Name: Elise McGillis/Justice Bloom
Appearance:
Magical Girl Costume:
The sword she wields is named Morning Glory.
Powers: Morning Glory can project a large number of small, phantasmal golden flower petals. These petals can be manipulated using specific movements of the sword into a number of different abilities:
Promised Petal BladeA relatively simple move, where the blade projects a small wave of petals during a slash, causing them to form an arc that flies from the sword into the target. This can be either blunt or sharp, depending on Elise's intent.
Projectile Petal/Torpedo PetalProjectile Petal is a relatively simple ability, where Elise rapidly fires petals from the end of her sword as soon as she projects them. This is fairly weak however. Torpedo Petal is a somewhat stronger form of the attack, where she takes a moment to project more petals, shifts into a shape resembling an American football, and then fires that at an enemy.
(Number) Petal BarrierElise projects a number of petals and shifts them to form a large barrier, which takes the vague shape of a flower. The more petals are poured into the barrier, the more petals the 'flower' will appear to have, up to a maximum of ten, with each additional petal signifying a stronger barrier. However, the number of petals the flower will have must be specified during the initial casting of the barrier, otherwise it will collapse. More petals also cause the barrier to take longer to cast.
Petal PrisonA move where Elise manipulates the petals into the shapes of chains or rope emerging from the end of Morning Glory, with the intention of wrapping around the target and preventing their movement, allowing them to be captured without doing too much damage. That being said, it can also be used as a whip, so it isn't purely for easy captures.
Petal PlatformPetal Platform is fairly simple, being exactly what it sounds like it is. Elise simply forms some of the petals into a solid, cloud-like platform which she can stand on, or more usefully, use to redirect herself while in midair. These platforms can move with her on it, but it takes a significantly higher level of concentration to accomplish this than it does to just make multiple stationary platforms and run across them.
The Blade called GloryElise's strongest attack, leaps and bounds ahead of any of her other techniques when it comes to raw power. In essence, its similar to Promised Petal Blade, except for one glaring difference. The petal arc of this attack is
enormous. Because of its size and ridiculous power, Elise has barely used it, as to do so within the city would cause absolute chaos and disaster, likely tearing through at least a couple of large buildings before it dissipates.
Source: A silver and gold necklace with a floral design at the centre.
History with Justice Heart:
Funnily enough, the only reason Elise was even introduced to Justice Heart came from a complete accident. One day while she was walking home from school, she found that her usual route home was undergoing roadworks, meaning that she couldn't get through unless she decided to try and walk on the road in the heavy traffic. Unfortunately, the next fastest route she knew was one of her brother Connors 'shortcuts', which meant that it was probably at least half an hour longer and would take her through a maze of alleys. Still, she was fast, and knew karate, so she thought she'd be fine. Little did she expect to encounter a large, dog-like monster deep in the alleyways... Ten minutes later, members of Justice Heart arrived, and were surprised to see that Elise, armed only with a small piece of rebar she found in the alley, had somehow managed to hold her own, and even get in a few well timed strikes at the monsters eyes. After they finished the monster off, they invited her to become one of them, an offer she accepted even before they'd finished speaking. After all, one of her dreams was to be a real hero, and save people! As Justice Bloom, she quickly proved herself as a more than capable fighter, often trying to take on the strongest enemies she could find all on her own. The thrill of fighting such a powerful opponent became a controlling factor of her life as a magical girl. However, despite managing to succeed a good chunk of the time, her blunt, boisterous personality mixed with her aggressive tendencies to make people think that she just didn't care about the rest of the team, or even something as simple as consequences in general. While this wasn't the case, she did tend to push people's buttons a lot, sometimes for amusement, but sometimes genuinely by accident. The fact that her brother somehow seemed to find himself involved in more of their fights than he didn't only seemed to make things worse. Miraculously though, by the time they fought Dollmaster for the last time, she'd managed to express just how much her teammates really meant to her, and she would stand by them to the ends of the earth.
History after Justice Heart:
As it turns out, Justice Heart ended long before the world did, and the friends she'd made were quickly torn away as she found herself in a school where barely any of her friends went other than Courtney Cartwright.
Alone, with few people to turn to, she eventually decided to make do with Connor and his friends, although she did do her best to drag Courtney into their group as well. She's pretty sure she succeeded... One thing she quickly began to notice was that something was wrong with him, which began to confuse her. Over the next year, she began to notice him staring at her friends, looking extremely troubled by something, and would occasionally catch him hyperventilating whenever she talked to them for too long. She had a theory about what might be causing it, but she was worried what might happen if she brought it up. She thought that maybe, just maybe, he was somehow managing to recognise them, as well as her, as the members of Justice Heart who he always used to try to fight beside. She realised this wasn't a conscious recognition, and that even
he didn't realise that he was making the connection, but that almost seemed to make it worse.
