[center][h1][color=#FFA812][b]Valkyrie[/b][/color][/h1][color=7e6e75]19[color=#FFA812] ♦[/color] Barbara Norris [color=#FFA812]♦[/color] Lawful Good [img]http://tinyurl.com/q2rusjo[/img] [sub][b][i]“The lame rides a horse the maimed drives the herd the deaf is brave in battle. A man is better blind than buried A dead man is deft at nothing."[/i] ~ Hávamál[/b][/sub][/color][/center] [color=#FFA812][sub][ ߜ ] O R I G I N[/sub][/color][hr][indent][color=7e6e75] [color=#FFA812][b][SUB]G O D S A N D L E G E N D S[/SUB][/B][/COLOR] The story of Valkyrie begins in the time before time. It was the closing years of the first Ragnarök in a time when Earth was known by a different name Aesheim. This young world had been corrupted by the hands of [b]Cul Borso[/b] also known as the Serpent, an Asgardian and the older brother of [b]All-Father Odin[/b]. He ruled over the oceans, mountains and forests through fear and destruction with the help of his mighty warriors known as the [b]Worthy[/b]. Odin heard the cries of the people upon Aesheim and so gathered up his two other brothers [b]Vili[/b] and [b]Ve[/b] and a group of mighty warriors from Asgard and lead a campaign to rid Aesheim of the evil that their brother had created. Battles were fought and warriors on both sides were lost in the fighting but in the end Odin, Vili and Ve triumphed over their older brother and slayed his army of Draumar and every member of the Worthy. They stormed Cul's citadel and in a climactic duel for the fate of Aeshei, brother fought brother. Odin proved the stronger that day, and tossed his brother into the depths of the ocean imprisoned by chains forged by Brokkr himself. The evil was banished, and yet Odin was still plagued by dreams bestowed upon him by the [b]Yggdrasill[/b]. In those dreams he saw Cul rising back up from the depths empowered and using said power to destroy the entirety of the nine worlds. To prevent this, Odin began to systematically kill all the man and women that had bore witness to Cul. These people carried within them seeds of fear and darkness that had been planted into their being, it was this fear of Cul which would allow the fallen Asgardian to gain his powers back. The people of course did not understand this and tried their best to fight back against Odin to try and save themselves. One such man was [b]Sigmund[/b], a warrior and champion of the people that had lead the rebellion against Cul long before Odin intervened. In his long adventures Sigmund had met [b]Brunnhilde[/b], princess of the Wrlstead Arms whom Sigmund had trained in combat under the order of her father, the king. The pair loved each other greatly and were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Upon hearing of the great culling of the humans of Aesheim, Sigmund gathered an army to fight back against the gods. In the end though Odin's great strength and power would result in the shattering of Sigmund's army, and the razing of Wrlstead Arms. Yet before Odin could strike the deathblow to Sigmund, Brunnhilde leaped in front of Odin and attempted to strike him down with her blade. Odin demanded that Brunnhilde step aside and let him finish his job, but Brunhilde fought onward. The strength and tenacity of the humans even after they had been bested had impressed Odin who came to realize that the warriors of Aeshim needed a paradise of their own. So rather than kill Brunnhilde he made her into his [b]Valkyrie[/b] who would bring the souls of honorable warriors up to the paradise known as [b]Valhalla.[/b] [color=#FFA812][b][SUB]H O N O R A N D B L O O D S H E D[/SUB][/B][/COLOR] Brunnhilde became the leader of the [b]Valkyrior[/b], a group of six warrior goddess tasked by Odin to bring worthy fallen warriors to Valhalla. During this time she came into the view of [b]Amora[/b]. Amora saw Brunnhilde's great strength and prowess and saw use for her. Considered on Aeshim to be the god of beauty, love, and sex who had helped Odin before in his battles, Bruunhilde saw no problem in helping the women. And so using Amora with her magics and Brunnhilde with her strength traveled together in an effort to gain items which Amora greatly desired. At first Brunnhilde held only admiration from Amora both in her beauty and her skills. All the while Amora spun her little web ensnaring Brunnhilde further and further making the warrior into her own perfect little champion. In the end though Bruunhilde realized her mistake when the Yggdrasill revealed to her that Amora was planning to try and overthrow Odin and take Asgard for herself. The artifacts that the two had been collecting if brought together would've allowed for Amora to achieve immortality, making it so that no man or asgardian could defeat her. Brunnhilde learning of her partner's treachery began working on a plot to foil Amora's plans. Brunnhilde destroyed the artifacts and shattered Amora's army before it could even begin with the help of the Valkyrior and others. Amora managed to escape but promised revenge upon the Valkyrie for all that she had done. Her revenge would come many centuries later after Odin had limited Asgard's connection with Aesheim for the greater good. Odin's sons [b]Thor[/b] and [b]Loki[/b] and the [b]Warriors Three[/b] had been