‘Tori’ is now a representative of SHIELD, helping that organization to work well with Inisfree.
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Table of Contents:
- Spec’s
- Story
- Personality
- “Shipper”
- More History
- Schooling
- Abilities
- Weaknesses
- Non-power Talents
- Equipment
- Tori & Auz: 2022 Update
- 2023 Update
- Images
- How She Enjoys Massages in Inisfree
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Spec’s:
- Victoria “Tori” Ann Ridgeworth
- CODENAME: none, but her friends call her Tori
- AGE: 31 (born 21 September 1992)
- SPECIES: Human
- Height: 5’6″
- Weight: 162 lbs.
- Hair: light brown
- Eyes: originally both blue, now one blue and one green
- Body: feminine, slender
- Breasts: perky B-cups
- ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good
- SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
- RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single
Known Family:
- Angie Ridgeworth | Mother | Deceased
- Brad Ridgeworth | Father | Deceased
- Rebecca Ridgeworth | Twin Sister | Alive (Tree)
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Story:
Tori has long, light brown hair shot with natural blond high lights from long outs spent out in the Sun. Her hair is rarely fixed in any sort of style and frequently pulled back in a pony tail or braid. Tori can occasionally pull together a hair style that resembles something stylish, but rarely had the ambition or need to do so unless she has a date.
Tori’s eyes are somewhat unique, the left one is pale sky blue and the right one is a dark, emerald green. They both used to be blue, but, after her sister turned into a tree, the right one turned green.
Functional, practical clothes are Tori’s normal wear around her greenhouse. Jeans, overalls paired with plain T-shirts, or button down western shirts and work boots. On the few occasions she isn’t working, Tori will wear cut-off denim shorts and a tank-top or a T-shirt. On the very rare occasion she goes out somewhere, she can clean up, and with a secret love of dresses… Tori has plenty of options.
Though not immediately noticeable, Tori has more than a few scars littering her hands from work, and callouses to match. A handshake with her could be compared to sandpaper. Not all the scars on her hands are from work though; the knuckles on both hands show more than a few scars since Tori is not a bit shy about punching someone in the face. Her nose is slightly crooked from being brutally broken while trying to protect her sister. A few of her fingers are also slightly crooked from being forcibly broken and not healing completely straight.
Despite her rather average height, Tori has more than her share of muscle built over years of work and it shows in defined muscles and a lean form. She is almost always tan from working outside. Even in winter when most people have paled, Tori’s skin usually holds its tan fairly well. The tanner she is, the more all the little scars littering her hands and arms stand out as pale thin marks.
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Personality:
Most of the time, Tori wears a professional mask of the happy, laidback greenhouse keeper that lives to grow vegetables and help her customers. Most of the time. She could probably be a decent actor if she wanted to be, but there are occasionally cracks in her mask. One of the perks of owning her own business is that when a customer pushes her too far and Tori loses it, she only has to answer to herself. She does try not to go off on customers since it makes her lose business, but it has happened.
That’s because while she does wear a mask, underneath it Tori is a grouch. She has very little patience with people who aren’t customers, she is very no-nonsense and to the point without any beating around the bush. Tori is always in a rush to get things done and move on to the next task she needs doing since she primarily runs her greenhouse by herself with only a few hired hands to help out.
There is more than a little bit of a temper to go with her impatience. Tori didn’t get the scars on her knuckles from playing nice, and she isn’t afraid to punch someone in the face if she’s mad enough. A full loss of temper to the point that Tori punches someone in the face is rare, but she isn’t above cussing at someone. If Tori is really mad, she’ll skip the face-punching and threaten to shoot them, since she usually has a gun or two on her person.
Tori is extremely passionate about mutant rights, and stands up for them whenever the occasion arises. This also means that she doesn’t like bullies in general, and is fearless when it comes to stepping in to stand up for someone, even a complete stranger. Her in-your-face attitude is usually enough to drive off would-be bullies –and if it’s not, her pistol generally is enough to get the point across.
She has a soft spot for mutants, especially children, and being around either one brings out a gentler, kinder version of her. There is a nice girl buried under the rage, sadness, and pain of losing her sister. That loss turned her into the grouchy, bitter creature she normally is, though, and it’s no small task to find the softer girl deep within.
