Marceline F. Mercury

Marceline F. Mercury (マーセリン＝F＝マーキュリー), also known by her fake name Ringo Akagi (赤城林檎), is one of the characters in XBlaze – Code: Embryo and a legendary member of the Ten Sages with the title of Zwei (ツヴァイ), also nicknamed as the Great Conjurer of the Blue Blaze (蒼炎の大魔術師).

Appearance
Marceline is an average woman with long pink hair, two blond braids and sky blue eyes tinged with emerald green. She wears a plain white and aqua colored collar dress with a small black cape, and a long thin black cloth wrapped around the majority of her body. Her look is complete with oversized handcuffs and pink slippers. While at work, her hair is tied up in a large bun. Also on two separate occasions, she wore a paper bag mask with a single eye hole for her to see through with a hole in the top for her hair bun to poke through.

Personality
Despite her numerous eccentric bouts of lectures about curry and its mannerisms, Marceline is an intelligent woman who is perceptive and wise. She has no interest in the Blue since she believes its power would make life boring by making the user omnipotent and omniscient; her philosophy on life dedicates itself to discovering things by oneself. Marceline also holds the view that “truth” is merely subjective.

Even when she was a member of the Ten Sages, she was extremely opinionated, never allowing herself to be constrained by the traditions of the Sages. She has a knowledge of mythology, using the mythical beast Pegasus in a poetic analogy for Drei’s soul.

She abandoned her duties as Zwei for six years and settled in the New Yokozaki City, working at the Maha☆Raja~ Curry Shop and believing that trying to find the truth in curry is much more satisfying than trying to derive any meaning from sorcery.

History
Marceline is Tōya Kagari’s senior at his part-time job at the Maha☆Raja~ Curry Shop. She is the source of esoteric trivia regarding all things curry, and she drives Tōya insane with her less-than-admirable work ethic.

Years before the events of XBlaze – Code: Embryo, Marceline was the Zwei of Ten Sages. She mentored both Kuon Glamred Stroheim’s mother and Drei. Six years before Code: Embryo, she left the Magical Association, and went to New Yokozaki, working in Maha Raja under the alias of Ringo Akagi.

XBlaze – Code: Embryo
Marceline first appears when she begins to lecture Tōya on the mannerisms of one of the previous customers, noting said customers “curry mannerisms” to be fairly good. After failing to attract his attention, she scolds him and begins a long lecture on how the customer had left his remaining food and cutlery. Her lecture ended as the manager reminded her that dishes needed to be washed.

When Tōya went to work again, he warned Marceline about the city becoming dangerous, leading her to tell him that him being enigmatic is the reason why he is in constant predicaments. While Tōya was busy working to help the huge number of customers, Marceline seated Es out of a rare bout of generosity and curiously asked the young man what her relationship is with him. For the rest of the night, she pestered him for information.

Quite a while later, Tōya arrived at Maha Raja with Mei Amanohokosaka. Marceline slyly waved off Mei’s, true, accusations that she was a member of the Ten Sages. She then seated the duo as she remarked that the manager had slipped off to a strip club to kill time.

Later on, she found Drei, dying from wounds inflicted by Avenge. She scolded him for constantly going on about the Ten Sages and about his philosophies. She watched as he died, and burnt his body to ashes to send him off. She jumped down into the sewer where Kazuto and Drei fought, finding the former succumbing to his wounds. Marceline quickly healed him and asked him to protect Tōya and his companions by clearing out the foot soldiers that could obstruct their path, reason being that she was in hiding and that she has no desire to fight on the front lines.

After Maha Raja suddenly closed, Marceline returned to Magic City of Ishana with Kuon, who became her apprentice.

XBlaze – Lost: Memories
Marceline was unable to participate during the Vampire Incident, but told Kuon and Els von Klagen to give Tōya her regards, that she is doing alright, and she might visit again. This relieves and concerns Tōya, as he is happy that Marceline is alive and well, but does not want to deal with her curry obsessed antics again. After dealing with the Vampire Incident, Kuon and Els returned to Ishana where Kuon is eligible to become not only a Ten Sage, but also their leader. With this, Marceline is now preparing her apprentice for her canonization as a Ten Sage.

Powers and abilities
Marceline was thought to be one of the most gifted conjurers of all time. Even though she has spent numerous years away from the Magical Association and any form of combat, Marceline is constantly aware of her surroundings, having remained sharp throughout the years.

One of her sorcery spells is Blue Flame Requiem which summons powerful blue flames. While healing sorcery is not her forte, she can do enough to temporarily patch up someone; she can fully heal people, but the process takes a fair amount of time.

Marceline also has access to a some sort of an information network, called. The Curry Network is centered in India, but spreads to every center of the globe, and is filled with information about curry and human affairs.

Trivia

 * 'Zwei' is German for two.
 * Marceline’s birthday, November 5, is the anniversary of Guy Fawkes Night, a holiday celebrated with fireworks in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and in certain parts of Canada.
 * The paper bag mask she wears in XBlaze – Lost: Memories is actually a reference to Guilty Gear fighter, Faust, who also wears the same paper bag mask, with the difference being that Marceline’s mask is slightly modified with a hole on the top for her hair.