Sheet:Charlotte Mercier

Charlotte Mercier's Sheet

Background

Anetta Mercier was a wonderful woman, with a kind heart, who never let the fact that she was born into affluence and old nobility harden her heart or prevent her from seeing the plight of the commons. From her first actions in the social stage to her last breath, she tried to make life in France better for all of the people within it.

This story is not about her, however. This story is about her adopted daughter, Charlotte Mercier. But to address that, we must also look at Anetta's husband - Girard Mercier. Girard had always been a man seeking more; born into lower French nobility, and some say more bought his way into the circles of the ancient aristocracy than was truly born. But he was motivated. Charming. Handsome. He said the right things, especially to Charlotte Mercier - and eventually won her heart and her hand. Given the wealth, authority, and respectability of her family, he took her name, becoming a Mercier.

With the couple unable to conceive children, it was Girard's idea (which drew Anetta's intense agreement) that they adopt. But Girard had intended a different selection than the street urchins and lowborn children of the orphanages of France than Anetta ended up drawing them to. And when they were visiting one orphanage, a child caught both of their eyes, for different reasons.

Running away from her caretakers and throwing things at them as she angrily ate an apple - yelling as they tried to admonish them that she needed to wait for lunch and the children needed to share. But the young girl continued to avoid them and lob toys and objects at them, while she protested that she didn't care. She was hungry, her stomach was growling, and she wasn't going to wait.

Anetta's heart went out to the girl, hungry and desperate to act in such a manner. But Girard saw something else. Self-sufficiency, ambition, aggression. Traits in a child who could be molded to help him. To succeed him. To make his legacy last forever.

And that is how young Charlotte was pulled from the desperate life an orphan to a world she could hardly comprehend, a world the six-year-old had only seen in storybooks and fairy tales. A literal castle. Servants. Perfumes and fancy dresses. It did not take any external prodding for Charlotte to decide she'd never go back - and she became the perfect proper lady even at her young age. She practiced her every moment, her every syllable. At first she didn't want to go back - but as she grew older, it became more about escaping the memory of where she'd come from - never giving anyone any reason to look into her past, to think she was anything other than a model Mercier.

While her mother gave her warmth and care, her father tried to 'prepare her for the world' - both educating her and imparting some of his 'wisdom' into her about the world. And perhaps the two of them together would have brought Charlotte up as a somewhat well-rounded woman, with a mix of educated ambition and noblisse oblige. But sadly, her mother passed away suddenly when she was 11 - and the balance of the girl's worldly viewpoints was changed.

Fast forward five years and Charlotte retains some of her mother's warmth - largely used to smooth over social interactions or behave as a proper lady - but behind her bright eyes has lurked a coldness. In her relentless drive to be seen as both a proper lady and an indispensible member of the Mercier Family, she has picked up two hobbies: art appriasial and competiton shooting. One hobby to show her softness, and one to show her sharpness, as her father advised her. Sitting in France's expensive auction houses and making educated bids for impressive pieces and shooting clay pigeons with decisive marksmanship, Charlotte drew much attention in the Aristocracy.

But it was her specific choice of art that drew the attention of another sort. For some reason, one day at the auction house, there was one specific peice Charlotte couldn't help but push for - a humanoid figure carved out of stained glass. This figure housed one of the stronger parts of the ward the demons that had been released by the act of Veronica Perenna had cursed, granting her power and promising her even more, along with what she truly sought - adoration, acceptance, indispensibility - in exchange for helping them. This also caught the attention of Obsidian - the massive japanese Zaibatsu that could give Girard more of what he craved as well. Phone calls were made, agreements were penned, a connection between the French family and the Japanese Corporation formed. And Charlotte came to Tokyo - obstensibly to help Obsidian secure art and to intern within the division - and both of those are true, but her real role is to act as a magical enforcer and in doing so achieve her own goals and also her father's goals.

Instead of remaining a Freelancer, however, Charlotte was recruited into the rising ranks of Riventon's department - enticed by the idea of gaining more connection to Obsidian by connecting to someone with authority, much as her father once had.

Personality

Charlotte Mercier is a ruthless antagonist - she may somewhat hide it behind the facade of a noble lady, but this is only because she acts how she has been expected to - that as a Mercier, she must always be a proper elegant lady. And yet under the surface boils the constant fear of not being enough, of being abadnoned, of losing the good things she recieved one day, and going back to the role of one who has to steal to feed her grumbling tummy.

That and her father's instruction and indoctrination have created the woman she is - outwardly proper if a bit distant, inwardly cold and ambitious. The mixture of Dark Energy from her own corrupted henshin item and outwardly from Riventon has empowered her most negative impulses, and she seeks to prove that she's the most useful of anyone and follow him right up the ladder to more power and success to secure her heart's desires. She is loyal to herself first, the Mercier family second, and Riventon a distant third, and he truly only benfits from the fact that he's ensured she believes the first two will gain from his success.

In general she prefers to fight and win with style rather than brutality, and enjoys taunting, belitting, insulting, and above all humiliating her opponents - all the better to show off her power and superiority - but when pushed she will become calculating and cold and direct. In a stressful situation she is capable of crossing almost any line.

Focus

A small stained glass humanoid statue - intricately carved even though it fits in a hand - is Charlotte's focus item. One of the locations that the energy which makes up the Ward that the demons were trapped in before being released from the magical painting, and further empowered by 'assistance' from Riventon.

Style

When she transforms into the Verre Reine, Charlotte's outfit changes to a rather fantastic and somewhat impractical open-backed white and red dress with a short skirt and sleeves that open at the middle (to provide her freedom of movement and look a bit capelike flowing behind her), thigh high stockings, black silk gloves, a bow in her hair, a hairband with more bows, tall heeled boots (with also bows on them), and several gem-like accents (which are actually reflective stained glass). As she builds up power, the tips of her hair begin to change into clear stained glass and continue up to her head, and when she is ready to unleash her Finisher, her entire head of hair seems to be glimmering, almost diamondlike glass.

Powers

Verre Reine is the Glass Queen, and stained glass is the motif her powers tend to take, but they are actually quite varied thanks to their interaction with both her core power source and the Dark Energy granted to her. In many ways her abilities are those that are standard to Dark Energy weilders, just with a different style. She can create defense shields or walls, but they take the form of stained glass formations in the air, she can entrap and bind people with glass, but both shields and binds become rapidly brittle and then dissolve once they're no longer her direct focus. She also moves in combat by effortlessly skating, ice-ballet-style, across a thin trail of glass she creates under her moving heels.

By far her most unique power is the way she attacks, however. She can create blood red gems that mix her own powers and Dark Energy and detonate on inpact into explosive blasts of kinetic and Dark Energy. While she could create these and throw them, she does not generally do this. (It would be rather inelegant and unladylike, to hurl rocks like a caveman!) Instead she creates glass constructs to be rails for the crystals to be launched from, and almost sand-grain sized smaller crystals that provide the explosive force necessary to launch the crystals forward - and in testament to her skills as a mundane comeptition shooter, these constructs generally take the form of pistols or rifles; clearly magical and in no way mechanical, they still provide the stability needed for her to rapidly deploy them in the directions she intends (pistols) or make indvidual long shots to put the explosive payloads where she wants them (rifles). The devices don't even have functional triggers, as they're entirely magic-created.

Verre Reine has a single finisher-tier attack which does require an aria; "Glory Demands More" or "Victory Favors Me" - which involves her coating the ground for quite a large distance with a thin sheet of her detonating glass-energy mixture, then unloading a volley of shots from her rifle from above, which causes the explosive sheet to fracture, then detonate all at once with violent force.