Alice

> It's not that we want to see you suffer, it's that we want you to feel comfortable in your own skin. You shouldn't feel afraid or upset to be yourself.
>
> Alice, in Volume II - "Affliction"

## Dr. Allison Nicole Vicente (Valencia)

### Titles

Pyro (Callsign)
 Doc
 The Hot One

### Relatives

Valterius Valencia (Husband)
 Krystal Elizabeth Vicente (Sister)
 Kara Marie Valencia (Kane) (Sister-in-law)
 Amelia Lynn Kane (Sister-in-law)
 Jared Donovan Valencia (Son)
 Annemarie Vivian Valencia (Daughter)

### Race

Vampyre (Gifted)

Allison (Alice) is a board-certified neurologist, immunologist, and psychiatrist while holding theoretical degrees (Ph.Ds) in virology, neuroscience, and psychology. As if this weren't enough to keep her busy, she is Krystal's sister, Valterius' long-time romantic partner, and Kara's second-in-command when Sonya is unavailable to run and guide the operations of Aerael while acting as their chief of medicine. Alice has always been extraordinarily ambitious, fighting to maintain her credentials in the human world through new identities and aliases despite active certifications bearing no relevance to her work in Aerael or Vanaheim. As good-natured as they come, Alice is often seen as the mother figure of whatever environment in which she finds herself, attracting those in need and rendering whatever help she is able without question or the expectation of her patients returning the favor. She is one of the key members of Kara's Counsel, often providing a higher degree of moral compass than those so ready to commit to battle, as her history revolved not around fighting but was instead centered on treating victims of the Vampyres' long-standing war.

Alice has occasionally crossed her own moral lines, and has no problems venturing into dangerous environments with the expectation of violent conflict, but only does so as a last resort. Much of the positive development of Kara's psyche after repeated traumas were due to Alice's intervention, and the same is said of Sonya's physical injuries. This is one of the key reasons that Valterius is drawn to her, as they share the same threads that bind together the concepts of justice, freedom, and equality for those that hold them in high respect.

Alice's personality was largely consistent until the events between *Sorrow* and *Desolation* (also known as the Outbreak), wherein she had to grapple more of her responsibilities as a matter of necessity in opposition to her previous mindset of volunteerism. In further events throughout the series, Alice experiences her own set of traumas and finds herself struggling to find the balance between a knowledgeable practitioner and a person in need of help. through these struggles, she solidified relationships between her and members of her closest friends and family in proving her unshakable resilience in the face of imminent danger. Alice has proved herself throughout her lifetime to be an invaluable friend, medical prodigy, and modest leader.

## History

Born to Irish-Spanish parents killed in the collateral damage of the American Revolution, Allison took her sister Krystal (Catherine by name during this time) under her protection and was under the guardianship of a militia officer until they could be safely shepherded to safer, more stable guardianship in a place touched very little by war. During this process, Alice recognized her talent at the age of 18 for assessing injuries to the human body and was a nurse to many soldiers during the historical events at Valley Forge. This, to her credit as a volunteer, changed the shape of the health and wellness of suffering troops for a period of time before Krystal, 16, developed a fever known as Typhoid. Having no immediate remedy, Alice cared for Krystal and experimented with every medicine possible, eventually coming up with a concoction of periwinkle extract, mycelium, and willow bark, staving off the worst effects of the disease. Unfortunately, Alice soon found it hard to care for her sister, as she contracted Typhoid herself and became weaker as the illness progressed. For whatever reason, the medicine she used was less effective on herself than on her sister, and she had resigned herself to Krystal's bedside until an imminent death.

Near the end of her life, Kara and Sonya had arrived at the entrenched valley with the consideration of increasing their number of Vampyre allies by converting sick and dying soldiers. Visiting the medical treatment areas, which were poor and nearly unstaffed, the two women found Alice and Krystal in stages of near-death. Believing that there was little likelihood that either of them could be saved, Kara made the attempt to convert them by biting each of them on the shoulder and waiting before attempting the rescue efforts on any other soldiers. Sonya and Kara were at first dissuaded, as they both lost a significant amount of weight and Krystal's hair and eyes had mutated in color (due to the blue tint of periwinkle in Alice's medicine), but both women regained consciousness and had intense cravings. Keeping their actions a secret, Kara and Sonya explained the source of their cravings for blood and took two soldiers in the worst condition (on imminent death and with amputated limbs) in order to nourish the girls and bring them back to health.

