Gamora - Complete

“This isn't my first rodeo, Mr. Stark.”
Name: Rebekah
Age: 33
How'd you find us? I followed Carnelian
RP experience: pretty much always

“Who are these people?”
Full Name: Gamora
Nicknames: the Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy
Alias: n/a
Age: 25
Sexuality: hertosexual
Race: Zenhobrei
Occupation: Guardian of the Galaxy
Class: Hero
Play-By: Zoe Saldana

“We have left humanity behind...”
Any special talents? n/a
Superpowers: Gamora's physiology is Zenhoberei, making her naturally stronger and more agile than a human being would be, although her strength is said to not quite equal that of an Asgardian.

That was not sufficient to please Thanos, however, so Gamora was outfitted with cybernetic enhancements increasing her strength, her agility, and the fortitude of her body leaving her very difficult to catch or to kill. Both electrocution and several minutes in pure vacuum failed to end her life.

In addition to that she was outfitted with ocular and respiratory implants, increasing her visual acuity and natural stamina. She has an enhanced nervous system making her more aware of things happening around her, increasing her response times and enhancing her senses. She has excellent hearing, sight, sense of smell and tactile senses that make her grip more certain on weaponry or while climbing for example.

Finally Gamora has a regenerative healing factor. Her body is resistant to injury, infection or toxins but should she fall victim to any of these her body recovers at a very fast pace putting her back in fighting condition much more quickly than another might expect. For example, minutes after regaining consciousness after nearly dying in the vacuum of space she was on her feet and ready to take the fight to Ronan.

Other Abilities: Gamora is a master assassin, making her an expert in the arts of stealth, hacking and infiltration. She was trained to be a living weapon and it is not an exaggeration; she's an expert in both armed and unarmed hand to hand combat, an expert in marksmanship and an absolute mater of the blade. While this demonstrates that her physical skills are impressive she is also a sound tactician and strategist, able to grasp to scope, flow and changing nature of a battle to form plans and adapt to her circumstances.

Anything else we should know? Gamora carries a retractable blade (along with any number of other weapons) on her person at all times.

“That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry.”
Personality: Determined and efficient are the two qualities that probably define Gamora best. When she sets her sights on a goal it can be counted as done before she has begun. Some people would call that arrogance, and perhaps it is, but even when she chose to betray Thanos - something so inconceivable as to be very nearly mad - she accomplished it, aiding in the defeat of Ronan and the securing of the Power Stone by the Nova Core. Her determination makes her a ruthless woman. She thinks nothing of violence, it formed the part of her earliest experiences. That being said she is not wantonly cruel, she simply takes the simplest path and if that happens to be through someone then so be it.

Growing up in an environment where no weakness was tolerated Gamora is stoic, rarely showing her true feelings although at times she is not above effecting emotions to gain the responses she wants from those around her. Prior to her defection from the service of the Mad Titan this was the only use she had for emotion. In the time sense then she has slowly begun to show more genuine feelings to a select few people who have begun to earn her trust.

Despite her cold, often dispassionate outlook, Gamora is not heartless. She feels the weight of the things she did in Thanos's service very acutely, knowing that pain and death had followed in her wake. She would not see whole societies, who races, wiped from existence and she is not afraid to stand against those who would commit such acts. She has set herself to redressing the balance of her actions, convinced that this course was the one she had to follow after realizing what would happen if Ronan - or Thanos - gained the Infinity Stones.

She carries a deep hatred for the Mad Titan for his destruction of her people, his torture and ruthless use of her and his treatment of her 'sister' Nebula. While there is tension and anger between them she still cares for Nebula and privately hopes she will find a new way forward in her life instead of living always as the servant of monsters like Ronan and Thanos.

“Cause I'm with you to the end of the line.”
Family: biological family unknown (deceased)
Thanos (adoptive father, alive)
Nebula (adoptive sister, alive)

History: (I will redo this OOC if you want, but I happened to have it written out as an IC scene and figured I might as well see if it would work.)

“What does it matter where I was born, Terran? It's a barren world now, the memory of a people who don't exist.” The magenta haired woman set the drink she had been holding on the bar and turned burnished red eyes on the inquisitive girl. She jerked her chin in the direction of a man at the other side of the room fiddling with a machine. “If you want conversation go bother Quill. He likes to talk.”

