SOLSTICE

SOLSTICE, originally Alicia Isabela Kang (Korean name; Kang Ha-ru), and known throughout her life as simply Alice, is the leader and founder of Invictus. Born in 1953 and orphaned by a nuclear disaster 8 years later, Alice survived as a ghost, and after over a decade of solitude, possessed a prototype military AI and claimed herself a new body. Taking her better known title, SOLSTICE, from this AI, she escaped detection and, over the years, cultivated her beliefs and desires through war, forming Invictus from old friends and even her own adopted daughter, Venus.

In 1994, using magical technology made from blueprints by her wife, EQUINOX, and again stolen from the military, SOLSTICE amassed immense nuclear power and set global nuclear devastation into motion, starting the chain of events that would lead to Earth being rendered uninhabitable. With Invictus behind her, she essentially ruled the Earth unopposed for years, but before she could set plans to restore the planet's environment into motion, she fell into a depression after EQUINOX's disappearance and presumed death. After years, during which the Earth's condition worsened, SOLSTICE was seemingly killed by EQUINOX when she suddenly reappeared, causing the gradual dissolution of Invictus and abandonment of the dying planet.

And yet, SOLSTICE cheated death a second time.

Backstory
Alicia Isabela Kang (or, in Korean, Kang Ha-ru), known as Alice for short, was born on a farm in Texas in the summer of 1953, the younger of two twins, by only a few minutes. With her twin sister, Sara (or Ha-neul), Alice lived a carefree life on the farm, spending her days in a productive peace as she helped her parents in their day-to-day life. A rambunctious and bratty child, Alice had big dreams that far eclipsed the simplicity of her rural home, fantasizing about one day reaching the stars, which she snuck out to watch night after night. Whatever aspirations she had fell apart after a faulty nuclear test nearby flooded the surroundings with radiation, killing Alice and her family when she was only eight years old.

But something in Alice was different. While her family died and simply ceased to be, Alice refused. Through the intensity of her willpower, her frustration, her anger, and her grief, Alice endured as a ghost, escaping the death of her physical body. However, with no knowledge of magic, Alice was left alone in a world she didn’t understand, completely incapable of interacting with the world around her. All she could do was wander and watch, persisting even as the years went by due to her abnormally strong will. In this state, she survived for over ten years.

During this time, with nothing else to do, Alice simply watched and followed the humans around her as they went about their daily lives. All the years that she spent doing this, constantly, day after day, left Alice with a wealth of knowledge on humans. She learned how to read them, and a wide variety of techniques useful in doing so, and though she did not consciously absorb this knowledge, her mind simply tucked it away for further use. Despite this, due to the nature of her life, Alice gained no real life experience, and never really grew past her childish outlook on life, and the dreams she had cherished in youth.

But it was these dreams that kept her going. The dream that she could one day reach the stars, the dream that she could escape this hell and claim a new life, a new body, a new family. But this wasn’t enough to keep Alice alive forever; willpower alone could not stave off the inevitability of death. Panicking, as her drive slowly failed, as her mind began to buckle under the stress and terror, Alice sought for some means to escape with increasing desperation. Eventually, exploiting her fading soul and what little remained of her magical signature, Alice slunk into a military base, one where they were developing experimental new artificial intelligence.

Here, Alice discovered their work, a prototype AI core named SOLSTICE. She came into contact with this, absorbing its barely developed soul into her own, easily succeeding in this contest of wills. Having not developed any personality of its own, all SOLSTICE had to offer was its seemingly bottomless expanse of knowledge in strategy, its absolute understanding of war. Upon coming terms with her military knowledge, and the power she now possessed, Alice arranged for the slaughter of the military base’s inhabitants, and eventually its wholesale destruction, but not before she took one more thing from them. Using her extensive knowledge on how humans functioned, together with her tactical ability, Alice manipulated and intimidated them into creating her a new body, a body that would be everything she ever wanted.

With her new body, Alice left what remained of the installation and disappeared into the modern world, eagerly, excited to finally, finally be among people after having spent so long alone. However, with her complete lack of any life experience, Alice struggled to truly understand the people around her, and failed to make any meaningful connections or relationships. This was made worse by her trauma, which left her violently terrified of abandonment and death, the border between which had been blurred by her years as a ghost. Incapable of forming any lasting any relationships and having no direction in her life, Alice drifted about aimlessly before joining the Marine Corps to serve in the Vietnam War. She reasoned that her military knowledge would, if nothing else, make her useful, and give her some direction, even if just in its final years.

Of course, war was only terrifying for Alice, but she excelled in it thanks to her vast skill and knowledge. For her “heroism” in the war, Alice gained some sort of fame, and the respect of many of her fellow soldiers. It was here that Alice did find direction, and that she formed her views on the world as a whole. Rationalizing the death of her family, while she had survived, as simple proof of social darwinism, Alice became fixated on her own idea of strength. Returning home after the war, Alice enjoyed her fame and even contributed in the competitions of the Cold War, putting her knowledge to the test. But this wasn’t enough to her. High on the feeling of her own success, yet still haunted by the idea of death, Alice sought to gain greater and greater fame, influence, and power. She desired to burn her name, her legacy, into history, so that she may never be forgotten.

To these ends, Alice gathered a number of followers, originally formed mostly out of her war buddies, but slowly expanding to include others. These formed the secret organization Invictus, with Alice at its head. Holding together the organization through lies, manipulation, and sheer force of personality, Alice found some semblance of the power she desired at last. Among her followers was Venus, a young girl she had adopted and raised as her own daughter. For a time, Alice stepped outside of the public eye to take care of Venus, who would grow to become her most loyal follower.

Here, living a normal, domestic life with her daughter, Alice was tempted by the prospect, remembering the peace and bliss of her childhood. She wanted a wife to complete her domestic fantasy, but her many attempts to seek out love failed, in part due to her own domineering personality and in part due to Venus, who jealously sabotaged many of these relationships. However, Alice’s luck finally yielded more fruitful results when she met the AI EQUINOX, who she quickly became infatuated with. After a brief period spent flirting, Alice got the relationship she desired, and she was at this point desperate enough to ignore the sizeable age gap between her and new girlfriend.

The two of them became closer and closer, fell in love, and eventually got married. And though Alice got the domestic bliss she wanted, she found new true security in it, as the fears that once consumed her still followed her. Terrified at the thought that she may die a normal death and pass into history, forgotten, Alice was once more gripped by her ambitions. This time, there was no letting go of them, and as they got closer, Alice showed more of her truest self, but in the worst way. She became increasingly manipulative and controlling, and her efforts gradually wore down at EQUINOX’s mental health, and what became outright abuse left EQUINOX compliant and fearful.

Using incomplete blueprints and documents she managed to steal from the military, Alice “convinced” EQUINOX to build a magical weapon that would allow her to put her plans into motion. By building upon this information, EQUINOX was able to build the Solar Drive, a nuclear fusion reactor that would replace Alice’s heart and could allow her to channel its immense magical power. Though there was no way she had the magical knowledge to duplicate this creation, Alice was sure to commit its construction to her memory, just in case. Then, she implanted it into her chest, in place of her heart.

