#Asura Holosmith

[whiskeyworen]

Tenna: “Hey Cyrus! I was thinking about that show that you said you missed, and check this out!” Cyrus: “What? Wait, is your holosmith stuff permanently stuck in overload? Doesn’t that shit explode??” Tenna: “Nah, I figured out a way around that. But it gave me a ton of excess heat energy to work with, so seriously, stand back and check this out!” *THOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!* Cyrus: “....Tenna?... Did... did you just make a holographic Wing ZERO Buster Cannon??” Tenna: “Yeah! It’s got a bitch of a recharge time, but just look at that!” *admiring the scorched, molten-glass channel she’s carved across the landscape. Some of it is on fire. The air stinks of ozone and charcoal.* Cyrus: “Uh. Yeah. That’s damned cool! *trying desperately to hide his dumbass happy grin from his face.* (mutter) Tenna, I could hug you right now...(cough)” Tenna: “What was that?” *grins. Totally heard what he muttered thanks to big Asura ears, but is just going to let him dig himself deeper by pretending she didn’t.* “Didn’t quite hear you there!” Cyrus: “Nothing, nothing. Just... talking to myself.” Tenna: “That’s not healthy, Cyrus. Tell you what...” *devious glint in her eye* “I think I did a really good job making this thing. I did it out of the goodness of my heart, for no profit. So I want something.” Cyrus: *relaxes, expecting a demand for money or food or something mundane* “Alright. What?” Tenna: *leaps into Cyrus’s arms, grinning* “Gimme a hug, you dork. I saw that grin.” ---------- Hmm. That went an unexpected direction. Sorta. I’ve been meaning to write stuff with Tenna that shows how open she is with her emotions and stuff, and tends to get into other people’s space, for good or bad. I just didn’t expect this to expand to include that. For the record, I don’t think Tenna has any particular preference. She likes what she likes. Also, I love that damned beam cannon. Lock my heat at critical levels, and just go to town with it.

[whiskeyworen]

Name: Tenna

Race: Asura

Gender: Female

College: Synergetics

Class: Holosmith Engineer

Allies:  Cyrus, Verula Faithbreaker, Moryggan Deralith,

Relationships:  Youngest of three siblings. Strained relationship with elder siblings Miriya and Sonnya due to personal experiments. No known relationships, though is close with all members of her team.

Weapons: Holosmith Saber and Alchemist's Shield. Has a pair of Alchemists pistols tucked away in hidden pockets for emergencies. Prefers using her battleharness with its Elixir gun, Grenade launcher and Siege Cannon mounts, though her Holosmith weapons are a delight.

Tenna is the youngest of her sisters, and perhaps the most unstable of them. She loves tinkering with things, as well as explosives, and while her skills are undeniable, she tends to alienate others with her outside-the-box lateral thinking. As tall as her oldest sister Sonnya, but as slim as her middle sister Miriya, Tenna had the unfortunate luck to be tall and lanky, even by Asuran standards. Her gangliness led her to be teased by her classmates, as well as naturally be slightly more clumsy, which earned her more derision. Even among her sisters, Tenna is still very different; with long hair the color of a deep red wine, she stood out from her siblings. A genetic quirk also flipped her skin tones, making her the figurative and literal black sheep of her family. They still love her, but in public other Asura secretly wonder if she's not of their family, and was merely adopted.

Sufficed to say, Sonnya has always managed to curtail those rumors, being the super-protective older sibling, but they still left their mark on young Tenna. Even as a Synergetics college student, she kept to herself mostly, with a small circle of friends and no actual Krewe to be part of.

Her skills with record systems and design philosophy were of interest to the Durmand Priory, who outsourced to her. A member of the Priory, she was never called on missions; her only job was to create and administer incoming data while at the same time maintaining her studies in the college. Being alone took quite a toll on her. Already edgy about being without a Krewe, she got to watch her sisters advance out of their respective colleges and go out into the world, while she was stuck in her dorm, sorting files and trying desperately to invent things that would catch the eye of the Council, or at the very least, one of her professors who might bump it up the line. Sleep was troubled, and paranoia set in; she became convinced she was so much weaker than her sisters that she was bound to die in some horrible circumstance. Whether it was a lab explosion or accident, an Inquest raid on the workshops, or the far-distant but ever present threat of a Dragon assault or something worse, her fears dug deep into her. That was when the sample rolled across her desk. A sample of tainted plasma from an unknown subject. Most of the data about it had been lost as it had bounced from lab to lab, but it finally ended up on her desk, a curiousity of the Priory. Examining it, she found potentially a solution to her problem. The blood contained a viral agent. Something half-magic, half-chaos, half-again actual virus. It was clear that whoever was infected was going to be in a lot of trouble if the virus kept up its self-metamorphic changes, but that didn't matter to her at all. All that mattered was that the virus also changed its host to suit it, to keep it alive. Stripping away the chaotic and magical aspects of the virus was simple. What was left was a crippled thing that still made genetic tweaks, but not in a fashion unmanagable. Things like enhanced strength, speed, vision... altered vision, neural modification to accomodate for those changes. It also had markers for more unique things. Like regeneration. A fully organic, non-necrotic regeneration. It wasn't long before she injected it into herself and began culturing more 'clean' virus in self-maintaining portable mechanisms. Oh, she got her wish; she was no longer weak. Not by a long shot. Wounds healed in seconds. Terrible injuries reset within minutes. Aided by an auto-injector, Tenna suspected she'd be able to regenerate from almost anything. But there was a price to pay, she found. For every injury she sustained, whether it was a cut, a burnmark, or what have you, she found herself getting hungrier. Normal food wasn't working; she could eat it and be fine, but it didn't scratch the itch. She didn't need to sleep as much anymore, but as the virus affected her, she found herself weakened again, drawn, and gaunt. Something was wrong. That was when an Inquest agent tried to raid her private dorm for Priory secrets. In a fit of fear and rage, she instinctively went for his throat. It was a horrible, terrible thing...but after it was over, she felt more alive than she'd ever felt. Was that the secret? Blood?

