[Spirit Class 7] Victoria Masters

Victoria is a woman of very specific morals and principles. Born from the circumstances of her childhood and youth, she believes quite strongly that those who would seek to take advantage of others are miserable and evil and need to be dealt with. At the same time, despite, or perhaps in spite of her past, she is not quick to label many people as evil. She seeks to see the good in people as well as she can and doesn't want her own experiences to use her as a vehicle to spread negativity. On the other hand, she has taken those experiences and learned from them what not to do or be like. She treats the figures of her past as lessons, not ghosts to be fearful of.

As a mother, Victoria was and still is intensely patient with others. Whether it's teaching math to a child, like her late son Franklyn, or a fighting technique to a fellow Vandenreich member, Victoria is willing to take as long as is necessary to ensure they succeed. More than almost anything, this is what causes her to feel joy; knowing she has helped someone improve themselves, as she didn't have anyone who did the same for her as a child.

When it comes to her comrades-in-arms in the Vandenreich, Victoria is incredibly protective of them. This is especially true for younger new recruits, who lack her worldly experience and still have much to learn. She has been known to take both promising and lagging-behind recruits under her wing and do her best to promote their growth. Though she's only been in the organization for a short time, her reputation as a supportive and patient mentor has spread enough to the point of other soldiers seeking her out themselves for training and tutelage.

Having lived in the belly of the beast of the criminal underworld, Victoria is intimately familiar with how monstrous humans can be. For this reason she doesn't hold any particular ire toward any race, including Hollows who she just sees as mindless beasts at worst. In her travels she has come across intelligent and thoughtful Arrancar as well, some repugnant and some reasonable, and sees them as having the same potential to be good or evil as any human or Quincy. Her experiences with Shinigami are limited, but having fought and killed a few when she was younger Victoria believes they are capable of the same.



May 17th, 2081. Fred and June Masters are in a labor, delivery, and recovery room in the maternity ward of a hospital in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. They just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Victoria Elizabeth Masters after their beloved grandmothers. She is the healthiest, most fearless newborn that particular hospital has ever delivered. Not a peep leaves her as she rests in June's arms, her big blue eyes staring up at her mother's delighted, though exhausted, face. Fred and June finally have the family they've always wanted.

The happy couple quickly learned their bundle of joy was not just healthy, but strong and intelligent as well. Before they knew it she was actively crawling through the house. After that, it wasn't long until she was waddling around and even saying her first words. At only half a year old, at that! Little Vicky Masters was proving herself far more advanced physically and mentally than other infants and toddlers her age, astounding even her doctors with her progress.

Over the first few years of Victoria's childhood, her advanced abilities were shown time and time again. By age 3, she demonstrated complex problem-solving skills. By age 4, Victoria was already becoming quite athletic and playing soccer at school with older peers. At 5 years old on the way home from soccer practice, she was bitten by a dog when trying to pet it yet somehow when the dog was yanked away by its owner her arm was revealed to be unblemished. "A miracle!' her parents said. But Victoria knew better. Something had appeared on her skin, making it hard as steel.

That same year, in the Summer of 2086, Victoria found herself wakened with a start as masked men threw clasps around her wrists and forced her from her home in the dead of night. A hood was tightened around her head and she could feel her body slam into the cold metal of the back of a van. Victoria was as intelligent as anybody a decade older, but she was still a child; she could not understand what was happening, all she knew in that moment was fear and desperation for her parents to come save her. Mom? Dad?! Where are you?! Help me! she screamed before being struck upon the head, returning her to unconsciousness.

When Victoria regained consciousness, she found herself chained to the wall of a dank cell with steel bars and little light to illuminate her surroundings. She wasn't alone. Outside the cell was a man she would never, could never, forget, the man who would be her captor for years to come. He introduced himself as Hugo Danser, her new father. He explained she was special, and that he saw incredible potential within her. The reason he had brought her here was to be a soldier in the war against those who would destroy humanity. He rattled off names of terrible ghosts of the past and warned either they or someone else would come to threaten mankind once again. But he would be there, with her and others at his side as the world's shield.

To any other 5-year-old, this story would be nonsense because they could barely register the meaning of his words. To Victoria, it was nonsense because she knew the protector of humanity wouldn't kidnap children and put them in cells. Before leaving, Hugo told her not to worry if she couldn't prove herself worthy as she wasn't the only one of her kind there and if she failed she would simply be discarded and replaced.