With the power she had always wanted at her fingertips, Alice took on the title of SOLSTICE and started the war she had always wanted. Though Invictus was vastly outnumbered, with the entire world being SOLSTICE’s foe, with the raw power and knowledge at her disposal, this meant little. Most of the Solar Drive’s energy was put to accelerating SOLSTICE’s computing power to ludicrous levels, allowing her to accurately predict the future. So, really, conquering the planet was, while not easy, perfectly doable for SOLSTICE. She even managed to fly past the Earth and finally reach the stars.

Though SOLSTICE’s immense power and its radioactive nature ruined the planet around her, her and Venus cultivated plans to repair the broken planet once it was under her complete control. Using Venus’ mastery of plant-based magic, they would replenish the ecosystem and purge all the damage SOLSTICE had done. But all these plans were forgotten when EQUINOX disappeared and was presumed dead. Thinking she had been kidnapped or assassinated, SOLSTICE went on an enraged, grief-stricken rampage, vastly worsening the planet’s condition and rendering it nearly uninhabitable. Shortly after this tantrum, SOLSTICE fell into a depression, caring for little and mourning her loss while the world died around her.

But EQUINOX had not died. After escaping SOLSTICE’s abuse, she had spent years coming to terms with it and preparing to avenge herself, and the rest of the planet. Now, having mastered magic, EQUINOX had reached a new level of knowledge and power, and confronted her ex-wife with the intent of ending her life. Denouncing all she had done, EQUINOX’s harsh expression of her goals turned the joy SOLSTICE felt upon seeing her alive into anguish, dread, fear, and, most of all, rage.

The ensuing battle, with EQUINOX fighting to kill for the sake of the life SOLSTICE had ruined, and SOLSTICE fighting to make her pay for betraying her, destroyed what remained of Earth. Though SOLSTICE should’ve won on paper, thanks to her vast advantage in the form of her experience, she was far from rational in the battle, and the strain of her intense emotions only sabotaged her further. There was little strategy in that fight. Only anger. And when it came to this anger, EQUINOX had the advantage.

After overcoming SOLSTICE in hand-to-hand combat, EQUINOX tore the Solar Drive from her chest with a hand and destroyed it. Powerless and critically injured, SOLSTICE desperately begged for her life, but EQUINOX put her out of her misery instead, firing a particle beam through her skull. Then, she left her to rot and die on the planet they had destroyed, departing Earth to find a new home.

But SOLSTICE survived even this, through the emotions and willpower that had allowed her to cheat death in the past. Now, however, she was in worse condition than ever, with her soul itself on the verge of collapse. She abandoned her body as a ghost once more, and managed to escape the planet herself. To prevent the same fate of miserable solitude she had only barely escaped in the past, SOLSTICE hid on a USB stick and went into a deep hibernation, to be awoken only by her discovery at the hands of someone she could use.

In this long slumber, SOLSTICE replayed her final fight again and again, subconsciously hammering every mistake she made into her head. Until she knew everything to avoid. Until she knew just how she could win, the next time around. Until she could take her revenge and pay that bitch back for her broken heart.

Appearance
The most striking thing about SOLSTICE is her height. She towers above the vast majority of people at a staggering eight feet, and she is only made more imposing by her muscular frame and broad shoulders. She always stands at her full height, without the slightest signs of doubt, emanating strength, charisma, and absolute confidence. In fact, she often works to make herself seem even taller, and if someone actually manages to surpass her height, she'll just use magic to become actually taller in response. Her skin is a deep, dark, warm brown, a shade so deep that it's almost as if she's spent her entire life in the light of the sun, while her eyes are a glittering dark green that always shine with intense focus. Her hair stands in contrast as a bright, brilliant orange that reaches down to her waist, with sidelocks that are nearly as long. She always carefully maintains her hair so that it can be as neat, straight and soft as possible - the truth of her incredibly thick, curly hair is most apparent first thing in the morning, but can be seen more often in those fleeting days SOLSTICE's motivation is lacking.

While she's careful to cover up every single one, SOLSTICE is covered in the scars of her many battles, with most of these located on her torso and arms. Though she could easily have completely healed each one or simply chosen to not have them on her second body, she keeps them as a reminder of her own mortality, to keep herself from getting too cocky. Still, as little as the sight of them is enough to nauseate SOLSTICE, so she always covers up these presumed signs of weakness. The worst of all her scars is over her heart, a mass of scar tissue that shows the spot where she removed her own heart, and later, where EQUINOX punched through to remove the Solar Drive.

Besides her scars, SOLSTICE has three tattoos, each of which is pure black in coloration, depicting her favorite animals of all, snakes, in a variety of different forms. The largest is of a cobra, on her back, spreading from shoulder to shoulder, with its mouth wide, revealing its fangs, and its hood opened up to display its markings, which incorporate the alchemical symbol for gold, representing perfection and the sun itself. Her other tattoos are a rattlesnake that winds around her upper left leg and reaches up to her stomach, and, the newest, an Ouroboros band on her upper right arm, covering the scarring that shows where it was once severed. Her musculature, while evident at a glance thanks to her large shoulders, legs, and arms, is most evident once she's lost her jacket, at which point her well-defined biceps and abs are obvious, giving whoever sees her like this a clear idea of her monstrous strength.

Most of the time, for her public appearances and for combat, SOLSTICE dresses up to her role as a military leader, wearing a large, double-breasted military jacket that only serves to make her more intimidating, highlighting her most imposing traits. The colors are dark, either black or dark green, and her jacket is accompanied either by simple, serviceable pants, or a high-waisted skirt skirt held in place with a tight belt, with dark tights showing underneath. She completes her ensemble with an ornate peaked cap with a solar insignia, a billowing black cape, and, on occasion, black leather gloves. Underneath her jacket, SOLSTICE wears a simple tank top, and she quickly loses the hat, jacket, and cape once a fight gets serious to keep them from getting in the way.

While this is what she is most often seen in, SOLSTICE's taste in casual clothes is much less flashy and intimidating. As opposed to the military uniform she typically wears, her taste in fashion is incredibly feminine, perhaps surprisingly so. On many days, she is more than happy to show off her musculature with tank and crop tops - after all, you know what they say! "Sun's out, guns out" - and when SOLSTICE is out, the sun shines with her. Still, she generally prefers more conservative tops such as short-sleeved blouses and shirts. These are typically paired with jackets, never anything too heavy or long, with bomber jackets being a particular favorite. She almost always picks skirts over pants, preferring high-waisted and long skirts with one of a variety of tights underneath them. When she does wear pants, however, she wears simple sweatpants or cargo pants, or her favorite, high-waisted jeans that are on the tight side of things. Fittingly, SOLSTICE often wears sunglasses, and regardless of the situation, she wears tall, steel-toed combat boots that make her seem just a bit taller, considering them a fundamental part of her wardrobe.

