Full Name - Arna Jaeger Callsign - Eagle-1 Age - 26 (b. 2562) Birthplace - Lone Star Pilot Type - Assault -
P S Y C H E
"Never Tell Me The Odds!" Arna is...well. A polite way to phrase it would be "not easily cowed," perhaps? She's an adrenaline junkie with a daredevil streak a mile wide, always at risk of going completely off the rails and ending up in places that she doesn't have any business being, doing things that are really bad ideas.
"You Lookin' For A Fight?" Like, for example, starting fights. Loud, brash, and abrasive, she's one of those people that somehow find a way to get in a fight regardless of whether or not doing so will actually get her anywhere. That's not to say she's overly bellicose or combative; she doesn't intentionally go looking for fights. But because of the kind of person she is, she also won't shrink from them. At ALL.
*Fingerguns* All that being said, though, that completely ignores how much fun she's having. Yes, she's loud, brash, and abrasive; but that also means she's totally unafraid to laugh as long and loud as she wants. Always ready to poke fun—but never out of malice!—both at others and at herself, she's a wild, unconstrained woman who takes an equally wild and unconstrained joy out of life.
Though she is dubiously blessed with an awful sense of humor.
G E A R
Peacekeeper MP1k1 Arna's personal armament, the Lone Star-manufactured Peacekeeper is a compact automatic pistol that she keeps snugly holstered at her side at all times. Matte black with her image—a plane beneath a skull—stenciled on the side, this powerful machine pistol shoots holds up to thirty rounds in its long stick magazine, and fires at a blistering 1100 rounds per minute. She prefers not to use it if possible, but if necessary she's more than capable of defending herself.
Hip Flask (Did You Really Expect Anything Else?) On the opposite hip from her pistol is a plain silver hip flask, dented in a number of places. Her initials, A.J., are scratched on to it on the outside by what looks like a knife, along with E-1. On the inside, kept by her side, are the initials J.B., and F-4. It's kept full, usually of either bourbon or vodka.
Worn Photo Kept on her person at all times is a wallet-sized photo of her and a man of similar age, laughing so hard together they look like they can't breathe. One of the few times she cools down instead of being so gunpowder all the time is when she's looking at it, or when she's asked about it.
N E U R A L C O M B A T A N T
Armor Eagle-1 is a superlight assault NC, jet black and accented with lines of bright magenta-red, with her previously mentioned trademark image—the plane and skull—emblazoned on the right shoulder. Her extremely powerful propulsion system means that she's always on the move, so she relies on mobility, not armor, to keep out of harm's way. Thus, she's only very lightly plated, though through the virtue of ceramo-metallic tungsten, it remains durable enough to take one or two shots before she's scratched out of the fight..
Hands And now we get into the meat of what Eagle-1 does, and why it can afford to be so lightly armored. In so many words? It's a walking airstrike. Held in her hands is the Dragon PFC, a custom-tooled firearm brought all the way from the insane minds of Lone Star: a handheld flak cannon. Firing fragmentation shells with a proximity sensor in the noses, it allows her to blanket whole swathes of the battlefield with desolation at a time. One shell individually might not be enough to take an NC out of the fight, but she can put so many of them downrange, and they spread over such a large area, that one of them will EVENTUALLY get there. A surgical strike, she's not.
Back As previously mentioned, mobility is the core of what Arna does, and there's nowhere better to see this than her back. It plays host to a TREMENDOUSLY powerful propulsion system, capable of catapulting her a hundred feet in any direction with frankly concerning speed. Such is the reason she wears the outfit she does: a g-suit from her days as a pilot that serves to lessen the effect of the sudden g-force changes. Overclocking her propulsion at fullsync enables something almost unique to Eagle-1: flight. Limited flight, of course, and only if she's willing to commit: it takes a LOT of her NC's power to maintain it for even the shortest length of time. But she does pull that trigger and cross that threshold, the maneuverability and firepower that comes with it are difficult to overstate.
Right Auxiliary Not merely satisfied with a flak cannon, Arna requires more powerful ordnance on occasion. Such is the reason for her right auxiliary: a rocket pod containing fifteen guided rockets linked to a targeting system in her HUD. Not only that, these aren't ordinary rockets: rather, to fit with her theme of widespread devastation, they are cluster munitions, allowing her to hail down explosions from on high like the hammer of god. These can be fired one at a time, and they usually are to conserve them. But if the situations calls, she can unleash them all in a storm of fire that leaves the ground before her a sea of blasted craters.
Left Auxiliary In a departure from the insanity that are her weapons, her left auxiliary is much more pedestrian. Because of her superlight armor, she sprung for the best projector she could get. She's ABSURDLY vulnerable to ion weaponry: not only does it disable her shields, but it can also short out her propulsion system and leave her little more than a sitting duck. But as long as ion weaponry isn't overly prominent on a particularly battlefield, it makes Eagle-1 much more durable than it may at first appear.
R E L A T I O N S
Jacob Brake The subject of the photo, the other name on the flask. Jacob Brake is the love of Arna's life. Though he remains in Lone Star while she lives now in LH, she still thinks about him often. She can't send him messages or anything; a civilian (these days) line sending messages into the military is a pretty futile idea to think about. So instead every so often—there's no schedule, just when she feels like it—she'll write him an unsent letter and save it for the future, when she can show him all the letters she never sent.
Colonel Andrew Barlowe Arna's loooong-suffering CO in the LSAF, Colonel Barlowe is a straight-laced, no-nonsense officer that expects a certain level of decorum from pilots under his command when addressing him.
You can probably imagine that he and Arna did not, in fact, get along.
Delia St. Seine Delia St. Seine has been referred to as many things over her 18 year life. People have called her a prodigy. A genius. A menace. A disaster. A symbol of the problems inherent in the system.
Quinn calls her a sister.
After her parents' untimely demise when she was very young, she was taken care of by a family friend for several years. During this time, she demonstrated an amazing aptitude for engineering, and Rebecca Darroux took notice of that and took her under her wing, begin teaching her all about the process of weaponmaking. As she learned from Rebecca, Delia heard rumors that she had an adoptive daughter, which of course, Rebecca mercilessly crushed down, and so Delia didn't really put much stock into them. Until one day when she was eleven, when she--completely by accident, when she was looking for Rebecca--ran across a shy, quiet girl, must've been eight or nine years old, with a long black and yellow braid and wide, apprehensive yellow eyes. Or...eye. The right one was gone.
To make a long story short, the two of them eventually grew close to each other, and Delia to Becca. And when Delia's adoptive father Mendez died, she was (informally) adopted by Quinn and taken into their family.
Now, though...she's been missing for a few months now, with no word at all. And both Becca and Quinn are getting very, very worried.
Physical Details ◢
Quinn is a shortish girl, no more than 5'3" in height, with an extremely ordinary build. Despite that, she is extremely recognizable whenever she walks into the room thanks to a few very specific and unusual pieces of her appearance. And first and foremost is her hair. While dark gray streaked with yellow isn't exactly impossible, is is highly unusual. But moreso is the sheer volume of said hair. When tied up in a tight (if large) braid, it ends up going down to her upper thighs. Untied, it goes all the way halfway down her calves. Needless to say, she keeps it braided near permanently to avoid tripping over her own hair. She's reasonably athletic, another piece of her that is fairly average; but that average is applied to the average of a teenage girl, so she's not going to be running a marathon any time soon.
Next are her eyes. Or, well, her eye, singular. Only her left eye is intact, and it is a bright, sharp, violent yellow, wide and expressive, roving around with constant curiosity. By contrast, the other side of her face displays a black eyepatch, dyed here and there with goldenrod yellow. Faint echoes of scar tissue peek out from underneath, barely hinting at the mangled, mutilated mess that sits where her eye socket used to.
For the most part, she wears functional clothing; not out of any real desperate need, but simply because it's her taste. She's never really liked super restrictive fancy clothing. As a general rule, she likes duller, darker shades much more over bright colors or pastels. When asked for a reason, she simply claims that dull colors set off against her eye and hair a bit better, and that anything else would look weird.
Background Information ◢
Quinn Loughvein's background is a bit mysterious, all told. With the exception of her parents, nobody really knows much about it, especially her. And she certainly doesn't want to spend much time around her parents. What can be loosely speculated is that she was born in Denver-Vegas in the summer of 2662, upon which her parents immediately tested her for NC compatibility. And upon discovering she was neurally compatible, they began feeding her and pumping her with a staggering array of neurochemicals and other morally dubious drugs in an effort to crank her neural compatibility up: to turn her into the ultimate NC pilot. She was steered away from ever leaving their sight; and so never being exposed to the world.
Unfortunately for her parents, working where they did meant working reasonably closely to Rebecca Darroux, the poster child of the jerk with a heart of gold. And, on top of that...canny. She noticed that there were some things wrong with the Loughveins; they were exceptionally cagey, so it took more or less eight years. But when she did notice, she decided to tail them with a drone to figure out exactly what was going on.
She did.
She called them in the next day and reamed them, tearing them apart for their mistreatment and giving them an ultimatum: either they give child up and forfeit parental rights, or she'd see them in court. With all the evidence she needed from the drone footage.
Of course, it was obvious to everyone that 'court' was a sham in a city like this. But Becca had a bit more cachet and notoriety; and thus, she made the rules.
It took a bit for parental rights to be ceded; and during the process, Becca decided to spend some time with the child to avoid leaving her alone with her parents. She didn't know exactly what had cause her to have an eyepatch at eight, but whatever it was, it was not good, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. But then...something interesting happened: She got attached.
Quinn's life changed unbelievably quickly as soon as she found herself adopted by Becca. She chose to keep the name Loughvein; it just felt wrong to leave it behind. She was a child, after all. And her life going forward was...nice. Sure, Becca had her share of detractors. But she'd never been anything but wonderful to Quinn, and as time went on, to Delia as well.
Rebecca hoped that she could keep Quinn out of the NCs permanently; completely disregarding that pilots typically didn't live very long, she didn't know the full range of effects that the drugs that Luke and Shannon had given her had. But it was fruitless, because Quinn gravitated to them in the end; and at 15, she became one of the younger pilots out there. The notably sensitive Quinn didn't fare too well on the battlefield, but she was a pretty skilled pilot, and DV probably wasn't going to let her go easy.
To make a long story short, Becca eventually bought her out of the military. It wasn't exactly cheap, and it wasn't exactly easy; but Quinn was much, much happier. But still...she loved piloting, but didn't want to be in the military. So...what?
It was then that Becca put in her head the idea--the contract was free now--to leave DV, and go freelancing.
So she did.
She's been doing so for a little while now, and has happened across Lost Hope.
(She still calls Becca every night).
Polaris Shift ◢
Quinn's a little bit of a special case in the way she thinks about her Shift. Not only does it not bother her overly much, but...she actually likes it.
Quinn's Shift manifests as a voice inside her head. As far as anybody can tell, it's got nothing to do with personality drift regarding any old pilots of Ablaze, it has nothing to do with anybody else at all. More likely it's just a kind of persistent psychosis. But whatever the cause, the manifestation remains the same: there's another person inside of Quinn's head, or at least that's how she puts it.
This personality--who she says also wants to be called Quinn and so she that's what Quinn calls her--as far as can be gleaned, is rather different from the Quinn that most people know. That bouncy positivity is markedly absent. In the fragments of conversations that can be observed, she seems much more cynical and aggressive. But regardless, Quinn seems to put a great deal of stock into the other Quinn's opinions and thoughts. And not only that. Quinn has...
...She's made friends with it.
A small side effect of her Shift and this bizarre situation is that Quinn can sometimes have difficulty in knowing whether she's talking to her internal Quinn through thoughts, or spoken out loud. Sometimes she'll cut in and out of a conversation, bits and pieces of it out loud and the rest remaining unspoken. It can be someone disconcerting at times.
Personal Mission ◢
Above all else, Sirona wants desperately to be safe.
Trapped for so long in so many ways, literally or figuratively, Sirona feels constantly exposed. Like she's always being watched, always been watched, and always deeply unsafe. Her past is full of shadows—the doctors from L1, the military of Fairbanks, the last look that she took at her sleeping sister—that loom over her like so many swords of Damocles. So her ultimate goal, even if she doesn't quite know it, is to lift those swords away, one by one. She may never be able to rid herself of them all. She may never feel completely comfortable. The past may always haunt her through her nightmares.
Full Name -藤本 蝶 - Fujimoto Chou Age - 22 Place of Origin - Kanazawa, Japan Occupation - Florist Zodiac Signs - Pisces, Sheep Blood Type - O+
A V A T A R
Character's Name - パピ四 - Papiyon Pathos Affiliation - Drox Role - Evasive melee DPS Profession - Florist Weapon of Choice - Nagamaki Domains - Darkness; Enhancement, Illusion -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Larkspur The most evident of Chou's character traits, both IRL and in Pariah, is how kind she is. Kind and sweet. Whether it's helping someone find their lost cat, getting a ball from out of a tree for a kid (she loves kids), or patiently talking a friend through a bad breakup, she's a genuinely kind person that only loses her temper once in a few blue moons, and takes a simple joy from watching other people smile.
Heather And she plans to protect those smiles. Perhaps not in a combative way; being the kind of role she is in combat, there's only so much she can really do to protect someone. No, her general protectiveness comes more as a psychological deal. She seems to have some kind of 'upset radar,' she's so apt at telling whether someone is lost, or sad, or angry; and when they are, she'll always do her best to make sure they feel like they're not alone, and they can always talk to her. Perhaps it'll blow up in her face. God knows it's done that before now and then. She's not perfect. But she will keep trying.
Hydrangea But what use is trying that hard to get people to open up if she's not going to respond in kind? Chou is, as a rule, emotionally open to a startling level. Though she's surprisingly good at hiding how she's feeling (it's a talent), she just doesn't. She wears her heart on her sleeve, not by nature but by choice. Just as she's always willing to talk to other people about what's upsetting them, if they want to know how she's feeling, she'll talk about it openly and honestly. After all, what's the point of trying to protect peoples' hearts if they trust you so little, they've closed them off already?