“But you – what are you?” The curious doe-eyed thing asked. Gamora ground her teeth wondering why she had allowed herself to be talked into coming to this absurd planet. There were a dozen answers or more she might have given, not all of them in words, but a second glance made the warrior pause. The Terran girl was younger than Quill and although she was trying to hide it the mark of bruises shown faintly beneath the stitching of her linen top. What Gamora had first taken as an irritating interest in the pigment of her skin or the shade of her hair was replaced as she took in the way the girl was eyeing the daggers barely visible at the former assassin's side. There was a half-desperate look on the girl's face, as if the answer to her inane question might hold the secrets of the galaxy at it's heart.

Maybe it did. “Sit,” she said tersely, pushing one of the stools out with her foot. “You're in trouble and you think finding someone to tell you it's all okay will make it all better.” The girl opened her mouth and Gamora could practically hear her protest before she said anything. Her hand shot out, catching the girl's wrist in a grip that made her squeak and pushing up the sleeves to reveal the marks she'd glimpsed earlier. She arched a single eyebrow and the girl went silent. When she let go the green-skinned woman noted that her fingers had left their own imprints. It was easy to forget how fragile Terrans were.

“I just thought,” the little thing said in her child-like voice, “maybe you could give me some tips. I can go; I shouldn't have bothered you – ”

Gamora pointed again at the stool and waited. Reluctantly the Terran girl took the seat, pulling her knees up on one of the bars and hunching over them as if she could make herself disappear. The former assassin tilted her head slightly, magenta locks tumbling past her shoulder nearly to her waist. There was nothing she could say that would fix the girl's life. She knew better than most that you had to take steps yourself when you wanted change -

A sound across the room caught her attention as Quill finally got the machine working. The music he favored – classics he called them – began to blast from it. Her eyes narrowed as he flashed her a smile. A sigh escaped Gamora; she supposed he'd expect her to help girl somehow. He would – even if all he managed to do was get everyone around him in trouble with her. Of course these Terrans seemed to think talking could solve half their problems. “You can't learn to fight in an afternoon,” she informed the girl flatly. “It takes years.”

Tears welled up in the girl's eyes. “I – I know. I just thought if I knew someone like you, maybe I'd learn how to--”
Grow a backbone? Gamora thought, but she couldn't help feeling pity for the girl. Not everyone could be – in fact no one should be – raised the way she had been. “Listen,” she said, her voice a fraction more gentle than it had been a moment before. “what do they call you?”

The Terran girl looked up at her again, a desperation that Gamora recognized. “Sandy,” she whispered. “Will you...tell me...how to be l..like you?”

She snorted softly. “You don't want to be like me, Sandy. What you want is your own strength.”

“But I don't know where to find any,” the girl burst out. “I've tried to run, tried to stay, it doesn't seem to matter -”

Quill glanced up at the outburst. She could almost hear the question – what was she doing to upset the poor thing. She raised her chin at him and then shook her head slightly. She reached out carefully this time and took the girl's chin in her hand. “I'm Gamora.” She saw confusion in Sandy's doe brown eyes, but ignored it. “Since you think it'll help, I'll tell you what you want to know – then you can tell me who's been hurting you.” Why was she doing this? A dozen reasons, she supposed. The girl was a sad looking thing, and she knew how hard it could be to break out of a situation when you were trapped...

The woman didn't wait for the Terran's assent. She let go of her chin, took another swallow of her drink – as far as she could tell even Terran drinks were useless – and tried to decide where to begin. “You won't understand a word of this,” she warned the girl. “You Terrans think your planet is pratically the center of the universe. But for what it is worth – I am the last of the Zehoberei, a race destroyed by the Titan Thanos.” Her lips twitched slightly, holding back bitter memories and laughter as the girl stared at her incredulously. How long, wondered the woman, before she decides I'm drunk or simply insane?

“I was a child when he came to Zehoberei, and I must have somehow made an impression on him, since even though he destroyed my people Thanos spared me and took me as a foster daughter.” This time Gamora's smile was bitter. Her life in Thanos's household could hardly have been described as a 'happy home' – particularly not the way Quill thought of families in those rare moments when he mentioned his own. Even Gamora's relationship with her sister, well, adoptive sister, Nebula, was complicated by the tensions that came from being raised by a madman bent on death and destruction.