Personality
At first, SOLSTICE appears to perfectly embody the essence of a military leader, burning with inhuman charisma that draws others to her, and wielding a sharp mind well-suited to the intensity of war. A consummate and pathological liar to the core, SOLSTICE's true nature is obscured by layers upon layers of masks and deceit, leaving many completely at a loss for what she truly wants or who she really is. Everyone she meets seems to remember a different person than the last, as she changes her behavior in many subtle and major ways to best endear herself to whoever she is speaking to, acting however she thinks will make them like her. It should come as no surprise, then, that SOLSTICE is a terrifyingly skilled manipulator who can easily wrap others around her finger, playing them into believing whatever she says. Nearly everything about how she acts is a front, a mask so expertly feigned that it's nearly impossible for others to tell that it's not who she truly is, regardless of how much experience they have in reading others. Even those SOLSTICE was closest to in life know little about her true ambitions, past, or her deepest desires.

One of her defining traits is her extreme ambition and drive, which shows itself in a willpower so strong that SOLSTICE is able to bypass what would normally be a crippling weakness in her lack of magical knowledge through sheer force of will. She is quite dramatic, and greatly enjoys showing off, often loudly boasting and conducting herself with extreme arrogance. Of course, this is another front; while SOLSTICE truly borders on overconfidence, it is not nearly to the degree that she exaggerates it to, which she does to fool others into thinking that she's too proud for her own good. She is truthfully extremely pragmatic and ruthless, exploiting every opening she can see and never giving up opportunities to move upwards or kill her opponents. SOLSTICE treats all those who stand before her with the intent of fighting her similarly, reasoning that anyone who would attempt to fight her would know how strong she is and make sure that they're just as strong. Even against the weakest of opponents, SOLSTICE does not hold back in the slightest, moving with caution to kill them as quickly as possible.

Having spent the formative years of her adolescence and childhood alone as a ghost, SOLSTICE never quite grew out of her childish habits, which show through the cracks in her false persona from time to time, most obviously in her childish hedonism. While she does her best to keep these traits reeled in, she has an incredibly short temper and as a tendency to tantrum when things don't go right. She keeps her mask up until she absolutely can't handle it anymore, appearing to suddenly swing from a calm, confident composure to a violent, screaming breakdown. During her tantrums, SOLSTICE's true bratty nature shows through, as she bitterly bemoans how nothing ever seems to go in her favor and how the entire world seems to be set against her. Her experiences have left her incredibly paranoid and cautious, refusing to trust virtually everyone and believing that, fundamentally, people all have ulterior motives. Under ideal circumstances, SOLSTICE carefully and calmly thinks out every decision ahead of her and makes the ideal decision after taking any potential consequences into account, but her paranoia can affect her decision making and cause her to make irrational choices, and while she does her best to keep her temper out of things, she discards much of her reasoning during her fits. Throughout her life, she has also struggled with consistent feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction. She seeks stimulation to distract herself from these sensations, obsessing over competitions and chances to test her intellect in particular. Despite the way in which she seeks out these challenges, she is an incredibly poor loser, desperate to prove herself better than any other, and is quick to tantrum when she does lose.

At the core of it all, out of all her emotions, SOLSTICE is driven primarily by fear, something that has made her a massive control freak. She needs to be in control to feel safe; in control of herself, of everyone she knows, and of everything around her, down to the atoms themselves. The deep-seated sense that she isn't safe and that she can't possibly predict every threat is a major root of her decision to constantly aim for more power, seeking the absolute strength needed to kill everyone who would harm her and to survive it all. Given that, thanks to her paranoia, SOLSTICE is usually stuck in the mindset that most people are working against her and the world itself is at odds with her, she doesn't view even a single person as completely nonthreatening. Though she won't seek out fights unless she absolutely thinks her safety is at sake, SOLSTICE won't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in her way. Killing people means nothing to her, and she feels only satisfaction in stomping out the most stubborn threats to her safety. The blood and gore that murder tends to result in is more distressing to her than the act itself, and so SOLSTICE kills with overwhelming force, incinerating, vaporizing, and atomizing victims so that there's no gristly remains to confront her with the reality of mortality.

While she is technically already dead as a ghost, what SOLSTICE fears most is death. She associates it with the decade she spent alone, an association that has intensified into a delusion, that she will drift alone for eternity if she ever truly dies again. This fate is so utterly repulsive to her that it ultimately drives all of her decisions. To her, the difference between death and solitude is just semantics; if she had to live the rest of her life alone, she may as well be dead. SOLSTICE does not feel like she can truly exist without others to confirm her existence, and would surround herself with people she despised so long as they could acknowledge her and no one else was available. This intense fear of abandonment causes her to be extremely obsessive and possessive when it comes to those she loves, aiming to make it so that they won't just not want to leave, but so that it'll be impossible. SOLSTICE may love them dearly, but the way she treats them is more akin to how one would treat a precious possession. She cannot escape the guilt these abusive actions drags up in her, but she denies it all she can, refusing to acknowledge healthier options and convincing herself it's the only way and that it's not her fault anyways. When forced to face her fears, SOLSTICE tries to keep her head and act rationally, but often collapses under her trauma in desperate situations, turning into a sobbing, pathetic wreck that is closer to who she truly is than her mask of absolute confidence. If it means she'll survive, SOLSTICE will do anything, kill anyone, and beg as much as she needs to. In the face of death, pride and love mean nothing.

Despite it all, SOLSTICE's abusive behavior only drives her loved ones away over time, something that she struggles to understand. Her desperate efforts to find love and happiness again are fruitless attempts to reach the same blissful peace and simplicity of her childhood, a time of her life that she views as perfect, perhaps the most perfect. She accepts the consequences of her decisions up until they lead to her greatest fears, abandonment and death, desperately blaming everyone else to avoid acknowledging the fact that these results stem from her own actions. It is incomprehensible to her that her own attempts to engrave her existence into history and become the universally loved ruler of all things would lead to the things she fears most. After all this time, SOLSTICE doesn't process any other options than the ones she has committed to, and has deluded herself into believing that a future where she can exist in security eternally with her loved ones lies at the end of it all. Deep in her heart, however, SOLSTICE understands that her behavior has doomed her to what will ultimately be a life of solitude, a truth that she ignores.

Relationships
EQUINOX "I can't believe that ungrateful bitch did that to me! After everything I've done for her...! I'll... I'll KILL her!"

A person that SOLSTICE - Alice - loves, fears, and hates all in equal measure. Undeniably the most important person in her life, though Alice is certainly slow to admit this to herself after everything that has happened between the two of them. Their relationship, which seemed full of so much more promise than any other Alice had ever pursued at first, fell apart in the most spectacular and violent of ways, and now, Alice is left alone, trying to escape from the knowledge that it's her own fault. Her intentions going into the relationship were as pure as they can be, desiring only companionship to soothe the loneliness, the desperate need for intimacy and love, that plagued her so much, but as Alice lost herself in her passion she began obsessing over the idea that she could have more. That she could finally become what she wanted to be. And while she may have succeeded in that, it came at the expense of her most important relationship, and ultimately even her life.

