Electra's Backstory
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Electra Ares Black had not been raised in the traditional sense. She doesn't know her birthdate, who her parent's were, or where she was born. She was raised in a place called The Red Room. This organisation is part of a larger one under the name of The Committee for State Security (KGB; Russian: Комитет государственной безопасности). They raised young girls to become child assassins For the Russian Soviet. These girls are put through psychological conditioning. At the age of three Electra was put in front of a screen alongside twenty-four other girls. They all had headphones over their ears and provided a juice box each. When the screen turned on, words were flashed rapidly across the screen, this was to ensure that the girls went into a deep trance, so the subliming messages could make their way into their brain easier. The screen then would rapidly flick through different images and scenes of cartoons, videos of ballet and acrobatics, and targets being shot at by bullets or knives thrown at them. Then videos of surgeries being performed were shown, before changing to pigs being raised and slaughtered. The last image would always fall onto a pigs eye, and then change to a human's eye.
This process would continue for two weeks.
The purpose of this was for the girls to be shown how they were raised. They were raised to believe they needed to excel in acrobatics and ballet, and shooting and throwing weapons, and the final message was that they were like pigs being raised for slaughter. Not that the children had any idea of this, these messages were implanted so deeply into their minds that it was in their subconscious.
Each night, the twenty four girls were made to sleep on stiff beds made out of steel with their hands handcuffed above their head connected to the metal railing. This was to make sure the girls could not escape during the night.
Once woken up, the girls were taken to breakfast which was always no more than two pieces of white bread, and a glass of milk. If they had done well the day before and were being rewarded they would receive a cup of plain oatmeal and a cup of water. If they were being punished, they were only provided the water. They would receive no lunch, and only dinner if they had excelled throughout the day. If they had, they received one plain potato and a glass of water. Otherwise they went to bed with no food. This was only one form of their punishment, food deprivation.
After breakfast they were taken to a studio where they practiced ballet for two hours, then acrobatics and gymnastics for two hours. After this they would then train in hand to hand combat for three hours, and finally weapon dismantling and reconstruction, where they were shown how to take apart a multitude of guns, set up their wristbands that shot out an electrical disk that electrocuted the target, and set up their batons that when extended had electrical charges. Finally they were shown an array of different knives and daggers and shown how to sharpen and clean them efficiently. This would happen for one hour, before they began weapon targeting, where they practiced their shooting using the multitude of guns, and knife and dagger throwing practice. This would go for two hours. Finally they would have classroom teaching, which is where they learnt different languages, stealth and how to hide in plain site. This would go for three hours, where it would be 7pm, and they would then be taken to have dinner, shower and bed.
By the time Electra was 8 years old, she had learnt 12 different languages, these being, English, Russian, Romanian, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Turkish, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, Arabic and Hindi. The goal of this was to make the girls be able to travel to a multitude of different countries around the world and be able to fit in seamlessly. By the age of 10 Electra then was able to speak another 8 languages, these being, Portuguese, Korean, Urdu, Malay, Bengali, Hausa, Persian and Vietnamese. By the age of 9 Electra was able to dismantle and reassemble all the guns the Red Room had to offer, and was able to shoot each individually with 100% accuracy. She was able to sharpen and clean her knives and daggers in under 2 minutes, and able to hit the targets directly where the instructors called without fail.
The reason Electra was made to do ballet, acrobatics and gymnastics was to keep their bodies flexible and nimble and have perfect balance. This meant the girls were able to move their bodies in ways many wouldn't be able too. Once Electra reached the age of 8 she was able to perform a ballet routine whilst also shooting at the targets, she was also made to practice her hand to hand combat with no weapons, using her body to move around her opponent with ease and be able to take down opponents that were twice the size of her.
Between the ages of 8 and 9 Electra began to practice her ballet, and gymnastics and acrobatics on broken glass. This was because at The Red Room, you were not allowed to show pain. You had to continue your routine through the pain and if you showed any signs of pain you were punished.
The punishments ranged from a beating, starvation, or locked in a small room for 48 hours in pure darkness. If you messed up your routine you were punished. If you cried you were punished. If you missed your target you were punished and if you made a mistake with your languages you were punished.
The worst started when Electra was 10 years old. This was when their target practice moved from sheets of paper to human's. You were brought into a room where the other girls would stand around the walls and watch. The target would have a bag over their head and you were made to shoot them directly through the skull. If you did not shoot them, you were shot instead. After 6 months they started removing the bags so you were made to look directly at the target before shooting. The kill or be kill started at the same time when it came to sparring. You were made to fight against another girl of their choosing, and there was no chance of tapping out. You fought to the death. If you refused to kill them, you were killed. If you hesitated after the first warning you were killed. If you hesitated to begin with before killing your opponent you were punished. By the time Electra reached the age of 13, the amount of girls that were with you when you began training went from 24 to 8.