Alice, being raised under Protestant Christianity, saw Kara and Sonya as answered prayers and despite their apparent conflict with the teachings of the Christian Bible, molded her faith to adopt a more understanding and comprehensive view of what true good looked like in the universe. Based on that thinking, Alice begged to follow Kara and Sonya along their journey, which the older women reluctantly agreed to. Once the events at Valley Forge were concluded, Kara placed Alice under Val's care since the two of them shared the same calm, rational demeanor. In the following year, both of the Vicente sisters began to show evidence of enhance Vampyre abilities, with Alice controlling and conjuring small flames while Catherine (Krystal) was able to freeze the surface of entire lakes with a simple touch and some concentration. As a rebellious teenager, Krystal wanted nothing more than to hide herself away, ashamed at her appearance and supernatural abilities. Kara comforted Krystal, tutoring her in the ways of combat while Alice stood by Valterius as she began to slowly fall in love with her mentor.

In 1788, roughly ten years after the sisters' rescue, Alice was finally successful in seducing Val, who had resisted her romantic gestures as naivete. Thankfully, a silent entrance to his bedroom and a combustion of her clothes into ash was enough to convince him of her seriousness and her passion for him. The two were inseparable in the following years, with Alice taking day jobs in whichever medical field she could find experience within and Valterius working under the diplomatic positions available in Philadelphia. This continued as Kara and Sonya left in 1811 to head toward the uncharted western territory of North America, carving the Oregon Trail as they went. It was almost fifty years that Alice, Krystal, and Valterius spent by themselves, believing that Kara and Sonya were likely to remain hidden as the Creature, a myth and legend to the Vicente sisters, was supposed to have followed them. Unfortunately, the three suffered attacks more than once, and their combined abilities were enough to drive away the Creature on repeated occasions. In 1832, Valterius suffered a serious, traumatic injury to his neck, and Alice managed to save him with the skills she had gathered in her course of work. As if they needed another reason, Val and Alice fell deeper in love over the bonds of combat and their fear in hiding. Eventually, the decision was made to relocate to Salem.

When Kara and Sonya finally returned, they proposed a project wherein a large occupancy would be constructed underneath the home Valterius had purchased. As Kara, Sonya, and Val began construction, Krystal aided through cunning means of securing financial assets while Alice, under the advice of Sonya, pursued a formal medical education. She traveled from one school to another beginning in 1862 (the official beginning of Aerael's construction), and learned more about medicine than she had ever expected. Although her social status and mysterious background gave her no ability to formally contribute to the field of medical science, she "suggested" several theories throughout the years that led to some of the greatest leaps in medical science and healthcare theory the world had ever seen. She took great pride in this silence, and found that she was especially fascinated by the concept of the virus in her own system. Although it was unclear precisely what the virus was, she endeavored to find out and to furthermore develop a medicine, serum, or drug to cure the need for human blood while simultaneously contemplating the cure for the disease itself.

Her education took her from Oxford to Harvard and Yale until she returned to a near-city sized Aerael in 1912. Although she was gone for long periods of time, a near-perfect cardiovascular system, lack of need for sleep, and funding from her sister allowed her to visit Valterius on a frequent basis so as to maintain the loving romance of their relationship. Upon her return in 1912, she promised Valterius never to abandon him again for more than a year. The two made this promise to one another, and Valterius presented her with a gift: clothes made of multilayered, comfortable material that wouldn't disintegrate under moderate heat. She was eternally grateful that he had been thinking of her for so long and in such a regard that she suggested marriage, which Valterius only declined until such a time as the Creature would be defeated.

While Kara and Sonya took Krystal on many of their hunts to locate the Creature, Alice and Val ran the mini-civilization and began to grow the concept of saving those in need when one of the city's human children fell gravely ill. They saved the child and began to recruit more free Vampyres in this way, simultaneously forming a working force for a grander city and an army should the day come that the Pyrates, their attacks few and far between now that they were in hiding, should ever come to light. Knowing that medical research and the industrial revolution had advanced the forefront of science, Alice went to universities once again, this time officially obtaining multiple degrees in her own name. Immediately afterward, Kara and Sonya's spies in Germany led Val and Alice on a mission to locate and retrieve a synthetic blood created by Dr. Sigmund Rascher, a vile Nazi scientist performing work and torture within the Dachau Prison Camp.

