Sole

## Origins

The Ramirez family has a long legacy of police service, and **Soledad Ramirez**’s future was written in the stars ever since she was born to **Victor** and **Gloria Ramirez**, both decorated police officers in their own right. Though she didn’t see much of her parents as she was growing up, they instilled positive values in her, and she grew up with a clear sense of right and wrong.

Through school, Soledad was always more interested in sports and active subjects than the more academic subjects, but her parents pushed her to try and achieve highly in both, seeing a strong career in the police force if she was able to concentrate on her studies. Things were thrown off track slightly when she was fifteen and her parents suddenly announced that they were getting divorced, completely blindsiding Soledad and her younger brother **Carlos**.

The next few years were tough as the siblings were shuttled back and forth between the two parents, and Soledad threw herself into her schoolwork as a distraction from the family drama, becoming an exemplary student and skilled sportswoman. She was accepted into the **Steelville Police Academy** soon after graduation, and began training to follow in the footsteps of her parents.

Carlos, on the other hand, rebelled against the family legacy and fell into petty crime, committing acts of vandalism and minor theft with a group of friends who were considered a bad influence on him. Soledad and their parents tried to scare him straight a few times, but the more aggressive their attempted intervention, the further into his new world Carlos withdrew. Trusting her brother to find his own way, Soledad focused on her police training and soon graduated from the Academy and went straight into her first beat.

### Police Career

Excelling as she always did, Soledad rose quickly through the ranks, although she found herself frequently turning down promotions offered because of her family name, instead preferring to earn her commendations the old fashioned way. It wasn’t long before she had achieved the rank of **Detective**, working under **Sergeant Ana Greer**, a no-nonsense woman who had similarly climbed the ranks of the force under her own steam, and who took Soledad under her wing.

An early case as Detective shook Soledad’s confidence, as she was forced to arrest and bring charges against her brother Carlos, who was ultimately sent to prison because of her actions. This caused some ructions within the family, and led to Soledad cutting off contact with her mother for some time. Again throwing herself into her work, she began working with Greer on the **Jack Hartford** case, attempting to catch a renowned thief operating in the Steelville area.

Hartford was a young man who excelled in planning the strategy and tactics required to carry out high profile robberies and he always seemed to slip through the net and evade capture. He was smart and pragmatic, making sure each member of his crew was well-looked after to the point that even those who had been arrested and questioned over their involvement in the crimes refused to say anything which could implicate Hartford. Soledad was frequently frustrated with the case, but a small part of her respected Hartford for his work ethic and refusal to use violent force, never harming civilians as part of his jobs.

In 1993, having worked on the Jack Hartford case for three years, Soledad received an anonymous tip that Hartford was about to steal an object from an old house on the Upper East Side of the city. With limited resources and not enough time to put a team together, Soledad headed to the house alone and caught Hartford in the act of stealing a large antique book from the house.

A tense standoff ensued which resulted in Soledad and Hartford shooting each other, and as they both fell to the floor and the life drained out of them, their blood mingled in a pool on the floorboards and soaked into the pages of the book Hartford had been there to steal.

### Bonded

A few moments after their apparent deaths, both of them suddenly awoke, returned to life by the ethereal light glowing from the pages of the book and watched over by a strange old man who introduced himself as **Kazdan Credence**, the owner of both the house and the book, and a powerful sorcerer.

Credence explained that he had been watching the pair for some time as he had seen that their destinies were intertwined, and he had manipulated events to get them both to the house that night: he had been the one who hired Hartford to steal the book, and also the one who called in the anonymous tip to Soledad.

Both Hartford and Soledad stormed out of the house, enraged at the deception and agreeing to forget this strange night ever happened and go back to how things were beforehand. Returning to work immediately, Soledad nonetheless began to feel sick over the following days, tired and run down as though she was about to come down with the flu. Whenever she closed her eyes she saw flashes of strange colours, odd creatures and in the middle of it all was Jack Hartford.

As her condition did not improve over the next few days regardless of the amount of medication she dosed herself up with, Soledad began to suspect that Credence had exposed her to something strange in the house that night and it was making her sick. She resolved to head back to the house and confront the old man, but as she reached the door she was interrupted by the arrival of Jack, looking similarly unwell and apparently suffering from the same symptoms and visions as she was.

