((member of
Beryl_Alts))
Intro
Jennifer Adeleman, also known as Jade to her friends, was your typical highschool girl. She studied hard, did her homework, enjoyed chess and had a great endearment for a good story. She fantasized of being a princess, but also of being a hero, someone who could defend the weak when nobody else would. Yes, Jade was quite the teenaged girl...until one fateful night when she bore witness to her parent's gruesome slaughter.
Her parents were murdered at gunpoint during a bank robbery. Being bank tellers, they had no chance against the criminals who robbed them: Jason Pierce, Raymond Simon, and Lucien LaCroix. Jade knew these names well, for they were the names she swore her vengeance on. They were the people who drove her to insanity for three years; anger, hatred, evil all piled in her heart, and she had no Alfred to guide her, no Commissioner Gordon to help her decide her course of action. No, all she had was herself, her raging hormones, and her thoughts of vengeance...
Once she turned eighteen and left the orphanage she stayed at, she immediately set about tracking the criminals that murdered her parents. She had attended school regularly and gotten her diploma by this point, and had friends that had helped her do this. These same friends encouraged her to keep her old habits: gaming, reading, and homework. They had even convinced her to start coming to the bar once in a while, something that they would soon regret as she took a liking to the alcoholic beverages that were served, and drained their wallets dry.
It helped her dull her mind, not think so much about her hatred and mistrust of others. She also found in her time spent at the bars, with her fake ID that was never checked, that she was a crack shot when it game to the classic games of Pool and Darts. Even when drunk off her ass, the event was rare that she ever lost to any of the other patrons, even winning herself a month of free beer to drink at her leisure from the owner of the bar. Unfortunately, in a devious plot, he had discovered she was underage and had her tossed from the establishment; she never got the beer she was promised.
Reggie and Christie saw this less as a curse and more as a blessing; they no longer needed to spend fortunes every night that Jade had decided she wanted to go drinking. However, it meant that they had to follow her on her crazy tracking schemes more often, however, which often led to them spending as much money as they would have spent at the bar for her.
Eventually, they suggested these to help her keep her sanity through all her vengeance talk; she decided to go with their plan, for the sake of it. Jade had a high respect for her friends and their opinions, so she would indulge them in their games. A new game, "Everguts" had recently hit the shelves, and her friends were so excited to play the game. So full of life, it brought some happiness to the girl whose soul was so caked in blood and revenge, that she decided she would play along with them. So she bought the game, and loaded it up, unaware of the fact her fate would soon be decided for her...
That was when the disappearances started happening. Jennifer Adeleman later went missing, and was soon labeled a suicide case due to her past. Her friends live on to this day in mourning, wondering if they should have let her on her revenge quest or not...
Becoming a Warrior
When Jennifer had logged into the MMO, "Everguts", she hadn't a clue that her life was going to drastically change. She was playing as her Warrior character, "Jade", when she had taken her very first quest. After she learned the basic fighting mechanics of the game, she soon discovered that this game wasn't the most innocent thing ever. Defeated by a high level boss character on her first quest, she was raped and eaten by it--thinking she could log out on death, she desperately tried to remove her Game Goggles...only to awaken, naked at a graveyard as her player character Jade.
She soon found that many players were experiencing the same problems of logging out, and becoming their player characters. She decided to try to get to the bottom of what was happening, however that task proved to be incredibly difficult...and started with her finding some clothes so she wasn't flashing every other player, some of which were even resorting to rape and destruction upon other players to satisfy their own urges.
Soon Jade teamed up with a warrior named Saber, and they found themselves on a myriad of adventures throughout the land of Everguts. However, they were inept players, and often found themselves being defeated for numerous reasons. Each death ended with the same thing, near invariably: rape. Due to the trauma of each event, Jade not only gained an understanding of each of her defeats, but became jaded to the idea of being raped. The thought no longer affected her, but rather, only drove her to become even more powerful than she had been before.
