Marta Elise

Marta Elise AKA Drakaina, was a normal human and resident of the Belgian Congo before being abducted by the Nazi scientist Viktor Rosenberg who used a chemical known as Eiter to mutate her into a draconic form. Escaping Rosenberg's influence.

## Marta Elise

### Aliases

Drakaina, She Drache, The Black Dragon of Prague

### Powers

Enhanced Strength, Enhanced Durability, Flight, Flamethrowing Abilities, Regeneration Factor

## **Creation**

Drakaina
was first imagined as an ancient serpent priestess, and idea that stuck around
until the actual writing of her first appearance, where the setting was changed
from Ancient Greece to WWII. Ultimately the priestess character would survive
as Menrva, who was introduced a little later in the Amazon's series.

Now set
in a completely different time period, a number of things were used to create a
composite character, including the German attacks on the Belgian Congo, the Fa
223 'Drache' Helicopter as well as some aspects of the serpent priestess who
spawned the character design.

## **Character History**

### **Birth of the Dragon**

What the
name of the woman who would become Drakaina was is unknown, even to the current
day, as is what she did before being captured by the SS Special Projects
Division, as well as what her life was like before her transformation. During
her incarceration she was experimented on, and would likely have seen many of
her friends tortured and mutated into something inhuman due to exposure to
Eiter, a pain she would experience but survive shortly before agents of the
Wermarcht arrived at the laboratory complex

This
arrival of outside force forced head scientist Viktor Rosenberg to accelerate
his plans and unleash the newly formed Drakaina into battle. To that end he set
Drakaina on the reconnaissance unit, but ultimately the source of the Eiter, an
ancient wyrm dubbed 'Drachenkönig' by the staff working on site, interrupted
any potential fight and killed Rosenberg by dousing him in the very chemicals
he had used in his experiments. Drakaina would be escorted away from the
facility by Karl Elise, who had been exposed to the Eiter himself, with the
pair of them heading north towards allied lines.

### **Irregular Asset**

Leaving
the Congo behind, Karl and Drakaina were surrendered to the British Armed
Forces in Tripoli, with the former offering information about Rosenberg's
experiments and German forces in the Mediterranean in exchange for amnesty. The
pair were then taken to the United States to be debriefed, and integrated into
a new unit consisting on 'irregular combatants' unsuitable for integration with
rank and file army units. As predicted the men and women gathered were
unimpressed in working together, but ultimately their experience in both active
combat and on the home-front convinced the group to accept their orders and
head to Venice where a joint Italian and German task-force was weaponising
chemical weapons.

### **The Serpent's Curse**

Drakaina
and the other members of the 121st Irregulars participated in Operation Market
Garden acting in conjunction with the 11th Canadian Tank Regiment to overrun
the German defenders. Unfortunately for the allied forces recent success in
Italy, North Africa and Crete had forced the Nazis to be creative, when it came
to fighting the Irregulars. One of these bold ideas was to hire a skilled snake
charmer Sao Wunna from Burma to control Drakaina and return her to the hands of
her original masters.

Effectively turning her, Sao Wunna unleashed Drakaina on the 11th Canadian Tank Regiment, with
the 'She-Drache' destroying the entire regiment, save for a few unlucky souls
who suffered from painful third degree burns for the rest of their lives. Taken
down by the other Irregulars, Drakaina was locked away for the next few months
until Sao Wunna was captured, and his flute broken.

### **Post War Activity**

World War II ended with deadly consequences for the 121st Irregulars, with the death of
Frank Thomas in Prague at the hands of a death squad known as the Dark March.
The March's influence over the city was so sinister that the Czech resistance,
Russian Liberation Force and German defenders were ready to put their
differences temporarily aside to aid the Irregulars in halting the Dark March's
advance. During this time Drakaina became known as the Black Dragon of Prague
and set half the city ablaze in an attempt to cleanse it.

Eventually after three months of continued warfare, the Dark March were defeated, but the
actions of the surviving Irregular members were deemed 'undefendable' by Allied
Command and resulted in dishonourable discharges. Karl and Drakaina, now
calling herself Marta after the fallen leader of the Prague resistance,
returned to Germany where British Intelligence hired them as agents to help
topple remaining Nazi resistance as well as potential Soviet incursions over
the next thirty years until just after the Berlin Wall was toppled and Germany
was reunified.

## **Powers**

Drakaina's
hybrid reptile/human physiology granted her enhanced strength and durability,
as demonstrated on various occasions. The later trait is enhanced via a rapid
regeneration effect linked to the level of adrenaline in Drakaina's system,
with high levels of the hormone decreasing the time to heal from minor wounds
to a few hours, and major ones to a couple of days. That said, strong constant
doses of sedative shut down this 'healing factor', whilst being rendered in a
comatose state shuts it down all together, with even minor wounds having the
potential to become life threatening.

As the
draconic nature of her appearance suggests, Drakaina has a flame throwing
ability, and is able to project a jet of black flame to a range of 200m. This
flame is hot enough to melt flesh, and the chemical nature of the eiter based
accelerant in Drakaina's body, used to fuel the fire, causes the burn to
continue feeling as if it is a flame for the rest of the subject's life, even
when immersed in water. A side effect of this accelerant storage is that it
caused Drakaina to be constantly warm, something that's a hindrance in warm
climates, and that ignored can cause her to fall into a comatose state.

This
constant warm temperature aids in flight, with the increased thermal output and
large bat like wings attached to a bird like sternum working in concert to
create lift. While this gives great straight line speed, Drakaina's turning
circle is relatively wide, and should she overshoot her target, she requires a
fair amount of room to turn back around.