B E N C H M A R K S
Flittering Wing Papiyon's magic is split almost evenly between enhancement and illusion, vanishing in a blur of phantasmal butterflies, appearing behind the assailant, and slashing them with armor-shearing attacks that the eye can't fully follow. She's extremely evasive, able to 'blink' around and relying heavily on that for her combat style. Because she is fully minmaxed into offense. She has no way of sustaining herself, and she wears very light armor to keep her mobility maximized. It's rather hard to hit her; however, if you do hit her, she's going to feel it, and feel it hard.
Whirling Sting But you need to survive her assault first. She is frankly scary with her long-handled nagamaki, dealing enormous burst or sustained damage depending on how she chooses to fight. Though, there is one major pitfall to her combat strategy: because it's almost entirely centered around mobility and her weapon, there's very little she has to deal with multiple enemies. Hence, she tends to leave them be and go for priority targets, which can potentially leave others vulnerable to the crowd.
Dancing Petals As you might guess from her IRL occupation, Chou loves flowers, and this carries quite well over into Papiyon as well. Yeah, the job of a florist in Pariah is less about what's pretty and often much more about what's useful for things such as alchemy. But, she reasons as she arranges the herbs and flowers in her cart, there's no good reason it can't be both.
Obscuring Mist I've talked about how she fights with respect to her mobility and heavy emphasis into damage. But we shouldn't forget that illusion affinity as well. Often, the pure mobility might not be enough; in which case, she combines it with a variety of illusions designed to bewilder and distract while she does her work. Perhaps she creates a cloud of illusory butterflies, darting in and out so quickly the foe can't see her, let alone strike her. Perhaps she leaves afterimages behind her, blinking around the target so quickly that by the time the image disappears, she's already striking again. Whatever the technique, it makes her playstyle all the more effective in the end.
Physical Description
Fujimoto Chou doesn't have a ton that sets her apart from any other young Japanese woman. Straight black hair, a slender build, a height of only about 5'1"; if one word could be used to describe her, it would be typical. Perhaps the only thing that really sets her apart is a single wisteria-purple streak that runs top to bottom in her hair, framing her face on the left side. Much of what makes Chou unique isn't her appearance, but her personality, and strange idiosyncrasies, such as her habitual tendency to speak nearly exclusively in extremely polite kenjougo keigo, regardless of the situation. She wears largely typical clothing, though she does have a particular penchant for wearing long coats when it's chilly out.
Papiyon, on the other hand, is very different in appearance, given that as a Pariah avatar, it stands as a manifestation of how Chou wishes she could be; an ideal version of herself. The single streak spread out into flowing pink hair that frames a pair of wide, kind violet eyes. A more buxom build. Significantly increased height: about 5'1" no longer, now reaching upwards of 5'7". Flawless skin. She thinks she looks SO cool. Instead of her skirts, blouses, and coats, she wears a close-fitting white leather-backed vest with gilt fastenings that trails off into long coattails that flow behind her. Enough to deflect a blow or two, though leather can only do so much. And finally, her weapon: a long-handled nagamaki, wrapped in fabric the same color as her hair. The blade is fine steel, and the handguard is fashioned after a butterfly.
...It took her SO long to save up for it.
Character Conceptualization
Fujimoto Chou was never a genius, and she's made her peace with it. That's not to say she's not smart. She knows her fair share of miscellany. But she doesn't need any more than that.
Born to Fujimoto Rikako and Souun, Chou—named after the butterflies her mother loves so much—had a happy childhood and was (and still is) extremely close to Hanako, her elder sister by two years. Mild in temperament and unfailingly polite, Chou was a dream daughter, and her parents were ever so proud of her when she got into a good high school. This is about when she began her habitual use of keigo. When questioned on it, she would simply shrug and smile: "I like being polite."
Her planned life trajectory, though—good high school, good university, good job—was shot in the face in her second year of school, though. Hana was in College Application Hell, and Chou hated seeing it. And she hated even more the idea of being in it. She'd never really figured out what she wanted to study anyway; so, while still attending high school, she began to probe a bit for possible jobs nearby. And a little while into her search, she happened upon a small florist's shop owned by an elderly woman looking for part-time help.
And she fell in love.
Her parents took her assertion she was going to become a florist instead of going to university rather well, actually; she wasn't cut off or anything, though their relationship was a bit frosty for a few months afterwards. But in Chou's eyes, it was so very, very worth it.
Some years passed, and Chou found herself more and more in charge of the shop as the elderly owner aged further. Twenty-two years old now, she has a comfy apartment, a wonderful family, and a job she loves. And having some disposable income now, she decided to try out this new game she's heard about, some wild VRMMO called Pariah Online.
No harm trying it out, right?
Other Information
She is very into astrology, both eastern and western.
蓮花舞 Rengemai Lotus Petal Dance
Chou leverages her Illusion and Enhancement magic both, dashing around the target and striking from unexpected angles as she leaves afterimages in her wake; moving gracefully, like dancing across a pond on water lilies.
蝶靄 Chou-Moya Butterfly Haze
A storm of illusory butterflies appears around Chou, and she vanishes into it, moving unseen and unheard through the obscuring magic.
無痛蝶 Mutsuu-chou Painless Butterfly
The most powerful spell in her arsenal, Painless Butterfly sees her close her eyes and sheath her sword as pink energy builds within. Then, after some seconds, all sound becomes muted and distant to her, and the world slows to a crawl as in one fluid motion, she unleashes a single clean stroke from her sheath, trailing pink light and phantom butterflies as it rends through space and time.
Full Name - Meguro Tsukiko Hometown - Aomori, Aomori Prefecture, Japan Quirk Type - Emitter Gender - Femme -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Positive Tsukiko may have been born blind, but she's not going to let it bring her down. Unrelentingly positive in a gentle sort of way, she's always ready to smile. And though her smiles may be a bit quieter than most, they're no less genuine, and she wears them often.
Mischievous But when she's not 'doing hero things,' that energy is still there, and it does still have to go somewhere. Aoi is an unrepentant prankster, often leveraging her Quirk to jump around into other students' devices and sticking around for a while to mess with them. She never really wants to cause any real problems with this; she has less than zero interest in blackmailing or coercing or any of that distinctly non-heroic stuff. But while she'd never intentionally hurt you, she can be exremely annoying.
Positive Still, for all that irritation she can bring...she can still always be counted on to have a smile on her face. And while her having her grinning at you after she calls your mom through your cell phone without you knowing can be frustrating, having her stepping forward with a grin when things get bad and your backs are to the wall is another thing entirely. Even when playing her pranks, she is ever a font of limitless cheer, just as ready to laugh at herself as she is to laugh at you. She holds no grudges from pranks--turnabout is fair play, after all--and it really takes some doing to pull the smile off her face.
Physical Description
Saiba Aoi is...not tall. Standing at a tiny 148cm (more or less 4'10"), she is head and shoulders below several of her classmates, and still significantly shorter than even the other 'short' students. Cornflower blue hair tied in twintails and bright blue eyes frame and sit atop a narrow, pale face that is nearly always sporting a big smile. Her frame is as small as the rest of her and as narrow as her face. Her legs are long (proportionately, at least) and as slender as the rest of her. She is fairly weak as far as appearances go, with relatively undeveloped musculature. Still, though she isn't strong by any means, she's much stronger than she looks. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the obvious appearance: her legs evaporate into pixels and electricity, and then nothingness, from her mid-shin down. She can't fly or anything, but it does mean she never needs to touch the ground.
It must be noticed that with her Quirk fully active--that is to say, with her entire body digitized--she changes appearance slightly on whatever screen she manifests on. Her cornflower blue hair fades to glowing electric blue at the tips, and her blue eyes turn to a bright turquoise-cyan. She gains a few digitized lines on each cheek. Whatever she's wearing or carrying at the time comes with her when she jumps in. Excepting, of course, her phone if she uses it to jump in.
While at school she wears her Ishin Academy uniform as per requirements, when she's got the choice to wear something else she is inordinately fond of a tracksuit jacket with hugely oversized sleeves into which her arms just about disappear.
Personal History
Aoi has always been a computer person.
Even when she was a small child, she was endlessly fascinated by them, often spending hours poking at them (and accomplishing nothing, of course, she was a small child after all). Her mother Kimiko, a four-armed programmer, indulged her daughter, let her fiddle around to her heart's content as long as she didn't touch the work stuff. Still, as Aoi grew, she nursed a private worry. Quirks were inherited. But Aoi didn't have four arms like her, and her husband...
...Well, Saiba Ryoutarou was Quirkless. And as Aoi grew and grew, past six, seven, eight, it looked like she might be Quirkless too. And some of the kids at school were starting to notice.
So both Kimiko and Aoi were delighted--though Kimiko was deeply confused--to find that Aoi's legs had flickered and faded into pixelated data. And when she proudly walked into the classroom, hand in her pocket with her phone, and fell due to her unfamiliar physiology...she vanished. The class was instantly freaked out, and the teacher, even more so, running over in fear. Until...
"Whoaaaa!"
Character Arc
Perhaps it's not obvious at first glance what's up with Aoi, and where her character development will go. Well, I point you to the above backstory and ask you to consider it. For as cheerful and chipper as Aoi is all the time, she's also burdened down by feelings of inadequacy. Being treated as Quirkless until mid-elementary school, and then being told, however gently, that her Quirk just wasn't cut out of hero work... well, it's left some marks on her psyche.
Quirk Description
Tsukiko has a particularly powerful utility Quirk known as Hypercognition
A transformation-type Quirk, it allows her to turn her body into computer data. Passively, as mentioned, her legs end mid-calf, and so instead of walking she floats a little ways off the ground. This gives her some advantages, like never needing to touch the ground when she needs to sneak around or if there's something hazardous on the ground, as well as giving her a certain level of controlled descent as long as she's falling feet first. However, it also has a major caveat attached: her legs either being immersed in or deluged with a sufficient amount of water, or being struck with a powerful enough electrical shock, can short her legs out and stop her from 'walking' for anywhere from a few seconds to a handful of minutes as they reboot. They've got a few other properties as well; while she accelerates slower than most, once she's up and running she also runs faster than most, and while she can't jump at all from a standstill, her jump height is dependent on how fast she's going. At her current maximum speed--roundabout sixteen mph--she can jump about four feet in the air.
Actively, she can turn herself entirely into data, jumping into a device and working as a rogue computer program of sorts. She can either enter through a data stream that she has access to--i.e. disappearing into the camera network after being recorded by jumping after her recording--or perform a manual override by touching the object.
Once she's inside, she can move around the settings and data of the machine as she wishes, pretty much setting the rules inside of whatever device she's in. Pretty much nothing happens that she can't control. She can also jump from device to device as long as there's a stream of data connecting the two that she can use as a pathway, whether that be hopping between computers on the same Wi-Fi network or calling someone from inside of a phone and then hopping along the cell data.
That said, this power is certainly not limitless. First, in addition to the limitations of where she can enter a device, she can only leave at a terminal--she can't just jump out of a Wi-Fi signal in the middle of a house, only out of a computer, or phone, or router--and she can't leave instantly at any time. According to her, the dataspace of any given device has an 'exit door' that she needs to get back to before she can leave (although the same is true for riding on signals, it's MUCH faster for her, she can zip along one in less than a second as long as she's paying attention). And while she's immune to physical harm, there are a suite of other things that can spell disaster for her.
While she can stop commands to shut a computer or phone down, there's nothing she can do to stop someone from unplugging it, or taking out the battery. If that happens, then as long as the device is off, so is she; in a state of unconsciousness for as long as it takes to turn back on. If access to a network is revoked while she's in a device, whether by unplugging an ethernet cable or having the signal itself shut off (she can turn off airplane mode if it's turned on, so that doesn't do much), she is trapped inside of that device and can't leave until it's either reconnected, or plugged in to a different device manually, after which she can jump up the cable.
And finally, and most dangerous: if a device is destroyed and she can't jump out in time, either through not paying attention, or the device being switch off...then it's lights out for her, forever.
Description in brief: Passively, Aoi has digitized legs that have different properties than normal people, cutting off some avenues and opening up others. Actively, she can transform into computer data, jumping inside of a terminal. She can travel at internet-fast speeds on Wi-Fi, data cables, or wire connections, but needs to open a channel through cell data by making a call at the moment, and can only travel between devices; she can't jump out midway. If the device she's in is disconnected from all data, she can't exit it. If it's turned off, she goes unconscious until it goes back on. If it's destroyed, she dies.
Small and slim at just over five feet, Tsukiko doesn't quite look her age, and as long as she keeps her head covered, she doesn't stick out in many crowds. Once she takes the hood off, though, she tends to draw attention instead. The most notable piece of her appearance is its sheer paleness. Fair skin, white hair, white eyes, and predisposed to white clothing, she stands out like a lit candle in a dark room, or a thin slice of sunlight through a door held ajar. There always seems to be a faint smile on her face when she's speaking to people, faint and perhaps a bit self-satisfied, like she's thinking of something else far away from her conversation even when she's quite engaged.
But regardless how engaged she is, don't expect her to make eye contact with you, as Tsukiko is entirely blind, and has been her entire life.
Still, most people have no idea. Her other senses compensate for it rather well, even when her magic doesn't, and she's able to function almost the same as a normal person, if not even better at times; she carries herself with confidence, and it doesn't seem to intrude on any combat that may occur at all. In fact, that mysterious smile of hers can carry an implication that even then, she sees more than she's letting on.
And for reasons nobody can fully understand, she seems to always be followed by the heady scent of lilac and lavender.
Role
Lunar Sage
Abilities/Formal Knowledge
Light Magic: Tsukiko's most powerful and defining trait is her ability to channel and manipulate light. Though sunlight is of course subject to her powers, as a Lunar Sage they grow more potent during the night, waxing and waning with the moon. From weaving light into concrete objects to searing enemies in combat with blasts of silver and gold, this ability is the most notable she has.