Credence welcomed them both into the house and explained that the book they had both come into contact with was known as **The Palladian Grimoire** and acted as a key to the realms of magic. As they had both allowed their blood to soak into the pages of the book, the door had opened and they now had access to a vast reservoir of magical energy. However, as the blood ritual had not gone quite to plan, there were some odd caveats to this power. Firstly, as it had been completed with the blood of two people rather than one, the power would be split evenly between the two of them. Secondly, the fact that they had both died during the ritual meant that the transfer of power was greater than in previous rituals as the sacrifice was complete and took both of their lives. Thirdly, as the ritual had connected the two of them, it had bonded their souls together and now they would be unable to be apart.

Soledad refused to believe any of this, and Jack was also skeptical, but Credence pointed out that they had both seemingly recovered from the illness they were suffering from since they had been in close proximity to one another. Still somewhat unconvinced, they nonetheless agreed to spend a few days with Credence as he showed them more about the worlds of magic.

### Magical Training

Over the next few days, Credence showed the pair that magic existed alongside the physical world and the power that they now had access to would allow them to manipulate and shape it for their own purposes. He realised that Jack would have control over the physical world, allowing him to conjure the elements and heal maladies; while Soledad was granted command over the immaterial realm, allowing her to affect the soul and spirit of living things as well as the forces that underpin the whole universe. They both learned how to use this magic for a series of small feats, but both had lives that they needed to return to and agreed to visit Credence's house twice a week to continue their education.

Jack seemed enthusiastic about learning more from Credence, seeing this as an opportunity to grow beyond the criminal he seemed destined to become, but Soledad was more hesitant. She saw the dangers of the magical world, and having lived her life conforming to the power of order, she was reticent to open the doors to chaos. The pair agreed to a temporary truce while they figured things out, and Jack volunteered to move into a motel just down the road from Soledad's apartment in order to mitigate the worst of the physical symptoms they were both experiencing.

They continued like this for six months, until Credence gave them an ultimatum: they were reaching a point of no return in their training, and needed to decide now whether they were in or out. There would be no hard feelings one way or another, but he needed to be sure that they were both committed to the cause and willing to go further.

Asking for one more day to make up their minds, Jack and Soledad went back to their respective homes to make a final decision. Although she had enjoyed their time together and the world of magic had been amazing and eye-opening, Soledad wanted to go back to her normal life and stick to the things she knew. She felt some doubt about this, but reassured herself that it was the right thing to do, and the next day she returned to the house to give Credence his answer.

The old man did not answer the door when she rang the doorbell as he usually did, and when she touched the door she found that it was open. Creeping into the house, she headed to Credence's drawing room and found the old man dead, surrounded by dark insectoid creatures that were seemingly swarming out of his hall closet. Soledad managed to fend them off and make her way to Credence's body, and had just reached it when Jack walked in and saw the chaos. Jack threw a quick and dirty spell at the creatures, pushing them back into the closet and slamming the door shut, but the small victory was cut short by the arrival of a man calling himself **Sebastian Sheldrake**, who claimed that he had come to reclaim magic for himself.

He revealed that he had taken Credence's power and left the old man to die as the first act of aggression in his war against mortal magic users, and intended to do the same to Jack and Soledad. However, they managed to instinctively combine their magical ability and create a powerful spell which threw Sheldrake back through the door, and although they knew that it was likely only a quick fix and he would return, they were able to rest and take the time to mourn Credence's passing.

### Inheritance

When members of the **Merlinine Council** arrived to take Credence's body away and make preparations for his funeral, they were accompanied by a lawyer who handed over a document to Jack and Soledad. Upon reading it, they were surprised to learn that it was Credence's last will and testament, in which he had left his house to Jack and Soledad, a revelation made even more surprising by the fact that this had been added to the document ten years ago, long before either of them had even met Credence.

That night Jack and Soledad sat down to discuss their future, and Jack informed Soledad that he was completely sold on the world of magic and wanted to go deeper. Soledad told Jack that she had come to the house that night with the express intention of renouncing her magical abilities and going back to her old life, but now that Credence was gone she felt a responsibility to both his own legacy and the larger magical world, and believed that they needed to step up and become the world's magical defenders.

They both moved into the house full time shortly afterwards, and learned from additional documents provided by the lawyer that the **House** was built on an **incursion point**, a meeting point between different realms where the structure of reality was weaker and thus allowed for more interaction between powers and entities from different world. This meant that their new dwelling was a a nexus for creatures from other dimensions, some benevolent but often with malicious purpose, and part of their duty as holders of the estate was to protect the outside world from these strange and threatening beings.

It also meant that the House was part of the structure of reality itself, and any damage done to the fabric of the property could negatively affect the fabric of the universe. Indeed, if the House was destroyed it would likely shatter the barriers between worlds and allow all manner of dark and devious creatures to flood into the mortal realm. As such, they were required to perform maintenance on the House and keep it in a strong condition to mitigate any potential harm to the universe outside, as well as continue their ongoing magical studies.

