Full Name: Liana Atmaja Codename: Gatekeeper Age: 22 Eyes: Blue Hair: Purple* Build: Average to thin Height: 5'6" Sex: Female
Apparel:White and blue track jacket with fitted pants and a pair of blue sneakers. Under her jacket is a purple shirt of breathable material (likely the same material in performance wear). Her purple gloves seem to be the only unique part of her costume as they are fingerless outside of her index finger and thumb. At the palm is a blue swirl with a white center. More than a plain logo, it resembles a galaxy and does well to keep her powers contained to her own will.
Other features: Falsely white teeth
*yes even her eyebrows
Personality
Personality: No one can tell whether Liana is an introvert or an extrovert. She can't even tell, herself. Though isn't always forward enough to seek company she hates being left alone or excluded from any activities amongst a group of people. She fancies the idea of people relying on her, but not of full dependence. She needs a social life that runs on her own terms rather than that of others. In that sense, her approach is not very reciprocal unless a person is able to acquiesce her (sometimes unreasonable) whims. They must make her
laugh and entertain her whether it's with jokes or just helping her forget about her status as a GBU athlete.
"Friends" (acquaintances to be more precise) see her calm, yet spontaneous side. She likes to emphasize that she isn't a sob story. She can crack a joke once in a while...it just takes some time to adjust before and after socializing. Outside of her parents she has never had an emotionally intimate relationship so it is hard for her to truly change for other people and abhors the idea of having others change too much for her. She realizes that this is selfish, but also that this is a matter of her fighting to keep herself emotionally stable.
Emotional scorn is another story.
Many have felt Liana's wrath on Battlefield (GBU's most popular category) whenever they offended her in one form or another. It is the easiest way to unlock her more aggressive side which is even more inconsistent than her normal, calm self. When she gets "emotional" it generally results in her flailing around and tunneling on the object of spite. On the other hand there are times when getting emotional equates to passion. Passion manifests itself in proving people wrong or wanting to make herself, her parents, or her country proud so she does her best to beat her opponent(s) in less of an angry and more of a flashy, calculated way. Calculation in this case translates to the idea of utilizing her problem-solving skills to expose blind spots and flashiness translates to gambles that please the audience.
That too translates to her way of dealing with people in real life as she is very spiteful toward offenders since she figures that she won't know them for long anyway. When she does have to deal with people on more than a singular basis she will be civil, but not forgiving. She'll often hold grudges long past their expiration and bring up past misgivings in arguments even when they aren't relevant. Relationships in general are fragile for her because of how rare they are, whether it is in the context of being a friend or something more. This rarity, sadly enough, doesn't stop her from breaking them if they cost her, her own benefit. Though she is a fixer, her biggest problem has always been herself so she has always been more devoted to fixing her issues than that of others. If she feels like someone isn't worth the trouble, then she will throw it away regardless of the long term consequences (because she can fix those when the time comes).
Reasons for Accepting the Invitation: She isn't doing this for her universe. She's doing it for all the other places that deserve a chance at life.
Philosophy: If you have a problem, then fix it. If there ever was a higher Liana believes that it left a long time ago. Sure, it might have left a map for the rest of the world, but that map means nothing if you can't decipher it. She believes that philosophy applies to people regardless of their social or economic standing. Yes, many groups are disadvantaged compared to others, but that's more incentive to do what you can to put yourself in a position where you can rise above others. Perhaps she can do the same one day.
Equipment / Abilities
Primary:Portal Creation in local (read: within a ten mile radius) areas -> Things can exist inbetween the portal until the portal is closed, creating a portal-cut. -> Portal-cutting results in severing everything between the portals and trapping it there -> Once a portal closes, everything inside enters Nullspace* -> She can guide people in and out of portals, but the longer the distance the more likely that people without a proper guide can get lost -> If she accidentally closes one or both portals, she may get stuck in Nullspace as it is much harder to open portals. If she does get trapped, she must find a tear in the Nullspace to access the outside dimension.
Secondary:Creature Summoning -> Opening only a single portal can summon Nulls: small (size of a dachshund) hexapods that resemble scorpions, beetles, and wasps depending on the type that leave. -> These creatures are roughly the size of small dogs with an omnivorous nature. -> They eat things that don't "smell" like Nullspace (have its DNA), rendering Liana immune but everyone else liable to be eaten -> Their main food source is "items" left in Nullspace
Tertiary: Null Sight -> She can see small tears in time and space where portals can be more easily created. -> The bigger the tear, the easier it is to open and the more creatures are likely to come out Natural Human Abilities: -> Cooking -> Knife-Throwing -> Basic Self-Defense -> Acting Area of Expertise: -> Nullspace. She has been to and from the area many times over the years so she knows the place in and out. It's just not the best place to spend the night.
History
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.
—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–20
Universe:
In
Universe Forty-Seven, as the Grand Elder referred to it, there was once a
time when things like powers were fiction and monsters were made for
movies. Oh wait, they still are? When powers emerged, it was during a
time of crisis. The economy was failing, nations were threatening war
with one another, and riots brewed across the countries with enough
rights to do so. The only constant was the art that emerged from that
era, telling of people's downtrodden times, the mass starvation, and the
money pointlessly lining the pockets of the rich. Sure, the affluent
remained patrons of the arts, but how exactly were they helping the
community? Though some donated to charity others saw an opportunity to
satiate the masses in a different way: entertainment.
