“I love my father and uncle, but their way is not my way. Prowling around rooftops cloaked in living shadows, growling in the face of criminals, haunting the nightmares of generations…no, no, no, that’s not my way. I want to be like a luchadora. I want to be bright and flashy and heroic. I want people to say “Oh, it’s Diabla! I’m saved!” not “Oh, it’s Diabla! Please don’t eat my soul!””

–Martina

 

“So we’re sparring, and I’m watching for her tail because I’m telling you man, that thing is like rubber meets perkunite. She coils it a few times around you, you’re done. Plus, I already tapped to her getting it around my neck. So I pin her shoulders and I think I’m good because her tail is beneath her, but then she twists her hips, gets her ankles around my head, and armbars me with that damned tail! I was so stumped I felt like I just got out of math class!”

— Will Blake, AKA Burning Bright

 

Name:

 

Martina Morelli

 

Supername:

 

Diabla

 

Average Grade:

 

B

 

Emergency Response Class:

 

3

 

Personalized Curriculum:

 

Emergency Response with a Focus on Superhuman Combat

 

The common stereotype for superheroes-to-be is “ERC 3, Emergency Response with a focus on superhuman combat.” It’s a stereotype for a reason–if you want to learn how to defend against and subdue superpowered opponents there is no better curriculum than the “one-two punch.”

 

Contact Education:

 

Morelli Training Center for Superhuman Combat

 

Does going to a place to study as familiar as her home count as contact education? Yes it does, and the Morelli training center has proven a great asset to Martin’s. It’s virtually the third part of the standard “ERC 3, Emergency Response with a focus on superhuman combat” stereotype. Hector Morelli has fought nearly every kind of threat imaginable. His experience is invaluable as an educator.

 

Hyperstasis:

 

Hyperstatic Union With The Powers Of Xibalba

 

Through a soul-bonded mask that once belonged to her uncle Hector Morelli, aka Vampiro, she is able to wield the powers of the six Houses of Pain from the Mayan underworld Xibalba. Her mask, and the mask of her father Alejandro Morelli, were claimed as plunder by the Mayan hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the time-before-time when they raided Xibalba. Originally crafted by the twelve Lords of Xibalba to subject whoever wore them to all the suffering of the Houses of Pain at once, the hero twins willingly wore the masks and overcame the torment. Their spell broken, the masks became symbols of life triumphing over death and any who wore them from that point on wielded the powers of subjugated evil.

 

From the Dark House, Martina can see in total darkness and project a supernatural darkness around herself that snuffs out all light. She can also sense through darkness and “feel” objects within it.

 

From the Cold and Hot Houses, she is immune to extreme temperatures. She can walk on the sun. Absolute-zero rays don’t harm her, though physics says that her atomic motion should be arrested. She can also create temperatures just as extreme as what she can endure and summon storms of fire and ice.

 

From the Jaguar and Bat Houses, she gains the physical strength, durability, and appearance of Xibalba’s bats and jaguars. These creatures are to the bats and jaguars of Earth as Xibalbans are to humans and are vastly more powerful than their names would suggest. They are the hunters and executioners of dark gods and prey on anything, mortal or immortal, that has life. In manifesting their strength, Martina takes on physical elements of each creature. Her ears become pointed, she develops fangs and claws on her hands and feet, leathery wings erupt from her back, her eyes become black and glossy like a bat’s, she grows a long prehensile tail, and a layer of black fur covers her body.

 

From the Razor House, she is immune to blades. No edge can break her skin. This immunity goes beyond the durability provided by the Jaguar and Bat Houses. Even mystical weapons created to cut through anything fail against her. For this immunity to hold, the weapon used against her must have a sharp edge. Mystical hammers and the like work against her typical durability. She can also control blades and order them to snap apart or fly through the air with only a thought. She has been trusted with several powerful blades collected throughout the decades by her father and uncle, but uses them only in cases of extreme emergency.

 

Her Xibalban powers have the potential to be incredibly deadly. Though subdued to her will, they were created by underworld gods to torture and kill the living. Martina fears using her powers against her opponents and prefers to subdue opponents with her strength and combat skills honed through years of study at the Morelli Training Center for Superhuman Combat. Though her uncle and father encourage her to master all her powers so that if she ever has to use them as a superheroine she’ll be ready, she adamantly resists. Her father and uncle have killed with their powers before. They killed evil men that sought to harm innocents, but they still killed. Martina doesn’t want to kill anyone ever.

 

Behavior:

 

Exemplary

 

As disciplined as she is enthusiastic, Martina is a well-behaved student. But her experience and training has given her the confidence, not entirely unfounded, to throw herself recklessly into danger even as her teachers tell her to pull back. Though her bravery is commendable, Martina needs to learn to trust the judgement of her teachers. Teachers protect students.

 

Appearance:

 

Tall, athletic, and beautiful, Martina credits her father’s training for her phenomenal figure. She’s popular enough with boys to the point she gets asked out even when they know full well her father’s fearsome reputation.

 

Martina’s mask, which is properly called the Mueca del Infierno or grimace of Hell, is a spiritual object of the astral dark. Normally invisible and intangible, Martina can force the mask into a tangible shape to wear or show off. To transform, she commonly cups her hands to her face. Brilliant light seeps through her fingers, and in a flash she takes on the monstrous form of a Xibalban warrior.

 

The Morellis are a family of luchadores, and while her father and uncle dismiss lucha libre as mere entertainment, Martina considers it an art and uses its theatrics as a model for her superheroine persona. Diablo and Vampiro made themselves as fearsome as possible to strike terror into the hearts of mankind’s enemies. But Martina wants Diabla to be a protector of the people, a beacon of light instead of an avenger of darkness. As such, she dresses in bright and heavily decorated clothing inspired by luchadoras. Symbols of life and warmth often adorn her clothes such as suns and flowers. Her classmate the Coat calls her “Captain Springtime.” Crosses are also common as Martina is a practicing Catholic who draws strength and conviction from her faith.

 

Martina prefers to fight barefoot as it allows her to use her clawed feet to climb walls and anchor herself in the ground. Her back is bare to allow her to comfortably use her wings. Because Martina is a grappler and models her costume off that of luchadoras, it’s rather revealing–in some cases too revealing for emergency response classes at Martin’s. Martina has been made to go back to the locker room and change a few times.