### Hart and Sole

As home maintenance and protecting reality don't come with a big paycheck, they needed a way to make money for themselves and began offering their services to neighbours and locals to help with any supernatural problems they may have been suffering, trading under the professional names **Hart** and **Sole**. This included exorcisms, basic healing spells and aura cleansing which helped to bring a small amount of money into the household

As their professional relationship and magical skills began to grow, so did their feelings towards each other. Soledad began to realise that Jack was a good and ultimately kind-hearted man who had gone into a life of crime because he felt he had no other option, and she began to feel closer and more comfortable around him as time went on.

One day as they were returning from the **World Under All** where they had been helping a **Seelie Fae** baron defend his people from invading **Goreworms**, covered head to toe in ectoplasm and in need of nothing more than a hot shower, Jack told Soledad that he was in love with her.

Soledad's brain began racing a mile a minute, thinking of every reason a relationship between the two of them couldn't work: they had so much history, they worked together, if things didn't work out then they were literally bonded by the soul and couldn't separate. There were so many reasons for them not to be together, but when she looked into Jack's eyes she couldn't help herself from telling him that she was in love with him too, and they started a messy, confusing and perfect relationship, ultimately getting married in 1995.

### The Eternity Pursuit

At the close of the second millennium on December 31 1999, an unidentified object resonating with vast cosmic power materialised in the exact centre of the **Sahara Desert**. Detecting the considerable energy output of this object, contingents of scientists, military and even superheroes raced to be the first to recover it, some for benevolent purposes and others for more selfish ends.

Hart and Sole were part of this race, teleporting themselves to the location of the object moments before it was retrieved by **Victor Geist**, a ruthless scientist and head of **Geist Industries**. The object was identified as the **Eternity Helm**, a piece of cosmic armour worn by **The Great Titan** and forged in the fires which birthed the universe as we know it. Sole recognised from her studies that it would grant the wearer infinite cosmic knowledge and vast power, evidenced by the fact that Geist was able to quickly dispatch the assembled heroes and escape to his base underneath the **Adirondack Mountains**.

He later reemerged at the **North Pole** and began putting his plan into action, building a huge device which would destroy the Earth and transform it into an entity of pure consciousness, allowing humanity to ascend to a higher plane of existence. Groups of heroes and **Unifiers** dispatched by **UNION** descended on the North Pole in an effort to stop Geist, and Hart and Sole began to plan and enact a ritual they had been considering for a number of years.

As the heroes attempted to dismantle the machine, Hart and Sole completed their ritual and tore back the **Veil** between worlds, freeing the lost hero **Pantheon** and allowing her to join in the fight. Her presence renewed the heroes and ultimately helped to turn the tide against Geist, allowing the heroes to emerge victorious.

Geist, still retaining a portion of the cosmic knowledge the Helm had bestowed upon him but with his sanity degraded as a result, was arrested and imprisoned in **The Vault**, a maximum security penitentiary; and the Eternity Helm was hidden away by Pantheon to ensure it could not be used for any dark purpose in the future.

### Cosmic Knowledge

Unbeknownst to the assembled heroes, during the final battle against Geist, Sole had touched the Eternity Helm and been given a glimpse of the knowledge it had to offer. Although brief, she saw that there was a threat looming in the shadows of the universe, one which could devour everything unless it was halted. She also realised that the ultimate purpose of Geist's plan was to help humanity evade this threat by moving it to another plane of reality entirely.

The Helm had also shown her a vision of many heroes dying or being lost in space and time as a result of combating this threat, including her own husband. She elected to keep this insight a secret from those around her, and vowed that she would do whatever it took to keep her husband safe if and when the darkness came. She continued with her life, but to this day is haunted by a single word which has resonated in her mind and soul since the moment she touched the Helm: **Mordreth**.

### Bedlam

Close to a decade after the Ascendancy was formed, they were nearly shattered by a series of attacks carried out by the superhuman terrorist known as **Bedlam**. After teams of Unifiers and even the government-funded superhero team **The Union** were soundly defeated by the villain, the Ascendancy were called in to bring him to justice. During the battle Hart and Sole were able to restrain Bedlam in a bubble of magical energy, but he somehow managed to shatter it through sheer willpower and incapacitate the entire team.

Bedlam was ultimately subdued by a **Cerberus Unit** working for UNION's secretive deep-black division known as **HADES**. In the aftermath, public opinion of superheroes began to falter, and particular suspicion began to fall on Hart and Sole in their prominent role as sorcerers, with some suspecting that they were hiding dark and dangerous secrets from the world.

