Mercedes D'Amour

[Mercedes D'Amour]

Name: Mercedes D’Amour (Merc (pronounced “murk”) to her friends, Mercy to her sister) and to some extent, Aimee D’Amour
Age: 33
Race: Human
Height: 5’3”
Weight: 90 lbs

Physical Description:
Mercedes has very fair skin and straight, mostly short and black hair with the long bangs framing her face having been dyed blue. Her irises are a strange sapphire blue with gold spiralling out from around the pupils. Mercedes has a lot of piercings, most of them are a sort of grey-green metal except for the bottom studs in her ear which are held open by minutely carved rounds of ebony wood. Four of the metal-type studs circle upwards from the larger wooden ones and her nose and eyebrow also sport these traces of mystery metal. A large, colourful tiger tattoo graces her shoulders and many smaller tattoos litter the rest of her body – all with their own personal meaning.

Her most long-standing piece of clothing is a bulky, brown leather jacket with no lining left in it. It’s scuffed, old and much too big for her, but she keeps it anyway. She wears a thin, blue tunic that used to have sleeves underneath the coat and a pair of ratty dun-coloured pants – there are tears under one of the butt cheeks, through both knees, across the thighs and the backs are chewed off the bottoms from years of walking on them. Her thick-soled leather sandals were probably black at one time, but have resorted to a sort of grey. There is a heavy chain around her neck of the same grey-green metal that make up her piercings, but she wears no rings so to make it easier to get her brass knuckles on.

Personality(ies):
Mercedes: Her stage persona is very much typical of one who performs. Happy. Careless. Fun. These are only what Mercedes allows the vague public to see. She is a creature of depth – thoughtful, pragmatic, suspicious and caring. Some would see her as melancholy as she tends to be quiet in settings where she isn’t the main attraction. She doesn’t run into situations without knowing what she’s getting into; in fact, she tends to freak out a bit when things don’t go as planned. Her level headedness usually saves her, but Merc really prefers things to move in an orderly fashion. Things rarely do, so it’s a good thing she’s quick on her feet.

Making lasting friendships isn’t something that comes naturally to Mercedes. She’s not very trusting as a result of her many years on the streets – eking out a living from powder and needles and stone – and tends to remain at a distance from people who are “too forward”. She smiles more now, thanks to her sister, but is still wary of new contacts. Merc is still pretty rough around the edges and will use sarcasm as a defence mechanism – mostly to prevent people from getting too close.

Aimee: She is a more light-hearted, careless version of Mercedes. A typical artist, she often burrows into her soul for extended periods of time - as a result, she has the distinct advantage of knowing exactly who she is. Knowledge of Mercy’s past and the rough lives of others haven’t served to taint her with scepticism and cynicism, though she has allowed it to influence her art and some of her perspectives on the world. However, through it all, she has remained relatively untainted by the world and therefore somewhat gullible. Aimee is quite outgoing and engaging when not in her “artist place” and is quite willing to commit to hours of small talk with complete strangers. She is not as much of a control freak as her sister, which is very fortunate indeed considering their living situation.

Possessions of note:
Merc carries a black knitted satchel made by Uluki with a few personal items in it: a tin whistle, a deck of cards, three juggling balls, spare guitar picks, two journaling/sketch books, a few coloured pencils and any bit of food she might have. In her pockets she carries her brass knuckles, a knife and a “lucky” silver coin. Her guitar lost its case years ago and is merely slung over her back by a many-times-repaired leather strap embroidered with colourful patterns. The guitar itself is an ordinary beech-coloured acoustic with natural strings (because they’re easier to make than the steel ones). It is looking a little rough around the edges too, but somehow still manages to reflect the sunlight and Merc’s reflection when she plays. Her speaking voice has a rough edge to it from one too many tokes, but her singing voice comes across as a sort of cross between Sarah McLaughlin, Janis Joplin and Amy Lee.