“I was not the only such foster-child; and together my sisters and I were raised to be weapons. Combat, from our earliest years, with our bodies, with blades, with firearms – whatever could be brought to hand we were taught to make it lethal. If our own physical abilities were not enough, enhancements – cybernetics, mostly – were added to give us an edge.”
It hardly needed to be said that while she had excelled at everything she had been taught she had still undergone cybernetic enhancement, augmenting her body's strength and agility well past what she might have naturally achieved until she was what they often called her – the deadliest woman in the galaxy. “We were not happy,” she said quietly, taking another sip of the drink. They had never been happy, serving the creature who had destroyed their lives but they had at least had each other – for a time. “We were educated, we were trained but we didn't have lives of our own; we were bound in service to Thanos or whomever he chose to lend our skills to.”

Years she had spent in such service, doing the Mad Titan's bidding as he followed his personal ambitions with relentless determination. Her own acts, her reputation, all of the things she had done had stemmed from Thanos's will. Each year she'd learned to hate him more and more but walking away was not something easily done. Perhaps it was a reflection of that struggle she saw in this slip of a Terran now; the need to break free from a life she had not chosen.

Inevitably Gamora had found a way to forge her own path – but only when she had been sent to aid Ronan the Accuser on Thanos's behalf. That the Kree warrior was just as insane as the Titan had never escaped her. His desire to see Xandar destroyed was as overpowering to him as Thanos's quest was the dominating force to the Titan. She and Nebula had been sent together, after they had failed to recover an item Thanos sought, which Ronan claimed to be able to locate. It was in the striking of that bargain – the exchange of the destruction of Xander for the item Thanos wanted - that Gamora had begun to see a path of her own out of her personal prison.

“Eventually I grew tired of that life,” she said, realizing she'd been quiet for quite some time. “I made arrangements to sell an item that would give me the units I needed to free myself from Thanos or anyone else.” Taneleer would have paid her well for it too. She would have spent the rest of her life running, there had never been any doubt of that, but she would have had the means to support and protect herself – and more importantly she would no longer play accomplice to Thanos's crimes. It had taken her whole lifetime to reach that moment but when she had Gamora had seized it.

If only things had gone so simply...It was Quill who had found the Orb, leading her to find him. She would have taken it from him too if Rocket and Groot had not appeared on Xandar that day, trying to collect the sizable bounty on the Terran who called himself Star-lord. The four of them had fought; her for the Orb, Rocket and Groot for the bounty, Quill for...Quill... until they were caught by the Nova Corps and imprisoned together on the Kyln.

It was exactly Gamora's usual brand of luck that put her in the same prison as the Destroyer, Drax. His family had been among Ronan's victims and like so many other people out there he didn't hesitate to lay those crimes at Gamora's feet – especially if she was in easy reach when the Accuser was not. Drax might have killed her; she didn't like to think that. In all likelihood she would have fought her way out of that situation herself but she had found unexpected help; for no reason she had understood Quill had stepped in to save her life. It had been an..odd experience for the assassin.
It was that in part that prompted her to bargain with him, Rocket and Groot – if they would aid her in escaping their prison she'd split the money Taneleer was offering for the orb. That part of the plan had worked, too, insofar as such things went. They'd escaped, Drax also in tow and made it to Knowhere to meet with her contact. Before they could be paid, however, the orb had been opened revealing it's contents – an Infinity Stone. Unsealing it unleashed a blast of energy that killed Taneleer's asistant, destroying much of his collection and making it clear to her what she the nature of what she had been dealing with. For Gamora it had changed her priorities.

She'd resealed the stone in the orb and was prepared to drag Quill and the others out if she had to, to take the thing to Xandar and hand over to the Nova Corps where it could be held safely, when Ronan arrived. They ought to have been paying closer attention; it simply hadn't occurred to her that in his rage Drax would intentionally call for the Accuser hoping to put him down. But by then the damage was already done.

