Marlowe Graves

Marlowe, aka Whisper, is a metahuman and member of the American branch of the Guard, a superhero organization. Formerly the apprentice and sidekick of the villain Void, Marlowe survived having their soul split in half. Currently, they're traveling the world helping their boyfriend, David Killian, find his brother.

Personality & Interests
Marlowe likes cooking, cleaning, dancing, and fretting about their friends.

Powers
Marlowe always had latent metahuman abilities, but they lay dormant until activated by the villain Void, Marlowe's former mentor. When first activated, those powers were twisted by the Darkness, the power source that Void draws upon. After the Darkness was purged from Marlowe's soul, their powers changed. currently, they include:
 * Telepathy
 * Telekinesis
 * Elemental control
 * General magic
 * Alchemy
 * Sword fighting (stolen from Lancelot)

Time as Vex
When they first joined the New Guardians, Marlowe was going by the moniker "Vex." The name was derived from "Vexing Taunt," the villain name they went by during their time as Void's apprentice. Towards the end of their time with Void, they underwent a procedure that split their soul in half and placed it in two nearly identical bodies. One became Marlowe Vex, the other became their nemesis, Alex Taunt. The procedure unfortunately damaged Marlowe, and caused their soul to slowly be sucked away by Taunt whenever they overextended their powers or faced danger alone. Each time this happened, they were brought closer to death. The Darkness that they drew their power from prolonged their life by filling in for the missing pieces of their soul. This resulted in dark cracks forming all over their body and their eyes turning entirely black.

During their time as Vex, Marlowe had a different set of powers: their latent metahuman abilities altered and enhanced by the Darkness. Those powers were: As more of their soul was lost and replaced with the Darkness, they started gaining new abilities, becoming more and more attuned with the life forces of the universe that the Darkness fed upon. Among other things, they were able to have visions of current and near-future events and teleport. The more they used these abilities, the closer to their doom they got.
 * Vitality Siphoning - The ability to directly siphon both the psychic energy and vitality of living beings, as well as plants. Range: touch.
 * Memory Manipulation - The ability to access a person's memory, usually while siphoning their energy. During the process, they could read, delete, alter, and add memories. Range: touch.
 * Psychic Constructs - the ability to create black crystalline constructs out of psychic energy, and then add color to these constructs. They could power and manipulate the constructs for as long as they had the energy to sustain them.

They were eventually saved from their doom by the rest of the New Guardians. They captured Taunt and, with Balefire's help, entered Marlowe and Taunt's mindscape in order to make a new soul for Marlowe. There, the team fought Taunt in Marlowe's memories, while Marlowe faced down Void. Void revealed to Marlowe that them splitting from Taunt and joining the New Guardians had all been part of a plan that Marlowe had agreed to. Marlowe would make connection, discover insider information about the Guard, and then return to Void and become a full-fledged Keeper, a type of magic-user that was able to control artifacts. However, Marlowe refused Void's call and instead decided to stay with the Guard. In the meantime, Duncan used his powers to completely destroy Taunt's mind.

The ritual purged the Darkness from Marlowe's soul and reconstructed their soul (and Taunt's), making them their own person. With this, Marlowe lost their old powers. However, the ritual and Balefire's magic imbued them with the same power that Balefire draws upon, allowing them to use that same magic. The ritual and effects of the magic also served to enhance and completely activate their latent metagene, giving them telepathic and telekinetic abilities.

Becoming Whisper
After the ritual, new soul, and shift in powers, Marlowe decided to take the hero name "Whisper" and take on a new costume. Their final few months on the New Guardians were spent under this identity, which they kept when they became a full-fledged member of the Guard.

It was under this identity that they helped the rest of the New Guardians defeat the Warlord Araka and get him to retreat from Earth.

Before the Guard
Marlowe was born in the suburbs of Unity and moved to New Unity with their grandmother once it was destroyed and rebuilt. After a failed stint with education, they turned to their current ideology and gaining superpowers. Recently, after a split in their self, their powers have grown stronger, but every time they use them, they get closer to death.

Mundane Life
Born Alex Marlowe, their mother and father were both business folk that spent most of their time outside of Unity, their home city. They themself lived in the suburbs with their grandmother, Tara Marlowe. When New Unity was built, the grandmother moved their and took Alex with her. Their parents were absent throughout their childhood, as such they were raised entirely by Granny Marlowe and her ten cats. They were something of a child prodigy, even skipping two grades. However, they quickly crash and burned up in 11th grade, at age 14. Their grandmother, while understanding, was fairly upset, told them she'd hide the matter from Marlowe's parents if they got their GED.

A year and a half later, GED in hand, they tried community college, but only lasted for a spring and summer semester during which they took Sign Language 1, Sign Language 2, Metahuman History, Writing 1, and Intro to Chemistry. Their college stint also ended fairly badly, and at 16 they ended up working a Ron's grocery store, being just one piece in the commercial chain.

During their time dropping in and out of education, they started reading a fair amount of philosophy as they struggled with their place in life and ability to survive in the world. Before that, their only goal in life was the academia, but as that quickly fell out of their life, they grew lost. As such, they turned to nihilism, specifically the current brand of commercial nihilism, backed up by 80's disco pop and general peppy love songs and goofy outfits. They also dipped a toe into the drug scene, trying to find anything and everything that would help them deal with being such a great disappointment (in their mind, at least).

