From Handbook of the Union Universe

What you lookin' at?
Alley
Player: @oreso
Origin:	Mutant
Archetype:	Brute
Level:	Confidential
Primary Set:	War Mace
Secondary Set:	Shield Defence
Epic Set:	Confidential
Personal Data
Real Name:	Monica Rivera
Identity:	Unknown
Aliases:	Alley
Species:	Human
Date of Birth:	04/04/1990
Age:	Confidential
Height:	6' 1"
Weight:	13st 5lb
Build:	Medium
Eye Colour:	Brown
Hair Colour:	Dark Brown
Skin Complexion:	Dark
Distinguishment:	None
Medical Status:	Recovering from drug addiction
Financial Status:	Steady income
Religion:	None
Sexuality:	Heterosexual
Marital Status:	Engaged to Harry Marsh
Known Relatives:	Brother, Lamin
Biographical Data
Nationality:	Rogue Isles
Ethnicity:	Black
Legal Status:	Criminal
Place of Birth:	Mercy Island
Education:	None
Occupation:	None
Group Affiliations:	The Corporation
Base of Operations:	The Corporation's Base
Residency:	The Corporation's Base
Known Powers
Super strength and toughness, dependant on level of confidence
Known Abilities
Street survival
Equipment
A baseball bat and a manhole cover
Awards and Collections
None
Licenses and Certificates
None
IC Accessibility of Article
Everything above

She's not nearly as tough as she thinks she is, but she's still pretty tough. If you want someone to argue or trash talk with, she's yo' girl. All the stuff below is fairly easy to find out IC if anyone cared enough to research it. If you have any ideas, comments or criticism, feel free to say on the discussion page.

Contents 1 Affiliations 2 Motivation and Personality 3 Powers 3.1 Combat Performance 4 Abilities 5 Vulnerabilities 6 Equipment 6.1 Baseball bats 6.2 Manhole covers 6.3 Other Items 7 Relationships 8 Quick History 9 Snapshots 10 Fiction 10.1 Alley: Origins 10.2 Down a Blind Alley

[edit] Affiliations

Assets and Acquisitions Specialist for The Corporation (a Mafia-style enforcer). Previously a drug dealer for a variety of small gangs in Mercy Island.

She also has a younger brother, Lamin, who was also a gang member. He now lives in Paragon City after serving time in the Zig' and violently refusing the help of his sister and the Corporation.

She has an exploitative ex-boyfriend in form of Sam (aka Aimless). He grew tired of her, so she tried to shoot him. Their argument exposed his manipulative behaviour, and he was thrown out of the Corporation.

She's currently engaged to be to married to the far simpler and honest Harry Marsh (aka Mr. Punch), with whom she is very happy.

Her long-time mentor and the person who recruited her to the Corporation is Carl (aka CX-1233). But while this relationship has always been rocky, it has been greatly complicated by Carl confessing his true feelings for her.

[edit] Motivation and Personality

She's out to prove herself and make some money. Or, that's what she tells herself. In reality, she desperately needs a 'crew' to identify with, and she believes that beating people up is the only thing she's half good at.

She's likes to be independent and confident, brash and abrasive. Being raised on the streets of Mercy Island is hard, and so she tries to be even harder.

In the past, she hated people getting the jump on her or any kind of intimacy, and had difficulty dealing with any stressful situation she couldn't solve through violence. So she used to be pretty highly strung.

At Alley's insistence, Sam used his ability to read and manipulate emotions to directly change her personality so that she was more contented and friendly. And of course, unswervingly loyal and adoring of Sam himself. This fell through when he rejected her and the source of his power was removed, and Alley had severe withdrawal. To replace that feeling she tried using drugs, even going so far as to get herself implanted with a Freakshow-style drug pump. With a constant supply of drugs she could artificially regulate her mood most of the time.

But, under the nagging guidance of Carl and the gentle support of her fiance, Harry, she has vowed to stay clean(er) for their marriage and she has had the drug pump removed (after it was attacked and damaged by Carl).

She used to think she wouldn't live long enough to retire, but since getting involved with Harry Marsh she has started to be more hopeful that they'll leave the Isles together.

[edit] Powers

Her strength, toughness, regeneration and endurance are all enhanced by her level of confidence. This is a mutation that she is currently only vaguely aware of and she's certainly unaware that it is a mutation.

The cause of her confidence is irrelevant, so psychic manipulation and drugs are very effective at boosting her abilities.

[edit] Combat Performance

Attributes
	Statistic	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
	Fortitude
	Stamina
	Speed
	Melee
	Blasts
	Support
	Control

A fool fo' a kid brother

Gettin' ready

Gotta have trophies

Corp means business, yo!