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“Shipper”
- Likes: Being outside. Dogs. Rocky road ice cream. Sweet tea. Guns. Growing things.
- Dislikes: Bullies. Driving. Bugs. Mutant haters. The MRD. Winter. Boredom.
- Fears: Her sister never waking up. Someone trying to cut her tree-sister down. Losing the greenhouse. Dying in a car wreck. Developing mutant powers. Being attacked again.
- Dreams & Goals: Tori’s whole goal in life is to find a way to ‘wake up’ her sister if it is at all possible. The other goal is to have the best damn green house in the state, preferably with her sister. She’s already doing pretty well in this regard, but since she does a lot of the work herself there are lots of things to be desired. Get a date. Yep, Tori would like to go on at least one date in her life. She isn’t getting any younger and would like a family someday.
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More History:
Victoria Ann Ridgeworth was born at the same time as her sister Rebecca “Bekka” Marie Ridgeworth to a pair of very excited parents who were a bit nervous at the prospect of twins. They were right to be nervous with all the mischief Tori and Bekka got into growing up. Both were adventurous with a love of the outdoors and when they weren’t getting underfoot around the Ridgeworth greenhouse. Both ran wild, bringing home frogs, turtles, and even a baby skunk. The skunk one didn’t go over so well once it got old enough to spray, and both got puppies in exchange for returning the skunk to the wild.
Tori and Bekka attended a small, local school until age twelve when Bekka’s powers manifested. Her hair turned green, her skin changes to look and feel like tree bark, and one of her eyes turned from the same blue as Tori’s to emerald green. The change made Bekka an outcast at the school –and Tori with her, since she wasn’t about to leave her sister’s side.
So their mother Angie took it upon herself to home-school the pair. As close as the twins were, they didn’t mind not going to school so much. Bekka’s power manifestation also caused some business from the local town to reduce slightly, but the twins took it upon themselves to help their parents, and created a website that brought their family business back up to normal.
Another side-effect was that Bekka’s powers caused the greenhouse’s production rate to almost double; any and all plants Bekka came in contact with prospered, growing at double their normal speed, and she could bring sick plants back to full health. All the plants produced bigger, better fruit, as well. The greenhouse’s business soared because of it.
For several years, Tori and Bekka were happy helping out around the greenhouse. They had each other and their parents, so all was right in their little world. Then it all changed just before their eighteenth birthday…
Brad and Angie (their parents) had gone to New York for the weekend for their wedding anniversary. They were on their way home when a deer jumped out in front of them. The road was wet and the car hydroplaned when Brad tried to hit the brakes, sending them off the road where they rolled down a small hill and into a pond where both drowned.
It was rough for both Bekka and Tori for a while. Tori did eventually pull herself out of the shock and depression of losing both parents to get the greenhouse back on track. Bekka struggled, though.
Her parents had left half of it to her, half to Bekka, and they were going to run it together. Between Bekka’s powers and Tori’s willpower, they kept the business running and supported themselves. Tori thought they would stay a team like that forever.
Bekka’s shyness and people being uncomfortable with mutants meant she only helped out after hours or days when the greenhouse was closed. She was fine with that, though; she had Tori, until the day a small group of old schoolmates stopped by. They didn’t like a mutant taking what could have been jobs for them, growing food that they might be eating, and so on. They were convinced she was tainting the town and their food.
Tori sent Bekka away into the surrounding woods to hide her from the small mob; there was no way they would find her in the trees. When Tori wouldn’t give her sister up, the hostile group decided that they would make her give Bekka up. That’s when they started beating her, trying to force where she’d sent Bekka out of her. Tori could and would have taken it to her grave to keep her sister safe.
Bekka could not stay put out there, though. With their link as twins, Bekka felt every blow Tori got, and it was more than she could take. She gave herself up and they came after her instead. By then Tori was too battered to do much to stop them, and she could feel every blow they rained on Bekka. Eventually, after what seemed like forever to the two girls, their old classmates left, but the damage was done.