With Kara and Sonya joining the mission, they were successful in retrieving the synthetic blood prototype and learning that the Creature, who hadn't been seen in over a century, had given himself a name and now appeared to blend in more with the human population. This began Kara's hunt, and although the cat-and-mouse game had been in effect for some time, Schillinger (The Creature) had turned her pursuits closer toward a game of chess that was tilted in his favor. Kara, Sonya, and Kara were ambushed during a mission in the USSR (Soviet Republic) and sequestered away in a Gulag. They were tortured for several weeks, experimented on, and Kara was forced to conceive and deliver two of Schillinger's children: Ava and Anna. While Ava was stolen away quickly, his lack of notice that Kara was delivering twins triggered a violent instinct in Alice as she formulated a brutal, all-out assault on the fortress to escape. With Sonya's help, they were successful and Sonya returned to the United States with Anna before delivering the child to reputable caregivers within the United States' foster system. Alice remained in hiding with Kara, coaching and counseling through her grief, depression, rage, and traumatic memories while ensuring that Kara had proper care and diagnoses.

Upon return to the city afterward, Alice set aside her search for the Vampyre Virus' cure until Schillinger could be permanently removed as a threat. Seeing that he had a growing empire, Alice knew well that there was little recourse in needing to engage the enemy directly. She tended to Kara for several years while the rest of the Counsel began rotations. Once Kara had regained some sense of herself and improved her psychological wellness to a degree, Alice informed Kara of her children, the memories of which she had suppressed to avoid the traumatic implications of such a tragic series of events. In an unprecedented move, as Alice had expected Kara to want to destroy or forget her children, she adopted Anna under the name Violet: a name reflecting the young girl's color of fascination as an artist. Alice took great care of her development until Violet confided in her at the age of 19 in 2007, where she requested that Alice convert her to "fit in." Being unwilling to carry the weight of such a decision, she passed the request along to Kara, who complied for reasons of safety and protection, and made Alice Violet's godmother should Kara be killed in combat.

Little changed in Alice's life over the next several years, only taking a sharp turn upon the beginning of the events in *Affliction*, setting her on a path with the rest of Kara's Counsel and the free Vampyres that would change the course of history.

## Personality & Beliefs

Valterius often describes Alice as a "genius" and nothing more, and while technically true, is an incomplete albeit kind compliment. Alice's sense of goodwill, high spirits, and dedication for the cause of free Vampyres led her to be close friends with Sonya even after the injuries Sonya sustained during the events of *Affliction*. In *Desolation*, Alice experienced a set of extraordinary traumas within a very close timeframe, and Kara has stated in the years following that only someone with Alice's psychological strength could have held herself upright in the days and weeks following, let alone recovering without the events permanently altering her view of the world. While those events haunted her until the end of her days, she believed strongly that everything held its proper place in the universe and that seeing the brand of evil she witnessed was a reason to continue with her strength, not to allow it to crumble.

Alice has retained many of her Christian roots, and although not shared in the same depth by Valterius, she acknowledges many of the *concepts* of the religion than its more literal teachings. She believes in some form of an afterlife after having experienced too many inexplicable encounters with those close to death and takes solace in silent prayer during times of hardship. Regardless of her personal beliefs, she keeps her business to herself out of both a feeling of isolation (as many Vampyres are agnostic) and as a matter of allowing the beliefs of her patients to go unbiased against her own opinions.

Alice and Val are both members of Mensa, with her online forum username set to *thehot1* that continuously engages against Val in various online debates regarding various aspects of theology, philosophy, and various branches of science. While some users have deduced that they are a husband-wife couple, they largely act as though they don't know each other, and it is occasionally seen by Alice as a fun precursor to romantic role-play.

## Description

Alice is five feet and seven inches tall, but her slimming lab coats and air of professionalism typically make her appear taller to her patients in spite of choosing comfortable sneakers for daily wear over more fashionable or height-adjusting footwear. Although her waist size is often the subject of jokes from her sister, she maintains a marginally-increased hip and waist size over her counterpart. While many of Aerael's men find her desirable (often verbalized under the influence of pre-surgical anesthesia), her most noticeable features are the natural, deep-red hair from her Irish-Spanish heritage and her emerald-green eyes, along with the pale skin that accompany most of the Counsel's origins from Western European genetics. While not as pale as her sister, Alice has been known to sport a few flattering freckles after prolonged periods in the sun, although Vampyres are unable to maintain a natural tan from sunlight. Alice supposes this to be a genetic trait untouched by their virus while Val simply brushes the matter off as "cute."

## Titles

### *Pyro*

A codename used to help herself and Kara escape from the USSR and return to Aerael in the 1980's.