Not long after, Jade allied with a player character named "Justice", whom led the player Guild "Freedom". Justice had noticed Jade's many psychological scars, seeing as none of the physical ones transferred into the player's next life. He saw her will to become more powerful, and, being a Level 750 Warrior himself, decided to aid her in her struggles by teaching her attacks and skills beyond her at her current Level 30 self.
Throughout her training, she found herself becoming attached to her trainer. It wasn't an idea she was comfortable with; she had always told herself she didn't need anybody. She believed firmly that anything she brought into the real world would be a failure, but most importantly, she feared the thought of abandoning her children in any way similar to the way she had perceived her parents abandoning her. She began to lose hope that she would ever escape this virtual prison, the mental image she had always kept dear to herself of her parent's killers being dead before her seeming farther and farther away. It got to the point she was violent towards her feelings towards Justice, even attacking the vastly overleveled player due to the fact.
The event ended in tears as she finally realized that she wasn't strong enough to take the world on alone. She spilled her guts to Justice, about everything she had had to deal with: about how her parents were killed, how she was forced to live in an orphanage, about how she had been living only to kill them...and about how she'd lost her friends because she took a detour from that route. Justice assured her they would escape, and promised to find her in the real world, and help her avenge her parents, however this message came along with another: he made her promise to focus on her own survival first and foremost. "I do not agree with revenge," he said, "however I do not agree with murder either. They will pay, but you must have patience, or you will die before they do." With that, they kissed, and training began anew: Jade picked up new skills and tricks from her trainer and lover, practicing every day with only the thoughts of defeating the foes she could not previously.
The longer she had trained with Justice, whether it be sparring with Guild Members or himself, or even going out and doing missions with him, the closer she felt to him. While she still felt unnatural about being his girlfriend, she knew that she had a warmth in her heart unlike any she had felt before. He truly made her happy in a way none other could, and as he continued to teach her, he began revealing to her facts about his life, such as that his real name was Jack Coleman.
The day had come at last when she had doubled her level, reaching Level 60. A milestone in her quest, she began voicing her doubts of their mission's success to Justice, who merely told her to not worry about it, he was handling it. She had lived a good portion of her life fighting for herself, and deciding what she would and would not worry about for herself. One day she had had enough of being told by Justice to "not worry about it", and had decided to venture out to Everguts on her own, a decision Justice did not like...
The Seraphic Avatar
In her mind, the decision had already been made. She fought many monsters with her new skills, and against many of them she was quite capable of handling herself. Justice was not happy about this turn of events, however, and had yelled at her days prior that if she had decided to leave on her own, she would be barred from the Guild. In an angry huff, Jade took off from the Guild Halls, her first and only break up with Justice.
Jade in her travels
She traveled far and wide, fighting monster after monster to gain skill and experience points. Seeing as infected monsters, or monsters hacked by whoever was attacking Everguts, did not award her any experience points for defeat, she avoided the areas where the Guild operated. This also helped her keep her mind off of Justice and his group, whom she referred to at the time as "A bunch of kids thinking they can make a difference."
During her travels, she had been hired by a town to protect them from a particular demon-class monster known as the Legendary Seraph. Seeing need for food, shelter, and money, all of which were provided to her for her work, she decided to stay behind to fight the creature.
What came to face her was a beast of immense power. With each step, the game seemed to falter and lag; with each movement, the air sliced away at the world around it. Truly a fearsome beast, with several dozen wings sprouting from its back, a gilded crown which called down lightning, and a blade that was so razor sharp Jade had almost felt herself already being cut by it. She called it out in usual fashion, brandishing the Freedom Sword, a blade that she had inherited from the Guild.