Before Electra went through her Graduation Ceremony where she would officially be given the title of Black Widow, she she gained the following accreditations. Master Martial Arts, Staff Mastery, Knife Mastery, Master Marksman, Master Acrobat, Master Spy, Master Assassin.
This then meant she was to go through the Graduation Ceremony. This is a procedure that no woman should go through without their choice. You were placed on a steel hospital bed and wheeled into a surgical room, where you received an involuntary hysterectomy with no anaesthesia or pain killers, being wide away throughout the entire procedure. You were then given three days off before you had to begin training again. Only 4 girls survived this procedure. The reason for this procedure was to make sure the Widow's could not bear children, as they believed that motherhood would make their girls weaker.
After that was complete, you were then made to go through testing. This was when the scientists gave you a dosage of the super soldier serum. This serum was made to make you stronger, faster and heighten your senses. When given in a full dosage, it made you incredibly strong and fast. The smaller dosage meant the girls were way above average in all of these, but did not change their figure significantly. When this occurred to Electra, that was when things became worse.
Electra was then trained in being tortured, this was to make sure if she was ever captured, she would able to withstand anything without giving any information. She was waterboarded, where they put a cloth over her face and pour water over it, so it feels like she is drowning, and they would do this consistently. She was strung up where she had to stand on her tippy toes, and kept like this for days on end, where every time she was close to falling asleep they would wake her up. They would leave her in a blank room with music playing consistently. She would have her head dunked in cold water and then electrocuted. She was beaten over and over, stabbed, and whipped. On a few occasions she would be raped after being beaten, where different soldiers would take their turns wondering if this would cause her to break.
Throughout her time at The Red Room, accidental magic would occur. Things would move with no one touching them, when she was mad, glasses or lights would shatter. The leaders could not explain it until after the serum was provided and these occurrences happened more frequently, especially when she was being tortured, as the pain could be too much and unexplainable things would occur. This was when they decided to send her to their cousin organisation HYDRA that focused on human experimentation, and were an organisation that began in World War Two, formed by the NAZI's.
Once she arrived there, she was made to sleep in a cell, and each day she was taken to a lab, where she was injected with three different serums that she did not know what they were and was not explained what they were either. After the serums were injected, she was then electrocuted for a minimum of 15 minutes at a time to try and force the gene that was causing the accidental magic to come forth stronger, and activate the serums.
After this, sometimes she was sent to another room where she was either waterboarded, or had her head dunked in water until almost drowning. Another room where she was kept awake for 72 hours by hanging on chains. If the serum wasn't working after a week, she was then taken to be punished and tortured, in a similar way to The Red Room. There wasn't a day where Electra wasn't covered in bruises or dry
Electra ended up staying at HYDRA for two years before her magic came forth. She still had to continue with her ballet, acrobatics, gymnastics and target practice and then suddenly the guards started noticing different things in her cell. Her eyes would glow green and wisps of green would trail from her hands. They discovered she had psionic powers and magic.
Electra has the power of Psychic Energy Manipulation where she can project energy blasts, streams, waves and bolts of her own psionic and telekinetic energy, allowing her to strike, push, pull or blow away her targets, potentially exerting enough force to destroy them. This energy manifests in any shape or form, outlining her telekinetic spheres of influence, as the energy is visible in a greenish colour. When her energy hits a target, she can use her telekinesis to inflict further damage. Significant emotional turmoil can both amplify Electra's power and causes her to lose control over it, and as such will inadvertently unleash a wave of green psionic force that can tear apart and disintegrate her targets. She could also use her psionic energy streams to enhance the powers behind her attacks.
Using her telekinesis she had the ability to move, levitate and otherwise manipulate objects using her psionic energy in a remote manner without the need for her energy to first be projected from her hands. Maximoff uses this energy to affect and control molecules and particles, allowing her to fully control matter and energy.
She has the power to generate forcefields, and this is by creating highly durable barriers of red energy that she can shape and manipulate as needed. She can use it to grab and break apart targets, protect others from enemy fire, contain a target or to cover and deflect attacks from enemies. However the barrier could be broken with extreme brute force.
She has the power of disintegration, where she is capable of using her energy in such an acute telekinetic way that she is able to completely disintegrate objects.
