Althena | Marcela Ruiz-Coleman

Known Mutations: Hair has turned an unnatural blue shade


POWERS AND PHYSICAL ABILITIES:

Marcela is Althena, and at the same time, not Althena. Althena herself is represented by and manifests through Marcela's mutant gene and accompanying genetic markers that signify her as being of the bloodline to manifest Althena as her mutant power. It's only a distinct lineage of women on her mother's side that possess the markers to tap into Althena, though only the individuals who possess a mutant gene are actually able to do so. Marcela is the latest in a line that spans the existence of mutantdom itself, and longer still.

Psychic Magic: Marcela's psionically taps to the preternatural, cosmic, magical energy mass that once formed and represented as the Goddess Althena. As she's tapping into Althena, she's technically pulling from and tapping into her own self in some sort of cosmic out of body experience, like her grandmother before her and ancestors dating back countless years. This grants Marcela the ability to, in theory, utilize all of Althena's abilities. In practice, she only only has access to a limited selection; something that she has in common with the vast majority of her ancestors.

Multilingual: Marcela is fluent in English, Spanish, and Wakandan dialects. Should she catch a Glimmer, she might momentarily comprehend other languages.

Physicality Expert: Marcela has studied biology and kinesiology as they relate to her career are a fitness trainer, chiropractor, and physical therapist.

Combat Expert: Descended from a Dora Milaje, their years of practicing armed and unarmed combat transferred to Althena the moment her mutant powers activated. Though she hasn't been in a fight herself, she'd appear as if she'd been doing it for centuries once the moment arises.

WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT:

The Shaft Of Althena: At one point in her life, Althena possessed a brilliant long sword that bore her name, created out of a powerful celestial metal but it was destroyed when she was killed by the Beyonders. In the carnage that ensued, the shards emerged at the end and beginning of time, forged into a cylinder of metal by the totality of Althena and was lost to time before being found on Earth ages ago.. The shaft taps into the power of Althena for the user of Althena, shaping itself into weapons of their desires. For the current Althena, that usually takes the shape of a battle axe or a Scimitar. The Shaft can be shaped into wrist jewelry when inert and pulled into a shaft that would then take the form of the weapon when needed. Because the weapon is as much of Althena as Althena, it can also serve as a medium for harnessing power and serving as a focus so the user can draw on more of their power.

The Marcela incarnation of Althena doesn't possess anywhere near her full power, and it's possible that she might never, a fate that has afflicted everyone who was born to use the power. What powers she does have can't be used simultaneously. Using the telepathy prevents anything telekinetic, and using Tactile Telekinesis prevents standard telekinesis. Each instance of power can only be used on its own, which leaves her vulnerable to unexpected attacks.

The story told to the X-Men is that Althena is a 5000 some odd year old Goddess, new to her role as an entity who sparked life on planets across the cosmos who bore witness to the start of the second generation of mutants as the first of that generation was born and sent ripples across the cosmic consciousness that attracted her attention. Earth was not her territory, so she refrained, but the awareness birthed in her created curiosity that saw her focus on the planet. It took an attack by Apocalypse and a dimensional invasion by the Khan for her to forsake her post, shed her Godly self at the behest of her godly companions, and cast herself down to Earth in an ethereal form that fizzled into non-existence by the hour before she found and bound herself to a telepathic mutant named Lisa Simmons.

The story is true, but omits thousands of years of history. Althena did cast herself down as she said, but did not shed herself until the second time. Though she sensed Apocalypse's birth and the impact it would potentially have, she actually emerged during the Hyborian Era unaware to herself, manifesting as her true self after being attracted by Selene and the various other sorcerers and mutants of that era. A combination of their effort and recognition of the wrong approach is what caused her to leave. As she was sent back to where she originated, Althena shed some of herself, which would go on to seed the planet Saiya, creating the lineage of deities that would later result in the birth of Kuja Zeyu.