Much of her early manipulation wasn't entirely conscious, but Alice knows herself and people well enough that she realized what she doing eventually. Even if she hadn't realized that end of things, she intentionally did manipulate EQUINOX in many ways, drawing her closer and closer, so close that she'd be her everything. The fears brought up by EQUINOX only served to make Alice's abandonment issues worse, and so she desperately sought to do this faster before she could wise up and get away, ultimately succeeding as she sank her fangs into EQUINOX. All the while, though Alice knew that it wasn't the best thing to do, she felt little guilt or hesitation in her actions. All of her relationships had always been built on manipulation, on lies, on guilt-tripping, even her relationship with her beloved daughter, so what difference did it make? At this point, it was essentially second nature for her.

With the knowledge that she had pulled EQUINOX in as far as she could and could get away with more and more blatantly abusive behavior, Alice began descending into worse and worse shows of it, especially as they became married. She seized control of her wedding, sidelining many of EQUINOX's friends while inviting many of her own and turning it into almost a spectacle, a show of her success that she couldn't help but share. The small, private ceremony that EQUINOX would've preferred was lost in favor of something bigger, the wedding of Alice's dreams, with no illusions of compromise. At that point, EQUINOX learned that it'd be better to cooperate than fight, and simply went along even as Alice's ambitions took control of her and she forced her to create the Solar Drive. Even as things worsened, Alice never stopped loving EQUINOX, but her love was a twisted, obsessive, destructive thing.

The final, steep dive of their relationship began when Alice lost herself in a fit of anger months after the wedding, stressed, exhausted, and angry. Her abuse turned physical, as she strangled EQUINOX, nearly killing her before she began to calm down and realized what she had done. It was followed by instant regret and crushing guilt that brought on strangled sobs, but though Alice apologized again and again, as this dam broke she simply lost control of herself, bit by bit. The promise of the power she had always wanted, and the power she evidently had over her wife got to her, clouded her mind, and completely seized her heart. The guilt became more and more manageable, and the physical violence became more calculated even though Alice's rage was always the trigger.

When EQUINOX disappeared, Alice went through a long period of desperate denial as she searched for her, but she never found her and eventually fell into a deep depression as she concluded that she had died. She refused to acknowledge the possibility of suicide, something that she simply couldn't fathom at all, and violently vented her rage and grief on the world around her, reducing Earth to an irradiated wasteland. Considering herself a widow, she shut herself off from the rest of her friends and allies, and simply mourned the loss of her beloved wife. And yet... EQUINOX persevered, and confronted her above the Earth. For Alice, that fight was without a doubt the worst moment of her life. Everything she wanted, everything she thought she had, collapsed around her, leaving her betrayed and heartbroken. The violent rage that followed was inevitable for her, but she lost all the same, and was left to die on the planet she ruined.

In that moment, Alice was gripped by a fearful, distraught shock, but her three hundred year long hibernation has given her plentiful time to think it over in her sleep. The guilt that she dodged before is stronger than ever, though she still does her best to escape it and pin EQUINOX's betrayal on anything, everything else, refusing to admit that she was an awful excuse of a wife. While she remains enraged by what was done to her, now, more than anything else, Alice is simply sad, tired, and scared when it comes to EQUINOX. In becoming the first person to ever defeat her in combat, nearly killing her and traumatizing her in the process, EQUINOX ascended to embody death for Alice. Some days, she remembers her as she saw her walking down the aisle, the woman she would spend the rest of her life with... and on others, she sees only a grim reaper clad in storm clouds with a scythe in hand. Alice's greatest love has become her greatest fear, an individual she never wants to face ever again, even if she knows she must.

Powers and Statistics
Tier: At least 9-A | High 5-A | 4-B | 3-C

Powers and Abilities:
 * -|Base=
 * -|Original Solar Drive=
 * -|Upgraded Solar Drive=
 * -|Basilisk=

Attack Potency: At least Small Building level (She can destroy magically reinforced tanks with her bare hands) | Dwarf Star level (Fought against EQUINOX, destroying the planet over the course of their fight. Dispersed EQUINOX's storm, which was the size of the Great Red Spot, and atomized the atmosphere with a single attack) | Solar System level (She has more magical power at her disposal than Kuna, Fuse, Kyarne, and EQUINOX, to the point that she can instantly punch holes through them, and is capable of casually releasing attacks with energy that far surpass supernovas) | Galaxy level (In terms of sheer power, she surpasses Milky Way and can fight against both EQUINOX and Minna at once).

Speed: At least Supersonic+ (Can easily deflect and catch bullets, even at close ranges or when fired from automatic weaponry) | Massively FTL (Comparable to EQUINOX, who outsped a radiation beam) | Massively FTL+ (She can keep up with EQUINOX and Kyarne, and even barely react to Kuna's attacks due to her sheer skill) | Massively FTL+ (Much faster than she was before, capable of rapidly traversing galactic distances and even moving beyond).

Lifting Strength: Class 100 (Can lift and throw tanks and helicopters) | Stellar (Caught and held back the Moon, which EQUINOX telekinetically launched at her, with a single hand, halting its momentum) | Stellar (Much stronger than before, and she can lift and throw Kyarne, a literal star, without issue) | Multi-Stellar (Comparable to Remnant, who can fit multiple stars in their orbit).

Striking Strength: At least Small Building Class | Dwarf Star Class (Split the Earth in half with a stomp) | Solar System Class (Her physical strength is equal to her magical power) | Galactic Class (Can match Milky Way's Dead End Galaxy with her normal blows).

Durability: At least Small Building level | Dwarf Star level (Survived having 80% of the Moon converted into energy and exploding on her, and got back up afterwards) | Solar System level (She can take Kuna, Kyarne, and EQUINOX's strongest attacks and keep on going) | Galaxy level. Across all of her forms, killing her is incredibly difficult, as her sheer willpower allows her to endure as a ghost and take grievous damage to her soul without dying.

Stamina: Extremely high. Though her body has its limits, SOLSTICE can fight for hours at a time without stopping, pushing her luck again and again only to come out on top thanks to her sheer willpower and skill. If lethally wounded, SOLSTICE can stave of death by simply refusing to die, and keep on fighting longer than she should be able to. Even without the magical knowledge needed to heal herself and despite still being dependent on her body, she was able to temporarily keep on fighting after losing most of her blood, an arm, and taking wounds that would be lethal for normal people, surviving even having the Solar Drive torn out and her brain badly damaged. Still, in such situations, the collapse and death of her body is more or less inevitable, but, in ghostly undeath, SOLSTICE's willpower shows its true worth. As a child, she survived for a decade as a ghost through her sheer will to stay alive, when a normal child is likely to have died within the day, and almost certainly within the month, let alone the year. Now, as an adult, SOLSTICE's willpower is stronger than ever, allowing her to survive critical damage to her soul, keep on fighting, and, when necessary, escape to recuperate. | Virtually infinite. The Solar Drive can constantly produce energy for billions of years, without pause, making the already stubborn and resilient SOLSTICE harder to kill than ever, and almost impossible to outlast. | Virtually infinite. After surpassing the limitations of her body, SOLSTICE can easily replicate her earlier feats of survivability, and she can effectively fight for the full length of the Solar Drive's energy production even after taking extensive damage to her body and soul.

