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- “"Smee again, garn git fucked!"”— Damsel, during the Siege of Brisbane.
The Pilot[]
Personality[]
Ali is a very quiet, independent and aloof person who actively avoids 'needless' social interaction. Whether this is because of a degree of shyness or a simple lack of desire to interact with others is currently unknown. She tends to spend her time alone or in the company of Tin Men pilots, with whom she has more in common.
As someone who earned a suit through a faction and not one of those originally selected for one by the Vannai, Ali has difficulty finding common ground with the veteran pilots - the /tg/ references, in jokes and language often entirely elude her. Despite this, she does attempt to be polite whenever she does talk to people, and makes an effort to understand the culture she has recently joined.
Although she is normally slow to anger, there are two things that she absolutely cannot stand - jokes about her height, or being treated as a helpless thing to be rescued. She is very independent and despises white knights with a fiery passion. This led to her being assigned the very ironic name 'Damsel'.
In combat, however, her personality takes a sharp turn. She becomes louder, more boisterous and far more outwardly confident, even reckless. She appears to take great joy in combat, and will actively seek out enemies if none are readily apparent. She prefers melee combat, not because of delusions of glory, but because it feels good to beat someone into a bloody pulp the old fashioned way.
Appearance[]
Ali is of average height, and anyone who disagrees is likely to receive a scathing insult for their efforts. Her hair is red and is kept in a short pixy cut, keeping it the hell out of her blue eyes.
Her complexion is pale, and bears grease stains that never seem to go away no matter what she does. Her skin is also host to countless little nicks, scars and burns from operating heavy machinery and fighting against impossible odds.
Notably, her right leg is severed at the knee. She has a shiny white metal prosthetic, built from the middle finger of the 'White Knight' suit. She has a lean build, and definitely prefers cardio to gains. She can often be seen jogging around base at all hours of the night.
History[]
Born in Queensland, Australia, the pilot known as Ali does not speak of her history before the fall - she completely avoids the subject. Even her name is an assumed identity, and she makes no effort to hide the fact. This makes it difficult to determine her pre-war history. The only things that have been confirmed is that she hails from near Brisbane, and that at the time of the fall she had a job as an apprentice mechanic.
It is confirmed that she did not access a pod during the fall, and was forced to survive entirely on her own resources. She used her skills as a mechanic to fortify and conceal one of the rooms in the automotive repair shop she worked at, although she was forced to leave it numerous times on extremely dangerous scavenging runs for food, water and other essential supplies.
She avoided all contact from other humans during this time, seeing other people as either a potential enemy, a nuisance likely to draw the psychotic ‘bots’ back to her hideout, or simply as another mouth to feed. Through her scavenging journeys, she realized that there were only two ‘bots’, and they fought each other as frequently as they hunted survivors.
She kept up this isolated lifestyle for several weeks, avoiding all contact and assuming that any ‘bots’ were hostile. This ended when a battle between the two ‘bots’ completely destroyed her hideout whilst she was out on a scavenging mission. Realizing that nowhere was safe, she decided to try and do something about the bots.
Using her knowledge in mechanics and whatever materials she was able to scrounge, she set up a variety of traps, explosives and hazards in order to do what damage she could to the ‘bots’. Knowing that discovery meant death, she used increasingly elaborate lures to draw her targets to their doom.
Surprisingly, her finest work - luring the ‘White Knight’ into a fuel truck depot and lighting up the entire thing - actually does some damage to the heavy armour. More importantly, it drew the attention of human-aligned forces. Not long after the explosion, as the White Knight attempted to hunt her down, two new ‘bots’ arrived and, after a swift but brutal battle, drove off the pair of VP’s, and then set up camp.
She observed the pair of suits for some time, and even after the pilots exited their suits and proved themselves to be people, she waited another two days before approaching them. She explained her situation to the two pilots, who revealed they served a group called the “Green Initiative” who were trying to find what survivors they could and bring them to safety. She agreed to go with them, and was taken to the wreck of the HMAS Canberra, which was being painstakingly repaired and restored for use as a mobile GI base. Offering her services as a mechanic, she formally joined the faction as a member of the support staff. She participated in the repair effort, as well as working to maintain the two Powered Armour suits assigned to the base.
By the time of the Bright Offensive, the HMAS Canberra was ready, and served as a support vessel for operations along the east coast. Ali’s first taste of armoured combat, however, was when the Canberra was ambushed by none other than the White Knight, still bearing the scars of her sabotage. Watching in horror as the aberrant Knight murdered the pilot of the Tin Man she was assigned to repair, she boarded the Tin Man herself and fought to hold it off.
Through sheer bloody-minded determination, she managed to hold her own against the Knight...for almost an entire minute. The Knight destroyed her Tin Man’s weapons and severed her right leg at the knee. Unwilling to give up when the lives of the crew depend on her, she armed herself with a blade from a destroyed helicopter and in a blind range, sliced off the suit’s middle finger.
