Laura Crown- The Golden Arrow

History:

Laura’s story began in a broken home. Her father had never been an especially pleasant man, but his demeanor had taken a dark turn the instant he saw the girl his wife delivered. She wasn’t his, and he would never let her or his wife forget it. Abuse was frequent, and would only grow worse on those days that Laura insisted that her mother really didn’t cheat, that she was telling the truth. Laura grew up quick and rough, but she was showing signs of escaping the baggage of her family life when she became interested in athletics, becoming a regional wrestling champ in middle school. This came crashing down when her first relationship went sour.

At 12, she began dating a boy on the football team. Instead of fading harmlessly like any other grade-school romance, it ended with blood and a stint in juvenile hall when she questioned if he kissed another girl she saw him with and he claimed he did not. She stabbed him in the jaw with a plastic fork from the cafeteria. The police reports record that she immediately gave herself up out of regret, but more unusually, that she had somehow driven the fork into his jaw bone. Her journey through the court system and juvie only reinforced a growing misanthropy. She broke down in tears during court sessions, declaring everybody around her to be liars. She initiated wild flings with fellow prisoners, always ending in screaming, sometimes violent breakups when they lied to her. It seemed like she had crossed a boundary she could never retreat from.

Her sentence was extended over and over until it seemed she would graduate right into prison, but finally, she was exposed to a way out. On her 15th birthday, she was struck with a vision while exercising outside. She saw a beautiful woman, garbed in rainbows, hair white and fluffy as a cloud. The woman handed her a letter and vanished, so suddenly that Laura would have thought it was a hallucination if she did not still have the letter. Reading it in her bunk that night, she found an invitation from an orphanage in Thebes, Greece. It claimed she was a demigod, the spawn of a deity and a human. Her athletic ability, her golden eyes, her ability to split truth from lies, they were all results of this divine heritage.

That feeling Laura got in her stomach when she heard or read lies did not appear. Either the person who wrote it was truly delusional, she was, or it was real. At the bottom, it asked her to sign her consent to join them. She did so, and when she woke up that morning, the letter was gone and she was called to the front office. She was informed that her parents had their custody taken away due to signs of abuse that had emerged and she was being taken into the care of Saint Athena’s Orphanage. Nobody seemed to question the absurdity of it all as Laura was driven to the airport and flown away. In Greece, she was greeted by the burly monk running the orphanage, Mihail Marinos, son of Hephaestus. He explained that everybody here was just like her, a demigod, and she would finally be at home. At this home for half-gods, she healed. She started up her wrestling again, finding greater opponents than ever before, and discovered a talent for archery. The disciplined but loving environment provided her with the control she needed. Her relationships became slightly less volatile, her breakups at least losing their violent edge. When she hit 18, she left the orphanage, joining Flipside’s capture division, driven by her experiences through her life.

Appearance:

Laura is a tall, muscular woman, long-limbed and lean. Her skin is bronzed by sunlight, her hair naturally pitch black. Her eyes are liquid gold, adding to her genuinely attractive appearance, common to most demigods, something they get from their divine parents. A few scars show on her face and body, signs of injuries too great for even her healing abilities. In battle, she wears golden hoplite armor and wields a dory spear.

Personality:

Laura is, on the surface, utterly confident in herself. She has no worries about her abilities, looks, or anything else about her life. In reality, while she is indeed confident about many things, Laura is in other ways deeply insecure. She despises being lied to, and her ability to flawlessly know when people are lying leads to difficulty trusting people. Resigned to this inability to trust anybody for long, Laura has no close friendships and only tolerates her teammates, getting most of her physical and emotional contact from quick hook-ups and the adulation of fans at her HWBC matches, something she revels in. She enjoys physical activity and training, keeping her skills sharp at all times.

Relationships:

Abital- Her boss. A flighty idiot, but she respects his power, and he can get the job done when it comes down to the wire.

Arthur Cromwell- Looks like a kid, but he knows how to party. He seems like a good friend as well.

Akane Musashi- Needs to learn to let her hair down once in a while, but her discipline is admirable.

Mai Musashi- Hot, but a dishonest cheater. Laura was deeply disappointed with her after their meeting. However, after a later meeting, she is quite a bit more forgiving of Mai's failings, and admires her efforts to improve herself and mend her relationship.

Dan Drake- An awkward man, but an interesting one. Amazing body, very fun.

Jun Li- Petty, vindictive, and immature. Laura dislikes her even more for reminding her a little of herself.

Powers:

Golden eyes- As a daughter of Apollo, Laura has uncannily good eyesight. She can see perfectly fine in lightless conditions and spy detailed images at absurd distances.

Divine blood- Her divine heritage does not just provide her with physical abilities beyond a human’s. Laura’s very blood is divine golden ichor, containing the essence of immortality. While she is not as unkillable as a full god might be, she has a good deal more resistance to mortal injuries than a human and recovers quicker as well.

Divine medic- One of Apollo’s domains is medicine, and Laura has inherited this. Laura can heal the injuries of others with a mere touch, although the more damaged they are, the less she can do. Her own injuries are already healed quicker by her divine heritage, but she can push them to heal quicker yet if she needs to, at the risk of tiring herself out.

Agent of Truth- Laura can divine if somebody is telling her the truth, whether in speech or writing. This ability prevents her from lying as well, as well as coming with other limitations. Clever omissions of facts go right through her detector unscathed, as do other forms of bending the truth without directly lying. False but truly believed statements don’t trigger as lies, although they can be just as incorrect. Laura cannot tell you if your spouse was lying about being out with buddies last night, you can’t just repeat what they said back to her and expect her to know if it was a lie. If the incident was recorded, however, she can catch every lie said. And finally, while Laura knows when others are lying, she doesn’t necessarily know the truth based on that.

Supreme athlete- Laura is well-trained in her chosen martial arts. While she fights quite competently with her spear and shield, she is far better with her bow and bare hands. She can hit near any target she can see, adjusting naturally for wind and drop. She can load, draw, and loose arrows on the run or even jumping. She is similarly skilled as a wrestler. As a brilliant grappler, she can topple nearly any foe. She was trained in both skills by teachers befitting a great hero, and it shows.

Gear:

Lion’s Aegis- A suit of armor that Laura can summon, named after its golden color. It increases her already decent durability further. It comes complete with a dory, a spear with a head at both ends, and a large round shield.