Contessa

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Contessa</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

<label>Status</label><format>

{{{status}}}

</format>

<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Fortuna,<ref name="29.x"/> more commonly known as Contessa, The Bogeyman or simply "the woman in the suit", is a founding member of Cauldron.

Appearance

Contessa is a pale-skinned woman with black hair described as "somewhere between wavy and curly", worn a little longer than shoulder length.<ref name="24.2e1">She was older, but not old. Maybe my dad's age, maybe a little younger. Pretty, in a very natural way. She didn't wear any obvious makeup, and her black hair was somewhere between wavy and curly, a little longer than shoulder length. Her features French or Italian, if I had to guess. She wore only a simple black suit that had been tailored to fit her body, with a narrow black tie and a white dress shirt. What got me were the eyes. There was no kindness in them. - [ Excerpt] from Crushed 24.2</ref> On at least one occasion, she wore it in a loose ponytail.<ref name="25.5e1"/> She was pretty, but didn't wear obvious makeup.<ref name="24.2e1"/>

As a child, she generally wore a school uniform.<ref name="I27e1">May 1986, twenty-seven years ago

A strange place for this discussion.

The woman looked supremely at ease as she took a seat opposite David. The teenage girl who accompanied her was just as confident. Here and there in the little cafe, people gave them dirty looks.

The woman was black, dressed all in white, the girl wore a private school uniform and held a notebook and fountain pen. - 27.x (Interlude, Eidolon)‏‎</ref><ref name="I15.ze 1">Rebecca stirred, turning around to see who was speaking. A black woman with long hair in a doctor's get-up was messing with the IV bag. But… no name tag. And there was a teenage girl with pale skin and dark hair standing behind her, wearing knee-high socks, a black pleated skirt and white dress shirt. "You're not one of my doctors." - Interlude 15.z</ref> As an adult, she wears a tailored black suit with a white dress shirt and a black tie<ref name="24.2e1"/> and a fedora.<ref name="I18.f e1">A young woman, dark-haired, wearing a suit and fedora, with luggage on wheels. - Interlude 18.f</ref><ref name="25.5e1">The rectangular portal closed, and I was left staring at a wall. I turned to see the woman in the suit. She was tidy, her hair tied back in a loose ponytail with strands tracing the side of her face, and she held a fedora in one hand. The hat was beaded with moisture. Another excursion she'd made before reaching out to me? - Scarab 25.5</ref>

Abilities and Powers

Contessa's power allows her to see the steps she needs to take to succeed at nearly any given task and execute them perfectly.<ref name="24.2"/><ref name="29.x"/> Its applications include combat, communication, social situations, Cauldron's long-term plans, and how to set conditions for trigger events.<ref>Venom 29.7</ref>

She is one of the most powerful parahumans in existence and is known as "her" or "the Boogeyman" to people high-ranked enough in the Protectorate to know about her. One Protectorate cape classifies her as "Thinker. Don't worry about the number. Just run."<ref name="23.02"> Prefab - Excerpt from Drone 23.2</ref>

While Contessa can execute most tasks, she has some blind spots. She cannot directly use her power on an Entity,<ref name="29.x"/> the Endbringers,<ref name="24.2">Crushed 24.2</ref> or Eidolon.<ref name="I27"/> She can still somewhat predict their actions by considering a hypothetical situation.<ref name="29.x"/><ref name="I27">27.x (Interlude, Eidolon)‏‎</ref>

She lacks the common Thinker weakness of being canceled out by other Thinkers, including precognitives,<ref name="24.2"/> but is not immune to certain trumps such as Mantellum or Jack Slash.

Despite being extremely powerful, Contessa does not lead Cauldron and instead acts as Doctor Mother's bodyguard and right-hand woman.<ref name="29.xe1"> Easier to have an adult handling the negotiating and person-to-person interaction. Fortuna was young, and people wouldn’t be so inclined to drink a strange substance offered by a child. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref>

History

Background

Contessa was born as Fortuna on another earth that Eden collided with. When she was a child, several people in her village triggered by consuming food and drink contaminated with parts of Eden following the entity's crash-landing. Fortuna's trigger event included a vision of Eden and Scion's plans to sow conflict and destroy humanity, and she set about finding and killing the entity with a power that was still unrestricted. 