Tori was battered with a broken nose, a couple cracked ribs, and a few broken fingers, but Bekka was far, far worse. She was unconscious, barely breathing, laying prone on the ground. After what seemed like ages, Tori got herself to her sister’s side to try to wake her sister. Bekka did stir long enough to say just one word in their private ‘twin language’; “Sorry.”
Then Bekka turned into a tree.
Tori was shocked to say the least. Her sister wasn’t dead, though; it felt like she was sleeping… but Tori had no idea how to reach her to wake her up. She tried for a long time, and there were many tears… as Tori began to change, too, becoming harder inside than ever, just like her sister had become outside; via her transformation
It was after that fight that Tori’s eye changed from blue to the same green her sister’s eyes had been.
Bekka has remained a tree for close to eight years now with no change, her power still affecting the greenhouse nearby, and it (what is now Tori’s greenhouse alone) is still the most successful of its kind.
For those next eight years, Tori ran the greenhouse mostly by herself, with a few hired hands drifting through from time to time. Along with the greenhouse, Tori raises Belgian Malinois that she keeps as guard dogs along with selling them to be police dogs, a few also going to be aids such as seeing-eye dogs. This is how she’s stayed busy, emotionally stable, and financially afloat.
During those eight years, she never knowingly met another mutant besides Bekka, but that changed in 2021 when she started practically tripping over them. The first was Shannon Brooks when he was out on a walk and Tori found him using his powers to amplify music. They formed an unusual friendship, and Tori even managed to go to a couple of his gigs when business at the greenhouse was a bit slow.
It was less than three months later when she made another unlikely friend, a member of the Brotherhood of Mutants, codenamed Vulcan. With her soft-spot for mutants, Tori didn’t hesitant to hide him when Gabriel stumbled into her shop on the run from the MRD with a gunshot wound. Tori lied to the MRD to keep him safe, then helped him get back to the Brotherhood’s compound, but not before bestowing him with the nickname Sparky. It was probably the most dangerously reckless thing Tori had ever done, and the only reason she wasn’t killed was because Quicksilver stepped in to save her.
The next bit of excitement in Tori’s life was when a normal sale turned up another mutant named Dante Krueger. He became an honorary younger brother for her, while she and Dante’s brother Trehan began dating. It was the happiest Tori had been in years, as she felt like life began looking up.
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Schooling:
Tori attending public school until the seventh grade. She was then home-schooled until she got her GED. Later, she got additional schooling as part of her training when recruited by SHIELD.
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Abilities
Powers:
- Twin Sense: While not technically a mutant power, Tori can find her sister Bekka no matter where she is. She also shares intense pain with her sister, like a fall down the stairs would hurt Tori every bit as badly as it hurt Bekka. The pain doesn’t linger from one twin to the other for long though, like Tori would only feel Bekka’s pain for a couple hours at the most. Little things like paper cuts and smaller scrapes don’t transfer. Sensing each other doesn’t really have a distance limit, but the further away the twins are from each other the less they sense of each other. Tori would still know what direction Bekka would be in, but the pain sense would fade.
- Twin Speak: Tori and Bekka have their own private, spoken language they developed together as children. It is utterly incomprehensible to anyone else and probably sounds like gibberish. They sometimes lapse into that ‘twin-speak’ with each other without realizing it.
Weaknesses:
Tori’s ‘powers’ only work between herself and her twin. If Bekka was severely injured, it would cripple Tori for a couple hours, as well.
Non-Power Talents:
Tori is damn good with a gun. Not Deadpool-good, but she can hold her own. A lot of the meat she eats is (wild) game she kills herself. It helps that Tori likes guns and owns a small armory.
She isn’t a stranger to working on engines of varying sizes and knows one end of a wrench from the other. Computer-related engines are beyond her expertise, but Tori can make older engines sit up and purr.
Never, ever has Tori ever been lost. She has a freakishly-good sense of direction. It’s like she has a built-in compass in her head.
Equipment:
Tori has a small collection of guns and pocket knives, and she’s almost always carrying a couple of each one around. Her favorite pistols are a SIG P938 or a Kimber 1911 .45 Crimson Carry, and both have lasers installed for increased accuracy. Tori calls them Scarlett and Madame Red. She keeps a spare mag for each one with her, too.