After a week in that cell, they came for her. A collar was affixed to her neck which she was told would explode if she fought back or just didn't do as she was told. Afterward, she was brought to a huge cavernous room with nearly two dozen other girls and boys about her age or older where the group was told to fight to the last and that while they needn't kill each other, such consequences could often be unpreventable. As mere children, they stood around frightened and unsure; what forced them into action was one of the facility guards throwing a collar into the air where it abruptly exploded.

During the ensuing chaos, Victoria fought back tears and other children. Her parents taught her to be strong even in the face of adversity, but this was so far beyond imagination. Still, her physical abilities and mental acuity proved too much for her peers and soon enough she stood, bloodied and bruised, alone. As a reward for her victory, she was given a real meal and then promptly brought to a lab where the experiments that haunt her to this day began. Hugo knew what she was, and would force her body to give up its secrets through a series of painful and horrific experiments that involved pushing Victoria to the brink time and time again.

The earliest tests involved stabbing her with needles, but when that didn't yield results they moved on to striking her with blunt objects. Hammers, wooden 2x4s, you name it, they hit her with it. At some point, these experiments devolved into inflicting as much pain as possible, such as by peeling off her fingernails and dislocating her shoulders. Eventually, the "scientists" got what they wanted: During a particularly brutal beating, on a particularly brutal swing of a hammer, the cracking of wood sounded out as the tool snapped in half. Black lines appeared on Victoria's unblemished skin. This was Blut Vene, and exactly what Hugo was waiting for.

After her latent Quincy power was revealed, Victoria went from being experimented on to being trained. First, she was taught to fight, with weapons, without weapons, against humans and nightmarish monsters (which she learned were called Hollows). Then, she was taught to utilize her gifts as a natural-born Quincy. Victoria was being molded into the ultimate weapon for Hugo and there was nothing she could do about it. When she threatened to kill herself, he revealed her collar didn't have to explode; instead, it could send a powerful shock throughout her body as punishment instead.

Years passed and by age 12 Victoria was a full-fledged Quincy. She had already become proficient with Blut Arterie and Blut Vene, Steigen, and even learned to control Reishi through her Kreuzen which was a cross her mother had apparently worn, at least according to Hugo. He made sure to spare no expense in her training as talented Quincies were brought in to tutor her in all their abilities, including Gebet, which she took to quickly because it afforded her time to herself and was the closest to real school and life in her world. Perhaps due t her heightened mental faculties, or being forced to dedicate her total self to it, Victoria quickly surpassed her tutors and was able to perform more complex feats with all the techniques than bog standard Quincies. Using a mixture of all these, she had already killed her first Hollow at an age when most children were playing kickball in gym class.

Over the next couple of years, Victoria was sent out on missions to hone her skills. Gradually, these changed from basic missions with Hollow targets to more clandestine operations with human targets. Hugo justified this change by claiming these humans were working against humanity and were no different monsters from the Hollows. This became harder to justify as she was sent on missions that could only be described as assassinations. When she questioned the point of doing this, Hugo responded by brutally beating her down and saying good soldiers follow orders.

During her time as a criminal underworld assassin, Victoria became known as Black Barlow, as her dark beauty was reminiscent of the flower. This name struck fear into the hearts of even the mightiest and most brutal criminal kingpins and was usually only said in the quietest of whispers so not even the shadows could hear. Throughout it all, despite her lethal efficiency, Victoria never once relished in killing. She did not enjoy this work. She merely did as she was told to avoid the punishments and threats Hugo dolled out in bunches.

What really solidified the Black Barlow reputation was when Hugo sent her after one of his biggest rivals, a black market weapons dealer Karl Nilsson. He was known as a recluse, having grown paranoid over the years due to the machinations of his enemies. For this reason, Victoria was forced to smuggle herself onto the docks where he ran his gun smuggling business and infiltrate the near-inaccessible compound Karl had hidden himself away in. Victoria carefully avoided detection and used all of her skills to bypass security, break locks, and make her way through the facility.

What Victoria didn't know was Karl had managed to employ a powerful Arrancar as a personal security guard. This man, Aldyos Arnollin, was a lethal and ruthless warrior who had grown to enjoy the perks of his employment on Earth. Upon reaching Karl's private quarters, she came face to face with Aldyos who proved a more dangerous foe than any she had encountered before while working for Hugo. He was faster, stronger, and more experienced with hundreds of years of battling to draw upon and he swiftly forced her into a corner. Her Spirit Weapons were ineffective, unable to pierce the enhanced Hierro of Aldyos's Resurreccion. It was then that she was forced to her limits, pushed to evolve in the heat of battle; her Blut surpassed its previous limits, and with this newfound power anything could become a weapon in her hands. For the first time Victoria channeled her Blut Arterie into a weapon, and used it to break through his steel skin and put an end to Aldyos Arnollin. Thereafter she finished off Karl and exfiltrated the now-demolished facility.

