Chimere

Concept art

**Chimere Delphine Langley**, usually referred to simply as **Chimere**, was a member of Polaris and the core participant in the Azrael Project.

## History

Chimere was first mentioned in *The Day an Angel Fell to Earth*. While she was not seen directly, it was shown that she died giving birth to Azrael.

She was indirectly mentioned in *Goldenrod City Under Siege (Part 2)*, where Dr. Zager expressed a wish to apologize to her if they ever met again while looking at an old Polaris file on her.

Chimere finally appeared in *But We Can Call It Paradise*, in which she was shown via flashbacks and video footage. She was a patient at the Aball Clinic, where she enrolled as a participant in the Azrael Project as a test subject for the Therion Virus. Her performance in the program's early trials made her eligible for its second phase, and she worked directly with Zager on more challenging trials as she received larger doses of the virus. In an interview with him, she explained that she was sickly as a child but had to work hard to help her family get by. Thus, she joined the Azrael Project with the hopes of improving the lives of people like her. Chimere and Zager bonded as they worked together, sharing an interest in the recipes of his family's homeland.

Eventually, in a video clip of a meeting from December 17, 1986, Zager offered Chimere the chance to participate in the third phase of the project, in which she would serve as the mother to a child with the Therion Virus in their cells from birth, with the hopes of its effects being permanent for them. Chimere agreed to this proposal, and in a commemorative photograph they took at the time, Zager mentioned her full name to the camera. In the present, this led Nekou Lalume to realize Chimere was her long-forgotten mother, as "Langley" was the last name Nekou used when concealing her 'true' name. Zager confirmed this, and revealed that he and Chimere wished to raise her in peace, with the intent to name her Penelope Langley.

When asked where Chimere had gone, Zager played another video clip that revealed her fate: phase three of the Azrael Project initially progressed well, she developed a complication where the Therion Virus left her body more quickly than usual. Zager attempted to fix this by administering it to her in greater amounts, which had the unforeseen effect of inducing her transformation into a hybrid host for the virus as its presence in her became permanent. Due to Nekou absorbing nutrients from her body, she could not sustain herself through the adaptation process and fell extremely ill, leading to her death as depicted.

Later, as Nekou argued with a hallucination of Azrael, Azrael took the form of multiple illusions of people she had ties to in order to torment her. One of these illusions was Chimere, and in her guise, Azrael blamed Nekou for her death and demanded to know what she had done with herself, as Chimere had wanted to help sick people.

That night, Zager was shown to still have the photograph he had taken with her to commemorate the Azrael Project's progress.

## Trivia

* Chimere is a French name meaning "dream." It also resembles "chimera," reflecting her becoming a human/Therion Virus hybrid.
* Delphine, her middle name, is a French name referring to those from the Greek city of Delphi. The city is known for its oracle who was consulted for prophecies before major actions were taken. This reflects Chimere's role as the 'guide' at the head of the Azrael Project, leading the rest of Polaris into their envisioned future.
* While not explicitly stated, Chimere is the screaming woman Nekou periodically mentions having dreams of.
* Chimere's concept art features an older draft of Polaris's logo on her uniform.