Vertiline Application
Character name: Maxine "Max" Gibson
Series: Batman Beyond
Timeline: Shortly after meeting Bruce in "Where's Terry?"
Background: When she was still a young girl, Maxine's parents divorced and she and her sister ended up in her mother's custody. Maxine's mother spent most of her time on the road for work, and because of this, Max hardly ever got a chance to see spend time with her mother for any extended period of time. This same routine went on well into when Maxine was a teenager. At that point, Maxine was sixteen years old and was attending Hamilton Hill High School. She had several close friends, and was the lead student in her class.
Skilled with computer technology, in her spare time, Max also wrote a computer program meant to pinpoint the identity of the new Batman. This program managed to narrow the possibilities down to Batman being someone attending Hamilton Hill High, along with a basic physical description of what he'd look like.
Unknown to Maxine, her achievements upset fellow student and runner-up (and also secret leader of a group of Jokerz, using the alias "Terminal"), Carter Wilson, and he vowed to become the best student in the school no matter what. He targeted her and tried to alter her school records, and when that failed, he vowed to kill her, instead. His first attempt to take her life failed, and because of the evident threat, Maxine decided to change the program she wrote to track down students who were potential Jokerz instead of hunting for Batman's identity. However, a programming mistake caused the computer to print out a list of names that included Terry McGinnis' (Batman's actual identity) name instead of Carter's.
Not wanting to wait any longer, Maxine sends Terry a note informing him that she knew his secret and that she needed to meet him immediately. However, when she went to meet Terry, Terminal follows her and plans to kill her - only to be intercepted by Batman, after receiving Maxine's message. Terminal was revealed to be none other than Carter Wilson, and Max came to the conclusion that Terry was actually Batman. She told him about her discovery in secret, and offered to help him.
Since then, Maxine has been assisting him with his life as both Terry McGinnis and Batman. She has managed to help Terry in a myriad of ways, from helping him come up with excuses for his constant absences to tracking down and disarming a bomb.
Recently, Terry has gone missing, and Maxine makes it her duty to help find him. She is visited by Bruce Wayne, who wants to know if she knows where Terry is, and Maxine tells him that she doesn't know where he is. However, she decides to tag along with him to try and find Terry, regardless of the fact that Mister Wayne insists that she stays home to let him handle it. They arrive at the subway station and conduct a brief search before meeting back on the platform, and in the blink of an eye, Maxine is whisked away to Vertiline.
Personality: Maxine is confident, friendly, and outgoing, with a bit of a sarcastic streak, as well. She is incredibly smart, although her attitude towards her intellect is one of modesty rather than arrogance - often referring to getting perfect scores on tests and projects as "no big deal." However, underneath all of the confidence and sarcasm, Maxine is actually quite lonely (thanks to her parents' divorce and almost always being the only person in her home). She longs for affection, and sometimes this longing can get the better of her.
Maxine also thirsts for excitement, which she believes can be found by working with Terry. Due to this desire to lead a more exciting life, she sometimes manages to put her life at risk by delving too deep into a case.
Appearance: Maxine is a young woman of colour of average height and weight, and a relatively curvy build. Her natural hair colour is black, although she dyes it pink and cuts it very short. Her eyes are black/very dark brown, and she has a round, almost heart-shaped face. Maxine wears a black and yellow tank top that creeps up her neck, a black band around her right arm, a pale blue belt with a silver buckle, black pants, and black running shoes.
Skills/Abilities: Maxine is just a regular teenage girl who happens to have near genius-level intelligence. Her strength is average and she isn't really much of a fighter, but she's scrappy and tends improvise when she gets into a fight.
Spoken/Written languages: Common/English. However, if she wanted to learn another spoken or written language, it wouldn't take her very long to get the hang of it.
Items: Just the clothes on her back and a concealed can of mace.
Third person sample: Maxine follows behind Terry and Dana, observing quietly as she walks through the hallways of the school. Broken video screens, graffiti, and so on. A pointless mess left for other people to try and clean up.
“Jokerz...stupid, random destruction.” Her voice is bitter, although she stays focused on heading over to her locker. All she wants to do is to get to class and forget about all this.
“Not so random, look at the damage. They were picking their targets.”
Now that sounds interesting. Max thinks on this as they make their way up the tiny flight of stairs, shortly before heading over to her locker.
“You’re saying they’re students here?” It’s a definite possibility, but how could Terry know that it’s a certainty? It’s definitely enough to rouse suspicion. Maxine eyes him as he swipes his card and opens his locker.