lost on an excursion to recover Gungnir from the giants of [b]Jotunheim[/b]. Odin fearing for the worst dispatched Brunnhilde and the Valkyrior to the world of giants to rescue them. Little did Brunnhilde know that Amora had planned all the events which were to occur to spring a trap upon the leader of the Valkyrior. When they arrived at Jotunheim, they found an army waiting for them. The Valkyrior fought bravely against the giants and managed to carve a path to the dungeons of [b]Utgardhall[/b] freeing the trapped heroes. In the end Brunnhilde sacrificed herself - holding the line to allow the others to escape from Jotunheim. The great valkyrie being struck down by a combination of the giant king's might and Amora's magic. While Brunnhilde perished in the snows of Jotunheim, the soul of the Valkyrie lived on imbued with the power of her spirit. Amora banished the spirit and sent it into the void so that Odin could not recover it and bring Brunnhilde back to life. And so many ( Amora included) thought that was the end of the Valkyrie. What they didn't know was that the spirit would eventually find its way to Aesheim over many millennia where it would eventually find itself a host worthy of its mantle. [color=#FFA812][b][SUB]V A L K Y R I E I[/SUB][/B][/COLOR] The spirit would first find its way into [b]Samantha Parrington[/b], a rich socialite born and raised in Gotham. Born into a wealthy family and raised on ideals of empowerment and the betterment of all. The spirit bestowed upon Ms. Parrington amazing powers and the ability to a make a difference in the world. Ms. Parrington became a crime fighter that the news dubbed as Valkyrie known for her sword Dragonfang and her flying steed Aragon. Samantha would end up joining [b]the Justice Society of America[/b] and fight alongside the likes of Wesley Dodds, Ted Knight, Jeffrey Mace and others. An impressive feat at the time considered at the time of her joining the league in 1960 she was barely seventeen years old. The heroic acts of this new Valkyrie had caught the eyes and attention of Asgard. Odin summoned the young girl from Earth to speak with her and learn of her story. After spending some time bouncing between Asgard and Earth, it was decided that Ms. Parrington would become Odin's voice upon the planet and act in his stead as he was forbidden too. Samantha would continue to fight alongside the JSA and face many foes that had fallen from the other nine worlds as well. Her actions would bring her into conflict with a villain known as [b]the Enchantress[/b] otherwise known as Amora who saw this semi-reincarnation of Brunnhilde as nothing more than a simple pain in her side. At the age of thirty five, the JSA had disbanded and Samantha was at a lost at what to do with her life. With nowhere else to go she turned back towards the origin of her powers and went to Asgard. Here Ms. Parrington would join up with the Valkyrior. The group of warrior goddesses had become a shadow of its former self in the time since their original leaders death. War against giants and other foes had resulted in great losses and forced many of the original Valkyrior to be replaced with newer warriors with less experience in battle. Samantha then made it her duty and task to train the Valkyrior back into fighting shape as a force to help defend Asgard. Eventually though Samantha would perish in battle against [b]Hela[/b], the goddess of death after she tried to steal a piece of Odin's soul. And once more the Spirit of the Valkyrie would continue to live on jettisoned back into the void until it could find a worthy host once more. [hr] [color=#FFA812][b][SUB]D A Y S O F Y O U T H[/SUB][/B][/COLOR] Born to Steve and Krista Norris in Breckenridge, Minnesota, the first of their eventual three children. Barbara lived a normal life in a city that was small by most standards with only around three thousand and five hundred residents at any given time. Her family life was simple at best, her mother a waitress at a truck stop and her father a local journalist that earned his pay writing about high school football. It was the kind of place that people spent their entire lives trying to get out of, because if you didn't do it fast it had a habit of keeping you stuck for the rest of your life. The early years were normal , she spent much of it with her father as her mother's work schedule was erratic at best. Her father wasn't the best parent in the world with the inability to cook and a permanent stoic distance that he seemed to keep to his children. As a result the routine was established early though with the same dinner of deli meats on white bread with a small selection of condiments every night, they eat at a dinner table where little small talk was engaged. Sometimes though on the rare occasion that the pestering of his children managed to crack his resolve of stone he would tell his children stories. His favorite were the ones he read when he was young boy enraptured with Norse Mythology. For all his lacking in other fields Steve was a grand story teller who was able to fill his children's minds with vivid pictures of Thor, Odin and others battling Stygian terrible foes like giants. Though it would be Barbara that would be sucked into them the