Abilities:
Mercedes: She is the powerhouse of the two sisters. Minor telekinetics allow her to move very small, light objects around, but that ability isn’t what she focuses on. Her main offensive tools are her psy-blades, manifested as nearly foot-long daggers of blue and gold light shooting straight out of her fists. She may call up one or both psy-blades at any point in time, but they take a good deal of energy to produce, so the number and length of time(s) she can manifest them depends directly on her current energy level and mental state. A focused mind is a must. Psy blades disrupt nervous energy, therefore when applied to the body a living person, it will cause strong contractions of the muscles in that area and damage to the neurons housed there. Applied to the head, it will cause certain unconsciousness and perhaps brain damage depending on where the blade enters. If a psy-blade is left in a person’s head for any length of time (let’s say a good minute), irreparable damage to the nervous system will cause death.

Mercedes is also quite well versed in basic street-fighting and is not shy to pull out the brass knuckles instead of her psy-blades. In fact, she prefers to fight with just her fists if fighting is indeed called for. She has a few basic “judo-like” moves in which she can flip or knock the feet out from under an opponent. In actuality, she prefers to avoid fighting all together and will instead rely on her ability to distract or blend in as the situation allows. Mercedes is above all a street performer. She can juggle, do a large number of card tricks, beat anyone alive at the shell game, and sing and play guitar. Due to her size and nimbleness, she can also make herself nigh invisible in complex terrains when things get a little too “hot”. She’s the girl at the back of the room that everyone glimpses, but nobody sees.

Aimee: Not having a body of her own definitely limits what she can accomplish, though Mercedes can give her full control of their shared living quarters. Aimee has no training in martial arts or anything of a real physical nature. She’s a fashion designer – an artist – a dreamer. This is part of the reason why she isn’t the dominant twin. Mercedes is a thinker – but Aimee is tied to the clouds – which doesn’t keep one on the ground and in the physical realm long enough to walk it for a lifetime. Aimee has a gift of gab and is quite excellent at diffusing situations through gentle guidance of the underlying feelings of those involved. She has the ability to “see” these emotions and so is very accurate as a counsellor. If Aimee’s body had survived, she would have undoubtedly been a very powerful telepath. However, as it is, Mercedes’ mind doesn’t have all the tweaks necessary to allow Aimee’s true nature to really blossom.

Weaknesses:
Mercedes’ body is small and slender and therefore quite susceptible to blunt force attacks. If she hasn’t had a chance to sleep, hasn’t eaten anything, or is dehydrated for a few days, she will be unable to manifest her psi-blades. She also has a propensity for melancholy and preoccupation, which also hinder the use of her abilities. Merc and Aimee have the “two heads in one body” thing pretty much worked out, however if Aimee gets excited, she will sometimes supersede Mercedes’ control and speak/act out of turn. This can cause some difficulties as it then appears as though Merc is simply crazy, or more seriously, it means that her guard is down during a confrontation (which Aimee is completely unable to deal with). Sometimes the sisters pull day-night shifts, which can be hard on their body – aches, sprains, etc. – so they avoid doing so unless they really need to get a leg up on something. Aimee’s empathic abilities can also very easily be overwhelmed in crowd situations (or in smaller, high-charged ones), whereupon that gift becomes distinctly less useful. When this happens, Aimee will usually retreat further into their collective mind in order to avoid messing up Mercedes’ own natural instincts.

History:
Born into the working class of a bustling seaside city, Mercedes didn’t have much of a chance. She did well in school until she got involved in the street gangs and dropped out. Spending more time on the streets than she did at home, she became estranged from her parents, but not from her younger brother who had also joined the family he could choose for himself. Both siblings became more entrenched in gang culture and it was ultimately the end of Shin - he was shot in a territory disagreement. Mercedes felt responsible for her brother’s death and wanted out, but she found herself trapped in the system. Her boyfriend was a respected member of their gang, so to just up and leave would have had severe consequences. Unable to deal with her conscience, she chanced inciting the gang’s wrath and left the city suddenly. For the three years she was on the run and in hiding from the gang.

