Serene Adventure Spotlight: Angelisa “Angel” Marshall

by Lavon Samuel Davis

Whew.

Honestly, Angel was always meant to be a Mary Sue from the beginning. She (and her brother Zenith) was basically born with the power of a god, after all. As I time went on I scaled back her powers to make her an extemely powerful Terra Mage. Later, she would be put in a category of her own: War Sage. As a Master of The Seven Casting Disciplines–Healing, Divine Power, Summoning, Terra Force Energy, Time-Space, Dark Force Energy and Necromancy–she could do anything prettymuch. This is demonstrated in great effect in two scenes in Serene Adventure III: Starry Heavens with her Forbidden Technique while transformed: All Creation. In both cases where it’s used, Angel created a world with a living population and then immdiately destroys the planet to gain temporary immortality and greatly boost her powers.

…Did I forget to mention she’s only twelve in that story? Yeah, WAY too powerful and unrelatable to really do much with her for too long. Hence the reset. I think out of all the characters I’m overhauling, Angelisa and her brother Zenith are two of seven characters getting completely rebuilt (the others being Ted, Ann, Tomiko, Ed and Ted’s mother Celeste Carter). I think I talked about this a bit on my forums three years back but here’s how the remade Angelisa will be starting with her introduction in The Angelisa Zenith Project.

Her introductory story in Half-Life and its revamp The Angel Project will be tweaked a bit. The focus is split between Angelisa and her new mother Ann Marie Toss but the focus will be mostly on Angelisa and Zenith in Creation and Destuction (formerly titled the Angel Zenith Project). Since I’ve referred to her by Angelisa instead of Angel several times now, let me explain that first. Her brother Zane has two names: Zane and Zenith. In the original story, they’re named #487 and #488 before they’re adopted into the Toss and Highwind families respectively. Ann names her Angelisa (prounced An-gel-is-ah) in the new story while Abyssion renames her brother Zenith. They’re usually called Angel and Zane for short by their friends and siblings though their new parents call them by their given names. The shorter names are nicknames prettymuch.

Moving on, as I said their story Creation and Destruction has more of a focus on just Angelisa and Zenith. It also takes place during Ted and Ann’s absence in Baby of Mine so there is some overlap when the pair plus Angel return to Boston later in that story. I’ll get into this when I do Ann’s Spotlight but her past is talked about in more detail in one of the Serene Adventure Origins stories.  Anyway, the premise for the new plot is this. Ted gets a call from his brothers Tomiko and Edward (will talk about this a bit more in Ted’s Spotlight) asking him to come to North Korea for a peacekeeping mission and to bring Ann with him. Ted refuses to bring Ann (citing her pregnancy) at first but when Tomiko mentions he and Edward worked with Abyssion Highwind to destroy a secret lab Ann has a history with, he agrees to bring her along.

In Baby of Mine, Ted announces at Celes’ high school graduation he’s stepping down as mayor of Boston but doesn’t explain why, citing a personal matter he and Ann have to attend to in her home country of North Korea. Creation and Destruction picks up from there. When Ted and Ann land in Pyongyang they’re greeted at the airport by Abyssion himself, who tells them about the surprises that awaited him when he breached a hidden underground vault at the lab he and Tomiko destroyed.

Those surprises were Angelisa and Zenith.

While the dictatorship that controlled the country for over 70 years kept the international community distracted with the threat of nuclear weapons, they’d been performing experiments on people in a bid to create an army of super humans. Ann herself gained her powers from such experiments while still in her mother’s womb. Her mother volunteered her womb for an early phase of The Angel Project amid promises of wealth for her and family. What the researchers never could have anticipated was the scientist chosen to impregnate Ann’s mother was a South Korean infiltrator. His influence and the genuine love the developed between them led to her escape from the facility, Ann’s birth in the middle of the world’s largest minefield and her parents’ deaths shortly afterward.

Even though Ann’s mother was killed and Ann herself was presumed dead as well, the facility had enough data to replicate the project with other women. It would be the gene therapy experiments done on Ann’s niece Tracey that would pave the way for the birth of Angelisa and Zenith. They were humans born with the power to create and destroy at will. Though not immortal, with the power at their disposal they may as well be. Four years before Abyssion and Tomiko raid the facility. The Supreme Leader orders the twins to be placed in stasis deep underground in preparation for a decades-long planned invasion of South Korea.

After the twins are found by Tomiko and Abyssion, the latter realizes at first glance they found mortals with the powers of a God. Power that should not be allowed free reign. He’s about to kill them himself when Tomiko stops him. Tomiko surmises they are not yet aware of powers they were born with and believes that in time, their powers could come in handy. Abyssion agrees to spare their lives but on the condition they’re raised separately so Tomiko calls his kid brother Ted.

This is getting into spoilers for the story but hey, I’ve already gone this far (LOL!): At the time the story begins, Angelisa and Zenith are eight years old. by the time Ted and Ann touch down in Pyongyang, Remnants of the North Korean Military backed by Chinese Militants are mobilizing to move in on the mercenary group that sacked their country. Tomiko decides to “show them how outclassed they really are” and sends his people to deal with the army coming after them.

Meanwhile, after having a long conversation with Ted, Ann decides to adopt the girl, Angel. Angel is not as emotionally strong as her brother and also unike him, she is not yet aware of her latent powers. She also feels Angel would benefit from the support of the many siblings she would have. Abyssion promises there will come a time when the twins can be reunited but for now, it’s important they their indvidual needs be taken care of. This is when he opens up and mentions he has two other children, one of which is not his by blood (referencing Damien). He also says it would be to the benefit of both children to make sure they understand they’re human above all else.

Angel arrives in Boston during the final part of Baby of Mine. Celes (still pregnant herself at the time) is more than a little surprised to find out she’s going to have one more new sibling than expected. She’s even more surprised when Angel tells her at first glace “Your daughter’s going to save alot of people.” The next day, Celes finds out she is having a girl.

A family camping trip gets crazy when militants from North Korea come to the forest to take Angel back by force. The hunters soon realize they are the hunted as every attempt to ambush a member of her adopted family is easily thwarted. It turns out Tomiko got word of the plot and warned the family in advance. Ann goes into labor in the same cabin she gave birth to Fin and Katrin in 25 years earlier. The militants converge on the cabin for one final attempt. This is when Angel becomes aware of her powers for the first time. She unleashes her Ultimate Spell Blazing Storm, turning the weapons–and clothes–of all the militants to ash.

Her family is more impressed she didn’t kill anyone or set any of the trees on fire. Fin believes her desire to protect her soon to be born siblings and her unborn niece were what gave her the ability to harness her powers for the first time. Katrin commends Angel for holding back enough to avoid hurting the soldiers who’d come to kidnap her. Angel is then rewarded with naming rights to her newborn siblings. She names the boy Nate Pak Marshall and the girl Elaina Gabrielle Marshall. Angel then gives the newborns some of her power so that they can help the people they care about.

I’ll close (FINALLY!) and say four years pass from the births of Nate and Elaina and Angel’s breakout story Fellowship of Storms.  Four years after being adoped by the Toss family and moving to Boston, Angel and Leon Parker are now twelve years old each and in middle school. They make a new friend named Haley Robinson. Their new friend is later revealed to be a descendant of a clan in Scandinavia believed have been the Norse God Thor’s mortal relatives. That helps explain Haley’s shockingly powerful abilities!

…Whew. I started writing this last March and just forgot about it. Several times. Well, now it’s done. The next Serene Adventure Spotlight will be either Fin or Tomiko, haven’t decided yet.