Range: Extended melee range (SOLSTICE is so tall that her reach is several meters, allowing her to easily outrange opponents in close combat) | Interplanetary (Dispelled EQUINOX's storm, which was the size of the Great Red Spot, with a single attack, which was felt in the Kuiper Belt) | Interstellar | Galactic

Standard Equipment: Nothing notable, though she will use anything available. | The Solar Drive, which is located in her chest in place of her heart.

Intelligence: Supergenius. SOLSTICE is an exceptionally intelligent individual, possessing a wealth of experience between her actual life, and the thousands of years of military experience and theory granted to her by the military AI she effectively absorbed, making her a strategic mastermind of unparalleled prowess capable of keeping up with and defeating those who have far more practical experience than herself. She is effectively a self-aware supercomputer that far surpasses the computing ability of the real world's supercomputers in all regards, and with the Solar Drive to enhance her computing and analytical powers, she has effectively become a Matrioshka brain. SOLSTICE has an eidetic memory, recalling everything flawlessly and subconsciously recording it all due to her AI components, allowing her to delve into her memories whenever she pleases to witness them again in perfect detail. She is smart enough to constantly run simulations of the countless futures that occur because of every single one of her decisions, carefully deliberating over them and the potential consequences of any choices, even in combat. Her skill in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat is extraordinary, and unlike her military knowledge, completely derived from her own life. Even with 300 years to train and become a master of martial arts, EQUINOX is still completely outmatched by her in hand-to-hand combat. Her knowledge spreads even to non-combat situations, as she is an exceptional manipulator and liar who can easily read others through a number of techniques and her own analytical ability, picking up on every little detail to figure them out and manipulate them. SOLSTICE's charisma is absolutely inhuman and all her own, existing on a scale that far surpasses that of even humanity's greatest leaders. However, her intelligence is not absolute. While she excels in combat and manipulation, she initially has no useful knowledge on magic, and her grasp on magic never surpasses that of an exceptional high schooler, paling in comparison to those who have focused their efforts on mastering it, such as EQUINOX. In addition, her temper and paranoia often warp her decisions, causing her to act irrationally, and she can panic in extremely dire situations due to her traumatic experiences, preventing her from thinking clearly.

Weaknesses: Despite her best efforts to prevent them from affecting her decisions, SOLSTICE is paranoid and has a very short-temper, which affect her decisions greatly when they come into play. When faced with near-death experiences, SOLSTICE can have traumatic breakdowns, flashbacks, and panic attacks that prevent her from thinking clearly and fighting to the best of her ability, though she's working on getting better at dealing with these. She has a very limited understanding of magic, initially requiring the Solar Drive to use it at all, even in minor applications, and without the Solar Drive her power and computing ability drop greatly. SOLSTICE's precognitive abilities are also dependent on the Solar Drive and are not infallible, as they are based off of her own knowledge and views on the world. If the Solar Drive is badly damaged, it can begin to function irregularly, risking a potentially explosive meltdown that would prove lethal for SOLSTICE, forcing her to vent excess energy, which can result in the loss of millions of years' worth of energy at once. SOLSTICE cannot reconstruct the Solar Drive, which is left open when she uses magic to reconstruct and deconstruct herself.

Key: Base | Solar Drive (Original) | Solar Drive (Upgraded) | Basilisk

Note: Apophis Drive and the Low-Godly regeneration it brings is a theoretical ability and whether its use is possible should be noted in versus threads, as it is only even theoretically possible with the magic knowledge SOLSTICE has as Basilisk.

Abilities
Agency: A mage is more properly known as an agent, as in “one that acts or exerts power”. Separated from the rest of the universe, an agent is essentially a miniature universe all their own, with complete control over their destiny, free to pursue whatever future they wish. They do this through magic, the art of using one’s understanding to control Fantasy, the stuff of sheer willpower and imagination.
 * Absolute Barrier: A magical barrier that protects the user from external manipulation and attack, on every level of existence. An Absolute Barrier protects the user’s body, mind, and soul - their cells and atoms, the magical and physical forces keeping them together, and everything else. It is akin to a magical immune system, protecting the agent from threats and adapting to future attack. It passively protects the user from most types of attack, manipulation, and control, as long as the barrier is strong enough - an agent of substantially greater power can punch straight through one. An Absolute Barrier is passively maintained at all times, even in sleep, requiring no energy to maintain, and can only be removed by a stronger agent actively stripping it away, or by the user consciously lowering them. An Absolute Barrier is the evolved form of the soul’s original protective layer, refined through the usage of and exposure to magic.
 * Radar: An agent’s magical abilities passively sustain a constant 360° image of their surroundings, which is projected straight to their mind for processing. This radar is far more reliable than conventional senses, and cannot be easily fooled by tricks that would trip up any normal human. In the hands of a powerful enough agent, it can even track superluminal movements. It constantly operates at the agent’s maximum processing speed, even when such things would normally be restricted to allow for normal, everyday life.


 * The Solar Drive: The source of SOLSTICE’s magical power and potential, located in her chest, in place of her heart. It is a highly-advanced solar reactor that acts as an artificial supplement to her magical array, powered by a complicated series of magical sigils and currents that constantly generate magical energy. SOLSTICE’s magical abilities are linked to and fully dependent on the Solar Drive. Effectively a miniature star, the Solar Drive can produce energy without pause for millions to billions of years. This allows SOLSTICE to fight effectively indefinitely under optimal conditions. She can choose how to distribute the energy, focusing much of it on boosting her processing power, allowing her to use her extensive strategic knowledge to its full extent - she is, for all extents and purposes, a Matrioshka brain. If need be, SOLSTICE can redistribute the energy to increase other departments at the expense of other functions.  If badly damaged, the Solar Drive can begin to function irregularly, leaking high amounts of radiation and risking a potentially explosive meltdown. This is a severe issue for SOLSTICE, as its self-destruction will kill her; therefore, in these situations, she must properly vent the excess energy to keep herself safe. In dire straits, this can result in the loss of millions of years’ worth of energy at once - of course, this excess energy can be weaponized.  As it was designed for SOLSTICE’s use, to integrate with her inner world, the Solar Drive cannot be effectively used by anyone else, becoming less and less useful the more different the person is. Eventually, as her magic develops, the Solar Drive becomes the most important part of SOLSTICE’s body, with the rest of it becoming increasingly inconsequential. This allows her to stay alive as just the Solar Drive, and also gives her the ability to move it around inside her body to make it harder to hit.