After a long, grueling battle with the monster that tested every one of her skills, she finally brought it down by cleaving its arm off and piercing its head with its own claw. To date this is one of her proudest accomplishments, however the monster was revealed to be heavily glitched, and though being a legendary creature of Level 500, she got no experience points or gold from it. The town, so impressed by her skills, used its disembodied arm to craft her a fine weapon, and probably one of her most useful weapons: the Gauntlet of the Seraph, a glove that amplified her striking power tenfold. Unfortunately the built it for the wrong hand, assuming the woman's dominant hand was, like theirs, the left hand. She walked away from the town looking at her new toy, and considered the battle not a total loss.
Seeing as she wished this weapon to be useful, she adapted her fighting style since then to match her own ambidextrous abilities. By thinking back to some of the games she used to play, she remembered one in particular where the character had a gauntlet as well as a sword, so she decided to start practicing that. This was when she began to notice her lacking skills in the unarmed department. She soon found a town which had a dojo, and sought out their tutelage.
It was here, however, that she met a man known only as the "Ace of Spades", who claimed to know who she was. Her gauntlet was something not in the game's core, he commented before accusing her of being a hacker. A battle ensued between the two, though Jade tried to use the Gauntlet of the Seraph to her fullest ability, it unfortunately proved not quite enough to face the player. She resorted to her usual techniques, clashing blades with him; even then it was a difficult battle, and it had wound up taxing her every skill she had learned from Justice.
The battle ended when the Ace of Spades recognized the attacks and ceased his own. She questioned who he was, and why he was attacking her, however he refused to answer somebody he believed to be working with the monsters. He left with a comment about how the Freedom Guild had been compromised, and Jade with a million questions as to who he was. She remained in the town for a few more days, finding that the dojo refused to teach the enemies of the game any skills, before finally departing to continue her quest.
She eventually crossed paths with Saber again, however their meeting was not as happy an event as Jade would have hoped it to be. They exchanged a few words of their adventures, Jade telling her ally about how she had gotten the Guantlet of the Seraph, but omitting everything about the Ace of Spades. Based on her friend's reactions, she seemed to have already knew; this was the cause of much of the awkwardness of their meeting. They departed on their own ways, each with their own goals in mind and their own power to seek.
She decided to stay in a new town that she had never been in before, deep into the forests of the Radiant Jungles. It was a fairly high level area, and she wound up fighting through another clan of spiders on her way in. It wasn't long until she came face to face with the mother of the brood; an enemy she was well-acquainted with, the Spider Queen. Armed with skills and powers far beyond her Level 1 self, she took on the spider, however before she had lost, the Spider Queen bound Jade's arm to a tree with thick webbing.
An ovipositor had been exposed, and the Queen's plans were quite clear as she approached the struggling warrior. It was in a frantic struggle that the Guantlet shined, and she not only broke free of the webbing, but punched the Queen who was easily a ton in weight, clear through the foliage and tree behind her. She stood there gazing at her arm for a moment, before the Queen screamed at her, calling her the "Seraphic Avatar".
The woman shrugged off the name as the Queen retreated further away, and continued on her way through the forest. She had finally arrived at the forest village, where she encountered the Ace of Spades again. Seeing as he seemed to know something about her, she decided to parlay with him, something she had never done before, and never intended to do again, and approached him with arms up. An action that seemed to have surprised the man, but a welcome one judging by his expression.
She asked him about "The Seraphic Avatar" and her Guantlet, neither subject being one he knew very much about. It was then she discovered that he was a part of the game's development team, and figured that if he didn't know about it, then it wasn't the game's core item set. She was about to throw it away when Ace had told her not to, that it had turned out to be a useful weapon for her, but if he had sensed her to be anything other than an ally for the Guild, that he would strike her down immediately.
Ace, in fact, was the one who had taught her her hand-to-hand skills. He took care what and what not to teach her, this much she could tell, as she did not walk away with any advanced martial arts skills. However, she knew how to grab and punch effectively, and had the tools she needed to mold the basics into an art focusing on the Gauntlet.
