Alexandria
<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Alexandria</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><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> Alexandria is a member of the Triumvirate, the former second-in-command of the Protectorate and leader of the Los Angeles Protectorate team. In her civilian identity as Rebecca Costa-Brown, she was the Chief Director of the Parahuman Response Team.
Personality
Alexandria has perfect memory, and as such she has a vast understanding of a lot of concepts. Her indestructibility and high position gives her an extremely strong sense of confidence. She has this "air" about her, causing people to get out of her way, treat her with a lot of respect and hush their speaking.<ref name="22.3"/>
She was initially unsure of her power, but willing to risk getting in the way of Behemoth's attacks in the hope she could survive them.<ref name="15.z"/>
She disliked lying as a result of her experience in hospital as a child - "feeding people poison with a smile on my face" - and, early in her career, she was uncomfortable with Legend allowing the Siberian to kill a civilian as bait. However, she grew increasingly comfortable with such tactics as her career progressed.<ref name="15.z"/> Legend noted that since being injured by the Siberian, she was the most willing of the Triumvirate to "take the hard, ugly road."<ref name="14.y">Interlude 14.y</ref> However, she refused to condone allowing the Siberian to go free in order to further Cauldron's goals.<ref name="15.z"/> She claimed that all that she has done was to save lives.
Appearance
Alexandria is a tall, muscular woman<ref name="8.1"/> with long, straight black hair.<ref name="22.3"/><ref name="8.1"/><ref name="spoiler-free">Cast Page (Spoiler Free)</ref> She is missing an eye, but it is replaced with an advanced prosthetic visually indistinguishable from a real one.<ref name="22.3"/><ref name="19.7">Scourge 19.7</ref> She stopped aging<ref name="WoG1">Wildbow on IRC, archived on Spacebattles</ref> shortly after adolescence.[citation needed] Rebecca was visibly hispanic, at least while out of costume.<ref name="22.3"/>
She wore a black costume with a skirt, knee-high boots and elbow-length gloves.<ref name="15.z"/> It was black and light gray, with an image of a tower in the center of her chest.<ref name="8.1">Extermination 8.1</ref> The costume featured a wide, heavy cape that flowed over her shoulders and draped onto the ground beside and behind her.<ref name="8.1"/><ref name="15.z"/> She designed the costume herself to be elegant without being attention-getting.<ref name="15.z"/>
Her costume originally included a visor that covered the upper half of her face and held back her hair.<ref name="15.z"/> Following her first encounter with the Siberian, which left her with one eye missing and a permanent scar, she began wearing a steel<ref name="24.5">Crushed 24.5</ref> helmet whenever she went out in costume.<ref name="13.x">Interlude 13</ref><ref name="spoiler-free"/> Her hair spilled out of the back of the helmet,<ref name="8.1"/><ref name="17.2">Migration 17.2</ref> and her eyes were visible.<ref name="24.5"/>
In her civilian identity, she often dressed in a suit and jacket.<ref name="22.4"/> She wore makeup to give the appearance of aging.[citation needed] Taylor described her as "the sort who could be forty but looked like she was in her late twenties".<ref name="22.3">Cell 22.3</ref>
Abilities and Powers
Alexandria is considered the epitome of 'flying brick' capes. The triad of flight, strength and invincibility recurs often enough, in enough variations, that it’s often referred to as ‘the Alexandria package’ in honor of her.<ref name="Cast2"/> According to experts, Alexandria is one of the strongest parahumans that Cauldron recorded.[citation needed]
She has the ability to fly at speeds nearly matching Legend.<ref name="Cast2"/> She was able to achieve incredible speeds in flight, being able to fly halfway around the earth in under six minutes.<ref name="25.4"/> She could fly so fast people couldn't follow her with their eyes, zig-zagging, although Skitter could still sense her movements with her bugs. This made it impossible to spot or photograph her.<ref name="FTE">Alexandria had found an alley and promptly took to the air, zig-zagging between buildings and flying with enough speed that people couldn’t follow her with their eyes.
[...]
