Painwheel

## Not Quite Condemned

"Cleansed, retribution - to hell with that! Even if you defend these halls with your blood, it will be 'your' blood your so-called God feasts on!"

### Occupation

None (formerly a student)

**Painwheel** (also known as **Carol**) is one of the initial playable characters from ***Skullgirls.***

## Canon

Painwheel used to be an innocent, unassuming schoolgirl, until the day her life turned around. Someone once with a clueless smile, Painwheel only had one close friend before that time - Filia, a fellow classmate, who had recently found, and I quote, a parasite which had found its way onto a dog. Though it is said that Carol was wronged somehow, what exactly happened is unclear - but not too long after, she fell into the hands of the Medici - basically her world's mafia - and kidnapped alongside fellow resident Peacock - where they both wound up sent to different places, bundled together with refugees found in the No Man's Land. In direct response, Lab Zero sent a group known as The Last Hope to find the refugees and secure them lest Lab 8 takes care of other matters. This is when Carol first came into contact with Valentine, one of her two future 'creators' - and was taken back to Lab Zero under the orders of the psychokinetic Brain Drain (pictured slightly).

Then the experiments began. Carol's former self no longer existed as she was experimented on greatly by both of these two, and now more of a living weapon than a human child - now the host of two parasites (Buer Drive and Gae Bolga) and experimental Skullgirl blood to make her said monster she now is. To test said powers, Painwheel was dispatched to absolutely ravage the Medici - a name she remembered, and she absolutely destroyed them (though it is implied they had a run in with Big Band - who will become more important later). She is told, after her mission, the Medicis were the ones who kidnapped her, and... away she runs, left to her own devices by Valentine - who was the one who told her in the first place.

Painwheel returned to Maplecrest in pursuit of seeing her parents again, but the damage had already been done. There was nothing she could do to go back, and her life had changed entirely.

## Pre-Paradise

A run in with Big Band 'after' her entire backstory later, Painwheel finds herself in the care of Lab 8 after getting frankly destroyed by the stated one man band, as she yet tried to resist Brain Drain and his control over her. She resisted, and after that, is implied to have gotten a great deal of help, distanced from the people that ruined her life, for the most part. Of course, she 'did' get let out every once in a while - where one day, one more Medici massacre follows until Painwheel passes out and suddenly wakes up in Multiverse Paradise, with no recollection of how she got there, only what she was previously doing.

## Plot Involvement

One day, on a casual walk, Painwheel stumbled along the docks - which among other things, had a broken old ship there, some dude named Blackjack, and an island shrouded in fog around it and over the waters. Fortunately, she wouldn't be the only one to notice any of those things - as she was later joined by 6/7 others (Negan, Doctor Starline, Eddie/Venom, Akari, Ezekiel and Kassandra) to investigate this mess. The rumour was some cultist activities were happening out there - something about sacrifices, but there were supposedly riches out there. At the mention of these, Painwheel prompted a 'cleaning squad' - of course, and went with these people. A walk through a courtyard later 'after' arriving to this island over the previously mentioned boat, the group found Frollo in a cathedral on that same island. Painwheel, as the man talked, did 'not' take kindly to being called a beast... several times. He claimed himself to be a judge of God, and intended to cleanse them all via trial by fire. The talking suddenly stops and the team massacred the mage, with Negan landing the finishing blow - and after Frollo's passing, a passage to an underground mine was revealed.

After the group entered the underground mine, they were quickly greeted to multiple rusted pickaxes and various miner's helmets - though some helmets were in better condition, some were far worse. Needless to say, in the ambient situation, these abandoned pieces of equipment got Painwheel's attention - and she stayed at the back of the group upon their entry. The group eventually spotted a minecart full of diamonds - but before they can even act to get close to it, they heard slow, almost sarcastic clapping from behind them - prompting Painwheel, and the others, to turn around. There, they are met with a certain, cane-wielding and hat-wearing man - Roman Torchwick - who then went on to break down the situation, and build on it more. He says there are two MPF members present - which Painwheel later asked about (confirmed by Akari to be true as he and Kassandra had encountered Roman in the past), that and a mention of a Ganondorf. Never the less, Roman explained that there is no 'crazy cult place' here, despite what they were all told and came here for. Cue the questioning - she asked him who he was, he obliged, but she'd also asked what he was doing here - who said the island belonged to him and 'his' people.