Using her sword in tandem with the Gauntlet, whether amplifying her strikes or holding them close for multiple attacks, was an art she made up and called it the "Way of the Seraph". A deadly stule that made her an extremely deadly fighter. Her training of the Way of the Seraph continued in the forest village, until at last she deemed herself ready to continue with her quest. She cleaved her way back to the Freedom Guild, through several monsters that during her adventures with Saber, would have screwed her over by an incredibly difference in power. When she had left the forest, she had finally reaching Level 100, a milestone in Jade's quest for power.
When she entered the guild halls, she found herself wondering again if she would ever catch the murderers. Her mind remained on the subject as she looked down into a body of water, gazing at her reflection: in real life she had been a brunette, but her hair in the game was obviously a vibrant green. She had grown as a Fighter, and as a person, however she didn't know if it was enough. She wondered what this "Seraphic Avatar" business was, and how it affected her.
Then she was confronted by Justice, who had also accused her of hacking the game based on her equipment. His accusations had hurt her a lot more than Ace's did, and in an offended tone, she argued back with him. They yelled and screamed at each other for ages about how she was and was not allied with the hackers, how she was a part of some prophecy, about how she had left the guild to travel on her own initially. Apparently Justice had his reservations about letting her go on her own, and had locked her down in the Guild Halls for a week.
Trapped and fuming with anger, Jade stormed the halls for that long week, getting angrier and angrier. All she could do was stew in her frustration at Justice, her anger at herself for playing this damnable game, her malice towards the men who murdered her parents, and her sadness at her own failure to get out of the game. The faces of her foes; the Spider Queen, Ithiss Faye, the Legendary Seraph, all filled her mind as she continued to vent her anger on anything around her. Countless guild resources stored in the Halls were destroyed, until once more Justice confronted her.
They had another screaming match with each other, before Jade drew her blade. Justice drew his own, the Godslayer, and pointed it upon her. If she carried on with this course of action, she knew that it would only end with her being killed: the Godslayer was the weapon that Justice reserved for glitched monsters and hackers. The fact he held it towards her was an insult upon Jade's pride, and that was something she definitely could not stand for.
Finally, Jade and Justice dueled. It was a battle that shook the Halls, and it seemed to have lasted for days as blades clashed and punches were thrown. Because of the Way of the Seraph, Jade managed to hold her ground against Justice who had reached Level 800 in her absence. It was her own skill and power that carried her against Justice this time, and even if she went down she would do so knowing she had forced Justice to fight at his best. However good she had become at dodging and countering his attacks, grabbing and countering, even disarming him of the Godslayer once (though he leaped into the air and recaptured it), it was not enough to keep up. Whenever she had actually gotten an attack in, it barely scratched his health bar, and whenever he got an attack, it was clearly devastating to her. Finally he impaled her upon the Godslayer and planted it into the ground; he moved to finish it when finally he stopped his assault. He removed the blade and helped her up, patting her shoulder. Justice recognized her skill, and apologized for doubting her powers with the Gauntlet. It was then that he ascended her class from "Fighter" to "Warrior", and reinstated her to the Freedom Guild. Not only that, but she found that her rank had risen from "Mercenary" to "Officer", another important milestone in her personal quest.
Jade now had her own quarters in the Halls, and for the first time in months had a decent place to sleep. And sleep she did; thirteen long hours of peaceful rest she had gotten before being awakened by Justice. They talked, and in him she confided some of her most personal secrets: to date, Justice is the only person in Everguts who she has told her real name. He helped her calm down about her revenge, wiping tears from her face when she thought of Reggie and Christie. Finally they embraced and kissed, the day going by while the two remained in her quarters, expressing their love for one another.
The Path of Freedom
The next morning, Jade's training continued. She continued sparring with Justice, trying her damndest to learn every technique she could in order to become a Master Swordsman. As an officer of the Freedom Guild, she now had several responsibilities in the guild, including taking on official quests against the hackers, whom until this point she had never officially faced off against, and assigning quests to the newer recruits. Assigning quests included training them to work as a team, and basic tactics when taking on a quest.