This bought just enough time for reinforcements to arrive and drive off the Knight. She spent a month in a sickbay as a result, and another on light duties in the Canberra’s engine room. When she emerged, she had a gleaming white prosthetic leg and a shiny new sword for her new Tin Man, GARN. (the Knight’s middle finger was never seen again). The sword, named “The Middle Finger”, proudly bears her emblem etched into the blade.
Joining the Guerrillas, she took part in the Bright Offensive across Australia, and divided her time equally between charging headlong into battle, and fixing up the GARN and herself after barely surviving the consequences of said charge. She quickly gained a reputation for being as bloodthirsty in combat as she was quiet and polite out of it. Some in GIMD suspect split personalities, other just think she’s much more confident with a few inches of composite armour between her and her foes.
She was assigned to the 21st Tin Men Response Team, and encountered the White Knight again during the 4th Battle for the Great Barrier Reef. To the surprise of all present, the suit, previously thought to be a VP, spoke to her. He introduced himself as the White Knight, and requested to know the name of the woman who had earned his respect. Her response, confirmed by multiple eyewitness accounts, was “GARN”. When he spoke, she cut him off by adding “GARN GIT FUCKED!”
Her taunt outraged the insane pilot, and despite the fact that there were higher priority threats, he singled her out for a duel. Actually able to call on allies and air support, Ali was able to fight on a slightly more even footing, and caused significant damage to the Knight before again took her right leg, though he took the time to destroy her Tin Man. Ali barely escaped with her life, and spent the rest of the Bright Offensive in a GIMD medical facility, recuperating from her wounds and rebuilding her leg. Her replacement Tin Man now sported plates of heavy, gleaming white armour welded on the front.
After returning to duty, she was transferred to Green Initiative headquarters in Venezuela, where she spent the next three months in intense training, learning the trade of the Guerrilla. Her trial by fire was deep in the jungles of Brazil. The fighting in Brazil, where enemies almost always have improved camouflage and booby traps are everywhere, proved to be a source of constant frustration for a pilot who honestly just wanted to hit things with a big fucking sword.
Unsuited to stealth operations, she instead became exceptionally good at locating hidden enemies. This knack, and her incredibly heavy armour for a Tin Man, made her well-suited as a ‘point man’, or, more accurately, as bait. She would stomp through the forest, draw enemy fire, and pinpoint targets for her better concealed allies. Despite adapting to jungle warfare, her reassignment back to the open, flat ground of Australia was a huge relief for her.
Around the time of Operation Liquidator, she and the 21st returned to Brisbane, near her home. Her time in Brazil and the lessons she learned served her will in the urban combat, as did her familiarity with the territory. It was during this intense urban fighting that she had her (to date) final encounter with the White Knight. She challenged him to a duel, identifying herself as “Smee”. When questioned about the name change, she clarified “Smee again, Garn git fucked!”
Fighting alongside the rest of the 21st Mobile Infantry, she and her comrades used hit-and-run tactics (along with her, for a Tin Man, unnaturally heavy armour) to good effect - but the White Knight had also improved his. They were able to hold his attention long enough for GI suits to arrive on the scene, but by the time reinforcements forced him to retreat, the 21st had lost half their number and Ali’s suit had taken an absolute beating.
Amongst the rumours of Operation Unity, Ali and the survivors of the 21st, at this stage being considered some of the most battle-hardened Tin Men pilots GI had to offer, were clandestinely transferred to the middle east. Ali and her comrades participated in Operation Unity - posted to the outskirts of Israel, their job was to intercept and destroy any damaged VP suits fleeing the main battle. Her unit racked up a surprising 4 kills against enemy suits, although all had been previously damaged in the brutal fighting around Tel Aviv.
After Unity, she, along with other notable Tin Men pilots working for the GI Guerrillas, was clandestinely transferred to the Australiasian front, and alongside fellow veteran GI Tin Man Craig, waged a bloody campaign to secure the Pacific Islands. For her long service to GI and her excellence in shitposting the enemy, she was knighted by none other than the leader of the GI Guerrillas, and was granted a proper set of sludgetech Power Armour - the infamous “Bunyip”, painstakingly restored.
She has spent all her time since then training in the use of her new armour, and stands ready to finally fight the enemy on even ground, and maybe put that damn “White Knight” six feet under, once and for all.
Relations & Allies[]
Allies[]
The 21st GI Mobile Infantry is a Tin Man squad based in Australia, and Damsel was a member of this unit throughout most of the war. Despite their very high turnover and casualty rate, this unit met considerable success when fighting against VP suits. The unit consists mostly of new recruits, overseen by a few hardened veterans. They fought extensively in Australia, and served a supporting role in Operation Unity. Damsel, as they named her, is still good friends with the other veterans of her old unit.
Enemies[]
The White Knight,a man who didn’t need the Tumblr nanites to become a villain, is Damsel's sworn enemy. Obsessed with getting revenge on the fair maidens who never rewarded his ‘heroism’ with relationships or sex, he singles out females in combat. Frustrated that Damsel refuses to die or sleep with him no matter how many times he defeats her in combat, he will go to great lengths to see his foe slain. Now that Damsel has a sludge tech suit herself, she looks forward to their next battle, and hopefully last, battle.