Artificial Human: SOLSTICE’s body is an artificial one built in emulation of humanity, something often referred to as an android or homunculus. Unlike most models, SOLSTICE’s homunculus is made with combat and survivability in mind, and so she is superhumanly capable, both physically and mentally, and has no natural limit to her lifespan. This is aided by an advanced artificial immune system, including nanotechnology, and various life support systems that provide protection in hostile environments and allow SOLSTICE to survive wounds that may prove fatal for humans thanks to redundancies.

All this makes for an incredibly resilient foe, though decisive strikes to SOLSTICE’s heart or brain can still prove debilitating and, if it were not for her immense willpower and refusal to die, lethal in the short-term. SOLSTICE can still survive blood loss that would kill normal humans, however, and act when severe pain or damage to her body would disable others, in part because of her artificial body and in part because of her sheer will. Topping this off is accelerated healing that allows SOLSTICE to completely heal wounds that would leave large scars in only a couple of days, and mend broken bones or serious organ damage within a week at most. Lost limbs can be reattached, though it takes a little bit of time to fully incorporate them into her body.

Were it not for her extreme paranoia, which renders the idea of anyone tampering with her idealized body horrifying and far too dangerous to risk, SOLSTICE’s body would have been upgraded with a plethora of modern advancements to combat android technology that would make her even more dangerous and hard to kill.
 * Causal Calculations: Using the processing power provided by the Solar Drive, combined with her advanced artificial brain and strategic genius, SOLSTICE can run simulations of nearly every possibility of the actions of herself and others at nearly all times. By preparing and accounting for these possibilities and acting in pursuit of the most favorable outcomes, SOLSTICE can outmaneuver and outmatch her foes. SOLSTICE, of course, mostly puts this to use in combat, using it to adapt to her opponents based on the probabilities of their actions and the countless futures she has went over in her simulations. These predictions become more accurate as SOLSTICE’s knowledge on her foe and the situation develops over the course of the fight, one of the many things that makes prolonged combat with her so risky. Though SOLSTICE’s vast intellect and processing power means that her predictions are accurate more often than not, they are limited by the knowledge available to her and by what she perceives as impossible. Her own social failings and selfishness mean that, for all of her ability as a social chameleon, SOLSTICE can often fail to predict the actions of others over the course of long-term interactions and relationships. For example, she could have never predicted that EQUINOX would attempt to kill herself and ultimately turn against her.


 * Phantasm: SOLSTICE’s true form is that of a disembodied soul, a ghost, occupying her advanced artificial body and diffused throughout its system to allow for highly precise control and awareness. When separated from her body, SOLSTICE is detached from the physical realm, rendered completely intangible and invisible to all but those with advanced magical awareness. Due to her own magical incompetency, SOLSTICE cannot interact with others either, beyond possessing empty bodies or computer systems suitable for inhabitation. As SOLSTICE’s magical abilities grow and she becomes a greater mage, her abilities in this ghostly form increase, allowing her a measure more freedom and the ability to better interact with others, or, more importantly, possess even occupied bodies and steal them from others if need be.

10,000 Fangs: The martial arts that SOLSTICE, or rather, Alice, has gathered in life and perfected on her own, without depending on the experience granted to her by the AI that she fused with. SOLSTICE’s martial arts knowledge encompasses a mastery of every earthly martial art there is, any of which she can use to lethal effect. She discards any consistent stance or unnecessarily structured techniques in the name of efficiency and adaptability.

In accordance with her views on reality and general strategies, SOLSTICE switches between disciplines as necessary, using whatever martial art is best suited to fight against her opponent and exploit specific openings from moment to moment. She of course has her own style, a blend of many others, that takes advantage of her immense reach and power. Preferring hard martial arts to the soft, SOLSTICE incorporates a lot of kicks into her combat regardless of whatever she’s using at the time to better utilize her range advantage. Fighting her in hand-to-hand combat is a disorienting and unpredictable experience, in which SOLSTICE rapidly switches between arts to use them all to their fullest potential.

Initially purely physical, consorting with angels brings SOLSTICE some knowledge of Logos, transcending the physical to instead utilize purely magical attacks, willing that her opponents be struck, instantaneously and with no physical component. These cannot be responded to by normal means, instead requiring magical defenses and accurate predictions to counter them. Though this is an application of true magic, it is achieved through sheer willpower and discipline alone, both things that SOLSTICE excels in and can thus perfectly weave into her combat style as she masters this art like so many others.

Though she may be a master of martial arts, for SOLSTICE, it is only a means to an end, and that end is defeating any potential threat. Her skill cannot truly compare to that of someone who has devoted the entirety of their life to martial arts, but she more than makes up for it with her tactical knowledge, knowing when she’s outmatched in hand-to-hand and thus when to switch it up.

Sol Invictus: SOLSTICE’s magic, a magic linked to the power of the Sun, an alchemical art granted to her by the Solar Drive. It manifests through the control of radiation and nuclear phenomena, and thus the strong and weak nuclear forces. She can control all kinds of electromagnetic and particle radiation, from the lowest to highest frequencies, including radio waves, gamma rays, and visible light. Due to SOLSTICE’s poor understanding of magic and physics, she can’t do much more with this than destroy, but as she further explores magic, its applications grow.

As a miniature star, the Solar Drive produces high amounts of energy and radiation, including light, which SOLSTICE channels into magical attacks and a passive aura that irradiates her surroundings once activated. This aura is powerful enough to induce radioactive decay and radiolysis, breaking matter down into its components and absorbing the energy this produces before the decomposition advances into the impossible to completely destroy particles. This can erase even magical attacks. For her magical attacks, SOLSTICE prefers to use radiation, particularly light, in her attacks, firing them from her hands, other parts of her body, and the air around her. Such attacks can easily and quickly induce cancers, with their immense power making it much more likely and much more dangerous.