One day she had been contracted to go out to the caves in which she had originally found the Spider Queen. There were sightings of mysterious players there, and she was to investigate what they may or may not have been up to. It seemed to be an easy enough quest, if she was faced with any enemy, Spider Queen included, their limit in level would have been 30. That wasn't to say she was carelessly traveling through the caverns, however it did mean she was not expecting to be attacked by one of the hackers themselves.
It was a fierce battle between the two, even with all her newfound power she eventually found she did not stand much of a chance against this foe. He sidestepped her attack and sideswiped her with an attack that dropped her HP to 1 and paralyzed her. She blacked out looking upon his scarred face, and when next she woke, she had awoken in a cell, with her left arm contained by several chains. She struggled against it before realizing that she had been captured by the hackers, and that they wanted the Gauntlet of the Seraph.
When at last they had given up on stealing the Gauntlet itself, their efforts turned instead to converting Jade into one of their own. She was put through several brutal tortures; she was raped daily, beaten hourly, waterboarded, sandpapered...every torture device that was nonlethal at their disposal, they used on her. By the end of the month, her mind had almost been broken, but she held desperately onto one thought. One thought that carried her through the trials she had been set through: Justice. Both the person, and dealing it upon these wicked people who had hurt her so much.
The day had come that they had decided to kill her and get the items off of her character, including the Gauntlet, which their leader claimed was his that was stolen from him. Lamias, driders, dragons, and all sorts of other monsters filled the arena which she was to fight in, without any weapons other than the Gauntlet. They all stood above her, easily a hundred levels further above her own...but she wouldn't back down. The hackers knew what the outcome would be; they had hacked her respawn point to respawn her in her cell. She couldn't escape even by death; a true capture.
She put up a fight against the monsters, avoiding all the attacks she could, given her alotted 1 health point. Webs flew, tails swung, flames spread and maws opened to try and take her in as she continued her fight, until finally she had been impaled upon a gigantic bee's stinger, and ripped apart by a dragon's teeth. She fell to the ground in a pool of her own blood, her vision fading as she knew she would just respawn to be subjected to all of this again.
What she had awoken to was something she had definitely not been expecting. The face of Justice was before her, his hands caressing her face while Ace worked on some coding in her character, with Saber right behind him; she noticed that the Gauntlet was still on her arm, when it was explained to her that it was a part of her character now. Even death wouldn't separate her from her Seraphic powers.
That was when she noticed that she was completely nude before her lover, and glowed a bright red. Fortunately he had some extra armor for her to equip, and had given her a Guild Officer's Sword. The four of them brought the fight to the hackers, striking down as many as they could. Unfair advantages they brought forth were quickly quelled by the developer's skills, and they proved to be too much for this cell.
Jade personally faced the scarfaced man who had captured her initially, recognizing something about the way that he had spoken. Without intention, she had found James Pierce, one of her parent's killers, and was not about to let anybody else steal her vengeance. They struck blades many times, both proving skilled with their weapons and tactics, even with hacks removed. Finally Justice called out to her, telling her to try swinging with her "power arm", a thought that had never occured to the Warrior before.
"You killed my family!" She yelled out as, in her left hand, gripped tightly in her Seraphic Gauntlet, she struck blow after blow against her foe. He blocked once, twice...and then his sword was ripped from his hands, and Jade ran her blade through him. Each stroke of the weapon created fissures in the walls and ground behind him, dropping his health down to 1 before slamming the blade into the ground and grabbing his face with the Gauntlet.
In a fit of divine retribution she crushed his head and tossed his corpse to the ground, knowing that he would just respawn. Perhaps it was okay, she could just kill him, again and again. She laughed at this thought, and kicked the corpse, before dropping to her knees and punching it repeatedly. This went on for hours as each punch meant something else to her. Tears streamed from her face as Ace and Saber had departed, leaving only herself and Justice behind.
