Viper : Origins

**Viper : Origins** is a Story Arc of the Exteria Multiverse. It takes place in Interra and follows the perspective of broken hero Viper.

## Story Arc

### Viper is Born

A young girl witnesses as her family is murdered in a terrorist accident, and seems to die herself. When she wakes up, a strange woman known as Lapis pretends to have retrieved her from the ground and helps her with recovering, although the girl has lost her memories and the ability to possess physical sensations. Although maddened, the young girl accepts Lapis's training.

Given a moral code and a strong education, the young girl becomes known as Viper and quickly fights in the dark, criminal town of **Bethsaida**, fighting in the town's illegal fighting rings and attracting chairman Elios's attention. Quickly becoming one of the town's most talented fighters, Viper quickly encounters Tropia Raines, a sadistic criminal mind with a taste for chaos who becomes her arch-rival.

### I Stand Alone

Viper soon finds another rival in Penance, another hero, who unlike Viper does not hesitate to kill criminals. Despite being at first enemies, Viper and Penance eventually teams up after discovering that Penance, like her, is not exactly human, and knows the culprit of their state of being : a mysterious silver witch. Penance somewhat softens as he chooses to join Viper's side.

After learning of mysterious terrorist incidents tied to a mysterious Preacher, Viper investigates and finds that said Preacher, alongside Baron Kenrick Blackbear, are tied to Elios and seem to provoke mysterious incidents at various places of the town. As she investigates, Viper also encounters Starshooter, a mysterious young girl possessing eerie powers, and who was saved by the same witch as Viper and Penance.

### Forbidden Alchemy

While attempting to stop further attacks, Viper seeks the truth in the town's underground tunnels, as hinted by Tropia and by the strange alchemic symbols leading there. She encounters Maggie Magpie, a young thief who was investigating for a mysterious stone in town; but the latter is quickly shot and killed by one of the Preacher's men. However, Sheina, a silvery young woman, takes Maggie in and saves her.

Viper interrogates Sheina only to discover that she resurrects people through her incomplete powers over Alchemy to save them and protect the city from the influence of her own father, Asaelar, the man Elios seeks to resurrect through repeated sacrifices. Sheina also tells Viper that the "stone" Maggie sought was Lapis herself - and Viper rushes home only to see that Lapis was kidnapped.

### A League of Assassins

Viper and the rest of her group rush to the underground tunnels only to find Lapis defended by mercenary Ingra Karnaj. He proves to be a fearsome opponent to Viper, but she eventually wins, defeating him and saving Lapis, bringing her back. Not long afterwards, an official proclamation asks for Viper's troupe - including Tropia who chose to join Viper only to spite Elios - to fight against Elios's champions in an underground match.

However, the underground match turns to be a trap, with Visna Karnaj forcing Lapis to show herself once more only to kidnap her with the assistance of Elios's agent Talon Woodrow. Viper rushes to take Lapis back from Talon on a sinking, rigged ship, and manages to prevent it from crashing and sacrifice more people for Asaelar's cruel ritual.

### The Ritual's End

Talon is however unsatisfied with the interrupted fight, challenging Viper to another fight. The brutal battle culminates with Talon being defeated - and Asaelar briefly manifesting to transmute him into a formidable beast of Miasma, whom Viper barely defeats after he completes the second-to-last sacrifice for Asaelar's ritual. As Elios has no other agents, with his enforcer Bonecrusher choosing to follow Viper, the party closes in on him.

Elios of course has taken advantage of this to lure the party into a trap, attempting to quickly complete the ritual by using the group as a sacrifice, revealing himself to be a Divine Servant. However, Viper manages to outsmart him by counting on the isolated Visna and Ingra, whom she discretely paid, to counter Elios's plans - allowing her to barely disrupt Asaelar's ritual and destroy Elios's physical body, calm returning over Bethsaida.

## Characters

* Viper
* Tropia Raines
* Penance
* Starshooter
* Maggie Magpie
* Lapis
* Sheina
* Elios
* Asaelar
* Bonecrusher
* Ingra Karnaj
* Visna Karnaj
* Talon Woodrow
* Other Viper Saga Characters

## Trivia

* The context and events of this Storyline are inspired by noir superhero tropes and follows a similar narration.