Then Roman spoke even more. He explained what the original plan was, just after he said he was after something far more valuable than the minecart full of diamonds near him (more accurately, he said 'we' - referring to the aforementioned 'people' he spoke of) - to lure the group out to this island with the cult thing and promise a reward - hence the diamonds (done), and leave Frollo to wipe them all out (failed, he died). He said that would force the group to join the mine they're now standing in (to join the other not-cultists, apparently) - doing manual labour, the mining. But seeing as Frollo and said workers were dead, Roman deployed a plan B - with a device in his hand, he pressed a singular button on it to trigger an explosion - sealing him off (with the diamond minecart) away from the others, as the rocks kept falling to cave the others in. A brief escape later, the group makes it to where the cathedral 'was' - now only met with rubble, a building that no longer stands, as though the explosions were based there. After their exit, the mine was sealed off by the falling rocks - and to put it lightly, the whole island - what they can see right now at least - is an even bigger mess than it was formerly.

Not much else happened from here onwards, but Painwheel's attention was fixated on getting off the 'dying rock' she and the others were on, while gaining an interest in whoever these Shareholder people were, thanks to input by Akari and Kassandra - while pretty much everyone else was fixated on getting a reward (something Painwheel did not complain about - to her, that was a bonus). When these rewards 'were' handed out, Painwheel received a green orb of magical energy known as a Materia - and though Blackjack presented and tossed out multiple (4 green, 1 yellow), the green Materia that Painwheel wound up with was a fire Materia - and following his example, promptly absorbed it into her so it was ready for use... then just went over to the boat to return to the main island(s) because the work here was done.

The next time Painwheel was seen was out in the wild - nearing a lake. Having been able to distribute a notice that she was looking for a challenge (after extensive off-screen practice), Painwheel sought to test her skills - and adapt to her new fire Materia by incorporating it into her fighting skills. Having swiftly been found by Kris and his companion known as Elena, a brief conversation occurred in order to confirm this challenge that Painwheel was looking for (it is presumed she sent it out via the phone provided to her by the Paradise Hotel, like everyone else). With the confirmation aside and some sparring rules set, Kris and Painwheel began to spar with Elena acting as a referee. However, this bout would not reach a 'win' or 'lose' conclusion - rather, it ended in a draw. During the combat, Kris grew weary of Painwheel as he noted what she could do - her human form taking various shapes and sizes - and when he asked what she was, Painwheel stopped fighting then and there and simply explained in the past to get to who she is. Upon hearing this information, Kris refused to keep fighting her in light of this information. On the other hand, Kris later mentioned that he knew a certain someone - Big Band - and could get into contact with them - a name that Painwheel was all too familiar with (but hadn't been made aware that Big Band was even here in the first place). Big Band had mentioned Painwheel by her name (according to Kris) when the two conversed on the chatroom, and upon hearing Big Band was here, Painwheel voiced her surprise that he was here and accepted Kris' offer. After she received Big Band's contact information from Kris, the two parted ways - and Painwheel then registered onto the chatroom for the first time - first using it to directly message Big Band.

Shortly after this, Painwheel was just heading into the Paradise Island Fair (which she told Big Band that she was heading there at the end of their conversation) - an event hosted by the Shareholders. Included on the guest list as revealed by Toffee, Painwheel made her way there soon after she found out. However, before she entered - Painwheel met Kurante near the entrance, who quickly latched onto her as the angel didn't want to go alone - and despite Painwheel trying to shrug her off, she had no way to 'win' against the angel's insistence. Prior to this, Painwheel refused to tell the angel her name - and the two walked through the entrance to the fairgrounds as a duo.