Lightsense: And part and parcel of her light magic is how she's able to move so smoothly despite her blindness: she may not be able to see light, but she can feel it. She's able to create a kind of...3d map in her head by using her magic to feel where light is and isn't. She can't feel color, she can't see patterns; but solely in terms of objects, she essentially has 360 degree vision, at least of a sort, though it can be a bit foggy and imprecise while the sun is up, and of course in places where there's little to no light it grows faint or absent completely.
All that being said, this isn't really a passive thing: she does have to consciously focus in order to utilize it, and if used for too long, it can exhaust her and prompt a recoil of confusion and disorientation afterwards. But it's a powerful tool, to be sure.
Acute Senses: Along with her lightsensing, Tsukiko has a more pedestrian ability on her side: to compensate for her sight, all of her other senses are quite a bit sharper. She can hear things that other people might not be able to, tell (roughly) what's around her by the way the air moves off of objects, and so on and so forth. This doesn't edge into the supernatural or absurd, of course, but it serves as an excellent early warning system that might prompt her to use her lightsense so she can really tell what's going on.
Sage's Rapport: While her blindness precludes from doing things like reading, or writing with any degree of precision, she's still a Lunar Sage, which can perhaps open doors for her in places where a Sage of any variety may command a degree of respect.
Personality
+Sweet: On the whole, Tsukiko is pretty nice to be around. She's a very kind person at heart and offers it liberally to most everyone around her, even those that may stand in opposition to her. A firm believer in the healing power of a smile, she truly loves people and wants them to be as happy as they can.
+Moral: In addition to that kindness, Tsukiko is the proud owner of a very powerful moral compass, and believes that all people are basically good, and they only need the chance to show it. Very much chaotic good, she's not one to let laws and strictures get in the way of what she believes to be the right thing to do. Of course, she never breaks the law with impunity, she's not a fool and works within it as long as it's possible. But if her guiding principles overpower the potential consequences, she'll do what she must to meet them.
+Canny: It may come as a surprise to those that see her smiley exterior or hear her extolling the innate goodness of people, but Tsukiko is quite a shrewd individual and tends to be good at judging how any given scenario may play out, and how best to work within that scenario to reach the outcome she believes to be the best. Such is how she's so good at pursuing her morals alongside the law, even if they may contradict it: she's a good judge of how people think and is skilled at leveraging it.
-Vindictive: As one who has not uncommonly been assumed as frail, fragile, or uncapable because of her blindness, Tsukiko has developed a bit of a spiteful streak that can come out on occasion. It's not particularly common in everyday life, and she doesn't begrudge people not understanding how her powers work. But if people question her abilities or standing even after she demonstrates that she's perfectly competent, she tends to simmer with suppressed frustration and anger that can boil over at inopportune moments.
-Duplicitous: Just as she's predisposed to genuine smiles as described, and just as she's good at leveraging social situations to her own ends, she's also rather skilled in in false smiles. She has a tendency to be two-faced, most especially around people she doesn't trust, but occasionally even with her closest friends, and she's good at it. It's a habit she's aware of and struggles to get a handle on, and she often catches herself in the act and corrects it. But even if she's aware of it, it's a habit regardless, and it can cause people to distrust her.
-Self-Righteous: Another foible that she struggles to control and subsume is her ingrained sense of self-superiority. The dark side to that powerful morality, she has a tendency to naturally assume that she's in the right of a problem. It's not an unbreakable thing; if you prove to her she's wrong, then she'll eat her words with at least some measure of grace. But it can take a bit of doing to convince her she's in the wrong. It's less common these days as she's been mostly successful in downplaying it, but in higher stress situations especially there's still a not unlikely chance it'll rear its head again.
-+Secretive: Neither a boon nor a blight upon her character is the simple fact that she tends to speak little about herself. She doesn't speak little overall; while she's not a particularly talkative individual, she's also not excessively reticent. No, this is almost exclusive to talking about herself, especially her history and dreams for the future. That's not to say she point-blank refuses to talk about herself, but rather she tends to move the conversation when it starts to drift to subjects she'd rather not touch on.
Public Knowledge Tsukiko was born, raised, and trained in the south, and how and why she ended up in the Eastern Region is unknown. Some say that she left out of protest for the incredibly long and powerful dynasty of the Southern Region; some say that she was chased out for speaking out against them; some say that she's a spy sent by them to weaken the East. Whatever the reason, her secretive nature holds strong, and she's not telling anyone (except the spy theory. When that comes up, she denies it without exception).
Rikako, empress of the Moriyama business empire, loved flowers and butterflies. So it came as no surprise that her two twin daughters were named as such: the elder, Hanako; and the younger, Chou. The two were borderline inseparable through their younger years, all the way up through private high school, when Chou's life path was forever changed.
With her parents as they were, a calm and mild temperament, and a manner of speech and bearing so polite as to be strange at times, it was taken for granted that she would attend university as well. Even if she was only in her first year of high school, she certainly had the grades for it, she loved learning. Though she never really had a subject in mind--business? That was most likely, but what about literature? Philosophy? Studying abroad, even? She never could quite think of one--it felt like the world was opening itself up before her, full of wonder and promise.
And then Examination Hell began, and any desire Chou had of attaining higher education withered on the vine, burned to the roots.
It was a nightmare. A pure nightmare. Her and her sister both barely functioning and yet required to, bags under their eyes, after coming back from yet more rounds of practice exams. Grades slipping from exhaustion. Locking themselves in night and day to keep cranking at exam booklets and textbooks ad nauseum. To Chou, it was like both enduring torture and watching a victim thereof, and in between rounds of bringing snacks up for herself and Hanako during long study nights (every night) and getting her own schoolwork done, she began to look further afield for a possible future. She wanted no part in this whatsoever. And during one of her brief searches, she came across a florist's shop nearby, owned by the elderly woman Satou-sama, who was in need of help to keep things running smoothly, and started working part time.
And she fell in love.
Her parents were...frosty a year or so later, when she told them she didn't want to go to university, and she would be continuing her apprenticeship as a florist. Very frosty. But after some cajoling (not quite enough, for what she was doing), they gave her the go-ahead, in a way that disturbed her just a little bit for how easy it was. Still. Here was her chance to make her own life, and she took it.
And so the years passed, and Chou found herself in a comfortable apprenticeship, as Satou-sama was aging more, and so more of the responsibility passed on to her young protégé. She has a comfortable, if quite small, apartment above that same florist's shop in familiar Kōriyama now, and a touch of disposable income that didn't come from her obscenely wealthy parents. And so just after dyeing a wisteria-purple streak into her hair, she started looking into something Hanako mentioned on one of their occasional chats: this crazy cool new VR game that she'd started playing called Pariah.
Well, hey, couldn't hurt, right?
P A P I Y O N: D E A T H I N P I N K P A P I Y O N: D E A T H I N P I N K
That wisteria streak, now spread across her whole head, and a pair of kind, warm magenta-purple eyes. Papiyon could fairly accurately be described in appearance as the "typical" Japanese young lady thrown into a blender set to 'pink,' then dressed in a white and gold leather longcoat and gifted a very sharp weapon.
But more important is what it does to her personality. Which is to say, it unleashes her most powerful nurturing urges. With her most prominent character trait being how kind and sweet she is as a matter of course, she's here to give her all in making people smile as much as she possibly can. And in protecting those smiles, as well. Of course, not so much literally, as she's quite far from a support, but more in the emotional sense. She seems to have a hurt-person-radar, and those that ping it best be prepared for the Mom Friend to descend.
Both a newcomer to MMOs (and video games in general) and never one for super organized groups in any situation, Papiyon's never touched a guild, at least not up to now, and nor does she truly see the point. She prefers to meander around, either looking for and then sticking with pick up groups, or simply roaming and marveling at the incredibly rendered Pariah world. As of now, she's not managed to link up with Hanako at all, but that's all the better. University was stressful, she knew.
Well. Small world.
Lotus Petal Dance Leveraging both her illusion and enhancement magics, Papiyon becomes as a phantom; as she dashes around enemies and strikes from unexpected angles, afterimages are left in her wake, causing no damage but confusing monsters and hostile players alike with the graceful movements; like dancing across a pond on water lilies on tiptoes.
Butterfly Haze With a sound like falling leaves, a cloud of phantasmal butterflies envelops the area around Papiyon as she melds into it. The rustling of a thousand tiny wings hides sound, and the flashing of countless colors distorts vision; and by the time you realize that she'd circled around behind you, it's already too late.
Butterfly Flurry A mesmerizing purple gleam envelops Papiyon's nagamaki, and attempts to block it seem to land on thin air as its position wavers like water, slipping past guards and through cracks in armor.
Flittering Wing You may think you have Papiyon pinned down and a surefire killing blow. You may think that you've escaped her, put enough distance between the two of you that she could never close the distance. In both cases, you are very wrong. With no more than a breath's sigh and a flare of purple light, Papiyon blinks forwards and backwards, in and out. She can't use it more than once or twice sequentially, but being able to blink through an attack and end up right at her enemy's throat is powerful nonetheless.
Painless Butterfly The most powerful spell in Papiyon's arsenal, Painless Butterfly sees her close her eyes and sheath her sword as pink energy builds within, crawling up the sheath like butterflies swirling through the sky. All sound becomes muted and distant to her, and the world slows to a crawl. Then, in one fluid motion and with a sound like lightning, she unleashes a single clean stroke from her sheath, trailing pink light and phantom butterflies as it rends through space and time. Finally, the blade is stowed once more; and with the deafening click of the guard on the sheath, destruction unfolds and time resumes.
Holly, Heather, Hydrangea Just because she's off the clock doesn't mean she loves flowers any less. She keeps a small plot of land in Thorinn where she grows an assortment of flowers both magical and mundane and sells them as she wanders to alchemists, tailors, and other crafters with an eye for magic and beauty.
Whirling Sting All of Papiyon's abilities to get close and empower her strikes are useless if the strikes themselves are weak. Luckily, not so; she's quite impressive with her nagamaki. Perhaps not as much as she would be if she were strictly martial; in any competition that completely excludes magic, she's certainly not winning. But with all of her powers and talents factored in, she does a lot of damage, either quickly or over time.
Open Mind, Open Heart For as kind as Papiyon is, and as committed as she is to emotionally protecting those around her--what good is that if people are so distrustful that they won't even let her? While her natural tendency is to hide how she's feeling, she curbs that as much as she possibly can. A constant flow of honesty is infinitely important, and that flow NEEDS to be two-way.
Always There Still, even if she does alienate someone, she'll try her best to un-alienate them, regardless if there was any major fault to be had there. Running alongside the sweetness and kindness, Papiyon is nothing if not incredibly forgiving. Not infinitely so, of course, she has her limits just like everyone else does. But unless either you or her does something truly heinous, she'll find a way to make amends.
“What do you mean, sir? I've been here the whole time!”
Name Alias: Annalisa Diamond Real Name: Javelina Coswell
Age 28
Gender Female
Company Vira-Legat Bioengineering
Personality Miss Annalisa Diamond is at once the most useful and useless kind of employee. Sweet and kind but unambitious and somewhat vapid, she's the 'gofer;' the woman you send to do meaningless busywork; getting cups of coffee, organizing cabinets, that kind of thing. That's not to say she's unintelligent; she just...has a ceiling, and she's not likely to get any higher.
Javelina 'Jav' Coswell is...very different.
Whipcrack smart and highly driven, with a bloodhound's nose for information, a mind like a steel trap, and a real knack for thinking on her feet, Jav is everything Annalisa isn't. Though not exactly unkind, she has very little reason to be so most of the time. She's self-interested, yet she fully believes herself to be an altruist: to her, self-interest is altruism, and once she gets clamps her teeth down into a story, she has no intention of ever letting go; she'll hold on like a pit bull until either it comes apart or she does.
And all of this, the altruism, the stubbornness; all that she says or does is organized around a single, critical facet of her character. There are many values in the worlds. Peace, order, prosperity, conformity, hope. But to Jav, all of those pretty words are meaningless before the altar of 'truth.' Truth, at any price.
Truth, no matter the cost.
History Annalisa Diamond was born in the high-rises of Mars' Valles Marineris to a family of obscene wealth. Raised with more money than she could even understand, her father eventually bought her a place (that she was rather unqualified for) in Vira-Legat, hoping to use her as a bargaining chip to get into the doors of the company. There's not a good reason for her to be on Kepler; just money and politics.
Annalisa Diamond also doesn't exist.
Oh, the Diamond family does, assuredly; and the identification she has checks out in every way. But she certainly wasn't born in Valles Marineris. Javelina Coswell was born in the slums of the Martian north, and spent her childhood in abject poverty. And disgust. Utter disgust, at the corruption she saw around her. At the money and food and power flowing between the already wealthy and powerful. So as she aged into a teenager, she decided to do something about it. Showing the first of her investigative chops, she managed to sneak into the Governer's residence, find all of the money on his system, every record of every transaction. So she downloaded them, and uploaded them into the network for all to see. Before the month was out, the governor had been shot.
The heady kick of truth had infiltrated Javelina and locked itself inside her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. So she got a job as an investigative journalist (with what little journalism meant on Mars), and set herself to finding out the truth. Nothing major; bits here and there, frauds exposed, corruption shined a light upon, all on a local scale regardless where she moved on Mars, but anything was something, right?
And now, things have gotten bigger.
Recently, she found an interesting tip from a source she trusted: on the vaunted Kepler, Vira-Legat was up to something, and it was up to her to find out what. Her curiosity was fatally piqued, the opportunity to investigate one of the big megacorps in an official capacity too much for her to pass up. So she took the cover--lucky it didn't require her to be qualified!--and shipped out.
The Icelandic city of Akureyri has seen better days.
Ever since an earthquake and subsequent tsunami tore the city apart, most of its population has moved south to the capital of Reykjavik, leaving the city mostly an empty shell. Not many people still lived there after that. Still, a few stubborn residents with families who'd been in the city since they could remember clung there despite everything.