Gotta live fo' somethin' is all

[edit] Abilities

From her time being part of various drug gangs, including an unsuccessful time as a leader, she has learnt how to work in a team. A bit.

Also, living on the streets has taught her some urban survival skills, including some brawling ability with her baseball bat and make-shift shield. And she has intimate knowledge of the North side of Mercy Island.

She also has some passing knowledge about sailing, which she took up as a hobby since she started earning money in the Corporation.

[edit] Vulnerabilities

Alley has little formal education, so she can barely read or do more than simple arithmatic. She has never really ventured outside the Isles, and she has very little knowledge of the outside world in general.

Her mutation does not totally protect her from normal human vulnerabilities, such as injury or disease. And in fact, a lack of confidence may lower her immune system and healing factor far below normal human levels.

Emotional attacks or intimacy will probably shake her, and she is very easy to provoke.

Anything that would cut her off from the 'crew' she identifies with (currently the Corporation) or threatens the people she cares about would be crippling.

Additionally, anything that knocks her confidence or causes her to doubt herself will lead to a temporary loss of her powers.

[edit] Equipment

[edit] Baseball bats

A range of baseball bats are used as bludgeoning weapons. These were originally scavanged from the street or stolen from shops as and when she needed them, but more recently she just buys them in bulk.

The bat which she owned when she joined the Corporation was given to Portia as a somewhat dubiously received birthday present.

She has a special bat given to her as a Christmas present from Synthia; personalised with the Corporation logo and the slogan "Suck it, punks!" down the side. But the main feature is that the top unscrews to reveal a refridgerated compartment for a can of beer. Alley was impressed.

Lastly, she has a customized 'shock-stick' kinetic-amplifier bat made by Techbot ALPHA. Currently 'broken' because it needs recharging and Alley doesn't know how to do it. She still occasionally carries it when she wants to look professional as well as intimidating.

[edit] Manhole covers

Alley uses sewer entrance covers strapped to her arm as shields and bludgeoning weapons. These are still just scavenged from the street whenever she needs a new one.

A customized solid-state energy shield made by Techbot ALPHA. Like the shock-stick, she uses it only when she wants to look smart and intimidating.

[edit] Other Items

A Ruger GP-100 .357 revolver, used for attacking airbourne targets and other cowards. This was a Christmas present from Cx-1233.

A wardrobe of tough street clothes. Shoulderpads, boots, reinforced gloves, flak jackets, etc. Robbed or bought from various places, and in various states of disrepair.

A couple of suits, to look smart and intimidating in.

An elemental fire shard containing a piece of a demon. Given to Alley by Aquis to seal the creature away from Kurze.

A silver and pearl necklace and matching engagement ring bought for her by Harry.

Two luxury sailing yachts. The first was borrowed from and never returned to Vaski. The second was a Valentine's/Engagement gift from Harry.

[edit] Relationships

These are up to date, but incomplete. I'll add more later. If you think your character knows Alley, but they're not here, tell me on the Discussion page.

Name	Their name in the Corp	Alley's Nickname	Role in Alley's Life	Alley's Thoughts on Them
Mr Punch	Harry		Lover	Besotted with him because of his simple wants (which fortunately include her) and general manly ruggedy-ness.
Cx-1233	Carl	Cue Ball	Mentor	Adores and respects, despite that he's a sneaky-ass toaster. A bit let down since he left her for a long while though, and creeped out by his recent confession of love for her.
Aimless	Sam, Sammy, Hugo	Boss	Ex-Lover, Ex-Master	Used to be completely (but artificially) loyal and adoring. Now she's extremely angry at him, and ashamed. Thankfully, he's not around much anymore.
Perplexite	Cecilie	See-see	Friend	Although liked, not totally respectful. Thinks she's a bit whacko at times.
Quildo	Quildo	Q-Boss	Mentor	Very loyal and respectful.
Aquis	Aquis	Akwiss	Friend	Aside from thinking she's a wuss who should stand up for herself, very adoring
Kromann	John	Playa	Colleague	He's a good-for-nothing womanizing bum. Mostly hates him because he's so happy doing it.
Ubermensch Kahn	Kahn, Luther	Can	Older brother	Respect for his skills, but views him as fairly unapproachable and dour.
Spirit Wolf	Kodiak, Koda	Cody	Hunk	Thinks he's hot, in an unattainable strong-and-silent kind of way.
Headbreaker	William	Big Guy	Nice-but-stern Uncle	Some respect for his skill and authority. Liked despite sometimes being a hardass.
Rumour	Cammie		Commander	Some grudging respect, but mostly thinks she has sold out and become a cold, heartless bitch.
Techbot ALPHA	Al	Toaster	Boss who has it in for you	Mostly despise and distrust in a petty kind of way, but grudgingly appreciating him sometimes too.
Dishonesty	Portia	Porcha, Cat-doc	Go-to Colleague	Respect for her skills and honesty(!). Liked reasonably well.