After they both entered, the duo met Dick Gumshoe while trying to search for someone to meet and/or something to do - but having found Gumshoe first, the duo (as instigated by Kurante) went over to talk to him, much to Painwheel's reluctance to the idea. Gumshoe already had a pair of candy floss cones - which he had gotten from a machine nearby (Painwheel asked where he got them from, and Gumshoe guided them - Painwheel ate hers right away). However, when introductions came alone, Painwheel still refused to introduce herself to Kurante 'or' Gumshoe, until a bit of encouragement from them both - to which she reluctantly did so anyways. Shortly after this, the duo of Painwheel and Kurante began to leave Gumshoe alone - only to be disrupted when both their phones began buzzing to life. Cue the Scarecrow's broadcast and his orange gas flooding the fairgrounds. Kurante was the first to succumb to this between the two of them - and though Painwheel resisted its effects if only briefly, it wouldn't take too long for even her to lose any resistance she had, falling under the same effects as her vision began distorting and showing her the thing she feared the most.

What met Painwheel, when she got her vision back, was a warped version of her home village - the sky was red, everything but her was in greyscale, and most of the trees were bare. No other people or animals existed, it was just her and the atmosphere - but as she wandered around and investigated, this vision had some interesting tricks in store for her. For one, bowls of food and water left out could not be moved no matter how hard she tried - and when she later visited her own home in this alternate version of her home village, she would knock on it twice before attempting to push the door open - which succeeded... then she entered and was met with a great deal of damaged furniture on the other side, and when she turned around to the door behind her, her knocking had made a shiny new dent in it. Upon further inspection, a birthday banner was left hanging over a window, and on one lonely and intact table, a birthday cake with a single, unlit candle. Before she went to approach this cake, she could hear sobbing noises, but not see anyone nearby - until she turned around and saw visions of her grieving parents, missing her - their daughter - for they had been separated from her for years - and though she could see them both, neither of them could see her. Painwheel proceeded to begin breaking down, and the vision of her parents faded - slowly realising what was going on. She returned her eyes to the lonely cake in the room, tore her mask off, eventually placing it on the intact table, and continued to break down - speaking to herself to vent about her feelings as though she is talking to her parents (who aren't there) as she identifies her fear - the fear of the future. As she kept talking, the girl slowly gave in and let her emotions free - grabbing the cake from the intact table and holding it against her - the cake of which seeming immune to damage, for the force was not altering it in any form. By the time she was done, she had later dropped the cake on the floor and put it back on the table with her blade - only to then turn around and notice a family photo of a younger version of herself, side-by-side with her parents. To Painwheel, this vision told let her confront the fact she believes she has no future, for she has no reason to keep going in the first place - no family to return to, either. She's just a human turned beast, and she has to live with that for the rest of her life. Painwheel continued to drown herself in her sorrows, crying intensively the whole time she was venting - and over time, it had kept getting worse.

Cue the fear master's voice suddenly cutting in, to which Painwheel grabbed her mask and once again concealed her face as he began to speak to her. She was digging for hope she may not even get - trying to breathe underwater, with no air close by to use to save herself. Though Scarecrow mentioned that Painwheel understood what she gained and lost as well as who she is and what she is better than most, he only told her one thing... She can't do anything, and there is no reason for her to keep going. Does Painwheel listen? In spite of what he said, some of it being correct, Painwheel refused to give up - wanting to rebuild her future with her own blood, sweat, tears, and her own two hands - saying there was nothing Scarecrow could do about it. However, after she responded, or while she was responding, Scarecrow was suddenly nowhere to be seen - reduced to nothing but dust, now lying in a pile of it - an act carried out by Doctor Doom. Per his following announcement, Painwheel took a moment to make her way 'out' of the door to her home in her vision and look back on it once more, saying a farewell, before making her way to the nearest Doombot to guide her to an exit - or just the exit itself. To Painwheel, this establishes the Shareholders (with Doom in the ranks) will indeed act on their words, for better or worse - but she also considers the fact that Scarecrow may have been a threat to them as well, and not just the residents of Paradise who went to the fairgrounds like she did. Regardless, fighting with poor breathing and her poor vision, the young and monstrous girl quickly saw herself to an exit - as soon as she could for her usual stomping pace.

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## Trivia

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