Like, for example, a man named Kristján and his wife Sigríður, and their daughter: Ásta.
Refusing to admit that perhaps moving to Reykjavik might be a good idea, they clung to Akureyri like barnacles to the rocks. The government just needed time, they said. Once they dealt with the new influx of people from the northern cities and towns that the natural disaster had displaced, they'd help to rebuild Akureyri, to make it just as beautiful as it always was. Yet in practice, huge sections remained ruined, and many of those that remained did so out of poverty; which only worsened as the conditions in Akureyri did. Expensive, ruined, and so, so cold.
This was the climate in which Ásta grew up. Told at home to be proud of her city, and yet seeing whenever she went out that her city was proving remarkably slow in limping back to its feet. There was nowhere for her to get a part-time job as she aged; any spaces were in such high demand that they were filled before she could even get there. Utilities had become obscenely expensive; even her relatively well-to-do family found themselves carefully rationing their money just so they could pay for heating, electricity, and hot water to find their way in the frigid winters. There were few enough kids remaining in their neighborhood, so she didn't have much of a social life, either; cold, within and without.
A part of her grew a bit angry as the world moved around her, and she was left alone. This is when she started developing her tendencies to provoke people. To make them angry, yes, because she was angry and lashing out. But more important, to make things change. She was so angry, so sad, and so isolated. Nothing ever changed in Akureyri; her life was a string of days just like the last, and everything blended together until she felt like the world was blurring by and leaving her behind.
So, the day she turned eighteen, she picked herself up, packed her bags, and shipped down to Reykjavik. Her parents were...less than happy with this arrangement, viewed it as a kind of betrayal. But she just laughed, and kindly told them to go and screw themselves, because she was an adult now and could make her own choices.
When she finally reached the city, the first thing she saw--before she got a job, found herself a cheap place--was the church, Hallgrímskirkja. It became almost like a symbol to her; not of God, she wasn't a believer. But of warmth. Of freedom.
She's been living in Reykjavik for some years now working in customs, and has worked her way up to a rather nice apartment. Just recently, she's found herself interested in one of the cool new things she found listed on a customs form. Pariah Online. What neat concept.
K I R K A: F R A C T U R E D I C E K I R K A: F R A C T U R E D I C E
Ásta has never stood out in her life. Blonde hair and blue eyes may be somewhat unusual in most places, but basically everyone in Iceland has them. In any given place, Ásta blends right into the crowd.
Kirka looks...nothing like her.
Unreasonably tall at just a bit over six feet. Incredibly slender, with an undeniable feminine shape but a nearly completely flat chest (the less to get in the way of anything!). Magenta-violet eyes, framed by pin-straight deep indigo hair that falls about to her shoulders. Her narrow face is typically shown in one of two expressions: either a deadpan stare, or a very obnoxious smirk that usually presages something about to (metaphorically) explode...
...Because in Pariah, her absolute worst shitstirrer tendencies are set free. Owing largely to the isolation and overwhelming, paralyzing, choking stability of her childhood, he hates it, she HATES it, when things stay static. Even if it's a nice, comfortable stasis, if things stand still for more than a brief time, she starts to get antsy and twitchy and starts provoking change.
She can do this in a productive way, certainly. If she views something as bad, then she'll commit to changing it, and the world may likely end up better off because of it. But if the status quo is a nice, easy peace, then her needling for things to constantly shift and change can cause potentially cause problems, both in general, and with other people.
Consequently, though she has a tendency to surround herself with people so she never feels isolated, she has an equal tendency to drive people away through her antics, and her sometimes less than kind humor. As it stands, she's been part of several different groups and guilds, and been kindly asked to leave many of them. Not all, of course; there's a certain kind of person that she gets along with wonderfully. But that certainly isn't everyone.
Well. Perhaps she'll be a little more agreeable, now that things are about to go very wrong.
Lotus Petal Dance Leveraging both her illusion and enhancement magics, Papiyon becomes as a phantom; as she dashes around enemies and strikes from unexpected angles, afterimages are left in her wake, causing no damage but confusing monsters and hostile players alike with the graceful movements; like dancing across a pond on water lilies on tiptoes.
Butterfly Haze With a sound like falling leaves, a cloud of phantasmal butterflies envelops the area around Papiyon as she melds into it. The rustling of a thousand tiny wings hides sound, and the flashing of countless colors distorts vision; and by the time you realize that she'd circled around behind you, it's already too late.
Butterfly Flurry A mesmerizing purple gleam envelops Papiyon's nagamaki, and attempts to block it seem to land on thin air as its position wavers like water, slipping past guards and through cracks in armor.
Flittering Wing You may think you have Papiyon pinned down and a surefire killing blow. You may think that you've escaped her, put enough distance between the two of you that she could never close the distance. In both cases, you are very wrong. With no more than a breath's sigh and a flare of purple light, Papiyon blinks forwards and backwards, in and out. She can't use it more than once or twice sequentially, but being able to blink through an attack and end up right at her enemy's throat is powerful nonetheless.
Painless Butterfly The most powerful spell in Papiyon's arsenal, Painless Butterfly sees her close her eyes and sheath her sword as pink energy builds within, crawling up the sheath like butterflies swirling through the sky. All sound becomes muted and distant to her, and the world slows to a crawl. Then, in one fluid motion and with a sound like lightning, she unleashes a single clean stroke from her sheath, trailing pink light and phantom butterflies as it rends through space and time. Finally, the blade is stowed once more; and with the deafening click of the guard on the sheath, destruction unfolds and time resumes.
Holly, Heather, Hydrangea Just because she's off the clock doesn't mean she loves flowers any less. She keeps a small plot of land in Thorinn where she grows an assortment of flowers both magical and mundane and sells them as she wanders to alchemists, tailors, and other crafters with an eye for magic and beauty.
Whirling Sting All of Papiyon's abilities to get close and empower her strikes are useless if the strikes themselves are weak. Luckily, not so; she's quite impressive with her nagamaki. Perhaps not as much as she would be if she were strictly martial; in any competition that completely excludes magic, she's certainly not winning. But with all of her powers and talents factored in, she does a lot of damage, either quickly or over time.
Open Mind, Open Heart For as kind as Papiyon is, and as committed as she is to emotionally protecting those around her--what good is that if people are so distrustful that they won't even let her? While her natural tendency is to hide how she's feeling, she curbs that as much as she possibly can. A constant flow of honesty is infinitely important, and that flow NEEDS to be two-way.
Always There Still, even if she does alienate someone, she'll try her best to un-alienate them, regardless if there was any major fault to be had there. Running alongside the sweetness and kindness, Papiyon is nothing if not incredibly forgiving. Not infinitely so, of course, she has her limits just like everyone else does. But unless either you or her does something truly heinous, she'll find a way to make amends.
B A S I C I N F O [Name]Aberrant Integration System, Subject 1 - AIS S1 [Callsign]Aissi [Gender]Female [Age]Early 20s [Rank and Designation]Experimental Constellation, Stardust Rank [Place of Birth]Kepler-195
C O M B A T A B I L I T Y [Anti-Barrier Sword]#236 - AB1 (Aberrant-integration Blade One) and #371 - AB2. But since they've been reforged into identical forms and serve as a single unit for Aissi, she refers to them much more personally, simply as her Wingblades. [Anti-Barrier Quotient]21%
[Physical Description] It's no wonder the Anti-Barrier Quotient of the Wingblades is so low; after all, they're unreasonably large, and there's only so much AB material to go around. Matte black with gleaming red bevels, these double-edged blades are roughly as long as Aissi is tall (about seven feet), and mounted on winglike struts grafted directly into her nervous system through her back. This unorthodox arrangement allows her to manipulate the Wingblades as though they were a third pair of limbs, leaving her hands free for more typical swords used almost exclusively for defense that are sheathed along the struts.
[Attributes] In order to supplement the low AB Quotient caused by their large size, the Wingblades have been retrofitted with laser technology. They can ignite their blades in red light, significantly increasing their cutting force; and, even further, they are able to fire powerful, though short-ranged, laser blasts. [Anomaly]Aberrant Integration System [Origin]Aberrant Research Laboratory A2
[Phenomena] Though it fills the same space as Anomaly typically would, this is quite explicitly very different. To put her on level with actual Constellations with Anomaly, Aissi's body is infested with an expansive suite of Aberrant technologies. From the system that controls her Wingblades, to magnetic clamps in her hands, her limbs more biomechanical than flesh now, compact jet engines in her feet and legs along with stabilizers in her shoulders...and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Finally, it all connects to the most important of her modifications, the most powerful, and the most taboo: her core. A fully-intact Epsilon-tier Aberrant core harvested from a high-caste Bishop has been embedded into her back between where the Wingblades emerge, which powers all of her multifarious augmentations, coordinates them, and normalizes them in her nervous system so they feel as natural as whatever of her original body remains.
[Limitation] The same way it doesn't function as Anomaly does, it doesn't have the same kind of cost on usage. What it does have, though, is quite an adverse affect on her mental state. The painful experiments that were done to her over the course of years, as well as the overtaxing of her brain as it attempts to manage far more than it was designed to, has led to her being VERY unstable, especially during full-throttle combat where all of her augmentations and implants are working at maximum capacity. Perhaps not a clear-cut cost; but quite a cost nonetheless.
Profile
[Surface-level Impression] As mentioned, the experiments have left Aissi not quite in full control of herself at all times. Twitchy, relentlessly high-strung, and never overly far from fits of violent hysteria, Aissi's personality alone is proof positive that making a large amount of Constellations in the same way she was made isn't necessarily a good idea. Still, she's not always obviously unstable, clearly. Though during combat she veers way into the erratic, outside of it, she's a notably sensitive and anxious individual. Keenly aware that she looks very strange, and even more keenly aware that the reason she looks strange is that she's essentially half-Aberrant--the thing that's trying to kill everyone and everything--she's constantly fretting over the image that she has. When people look at her, do they see a Constellation? Or a monster?
And really, even she doesn't quite know. Paradoxically to her appearance and her position, Aissi knows very little about the world. All she really remembers is being in the lab. Granted, she was told something like what to expect when she went into the field. But being told what the world is like and actually living in the world are two very different things. She only has experience with the first of those two. She knows plenty about Aberrants and how to kill Aberrants...but that's mostly ALL she knows.
[Personal History] The first thing Aberrant Integration System, Subject One remembers is waking up in the lab.
What age was she? Teenaged? She isn't sure, and she doesn't remember. What was her name before? Did she even have a name? She's not sure of that either. Only A.I.S-S1. That's it. Well...she remembered how to speak, and how to listen. She remembers language. That's something, right?
The second thing A.I.S-S1 remembers is pain.
Her first implantation was almost immediately after she awoke. She doesn't even remember what it is anymore; all of it has blurred together in her mind by now. Was it her leg engines? Her neuralware? Perhaps the magnetic clamps in her hands? it all feels so far away.
Time went on. Every so often, the procedure would repeat: she would be given an implant though a painful procedure. Then the technicians and scientists that handled her would monitor it. Sometimes, her body would reject the implant, and the pain would come back. The doctors would remove it, put it aside, and try and give it again later. They never gave up. If her body didn't reject it--if it accepted the Aberrant technology as a part of her now--then she'd have another few days, just to make sure. And then another implant would be brought to her, and the wheel would turn again. But it was fine. She'd volunteered for this, according to the doctors. This was what she'd wanted. To let herself be turned into something greater, even at sacrifice to herself. So she simply clung on.
But there was one great mercy. Because during all of this, she wasn't alone in the lab. There was another girl undergoing a similar--if much lesser--augmentation, and the two became something like friends. Hope, her name was. And that got A.I.S-S1 thinking about names. Every time she saw that designation emblazed near her, she would look at it, and think of names. And then one day, when she was still woozy from sedation, she saw it with blurry eyes, and she misread it. Not A.I.S-S1. AISSI.
Aissi. She would be Aissi.
Time went on more. Further. Hope left, and she was alone. More implants. More connections. And then the most prominent: the Bladewings. She rejected them three times before her body finally let them settle. And then, after all that was done...she'd been in the lab for how long now? She didn't know, and she still doesn't quite; several years, at least. But now that all of the implants, all of the cybernetics, all of the prosthetics, were in place, it was time for the piece de resistance. The Core.
There is nothing Aissi can remember, before or since, that hurts as much as suddenly having every one of her augmentations fire into her nerves all at once. Sheer, gut-wrenching, mind-warping AGONY. And the pain, the nerves, all of it firing at once...it changed something in her. Turned from a sweet, sensitive girl to something where...well, sometimes you can see that underneath her. But not often. Not anymore. And once it was finally over...she was finished. More machine now than woman. And, really, more Aberrant than woman. Perhaps not even human at all anymore.
Another year went by. She had to acclimate, of course. Not only did she have so many new modifications and augmentations working all at once, but she had an entirely new set of limbs to figure out. But then, recently and finally...it was done. She was prepared.
And now, the test runs begin.
Home World
[Planet Description] Kepler-195 was a dry, arid moon, largely desert and scrubland broken by salt seas and crisscossing braided streams. One of several moons orbiting a gas giant on the far frontier, it wasn't exactly well known. Small and inconspicuous, the people enjoyed a fairly peaceful existence; though a select few eked out a nomadic lifestyle on the surface, most people lived in vast cities deep underground instead, so they felt quite insulated and far from any issues that might plague topside.
...And then the Aberrants came, and they glassed the entire moon.
Though the Constellations came, only a scant few refugees escaped, and fled far away from their desolated once-home.
[Culture] While Kepler-195 still existed, it had two 'factions' of people. A very few lived nomadic lives on the surface. Because water on the surface was a precious resource, they wore stillsuits, and traveled with their lives on their back to set up around any temporary watering hole that may emerge.