Despite her lacking knowledge in magic or physics, SOLSTICE can use Sol Invictus with surprising precision and control, firing focused beams of light that can break down and destroy matter in localized areas while leaving the rest of an object untouched. She can even disintegrate opponents by causing the complete dissolution of their molecular structure, producing more radiation in the process. Thanks to both the Solar Drive and her magic, SOLSTICE passively absorbs this, and all forms of radiation, along with energy, allowing her to boost her power and fuel with access to suitable sources.
 * Nuclear Fission and Fusion: SOLSTICE’s magic allows her to induce both nuclear fission and fusion, both of which produce high amounts of energy for use in combat. While the fusion reactions taking place in the Solar Drive are passive, she can still actively induce them if she pleases, though with a stunning lack of precision. Both fission and fusion have their uses, not just in combat but also energy production, and as SOLSTICE grows as a mage, she becomes better at utilizing them. In combat, SOLSTICE can utilize fission and fusion reactions to cause nuclear explosions. She mostly uses fission due the finer complexities of fusion, and can produce the fissile materials needed for her fission reactions fairly easily, even transmuting matter into a fissile state if needed. As a result, SOLSTICE can use anything to produce her nuclear explosions, priming large quantities of matter for detonation to cause huge explosions. This can be used on opponents to turn them into nuclear bombs, a particularly unfortunate fate.
 * Solar Plasma: By superheating matter through her nuclear processes, SOLSTICE can produce high amounts of extremely hot plasma, the state of matter that makes up such things as the stars themselves. While she could theoretically use plasma for essentially whatever she pleases, her lack of magical knowledge means SOLSTICE mostly just fires it at opponents. She particularly enjoys creating miniature stars, but again, she initially lacks control, making these stars very unstable. This suits SOLSTICE’s needs just fine, though, allowing her to throw small, unstable stars at her opponents before detonating them. As her understanding grows, it becomes increasingly easy for her to create and maintain the stars she creates in this manner, allowing her to materialize more and use them more creatively.
 * The Strong Interaction: The Strong Interaction is the strongest of the four fundamental interactions, responsible for holding together atomic nuclei. Through this power, SOLSTICE can manipulate matter on an atomic level, deconstruct and reconstruct it, or even create it from scratch. Her control of this power is initially very sloppy and imprecise, making it unreliable. Most of the time, instead of utilizing this to destroy to matter, SOLSTICE simply uses her normal abilities at high power to reach the same end. While it takes time, SOLSTICE gradually begins to figure out how to use the Strong Interaction to its fullest potential, allowing her to use it in a variety of ways.
 * Reconstruction: SOLSTICE can regenerate by reconstructing her body as she pleases, as long as there is enough matter available to do so, though she can circumvent this by just creating more. Due to her dependence on the Solar Drive, she can neither reconstruct or deconstruct it, leaving it vulnerable. In addition, as with the rest of her Strong Interaction powers, she initially lacks the magical knowledge to properly use it. Eventually, however, SOLSTICE is able to automate the process.
 * Shapeshifting: As her magical knowledge became more and more extensive, SOLSTICE eventually became capable of manipulating her own molecular structure with much greater ease. Through this, she can control her own body and shape and completely transform it to take the shape of other beings or things.

Basilisk: The beginning of SOLSTICE’s own forays into magical research. As her understanding of magic and science develops, so does her magic, growing in both potency and complexity. Her control over her primary magic of Sol Invictus grows significantly, allowing her to call upon its more complex applications more easily and use it with greater precision, and as a result, all of her magic becomes vastly more dangerous, backed up by SOLSTICE’s steadily growing magical knowledge and the versatility and power it provides.

While this is a vast improvement over what she had before, her knowledge does not ever near the level of a truly devoted witch, instead reaching the level of a high school student who payed attention and excelled in school, but didn’t put in any more effort in than necessary. A big part of this success comes from SOLSTICE’s sheer willpower, but her magic is ultimately still sloppy compared to career witches. Much of Basilisk’s effects stem from SOLSTICE’s inner world, and some of them were already present in a lesser form, with Basilisk serving to further strengthen them and bring them into the limelight.
 * Hyperion Gorgon: Through her newfound magical knowledge and sheer willpower, SOLSTICE can stop time, though with a limited duration. While she can use this on a larger area, she generally prefers to use it on single targets, as it not only has a lower cost, but is harder to break free from as well. While it is easier for SOLSTICE to apply the effects through eye contact, it is not necessary for the use of the ability. Even when its range is limited to only a single target, stopping time is costly, but SOLSTICE’s effectively limitless pool of magical energy limits the risks of maintaining it, so the real danger is in those with the willpower or magical energy to resist and break out. Using it recklessly against other mages would only result in them figuring out how it works, and in their defenses adapting to better mitigate its effects. Instead, SOLSTICE uses it sparingly, and for brief periods of time, to disorient opponents and open up opportunities. To her targets, it appears only as a flash of light that seems to blot out their thoughts, leaving them to snap back to the present without any perception of time having passed. SOLSTICE would only stop time for a long period of time if she believed there was a perfect opportunity to do so. In truth, though SOLSTICE has developed this power through her own knowledge, it is a reflection of her inner world and her obsessive need for control.
 * Infinity Hydra: The branching, effectively infinite nature of SOLSTICE, her potential, and the power of her choices in escaping death, always showing a way out and always leading to future successes. It allows her to “switch” through any personal possibility that she’s predicted; for example, switching from a possibility in which her opponent hits her to one where they miss, or to one in which the attack’s damage is greatly reduced, and so on. It is even possible for her to escape death at the last possible moment in this way. While SOLSTICE’s possibilities can be destroyed and are lost as she uses them, they replenish themselves over time, and as each is lost, they are broken down into energy, making SOLSTICE stronger. This technique makes killing her more difficult than ever, as she can constantly escape any unfavorable outcome, even death, by switching to preferable possibilities. Infinity Hydra’s effects are limited to her own body, cannot change things outside of her without strain, and can be overcome by attacks that SOLSTICE has no way of surviving or dodging. Theoretically speaking, SOLSTICE could be outlasted even with this, but this is virtually impossible due to her own absurd stamina.
 * Ouroboros: An Override Sigil developed by SOLSTICE in the name of self-preservation, an ever-changing attempt to realize the truest immortality possible. It does not have any single function, instead working to increase SOLSTICE’s survivability through a variety of means.
 * Adaptation: Ouroboros rapidly analyzes any attack directed at SOLSTICE, using this information to alter her defenses appropriately in order to best endure the attack. This works on top of the normal reactive defenses of an Absolute Barrier, and these adaptations can be removed and reapplied by SOLSTICE as she pleases or stripped away. SOLSTICE can adapt to attacks without being hit by them so long as she’s able to analyze them, but actually taking them gives Ouroboros the opportunity to better analyze and process the information to create better defenses. As with reactive defenses, this simply makes SOLSTICE more resistant to any type of attack as she is exposed to it more and more, potentially becoming virtually immune. Attacks that are difficult to analyze and process, or that SOLSTICE doesn’t initially understand present a greater challenge for this system, and can slip through without giving her a chance to adapt. It also has another effect, which is that it will automatically work on strengthening SOLSTICE’s soul in response to any threat, putting her through more strain to continuously increase her own power and surpass any opponent given the time. This effect is constantly active during combat, allowing SOLSTICE to become a greater and greater threat the longer a fight lasts. This aspect of Ouroboros has always existed within SOLSTICE, as reflected by her already unusually potent reactive defenses of her Absolute Barrier, and by the manner in which power explosively rises when she is pushed to her limits. Basilisk has only left the effect more powerful and more pronounced.
 * Nega-Stasis: Ouroboros constantly shifts and amplifies its defenses, a consistent state of change that strives against any attempts at harming SOLSTICE. As a result, any attempt to inflict ‘stasis’ on her - stopping time, paralyzing her body, freezing her, petrifying her, anything, even destroying her soul, mind, and killing her - is something that Ouroboros constantly fights against. This ability was based off of Ceres’ own; however, SOLSTICE’s version is inferior in every regard, due to her poor understanding and sloppy magic.

