The Red Mercenary (Down the Rabbit Hole)


 * This page is for the character belonging to the roleplay group Down the Rabbit Hole, which features characters from multiple different fandoms in a Wonderland-inspired plot. The information here should not be regarded as the official character's canon, as many creative liberties were taken in development. For the character's official wiki page, see Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary.

The Red Mercenary, formerly known by Lobotomy Corporation as "The Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary", or by the serial code "F-01-57", is one of the dozens of characters pulled from their home worlds by The Narrator to participate in his telling of Wonderland. She plays the role of The Bandersnatch, and exists as a politically neutral faction outside of the four kingdoms, like most of the other beasts.

Alongside Mami Tomoe and Luz Noceda, the Red Mercenary is one of three characters played by Taceas in the "Down the Rabbit Hole" Discord roleplay group.

Appearance
Lorem Ipsum

Childhood
Before her transformation into the Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary, Red lived as an only child with her mother and father in a sparsely populated, thinly forest-side community beyond The Nests and the eyes of The Wings. Her parents had met and lived in the Backstreets- the slums of a cityscape where crime ran rampant and mortality rates were through the clouds. Despite the awful cards the dystopian dice had rolled for them, the two did their best to survive. It was only upon falling pregnant that Red’s mother, father and her paternal grandmother fled the decrepit shanty towns to a place where they’d heard rumours of a small civilisation growing despite their apocalypse. After long spans of quarantine, interrogation, and psychological assessment, the three were accepted as refugees. And so it was that for the next sixteen years, she and her family worked hard in that settlement to keep it hidden from the soldiers known as Fixers, and fortified against the monsters that roamed the Outskirts. It was, perhaps, the only place even slightly resembling the world that came before.

Red’s mother fell in love with her first taste of true nature immediately. She wasted no time in finding work amongst the community’s landscapers, and extending what had become a passion for gardening to her own home. Her father, however, was a lumberjack and labourer. It was a job that upset his wife greatly, for she’d finally had a taste of nature, but it was one that kept the settlement growing. But it was her grandmother that was the strongest of them all, and Red’s role model. She was a woman in her seventies who never let age tell her what to do. Her face was wrinkled and her eyes tired, but her body was powerful enough to move logs, and hold a steady aim down the scope of a gun. She would stand with the patrol, and guard the walls while her people slept. But as much of a warrior as she was, she still had a love for the softer things in life...

Red’s mother and her paternal grandmother grew close, sharing that newfound love of botany and flowers that they’d never been able to explore in the Backstreets. Her mother would visit her mother-in-law frequently, and took pride in helping keep her garden neat and beautiful when the elder woman wasn’t able to.

''The path of vengeance started when Red was only fifteen. It came in the night, in the form of a pup…''

(TBC)

Before Lobotomy Corporation
Lorem Ipsum

As F-01-57
Lorem Ipsum

In Wonderland
After having followed the Big and Will be Bad Wolf through The Threshold, an event manipulated by The Narrator himself,

Personality
Years of obsessive revenge has turned Red into a tightly wound warrior. She would rather settle her qualms with a fight than with words- a dangerous trait to have with her hot-headed and aggressive personality. Headstrong by nature, even before her decay into an Abnormality, Red will fight tooth and claw for anyone who decides to hire her talent. However, if anyone were foolish enough to get between her and the Big and Will Be Bad Wolf, all alliances and friendships will be cut.

Self-isolation, a decay in humanity, and blind rage have affected the Red Mercenary’s social skills poorly. She doesn’t often think before she speaks, which can have her come across as tactless at times, and struggles greatly to express emotional support (something she shies away from, herself) to others in need. Red is adamant on being there for the one or two souls she cares about, but rarely knows how to provide the help they need, nor is she comfortable providing it.

Years of chronic nightmares have only deepened her anxiety and self-loathing,

Abilities
Enhanced Physical and Regenerative Abilities


 * Red’s transformation into an Abnormality has granted her an unnatural endurance and regeneration, amongst other things. Wounds that would take a regular person weeks to heal can be overcome in only days, and otherwise fatal blows can be endured. Red’s abnormal endurance and stamina allows her to perform athletic feats beyond the normal range of capability. This includes things such as power jumps, super speed, advanced parkour techniques, etc.

Conditional Immortality


 * The curse of vengeance has tied two life forces together; as long as her nemesis continues to live, the Red Mercenary can never die. Even if every cell in her body is completely destroyed, the dark energy within her will find a way to rebuild itself piece by piece with time. But by the same token, so long as the Mercenary still breathes, the Wolf will always return. Death will not claim one without the other- and so it is that their feud will never end.

Flames of Vengeance


 * The Wolf ignites a burning hatred in the Red Mercenary; a fury that physically overwhelms her body in a sanguine flame. When she and the wolf cross paths, her aggression heightens, and she becomes blind to everything but the beast’s blood. Her physical and regenerative abilities further enhance along with her pain tolerance, and a red flame-like aura radiates from her skin.