It was a
concept as old as the Romans only rather than calling it "bread and
circuses" they settled for "The Greatest Battle of the Universe." The
format of the competition (broadcasted naturally) was to take the best
athletes, fighters, geniuses, etc. from every country and have them
compete in a year-round competition (each called a season) where the
best of the best would rise to the top and be declared "Master of the
Universe" in each of their respective categories. It was to be their
equivalent of the "Olympics" (with instigating war earning an automatic
ban if not being automatically seized). Instead actual fighting, their
warriors would battle in proxy for what amounted to fame. At first,
leaders were apprehensive to the approach since they knew that
neutrality was a hard thing to accomplish (being that match-fixing still
happened in sports) so they formed a committee of globally successful
(but not brand affiliated) business owners to handle the infrastructure
and judging for themselves on the condition that they only sponsor the
competition rather than the players.
The competition turned out
to be a big hit, inspiring the oppressed to work harder, the rich to
enter Uni-approved betting, and created jobs for the masses overall.
Every billboard, every bar, every television blasted the show like one
would blast a wedding between royals. You could have smarts, strength,
speed, or plain luck to enter the battle so long as you were sponsored
and won the competitions. Even if you couldn't, Uni always needed
casters, janitors, or support. Even if you didn't win you were famous,
at least for a little while. Uni was supposed to be the boon in a world
otherwise filled with strife, except that the government got involved.
Though
Uni was located on neutral ground, the five most profitable countries
(Nanjgha, Entripo, Kreigst, Chyia, and Lamian) fought for control of the
competition to ensure that they would secure spots, plural, for
every year's finals. The truth was that although every country was
allotted two spots on the show, no country was guaranteed to leave the
group stage, much less make it to the final competition. With the
increase in poorer countries such as Bajam and Indrat winning battles
(even if they didn't always win the finals), they wanted security. When
Uni refused, the five countries turned to more underhanded methods of
developing athletes.
The first was Entripo with cybernetic augmentation.
The second was Chyia with supersoldiers, bred from birth with the best genes known to humankind.
Unfortunately
for poorer countries it meant that the show descended into a battle of
the government-sponsored athletes, but the straw that broke the camel's
back was Nanjgha's descent into power augmentation.
Nanjgha and
Chyia were close allies who shared information about their progress, but
Nanjgha hadn't revealed their ace until the quarterfinals of sixtieth
GBU. Nanjgha, the nation of freedom, gave both of their athletes the
ability to fly and won handily. Chyia declared war on Nanjgha, but was
no match for their new batch of soldiers. Indeed, they had shorter
lives, but they were enough to force Chyia into an armistice and accept
not only Nanjgha's betrayal but their own failure.
Within three
decades of that event, governments began seizing their own corporations,
only allowing them to exist as a facade to hide their true intentions.
One could even tell which nation the athlete came from by the origin of
their company. Occasionally some wildcard teams would squeeze through, but it was rare if ever. They still seemed years behind.
Biography:
Two years before the baby that would be known as Liana would be born scientists discovered an anomaly off the coast of Killaka. The locals called it a portal to Hell, scientists called it unstable, and one woman called it "hope." As the CEO of a biotech company, her research appeared to be for the "Lamian GBU effort" but truthfully she wanted to win the war for herself. No longer would corporations be at the mercy of their country's rulers. If this child could open the Rift, the CEO could create an army of these creatures and pave a new world.
Perhaps if she had known, Liana might reconsidered her burden but instead she spent her childhood playing games and only entering the competition after being repeatedly pushed by her parents. She'd merely been using her power to travel from place to place, occasionally rambling on about the "bugs" she found, but people disregarded her since she was too shy to ever show them. She'd only finished rudimentary schooling before helping her parents' fishery grow. At the age of fifteen she was sponsored by an unknown company but washed out at group stages due to her inconsistency.
Despite Killaka congratulating her, she felt like a failure. It was her only taste of fame and all the money her parents country into the venture was lost. She'd never been so outclassed and especially by others with "powers." She thought she was the only one. Looking to her mother, she was advised to work on her power and try again when she felt ready (as in next year because who the fuck knew if anyone would sponsor someone from Killaka again?). Liana, being the problem solver she was, decided to visit "The Rift" where her powers allegedly rose from. When she entered, it was a frightening experience as she was nearly killed by a swarm of the creatures but she slowly grew to love their presence as well as learn to use her powers.
At seventeen she qualified again but the sponsor willing to take her required her to move to Lamia. Though she was sad to leave her family, they persuaded her to follow her dreams (and send back money). It was a dream, a second chance...until she actually reached the country. That year she learned the truth behind the competition as well as the basics of Lamian life but not how to remedy her inconsistency. She was quickly banished to training when her quarterfinals at the mixed-power duels didn't fair much better than her last showing and those after. She was branded as the "Gatekeeper" for both her strange power but also her ability to completely lock or completely open the gates to victory. Her only consistency seemed to be that a different sponsor would pick her up every year and that she would never make it out of quarterfinals.
She was frustrated with herself because her abilities seemed just as gated as her motivation. It wasn't like she didn't want to win, but rather a question of who she was winning for. She didn't want to win for Lamia. She wanted to win for her family and her birth country, but how could she? No matter how one looked at it, she was headed by Lamians. Her only source of comfort came from her latest benefactor, the CEO of a biotech company. Sound familiar? Liana wouldn't know.
Extra
Orientation: "Make me laugh." Favorite Past Time: Painting Favorite Fictional Character: Miranda from The Tempest Theme Song: Caught in the Rain by Hopsin Posting Color: #C45AEC, Tyrian Purple Voice: Riven, League of Legends
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