Though he never fully trusted Victoria, Hugo came to treat her as a close confidant. He was an arrogant man, and couldn't fathom the dog he believed he had beaten into submission would ever bite its master's hand. He began to reveal the inner workings of his operation, which was a large criminal organization hidden behind the veneer of a proper pharmaceuticals and bio-engineering corporation. On the surface, Hugo Danser was a cutthroat business executive and beloved philanthropist. But she knew the true monster beneath that mask.

After years of abuse and being forced to kill others, innocent and guilty, Victoria had had enough. As Hugo prattled on about the fall of his business and criminal rivals, she finally cracked and lunged at her master with the intent to kill. Before she knew it she lay on the ground convulsing as electricity ran through her body. Displeased and disappointed, Hugo had her dragged back to her cell but only after kicking her repeatedly in her stomach and back and pummeling her in the face.

Victoria awoke sometime later in her ever-familiar jail cell, woozy and in pain. But not too much pain, she realized. In fact, the places where Hugo had struck her weren't in pain at all. She was just feeling the aftereffects of electrocution. This man, who had ruled over her like a terrifying devil, had no power of his own. He only had the threat of this thing around her neck. Victoria felt along its edge for any kind of vulnerability until she came upon the clasp keeping it enclosed around her. There.

Knowing she would only have one shot at this, Victoria pushed her Blut Arterie to its limits and pulled at the collar with all her might. Immediately she felt shocks of electricity sent into her, but she did not relent; she could not relent. With a scream of pain and adrenaline, Victoria did the impossible and tore the harder-than-steel collar that had kept her imprisoned for over a decade into pieces.

Red lights accompanied loud sirens as the entire facility went under lockdown. With no time to waste Victoria moved to her cell's steel bars and swiftly bent them enough to open a gap wide enough for her to get through. Then, with freedom so close she could taste it, she took off down the hall of cells and began making her way through the facility toward an exit. But...she couldn't do it. She couldn't just leave. Her entire life would be spent fleeing from Hugo Danser. Now was the time to end things once and for all. Victoria quickly returned to her cell, tore off a steel bar, and channeled her Blut Arterie through it. She would use all the skills beaten into her to become a bigger monster than her would-be master.

Victoria fought her way to the central elevator, killing or maiming all the guards who came to see her returned to her cell. She made short work of the small army of trained soldiers, assassins, and even turrets and heavy vehicles, not taking a scratch thanks to her Blut. Once in the elevator, she hit the top floor button but the small room soon came to a halt. Acting quickly, she tore open a hole in its ceiling and began climbing the large steel cables holding it aloft. Once she reached the top level, Victoria pried open the elevator doors and found herself just one room away from her final assassination target. In her way stood a dozen men, all armed to the teeth; and within a minute, they lay at her feet. Nothing could stop her now.

Upon breaking into Hugo's office, Victoria was greeted by the man himself sitting cockily behind his desk. Before he could say a thing she walked up and smashed that oak desk into pieces, and grabbed him by his collar. She demanded to know the location of her parents, and he answered by saying in front of her. He explained he was her true father, for he turned her into what she was while she was still in the womb. June Masters was just a surrogate, whom he paid a sum of money to carry his invention: the ultimate bio-engineered weapon, her.

Hugo continued, revealing Victoria had not been kidnapped; her "parents" had been paid to carry her to term and raise her normally until she revealed her genetically modified Quincy powers. According to him, they willingly gave her up. In disbelief, she released Hugo and stumbled backward a few steps, frozen in shock. Hugo laughed. In the face of these cold-blooded revelations, Victoria knew what she must do. Everything this man touched needed to be destroyed. She started with Hugo himself by lifting him by his neck and snapping it. She then opened every cell from his office and sent out a message over the PA system that everyone who wished to be free, would be. Then, she brought ruin and calamity to the rest of the facility.

After her escape, Victoria chose not to seek out the people she couldn't help but call her parents. Hugo's words were confirmed when she read the confidential files in his office. Instead, she would choose to live a quiet life. She moved to Africa, far away from any would-be vengeful enemies.