There they remained. Night turned to day, and back to night before Jade finally stood up, falling into Justice's embrace, where she wept some more. He remained silent, letting her cry on him, stroking her hair patiently. Though only Jade could have known that this person was the one who killed her mother and father, Justice had a suspicion that the kill meant something more than vengeance for torture and rape.
They had at last returned to the Guild Halls, where Jade continued training her skills with the blade and her Gauntlet. One thing she continued to practice was swapping which hand her sword was in, to switch between powerful attacks and precise, continued assault. She and Jade continued to spar, however due to their being a very little amount of non-glitched enemies anymore, very little experience was ever gained by the Warrior.
The Attack
An event soon ocurred, however; an event that scarred the face of Everguts forever and ended her days with the Guild. The monsters were invading the hub towns, and the Freedom Guild was fighting them out of as many as possible. At first, Jade and Justice were a united front, slaying enemies left and right and protecting the front flank...however, Jade soon found herself separated in battle, surrounded with enemies that tested her powers to their limit.
She continued fighting, smashing monster after monster and getting no experience points for her feats whatsoever. Finally she had teamed up with Saber, allies once more after what had seemed like so long, and the two fought their way into the town. Inside, they found destruction and death everywhere; player corpses dotted the land, with monsters consuming them like vultures. Before they could get involved, or Jade could search for Justice, they were approached by faces both knew very well. Ithiss Faye had approached the warriors, wanting them to be hers once and for all.
Brandishing her weapons, Jade and Saber attacked Ithiss and her minions. As hard as they fought, and as much more powerful they were now, the Warrior soon found herself nearly overwhelmed...until finally she was pulled from even this world of Everguts.
She awoke in a new land. She knew not what wonders awaited her, nor what battles stalked in the near future...but she knew she had to be strong. She had made a promise to Justice, that she would stay alive no matter what. As a Level 100 Warrior, she knew she was prepared for all but the most invincible of foes...but she did not know if she would ever see her lover again.
Where She Is Now...
Personality
Witnessing her own parent's murder and having that be the event that decided the rest of childhood life for her had no good effects for the young Jennifer Adeleman. She became cold and bitter, angry at the world for having cast her down from her happy youth. Her entire eighteenth year of life had been devoted to tracking down her parent's murderers. She held a great respect for her friends, Reginald P. Zapkowski and Christie Pauli, however, and they stuck with her through the thick and thin of her tracking her parent's killers. She respected them enough to try and keep a smile on around her friends, and to keep playing games and doing other mindless activities, to keep her from going truly insane.
That said, she is an excellent tank in videogame parties, always had been and always will be. When she is relaxed she enjoys jokes and laughing, any diversion from her usual gloom is welcome when she is in the mood for it. When tried while she doesn't want to laugh, or when one isn't a close enough friend, it can result in a very violent reaction. She will always carry the memory of her parent's death with her...and she prefers keeping new friends at arm's length, fearing loss like she had experienced with Reggie and Christie.
Jade is an alcoholic, and can down a whole keg of beer before going down; she has even defeated dwarves in drinking contests, and prides herself for that. She is oft complimented by men for her marvelous drinking abilities, and while she is tipsy, she doesn't mind a bit.
She once had a romantic interest in Justice, however the relationship was always strained by her mistrust of other individuals. They had fought on multiple occasions, but their love was evident when they had finally kissed. However, the monster's attack upon the hub towns caused them to go different ways in battle, and after vanishing from Everguts she has not seen him. Ever since, she has shut herself off in the romantic department, preferring to remain aloof to anybody who may pursue her. She can even get violent when she feels somebody is flirting with her.
In combat, she taunts the enemy as a tactic to both keep herself calm and her enemy angered. Her style of combat mandates that she use her opponents attacks against them, so taunting has become as valuable a weapon to her as her blade. Even still, she is cold and calculating when it comes time to attack, and her focus is eery as she swings her blade.