Gain of Powers and Turn to Villainy
At Ron's, they met Void, a local supervillain, going by Jen Igress. Void was Marlowe's manager. They both had roughly the same outlook on life, and Void spotted Marlowe's latent abilities.

Having only known their grandmother for most of their life, Marlowe latched onto Void as a parental figure and source of validation. Void, in turn, quickly grew to genuinely like Marlowe, seeing something of themself in the kid. Still, not being the best with children or social interaction in general, Void dragged Marlowe into one of their portals after a late night shift. Marlowe's powers were forced to activate for them to survive. Void stayed with them the entire time.

When they emerged in Void's hideout, Void revealed their true identity to Marlowe and offered to teach them how to use their abilities. Void also made it clear that if Marlowe chose to leave and never speak of this again, they could. Marlowe, however, jumped at this chance to prove themself to someone and have a purpose in life again. At about sixteen and a half, they took the name Vexing Taunt.

A Villain's Sidekick
Void took Marlowe under their wing and educated them both in their personal philosophy and outlook on the world as well as how to properly use their powers. Void purposefully avoided putting Marlowe in a position where they could get arrested, grievously harmed, or kill someone, despite having no qualms with any of those things. They also showed Marlowe around the metavillain network and taught them how the heroes worked.

Marlowe's missions involved cases of mild sabotage and anything that could be classified as testing the extent of their powers. For a long time, this also involved recon and scouting work, and a lot of surveillance. Not working full time (as they were a minor), they ended up doing most of Void's leg work, too. Void also taught them how to work their potions and portals. Void even made Marlowe their own hideaway, a portal that they could open into their little sanctuary.

Their training went horribly wrong only once, when Void was testing Marlowe's energy siphoning powers. During a major fight between Void and the older heroes, Marlowe ended up playing sidekick, primarily using their energy siphoning powers to transfer energy to Void, and deal with civilian back up. At one point during the fight, to refuel their own supply, they grabbed a civilian and accidentally drained them to the point where they passed out. The civilian died, though Marlowe didn't find this out until later. Void took responsibility for the kill. Marlowe was 17 and a half at the time.

Void reassured Marlowe that, according to their ideology, there was nothing wrong with taking a life, but Marlowe, though objectively alright with the murder at first, started obsessing over finding alternative power sources, though not quite connecting the dots as to the reason why. This lasted in tentative equilibrium for about a year until another disaster struck.

Onset of Doom & Creation of Nemesis
In one of their attempts to become stronger Marlowe (with Void's permission) used one of Void's portals to attempt and use Void's powers to double theirs. Unfortunately, this had quite the literal outcome. After passing through the portal, Marlowe came out split. There were two versions of them, identical in every way. Each claiming to be the original Marlowe, there was, at first, seemingly no difference between them. To differentiate, they called themselves Marlowe Vex and Alex Taunt.

Alex Taunt was the more aggressive of the two, and fell in closer to Void's ideology. They also claimed the Vexing Taunt costume for themself and re-branded as Taunt. They seemed to get most of the benefits from going through the portal: a closer connection to Void, slightly different abilities, and an ability to increase their power pool.

Marlowe Vex, on the other hand, was thrown into some self doubt, though they were more likely to rush head-long into a situation, in spite of not being very aggressive. They retained the greater portion and better control over their powers. They took a step back from the villain life, still doing recon, but no longer having the benefit of the Vexing Taunt costume on their side.

Slowly, Marlowe grew to realize that every time they overexerted themself and expended their power pool, Taunt grew stronger and increased theirs. Taunt, however, didn't seem to grow weaker or ever overexert themself. Taunt didn't want the hideaway that Void had made them, though they could still access it.

During this time, Taunt's ideology grew closer to Void's, and Marlowe's grew further away. Much like Void had done before, Marlowe could see Taunt becoming the mask.

By the time their nineteenth birthday started creeping up, Marlowe realized that if this kept going, they would die, or worse, siphoned to nonexistence by Taunt.

Heel-Face Turn
Realizing that death was imminent, Marlowe confronted both Void and Taunt, demanding that Marlowe fuse them back together. However, Void refused to do it without Taunt's consent, which they did not give.

Having no other choice, they turned to The Guard for help. Using their previous knowledge and legwork, they tracked down Bastion and pleaded with him for a check up. Bastion's analysis only proved what Marlowe had suspected: they were dying, and would certainly be doomed if they didn't reunite with or absorb Taunt.

Not being able to do it on their own, they struck a deal with the Old Guard: they would get a place on the New Guardians and be able to, if worst came to worst, die in peace. In return, they'd provide the Old Guard with information on Void and the villain network.

Oddly enough, they left Void on fairly peaceful terms. Though Marlowe was still incredibly bitter, and Void disappointing in Marlowe not sticking with their ideals, they didn't ignore their past together. Marlowe left with a standing invitation to join Void again, should they wish.

Terms with Taunt, however, were not as peaceful. Taunt swore to make Marlowe part of them, and Marlowe in turn swore to siphon Taunt out of existence.

Joining the New Guardians
Having nowhere else to to turn to and having no idea how to slow down their doom, Marlowe turned to the Guard for help and ended up being conscripted into the New Guardians.