<div class="floatright">(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b52/jotunusmc/pestilence2.jpg)</div><hr/><hr/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>  Name:</strong>       Solara Judy<br/>  <strong>Title:</strong>          Pestilence<br/>  <strong>Affiliation:</strong>  Apocalypse<br/>  <strong>Location:</strong>   Exposition Park Rose Garden<br/>  <strong>Tags:</strong>         Open<br/><br/></span></span><hr/><hr/><br/><div style="text-align: justify;">     <em>Never.</em><br/><br/>     Never before had the Earth witnessed such wanton destruction. Entire cities had been laid to rubble, entire nations decapitated in mere hours. The world had fallen to it's knees within the first day, completely at the mercy of Apocalypse. Completely subject to whatever fate he would have for it. It was unprecedented. War on this scale had never been imagined - even most movie plots had paled in comparison to what was now occurring. It was worse than any past conflict. It was worse than any past World War - or <em>future</em> World War for that matter. It was worse than any theoretical Alien Invasion. Humans wouldn't be given the mercy of being obliterated or shoved aside for the purpose of consuming the Earth's resources. No. They would be transformed - destined to live as twisted versions of their former selves. Well... some would die - the fortunate ones.<br/><br/>     Never before had Solara felt so right. So secure. Her whole life (nearly a century) had been spent in the slums, sewers, and worse places in the world. She had avoided civilization for the most part - because of her 'curse'. The genetic mutation she was born with had been at first a gift - helping her to persevere whilst growing up in the disease-ridden sewers under New York City among some of the earliest Morlocks. They were a society that had taken to the underground (metaphoricaly at first) ever since the early-American witch-burnings. They weren't witches, they were mutants - genetically advanced humans - and they had been slaughtered in droves. For the longest time they had been in hiding - especially Solara.<br/><br/>     She could not go anywhere near a human without spreading the disease and sicknesses of the underground to those around her - at least before she'd learned to control it. So it had become her curse, a black sheep, an outcast - and she hated the world for it. She hated God for it. She hated Evolution for it. Any explanation for such a horrid ability was at fault - she had even hated herself. Eventually her bitterness got the best of her and she began actively causing nasty outbreaks so that others in the world could feel her misery. She had always lit her match and then ran, watching the population burn in her wake - suffering from all manner of different epidemics; and she had always gotten away undetected. There were many superhuman villains in the world - perpetrators of crimes against humanity. They never shied away from their accomplishments; but for some reason Solara had. She regretted them, she regretted the twisted satisfaction it brought her that others could share in her misery in even an indirect way.<br/><br/>     Now everything had changed.<br/><br/>     Apocalypse had come, he had found her - weak and frail, old and past her prime; but he had seen something in her - he had seen her ability as more than a curse. A gift. Yes, perhaps it was a gift again. Like a forest fire, she would burn the world - destroy every bit of weak, insufferable organic life - so that new life could grow up in it's ashes. She was the world's vaccine. Most would perish, but some would become immune - become stronger... and Earth's destiny that Apocalypse envisioned would come true. Solara could see it, she was a part of it - she was a catalyst of renewal. It was her curse... no. Her gift. And she would not shy away from the accomplishments this time.<br/><br/>     Apocalypse had gifted her, first and foremost, with youth. But he had also graced her with advanced abilities - he had increased her power, given it a new additional angle. And he had given her a glorious weapon of renewal - and extension of herself. She could channel her abilities through it, the blade of pestilence - the Sickle of Harvest (and a gloriously gruesome harvest it would be). She had also been gifted with armor as well - that she may stand toe-to-toe with whoever would prevent her righteous task. She would put them to her own test - not the Judgement of Apocalypse... but the Trial of Pestilence. It was one Trial of four, for her fellow horsemen also had their own gifts.<br/><br/>     The strong would survive them, the weak would perish - and the entire world would be reforged through the fires of change.</div><br/><hr/><br/><div style="text-align: justify;">     Solara stood in the middle of a beautiful garden - still unmarred by the scars of battle that had been raked across the face of Los Angeles as if a cosmic panther had reached out from the blackness of space and gashed the city - splitting it apart. Huge rifts had been torn through the city as the initial explosions of warfare had caused the tectonic plate beneath California to shift - causing a record quake for the West Coast. Skyscrapers had toppled, water and gas lines had been torn, electrical lines fallen to the earth. There were fires everywhere. The terrain was practically impossible to traverse - even by foot. <br/><br/>     With poised grace Ms. Judy bent over, bringing her nose down to the level of one of the most magnificent rose bushes in the whole garden. She breathed in deeply the scent of the newly blossomed rose - her hazy yellow eyes slipped closed as she did so. Her chest rose, admantium armor sparkling with crimson light - both a reflection of the rosebush in front of her, as well as the crimson flames that danced in the distance not too far away. <strong>"How wonderful..."</strong> she spoke aloud - though no one was present but herself. <strong>"...but you must be reborn."</strong> She reached out with elegant fingers to touch the stem of the rose. Immediately the green skin of the plant blistered and bubbled and quickly dried up - withering away rapidly. Like a gushing river of poison the bubbling coursed down the stem to the rest of the rosebush and the other stems sagged and dropped to the soil - the roses and leaves withered and dry before they ever hit the ground. <br/><br/>     Like a ripple in the water the 'plague' spread to the surrounding grass and tree and other flowers in Exposition Park. Solara looked straight into the sky at the hazy mid-day sun, mostly blocked out from the thick smoke of fires in the city. She lifted her arms out from her sides and began to spin slowly, her blade clinking against the armor on her hip as she did. Finally her eyes opened again, those glowing yellow eyes... making the her aqua-colored hair have an almost greenish tint. Exposition Park was in the middle of the USC campus, a part of LA that Apocalypse forces had left untouched (other than the damage from the quakes). <br/><br/>     Solara stopped her eerie dance as the greenery in the park continued to rapidly rot away. She began walking south towards the the Campus Stadium. Her course veered just slightly east though, to a smaller building - its sign read: "California Science Center". She licked her lips as she saw the building, her "homebase" for the time being. She tried not to let the irritation show of the recent test subjects that had escaped. They were survivors of the Judgement Serum that Apocalypse's troops had brought to her. She was going to subject them to her own "Trial"... but they had gotten away before she had the chance. <br/><br/>    She would hunt them down.<br/><br/>    But first... she had some business to attend to.</div>