Beth Lagrange

Beth Lagrange is one of the main characters from Chasing Beth (2021), a game set in the Elsaverse that is named after her even though she is not a love interest (LI) for the player's character, Joel Dresden. Beth is an experienced helicopter pilot who served in the Army and now flies for a private company from Sangrive that mainly offers short trips for tourists; secretly, she has been acting as a vigilante too taking advantage of an unnatural power that allows her to overcharge her senses and react quicker to stimuli. She's Emily's best friend and casual lover, as she is bisexual.

Personal
Tough, strong, confident, and kind, Beth Lagrange's life and character were marked after her mother's death when Beth was only 4; from that moment on, it was only she and her father, Harvey, and things weren't easy for them despite all of his love and efforts. When she was 5, her father signed them up for a martial art class to spend more time together but also as a way to teach her how to defend herself in the future; this decision was successful at all levels as it brought them even closer -they still practice together after almost thirty years- and taught Beth some critical skills that would help her a lot in her future. For instance, she learned how to behave and follow instructions, and she benefited from those at her father's workplace: he worked as an engineer, designing planes, and he used to spend so many hours at the office that he had to bring her daughter with him many afternoons after school, but Beth was such a good kid that, instead of being an annoyance, she quickly became kind of an office pet, and even Harvey's strict boss rewarded her by letting her use the simulators where they tested their designs. That was how Beth got in contact with planes and helicopters, and she fell immediately in love with them: by the time she was old enough to get an actual pilot license, she had accumulated about ten times as much simulation time as the minimum required, even though they didn't register all of her sessions.

Meanwhile, Beth kept growing up as any other regular girl in Sangrive, studying, practicing martial arts, and experiencing her first sexual interactions with boys and girls, always observing her father's rule of not having actual sex until she was of a legal age. She had a best friend since grade school, Emily, whose kindness and empathy have always been an inspiration for Beth; on top of their bulletproof friendship, they have been casual sexual partners for years. In high school, Beth used her martial arts skills to teach other boys and girls some self-defense techniques, and she kept doing so during her college years. It was during one of her classes specifically addressed to other women when she learned she had an unnatural power: with her eyes closed, she was able to sense how Emily was going to punch her nose. Shocked by the experience, she didn't react, and Emily broke her nose; inmediately after, they both learned Emily had a power too, as she could fix her friend's broken nose just by imposing her hands on it.

Shortly after her graduation, Sangrive's country was attacked by a foreign nation and the confident and resolute Beth didn't hesitate to enlist herself in the army, excelling at the bootcamp thanks to her fighting and pilot skills. On deployment, her role was to pilot a medical evacuation chopper, far from the frontline as women were a main target for the enemy tropes, although she was still involved in some rescuing operations like the one that resulted in Joel Dresden exfiltration after his transport got stranded in the desert: showcasing her stubborness, Beth argued with her commander until he gave her permission to help that unit, as she was the closest pilot to the incident's location. Some time later, her helicopter was taken down and she spent several weeks on the ground, trying to survive and constantly relying on her power to stay safe, until she got rescued in a classified mission. She was sent back to Sangrive in a deplorable state, and she's been dealing with the mental consequences of this traumatic experience ever since: although she's undoubtedly in a better place now, Beth is still one of Abigale Sinclair's patients.

After her physical recovery, Beth started to work as a private pilot for a local company, flying helicopters for tourists trips, mainly. With her jobs, she's slowly buying out one of her boss' helicopters; however, she was feeling kind of empty after the war, as she couldn't feel she was helping people anymore. That changed one evening, when she saved a woman from being gangraped in the streets by some criminals: with her power and her fighting skills, those three men stood no chance against her, and she realized she could fight crime and help people. Even though she was against Beth's idea, Emily helped her to design a suit and a mask for Beth's new secret tenure as a vigilante; she has been helping her to plan her actions too, and stays alert in the background just in case Beth needs her healing power. Emily has also been recording a memorial video Beth wanted to leave as a testimony of her actions in case things went wrong: in that video, Beth goes over her life, confesses her power, and explains why she decided to become a vigilante; she also states how much she loves her father.