In Lobotomy Corporation
Lorem Ipsum

In Wonderland
Lorem Ipsum

False Hero
    “Attention, F-01-57.”

The unsteady voice, a crack on the intercom, was the first thing she heard since the brass trumpets mourned.

''    “Attention, F-01-57. Your assistance has been requested.”''

In this place, she had no name. She was a serial code and she was a title, but never was she looked at like a name on a tag. In her documents, she was F-01-57. On the lips of the agents working their dead-end jobs, she was The Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary. It wasn’t some awful act from a department, stripping her humanity from her fingers. No, she had killed her name on her own, when her hair came out in clumps and her lips shrivelled back over blackened gums.

“Karlsson, that you?”

It was a question that didn’t need an answer; the Red Mercenary, or simply Red as she’d taken to calling herself now, already knew the woman behind those words. Agent Alice Karlsson, a portly employee in her late fifties, had a distinct Swedish accent that no-one else could quite echo.

''    “The facility has entered the Second Lockdown. T-04-53 has breached its containment unit, and several cases of O-02-74-1 have been confirmed loose in Extraction. Given the current threat level of the facility, it’s theorised that O-02-40 will attempt to break free from containment shortly.”''

Red wasn’t surprised when Karlsson didn’t respond with a yes or a no; she was used to business being business. That’s how it had been above ground when she signed her verbal contracts. But it was strange, she thought, to hear a woman she knew was so gentle try to force her trembling voice still. The Mercenary rose to her feet, her flintlocks already holstered to her sides, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t already anticipated a call for her help.

    “So am I going after the bird?” Being a cut from the same cloth, the ghostly croon of that lantern couldn’t claim her senses the way it did others. “Or Alriune?” Unlikely, considering that thing could be standing nearby on one breath, and gone on two. Red was fast, but speed alone wasn’t what you needed to counter the abomination of a mannequin.

    “We request that you deploy yourself in Psychiatry ASAP in anticipation of O-02-40’s breach.” O-02-40 must be getting sick of her, given the number of times they’d called her in to deal with him. And for a moment, she found herself wondering just where she stood in the eyes of the midnight abomination. If it truly thought itself a hero, saving lives by taking them, would that make her the villain in its tale?

    '''“So the bird. Roger that, Karlsson.”'''

Red waited as the intercom fell silent, the churning of a mechanical lock quick to replace the woman’s words. The first of two doors slid open just as the mercenary’s fingers closed around the handle of a sickle. There was no grace to her footsteps; heavy boots moved with haste to step through the open doorway.

    “You gonna be good getting to the evac point on your own?”

But she already knew there were two soldiers waiting outside the observation deck for the gentle Karlsson. Agents never went to the units of Abnormalities without an armed escort. Not even if only to ask for their help, though those that would answer the plea were few and far between.

The second door slid open slowly, and The Red Hood stepped through without even a passing thought. The trumpets were screaming their alarm over the hallway’s intercom, but not a single one was louder than the pact of bloodlust.

It was time to say hello to a false ‘hero’.

Return of the Mercenary
    Wonderland was a world riddled with countless beasts and frightful villains, but few rivalled the dread inspired by the tale of the Bandersnatch.

''    Some claimed the Bandersnatch moved on four legs. Others insisted it walked on two. Some declared that their beast was covered in midnight fur mottled with blood, but others were adamant that the abomination was cloaked in red cloth with the eyes of a sinner.''

But all voices, two legs or four, spoke of a darkened beast with knives in its maw and battlegrounds on its skin.

    A beast of pistols and claws…

         A beast of brute force and no mercy.

    Wonderland was never quite the same since the Wolf and his Shadow crossed The Threshold. The forests, once haunted only by legends, found themselves the new arena of an undying feud between a wolf and its hunter. Creatures thought horrendous lay collapsed in the grass, their bodies mangled by the collateral conquest of vengeance. Even the proud trees bore the wounds of slashes and gashes. And the trampled grass wept where two sides of a single rumour clashed.

As time passed, dragging its heavy legs across the clockwork, a hunter’s eyes opened to the world around her. Fury had blinded her. Exhaustion was beginning to claim her. But still, she fought her demon. Still, she worked to crush the monster into the ground once and for all, and pull her pieces together when it did the same to her.

''    The Wolf would die, the Red Hood thought, as for the first time since her arrival she trudged into town. More and more fights were beginning to end with her head between the nightmare’s teeth. She was strong. She was hardy. She was bold, she was brash, and she was reckless. But one thing she wasn’t was an idiot. She needed more weapons. She needed to rest. But steel and a roof to sleep under didn’t come cheap.''

    It was time to earn some coin again.

         It was time to make herself known as the sellsword she once was.

                   It was time for the Bandersnatch to walk on two legs.

Trivia

 * Fans of Lobotomy Corporation often debate over whether Red's enormous teeth are real, or just a mask. In this rendition of the character, however, her teeth are treated as being real.