Scarlet Vithica

(Version 1)

The year is 1925—in the midst of the Prohibition Era. Bootlegging & bank robberies are on the rise, with law enforcement being corrupt or unable to stop it. But in the criminal underworld of the East coast, one lone figure stands with a reputation as vicious as Al Capone. A dame who’s as pretty as a rose, but is dangerous as a siren. And her name is Scarlet Vithica.

(Image source: NatalieDeCorsair; Character source: Scarlet_V | Both from FurAffinity. Backstory, while mostly written by me, is semi-inspired from Scarlet_V’s, but minus the parts of their OC being able to travel across dimensions and equipped with a wrist needle contraption that genetically alters her victims. | ⚠️ Caution: Scarlet_V’s profile contains +18 NSFW content)

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The year is 1925, in the midst of the Prohibition Era in the United States. What started off as a temperance crusade by both Protestant activists and Capitol legislatures, with the hopes of bringing society to a more morally pure and righteous path, had only started a new and grimy chapter within the world of organized crime. Irish, Italians, hicks, and ambitious “entrepreneurs”, seeing the potential treasure that the temperance activists just stubbornly threw at them without a second thought, began to use the liquor as the foundations for their bootlegging business, ranging from simple smuggle syndicates to sprawling city-wide criminal empires.

Around the same time, the American law enforcement and the Bureau of Investigation (BOI/FBI) saw the rise of bank robberies by gangs. And the press, hungry for flashy news of this new era of crime, only made this crooks and gangsters as famous as movie stars from rising movie capital called Hollywoodland.

But, within the criminal underworld of the Eastern seaboard, stands a sole person whose reputation should not be taken lightly, a dame who is as pretty as a rose, but carries thorns that are sharp and laced with poison. And that dame, is Scarlet Vithica.

Scarlet Vithica, a name that sounds like a lady’s perfume for some… but is as alluring as mustard gas for those within the law enforcement. She and her gang are responsible for numerous crimes, ranging from bank robberies, murder, hit-and-run assassinations, kidnappings, racketeering, laundering, and the possession and smuggling of alcohol.

—Backstory—

However, this dame was not born into a life of crime, instead she was dragged into it as a result from a personal tragedy. In the year of 1899, Scarlet Vithica was born most likely in Atlantic City, New Jersey; the exact birthdate and birthplace of Scarlet is unknown, but she is approximately 26 years old as of the current year of 1925. While Scarlet was born in American soil, her parents family hailed from the Old Country: Italy. The alluring promise of a better life led them to leave Naples.

However, the American Dream is an unforgiving, two-faced mistress; while she can be kind to some, she is cruel to others. And for Scarlet’s family, the so-called “American Dream” seemed like the American Nightmare. Their quest for honest work only led to greedy bastards who exploited them like gold mines and the endless cycle of living in constant poverty. By the 1910s, with their dreams dashed, Scarlet watched as her parents fell into alcoholism and gambling, which led to financial woes and a rising debt. Loan sharks came and went, threateningly reminding them of the debt they owed, even when they continued to drown deeper with their alcoholism.

Scarlet did all that she could to try to get her parents out of their debt, but it was too little too late for them; their fate was already sealed . Soon came the Mafia, whose patience has run thin and snapped like a worn violin string. In the middle of a night, in 1912, Scarlet woke up to the sound of the tenement door being busted open, soon followed by the sound of angry Italian yells of mobsters and the frantic screams of her parents. From her dingy window, a 13 year old Scarlet witnessed her parents get shot to death from the mobster’s handguns; their severely overdue debt paid in blood.

Form then on, Scarlet became homeless and orphaned. Grief plagued her heart, but it soon turned into anger and a desire for vengeance. She soon began to form her presence in the streets. First, she turned on a street gang that had been bullying her and challenged the gang’s leader into a fight. She soon had the leader defeated with a broken snout, bruises, and a broken wrist—she became the new leader ever since.

With her gang, loyal to her by fear, she began spread her influence to the street, then the block, and soon the entire urban neighborhood—all while she was just 14 years old. As her gang grew, so did their professions. By 1919, the Vithica Gang had gone a long way from a loose gang of petty thieves to a formidable syndicate armed with weapons and loaded with stolen money.

With the start of Prohibition in 1920, the outlawed liquor increased the gang’s wealth by tenfold. And with the money gained from bootlegging and bank robberies, they began to form small-time businesses that were fronts for laundering and racketeering. She even finished her past blood dues as she had her gang finish off the Mafia family responsible for the death of her parents, an event that was dubbed by the press as the “Mardi Gras Massacre”.

However, Scarlet was not content with just remaining in one place, she wanted her reputation to be heeded wherever she went. Bank robberies, murder, kidnappings, and hit-and-run assassinations followed the Vithica Gang wherever they went.

Reports of their stunts and heists happened between New Jersey and New York, but also in other states such as Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. There were even reports of their heists in places such as Boston, Cleveland, and Washington DC itself. And the press just ate it all up, much to Scarlet’s pleasure.

While her thefts and heists leaned heavily on the theatrical, it caused numerous close calls of either being nearly shot by rival crime syndicates or arrested by the police, none of them disturbed her—it only added more thrill to her heists and ego. And since her gang is always on the move, it made all attempts to catch her that more difficult, be it the badged boys in blue, detectives, or the Pinkertons.

With local and state law enforcement seemingly unable to stop Scarlet and her wild gang, the Bureau of Investigation was summoned in as their last resort; it was with the hopes that J. Edgar Hoover and his agents trained in the arts of criminal science would be the very lasso needed to stop her. When word reached Scarlet Vithica herself, she welcomed the challenge with an unconcerned smirk—wanting to see how much they would go to the to stop her, and also toy with them as she watched them fail.