The grand majority of the populace--which, mind you, wasn't large to begin with, only about 500 million people across the entire moon--lived in vast underground cities, tunneled out of the bedrock. Water was much more prevalent due to the presence of deep aquifers, and the native plant life grew readily. They lived a comfortable existence; though they were held in contempt by the surface nomads, they were largely happy to simply live in comfort underground.
But, of course, this moon no longer exists, and Aissi has no memories from before the lab, regardless.
Notable Contacts
[Name] Jacob "Jay" Tobias Brake
[Relation to Subject] Aissi's "Medical Coordinator and Caretaker" (In so many words, her handler) - Checks for malfunctions in and maintains systems, performs routine psychiatric checks and monitors her sanity, serves as a point of stability for her, practiced at talking her down and reigning her in if she's starting to go sideways.
[Analysis] Jay is tired. So very, very tired.
Essentially badgered into his position through only having the lowest standing at the laboratory that modified her, Jay is grumpy and world-weary middle aged man who firmly believes that he's not paid NEARLY enough to manage someone as unstable and chaotic as Aissi is. While it's obvious that he does have at least some measure of care for her--if he didn't, then he probably wouldn't still be doing this job--it tends to get drowned out in how overworked and overwhelmed he is, having to keep Aissi on as short a leash as she demands alongside everything else.
B A S I C I N F O [Name]Cherri Cade [Callsign]Cherry Bomb [Gender]Femme [Age]24 [Rank and Designation]E-6 - Petty Officer, First Class [Place of Birth]Vianno, Willowit [Official Statement]"Like, come ONnnnn! What'sa girl gotta do ta get her hands on some composite ceramo-metallic armor and heavy ordnance cannons?"Sound of bubble gum popping
The GHOST System is the core of what Cherri's combat revolves around. While her enormous array of explosives are very useful dumb-fired, blanketing huge swaths of the battlefield in disarray, they're just as likely to fly back on her allies than to annihilate her enemies. Enter the Guided Heavy Ordnance Selective Targeting System, which allows her to designate not just specific targets, but specific [i]areas[/i] as well, upon which the AI in her mech will compensate for movement patterns and tagged allies to ensure that even when she's using devastating firepower, she hits dead on, every time.
Back: The SHPM-XX: 'Harpoons' is by far Cherri's most devastating weapon. Fueled by a beta core, each salvo needs plenty of time to charge; but when the canister is primed, activating it launches a barrage of twenty high-energy guided plasma spears that fully interface with the GHOST System, allowing her to call in either precision strikes of devastating power or a rain of plasma across hundreds of feet.
Right Hand: The Harpoons may be the most powerful weapon Cherri can bring to bear, but it's got far too long a downtime to be anything approaching a primary weapon. No, her workhorse weapon is the downright terrifying PHOS-CCC: 'Dragon's Breath.' Nominally a chaingun but with a modest fire rate of only 300rpm, the 'Dragon's Breath' wouldn't seem strong. However, it dodges that allegation quite neatly with the simple fact that every one of those 300 rounds per minute is a shell loaded with enough high explosives to level a small building. Integrated fully into the GHOST System, this is her primary vector of raining hell. To put it succinctly: right, down, down, left, down, right, down, down.
Left Arm: The MECS-VIII 'Javelin,' while it [i]is[/i] linked into the GHOST System, is the only one of Cherri's weapons that's designed to be dumbfired. Taking the form of a row of slots along her left forearm filled with canisters, they are designed in such as way as to face directly forward when Cherri is hefting 'Dragon's Breath,' and meant to be used in tandem with it. Though there are only eight, and they must be manually reloaded when expended, they're nonetheless a powerful tool, largely because of their versatility. While the HE canister is a common one, equally as common is an airburst canister filled with reflective chaff that baffles laser fire in a large area for a not-inconsiderable period of time. And there are several others as well: napalm for area denial, fragmentation for scattering shrapnel, EMP for disabling electronics, airburst flak for fast-moving targets. Twenty-four spare canisters are kept in a reinforced container on <DEATH IN PINK!>'s hip.
Right Thigh: Cherri LOVES her explosives. But that doesn't mean she wants to use one right next to her. In the case that 'Dragon's Breath' isn't viable to use for whatever reason, Cherri employs the ASA-C 'Adjudicator.' A compact SMG-style mech weapon with a 100-round magazine, this portable weapon, unlike most that pilots employ, fire 20mm rounds instead of 30mm, allowing for easier control, higher ammunition capacity, and a faster fire rate at the cost of damage inflicted. But as this is a sidearm for her, control and rapidity are far more important.
Profile
[Surface-level Impression]
While of course the suspect Ms. Cade is upset about the entire situation, she still agreed to a session to gauge her psychiatric state. Arranged in no particular order:
Cheerful - Despite everything, Ms. Cade finds it difficult to not be chipper, and more than once, I found her catching herself smiling, and forcing it back down.
Talkative - It certainly wasn't difficult to have this session. I can't say from one brief session whether or not it's a compulsion or simply a personality trait, but Ms. Cade is EXTREMELY chatty. I expected to be prodding her for much of the time, but after the first few minutes of frosty silence, she started talking my ear off almost immediately.
Teasing - I was quite taken aback at some points, where she said something that made me raise my eyebrows in some way, at which point she chuckled--the fact she's laughing through this entire thing is frankly admirable--and revealed that she'd been teasing me the entire time. After I interrogated that for a bit with her, I came to the conclusion that she doesn't enjoy malicious teasing; she simply likes watching the looks on peoples' faces when she says something harmless but questionable.
Earnest - I find myself wondering through her PAINFUL sincerity--though it's not my job, of course--if my experience as a criminal psychologist gives me any level of credence when I say that I'm slowly becoming convinced that Ms. Cade may be innocent, and perhaps other leads should be explored. I simply cannot understand her as a domestic terrorist and killer.
[Personal History]
WARRANT OF ARREST FOR DOMESTIC TERRORISM, VANDALISM, ARSON, CRIMINAL USE OF EXPLOSIVES AND FIRST-DEGREE MANSLAUGHTER
To: Vianno 3rd District Arresting Officer Zhiti Ayajjai, ID MLE4136, 423rd VLE Unit YOU ARE COMMANDED to serve the herein Warrant of Arrest to seize and take into custody the accused person named below:
Cherri Lily Cade, ID GZM4442, U88 Olympus Building
And bring forth said person before this court before the next day following his or her arrest.
A handwritten note is scrawled at the bottom of the document in meticulous red pen:
I swear to all that is holy, Zhiti. You have ONE JOB. You'd better actually stick this one, I don't like being embarrassed.
Case No: 18462 Date: 12.04.382 Reporting Officer: Ewelyn Tyvee Incident: Massive property damage and loss of life via explosion on floor 233 of the Telluride Building
Detail of Events: At 22:23 of 12.04.379, there was a sudden explosion near the support beam on floor 233 of 240 of the Telluride Building. According to witness reports, there was the smell of smoke prior; that, as well as the presence of scorch marks near the damaged area, shows that the explosion was likely set off using fire. My unit was dispatched to assist those in danger and investigate the scene of the crime. The top five floors of the Telluride Building are used exclusively for press conferences, of which there were none; however, the 234th floor had several people working in it. Luckily, the building didn't collapse; however, the explosion itself killed two people in the floor immediately above it.
Directly beside the damaged support beam, we found an unconscious Ms. Cherri Cade. Upon regaining consciousness, she seemed confused, asked why we were there. Likely concussed. However, there is explosive reside on her fingers, and a damaged, now-nonfunctional pink lighter bearing her fingerprints was found near her on the scene. She is currently being medically assessed before questioning.
Case No: 18462 Date: 12.06.379 Present Officer: Ewelyn Tyvee ET: Do you know why you're here, miss Cade?
CC: I have no idea! I know I've been accused of something really bad, but I don't know what!
ET: On December fourth, you were found unconscious next to a heavily-damaged support strut on the 233rd floor of the Telluride Building with explosive residue on your fingers immediately after an explosion that killed two people.
CC: WHAT? But...but that...I would never!
ET: I'm sure. Do you have an alibi?
CC: Huh? I...no, but of course I was there, maintenance of floor 233 is my job! I just--I would never--I couldn't--
ET: Please state for the record that you do not have an alibi, miss Cade.
CC: What? That's not fair!
ET: Will you or will you not state it for the record? ET: Is this your personal datapad, miss Cade?
CC: ...Yeah. Why?
ET: Do you know what your search history is?
CC: Yes.
ET: Could you explain why your search history includes information about explosives?
CC: My sister Apricot was a pyrotechnician for a few years. I got interested in explosives through that. I swear, I never hurt anyone!
CC: ...By the way, what explosive residue did they say they found on my fingers? You keep saying that, but you won't go into any detail.
ET: I'm not at liberty to say.
CC: *Sigh*
Fellow citizens of Vianno, of Willowit: I know you're all afraid. An attack has been waged against the very heart of our city, our very soul. Who wouldn't be afraid? I know I was. But thanks to the tireless efforts of the VLE, the culprit has been apprehended and convicted. The Telluride Building coming under attack is a grievous blow to our city and planetary pride, and that will never be forgotten or forgiven.
The criminal charged with the crime used homemade explosives that she created at home following instructions that she found on the 'net. And that's not all; in fact, it's just the beginning. Preliminary research has shown that a huge amount of people have begun searching for information on building such devices recently. I hate to do this, I truly do; but the safety of our people is paramount. Because the lives of those in our city are at clear and obvious risk, I mean to implement ways to keep people from accessing such information, and tracking down those that already have.
Never let it be said that the people of Vianno aren't always at the forefront of my mind. Remember: we fight for you!
We're probably pretty good. She doesn't have any good excuses. But for appearances' sake, give her a plea deal. Just find something nobody would ever agree to. Public'll eat it up.
Case No: 18462 CITY OF VIANNO
V.
CHERRI LILY CADE
Plea Deal
The defendant and the defendant's counsel, Cherri Lily Cade and Atty. Mia Tyler, and the prosecution, Jerring Vesslain, have entered into an agreement outside of court, pursuant to Rule 11 of the ICC. The terms of the agreement are as follows:
The prosecution agrees to waive prosecution and accept a plea of not guilty from the defendant for the crimes of Domestic Terrorism, Arson, Vandalism, Unlawful Use of Explosives, and First-Degree Manslaughter. All charges will be dropped, and they will not receive a major mark on their criminal record.
In exchange, the defendant agrees to report for seventeen years of service into the Aberrant War, arranged into training and combat as necessary but not to include fewer than ten years of active service. As of now, the defendant has not been enlisted; so they are still considered liable. She has one month to arrange her affairs on Willowit before she is required to be off-planet. As long as she has been enlisted before the designated time period has expired, the defendant will not be prosecuted upon their return to Willowit given that one of the following requirements has been met:
1) The defendant has served seventeen full years in the military and all other terms have been met; 2) The Aberrant war has concluded and all other terms have been met.
The defendant has also asked that a note be added to the record along with her signature: 'Oh my GOD, this is TOO FUNNY! I was planning to enlist soon anyway if I could find an excuse to get me away from my job! And now I get to spit in your stupid corrupt faces too! Like, how could this get any better?'
Dellan, don't you dare try and blame this shit on me. I did my job, I got her right into the palm of your hand for god's sake. Why the fuck did you try to give her a plea deal? For appearance's sake? The appearance was FINE, do you have any idea how long this took to organize? Fuck right off.
This document serves to certify that that the pilot trainee Petty Officer Third Class Cherri 'Cherry Bomb' Cade, has undergone the requisite five years of training necessary, and been authorized to pilot a mech in the war against the Aberrants.
Per Audacia ad Astra.
Home World
[Planet Description] A technological utopia. A metropolitan marvel. The jewel of the Soha Binary System. Willowit has many names, and most of them are flattering. And, at least to appearance, it lives up to them. From space, it seems almost more like an enormous space station than a planet at first glance; the entire planet is covered in vast cities, right up to the coasts. Powered almost exclusively by solar, they take advantage of the fact they orbit a binary star to harvest massive amounts of power from it, fueling their grand dreams.
From the air, the enormous superstructure skyscrapers of Willowit come into focus. The tallest of them, the Telluride Building, has 240 floors, containing everything one could require. The skyscrapers of Willowit are, for all intents and purposes, microcities in themselves, and there are thousands across the planet. Thus, Willowit can comfortably support a population larger than one would think for a planet its size; 25 billion people live in these great spires.
Finally, we droop to ground level, to the 'undercity.' Those unfortunate enough to be kicked out of their building--one typically has to commit a crime, though the severity of the crime can vary depending on the district they live in--typically are required to live for a certain amount of time outside of the superstructures. While there's food to eat, it's certainly not a comfortable existence. The skyscrapers block almost all of the light, and unlike the buildings, the surface isn't climate controlled; so it's incredibly cold down below. Typically, ganglike organizations form, as there's little to no oversight outside of the skyscrapers. Once their tenure on the surface is finished--as long as they survived--they are once more allowed to reenter their building, or any other building that might catch their fancy; after ten years, property is repossessed, so they won't have any place to go back to if more time than that passes.
One might wonder how Willowit is able to maintain this strange living structure. The answer is simple: owing to the particular resources that can be found underground and some closely guarded industry secrets, they are historically one of the known universe's greatest purveyors of holographic technology. Many resort worlds find themselves with Willowit-made holograph projectors; many military training sims have a Willowit stamp on them as well. Useful both in peacetime and in war, Willowit's holographic and simulation technology will ALWAYS be useful.
[Culture] Remember that bit about the 'technological utopia?' Well, the people of Willowit are completely convinced. Living in relative luxury from even the less fortunate upwards, purely in terms of quality of living, Willowit is a very nice place to live.
However, not everything about Willowit is so utopian.
They bill themselves as a utopia with a firm rule of law that keeps things running smoothly. And they do have a very powerful law system. HOWEVER: their legal system, while very powerful, has very little oversight. As a result, the thing that plagues Willowit more than anything else isn't wealth disparity, or war, discontent of the populace.