Eventually, at age 26, Victoria met a man named Robert, who was kindhearted and would not be dissuaded from winning her over even as she rejected him time and again. Victoria and Robert grew to love each other, and a year after meeting they were married and she was pregnant. They gave birth to a boy whom they named Franklyn after Robert's deceased father, and to her relief was a normal infant and child. A side effect of being "normal" is when Franklyn was eventually diagnosed with late-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a disease that had gone unnoticed due to its asymptomatic nature early on. Even more unlucky, eight-year-old Franklyn was one of the rare few to die from CLL at a young age.

The pain of their child dying at such a young age created fissures in Victoria and Robert's relationship, and soon after they split amicably. Beyond anything that had happened to her as a child and young adult, the death of Franklyn left her feeling empty. It would take years of therapy and the power of time to "move on", if it was even possible to.

Years later, Victoria found work in Vastime's capital's public library where she enjoyed the peace and quiet it offered her. Then, at the end of 2022, everything changed in an instant as almost the entire city collapsed into a massive sinkhole unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Using Steigen, she avoided the fate met by most of the powerless citizens and made her way to the abyss's edge. She fought for hours against the invading horde of Hollows, to the point of exhaustion, before collapsing and being dragged away by Vandenreich soldiers. They recognized her as one of their own by the usage of her Vollständig, something she had always been reluctant to use due to its terrible consequences. When she later woke up she was debriefed on the situation and, seeing an opportunity to use the powers forced upon her for good, Victoria enlisted with the Vandenreich.



» Genetically Modified Physiology: Using every tool at his disposal, Hugo Danser sought to create a super-soldier in what would eventually become Victoria. She was designed to be faster, stronger, and smarter than any average human, and from a young age she developed far faster than her peers. Even without Blut Vene her skin is virtually bullet proof, and without Blue Arterie Victoria can bend steel bars and smash through elevator doors with no effort. She is almost entirely immune to normal human illnesses like influenza and other infectious diseases, though she is only somewhat more resilient against spiritual sicknesses spread by Zanpakuto abilities and the like. Victoria's reflexes are just as superhuman as any of her other traits, making her especially deadly in close quarters and difficult to catch by surprise.

» Trained Assassin: From a young age Victoria was trained to be a professional killer. With years of experience under her belt, she is capable of studying her prey, learning their habits and interests, and then developing complex plans to hunt and kill them without drawing undue attention to herself. Her skill at covertly infiltrating even heavily guarded facilities is without equal, as well as her ability to silently take down those who would discover her presence. She can use almost anything to kill her target, though her preferred weapons are knives and spears, both of which she has been trained thoroughly to use. Though she is reluctant to tap into these talents, Victoria always has them up her sleeve.

» Adaptive Blut Vene: Uniquely, Victoria was capable of using Quincy abilities from an incredibly young age. At only five years old her body automatically used Blut Vene to protect her from a dog's bite. Under Hugo Danser's watch, experiments were performed on her to force her to use Blut consciously which eventually bore fruit when she learned to control the ability, and rapidly developed it as her best fighting tool. Through further evolution, Victoria's Blut Vene improved beyond just hardened her skin. She also became more resistant to heat, cold, electricity, and even caustic materials like acids, and can even extend the ability's protection to single objects she holds in her hands. Now if she is struck by an attack of some kind, in the following post her Blut Vene is 20% more durable against that same attack. An example is if she is hit by a blast of fire in one post, in the next it is only 80% effective. The effect lasts a post and resets every post, and can only apply to one kind of attack at a time.

» Blut Arterie: Just like Blut Vene, Victoria is acutely talented at using Blut Arterie to both empower herself and a weapon she may be holding. She is able to significantly increase the force behind both simple punches and swings of a knife or spear. This ability makes any object, whether it be a lead pipe, wood 2x4, cane, or anything else, a deadly weapon in her grasp. In conjunction with her superhuman strength, Victoria can crush steel, shatter concrete, and break through any obstacles placed between herself and her target.

» Blut Vertrag (Blood Contract): Victoria possesses the unique ability to channel Reishi into her blood vessels and, in specific scenarios, through her blood itself. This manifests in two separate but related abilities: First is if Victoria coats her skin or an object she holds in her blood, she can empower both Blut Vene and Blut Arterie by 25%. However, this only works if she causes the bleeding; because of the difficulty in maintaining the Blut connection through blood outside her body, she must be the one to injure herself. In addition, a substantial amount of blood is necessary to achieve the full boost. The second way Blut Vertrag manifests is when the blood she is channeling Reishi through touches or is touched by an enemy attack, she gains a working knowledge of how the attack functions. This doesn't allow her to replicate attacks, as she won't have the training or experience necessary to do so, but instead serves to allow her to better strategize against foes.

