The Earthmother

Origin
Maria Green was born to well-known archaeologists. Her parents traveled all around the world, looking for new relics to unearth and study. During one expedition, they had brought Maria along with them. She was just about to enter high school at the time, and was spending that summer traveling with her parents, trying to see as much of the world as possible before she had to start high school that fall. She and her parents were in Egypt, looking for a relic hidden deep inside one of the ancient pyramids.

Inside of the tomb, which was home to one of Ancient Egypt’s former rulers, Maria had found something interesting that would eventually transform her. Staying a few paces behind her parents, she was looking around the inside of the tomb looking for anything that could be seen as important. She ended up finding a pair of emeralds on the ground, covered in some sand and dirt. Wiping the dirt off of them, she picked them up and pocketed them.

When they got home from their trip to Egypt, Maria began looking at the emeralds, though not thinking that there was anything special about them. She would be wrong, however. The emeralds had mystical properties, that once picked up from their resting spot (which was in the tomb), would give its user power over Earth’s flora, allowing for the conjuring of plants.

The powers first showed itself one day that same summer after Maria had sustained a pretty serious cut on her leg from an accident involving broken glass at her home. It had created a 3 inch long gash that she quickly tried to treat by wrapping her leg, putting pressure on. Moving into her room to lay down and rest her leg, the emeralds, which were in her immediate proximity, began to glow. Spores began to magically sprout from her bed and make their way towards the cut on her leg. Unsure, and a little scared, about what was going on, Maria panicked a little bit, but decided to see what the spores would ultimately do before brushing them away. Within a few minutes, the cut on her leg was disappearing and the pain from the cut was subsiding.

Impressed, Maria looked at the emeralds and saw that the glow from them was fading away. Figuring out that they were what healed her, she decided to experiment with them to see what else they could do. To her surprise, with them in her possession, she could call upon Earth’s entire flora and conjure just about any kind of plant, from vines to human-sized Venus flytraps, among others. The emeralds also gave her the powers of the Earth itself, granting her super speed, and also enhanced strength and durability. She’s always been a good, kind-hearted (and also flirty) person, so using these powers for the betterment of others was a no-brainer for her. She saw this as a privilege, and wasn’t going to use them irresponsibly. She kept her powers a secret, keeping the emeralds locked up in her room during her four years in high school.

After graduation, she created a costume to wear, and had the emeralds held in place under the cuffs of her gloves by a very strong magnet that couldn’t be broken by conventional means. Strength alone wouldn’t pry them off the gloves. She began calling herself The Earthmother, though often shortening it to E.M.

Her weapon of choice is a bow that she’s used since her high school days. She was on her school’s archery team and ended up becoming one of the top archers in the nation, winning the state title her junior and senior year and competing in nationals those two years. Using her ability to call upon the Earth, she is able to conjure non-lethal arrows that will still inflict quite a bit of damage when it connects, but is blunted enough that it won’t kill anyone. She also modified the ends of her bow with blades so that she can use it as a melee weapon if need be.