No, Willowit has a MASSIVE problem with corruption in governance. Because the legal system has so much power and so little oversight, the people who pay them the most money can effectively pick and choose which laws apply to them, and furthermore, which laws apply to other people. A great deal of propaganda keeps the general populace from realizing the extent of this corruption. But a lawyer, a police officer, a judge...they have to put forth EFFORT to NOT be hilariously corrupt, as bribes and quid-pro-quo are more the rule than the exception from even modestly well-off individuals.
Notable Contacts
[Name] Mia Tyler
[Relation to Subject] Cherri's defense attorney, close friend, engineer, and post-op specialist.
[Analysis] Mia was Cherri's lawyer during the extended and corrupt trial that threatened to put her either behind bars for the rest of her life, or put her in the ground. The two of them grew quite close over the years, and when it was decided that Cherri would enter the service (and specifically, would become a pilot), Mia immediately entered an intensive training course to get certified in engineering and maintenance of mechs. Possessed of a truly unreasonable level of willpower, she, well, succeeded, and now serves as the primary maintenance worker for <DEATH IN PINK!>
As you may be able to glean, Mia does not like giving up. Filled with willpower and SPITE, she managed to become a dedicated attorney, despite participating in the corrupt games of her planet's legal system as little as possible. She is possessed of a wide streak of wry humor; appearing deadpan while cracking strange jokes is second nature to her, and Cherri seems to have a sixth sense for when she's not being serious.
Speaking of Cherri, if you watch the two of them interact for more than a minute, it becomes blatantly obvious how much they care for each other. Yes, Mia is permanently exhausted and lives off caffeine; she picked up a habit of reading case law online in the middle of the night in law school, and somehow it stuck even when she genuinely has no time for it. But the two of them are pretty much inseparable. She won't maintain anybody else's mechs; and Cherri refuses to let anybody else maintain hers, unless there's no other choice.
B A S I C I N F O [Name]Celes Raptúre [Callsign]Seraph [Gender]Female [Age]28 [Rank and Designation]Pilot; E-7, CPO [Place of Birth]Chehoa Station [Official Statement]"My mercy does not extend to monsters. Including those that wear human skin."
C O M B A T A B I L I T Y
[Mech Model]ARCHANGEL Hyperlight Combat Frame
[Type]Lightweight skirmisher exoframe [Size]13 ft tall. 3 tons. [Core]Delta. [Armaments]
Main Cannon: The most powerful payload that Celes can bring to bear is the monstrous HEAVENSENT Superheavy Plasma Cannon. Hooked to the left side of the ARCHANGEL, she can and often does use it as a standard gun. But that's not its most defining feature. It's been retrofitted with powerful drone tech linked to the ARCHANGEL's control system, and so it's now a remote-controlled cannon that she can maneuver however she wishes. It takes a bit of thought to command, so it's generally piloted by her when she's out of the direct line of fire.
Right Arm: When the HEAVENSENT is impractical or dangerous to use, it's mounted on her suit, and out comes her general close-quarters workhorse weapon, the OPHANIM Variable Plasma Rifle. Able to swap between single blasts for sniper-like precision, burst-fire for medium range, or a sustained beam of annihilating light for cutting through swarms, the OPHANIM serves in most situations where the HEAVENSENT can't. Celes is well-practiced with it by now; while it doesn't have the raw destructive yield of its big brother, the versatility more than makes up for it.
Back: Though this is less a weapon or gadget and more a part of ARCHANGEL, it's noteworthy enough that it warrants listing. As you might be able to tell by the structure of it, her exoframe, lightweight as it is, is designed forflight.A series of powerful rockets allow her to move at high speed on the ground or take to the sky with limited flight, allowing her to draw a bead on a target from a much larger distance than she might otherwise be able to, since her mech isn't 50 feet tall like many.
Profile
[Surface-level Impression]
While of course the suspect Ms. Cade is upset about the entire situation, she still agreed to a session to gauge her psychiatric state. Arranged in no particular order:
Cheerful - Despite everything, Ms. Cade finds it difficult to not be chipper, and more than once, I found her catching herself smiling, and forcing it back down.
Talkative - It certainly wasn't difficult to have this session. I can't say from one brief session whether or not it's a compulsion or simply a personality trait, but Ms. Cade is EXTREMELY chatty. I expected to be prodding her for much of the time, but after the first few minutes of frosty silence, she started talking my ear off almost immediately.
Teasing - I was quite taken aback at some points, where she said something that made me raise my eyebrows in some way, at which point she chuckled--the fact she's laughing through this entire thing is frankly admirable--and revealed that she'd been teasing me the entire time. After I interrogated that for a bit with her, I came to the conclusion that she doesn't enjoy malicious teasing; she simply likes watching the looks on peoples' faces when she says something harmless but questionable.
Earnest - I find myself wondering through her PAINFUL sincerity--though it's not my job, of course--if my experience as a criminal psychologist gives me any level of credence when I say that I'm slowly becoming convinced that Ms. Cade may be innocent, and perhaps other leads should be explored. I simply cannot understand her as a domestic terrorist and killer.
[Personal History]
WARRANT OF ARREST FOR DOMESTIC TERRORISM, VANDALISM, ARSON, CRIMINAL USE OF EXPLOSIVES AND FIRST-DEGREE MANSLAUGHTER
To: Vianno 3rd District Arresting Officer Zhiti Ayajjai, ID MLE4136, 423rd VLE Unit YOU ARE COMMANDED to serve the herein Warrant of Arrest to seize and take into custody the accused person named below:
Cherri Lily Cade, ID GZM4442, U88 Olympus Building
And bring forth said person before this court before the next day following his or her arrest.
A handwritten note is scrawled at the bottom of the document in meticulous red pen:
I swear to all that is holy, Zhiti. You have ONE JOB. You'd better actually stick this one, I don't like being embarrassed.
Case No: 18462 Date: 12.04.382 Reporting Officer: Ewelyn Tyvee Incident: Massive property damage and loss of life via explosion on floor 233 of the Telluride Building
Detail of Events: At 22:23 of 12.04.379, there was a sudden explosion near the support beam on floor 233 of 240 of the Telluride Building. According to witness reports, there was the smell of smoke prior; that, as well as the presence of scorch marks near the damaged area, shows that the explosion was likely set off using fire. My unit was dispatched to assist those in danger and investigate the scene of the crime. The top five floors of the Telluride Building are used exclusively for press conferences, of which there were none; however, the 234th floor had several people working in it. Luckily, the building didn't collapse; however, the explosion itself killed two people in the floor immediately above it.
Directly beside the damaged support beam, we found an unconscious Ms. Cherri Cade. Upon regaining consciousness, she seemed confused, asked why we were there. Likely concussed. However, there is explosive reside on her fingers, and a damaged, now-nonfunctional pink lighter bearing her fingerprints was found near her on the scene. She is currently being medically assessed before questioning.
Case No: 18462 Date: 12.06.379 Present Officer: Ewelyn Tyvee ET: Do you know why you're here, miss Cade?
CC: I have no idea! I know I've been accused of something really bad, but I don't know what!
ET: On December fourth, you were found unconscious next to a heavily-damaged support strut on the 233rd floor of the Telluride Building with explosive residue on your fingers immediately after an explosion that killed two people.
CC: WHAT? But...but that...I would never!
ET: I'm sure. Do you have an alibi?
CC: Huh? I...no, but of course I was there, maintenance of floor 233 is my job! I just--I would never--I couldn't--
ET: Please state for the record that you do not have an alibi, miss Cade.
CC: What? That's not fair!
ET: Will you or will you not state it for the record? ET: Is this your personal datapad, miss Cade?
CC: ...Yeah. Why?
ET: Do you know what your search history is?
CC: Yes.
ET: Could you explain why your search history includes information about explosives?
CC: My sister Apricot was a pyrotechnician for a few years. I got interested in explosives through that. I swear, I never hurt anyone!
CC: ...By the way, what explosive residue did they say they found on my fingers? You keep saying that, but you won't go into any detail.
ET: I'm not at liberty to say.
CC: *Sigh*
Fellow citizens of Vianno, of Willowit: I know you're all afraid. An attack has been waged against the very heart of our city, our very soul. Who wouldn't be afraid? I know I was. But thanks to the tireless efforts of the VLE, the culprit has been apprehended and convicted. The Telluride Building coming under attack is a grievous blow to our city and planetary pride, and that will never be forgotten or forgiven.
The criminal charged with the crime used homemade explosives that she created at home following instructions that she found on the 'net. And that's not all; in fact, it's just the beginning. Preliminary research has shown that a huge amount of people have begun searching for information on building such devices recently. I hate to do this, I truly do; but the safety of our people is paramount. Because the lives of those in our city are at clear and obvious risk, I mean to implement ways to keep people from accessing such information, and tracking down those that already have.
Never let it be said that the people of Vianno aren't always at the forefront of my mind. Remember: we fight for you!
We're probably pretty good. She doesn't have any good excuses. But for appearances' sake, give her a plea deal. Just find something nobody would ever agree to. Public'll eat it up.
Case No: 18462 CITY OF VIANNO
V.
CHERRI LILY CADE
Plea Deal
The defendant and the defendant's counsel, Cherri Lily Cade and Atty. Mia Tyler, and the prosecution, Jerring Vesslain, have entered into an agreement outside of court, pursuant to Rule 11 of the ICC. The terms of the agreement are as follows:
The prosecution agrees to waive prosecution and accept a plea of not guilty from the defendant for the crimes of Domestic Terrorism, Arson, Vandalism, Unlawful Use of Explosives, and First-Degree Manslaughter. All charges will be dropped, and they will not receive a major mark on their criminal record.
In exchange, the defendant agrees to report for seventeen years of service into the Aberrant War, arranged into training and combat as necessary but not to include fewer than ten years of active service. As of now, the defendant has not been enlisted; so they are still considered liable. She has one month to arrange her affairs on Willowit before she is required to be off-planet. As long as she has been enlisted before the designated time period has expired, the defendant will not be prosecuted upon their return to Willowit given that one of the following requirements has been met:
1) The defendant has served seventeen full years in the military and all other terms have been met; 2) The Aberrant war has concluded and all other terms have been met.
The defendant has also asked that a note be added to the record along with her signature: 'Oh my GOD, this is TOO FUNNY! I was planning to enlist soon anyway if I could find an excuse to get me away from my job! And now I get to spit in your stupid corrupt faces too! Like, how could this get any better?'
Dellan, don't you dare try and blame this shit on me. I did my job, I got her right into the palm of your hand for god's sake. Why the fuck did you try to give her a plea deal? For appearance's sake? The appearance was FINE, do you have any idea how long this took to organize? Fuck right off.
This document serves to certify that that the pilot trainee Petty Officer Third Class Cherri 'Cherry Bomb' Cade, has undergone the requisite five years of training necessary, and been authorized to pilot a mech in the war against the Aberrants.
Per Audacia ad Astra.
Home World
[Planet Description] A technological utopia. A metropolitan marvel. The jewel of the Soha Binary System. Willowit has many names, and most of them are flattering. And, at least to appearance, it lives up to them. From space, it seems almost more like an enormous space station than a planet at first glance; the entire planet is covered in vast cities, right up to the coasts. Powered almost exclusively by solar, they take advantage of the fact they orbit a binary star to harvest massive amounts of power from it, fueling their grand dreams.
From the air, the enormous superstructure skyscrapers of Willowit come into focus. The tallest of them, the Telluride Building, has 240 floors, containing everything one could require. The skyscrapers of Willowit are, for all intents and purposes, microcities in themselves, and there are thousands across the planet. Thus, Willowit can comfortably support a population larger than one would think for a planet its size; 25 billion people live in these great spires.
Finally, we droop to ground level, to the 'undercity.' Those unfortunate enough to be kicked out of their building--one typically has to commit a crime, though the severity of the crime can vary depending on the district they live in--typically are required to live for a certain amount of time outside of the superstructures. While there's food to eat, it's certainly not a comfortable existence. The skyscrapers block almost all of the light, and unlike the buildings, the surface isn't climate controlled; so it's incredibly cold down below. Typically, ganglike organizations form, as there's little to no oversight outside of the skyscrapers. Once their tenure on the surface is finished--as long as they survived--they are once more allowed to reenter their building, or any other building that might catch their fancy; after ten years, property is repossessed, so they won't have any place to go back to if more time than that passes.
One might wonder how Willowit is able to maintain this strange living structure. The answer is simple: owing to the particular resources that can be found underground and some closely guarded industry secrets, they are historically one of the known universe's greatest purveyors of holographic technology. Many resort worlds find themselves with Willowit-made holograph projectors; many military training sims have a Willowit stamp on them as well. Useful both in peacetime and in war, Willowit's holographic and simulation technology will ALWAYS be useful.
[Culture] Remember that bit about the 'technological utopia?' Well, the people of Willowit are completely convinced. Living in relative luxury from even the less fortunate upwards, purely in terms of quality of living, Willowit is a very nice place to live.
However, not everything about Willowit is so utopian.
They bill themselves as a utopia with a firm rule of law that keeps things running smoothly. And they do have a very powerful law system. HOWEVER: their legal system, while very powerful, has very little oversight. As a result, the thing that plagues Willowit more than anything else isn't wealth disparity, or war, discontent of the populace.
No, Willowit has a MASSIVE problem with corruption in governance. Because the legal system has so much power and so little oversight, the people who pay them the most money can effectively pick and choose which laws apply to them, and furthermore, which laws apply to other people. A great deal of propaganda keeps the general populace from realizing the extent of this corruption. But a lawyer, a police officer, a judge...they have to put forth EFFORT to NOT be hilariously corrupt, as bribes and quid-pro-quo are more the rule than the exception from even modestly well-off individuals.
Notable Contacts
[Name] Mia Tyler
[Relation to Subject] Cherri's defense attorney, close friend, engineer, and post-op specialist.