### HADES

Sole's instincts from her former life as a Detective started to kick in and she decided that HADES was something that required further investigation. As they looked into it, Hart and Sole discovered that there was strange energy around the division's headquarters and suspected that dark magic rituals were being carried out on the site.

When they presented this theory to the rest of the Ascendancy, it became a key factor in their decision to send former covert operatives **Longsight** and **Scattershot** to infiltrate the division and report back further information. They successfully infiltrated, but soon afterwards they disappeared and were presumed killed by operatives of HADES, around the same time Hart and Sole detected a massive spike in magical energy around their headquarters, leading them to suspect that they had been killed as part of a dark ritual.

Sole in particular felt a large amount of guilt about her role in the loss of the two heroes, and although Hart consoled her it only served to further the divisions in the superhuman community, and the Ascendancy in particular.

### The Cortex Crisis

Not long after the disappearance of Longsight and Scattershot, HADES unveiled their latest project, an advanced artificial intelligence they referred to as **Cortex**. This machine had been built using advanced technology, the dark magic that Hart and Sole had identified around the build site, and cosmic knowledge gleaned from an under the table agreement with the incarcerated Victor Geist, and had been built to analyse and respond to universal threats far more quickly and effectively than teams of superheroes were able to.

However, the machine soon went rogue, killing its creators and launching a series of devastating attacks on the superhuman community. Having built itself a robotic body, Cortex defeated the Ascendancy and escaped with the unconscious bodies of Vanquisher and **Construct**, intending to build itself a new organic body and complete the plan previously attempted by the person it considered its true creator: Victor Geist.

Hart and Sole tracked the malevolent machine using the traces of dark magic that had been used in its creation, and allowed the heroes to launch a combined assault and ultimately defeat and erase Cortex and its programming. In the aftermath, UNION **Director Marcus Cage** made the decision to shutter the entire HADES division and dissolve all ongoing projects, with Hart and Sole taking responsibility for all magical artifacts recovered from their sites.

Since the end of the **Cortex Crisis**, Hart and Sole have assisted in rebuilding UNION from the ground up, particularly acting in an advisory capacity to **UNION-M**, the division of UNION responsible for safeguarding from magical threats.

Their relationship remains strong, but Sole still carries the burden of knowledge she gained from her contact with the Eternity Helm, and feels the darkness growing ever closer.

## Personality

More level-headed and considered than her partner, Sole has a slight tendency towards overthinking people and situations, an impulse which is tempered slightly by Hart's more headstrong attitude. Sole has always struggled with this, the natural intuitiveness that helped her to become a good police officer also negatively affecting many of her personal relationships.

She does, however, have a strong moral compass and always sticks to her guns. Even as a younger woman when she was forced into a position where she had to arrest her younger brother Carlos for his involvement in criminal activity, she knew that it was the right thing to do even if it alienated the rest of her family. She has a strong sense of order and does her best to keep everything as it should be.

This belief in order and logic has been thoroughly challenged in her second life as a sorcerer, and is the reason she didn't take to it quite as instantly or enthusiastically as Hart did. However, over time she has grown to love it, and has even managed to find some semblance of order and structure even in the roiling chaos that is the world of magic.

## Superhuman Abilities

Sole is able to access a vast reservoir of magical energy which allows her to perform incredible feats. Where her partner Hart is able to command these energies to interact with and affect the physical realm, Sole has dominion over the immaterial.

This means she is able to create an astral form which she can project to other people over many hundreds of miles, read people's minds and emotions and even subtly manipulate them, although overuse of this facet of her skills is frowned upon by the magical community. While Hart can use his magic to heal physical maladies, Sole is able to cure afflictions of the soul, mending broken spirits and casting out negative energy.

The split between their power also means that Sole is more attuned to other planes of existence beyond the mortal realm, and is usually the one to sense energies and immaterial entities before Hart is able to spot them.

## Weapons and Equipment

Sole carries a number of pieces of magical equipment and paraphernalia on her person, usually swapping certain items out depending on the nature of the mission or tasks required of her. However, it is unusual to find her venturing out into the field without two specific pieces of equipment.

Firstly her necklace, a fine choker which includes a pendant shaped like a human eye known as the **Eye of the Unseen**, which allows her to show others the visions of the immaterial realms that she is privy to; and a pair of metal weapons known as the **Cyclian Chakram**, large metal discs which can be thrown or used in close-combat, and can be imbued with mystical power to cut through almost anything.