most. In the ended though times of storytelling and the freedoms of early childhood were replaced with School. Unlike some Barbara had found little difficulty adapting to the school setting. Able to run to the jungle gym and back quicker than any of her classmates, and recite the alphabet without messing up forwards [b]and[/b] backwards she was on the quick road to popularity. Her teachers could only say good things about her to her parents that she was a 'bright child', a 'pleasure to have in class', among others. But she did have one issue, one that would follow her through most of her life her constant spats with bullies. You see like many children her age Barbara grew up with more than just the stories of mythological heroes, she grew up with the stories of real heroes. Heroes such as the Flash, The Sandman, Star Man and others. While the time of the JSA had long since passed their dreams and ideals continued to live on and imbued themselves into the hearts of the people that they once protected. Children in particular having an inexplicable draw to the heroes stories and legends. So when Barbara saw her fellow classmates being picked on she would step in to intervene. This lead to many days of her coming home on the bus with a black eye and a call home to her parents. Her parents worried about her and in response to at least give the girl the chance to defend herself they signed her up for karate lessons which she would take throughout high school. Junior High school came and went with it the first steps into puberty, boys, and all the other not so fun things to do in the world. She excelled once again in most of her classes except for the dreaded fear that was Sarah Keller's Algebra I class in Seventh Grade. She bounced around a lot between groups and friends trying to find her place among them as she was stuck at the epicenter of many intersecting circles. She stayed fairly popular though both among the students and the teachers and things seemed to go alright. High School rolled around and much of the same followed. She passed through her advance placement classes not with the best grades but ones that didn't have her parents trying to kill her. She stayed active with things such as the student government and leading the girl's volleyball team to the State Championships where they lost in the closing minutes of the game. Relationships, a troubling pastime that she had been dealing with since Junior High continued, nothing ever truly deep or meaningful occurred though and she was smart enough not to get pregnant or anything like that. Senior year rolled right on along and she found herself applying to college something that was easily enough with her good grades and athletic ability. In the end though she ended up going to Metropolis University where she went to go play Volleyball for the Bulldogs studying political science with law school on her mind for the future. To go from a small city in Minnesota to one of the largest metropolitan centers in the world was something of a shock. Expectations rose, the general craziness of life mounted higher and higher. She almost lost her scholarship by almost getting kicked off the volleyball team, she struggled in some of her classes and found herself scrambling for purchase. Mid-way through her second semester she found her footing again, doubling down in an effort to not disappoint her parents and anyone else. She thought she had finally found even footing. She thought it was going to be easy from that point forward. She was wrong. [color=#FFA812][b][SUB]H E I R O F G L O R Y[/SUB][/B][/COLOR] The truth of the matter was that Barbara had forgotten about the heroes of her youth. It wasn't until the Kryptonians attacked that she remembered them. The attack hit Metropolis pretty hard and a whole lot of lives were lost in the process, hell half of Barbara's dorm at Met U had been completely demolished when a Kryptoian mech was tossed into it by Superman. But like the many other civilians who there that day, she watched as the Superman, Steel and Supergirl fought against the Kryptonians. Watching them almost immediately her mind was brought back to the days of her youth playing pretend with her siblings. In the weeks following the attack Barbara found herself thinking about the superheros more and more. Her notebook was filled with sketches of the heroes that she had pretended to be in her youth. It was a stupid fantasy of course, something to get her mind off of the stress for a minute. She knew she was enraptured with the idea of being a superhero, she could never be one herself. She was just Barbara Norris from Minnesota, she played volleyball and she wanted to become a lawyer some day. She wasn't like them, the best she had done was get beat up trying to stop bullies in elementary school. That changed of course. April 20[sup]th[/sup], 2016 it was a day that would become ingrained in Barbara's head for the rest of her life. She was walking back to her dorm after going out to go see some punk rock band with her friends. The rest of them were staying out getting drunk with their fake I.Ds and what not. In all her heart she wanted to go them but she couldn't, she couldn't afford to get caught by the police it would