Mercia

Mercia
One of the students of Fenrinzoe's class, Mercia is a human female that lives at Utopia with her sisters Azura and Zanita.

Appearance:
Mercia is a short, chubby young girl who dresses herself in black gothic lolita fashion. She has short black hair with green streaks in it (her hair is naturally blonde like her sisters) that typically covers her right eye.

Personality:
Mercia is a very timid introvert, she frightens easily and is prone to panic and flee when social situations get overbearing for her. She is slowly coming out of her shell however thanks to the work of her sisters Azura and Zanita, and slowly gaining confidence in herself, though normally that is only when she knows here sisters are there to save her if it gets too much.

Mercia is a bookworm and extremely intellectual, having avoided social situations almost all of her life she absorbs knowledge from books with ease, but is physically very weak due to this lifestyle.

Powers:
Mercia, like her sisters is blessed with both a special power and magic, however unlike her sisters, her magic is earned entirely by her own merits and work, and comes from her own understanding of the arcane as opposed to their channeling from heaven/hell.

Mercia's special ability is time manipulation. She can manipulate the flow of time by speeding it up, slowing it down or even stopping it, but she cannot reverse time. Her time manipulation is focused on particular areas, as time itself is relative, and as such she can isolate it's effects on a single target, freezing them in time or excellerating their timeflow so much they rapidly age and die. She can also expand it as far as freezing an entire planet in time, whilst isolating herself from it's effects. It is through these techniques that she came to have the time required to master her second power, 'arcane magic'.

Mercia's magic is akin to that of a wizard in D&D and can serve a multitude of effects depending upon the spell in question. There are many she can cast from her own mastery, but others that she needs a spellbook on hand to cast from. It is this magic that she used to cast a summoning ritual to bring the Infernal Zanita and Celestial Azura into her service, reuniting her family again.

History:
Born on the war torn planet 'Neo Jerusalem', Mercia and her older sisters Azura and Zanita were orphaned at a young age. The orphanage they grew up in was extremely under funded and unsupervised as the devistating violence of war took a terrible toll on the city and its inhabitants. As such it was every orphan for themselves in a cruel dog-eat-dog world.

Mercia was extremely young during this period of her life and the constant fear of attack and having to hide from others had a lasting psychological effect on her. Even when adopted by Father Thomas she was extremely reclusive, burying herself in the many books he had, as a means of escaping the conflict and fear of the world around her.

She discovered her ability after her sisters died, when in a moment of immense stress and grief she accidentally froze all of time...everywhere!

She was alone, isolated in a cold, unmoving world. All around her were the inhabitants of the world, frozen in time as only she was able to move. Unable to undo this effect she traveled Neo Jerusalem and read every book on the planet, and in doing so was able to gather enough control to unfreeze a spacecraft and travel to the centre of all galactic knowledge, Atomia.

She raided their libraries for what would have been decades, studying and practicing magic in hope that it would yield the answer to undo the damage she had done. She feared she would never be able to undo this effect, until she was found by the only other being able to move in frozen time. A blind Seer who had forseen this happening and took measures to protect themselves from it. This seer mentored Mercia, teaching her the highest levels of magic and helped her to take control of her abilities, until finally she was able to unfreeze time.

The Seer took her back to her homeworld to summon her sisters, and then parted ways with Mercia.

Mercia and her sisters left Neo Jerusalem and came to Utopia, so Mercia could gain the social skills she needs and overcome her many crippling weaknesses.

Relationships:
Mercia does not form bonds easily, but those below are the people she actually has feelings for beyond general apathy.

Azura: Azura was like a mother to Mercia before her death, and though they have been appart for decades, Mercia still loves her and turns to Azura for comfort whenever she needs it.

Zanita: Zanita is Mercia's protector, there is nowhere in the universe she feels safer than with Zanita. She is able to open up a bit around her knowing that no matter what, Zanita will always be there to protect her.

Eric Gen: Mercia and Eric share the same love of reading and they know what it is like to be smarter than everyone else around them, something that they can relate to each other about. She knows he likes her which intimidates her greatly, but she is trying to open up with him and see him as a friend, but the time he brainwashed her makes that very difficult for her to do.

Empi: The blind Seer who taught her magic and to control her powers. Mercia hasn't seen her since they restored time but thanks to their time together trusts and respects her. To Mercia, Empi is her mentor and role model, and she hopes that when they next meet she will be a more worthy pupil than she was before.

Trivia:
-Mercia and her sisters origin outside of the comic is in a representation of the D&D table of Alignment. With Azura as Lawful Good, Mercia as True Neutral and Zanita as Chaotic Evil.

-Mercia is the most powerful of the three sisters, with access to incredible magic and special abilities, however her weaknesses and flaws are greater than any other character, making her both the most powerful, and the weakest.

-Empi's hat is originally inspired from a similar hat in the character creator in Soul Calibur 4. Her character in that game had that hat, and it stuck with her to all subsiquent media she was used in by her creator.

-Due to the 'time' she spent in 'timelessness', Mercia is considerably older mentally than she looks, though her isolation did not lead her to any increased maturity, only increased knowledge from her studies and a warped view on the universe.