“At least one of them is.”
Hm.
“Maybe I could rewrite my Batman search program to look for the students most likely to be Jokerz.”
Terry slams his locker shut, “So, you’d stop looking for Batman?”
Is figuring out Batman’s identity more important to her? Yes, but if finding out who the Jokerz are means less destruction, then Maxine is more than willing to put off her search for the new Dark Knight – at least for a few days. Her thoughts are briefly interrupted as soon as Dana pipes up.
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
Maxine is silent, swiping her card along the door to her locker. The door creaks open - there’s a ‘boom’, a bright flash, and Max doesn’t hesitate to obey her immediate instinct to duck down. The pie flies out of her locker and hits the classroom door with a ‘splat’ and a ‘thud.’ The tin slides down to reveal a bright, red brick hidden underneath a layer of cream and crust.
Maxine refuses Dana’s attempt to help her off the ground and forces herself to stand back up.
Is she sure she wants to do this?
“I am, now.”
First person sample: --ve you seen anything?
[Maxine pauses, immediately realizing that she is no longer staring at Mister Wayne, and she definitely isn't on the subway, anymore. It's...odd, but also interesting. The last time she had suddenly gone somewhere else was when she was hooked up to that VR Spellbinder set up. Of course, as real as it felt, that was just an illusion - and Maxine is pretty damn sure that he wasn't anywhere in the subway station.
Kind of difficult to miss a guy in an orange and black onesie, after all.
Of course, Terry is still missing and now she's in some weird bedroom. Not schway at all. Time to get out of this place and look for her missing friend.
Max gets out of the bedroom, and really, the rest of the room is just as unimpressive. She notices a small communicator and the panel of buttons on the wall. It all looks so...retro. She picks up the tiny device and takes a moment to study it - and is disappointed. Ridiculously easy to work with, and the buttons on the wall are just as simple to work out.
Still, a communicator is a communicator. Maybe she'll have some luck contacting someone.]
Hey, T--Batman. [Best to avoid using his real name. Just in case.]
You there? I don't know where you are, but I was at the subway station and suddenly I'm in some room. [She's not wasting any more time with this, she's getting out of that room and going to find Terry.]
I don't know if you can even hear me on this thing, but if you can - I'm going to get myself out of here and I'm going to find you, okay?
Series: Batman Beyond
Timeline: Shortly after meeting Bruce in "Where's Terry?"
Background: When she was still a young girl, Maxine's parents divorced and she and her sister ended up in her mother's custody. Maxine's mother spent most of her time on the road for work, and because of this, Max hardly ever got a chance to see spend time with her mother for any extended period of time. This same routine went on well into when Maxine was a teenager. At that point, Maxine was sixteen years old and was attending Hamilton Hill High School. She had several close friends, and was the lead student in her class.
Skilled with computer technology, in her spare time, Max also wrote a computer program meant to pinpoint the identity of the new Batman. This program managed to narrow the possibilities down to Batman being someone attending Hamilton Hill High, along with a basic physical description of what he'd look like.
Unknown to Maxine, her achievements upset fellow student and runner-up (and also secret leader of a group of Jokerz, using the alias "Terminal"), Carter Wilson, and he vowed to become the best student in the school no matter what. He targeted her and tried to alter her school records, and when that failed, he vowed to kill her, instead. His first attempt to take her life failed, and because of the evident threat, Maxine decided to change the program she wrote to track down students who were potential Jokerz instead of hunting for Batman's identity. However, a programming mistake caused the computer to print out a list of names that included Terry McGinnis' (Batman's actual identity) name instead of Carter's.
Not wanting to wait any longer, Maxine sends Terry a note informing him that she knew his secret and that she needed to meet him immediately. However, when she went to meet Terry, Terminal follows her and plans to kill her - only to be intercepted by Batman, after receiving Maxine's message. Terminal was revealed to be none other than Carter Wilson, and Max came to the conclusion that Terry was actually Batman. She told him about her discovery in secret, and offered to help him.
Since then, Maxine has been assisting him with his life as both Terry McGinnis and Batman. She has managed to help Terry in a myriad of ways, from helping him come up with excuses for his constant absences to tracking down and disarming a bomb.
Recently, Terry has gone missing, and Maxine makes it her duty to help find him. She is visited by Bruce Wayne, who wants to know if she knows where Terry is, and Maxine tells him that she doesn't know where he is. However, she decides to tag along with him to try and find Terry, regardless of the fact that Mister Wayne insists that she stays home to let him handle it. They arrive at the subway station and conduct a brief search before meeting back on the platform, and in the blink of an eye, Maxine is whisked away to Vertiline.