Using her callsign in the army, 'Tainted Arrow', as a nickname, Beth targeted the two main gangs in Sangrive, the Rats and the Snakes, hitting them alternatively in their own territory of SoBa, one of the city's industrial districts. Using her power, she didn't hesitate to fight against several gangbangers at once, knocking them out and leaving them tied up and ready to be arrested by the Sangrive PD. Even though those gangbangers wouldn't tell the police, they perfectly knew that their masked enemy was a woman, and the Snakes even nicknamed her 'La Diabla', or 'The Devil Woman', in Spanish. Both gangs worked together to try and take her down, but Beth managed to remain victorious until one unfortunate evening, when she fought against seven Rats who were about to beat down and rob a lonely man in a street basketball court. After Beth knocked down every single gangbanger in sight, the leader just shot at her and Beth wasn't fast enough to entirely dodge the bullet. Badly injured, she only survived thanks to the arrogance of that gang leader, who didn't kill her immediately and let his male victim to get back on his feet and tackle him before it was too late for Beth. Her savior then confessed that his name was Joel Dresden and she had saved his life before, during the war; then, Beth convinced him to not call for an ambulance and just phone her friend Emily instead.

Upon arriving at the scene, Emily magically healed Beth with her power, taking Beth's pain for herself; even though she wasn't injured anymore, Beth had lost a lot of blood, so she was fairly weak too and Joel had to drive them home. However, as they got near Beth's apartment, they noticed someone was already there: detectives [Nathaniel Blake]] and Michelle Won, from the Sangrive PD, had discovered 'Tainted Arrow' real identity, and Joel decided to take both women to his place. Helped by his girlfriend, Serena, Beth and Emily spent the night at Joel's, recovering from last night's events; then, in the morning, they phoned Detective Won and, trusting her word and intentions, Beth decided to put her career as a vigilante to an end; if only, to stop putting her friend Emily at risk.

Being a journalist at "The Sangrive Times", Joel published a fake article about 'Tainted Arrow' death in which he stated that the woman under that mask didn't have any unnatural power and was just an ordinary woman who decided to do something more to try and help others. With the shared past between Joel and Beth, given that both Joel and Serena were already aware of the powers' existence, and also due to the mutual attraction Emily and Serena felt at first sight, the four of them quickly became great friends, to the point of even experiencing a sexual foursome together.

Powers
Beth Lagrange can amp up her sensorial awareness to a point where she can get extremely accurate inputs from her surroundings and react to them accordingly, anticipating any potential threat as if objects and people around her are moving in slow-motion. This skill can be seen as an enhanced result of her martial art's training since very young age, as one of the goals that her mentors used to set for her was precisely that of being able to reach a high level of focus that would allow her to sense her surroundings with her eyes closed. Of course, the only way for any human being to actually achieve that is to be 'infected' by the power leak that was affecting Sangrive since Morland Reyes opened the interdimensional portal to his native realm. Beth's power manifested for the first time during her college years, while she was sparring with her friend, Emily: as Emily was no rival for her, Beth tried to fight with her eyes closed, and she suddenly realized she could sense Emily's movements. She was so shocked by the experience that she didn't react at all when Emily threw her a punch, breaking her nose. Fortunately for her, they immediately discovered Emily had a power too, as she was able to heal Beth's nose on the spot.

Beth's power, along with the combat skills she's learned throughout her whole life, makes her a temible hand to hand fighter, as she can practically anticipate her opponent's moves; she can even try to dodge bullets, although she can't move fast enough to completely prevent them from hurting her. Her power is also useful while flying an helicopter, as she can react quicker to any unexpected issue that could arise. However, she can't keep this power turned on for so much time, as she can have problems to step out of it: after her experience in the desert, when she spent several days in her hyper sensorial state, Beth was really jumpy, and her ordinary perceptiveness became less reliable than usual, making her see and hear things that weren't there.

Miscellaneous

 * Beth's model is a slight variation of the original model that Tora Productions' artist, Mortze, designed for a side character named Jess from the game Life Changes for Keeley (2020), set in another fictional universe. Tora Productions' writer, Tlaero, felt that it would be such a waste to discard that beautiful model and set the ground for future appearances of her by portraying Jess in the post-credits scene of that game as an actress hoping to get more roles in other Tora Production's titles.


 * While on deployment, Beth tried to keep her sexual urges in line by stating that she wouldn't have sex with anyone in the base unless the one interested in having sex with her were able to beat her in unarmed combat. Her initial intention was to keep doing that for a while and then just surrender to someone she liked enough; however, her power made her practically invincible and it soon became a matter of pride to keep herself unbeaten, while the rest of the soldiers ended up being more interested in beating her just for the sake of it than in the promised sex reward.


 * Beth's power is oddly similar to the skills Xara had in previous titles, although Xara claimed in Saving Chloe (2018) that she had no powers at all and her ability to enter 'The Flow' was a product of intense training since the age of 3.