[edit] Quick History

She works for a few small gangs on Mercy Island with her brother, even getting to run one eventually. Their operation gets busted by Longbow however and Alley flees, abandoning them all.

She spends some time in Pocket D, where she is safe from the authorities, but mostly picks ineffectual fights and complains at people. Carl, from curiousity or pity or recognition of potential, puts her out of her misery by offering employment within the Corporation. She accepts, despite her suspicion.

She does not get on well. She is abrasive and aggressive, and Carl is assigned to keep her in line and civilise her, and this begins to work.

Carl moves away, removing his stabilising influence, and she becomes frustrated and insecure about her lack of recognition within the Corporation. This lack of confidence was affecting her powers and thus her performance, further reinforcing the problem.

At this point a Corporation recruit, Sam, aka. Aimless, took advantage. As someone who had also grown up on the streets, and as an empath capable of detecting and manipulating emotion, he could relate to and solve her emotional problems directly by changing her mood and even her personality. After some manipulation, she eventually consented, and then even begged for him to do so.

Eventually, her needyness made Aimless grow bored. After an argument, Alley snapped and tried to shoot him, only succeeding in injuring a friend. However, the security tapes of the argument confirmed the Corporation's growing suspicions regarding Aimless and he was locked up and then thrown out the Corp. The source of his powers, a magical face-plate, was also forcibly removed. This also revealed his identity as Hugo, a cowardly punk from Alley's youth.

In combination with her feelings of shame and betrayal, the sudden withdrawal of Aimless' power drastically reduced her confidence, making her completely incapable of working. Eventually, she turned to drugs to supplant those effects, and now she makes use of a Freakshow-style drug pump implant to provide constant mood alteration, especially in combat.

Despite this, and because of this, she works fairly well as an Enforcer for the Assets and Aquisitions department of the Corporation, and she met and got involved with the uncomplicated and adoring Harry Marsh. After some time, she even began to grow comfortable.

However, an illegal cage-fighting ring that uses young girls in it's matches recaptures Hailey, someone Harry used to protect and train. While he is out being obsessed with saving his ward, Alley herself is captured by spiking her drug supply.

She was dressed in a gaudy costume, branded, kept heavily drugged and partially mind-controlled and then forced to fight and kill in the matches. She was rescued and saved a few weeks later along with fellow cagefighter fighter, Katie, by a Corporation operation led by a hero.

But both Harry and Alley blamed themselves far too much for what happened. She kept herself permanantly high to avoid thinking about it, and he completely threw himself into finding Hailey to do the same. It was some time before their relationship was healed and Alley had the confidence to go back to work.

Since then her drug problem has remained, but her colleagues tolerance for it is running out. When Carl returned, he was disappointed, and eventually took matters into his own hands and slashed her drug pump implant, making it useless, and put her under house arrest. This attempt to make her go cold turkey failed however when Aquis got involved, overturned these decisions and siezed control of the Corporation.

But, now that Harry proposed to her, she has vowed to be better, and keep off the drugs.

[edit] Snapshots

Alley appeals to Sam to permanently alter her personality so that she can be fully accepted and appreciated by someone.

Sam uses Alley as a proxy to sow discord in the Corporation by spreading lies and rumours to Headbreaker, current head of Security.

Alley, happily lounging with Sam in Pocket D.

Alley and Harry on their boat on Valentine's Day

[edit] Fiction

[edit] Alley: Origins

Here's how and why Alley went from street thug to Corporation enforcer

"Yo. Ain't gonna be pushin' nothin' we don't got no product" Alley screw her face up at the punk making excuses and steadily beats her baseball bat into her palm. Why can't her crew just keep in line? "Don't gimme that crap, Split," and she levels a finger at him. "We'll be gettin' 'Dyne by Monday. You want me go tow the damn boat myself?" Split Joe shuffles his feet anxiously and Alley mentally dares him to live up to his name and run away again. Mercy Island had more than its fair share of corner kids; why'd she have to get stuck with fools like this? As it happens, Split Joe did split, but Alley couldn't blame him, not ever. Longbows burst from around the corner and her lookout, Peanut, took a pistol whip to the face before he could shout warning. Desperately, Alley grabbed a manhole cover as a shield and dived behind a dumpster before the flamethrowers could be brought to bear. Split Joe wasn't so lucky though; his running only served to fan the flames. Later, she heard that he'd ran all the way to the bay and jumped in before being picked up by 'Bow flyers. They completely rebuilt his face, but his hair was never growing back. In seconds, all of Alley's crew melted around her. The capes were shouting something, but it didn't matter. She jumped out and saw one of them tackling Poot to the ground and cuffing him, and the dull thunk of hardened wood on flesh felt satisfying. She kicked him while he rolled on the ground. And again. Now eight more capes were suddenly moving in, and Alley gripped her bat until the wood creaked under pressure. But she wasn't that dumb. She knew the streets better than these clowns, so she ran. No way she could win. No way she could save her crew. No way she could... Or at least that's what she told herself before sleeping in the alleys she knew so well. Split's sliding face never agreed. She didn't deserve a crew anymore. Can't even look after her own damn self. Can't even look after her own damn brother, useless brat though he is. She needed to be a soldier for someone else. "Cue Ball, yo, jus' gimme a break, jeez" she whined. A face made of a patchwork of pale skin continued to stare at her impassively. This was gonna be tough...