### *Doc*

A quirky and lighthearted nickname used by the Counsel, the people of Aerael, and her husband. This nickname was used when Krystal, Sonya, and Alice donated Violet's *Love and Sorrow* painting to Boston's SoWa Artists' Guild.

### *The Hot One*

A long-standing battle between the citizens of Aerael, no one would dare rank Kara's beauty against any other. The Vicente sisters, on the other hand, seemed to be fair game as they were less threatening (at times) than their empress. Alice seemed to have finally won the battle in 2039, when Alice received custom, heat-resistant scrubs from Valterius as a gift upon appointment as the United States Surgeon General with the embroidered lettering "The Hot One" directly under her title. Although she wore scrubs very little during the later years of her profession, her later endeavors upon stepping down made the gift a prized possession, and one that her sister never again contested to out of respect.

## Relationships

The sisters Allison and Catherine (later known as Krystal) were converted early in the Revolutionary War, and were under strict orders to remain under Valterius' care to learn reading and writing. As he raised the pair and taught the sisters of their new life's meaning, the virus sped up their physiological growth and imbued them with supernatural abilities. Taking extra time with Alice to help teach patience, meditation, and mindfulness to control her fiery outbursts, Allison began to fall deeply and madly in love with her tutor. More than once, her clothes would burn away from an 'accidental' combustion, and Val would be subjected to her attempts at persuasion. His perception of her age (being eighteen at the time but a hundred years his junior) led to a sense of guilt as he held back his own feelings until nearly ten years later in 1788, when he realized that she truly was a grown woman and was capable of making rational decisions about her desires. When he asked her suddenly if anything had changed about the way she felt, her clothes turned to ash and they both agreed to a relationship.

They were formally engaged in 2015, minutes after Kara and Jalix's wedding, and were married by Jared the following day. They have two children: Jared Donovan Valencia (JD) and Annemarie Vivian Valencia, as well as several nieces and a nephew from Kara's children.

## Expanded Universe - Epilogues

*(SERIES-WIDE SPOILERS AHEAD)*

Some of the following content is considered to be *Expanded Universe*, and is not expressly stated in the series:

Alice and Val were inseparable for the remainder of their lives, and evolved from Val hand-stitching soft leather for her clothing (the only fire-resistant clothing material widely available in the 18th century) to commissioning special-order scrubs for her with the inscription *The Hot One* when she became the United States Surgeon General in 2039. While marriages in Aerael and Vanaheim were often unofficial to the United States Government unless paperwork was forged out of necessity for couples that lived outside of Aerael, Valterius 'remarried' Alice in 2037 under Amelia's new Marriage Equality Act, which was a federal law that made all marriage between two people of any gender, whether human, Vampyre, or both, legal and binding without the need for a religious officiant (instead following the legal procedures associated with the practice). Amy herself served as the governmental officiant for the wedding, and Kara and Sonya signed as witnesses to make their marriage finally legal after centuries of love for one another. As a wedding gift, Amy's restructuring of the United States Government led to new federal holidays, and one was dubbed Commitment Day (first observed June 12, 2037) to honor and celebrate romantic and familial relationships with Alice and Val portrayed as the story behind the holiday. Theirs became one of fable and spiraled out of control in popular media. A popular romance/comedy show was filmed based on their relationship entitled *Passion in Fire* and was largely well-received by critics and audiences. Valterius and Alice refused to watch it, citing personal reasons.

In the epilogues of Despair, Alice and Valterius have two children: Jared Donovan Valencia (JD) and Annemarie Vivian Valencia. Both names are in honor of fallen family, with JD's name in memory of Jared Demetrius Thompson and Annemarie's name and initials originating from Annabelle(Violet). While Annemarie would go on to graduate from the renewed New Harvard School of Law at the age of 18 and eventually be appointed as a Supreme Court Justice in her late thirties, JD worked in the field of particle physics and would have two physical principles named after him: the observed dark-matter interaction on gravitational fields known as the Valencia-Knorr Law of Balance and a new link between General Relativity and quantum physics known as the Ridge-Valencia Principle. The children buried both of their parents during the same week in 2078, with Allison passing in her sleep peacefully the day after their three-hundredth anniversary together and Val passing in the same manner the following evening. They hold a specially-appointed joint plot in Arlington National Cemetery in honor of their contributions to the new world and the reformed United States, and in 2084, the New Harvard School of Medicine was renamed Harvard's Valencia College of Medical Sciences. Both of their children hold an active membership with Mensa.