The second attempt brought her closer to her target, with Althena manifesting thousands of years later, attacking Apocalypse and his clan on the ancient island of Okkara. Though arrivals took place thousands of years apart, it was mere minutes from Althena's frame of reference, and since she hadn't yet recovered from the first assault, the second hadn't gone any better for her, and she was ultimately beaten back by the ancient mutants. She would attempt this plan one more time, emerging after the creation of Clan Akkaba. Once again, she was able to be driven back.

Reassessing the plan, Althena gave herself time to recover, watching Apocalypse over the eons, and then cast herself down as per her original story. As attached to Lisa Simmons, the two shared control over the body, though Althena provided suggestions to coax Lisa to meet the X-Men to put her in a better position to finally defeat Apocalypse for the sake of cosmic balance. In time, they would meet and join the team. Althena would serve as a guide and sometimes on the field. Her human attachment and manifestation prevented her from seeing the mistake that would be made by fusing X-Man Raiden with the soul of his evil counterpart from another universe, something that would ultimately lead to the rebirth of a powerful demon named Zuii.

This was followed by her lack of realization that she was slowly taking full control of Lisa's body and consciousness, and this was exploited by Zuii in order to give Lisa the edge to hijack Althena's power and take full control, leading to her apparent death and creation of her eventual nemesis: The Dark Althena.

Althena would reform herself out of Lisa's blood, battle Lisa, and eventually banish her through the cosmos. Though she remained as a mentor and member of the X-Men, Althena would sometimes depart with her own recruits to fight her evil doppelganger, taking her away from the team for millions of years, only to return with a few weeks or months passing at most. As an X-Men, she would help defeat Apocalypse, but not kill him, but continued to help with other threats until she spontaneously died from the frame of reference of the X-Men and other superheroes.

In reality she, like many other beings, had been attacked by the Beyonders across multiple planes of existence, and she was killed. Prior to her death, Althena cast a figment of herself out in a desperate attempt to survive, one that was barely successful thanks to the destruction of the multiverse itself, only coming through thanks to being pulled into the remnants of reality by Doctor Doom, Strange, and the Molecule Man. Whatever would've forged itself never had a chance before Battleworld itself was destroyed, and what was left of Althena was cast out through the void, past the space beyond space, which she shared with Dante and Thanos.

Eventually, the two of them would make it back inside the multiverse, with Althena's remnant appearing at the beginning of time, forging an alliance with a baby Ego the Living Planet and Silver Surfer to hold off the cosmic god Knull. Severely weak at this point, the spark that was Althena was once again all bust extinguished, but was able to survive thanks to Silver Surfer helping start the Big Bang. As the universe expanded, so did Althena, now a mass energy consciousness without shape or form.

On instinct, the energy field eventually found its way to Earth and via the Demiurge and general Celestial seeding, incorporated herself into the genetic material, with the end of goal of reforming herself over billions of years. Evolution lead to one form being an abomination that was destroyed by some ancient Avengers lead by Odin, but other time, and with more Celestial, and later, Kree, intervention, the proper path of rebirth emerged in the form of mutantkind, as Althena unconsciously sought for the same time of life she first bonded to when she came to Earth. Every few generations or so, a mutant would be born with the power of Althena herself in some form or another, only one existing at a time. She first appeared as a Proto-Mutant to who could control water. Eons later, Althena would manifest as member of the mutant army that helped Apocalypse defeat her in the first place, with that incarnation possessing an awareness of her original self and the futures than any other manifestation of Althena before or sense.

Another came in the form of a Dora Milaje that assisted in the liberation of slaves in Haiti, Jamaica, and Florida before and during the Civil War. Most recently, it was Marcela's grandmother, Benita-Althena, a known practitioner of witchcraft in her native Guatemala who was named after her own great-grand mother, Althena, though that Althena did not manifest any sort of powers.

The Guatemalan-Wakandan American Marcela Ruiz-Coleman is the latest in the long line of Althena, her life not being particularly remarkable or noteworthy in the grand scheme of things, and only recently had her mutant powers triggered by tripping on her routine jog through Balboa Park in San Diego, stumbling into a tree, and bumping her head.. And now, she knows who she is, what she was apart of, and who she must find.

~Ray