Electra has the power of mental manipulation. She is able to deploy a form of mental manipulation, often as a type of illusory hypnosis, using the same neuro-electric interface that is the basis of her telepathic powers. This power can be hypnotic in nature, placing them in a sort of trance while viewing memories. When using her power, her irises sometimes glow a bright green colour, especially when she concentrates it on specific targets. She is able to use this ability to cripple the opponent or target by forcing them each to recall the darker events of their pasts and placing them inside daydream-like visions that rendered them nearly helpless. When this ability is in use, Electra's greenish energy takes a more mist-like form, floating into the head of the victim in the form of neurons. The effects also distort the victim's iris coloration, causing them to shine a dark reddish color. This also allows her to control other people's actions causing them to experience a form of sleepwalking.
She can also manipulate the memory, thoughts, actions, emotions, and senses of others at will, as well as to induce sleep or pain and create illusions without any difficulty.
She is able to emotionally manipulate her targets through her mental powers. This is often used it in order to elicit fear or emotional pain in a person in the form of nightmarish hallucinations that could stun and weaken them for a period of time.
Electra has the ability of telepathy due to her ability to interact mentally with others, she can read minds, communicate telepathically and experience the memories and thoughts of others.
Electra is able to levitate. She is able to use this power to move through the air and simulate flight, in order to hover and safely float back to the ground. The use of this power manifests as a blast of psionic energy expelled from her hands onto the ground to propel herself up in the air, with a second blast used to slow her momentum as she approaches ground allowing her to land safely.
She ultimately becomes one of HYDRA'S strongest weapons. She stayed with HYDRA for another year, where she learnt to train her powers. This meant she was with the scientists less frequently, and was in the training room working on her powers on different targets they brought in, alongside her sparring and weapon practice. She was then either being tortured and punished for something going wrong in training, or her powers going out of control and affecting a guard.
At the age of 14, Electra was given the name Black Widow, and that was when HYDRA and The Red Room came up with a deal where both organisations would use her for missions depending what they both required.
She was sent on a multitude of missions between the age of 14 and 18. She was still made to execute men and women throughout her training, alongside others in The Red Room, her fellow Widow's when they failed their tasks. She was made to set a hospital in São Paulo on fire, blow up an orphanage in Vietnam, India and Pakistan. She was the cause of the assassination of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of England. She went into homes that The Red Room or HYDRA required her too and assassinated either the target or their entire family as they were either against or left the organisation, or stolen vital information. Electra was drilled with the fact that no witnesses were to be left alive. That was why on occasion the entire family had to be killed.
Occasionally Electra was made to dress up and go to formal events and attempt to seduce men to either gain information, or seclude them so they could be assassinated. Often this did not lead to intercourse however, as she was able to use her mental manipulation to get what she required, and then would shoot the target before leaving. In these cases she would often wear a wig and eye contacts to not be recognised. However any missions that did not require her to be at formal events, she would wear a mask that would cover half her face.
Electra soon became both HYDRA and The Red Room's number one weapon. Easily undetectable from her training at The Red Room, quick and effective with her kills or gathering information, and able to manipulate her surroundings from her powers gained from HYDRA.
It wasn't until Electra was 18 years old did she manage to escape the facility.
There was a man at HYDRA, who was one of the guards tasked to take her from room to room, bring her food, and occasionally join her on missions. He was called the Winter Soldier. She noticed he was being brainwashed and electrocuted frequently causing him to have significant memory loss where he didn't remember his own name or anything about him, except his missions. It wasn't until she was 17 did he remember his name was Bucky and had a friend called Steve Rogers.
When Electra was 18, they had an alarm sounding in the facility she was kept at HYDRA, and she is unsure exactly what he did, but within him firing the targets that had stormed the facility, he was able to get her to a arsenal room, and told her to change and gather anything she may need, she had 3 minutes to do so. He kept shooting at whoever came near and once she was ready he quickly took her outside. All he said was, "go, be free," and Electra leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek before replying, "I will not forget you. One day you will be free," and he gave her a small smile before running back into the facility.
Electra promised herself that one day she would get him out of there, if it was the last thing she ever did.
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***Electra's powers are the same as Wanda Maximoff, I got them from https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Scarlet_Witch
I also wanted this chapter to go into depth of what she can do so it is easily explainable later in the book. More depth of what she went through will come in the form of flashbacks and talks.
I also used sections of my other book: The Intertwining of Fates for parts of this chapter to explain what she goes through.
The real book will start from the next chapter***