[edit] Down a Blind Alley

Short fiction piece to roughly outline everything else

Monica is an eight year old girl. She wakes in an unfamiliar room. There are other sleeping children in beds around her. She's in a bed as well, and there are super-heroes on the blanket. The people who own the room accept almost any street kid for the night, and she is grateful. She knows her younger brother is asleep in the opposite bed. All is well, and the sound that had awoken her is forgotten. She rolls over back to sleep. When she leaves in the morning she doesn't even mention the money that has been stolen from them, because it isn't polite to bother the people who had taken them in. She'll just have to be smarter next time.

Alley is a twelve year old girl. She wakes in an alleyway and identifies the things that move around her before opening her eyes. Lamin, her brother, still calls her Monica sometimes, but he doesn't really remember why. He's still too young to think of a decent name for himself. He has just returned from foraging, but he is loud and clumsy and wakes her with a crash of falling garbage and scattering rats. She smells booze, so he must have gotten some from a passed-out drunk. Good. Drunks were easy to steal from, and you could usually sell their stuff right back to them the next day. He's still dumb though, he didn't even notice the other kid tailing him. Alley grabs a nearby plank of wood as she rolls to her feet and pushes Lamin out of the way.

Alley is a fifteen year old girl. She wakes on a mattress in a squat in the upper-west side of Mercy, and she is still grasping the baseball bat under her mattress that she fell asleep holding. Lamin, the dumbass, was caught by Longbow yesterday and snatched off to Capesville. She knows he won't give up her name, and she is proud and relieved. She'll be under suspicion for a while, but soon, she can finally start working some decent runs with her brotherly liability gone. Maybe even run some pick-ups herself. Later that day, when she has to stop herself from dividing the day's take between herself and her absent brother she allows herself some regret. She quickly shakes it off. He'll be better off in Paragon anyway; he hadn't got the stones for Mercy.

Alley is a seventeen year old girl. She wakes up next to an air-con unit on a rooftop, with a manhole cover propped over her as a shield against the wind. Her baseball bat is crusted with grime and blood. Twice during the night the Snakes had tried to claim the roof back, but she had batted them off contemptuously. She was in no mood. It had been almost a week since her crew had been busted by Longbow, and none of them had returned. She wasn't surprised. Even the ones lucky enough to escape weren't going to come back to some punk with no stones. A boss didn't run away, so, she had to accept that she really wasn't a boss. But she still needed a crew to watch her back. She couldn't stay awake forever.

Alley is eighteen years old. She wakes up in a dormitory again for the first time since she was a kid, but this time she's prepared. None of these clowns in the Corporation had made a move against her yet, but she knew how these things worked. If you appeared weak, they'd chew you up and use you like a tool. Already most of the bosses had started trying to break her with all this hassling about every damn thing. Or worse, they tried to 'relate', as if every single one of them hadn't sold their souls and their rep years ago so they could pretend they're still tough from behind a desk. She stuck to Cue Ball, he was cold and sneaky, but she could tell he pitied her. It wasn't acceptance, but it was something she could use. No, not quite pity, something else. Damn, if the money wasn't so damn good.

She'd lied about it recently just for laughs with the crew, but it is exactly one month until Alley's nineteenth birthday. She wakes and her instincts fail her. Her bat is lying under the bed, but she doesn't move to pick it up. Her shield lies in a corner, leaning against a well-tended potted plant. She'd put it there so Sam wouldn't trip over it. He always got up and left on business before her, but she had awoken early for some reason she couldn't quite place. She savoured looking at him for a moment. His visored face didn't ever betray his dreams or his thoughts or his emotions, but she knew what they must be. She couldn't even tell if he was awake and staring at her with his strange mind's eye even now, but she trusted him. How could she not? She knew that for him she was an open book, and a book that he had written in to make her perfect for him. Why wouldn't you trust someone who knew you so completely, and yet you knew you were exactly what he wanted? She couldn't remember why she would even ask herself such a dumb question. So she sighs with contentment, and for the first time in ten years, Alley rolls back to sleep again.