The entity, realising what she was trying to do, restricted her power so that it could not be used against Entities. However, Fortuna had already seen the steps required to kill the Entity, and with the help of a woman who would later call herself 'the Doctor,' Fortuna managed to stop the entity from killing her and reclaiming the critical shard. The Doctor, armed with a knife and directions both given by Fortuna, managed to stab the entity in a critical location, rendering it effectively brain dead.  

The Doctor and Fortuna founded Cauldron with the sole purpose of stopping Eden's partner entity, Scion. They harvested Eden's corpse for powers, which they were able to grant to other people. Ashamed of the human experimentation she had to perform to improve the power formula, Fortuna took the name Contessa out of respect to her parents and a desire to avoid sullying the name they gave her. <ref name="29.x"> - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref>

Through the years Contessa as she was now served as the doctor's bodyguard, whenever they went on dangerous assignments.

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine

Attended the meeting of Cauldron and The Triumvirate.<ref>Legend's Interlude</ref>

Post-Echidna

Keeps the details revealed during the Echidna battle hush hush. Was transferred back to Cauldron's home base to ensure that there were no escapes, the events of the Echidna event were allowed to leak out.<ref>Interlude 21.x</ref>

Timeskip

Bonesaw when masquerading as Riley is confronted by Contessa during the time skip while the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine are in stasis. Contessa prompts Bonesaw in her initial thoughts to betray the Nine with a conversation about the distinction between her and her passenger.<ref>Interlude 25</ref>

Post-Timeskip

Deployed effectively against The Slaughterhouse Nine-Thousand.

Gold Morning

Contessa helped coordinate Cauldron's response to Scion. Doctor Mother requested that she find three candidates for some vials that had historically yielded very strong powers, but Contessa was intercepted by attacking Irregulars before she was able to leave the facility. One of the Irregulars, Mantellum, was able to block Contessa's power, forcing her to flee Cauldron's offices and fake her death.<ref name="29.x"/>

After returning to the facility and discovering the Doctor is dead, Contessa provided Cauldron's contingency plans to Teacher and assumed second-in-command of his organization. Following Scion's death, Contessa tracked down Khepri and, after a brief conversation aided by her abilities, disabled her shard with two bullets.

Early-Ward

Had disappeared, presumably into retirement.<ref name="5x II">“This would be easier if we had Fortuna,” she said.

“She gave her all to get us this far. It would be asking a lot, for her to give us the remainder of her years. We’ll see ourselves the rest of the way. She can live her life as she sees fit.”

Jeanne privately disagreed, but she didn’t make a point with it. Not with Kurt’s younger selves in the car. - Excerpt from Interlude 5x II</ref>

Post-Time Bubble Pop

Following an attempt to stop relying on her power Fortuna was captured and imprisoned by Teacher's branch of Cauldron.<ref>Black 13.x</ref> During The Wardens' assault on the compound she was freed by Imp and Breakthrough.<ref>Dying 15.6</ref> She led them to victory over Teacher, and in the final confrontation with Teacher rejected his methods, which led to him scrapping his endgame plans and running away.

In subsequent days she joined Citrine as a consultant.<ref name="16.1II">From Within 16.1</ref>

Trivia

• When Scion examined Contessa, he "saw a shard that wasn’t its own, but wasn’t dead"; normally, shards from Eden are dead.<ref name="26.x">Interlude 26</ref> This may indicate that Contessa's shard is still linked to Abaddon, since Eden was in the process of integrating it when she crash-landed and lost it.<ref name="29.x"/>

Quotes

"I win." Crushed 24.2

(To herself) "Wolf-fucking horseballs." Interlude 29

Fanart Gallery

• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Image by Lonsheep on DeviantArt
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Image by YunYunHakusho on Reddit
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Image by lonsheep on Reddit.
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Contessa by BirdLover_01
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  (left) Illustration by Pabel and Nine
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Illustration by CPericardium
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  (left) Illustration by Cpericardium
• Illustration by CPericardium on deviantArt
  Illustration by CPericardium on deviantArt

References

<references/>