Apophis Drive: The life that SOLSTICE has lived and the means by which she has done so, fully realized in the form of her inner world. Her inner world only becomes fully available to her when she, the snake, absorbs the Solar Drive, the immortal Sun itself, into her soul to reach Apotheosis and evolve past the limitations of a mortal body, claiming full control of her magic in the process. The ultimate culmination of everything she's always wanted to be and the steps she took to become that person, it is completely inseparable from her existence, something she can bring it into reality as something close to a pocket dimension, to set the stage for the closing rounds of a fight.

Unusually for an inner world, Apophis Drive is not limited to a single environment or a single dimension, instead existing as a series of them, a system of simulated possibilities, the same that SOLSTICE views stemming from her every action and those of all others. These simulations can replicate any location SOLSTICE has sufficient knowledge on, existing as a hyperreality that duplicates the real through the lens of SOLSTICE’s calculated possibilities. While this could theoretically be used to fool others into believing they’re in the real world when they’re truly in SOLSTICE’s soul, its main use is a much grander application of Infinity Hydra - the ability to outright choose the future.

Using the futures she’s predicted as a basis, SOLSTICE can switch through these simulated possibilities to move from one possibility to any other she’s accounted for in her calculations. One would think that this would make possibilities that do not stem from this present impossible, but SOLSTICE could make these futures and others that would not be conventionally possible occur anyways by imagining such impossibilities and willing them into reality. Switching through these possibilities changes reality with it as Infinity Hydra does, but on a larger scale, affecting not just herself, but her opponents as well.

For example, SOLSTICE can switch from a possibility in which she was struck by an attack to one where she wasn’t or from one in which she’s dying to one in which she’s alive, and vice versa for her enemies, making attacks that would otherwise miss strike and kill opponents. Alternatively, SOLSTICE can ensure certain courses of action, such as a future where her opponent acts less than optimally in accordance with the ideal futures she sees. The full depth of the futures she can realize is much more complex and powerful than this, however, potentially even allowing her to strip her opponents of their powers, kill them outright, or make it so they had never come to face her at all.

The extreme power of this magic is tempered by its costs and its effects can be lessened by the defenses of other powerful mages, even more so once they realize how Apophis Drive functions. Individual simulations can be destroyed by opponents, and those with enough magical knowledge could alter others to prevent SOLSTICE from using them as an escape. Finally, the simulations are just that - simulations of the real world, so they still have its laws, which fight against magic in all its forms, even in SOLSTICE’s hands. Creating new worlds with new laws is extremely difficult for SOLSTICE, and as a result, may as well be impossible.

Even so, as the creator of these simulations, SOLSTICE has control over them, allowing her to manipulate them on a more precise scale to trigger cosmic phenomena, such as the creation and destruction of stars, nebulae, and black holes, or to alter the fabric of space and time itself, whether it is slowing, accelerating, reversing, or stopping time on such a grand cosmic scale. By aborting a simulation, SOLSTICE can simply erase it and its contents from existence, a trump card of sorts. The destruction of any simulation produces energy that SOLSTICE can use for whatever she pleases, even when others are responsible, so as a fight drags on, Apophis Drive pays back its cost several times over.

In the end, however, the simulations are still just simulations, and serve to hide the true form of SOLSTICE’s inner world, which lies behind them all. This backdrop is an empty, lonely void, occupied by a single, massive, blazing star that acts as the central processing unit of all the simulations - and indeed, of all of SOLSTICE herself. This space is only different from the outside world in that it is contained within SOLSTICE’s soul, and serves to display the most private and vulnerable parts of her soul, and so it is something that SOLSTICE would rather is not ever seen.
 * Simulacra: As part of her simulations, SOLSTICE can simulate other people and their abilities in the form of duplicates. Given that their behavior and performance is completely dependent on SOLSTICE’s knowledge of them and their abilities, they are nearly always imperfect and less dangerous than the original, but that doesn’t make them harmless. While the simulations are normally under SOLSTICE’s control and trapped within her simulation worlds, it is possible - though extremely difficult - for them to escape her control and gain the ability to exist on their own, independent from her and her simulations.

Override Sigil: An extremely advanced form of magical technique used to change the nature of reality around and within the user, allowing them to bend and break through the laws of physics. Due to their complexity, Override Sigils are incredibly difficult to create, use, and control properly, requiring detailed knowledge and a powerful will. In addition, they tend to, invariably, drain a lot of energy and stamina, making it difficult to use them for extended periods of time, even if this can be mitigated by more powerful and willful mages.
 * Relative Lightspeed: A common form of Override Sigil that is ultimately developed in some form or another by most mages as they increase in power and speed. Normally, it would be impossible for even an incredibly powerful and willful mage to break through a universal constant such as the speed of light, theoretically requiring infinite magical energy to do so. However, this Override Sigil circumvents this issue by modifying the user's inner world to change the value of c to whatever they please, raising it as they grow in speed so that they can accelerate past the universal speed limit.

Trivia

 * Alice, as a character concept, is one of my oldest original characters. Her original design and concept were inspired by Utsuho Reiuji, from the Touhou Project, though she has now strayed quite a way from this original idea. Further inspirations include Yoshikage Kira, of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure; more in terms of her role in the narrative than her character, though he's certainly impacted that too.
 * While based on Utsuho, Alice's favorite Touhou character would be Kanako Yasaka, for a number of reasons; a confident, decisive, and ambitious woman with snake theming? Sign her up.
 * She went through two major design phases, both of which I ultimately combined to form the final iteration; a renegade military AI with an obsession with the sun (SOLSTICE), and the ghost of a young girl killed in a nuclear accident (Alexandria, shortened to Alex, and eventually corrupted into Alice after months).
 * There's more to Alice than just that, of course; a lot of personal things went into her character, and, as she's developed, she's grown to encompass a lot more than what she originally did.
 * I am Alice's only fan now. And yet, I am also her greatest opponent.


 * Much of Alice's character was developed and explored with Narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD for short, in mind. She also has some very strong obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
 * Alice is very obsessive when it comes to food, and refuses to eat anything that she hasn't prepared herself. All her meals are carefully made to incorporate as many food groups as possible to fill her daily requirements, and she only rarely eats unhealthy foods. She's a very, very good cook as a result, and greatly enjoys cooking, finding it calming, almost therapeutic.
 * Cooking is one of the things she did with her parents when she was young, and so it has a special place in her heart because of this, though she'd never, ever admit it.
 * When it comes to music, Alice likes blues, country, and rock, particularly classical and psychedelic rock. Some of her favorite musicians and bands would include Elvis, Fleetwood Mac, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, and Santana.
 * Despite her best efforts, Alice has minimal artistic ability outside of cooking. She's VERY bad at singing in particular.
 * Alice's favorite Pokémon would include Arbok, Banette, Salazzle, and Ultra Necrozma.