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Tori & Auz: 2022 Update
The founder and leader of the secret race of people based far to the south of her New England home had detected her biological signature years ago, only in 2020 having a chance to do anything about it. Showing up at her greenhouse one day to scope things out, he asked honest questions and bought several packets of seeds he intended to take back to his own greenhouse(s) and farm in Inisfree to try out (as part of one of his research projects based on developing certain desired flavors for his restaurants there). His natural calmness, calming effect, charm, kindheartedness, and voluminous knowledge of how to care for plants… all quickly started gaining her smiles and nods.
Auz offered to help out with her greenhouse whenever he was in town, and did a really good job. She marveled at him from a distance, noticing how he was so careful and gentle with all her plants, and especially how he literally stopped several times each day to smell her flowers. He was a little standoffish with some customers, but who was she to judge? So was she, at times, after all, plus he wasn’t a regular employee.
One day she got up the courage to ask him out for coffee, and he smiled, accepting. They had a wonderful first date, and he looked at her lips near the end, starting to crack a smile… which she melted for and giggled softly about. The two kissed… and then again, smiling all the while.
Opening up to each other took time, but it is often those “slow burns” that are the destined and lasting ones. Neither pried, but both became more curious about the other, hanging on their every word. Eventually, Tori bared her soul to the amazingly-compatible man, and fell further in love with him when he clearly accepted her whole story without the slightest bit of reaction, judgment, or doubting her.
She took his hand that day and showed him to the tree that was her sister. Auz put his right hand over his heart, honored, shocked in that wonderful way. He held onto Tori’s hand as they walked together around the tree, looking it over, starting to discuss and brainstorm about it.
After a long and heartfelt discussion back in Tori’s living-room over several cups of tea, he gave her the names of a few people he trusted with his life… who were plant experts in a variety of ways. Would she allow him to introduce them to her? He would never tell them about the tree that was her sister; that much would be left for her, dependent, of course, on the vibe she got if she met any or each of them.
“Let me think about it,” she said, looking in his eyes from across her coffee table, and then she set her cup down and moved around to sit close by him. They began kissing again and undressed. That always helped her calm herself and think, just as it did him.
Dr. Fairchild, Felanelle Reuniondawn, “Poison Ivy”, the plants-witch named Ashton, and the ancient elves Melian and Yavanna, would all, one by one, be flown with him to her greenhouse to meet the blue-and-green-eyed woman with the elven features and human ears. Once she got comfortable with them, they were shown the tree, his calming power helping her not feel defensive enough to leave a hand resting on one of her pistols. They would eventually come up with a way to restore her sister’s pre-tree human form, and discover that her sister was then the first known “were-tree” (like a werewolf, but without the wolf part).
All this time, Tori had also been doing some work, on and off, for SHIELD. This was the last thing she told Auz about, her work with that organization involving the typical process of being sworn to secrecy. Again, she was greatly relieved after confiding in him, he in turn revealing to her a bit about his involvement with them; he knew one of its Directors, as well as five of her finest agents (pun not intended); Maria, Laynia, Ophelia, “Quasar”, and Tess.
In the future, she and her sister having gotten back to their normal lives for many decades (and having, over that time, noticed they weren’t aging), would even get to meet the the Queen of the Fairies. Auz would introduce her, too. Such is The Inisfreean Way.
–
2023 Update:
When Bekka returned from hibernation healing in tree form, she was thrilled and hugged her sister so tightly. She revealed that their Twin Sense had let her feel the love Victoria shared every time with Auz, which healed her heart and soul, even as a tree, and that she had lived vicariously through her twin all those years. She had fallen in love with who her sister loved, so they celebrated with a threesome with Auz that day. Then Bekka learned how to control when she switched to tree-skin or full-tree form and back, Auz’s lovemaking with her sister helping that process feel so easy every time; it ‘softened’ her just as her turning into tree-form had once ‘hardened’ her sister.
Victoria has started thinking about marrying Auz. In just a few years, they will. They’ll be one of the happiest couples around.
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How She Enjoys Massages in Inisfree:
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