Gamora had ended up fighting Nebula that day; fighting and being left to die in pure vacuum with the orb in Ronan's hands. Once again, for reasons that seemed inexplicable, Quill had stepped in to save her life. They were in turn rescued by some of Quill's former allies who, despite the desperation of the situation, they were able to persuade to help them stop Ronan. They had raced to Xandar where the Accuser, instead of turning the Orb over to Thanos as promised, had gone to simply destroy the planet himself.

The Battle of Xandar had been a heady thing; Ronan in possession of an Infinity Stone, the Nova Corps acting to defend Xandar and her new allies trying to stop a planet wide genocide. Each of them had a part to play in it; Gamora had spent the fighting attempting to shut down the power to the shield generator of Ronan's ship, the Dark Astor. Nebula had stood between her and success, but she had taken no pleasure in her sister's defeat or watching her cut her own cybernetic hand off as a means of escape.

She, Quill, Drax and Groot had been attempting to subdue Ronan with little success when Rocket had crashed his ship into the Dark Astor sending it plummeting to the planet's surface. They survived, although for a time it had appeared Groot had not. To no one's surprise Ronan had also survived. He attempted to use the Infinity Stone against them but it was knocked out of his hands and into Quill's – a thing which should have destroyed the Terran. Gamora still didn't fully understand how he, and then she, Rocket and Drax, had been able to together use the Stone's power to finally end the mad Kree's life.

Having survived, resealed the stone in it's containment orb and handed it to the Nova Corps, they had apparently also earned full pardons – and the sobriquet 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' Gamora had found herself strangely attached to these new allies she'd helped save a planet with so when they were ready to go, she went with them.

Which was precisely how she had come to be in her present circumstances. The girl was still sitting there, waiting for her to elaborate, but Gamora realized she had no patience for storytelling. It had been a fools' thought to begin with – that or she really was spending to much time around Quill. She swallowed the rest of her drink in a gulp and stood up. “Enough.Why don't you just introduce me to the bastard who likes to knock you around?”

“Dance-off, bro. Me and you.”
Custom Title The Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy
RP Sample. Gamora flicked off the pad, deleting the communication as the door slide open behind her. She tilted her head slightly at the sound of her sister's steps. "Korath has returned," Nebula informed her. "Ronan would have us all attend him." She nodded and got up, sliding her blades into their sheathes.

"Did he bring the Orb?" she asked neutrally, careful to keep any trace of the fact that she knows the answer already off her of her face.

The blue woman who had been her sister, her competitor, her friend and her rival all their lives shook her head. "He lost it to one of the Ravagers. He will have to be tracked, the item retrieved." She can hear the eagerness, and the unerlying bitterness in Nebula's voice. Sometimes Gamora wondered if she sounded like that - if the pain she kept secreted so far in the corners of her mind most days she forgot out it, could be heard in her undertone. "Our father will not be pleased."

Like so much about Nebula and Thanos, that was an understatement. For many years now all the Mad Titan had cared about was acquiring the objects he had set his mind on. To that end he had aided the Asgardian Loki in his venture against Earth; if what had been done to him could be called aid. Gamora would not name it so, but it would be a lovers' kiss compared to what would happen to the Trickster should Thanos reached his hand out and wrap it around the Asgardian now. She could have warned him then that no one worked with Thanos, and those that served him soon found death was the only companion to be trusted in their lives. Like so many times before and since she had kept her silence, and she had lived.

Recently the Titan had turned his eyes temporarily from Terra to finding this Orb. When the Kree, Ronan the Accuser, had said he could locate it her adoptive father had sent her along with Nebula and Korath to see it done. The Kree cared nothing for the Orb; he wanted the power to destroy Xandar. In his rage, his madness, Ronan had settled on genocide as the only way to remain pure to his culture and his family. Genocide. It made him a fitting minion for Thanos.

"Someone will find it," she said dismissively, as if it didn't much matter who. Nebula would not be pleased when Gamora made certain she was dispatched to Xander instead of the Luphromoid. Leaving Nebula behind was regretable, but she did not think she could convince her sister to betray their foster father. This was her chance - if Taneleer Tivan came through. It might be her only chance. Either way she was not going to be party to the genocide of a whole people. Gamora had been on the receiving end of that kind of work once; she would die before she was responsible for that kind of an atrocity.