Genderswap - Backstory - Gwen/Aqualass

[leiothrix_lutea]

Before Gwen was born, her parents, Thar and Berra -- were King and Queen of Shayeris in Hidden Valley. Thar's brother, Zath, however, believed the Shayeran throne and access to ancient magic that went with it rightfully belonged to him and secretly began studying dark magic to find a way to steal it for himself. Thar banished him from Hidden Valley, but Zath, having become mutated and disfigured in his studies of necromancy and the like, returned to Shayeris as Slizzath with an army of the undead twenty years later and met Thar, who'd gathered an army of armed robots to combat his brother. But the Shayerans -- known as Idyllists -- who'd believed in pacifism since they'd left Atlantis and founded Shayeris over 4,000 years ago, wouldn't hear of it. They killed Thar and banished the now-pregnant Berra back to Atlantis; but before Thar died, he was able to cast a powerful spell that would seal him away in an otherdimensional prison.

Unfortunately, the spell had a catch: Slizzath could manipulate certain powerful spells to regain energy enough to escape the prison. Only certain people were born with the ability to evoke this birthright ritual spell, and it was known that these special Idyllist infants were born with purple eyes. When Gwen was born in Atlantis, Berra saw her purple eyes and knew that the day would come when she would evoke the ritual spell and, so, the decision was made to abandon Gwen on an isolated seabed to die, claiming that she'd been born genetically inferior.

However, Aquaman's father, the sorceror Atlan, watched over Gwen, secretly teaching her how to survive in her wild home (though she harbored, for a time, a fear of schools of fish) and cultivating her magic gifts until she was old enough to secret into the Conservatory of Sorcery in Shayeris (with special lenses to mask her purple eyes). There, Gwen befriended Kaldur'ahm, who became like a sibling to her, tempered some of her more nervous tics, and helped her gain some of the confidence she would need when she later became sidekick to Aquaman.

Gwen and Arthur didn't have many adventures together -- not like Batman and Batgirl or Green Arrow and Speedy -- but she was around him enough that she was able to meet the rest of the Justice League's sidekicks and became one of the founding members of the Teen Titans. She enjoyed their company for years, but once they started getting older, her teammates' insistence on focusing on, what she considered, minor issues began grating on her relatively more no-nonsense personality. Not only had she seen the worst of the surface world, having seen first-hand the way they treat the oceans, she'd seen and experienced the worst in her own people.

When Elle and Royce finally turned on Donna over her gender identity issues and Donna left the team over it, that was the last straw for Gwen. She left the team herself and disappeared back into the ocean to do some real good instead of bickering over something that, according to Atlantean culture (and her experiences with Kaldur, specifically) was a normal and minor thing, barely an issue at all.

With time (and a crisis or two) she was able to forgive the rest of the team enough to do occasional teamups, but she refused to officially be on a team full time with them all together until she felt she could trust them enough to not devolve into petty bickering. Not to mention that she began to feel like she wasn't much help to the team outside of the water.

That didn't happen until much later, after many things had happened in Atlantis. Her long-time boyfriend, Tul (who called himself Aquaboy in jest) was killed by poisoned water (Chemo?) and, after several encounters with the telepathic Mento on top of her depression, Gwen lost her superpowers. Only temporarily, however. During an outing with Aquaman, Gwen thought she saw a vision of Tul and chased after him, only to find herself captured by a group of shark-people who had recognized Gwen's purple eyes as the sign of power they were. She was saved by Atlan, though, who finally told her about her birthright and her fated battle with her uncle. Atlan took Gwen to an interdimensional crossroads known as the Grotto where he trained her for the coming battle an for the day when she would claim her rightful throne. She regained all of her powers, and then-some, and upon returning to Earth, Atlan sent her back to Hidden Valley to finally do battle with Slizzath.

She came out of the battle scarred, but stronger, more confident, and victorious and renamed herself Tempest.

Later, she may or may not unintentionally steal Aquaman's girlfriend, Dolphin.