[Analysis] Mia was Cherri's lawyer during the extended and corrupt trial that threatened to put her either behind bars for the rest of her life, or put her in the ground. The two of them grew quite close over the years, and when it was decided that Cherri would enter the service (and specifically, would become a pilot), Mia immediately entered an intensive training course to get certified in engineering and maintenance of mechs. Possessed of a truly unreasonable level of willpower, she, well, succeeded, and now serves as the primary maintenance worker for <DEATH IN PINK!>
As you may be able to glean, Mia does not like giving up. Filled with willpower and SPITE, she managed to become a dedicated attorney, despite participating in the corrupt games of her planet's legal system as little as possible. She is possessed of a wide streak of wry humor; appearing deadpan while cracking strange jokes is second nature to her, and Cherri seems to have a sixth sense for when she's not being serious.
Speaking of Cherri, if you watch the two of them interact for more than a minute, it becomes blatantly obvious how much they care for each other. Yes, Mia is permanently exhausted and lives off caffeine; she picked up a habit of reading case law online in the middle of the night in law school, and somehow it stuck even when she genuinely has no time for it. But the two of them are pretty much inseparable. She won't maintain anybody else's mechs; and Cherri refuses to let anybody else maintain hers, unless there's no other choice.
Kelly certainly looks younger than she is, which has gotten her some questions regarding her participation in a Savior corps before. Short at just a bit above five feet with a slender frame and round, heart-shaped face, her height and overall build makes her look more like a younger adolescent. Her short hair, dyed pink, only furthers this impression. Still, she is nineteen, and though she may not look it at first glancee, she is perfectly physically capable. The baggy clothing she tends to wear conceals a fairly impressive athletic physique, and she is startlingly coordinated. Though her looks may be deceiving, she is every inch a pilot.
Psychological Profile
Kelly is quiet and reclusive much of the time, highly introverted and preferring her own company. There are, however, additional notes to her character that can come out in certain situations. For example, though she is generally a fairly kind and easygoing person, she is highly competitive; especially in physical contests, where some insecurity about her youthful appearance can prompt a strong urge to prove that she's perfectly capable of keeping up with anybody else. This competitive streak is generally harmless, but on occasion it can yield to out-and-out aggression if she feels she isn't being taken seriously. In addition, she grows aggressive and potentially violent when people mention her family in any kind of derisive tone (which she is hypersensitive to).
As may be surmised from that, she is particularly proud of her skill as a pilot, and though she does take her job seriously, she also has a tendency to show off from time to time when she considers the situation handled.
Background Information
Born in a small town just outside of Queenshand, Kelly grew up on the coastline and spent a vast amount of time in and around the water. Her parents, native of the small town Hovvi, had maintained a small vacation home there that they headed to on occasion. One such time was during RISC's recent and disastrous showing there. She was spending time on the lakeshore when the second singularity manifested; and, being an extremely strong swimmer, she jumped into the lake and swam as hard as she could away from shore.
She was found shivering and hypothermic in the middle of the lake during the emergency search the next morning, having watched from a distance as Hovvi was destroyed and Dragon fell. As yet, she bears a distinct, if misguided, grudge against St. Senn, a loose childhood acquaintance of hers; if she'd dropped earlier, or been down in Hovvi to begin with, Kelly's parents and a town that she'd spent a fair amount of time in could very well have remained. Immediately upon being rescued by RISC, she asked--demanded, even--to be made a pilot, so that what happened to Hovvi would never happen again, and so she could take her own form of vengeance.
Savior
Designation
Elya
Body
Unusually tall and broad, Elya is built like a brick wall. A much larger proportion than is typical is armored in silver modium metal, masking the black beneath and making Elya fairly resistant to damage. The fingers are long and end in vicious talons. At the pilot's request, a blue diamond has been stenciled directly over where the Savior's sternum would be.
Weapon
Kelly's weapon is an enormous, vicious flail. Made entirely of solid modium, it is remarkably heavy even for its size, even compared to other Savior weapons. While it may appear cumbersome at first glance, it becomes apparent watching her fight that it's essentially an extension of Kelly's body
While she has a fairly slow phase, when she does her flail gains the unique and powerful ability to arrest molecular motion, superchilling anything that it touches to truly frigid temperatures approaching -200 degrees Celsius.
Ryuuko had a fairly typical early and adolescent life. School, friends, family, and so on and so forth, in a suburb of Nara. Perhaps the only thing truly exceptional about her was her talent at singing and impressions; though her voice was naturally a bit low and husky compared to her peers, she could contort it into whatever she wanted with a startling degree of accuracy.
Then everything changed at 18 years old, during her first year of university. An innocent and innocuous phrase from a friend: "Ryuuka, you're so good at this! You should be a voice actress!"
Well, she thought, maybe she should.
Her auditions may not have gone well the first time or the second time. Even the third time. But as more time passed, she eventually learned what she was doing, and at 19, she finally made it into the world of the voice actress. In her first bit part in a show, she was very well-received; again, despite her husky voice, she was abnormally skilled at a super high-pitched cutesy one. Before too long, she was once again a part of a show. Though this time, not a bit part, more of a side character. This went on for a few years until she was 23, when she got her first real breakthrough role as the main character in a cheerful slice of life that ran for three years, and by the time it had finished, she was fairly known as a VA now.
It was about this point where she started asking about other roles. She didn't mind what she was doing, she thought, but she'd been hankering for a more serious role where she could use her actual voice. That wasn't so much to ask, right?
Yes, apparently.
Her next major role was for a more serious character in a movie. And yet, "more serious" still called for the same voice. It was at this point that Koiyaze found her first root: an idly-described character the type of which Ryuuko would most want to play created for fun, with more detail added over the years when she couldn't. A few more years passed of this. A few more games, movies, shows; and she became quite well known, to the point where people might recognize her on the street now and then from interviews. And every time, they were disappointed that her voice wasn't the one that she'd ALWAYS done.
Not only that, it was starting to hurt. She'd grown quite successful now, successful and in demand, which means her workload kept increasing more and more and more. Free time became a thing of the past; there was only work and sleep. The voice that she was always forced to do had been fine up to now; but she'd always kept it limited. It was so far from her normal voice that generally, she was careful to not strain herself. But with her agent ramping her roles up, the strain was starting to become audible. More vocal strain meant more retakes; more takes meant more vocal strain. The first time her voice cracked and broke entirely in the studio, the stares were deafening.
So, she gave her agent an ultimatum, hoping it'd be taken seriously. One more chance. One more role.
One more cutesy voice.
The second her contract was up, she cut ties with the entire community and burned every bridge. If she needed to put on that voice one more time, she was going to be sick. She moved back to Nara and found a little place; from years of success, she had a substantial nest egg built up. Now she could finally take a break from her chokingly demanding career, spend time with her...
...Friends?
It was only then she realized that she'd been so obsessed with her job that she'd forgotten to make friends outside of work colleagues, and if she tried to make them online, people who shared her interests would undoubtedly figure out who she was and she'd be forced to scramble to avoid the awkward conversations that would ensue. It was then that she discovered the New Big Thing: VRMMO. A way to completely evade her reputation, and make friends with people who would never know.
Well, hey, couldn't hurt to try, right?
K O I Y A Z E: D R A G O N ' S D A U G H T E R K O I Y A Z E: D R A G O N ' S D A U G H T E R
Ryuuko's avatar Koiyaze is in Pariah a lot as she jumps from group to group, making friends with them and never being recognized from the sheer differences in appearance and personality: almost a foot higher at 178cm, slim, with long white hair and elaborate tattoos that she's had magically transferred into her skin. Blazing brilliant red eyes. Nothing like how she looks back in the real world. She's a grumpy and embittered woman in game; and not just because of the direction her career went. Though she's kind of bitter and frustrated IRL, it's not nearly as prominent. No, she sees it (whether consciously or not) as another chance to act, and this time, to act whatever character she wanted to.
And the that character is a rough, foul-mouthed, coarse woman, almost piratical in attitude and bearing. The opposite of what she'd been made to act for so long. It's a form of freedom, certainly. But it can also be somewhat counterproductive. It takes a certain kind of person to tolerate who Koiyaze is. Many people simply don't want to deal with her constant bile. So though she first joined Pariah out of a desire to make friends, there's still a sense of loneliness that pervades her much of the time.
It becomes a paradoxical push and pull; joining groups of people or guilds, getting comfortable around them, then being kindly asked to leave because she's just...really hard to get along with. Not everyone, she does have a few fast friends here and there that enjoy her unfiltered approach to life.
But she still remains lonely.
Koiyaze doesn't use many organized spells; or rather, she uses a few very heavily. Consequently, the catalogue of spells in her pocket is quite limited.
Dragonbolt The primary driver of her magic damage is this, brought to life by enhancement and manifestation. An alloying of fire and lightning magic creates a remarkably destructive breed of red lightning. While it's rather powerful and useful in a number of situations, the main way Koiyaze uses it is to shroud her blades in auras of searing light to cut through whatever stands in her way.
Lightning Step The purest form of lightning enhancement magic, Lightning Step allows Koiyaze to cover ground absurdly quickly, resembling nothing so much as a bolt of lightning in motion. While she can't keep it up for a long distance, it allows her to zip around battlefields, slashing through several enemies in only a few moments. This can be applied to very limited things as well; she can enhance only her arm, for example, turning a stroke of her sword into a nigh-untraceable gleam of light
Sunset Noteworthy in how infrequently it's used, Sunset is the most powerful magic that Koiyaze can bring to bear. A pair of phantasmal dragon wings forged of Dragonbolt spreads from her back and she ascends into the air as she draws both weapons and the empowered Dragonbolt from her wings gathers upon them as well in a lengthy windup. Then in a single motion a boom rings out as she dives at a target fast enough to break the sound barrier, shearing through them before they can even begin to blink and and leaving a trail of blazing devastation in her wake.
Slivers of Sunlight She may have some impressively dangerous magic, but most of Koiyaze's arsenal can't be used with any competency if she's not also skilled in the use of weapons. Luckily, she is: the proud wielder of an oversized odachi-kodachi daishou, she has all the conduit she needs for Dragonbolt. She generally reserves the use of her large odachi for larger and more powerful threats and bosses, leaving the kodachi for general use as it's much more agile and easier to use in tight corners. A particularly impressive aspect of her swordplay is how fluidly she's able to swap between them; even while her odachi can't be sheathed in a normal fashion, she still seems to make it look easy.
Grumpitude Owing to everything that her life has been up to this point, Koiyaze is a fairly grumpy individual. Not angry, per se; just generally a bit of a grouch. She can keep a lid on her proper temper most of the time; it's extremely rare that she really loses it and starts screaming in anger. But what she will do is grumble about it for the next hour and a half, really let it smolder in her, and not be subtle about it. Letting things go is...not exactly one of her great life strengths.
Trying Her Best Like I mentioned, it's hard to really get Koiyaze properly angry past her general grumpy baseline. She'll sound mad and tell you to fuck off, but on the whole, she can be kind of toothless unless she's really disturbed. But not only is that all true, but she actually tries her best to be supportive when she can. She thinks, or at least hopes, that she's a good person; and perhaps the biggest evidence of that is how she tries to comfort people and such. Operative word being tries, as her emotions are a bit out of whack. But try she does.
Low Battery And part of the reason why it can be so hard, her emotions are so out of whack, is simply because Koiyaze is tired. Not physically, necessarily; but she's mentally and emotionally exhausted from over a decade of stressful work growing only more stressful as time went on. As time goes by, perhaps that exhaustion will begin to abate, and she might come to resemble what she was like before everything went sour again. But until that chance comes to pass, she is exhausted, and will remain as such.
B A S I C I N F O [Name]Quinnlash Loughvein [Callsign]Ablaze [Gender]Femme [Age]20 [Rank and Designation]E-5 - Petty Officer, Second Class [Place of Birth]Illun [Official Statement]"Be the lighthouse, and set the night ablaze."
The GHOST System is the core of what Cherri's combat revolves around. While her enormous array of explosives are very useful dumb-fired, blanketing huge swaths of the battlefield in disarray, they're just as likely to fly back on her allies than to annihilate her enemies. Enter the Guided Heavy Ordnance Selective Targeting System, which allows her to designate not just specific targets, but specific [i]areas[/i] as well, upon which the AI in her mech will compensate for movement patterns and tagged allies to ensure that even when she's using devastating firepower, she hits dead on, every time.
Back: The SHPM-XX: 'Harpoons' is by far Cherri's most devastating weapon. Fueled by a beta core, each salvo needs plenty of time to charge; but when the canister is primed, activating it launches a barrage of twenty high-energy guided plasma spears that fully interface with the GHOST System, allowing her to call in either precision strikes of devastating power or a rain of plasma across hundreds of feet.
Right Hand: The Harpoons may be the most powerful weapon Cherri can bring to bear, but it's got far too long a downtime to be anything approaching a primary weapon. No, her workhorse weapon is the downright terrifying PHOS-CCC: 'Dragon's Breath.' Nominally a chaingun but with a modest fire rate of only 300rpm, the 'Dragon's Breath' wouldn't seem strong. However, it dodges that allegation quite neatly with the simple fact that every one of those 300 rounds per minute is a shell loaded with enough high explosives to level a small building. Integrated fully into the GHOST System, this is her primary vector of raining hell. To put it succinctly: right, down, down, left, down, right, down, down.
Left Arm: The MECS-VIII 'Javelin,' while it [i]is[/i] linked into the GHOST System, is the only one of Cherri's weapons that's designed to be dumbfired. Taking the form of a row of slots along her left forearm filled with canisters, they are designed in such as way as to face directly forward when Cherri is hefting 'Dragon's Breath,' and meant to be used in tandem with it. Though there are only eight, and they must be manually reloaded when expended, they're nonetheless a powerful tool, largely because of their versatility. While the HE canister is a common one, equally as common is an airburst canister filled with reflective chaff that baffles laser fire in a large area for a not-inconsiderable period of time. And there are several others as well: napalm for area denial, fragmentation for scattering shrapnel, EMP for disabling electronics, airburst flak for fast-moving targets. Twenty-four spare canisters are kept in a reinforced container on <DEATH IN PINK!>'s hip.