By the time she was sixteen, Connor was having panic attacks pretty regularly, and it was beginning to affect his performance in school, making it look pretty unlikely that he'd be able to achieve his dream of joining the police force. This hurt her especially deeply, as only a few days after the final battle with Dollmaster, he had told her that it was only because he saw the way the members of Justice Heart never stopped fighting for what was right that he even decided on that dream. They were the ones who'd shown him what he wanted to dedicate his life to, and now, no matter whether they chose to or not, they were about to rip that dream away from him.
She was about to destroy it. The way she saw it, there was only one way to help him now.
And so one day, she told him everything.
She showed him her transformation, her skills both as a magical girl and as a normal human, and he finally realised why the mere act of being around his sister had begun to terrify him. She didn't tell him which if her friends had also been magical girls, but she didn't need to. He only had to look at them to figure out which ones he must've known before. After this revelation, everything became clear to him, reminding him why he wanted to become a policeman in the first place. Unfortunately though, it turned out to be too late, his inability to properly pay attention in the previous years making it too difficult for him to catch up. Eventually he managed to find work as a bartender in a small place downtown, but the pay was never really great, and both he and Elise knew that entering the police force was well out of his reach. As could be expected, Elise felt
terrible. This was
her fault, especially considering that she made Courtney hang around with his friends as well. It was around that time though that Elise managed to reconnect with Emily Galbrett, one of the other members of Justice Heart she had felt closest too. For just that little while, she let herself believe that having her around might help her get over how horrible she felt, and she began to return to her normal, boisterous self over the next year.
And then Emily got pregnant with Connors kid, and Elise felt more betrayed than she even knew she could. How long where they together before that night?
Were they even together before that night? Connor had mentioned that he was getting more and more depressed with his own situation... Did Emily decide to take advantage of that? Take advantage of the poor idiots minuscule self esteem for an easy screw? Or what, maybe he was actually fine! Maybe while she was being torn apart by the guilt, the two of them had been giggling and whispering sweet nothings to each other in secret! Letting her suffer and not even letting her know she didn't have to! And now she was pregnant! Hell, Elise may have been an irresponsible person, but Jesus fuckin Christ!
Nearly a full year passed before she even talked to
Connor again, she felt so hurt. She threw herself into vigilanteism to try and deal with those feelings, getting through her emotional pain by dealing it to criminals physically. She quickly realised she was actually quite good at it, and it slowly evolved into her current job as a... 'private investigator'. Still, the only reason she even began talking to her brother again was when his depression got bad enough for him to start getting into some pretty brutal fights with random assholes around the city. Slowly, they managed to repair their relationship. However, Elise still despises Emily, now firmly under the belief that she took advantage of her brothers lack of self-worth to get what she wanted that night, despite his protests that that wasn't the case.
Relationships:
Connor McGillis
Connor is Elise's shyer, more awkward brother, older than her by a year. Although they are both constantly fighting, its pretty clear to most that they're basically best friends. Each one constantly sticks their heads into each others business, and they'll defend each other to the death. He works as a bartender in a smallish bar downtown. Their relationship
did become pretty strained after he got Emily pregnant, but after noticing his personality spiralling into anger issues and vicious self loathing, they managed to reconnect, and he is now back to his old, composed yet nervous self.
Courtney Cartwright:
Courtney is probably the member of Justice Heart that Elise has remained closest with, being pretty much the only one that went to her highschool. In fact, she would probably call Courtney her
best friend, and along with Connor they formed a pretty close crew. When she was hospitalised, Elise went into one of her rare
serious phases, trying to stick around her through her time in hospital and rehab and, in a less healthy resolution, track down the bastard who did it and ruin him for life.
Isana Sieger:
If there was anyone Elise would ever consider a true rival, it would be Isana Sieger. Back in Justice Heart, the two were constantly butting heads, making jabs at each other and fighting. Elise likes to think they still saw each other as friends, but pissing the white haired girl off was just so much
fun! Nowadays, they tend to run into each other every now and then while she's on a job. Whenever this happens, she'll drop everything and try to goad her into another fight for old times sake. She's pretty sure they're still frenemies, although she's not sure how invested Isana is in their rivalry anymore.
Emily Galbrett:
Scum. Goddamn manipulative scum. Connor was in a bad place, where he was vulnerable and needed support, and she took advantage of that. Elise doesn't know if Emily really cared about her when they reconnected anymore, and the mere fact that this doubt is even able to exist in her mind has convinced her that the old Emily, one of her closest confidants, is dead and gone. Now the result is a sixteen year old niece she's never talked to, and a sixteen year old grudge she's never gotten over.
Lily Galbrett:
At this point, the best way to describe Elise's relationship with Lily is 'drinking buddies'. Her relationship with the woman's sister cough
scumcough notwithstanding, she tends to enjoy their little 'bonding sessions', which she's gone out of her way to make a thing ever since she realised Lily drank at the bar Connor worked at. These sessions usually involve Lily telling her to piss off and stop being so annoying or other similar insults, to which Elise responds with underage drinking jokes and giggling fits.