Her “travels” brought Mercedes to an island on the other end of the continent – about as far away as she could get without crossing an ocean or having to learn a new language. Still on the streets, she avoided the gangs, but continued using her less lawful skills. As an amateur street performer, she’d found the freedom she lost so long ago. If the crowd failed to pay up, she merely took her own tip. It was here that she was picked up by an organization known only as “The Institute”. It was there that she first met the little blue girl who had become, for all intents and purposes, her sister and best friend. While at the Institute, she discovered that she had once had a twin sister – the pair of them had been guinea pigs for some new “tests” the Institute were running at the time. Through the perverse kindness of a madman, she was able to remember her sister dying on a table across from her and all the needles they had stuck in her head. This is when her hidden talents – the ones they had created her for – were revealed. It nearly drove her to suicide.

The term was “psionic”. More like freak. She could move little things just by looking at them. Flames shot out of her hands when she balled them into fists of anger. Mercedes wanted nothing to do with heroics. Quite the opposite. She had thought about running – but the Institute had thought of that first and mentioned in passing that now that she was there, she wouldn’t be leaving unless it was for the graveyard. Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. So she stuck around. Good thing too, because the world fell apart shortly after that. They holed up in the library. Uluki was going on about “chaos” and stuff, but all that Mercedes could think about was this weird shadow that only she could see.

Then came the battle. She’d been in lots of fights before, but none quite like this. A moose. She had ridden onto the field on a friggin’ moose wearing a suit of armour. That would have been a good time to hitch it back west, but no, she stayed. And she died. Mercedes maintained that there was nothing quite so ... strange ... as dying. Feeling your breath whoosh out of her mouth for the last time. Knowing it was your last time. The light and the noise fading away as your heart stopped beating. Hearing your last beat and saying to yourself, “Yup. That’s it.”

Of course, it was stranger yet to suddenly no longer be dead.

That shadow that had been following her around had turned out not to be such a bad thing. Of course, it took a few weeks before she found out what had really happened, and how it was that she was still breathing. The shadow was her sister. The twins had been experimented on to create a connection between them and another plane of consciousness – it was there her sister had been marooned upon the death of her mortal body. Her name was Aimee. She had died at the ripe old age of twelve and ten years later, there she was, saving her “big” sister. It hadn’t been intentional. Aimee had been following Mercedes around for weeks, trying to make contact, but until that moment, she hadn’t succeeded. That moment was the moment Mercy died – and Aimee unwittingly kick-started her fried brain. It took weeks for Aimee to pull herself together from floating in amongst all of Mercedes’ thoughts, memories and senses.

Bottom line was - the sisters were together again. There was an extremely long adjustment period. EXTREMELY long. A twelve-year old in a twenty-some year old’s head is never a good thing, let alone the sort of head on Mercedes’ shoulders. Of course, Aimee was no average twelve-year old. She hadn’t been floating around in that stream of consciousness all by herself. There had been other souls there, from all walks of life, and they had taught her about more things she had imagined could possibly exist. It was herself and her sister that she had to learn about. Mercedes’ main challenge was having another person in her head who could control her body involuntarily – usually at inopportune moments. Also, she wasn’t certain she wanted Aimee knowing all her past. All her secrets and dirt. She didn’t want her little sister to be burdened by her mistakes. It took years for her to get over that – and that was when they could finally settle down and make their situation work.

Uluki had been very supportive throughout the twin’s trials, and they DID stick around for the wedding. However, after that, they decided that the best way to get to know each other was to get away from both their comfort zones and figure out what they could do – and most importantly, how they could work together to accomplish a common goal. “Adventuring” was their answer whenever asked about what they had been doing while away – Mercedes’ smile was ever hinting at untold hardships and victories – and sometimes bits of information would come out in the form of a song. Things were different. They had missed so much. The birth of Martin. The adoption of the two girls, Dash and Zee. Just...stuff. Uluki and Rollick had grown so much together too and they not only felt like they had so much catching up to do – they did.

They were only back a few months before Uluki and her family were “banished” to who knows where. Mercedes and Aimee both were determined to find out exactly where. They weren’t about to abandon their only remaining kin to unknown dangers. It took some convincing...okay, more like a lot of threatening, but finally the girls got the idiots who cast the first spell to make the same mistake with it and send them to the same place. Hopefully. That idea had sounded SO much better the night before...