visit an dun go avay!”) – are mostly about fixing the castle, and fighting against Zola. The end result of which is that Zola gets a copy of Lucrizia in her head then escapes, Von Pinn winds up in a giant metal attack cat with unknown upgrades, Gil goes off to deal with the fact that he has been told his father is dead, and the castle is… somewhat fixed.
Which is when they can focus on the REAL battle, happening inside and outside Mechanicsburg. Between it and Castle Wulfenbach over head, between the rumors that the baron is dead and the castle has not yet accepted either Heterodyne as the real one, all the vultures are swarming, and these are sparky vultures, so they have clanks, and death rays, personal adaptations, and general monstrosities. Flying monkeys, anyone?
There is a pitched battle, that makes the one in the castle seem like cake. Agatha specifically demands cake, in fact, at one point. During all this, Klaus, who has been wasped by the other has done… Something to Gil, no one yet knows what at that point, that makes him not right. Agatha is about to do what SHOULD fix the castle enough to end the battle once and for all when he tries to convince her to give up and come away with him. She realizes something is wrong with him, and refuses. There is a sad moment when she and Tarvek both regret tht he got away, so they couldn’t help him. Which is touching given how much Tarvek and Gil fight. The people of Mechanicsburg, even during the siege, are betting on which she will choose to marry. The leading answer is “She’s a Heterodyne, she might just keep them both.”
Finally the castle is able to take care of all but the last bits, the last bits being mostly Maritellus, yet another one of Tarvek’s ill-fated relatives, trying to advance a Storm King/Heterodyne liaison in order to take over Pax Europa.
Agatha refuses. Several times. But she’s falling on her face exhausted. So he decides to kidnap her.
* * *
This is where the history changes from the canon. Quick recap – Klaus is a salve to Lucriza. Lucrizia has a copy in Zola, in Avenka, and in Agatha. The copy in Agatha is held at bay with the sigil. Klaus has done something to Gil to make him just enough off to not be trusted. And they’re all dead exhausted.
Caught up? Awesome. Here we go!
So Idiot wanna be Storm King (Not Tarvek, his cousin) decides to kidnap Agatha, with help of the leader of the Bloodstone paladins JUST as Klaus appears in Mechanicsburg with some sort of odd device. They drag Agatha towards a gate that is supposed to instantly transport her to a “safe” location where they can convince her to follow their plan. She gets shoved through as the device goes off. She gets shoved through alone – no Krosp, no Maritallus, Violetta.
Agatha… has heard stories about Europe. Real Europe. She was one of the few who had begun to think maybe they weren’t stories. Finding herself in a world where there were no dirigibles in the sky, where she almost got run over by a car on a busy street, where shop windows have teles all over…. She believed.
Especially when her amulet fell off and she discovered a limit to her mother’s reach. Here in Europe… she was FREE. Lucrizia was gone from her mind!
She realized that she could build a way home. Presumably. But she wasn’t so sure she should. Something was wrong with Gil, and he needed her… but…. Whatever was wrong came from Klaus, who was wasped. And Agatha had the Other, had her mother, had Lucrizia Mongfish in her head when she was home. Would she return as soon as Agatha did? Going back now… would not be safe. Yes, Lucrizia was in Zola also (she did not know about Avenka, if I recall correctly) But Tarvek knew about Zola. She would have to trust him to deal with Zola, and to help Gil. The castle could keep everyone safe from most threats… so now she had to keep them all safe…from her. Until she could grow strong enough to stop her mother once and for all.
She learned one thing quickly, reading the news and listening to the odd tele in this new world. She learned that anyone with any superhuman anything who needed help and came in peace could find it in a place called New York, with a man called Xavier.
So she made her way across the pond, and headed for the mansion, determined to repay him for his assistance with some upgrades to whatever needed upgrading. Or maybe building him a few battle clanks. She’d figure something out. If he could help her.
As she traveled, though, she learned that his place was a school. A university. She hadn’t been to classes since Beetle was killed. It would probably be a good idea to show up as a student first, right? To prove her value before asking for favor? And maybe she could learn what she needed without asking at all!
That decided, she obtained some tools, including a wrench large enough to be a bat, that she built a small death ray into – because a girl has got to keep a small death ray on hand for all emergencies after all, and a spanner she wore like a blade on her hip. She made a few small mindless clanks to keep her company, and checked her necklace constantly. Thus armed, she entered the school.
Rp link: http://xavier-institute-ooc.dreamwidth.org/25836.html?thread=1353708#cmt1353708
Network Post:
[The camera comes on, shaking at first, rocking as if someone is holding it clumsily, finally it focuses on her face. She is standing there, grinning at the camera, giant wrench over one shoulder.] "Okay, so I was thinking that what this school needs is a giant clank. It will look like a time keeping clank, and seem harmless, but of course we'll be building it to defend the school. What do you think? If you want in, bring all the tools and parts you can to the front lawn in fifteen minutes. Oh, and could someone bring a thermos of coffee?"
[The camera shudders, falls, and dies.]
