Vertigo (Character)

Vertigo is Bloom's Nemesis.

Appearance

 * -|True Form=


 * -|Disguises=

Bloom's Inner Self
During her biggest attack on Bloom, Vertigo takes on her appearance to fool her into thinking that she is her inner self.

Personality
Vertigo is openly sadistic and psychopathic. She derives a great sense of joy from being able to break down a person's spirit and psyche and usually lets out her recognizably maniacal laugh when she gets to see their suffering. Her illusory magic allows for her to toy with her targets as she sees fit and she especially loves to use it for as long as possible to see just how badly she can wear down her target's psyche by exploiting their fears and heightening their paranoia.

She is also very prideful and crafty, even to the point of declaring to Tinkerbell, her creator, that she does not take orders from anyone and, almost as if she is challenging the dark fairy queen, proclaims that she can wear down anyone's spirit, no matter who they are or how powerful. As such, Vertigo takes great pride in her methods and goes to great lengths to make sure that they work out flawlessly. This can be seen when she goes out of her way to disguise herself amongst the Winx's fans and seemingly puts herself in danger just to frighten Bloom. Naturally, this can make her very stubborn as well as she was still persistent with her act during her biggest attack on Bloom, even when the fire fairy already saw through her ruse.

Season 2
At the very end of the first episode, "Neverland," Tinkerbell recites an incantation and uses a mysterious stone pendant to transmute a shadow monster containing Bloom's stolen essence into a being born from the fire fairy's darkest aspects. Once she has been successfully born, Tinkerbell gives this new dark being the name Vertigo.

In the following episode, Vertigo's voice is first heard in Bloom's nightmare and she soon makes her appearance in a cloud of fog, scaring the fire fairy awake. Proud with herself, Vertigo returns to Tinkerbell's lair in Neverland to boast, only to have her confidence questioned by Tinkerbell at every turn. After taunting Tinkerbell and insisting that she knows Bloom better than anyone else, Vertigo disappears in a flash of lilac light, most likely to finish the job she started.

Throughout the day, Vertigo torments Bloom by subjecting her to her frightening presence and illusions to break down her psyche and rapidly escalate her fears and paranoia. Masking her presence from the rest of the Winx, Vertigo makes Bloom look as if she is going crazy and her constant haunting drives Bloom to avoid sleep in the hopes that she would not see Vertigo in another realistic nightmare. After the Winx leave the literary café, they plan to look in the local theatre, completely unaware of Vertigo's next move.

At night, when the Winx search the theatre, Vertigo challenges Bloom to face her once she ends up alone. She then subjects Bloom to more of her illusions by making the Winx all look like five images of herself while disguising herself as Bloom's inner self in need of protection. Her plan is almost successful until Bloom uses her heart to see through her illusions, so Vertigo discards her disguise and taunts Bloom some more believing that she could never just "accept" her Nemesis. Unfortunately, Bloom proves Vertigo wrong by invoking the shadow of her stolen essence and accepting it back within her being as her fire burns Vertigo away until she is no more.

With Vertigo gone, Bloom reveals to the Winx of Tinkerbell's latest plans: to attack them with personalized enemies just like with Vertigo.

Magical Abilities
Vertigo has the magical power over illusions and uses them to confuse, disorient and mainly terrify her opponents and victims. She can create illusions of varying complexities ranging from just making multiple copies over herself to making her victims see her image in other people. What makes Vertigo's powers even more frightening as how she can completely mask her existence from everyone except for the mind of her victim, making it so they cannot seek help from others to deal with her and are the only ones who can see, hear and feel her. She showcases these powers all throughout the episode "Peter Pan's Son," as she harrasses and terrifies Bloom while leaving the Winx out of the loop, effectively making Bloom look like she is going crazy. She can even mask her presence from everyone including her victim if she needs to make a quick getaway.

Due to her powers over the mind of her victim, Vertigo can also subject them to multiple nightmares and usually does so to start off her attacks. This allows her to wear down her victims even more as they cannot escape her presence at any point in the day, and this drives her victims to avoid sleep altogether, further breaking down their psyche by heightening their paranoia as they cannot even rest.

Vertigo also flies about, much like the other Nemeses, and can disguise herself to take the form of a human girl. She also takes Bloom's form during her biggest attack on her to trick Bloom into thinking that she needs to protect her "inner self" from multiple Vertigo copies. Lastly, Vertigo seems to be capable of traveling between Earth and Neverland with ease, implying that she may have teleportation powers.

Trivia

 * Vertigo's name and powers are derived from the medical condition, Vertigo, which is when a person feels as if they or the objects around them are moving (particularly either spinning or swaying) when they are not.
 * She might be a reference to Marvel's character, Vertigo, who gets her name from the same condition.
 * Vertigo is the only one of the Winx's Nemeses to be partially absorbed by her heroic counterpart, though, this is mainly because she is the only Nemesis to have been created by using part of a Winx girl's essence.
 * Vertigo not only shares her name with one of Darcy's spells but she also shares with her a similar mastery of illusions.