Right Thigh: Cherri LOVES her explosives. But that doesn't mean she wants to use one right next to her. In the case that 'Dragon's Breath' isn't viable to use for whatever reason, Cherri employs the ASA-C 'Adjudicator.' A compact SMG-style mech weapon with a 100-round magazine, this portable weapon, unlike most that pilots employ, fire 20mm rounds instead of 30mm, allowing for easier control, higher ammunition capacity, and a faster fire rate at the cost of damage inflicted. But as this is a sidearm for her, control and rapidity are far more important.
Profile
[Surface-level Impression]
While of course the suspect Ms. Cade is upset about the entire situation, she still agreed to a session to gauge her psychiatric state. Arranged in no particular order:
Cheerful - Despite everything, Ms. Cade finds it difficult to not be chipper, and more than once, I found her catching herself smiling, and forcing it back down.
Talkative - It certainly wasn't difficult to have this session. I can't say from one brief session whether or not it's a compulsion or simply a personality trait, but Ms. Cade is EXTREMELY chatty. I expected to be prodding her for much of the time, but after the first few minutes of frosty silence, she started talking my ear off almost immediately.
Teasing - I was quite taken aback at some points, where she said something that made me raise my eyebrows in some way, at which point she chuckled--the fact she's laughing through this entire thing is frankly admirable--and revealed that she'd been teasing me the entire time. After I interrogated that for a bit with her, I came to the conclusion that she doesn't enjoy malicious teasing; she simply likes watching the looks on peoples' faces when she says something harmless but questionable.
Earnest - I find myself wondering through her PAINFUL sincerity--though it's not my job, of course--if my experience as a criminal psychologist gives me any level of credence when I say that I'm slowly becoming convinced that Ms. Cade may be innocent, and perhaps other leads should be explored. I simply cannot understand her as a domestic terrorist and killer.
[Personal History]
WARRANT OF ARREST FOR DOMESTIC TERRORISM, VANDALISM, ARSON, CRIMINAL USE OF EXPLOSIVES AND FIRST-DEGREE MANSLAUGHTER
To: Vianno 3rd District Arresting Officer Zhiti Ayajjai, ID MLE4136, 423rd VLE Unit YOU ARE COMMANDED to serve the herein Warrant of Arrest to seize and take into custody the accused person named below:
Cherri Lily Cade, ID GZM4442, U88 Olympus Building
And bring forth said person before this court before the next day following his or her arrest.
A handwritten note is scrawled at the bottom of the document in meticulous red pen:
I swear to all that is holy, Zhiti. You have ONE JOB. You'd better actually stick this one, I don't like being embarrassed.
Case No: 18462 Date: 12.04.382 Reporting Officer: Ewelyn Tyvee Incident: Massive property damage and loss of life via explosion on floor 233 of the Telluride Building
Detail of Events: At 22:23 of 12.04.379, there was a sudden explosion near the support beam on floor 233 of 240 of the Telluride Building. According to witness reports, there was the smell of smoke prior; that, as well as the presence of scorch marks near the damaged area, shows that the explosion was likely set off using fire. My unit was dispatched to assist those in danger and investigate the scene of the crime. The top five floors of the Telluride Building are used exclusively for press conferences, of which there were none; however, the 234th floor had several people working in it. Luckily, the building didn't collapse; however, the explosion itself killed two people in the floor immediately above it.
Directly beside the damaged support beam, we found an unconscious Ms. Cherri Cade. Upon regaining consciousness, she seemed confused, asked why we were there. Likely concussed. However, there is explosive reside on her fingers, and a damaged, now-nonfunctional pink lighter bearing her fingerprints was found near her on the scene. She is currently being medically assessed before questioning.
Case No: 18462 Date: 12.06.379 Present Officer: Ewelyn Tyvee ET: Do you know why you're here, miss Cade?
CC: I have no idea! I know I've been accused of something really bad, but I don't know what!
ET: On December fourth, you were found unconscious next to a heavily-damaged support strut on the 233rd floor of the Telluride Building with explosive residue on your fingers immediately after an explosion that killed two people.
CC: WHAT? But...but that...I would never!
ET: I'm sure. Do you have an alibi?
CC: Huh? I...no, but of course I was there, maintenance of floor 233 is my job! I just--I would never--I couldn't--
ET: Please state for the record that you do not have an alibi, miss Cade.
CC: What? That's not fair!
ET: Will you or will you not state it for the record? ET: Is this your personal datapad, miss Cade?
CC: ...Yeah. Why?
ET: Do you know what your search history is?
CC: Yes.
ET: Could you explain why your search history includes information about explosives?
CC: My sister Apricot was a pyrotechnician for a few years. I got interested in explosives through that. I swear, I never hurt anyone!
CC: ...By the way, what explosive residue did they say they found on my fingers? You keep saying that, but you won't go into any detail.
ET: I'm not at liberty to say.
CC: *Sigh*
Fellow citizens of Vianno, of Willowit: I know you're all afraid. An attack has been waged against the very heart of our city, our very soul. Who wouldn't be afraid? I know I was. But thanks to the tireless efforts of the VLE, the culprit has been apprehended and convicted. The Telluride Building coming under attack is a grievous blow to our city and planetary pride, and that will never be forgotten or forgiven.
The criminal charged with the crime used homemade explosives that she created at home following instructions that she found on the 'net. And that's not all; in fact, it's just the beginning. Preliminary research has shown that a huge amount of people have begun searching for information on building such devices recently. I hate to do this, I truly do; but the safety of our people is paramount. Because the lives of those in our city are at clear and obvious risk, I mean to implement ways to keep people from accessing such information, and tracking down those that already have.
Never let it be said that the people of Vianno aren't always at the forefront of my mind. Remember: we fight for you!
We're probably pretty good. She doesn't have any good excuses. But for appearances' sake, give her a plea deal. Just find something nobody would ever agree to. Public'll eat it up.
Case No: 18462 CITY OF VIANNO
V.
CHERRI LILY CADE
Plea Deal
The defendant and the defendant's counsel, Cherri Lily Cade and Atty. Mia Tyler, and the prosecution, Jerring Vesslain, have entered into an agreement outside of court, pursuant to Rule 11 of the ICC. The terms of the agreement are as follows:
The prosecution agrees to waive prosecution and accept a plea of not guilty from the defendant for the crimes of Domestic Terrorism, Arson, Vandalism, Unlawful Use of Explosives, and First-Degree Manslaughter. All charges will be dropped, and they will not receive a major mark on their criminal record.
In exchange, the defendant agrees to report for seventeen years of service into the Aberrant War, arranged into training and combat as necessary but not to include fewer than ten years of active service. As of now, the defendant has not been enlisted; so they are still considered liable. She has one month to arrange her affairs on Willowit before she is required to be off-planet. As long as she has been enlisted before the designated time period has expired, the defendant will not be prosecuted upon their return to Willowit given that one of the following requirements has been met:
1) The defendant has served seventeen full years in the military and all other terms have been met; 2) The Aberrant war has concluded and all other terms have been met.
The defendant has also asked that a note be added to the record along with her signature: 'Oh my GOD, this is TOO FUNNY! I was planning to enlist soon anyway if I could find an excuse to get me away from my job! And now I get to spit in your stupid corrupt faces too! Like, how could this get any better?'
Dellan, don't you dare try and blame this shit on me. I did my job, I got her right into the palm of your hand for god's sake. Why the fuck did you try to give her a plea deal? For appearance's sake? The appearance was FINE, do you have any idea how long this took to organize? Fuck right off.
This document serves to certify that that the pilot trainee Petty Officer Third Class Cherri 'Cherry Bomb' Cade, has undergone the requisite five years of training necessary, and been authorized to pilot a mech in the war against the Aberrants.
Per Audacia ad Astra.
Home World
[Planet Description] A technological utopia. A metropolitan marvel. The jewel of the Soha Binary System. Willowit has many names, and most of them are flattering. And, at least to appearance, it lives up to them. From space, it seems almost more like an enormous space station than a planet at first glance; the entire planet is covered in vast cities, right up to the coasts. Powered almost exclusively by solar, they take advantage of the fact they orbit a binary star to harvest massive amounts of power from it, fueling their grand dreams.
From the air, the enormous superstructure skyscrapers of Willowit come into focus. The tallest of them, the Telluride Building, has 240 floors, containing everything one could require. The skyscrapers of Willowit are, for all intents and purposes, microcities in themselves, and there are thousands across the planet. Thus, Willowit can comfortably support a population larger than one would think for a planet its size; 25 billion people live in these great spires.
Finally, we droop to ground level, to the 'undercity.' Those unfortunate enough to be kicked out of their building--one typically has to commit a crime, though the severity of the crime can vary depending on the district they live in--typically are required to live for a certain amount of time outside of the superstructures. While there's food to eat, it's certainly not a comfortable existence. The skyscrapers block almost all of the light, and unlike the buildings, the surface isn't climate controlled; so it's incredibly cold down below. Typically, ganglike organizations form, as there's little to no oversight outside of the skyscrapers. Once their tenure on the surface is finished--as long as they survived--they are once more allowed to reenter their building, or any other building that might catch their fancy; after ten years, property is repossessed, so they won't have any place to go back to if more time than that passes.
One might wonder how Willowit is able to maintain this strange living structure. The answer is simple: owing to the particular resources that can be found underground and some closely guarded industry secrets, they are historically one of the known universe's greatest purveyors of holographic technology. Many resort worlds find themselves with Willowit-made holograph projectors; many military training sims have a Willowit stamp on them as well. Useful both in peacetime and in war, Willowit's holographic and simulation technology will ALWAYS be useful.
[Culture] Remember that bit about the 'technological utopia?' Well, the people of Willowit are completely convinced. Living in relative luxury from even the less fortunate upwards, purely in terms of quality of living, Willowit is a very nice place to live.
However, not everything about Willowit is so utopian.
They bill themselves as a utopia with a firm rule of law that keeps things running smoothly. And they do have a very powerful law system. HOWEVER: their legal system, while very powerful, has very little oversight. As a result, the thing that plagues Willowit more than anything else isn't wealth disparity, or war, discontent of the populace.
No, Willowit has a MASSIVE problem with corruption in governance. Because the legal system has so much power and so little oversight, the people who pay them the most money can effectively pick and choose which laws apply to them, and furthermore, which laws apply to other people. A great deal of propaganda keeps the general populace from realizing the extent of this corruption. But a lawyer, a police officer, a judge...they have to put forth EFFORT to NOT be hilariously corrupt, as bribes and quid-pro-quo are more the rule than the exception from even modestly well-off individuals.
Notable Contacts
[Name] Mia Tyler
[Relation to Subject] Cherri's defense attorney, close friend, engineer, and post-op specialist.
[Analysis] Mia was Cherri's lawyer during the extended and corrupt trial that threatened to put her either behind bars for the rest of her life, or put her in the ground. The two of them grew quite close over the years, and when it was decided that Cherri would enter the service (and specifically, would become a pilot), Mia immediately entered an intensive training course to get certified in engineering and maintenance of mechs. Possessed of a truly unreasonable level of willpower, she, well, succeeded, and now serves as the primary maintenance worker for <DEATH IN PINK!>
As you may be able to glean, Mia does not like giving up. Filled with willpower and SPITE, she managed to become a dedicated attorney, despite participating in the corrupt games of her planet's legal system as little as possible. She is possessed of a wide streak of wry humor; appearing deadpan while cracking strange jokes is second nature to her, and Cherri seems to have a sixth sense for when she's not being serious.
Speaking of Cherri, if you watch the two of them interact for more than a minute, it becomes blatantly obvious how much they care for each other. Yes, Mia is permanently exhausted and lives off caffeine; she picked up a habit of reading case law online in the middle of the night in law school, and somehow it stuck even when she genuinely has no time for it. But the two of them are pretty much inseparable. She won't maintain anybody else's mechs; and Cherri refuses to let anybody else maintain hers, unless there's no other choice.
Though she's the eldest daughter and heir to a prominent and longstanding military family and her as a result her skills are unimpeachable, Lina is far from the militant mindset as you can reasonably get. Enthusiastic and cheerful but a touch ditzy and oblivious, she aims to do the right thing as much as she can, even if she might get a little bit lost on the way.
Age: 19 Race: Human Nationality: Itenaian Weapon of Choice: Twin shortswords Elemental Affinity: Fire Spiritual Affinity: Light
C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y
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C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N
Miriam Santorini is a twenty-three year old bookworm who spends a frankly improbable amount of time reading when she's not writing short stories to sell, sent off to the mainland through snail mail. Despite that, she's fairly personable, and maintains a decent social life. Her greatest sacrifice is sleep, which she doesn't get quite enough of, and mitigates the lack of through unreasonable amounts of tea.
C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y
There are stories passed down in the Santorini family about their ancestor Gran-Lupe, and the magical prowess that he apparently had. Enough to grow crops in a day and a tree in a week; to divert streams, create ponds, and pile up hills. And, they say, that's how the Santorini family home came to be. Smallish, humble, made of dark gray stone, it sits atop a lakeside hill just outside of town, where Miriam lives along with her grandmother, parents, and two siblings.
Miriam doesn't quite believe in the stories of Gran-Lupe Santorini. Not really. But she still thinks that there's something like magic here.
So though the Santorini family has clearly seen better days, despite their money drying up and what prestige they had falling largely by the wayside, Miriam quite likes it here. She was always a quiet sort growing up; and even now, though she's perfectly happy socializing, she's still rather introverted, and the thought of moving to the big city that excites others her age makes her break out in hives. She's more than happy to stay here with her books and papers, devouring whole libraries and using the money that she makes by selling stories to ship yet more out to Starlight Cove. When not otherwise occupied with her books, peers, or household, she's often out in nature, rambling across the island and enjoying the island's 'magic.'
As long as she doesn't break her glasses. She's helpless without them.