mean the end for a whole lot of things she worked far too long for. And so she trudged it alone back to the campus grounds. She had made such treks what seemed like a million times and she suspected it to be the same as always. She heard a cry for help and instinctively she turned down an alleyway heading off of the main street. There she saw a woman being assaulted by a man. Barbara froze unsure what to do, the pair having not noticed him yet. She could run back to the safety of the main street and head on with her day, no that wasn't right. She could call the cops and hope they arrived quick enough, they wouldn't. She could stick around to see what happened, things were getting worse by the second. No. She knew what she had to do. She yelled out at the culprit starling him and charging into him. The culprit pulled a gun as the young Norris wrestled him to the ground. He fired. The bullet should of killed her. The man left her for dead in a pile of her own blood. She could feel her heartbeat getting slower and slower. Then a warmth of light surrounded her and the pain vanished. She was no longer in her own clothes but out of something of some fantasy viking novel. She felt the strongest she had ever been in her life. On her back was a sword of all things. She chased after the man that had shot her and found him easily enough as the scratches that she had left on him left a blood trail. The next morning, the cops found him tied up in front of their police station, bickering about some golden haired warrior that had come down from the skies. It's been a week and a couple days since. In that time Barbara had been introduced to a slew of interesting things including a flying horse and ghosts of dead warriors talking in her head. For now though she's playing it cool, not jumping to any conclusions or doing anything that would draw the media to her. In fact she hasn't even stopped a single crime since the one that got her stuck in this mess. She's got a long road ahead to becoming anything close to a hero, but everybody has to start somewhere right? [/color][/indent] [color=#FFA812][sub][ ߜ ] A L L I E S[/sub][/color][hr] [indent][color=7e6e75] [b]Mercedes Knight |[/b] A close friend of Barbara and another student at Metropolis University. Studying Criminal Justice, wants to be a cop some day. [b]Elsa Bloodstone |[/b] Barbara's roommate. A friendly girl from Boston that is studying biology. She has vampire problems. Currently they are the only people that know of one another's respective problems. [b]Felix Alvarez |[/b] One of the best lawyers working in America and a total dream boat. He's Barbara boss down at her current internship at Luthor Law Solutions. [b]Detective Ry Sovereign |[/b] Works for the metropolis police department, specializing in super human related crimes. Hasn't got to know Ms. Norris just yet. [b]Odin |[/b] The big man himself, is aware that a new Valkyrie is up and about it somewhere but has more important things to deal with at the moment. [b]Yggdrasill | [/b] Less of a person and more a tree that is central to the very fabric of reality and all but you know. It can communicate though by sending people prophetic dreams about usually very bad things. [b]Balder Odinson |[/b] Son of Odin sent to Earth to try and find the new Valkyrie. He landed in Russia, probably going to be awhile. [b]Aragon |[/b] Flying horse. Yep you read that right, flying horse. [/color][/indent] [color=#FFA812][sub][ ߜ ] F A M I L Y[/sub][/color][hr][indent][color=7e6e75] [B]Steve Norris |[/b] Barbara's father, a journalist from Minnesota who is pretty good at telling stories. Kind of a grump. [b]Krista Norris |[/b] Barbara's mother, a waitress from Minnesota. Barbara's biggest fan. [b]Jack Norris |[/b] Barbara's younger brother. Sixteen years old and full of hormones, he likes drawing things. [b]Kathryn 'Kate' Norris |[/b] Barbara's younger sister and twin of Jack. She throws a mean softball. [/color][/indent] [color=#FFA812][sub][ ߜ ] E N E M I E S[/sub][/color][hr][indent][color=7e6e75] [b]Adaliah Hazlewood/ Hela |[/b] Asgardian and Goddess of Death. Currently pretending to be a human and budding up to Barbara who is taking a strange liking to her. Hela has plans of course. [b]The Enchantress |[/b] Amora is the age old enemy of the first Valkyrie and probably won't like the new one that much either. Right now though she doesn't even now that she exists or cares. That might change in the future. [b]Malekith the Accursed |[/b] Ruler of Svartalfheim and generally a pretty big jerk. He sometimes comes to earth to try and conquer, destroy, exploit, et cetra. [b]The Doom Maidens |[/b] Harbingers of the end times. [b]Nathan Garrett/ Black Knight |[/b] One time British scientist set to win the noble prize in Physics turned evil man with a sword that corrupts all that it touches. [i]More to come[/i] [/color][/indent] [color=#FFA812][sub][ ߜ ] N O T E S[/sub][/color][hr] [indent][color=7e6e75]A[i]t the start of Maximum, Valkyrie has been well Valkyrie for like two weeks. She stopped one crime in the middle of the night and that was it. As a result the world doesn't really now about her yet as he hasn't had her big revel yet. That will happen soon enough though.[/i] [/color][/indent]