» Other Quincy Skills: While her Blut is the most dangerous tool in her arsenal, Victoria is also talented with Steigen, Geben, and Kreuzen. She was trained for years in all of them by skilled tutors, and by the time she was a teenager Victoria was already as skilled as any Vandenreich soldier. She is able to use Grade II Gebet spells, and can channel her Reiryoku into her Quincy Cross to empower them. As for Kreuzen, Victoria possesses two separate Spirit Weapons, Faust and Mephistopheles, and they are stronger than those of a standard soldier's. Lastly, Victoria is able to use Steigen to move rapidly across both short and large distances and enjoys using it to jump from cover to cover while firing Mephistopheles at targets.



» Spirit Weapon Name: Mephistopheles

» Spirit Weapon Appearance: Normally, Mephistopheles is hidden away and represented by a small silver cross Victoria was given as a child and told was owned by her "mother". When summoned, it takes the form of a pitch black crossbow mounted on the back of her left arm.

» Faust's Folly: Victoria's Heilig Pfeils take the form of short and heavy crossbow bolts. They fly incredibly quickly, but more than that is their ability to pierce objects and people as if they're made of paper. In addition, they are incredibly dense and each individual bolt is about twice as filled with Reishi as a comparable Heilig Pfeil, but because of this they are more costly to fire and Victoria cannot shoot as many or as quickly consecutively. The true power of Faust's Folly is not in the shape and strength of the individual bolts: Victoria is able to create a chain of Reishi connected to a Heilig Pfeil before firing it, and after it has pierced its target she can either pull it towards her, or her towards it.

» Spirit Weapon Name: Faust

» Spirit Weapon Appearance: Unlike Mephistopheles, Faust takes the form of a silver lance six feet in length. It is of a simple design, while appearing worn down and aged, though the weapon's tip is as brutally sharp as ever.

» Devil's Bargain: Faust is a unique weapon in that its true power comes from how dangerous it is to its wielder. While Victoria wields Faust, her endurance and energy are both continuously sapped to the degree of about 5% of her total per posting round. In addition, after three consecutive posts of use Victoria will begin to feel intense pain throughout her entire body, after five she will begin bleeding more intensely from open wounds, and after seven cuts will begin opening across her body with no way for her Blut to prevent or limit this. The upside is Faust itself grows in power as Victoria is injured, dealing significantly more damage and at its maximum output, when she is at death's door, simply swinging it through the air can send forth terrible shock waves and do 3x as much damage.



» Vollständig Name: Hölle Gezogen (Dragged to Hell)

» Vollständig Appearance: A black, cracked halo appears above Victoria's head as chains coil around her legs, arms, and waist. Two small horns erupt from the skin on her forehead with white tips. Her sclera become black while the blue in her eyes changes to silver.

» Hell Pact: In her Vollständig, Victoria's Spirit Weapons merge into one to become something else altogether. Their new form is that of two black foot-and-a-half-long daggers with extended handles making them resemble shortened lances. These weapons are always connected to Victoria by chains that can extend to up to thirty feet in length, and she can fire them in a straight line like arrows. The chains themselves are hot to the touch, and allow her to always keep Blut flowing through them and to the daggers. When Mephistopheles and Faust pierce objects or people Victoria can send a quantity of volatile Reishi through them that can cause whatever they're in to have red cracks form on them before imploding in a blast.

• » Damned Soul: Unique to Victoria's Vollständig, it isn't able to be used indefinitely. Hölle Gezogen represents the blackened marks on her soul and the corruption she underwent to become a killer at the hands of another. For this reason, it is a punishment as much as a weapon. For every posting round she used Mephistopheles before using her Vollständig, it lasts that long: meaning if she loses 25% of her endurance from Devil's Bargain, Hölle Gezogen can only last 5 posts. The tradeoff is a much larger boost in power than a typical Vollständig, to the tune of halfway between Vollständig and Letzt Stil (Adept is 350%, Advanced 525%, etc). The pain caused by Hölle Gezogen is also significantly greater than that of Devil's Bargain, as well as the damaging side effect: After 3 posts, her skin begins burning off in splotches, after 5 posts she begins bleeding from her ears and eyes, and after 7 she will feel as if Death itself is drawing her into its clutches.

General Skills
» Durability: Adept
» Speed: Adept
» Strength: Adept
» Martial Skill: Adept

Will Skills
» Willpower: Advanced
» Deduction: Adept
» Focus: Adept

Quincy Skills
» Blut: Elite
» Gebet: Adept
» Kreuzen: Adept
» Steigen: Adept



Upgrade links here.