Alexandria arrived the same way she had after her last two excursions, through the hole in the roof. With the speed she moved, she didn’t risk being spotted. Even photography wasn’t in the cards.-Cell 22.4</ref>
Her body was virtually invincible.<ref name="Cast2"/> She could endure flame hot enough to melt glass into sand.<ref name="15.z"/> Her power didn't defend against abilities that made heavy use of inter-dimensional phenomena, such as Scrub, Damsel of Distress, Foil, or March. Eidolon made use of this vulnerability to destroy her clones.<ref>Wildbow on Reddit</ref> She was, however, capable of being pushed around by external forces.<ref name="15.z"/>
Alexandria had vastly enhanced strength.<ref name="list"/> She was capable of picking up Leviathan and slamming him to the ground,<ref name="8.3">Extermination 8.3</ref> and knocking Behemoth back.<ref name="15.z"/> She was capable of lifting over 1.75 million tonnes, although she had a limited ability to prevent such a massive object from breaking under it's own weight.<ref name="29.8">Venom 29.8</ref> Her blows sometimes produced shockwaves that shook the earth around her.<ref name="8.3"/> She had near-perfect memory retention, accelerated processing and learning, and - as a result - the ability to sense emotions based on body language.<ref name="Cast2">Cast (in depth)</ref> But those who could hide their emotions through expert training or the use of abilities of their own could still fool her.<ref name="SB1"/> She never forgot a detail, absorbed information quickly, reading two pages of a book with a glance, and she learned quickly, retaining everything she picked up. She knew most commonly spoken languages, no less than ten styles of martial arts and she could match some of the best non-tinkers in the world when it came to computers. This gave her a high rating in the Thinker category.<ref name="14.y">Interlude 14.y</ref><ref name="list"/>
Her mental faculties were offloaded to her Passenger,<ref name="SB2">Archived Comment by Wildbow</ref> this rendered her immune to the effects of those such as the Simurgh,<ref>Wildbow on IRC, archived on Spacebattles</ref> and were the source of her thinker abilities.[citation needed] Her seeming invincibility derives from a hardening and strengthening of her tissues that places her body in a form of stasis.<ref name="list">Wildbow's Parahuman List - "Invincibility via. body in stasis, flight and vastly enhanced strength, with perfect eidetic recall and consequent mastery of many skills" (added by Wildbow)</ref> This manifested when she first gained her power and increased as she grew, eventually keeping her from aging.<ref name="SB3">Comment by Wildbow archived on Spacebattles</ref> Thus despite being a 'perfect' example of parahuman potential she is as warped as any deviant case,<ref name="I24.y"/></ref> her body more like a statue then flesh.<ref name="30.5"/> However, she was still capable of feeling pain when facing an opponent capable of injuring her.<ref name="15.z"/><ref name="30.5"/>
History
Background
Rebecca contracted cancer in her teens, and grew increasingly disaffected as a result of her perception that people were lying to her about her chances for survival. She was approached by Doctor Mother as an early test subject for Cauldron in exchange for service.
After gaining her powers, she spent two years guarding her doctor while earning a reputation as a superheroine. Alexandria first appeared in Los Angeles.
Eventually, Alexandria would be introduced to the other members of Cauldron. She presented a proposal she had come up with: that they form a team that followed the regulations and stipulations of the United States government, led by Hero or Legend. She told them that it was part of an eight stage plan to incorporate parahumans into society before telling them how they could set up the organization she was proposing. Her civilian identity would take a position in the government to quietly steer things.<ref name="15.z">Interlude 15.z</ref>
She lost an eye to the Siberian during the same fight that led to Hero's death,<ref name="I13">Interlude 13</ref> and required Eidolon's powers to heal her enough to use a glass eye to maintain a normal appearance. Even he was unable to reattach the lost eye.<ref name="15.z"/>
After Hero's death, she became the leader of a smaller team based in Los Angeles.<ref name="R1">Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
Story Start
Alexandria was an international recognized cape.<ref name="Cast1">Cast (spoiler free)</ref><ref>Extermination 8.1]]</ref>
Post-Leviathan
Met at the oil-rig to discuss the situation of the world.<ref name="14.y">Interlude 14.y</ref><ref name="15.z"/>
Post-Slaughterhouse Nine
After Tagg unsuccessfully tried to have Skitter captured by outing her secret identity, Director Costa-brown threatened to go to Saint to get the access to Dragon's technology just as Dragon and Defiant were threatening to withhold the same from the PRT.[citation needed]
Alexandria participated in the Battle against Echidna. She was duplicated, creating Apocrypha,<ref name="19.5">Scourge 19.5</ref> whose appearance revealed her secret identity. Ignis Fatuus revealed her and her colleagues secret membership of Cauldron.
Post-Echidna
Following the revelation that she was a parahuman, she was demoted to deputy director while she trained her replacement.<ref name="22.3"/> She had no authority, but rather obeyed the new Chief Director's instructions. Alexandria gave her notice that she intended to resign, but continued with the Protectorate until that time.<ref name="22.4"/>
She confronted Skitter after she turned herself in to the PRT, in order to properly control the teenage villain Alexandria tried to engineer a situation that would make Skitter try to attack her. This would then allow her to arrest Skitter and shore up her standing in the PRT.<ref name="SB1">Conversation with Wildbow archived on Spacebattles</ref> What the heroine failed to account for was Skitter's ability to offload her emotional responses to her swarm much as Rebbecca did with her own mental abilities. This caused a severe miscalculationn when Skitter snapped after thinking that Alexandria had butchered one of her friends and killed the fallen heroine.<ref name="22.4">Cell 22.4</ref>
She later seemingly returned from the dead in the Battle against Behemoth, her invulnerable body was possessed by Pretender.<ref name="I24.y">Interlude 24.y</ref> She also participated in the battle against Khonsu.<ref name="25.4">Scarab 25.4</ref>
Golden Morning
Her body was finally destroyed by Scion.<ref name="30.5">Speck 30.5</ref>
Quotes
- "Threats is the wrong word … But English is a limited language in some ways. There's really no word to articulate what I mean. A threat with a measure of inevitability to it. A promise? Too feeble. People break promises too often. A curse? A malediction? Too... magical. An oath? The connotations are wrong. When I say I'll do something, I make it happen." ~ Alexandria to Skitter
Fanart Gallery
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Image by pabelandnine.tumblr.com. -
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Trivia
- The etymology of Alexandria effectively means 'Defender of Man'.
- Humans generally stop growing around the age of 25 when the final stages of bone developemt end with the clavicle fusing into a solid piece. People continue to have some bone development after this as a natural process of upkeep and adaptation.[citation needed]
References
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