One quick body-disposal later, she'd checked the virus again, this time delving deeper into its structure. There it was; a marker for hemophagia, only slightly altered by her attempts to clean the virus. She couldn't remove the marker; when she tried, the virus just fell apart. It was the lynchpin. The original virus would compell its victim to seek blood to sate the virus. HER virus however, as crippled and damaged as it was, needed iron as fuel. For every injury she'd sustain, it would burn iron as a fuelsource for the regeneration, coopting the ATP production of her own body to accelerate the healing process. If she calculated right, she could lose an entire limb or more, and regenerate completely from it...but be left a ravening beast hungry for blood and meat to replace what she'd lost. At least...till she had enough. She could work with that. Easily.

By that point, a number of her inventions had come back from the Council, not with endorsements, but with strict warnings and heavy seals, Cease and Desists, and Edicts from the Tyrian Royalty as well as the Charr Imperator. Her ideas, her...weapons... were considered far too dangerous and heinous to consider. What could be used of them would be used, and she would recieve the proceeds, but her best items were under strict lock and key.

Again, that was fine. She could work with that. She didn't intend for anyone else to have her toys now, anyway. Not when she'd finally gotten the strength she needed.

She sent a note of sabbatical to the Priory, claiming 'personal issues', and left the College entirely. Already rumors were circulating about her, and the fact she hadn't slept in weeks by that point. It mattered little to Tenna. Nothing really mattered except she was finally free from her fear. It's unknown how she met the others of her group, but her contact with Cyrus is at least partially known. Both were associated with the Priory, so it's assumed she contacted him. Another outcast by choice, Cyrus agreed. He must have had some connections, because soon after Moryggan and Verula joined their team. Both seemed familiar with Cyrus, and had no issue with Tenna.

When the topic of her viral agent came up, not one of them balked. All three were outcasts of their own design, for lateral thinking, disagreement, etc. None of them were surprised or horrified by Tenna's experiment, or the price she'd pay for it. If she needed help getting meat and blood when she was low, it was just another thing that made Tenna...well... Tenna.

She had a krewe now. And for the first time, a place to belong. ---- (Notes from Me: When I made Tenna, I’d already made one of every job class. I had an extra slot and thought “Hmm...well Dhangalor is an Engie, but I kinda really specialized him as a Juggernaut Flamethrower. I wanna try out the other kits, but I don’t wanna retrait him.” Back then, retraiting cost money and time and stuff. It was before the trait trees permanently opened and stayed modifiable. So I decided to make another Engie. Choosing a race was easy; I wanted to make a demolitionist Asura. But the connection to Miriya and Sonnya... That took some thought. Initially I wanted to make a male Asura so I could keep the Male/female balance I had going. It was almost a perfect balance, but Sonnya threw it off by being one additional female. But the male Asura were just...ugly...to me. So I decided that my duo sisters were actually a Trio, and then made her. She looked exactly like them at first, until I remembered I had a Makeover kit that gives access to rare hairs and eye colors and stuff. So in a flash, gone was her chinese bun hair, her green eyes, and her skin tone that perfectly mimicked her sisters. In her place, I made the OTHER sister. The one I have grown to love because she’s so chaotic. Glowing orange-gold eyes, hair of Cabernet Sauvignon, darker completion.... Setting her story up was almost an accident. I was brainstorming for the other two, and decided that all three sisters had grown apart over the years, and that Tenna had gone through a personal breakdown crisis that resulted in her doing something to herself. When I came up with the viral infection in Maeva (who I have yet to post), I realized I had an opportunity to make a watered down version of the vampiric elementalist. Instead of being just vampiric, Tenna would also be intensely CARNIVOROUS as a result of her infection. I literally wanted her to be a cannibal, because... well, it’d creep her sisters out especially, and it made her an outcast, to be teamed up with other outcasts. It worked perfectly. Tenna in-game is a disturbingly powerful condi Engie who’s bombs, grenades, and siege cannon work phenomenally well. And when I found the trait that auto-calls an Orbital Strike laser... Oh boy, I SO had to add that to her story. That it’s a prototype weapon she designed that was kiboshed by the Council and others. That the Inquest can’t take it away because it’s too well defended in orbit, and they can’t kill her to get it because it’d wipe them out in retaliation. That, and after the infection, it’s now tremendously HARD to kill her. One of these days, I’ll commission someone to draw her, either casually lobbing an entire belt full of armed grenades, a devious, very toothy grin on her face, or in the midst of bloodthirst after a battle, armor shredded but wounds healing, and intensely HUNGRY for blood and flesh. Both images in my head are glorious. I may even commission a pic someday of her feeding more casually on someone who gave permission; neck nibbles kinda thing. If you’ve got close enough friends who are willing to do that, you treat them gently, and Tenna definitely would, if they were willing to give her a blood meal when she needed it. )