Personality: Maxine is confident, friendly, and outgoing, with a bit of a sarcastic streak, as well. She is incredibly smart, although her attitude towards her intellect is one of modesty rather than arrogance - often referring to getting perfect scores on tests and projects as "no big deal." However, underneath all of the confidence and sarcasm, Maxine is actually quite lonely (thanks to her parents' divorce and almost always being the only person in her home). She longs for affection, and sometimes this longing can get the better of her.
Maxine also thirsts for excitement, which she believes can be found by working with Terry. Due to this desire to lead a more exciting life, she sometimes manages to put her life at risk by delving too deep into a case.
Appearance: Maxine is a young woman of colour of average height and weight, and a relatively curvy build. Her natural hair colour is black, although she dyes it pink and cuts it very short. Her eyes are black/very dark brown, and she has a round, almost heart-shaped face. Maxine wears a black and yellow tank top that creeps up her neck, a black band around her right arm, a pale blue belt with a silver buckle, black pants, and black running shoes.
Skills/Abilities: Maxine is just a regular teenage girl who happens to have near genius-level intelligence. Her strength is average and she isn't really much of a fighter, but she's scrappy and tends improvise when she gets into a fight.
Spoken/Written languages: Common/English. However, if she wanted to learn another spoken or written language, it wouldn't take her very long to get the hang of it.
Items: Just the clothes on her back and a concealed can of mace.
Third person sample: Maxine follows behind Terry and Dana, observing quietly as she walks through the hallways of the school. Broken video screens, graffiti, and so on. A pointless mess left for other people to try and clean up.
“Jokerz...stupid, random destruction.” Her voice is bitter, although she stays focused on heading over to her locker. All she wants to do is to get to class and forget about all this.
“Not so random, look at the damage. They were picking their targets.”
Now that sounds interesting. Max thinks on this as they make their way up the tiny flight of stairs, shortly before heading over to her locker.
“You’re saying they’re students here?” It’s a definite possibility, but how could Terry know that it’s a certainty? It’s definitely enough to rouse suspicion. Maxine eyes him as he swipes his card and opens his locker.
“At least one of them is.”
Hm.
“Maybe I could rewrite my Batman search program to look for the students most likely to be Jokerz.”
Terry slams his locker shut, “So, you’d stop looking for Batman?”
Is figuring out Batman’s identity more important to her? Yes, but if finding out who the Jokerz are means less destruction, then Maxine is more than willing to put off her search for the new Dark Knight – at least for a few days. Her thoughts are briefly interrupted as soon as Dana pipes up.
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
Maxine is silent, swiping her card along the door to her locker. The door creaks open - there’s a ‘boom’, a bright flash, and Max doesn’t hesitate to obey her immediate instinct to duck down. The pie flies out of her locker and hits the classroom door with a ‘splat’ and a ‘thud.’ The tin slides down to reveal a bright, red brick hidden underneath a layer of cream and crust.
Maxine refuses Dana’s attempt to help her off the ground and forces herself to stand back up.
Is she sure she wants to do this?
“I am, now.”
First person sample: --ve you seen anything?
[Maxine pauses, immediately realizing that she is no longer staring at Mister Wayne, and she definitely isn't on the subway, anymore. It's...odd, but also interesting. The last time she had suddenly gone somewhere else was when she was hooked up to that VR Spellbinder set up. Of course, as real as it felt, that was just an illusion - and Maxine is pretty damn sure that he wasn't anywhere in the subway station.
Kind of difficult to miss a guy in an orange and black onesie, after all.
Of course, Terry is still missing and now she's in some weird bedroom. Not schway at all. Time to get out of this place and look for her missing friend.
Max gets out of the bedroom, and really, the rest of the room is just as unimpressive. She notices a small communicator and the panel of buttons on the wall. It all looks so...retro. She picks up the tiny device and takes a moment to study it - and is disappointed. Ridiculously easy to work with, and the buttons on the wall are just as simple to work out.
Still, a communicator is a communicator. Maybe she'll have some luck contacting someone.]
Hey, T--Batman. [Best to avoid using his real name. Just in case.]
You there? I don't know where you are, but I was at the subway station and suddenly I'm in some room. [She's not wasting any more time with this, she's getting out of that room and going to find Terry.]
I don't know if you can even hear me on this thing, but if you can - I'm going to get myself out of here and I'm going to find you, okay?