Erica Emerson

Erica Emerson is a Metroid OC created and developed by Fera. She is a human mutated with Gandrayda's DNA. Erica has a minor role in the Metroid Fanfiction "Echoes of the Past" and is Kurtis' best friend since childhood.
Erica is notable for her depressive behaviors and her unstable powers.
==Life==
Erica was the only child in her family. Her parents often spoiled her because of this, but outside her family she had a difficult time. Socializing was hard for her as she was shy and often quiet. Other kids ridiculed her for this and would often make her the butt of their jokes. Erica was also picked on for wearing glasses which she threw around a lot out of frustration. Things changed when she met a certain boy. Unlike the others, he accepted her as a friend. Erica slowly overcame her shyness and began to be less quiet, though she now had a habit of sticking around Kurtis.
When an experiment backfired and the fumes breached the station, Erica was one of the many people exposed to them. She became severely ill but was among the survivors of the illness. Her body had mutated to have a unique cell structure. Erica resumed her life up until the Hexion came under attack. Space Pirates had targeted the station and carried out one of their brutal raids upon it. Erica was among the kids captured by the space pirates and was taken to the Pirate Homeworld.
Erica was one of the last kids to be mutated. After Gandrayda showed up and fell in line with the space pirates, the pirates decided to mutate her. This happened when Gandrayda began to keep Kurtis away from them as much as possible, effectively ruining their plans in the process. Using what was left from Kurtis' mutation, Erica was mutated as well. Mentally Erica had not been well off since the attack on her home. Being mutated only made her more unstable. She was kept secret from Gandrayda and kept away from Kurtis after mutation. Further experimentation began, but the more she used her powers, the faster they weakened. When her powers began to hurt her, Erica began coughing up cyan fluid, indicating that something was wrong internally. She stopped shapeshifting and relied on her weak electrical powers for defense. Erica eventually began to lose hope and become depressed.
Erica was moved to a new containment around the time Kurtis left the Pirate Homeworld. She was grouped with the other mutant children who had been deemed failures and no longer useful outside of being studied. Here she remained with the other mutants, awaiting to see if Jayde's plan would succeed.
==Design==
Like Kurtis, Erica is based off of Gandrayda in appearance. Compared to Kurtis she is supposed to be more messed up in appearance to help portray that something's not quite right with her. At the time of Kurtis' creation, a reference of the official render of Gandrayda was used. The model was hard to see beyond a lot of the shine on her, so Kurtis' insides ended up being more complicated as Fera had to compensate for the poor reference. Lacking the game at the time meant the in game model couldn't be used as a reference. Since it hadn't been a priority, no actual in depth look was ever done on Gandrayda until Erica was being given a full and final design. The idea of her fewer organs was to mean she was more messed up than Kurtis, but upon study of the in game render of Gandrayda, Erica looked more accurate with her insides.
Now the idea rests that Kurtis is over developed internally, but also is more functional as a result minus a few quirks. Erica was revealed to have only adapted to her new appearance (barely as her looks suggest) but she did not have enough cells to handle the powers that came with mutation. Therefore this makes her insides weaker and more prone to damage.
==Personality==
Erica is the exact opposite of Kurtis in personality. She is depressed, quiet, withdrawn, and lonely. She tends to isolate herself as tension between her and the other mutants was high and she hated arguing. Her depression is from a loss of hope and a longing for a normal life which she realizes she can never have. Out of the group she has more hope than anyone other than Jayde. She has very little confidence in herself and though she tries to help, Erica just ends up getting in the way, which is another reason she is quiet and withdrawn.
Her only known friends are Kurtis and Jayde. With Kurtis gone for so long, Erica was reliant upon Jayde for any friendship. Jayde is the one that keeps her going sometimes. Though she is afraid of death, Erica is still willing to try and help, even if that could lead to her death. However, she will often cower and have the others take over for her which is why she's considered to, "get in the way" when trying to help. Overall she has a poor time socially and being in space pirate custody for so long has taken a toll on her mentally.
==Trivia==
*Though her role is minor, Erica has a great impact in the story. She causes a great amount of character development to happen with Kurtis.
*Despite being a minor character, Fera is very attached to Erica and considers her one of her favorite mutants.
*Erica was originally pink like Gandrayda, but her colors were switched to purple to avoid confusion between the two.
*Erica was not among the original mutants casted in the story. After showing up in Fera's mind, she was quickly added to the story so she could be used as a character.
*She is the second oldest of the remaining Andra mutants. The oldest is Triesta.
*Her weakened state is to help show that not all of the mutants were stable enough to survive after their mutations.
*She is currently the only important mutant created that lacks a designed true identity.
**She was not given a final design for her pre-mutation self since it would never be used. Unlike Kurtis, she can't shift between forms without causing herself immense pain and damaging herself internally. There was no point in desiging it as a result.
==Gallery==
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Erica.png|Detailed reference sheet for Erica.|link=http://metroid-tamer.deviantart.com/art/Ref-Sheet-Erica-193463341
Category:Metroid
Category:Fanbase
Category:Fera