Alignment: Villain
Alias: Magritte
Name: Alexandra Chalmers
Current Profession: Art Thief
Age: 29
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 190
Gender: F
Birthplace: Cambridge, MA
Description: Brown Hair, Green Eyes
Costume: Black bodysuit, lightly armored, black mask and head covering
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Origin and personality
Alexandra was raised in a wealthy family and spent a lot of time by herself. She attended Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, where she double majored in robotics and art history. She was highly intelligent, and as a result never really struggled in school. Often she would take on additional projects, sheerly out of boredom. She also never really made friends, and only interacted with her classmates when coursework required it.
During her senior year, on a visit to the Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, she became extremely enamored with one of the paintings and decided she would like to own it. She knew that the museum would never sell it, so she started thinking about how she might obtain it. This led her to design a robot, specifically designed to steal this painting. She spent months mapping out routes, learning about the museum's security system and staffing routines, and fine tuning her machine. Everything was coming along nicely, but she had one problem: the robot would not have enough power to finish the job, unless she increased the battery size dramatically, which would increase the weight, and slow down the robot. She only had a very limited time to get into the museum and get out before the police arrived, and the robot was too slow. She was stymied, so she put the project on the shelf for several months, but kept thinking about ways to achieve her goal.
When she heard about Olympium, she knew she had the answer to her problem. She quickly integrated Olympium into her creation and, as expected, the robot was light, quick, and could complete the job on a single charge. That initial heist went off flawlessly, and she was hooked. She had never experienced anything so thrilling. She wanted more. She graduated college, spent the next several years building Olympium powered robots to conduct her art thefts, and acquired quite a collection of choice pieces from around the world.
During this time, she became increasingly aware that periodically she would get vivid visions in her mind of places she had been previously. It was almost like she was looking through a window into a different location, but always a location that she was familiar with, and always somewhere close to where she was. These visions became increasingly common, and increasingly realistic. Rather than letting these visions disturb her, one day she chose to concentrate on the vision intently. She was in her living room, and saw a picture of her bedroom. She focused on the vision, until it became intensely sharp, to the point that she was looking through a 1 foot round portal to her bedroom, about 2 feet in front of her. She couldn't explain how, but she knew she was actually looking at her bedroom through this portal. Suddenly the vision disappeared. Instinctively, she made a motion with her hands, slowly spreading them, while thinking intently about her bedroom, and the portal reappeared. She found that through a combination of hand motions and intense concentration, she was able to open these portals, one at a time. If she lost her focus, it would close.
She quickly decided to use her new found abilities to augment her art thievery. She was able to open a portal about as large as her wingspan, send a robot through it to recover the art, and have it return to her. She could never figure out a way to enter the portal herself, as if she approached the portal, it would close. She used her portal ability to conduct several more heists, but lately it has all seemed too easy. There is no chance of getting caught, no real skill in the planning; it's all so boring now. She's currently looking for something that will recapture the excitement she felt when she stole her first painting.
Abilities
Portal Opening
She can open a portal to any place that she is very familiar with, but she must be physically located within about 500 feet of the location. She cannot enter her portals, and must keep most of her brain concentrating on keeping the portal open. The biggest portal she has ever opened was about 6 feet in diameter, and the larger the portal, the more physically and mentally taxing it is to keep it open.
Robotics
She can make a robot that will do just about anything required for her heists. Due to the concentration required to keep her portal open, she designs her robots to be able to accomplish their task without her intervention.
Weakness
See above for limitations on portals. Also has no real fighting skill. Works alone and is distrustful of others, though this she may change this in pursuit of her next thrill/challenge.
Other Notes
At each theft, she leaves a note that says "This is not a heist.", a nod to Magritte's The Treachery of Images. This has led the media to dub her Magritte.