Zona

> I'm just trying to do the best I can out here.
>
> - Zona

**Zona**, or **'Zee'** by her friends, is a young mercenary of unknown origin. She is the main protagonist of the Zonaverse and all of her respective media.

The world of interplanetary mercenary work is not easy. After a failed job, she now finds herself on the knife end of several unsavoury criminal groups within the Stilts. With nothing else but her wits and guile, she needs to find her way back home before her demons catch up to her.

She was created by QTori/qt0ri

## History

### Origin

Much of Zona's early life is unknown. Her earliest memories involve vague blurry images of fire and rubble. She was first made known to a small group of mercenaries headed by Stax, on the border outskirts between the Stilts and the Singe, covered in rags, malnourished and dehydrated. Spending her early years as an impressionable teenager around Stilt's most cutthroat soldiers for hire, taught her the values of spice and credits. For someone to make their ways up in this city, someone else must fall.

When her latent abilities started to manifest themselves in the form of bursts of extreme speed, she found it difficult to even walk from one room to another. She lost count of the amount of times where she'd take one step and ended up slamming head first into a wall. Many a nights were spent in bed with bruises and sole-less burnt shoes.

Stax, seeing the potential in her abilities, took it upon himself to nurture her into an up and coming new recruit. Under his guidance, Zona very soon found her abilities under control, especially with gear funded by the mercenary group. No longer did she need to go through several pairs a week.

### The Delivery

One of Zona's earlier jobs involved a delivery of unmarked goods to a drop off point. Unbeknownst to her, it was pure concentrated Rhoka crystals which are a commonly used ingredient in improvised explosives. Extremely volatile and extremely valuable. During the transportation, her abilities had an unfortunate side effect of agitating the crystals in its concentrated state. The results of which was a massive explosion in a very populated area of downtown Stilts. While she managed to just barely make it out of the blast radius with only a few singe marks, the same could not be said for those caught in the middle.

Traumatized, dazed and still in shock, Zona did the only thing she could: Run.

## Personality

> I still dont know who or what I am and it feels like everyone tries to take advantage of that.
>
> - Zona

Zona started very shy, she knew at a very early age how different she was to the others in the Stilts. Growing up, she felt very insecure and not being around many people her age made it difficult for her to connect with others. Stax had the idea to start her off early in the paid work hand business which encouraged her to socialize with others in her line of work. Over time, people learned to depend on her and through this she's developed a very "on the go" personality. There's always a job to do so it doesnt give her much time to slow down and make deep connections, always rushed and quick to move on. Zona has always wished to use her abilities for good, to better the lives of others around her. She thinks, maybe perhaps this is a way for her to feel connected to the people around her, if she had a purpose.

She is seen as very cheery, though many have claimed she can be a little bit of an air-head. Her mind tends to wonder off, accompanied by fidgeting if she is ever starts feeling bored. She loves eating spicy food and having an occasional Fuel Rod at the local club. Zona loves animals and has questionable tastes in romantic comedy shows that shows up on the BroadNet.

## Powers and abilities

> Hey! At least make this easy for me, I have places to be!
>
> - Zona

* **Super Speed**: Zona has the ability to move at extreme speed which emerged as a latent ability of hers at an early age. She is able to think, act, move, and perceive in short bursts, far faster than anyone else that is currently known in the Zonaverse. However, she may only do these in short bursts at a time as any prolonged state of speed may result in "burnout" which causes her to blackout.
	+ **Super Agility**: Due to Zona's super speed, she also has enhanced agility which allows her to keep balance and maintain her flexibility while moving at extreme speeds.
	+ **Super Reflexes**: Together with her super speed, her reflexes are also enhanced which enables her to dodge and react at blinding speed.

* **Electrical Affinity**: As a side effect of her super speed, the amount of friction she generates in the air molecules around her during travel creates an electrical force that surrounds her body. She has no direct control of the electrical buildup but it has been known to discharge into her attacks after she comes out of super speed.
* **Enhanced Constitution**: Zona can be a glutton for actual physical punishment. She has shown through multiple engagements that she has a higher than normal level of physical durability. This however does not make her impervious to damage, her upper limit for pain is just higher than most. Zona may have picked up this trait from Stax.

## Relationships

### Ri

Ri and Zona have had a very long engaged rivalry. They had first met during one of Zona's earlier jobs in which they were tasked with obtaining the same endangered creature that had long eluded others. The retrieval of said creature would have moved Ri up in her religious caste system, the Pisau Unification Council(PUC). Unfortunately due to Zona's reluctance to be beaten to the prize, she had inadvertently caused Ri to kill the creature during a fight. With the prized creature now vaporized due to Ri's control over the ambient air, the job was considered a failure. Clergy members from the PUC investigated and found that Ri had caused the creature's unfortunate death, hence demoting her ranks within the Council. Ever since then, Ri has sought out Zona seeking revenge for her demotion and their occasional engagements have been met with extreme violence.

### Yonu

Yonu was actually the first one to notice Zona during one of her deliveries. Most of the time she had very valuable packages in her possession which made her a very prime target for the ever sly and cunning Yonu. He made an attempted late night robbery of her place while she was out only to find out she did not have much to her actual name. A bed, a fridge full of spicy instant noodles and a television. Feeling like he wasted his time, he made for the exit only to run into Zona on the way out the door. Expecting to be met with instant accusations of thievery and break-ins, Zona appearing completely wasted with a bottle in hand, fell onto Yonu tripping them both over at the front door. Yonu trying to save himself from falling had placed his fingerprints all over her walls and items on the way down, which if he now ran, implicated him in an attempted thievery. Now that he was in a very particular predicament, decided to help Zona up and away from the main front door and put her into bed. Zona soon woke up an hour later with a splitting headache with a young man standing over her, Yonu, trying to make the most out of his odd situation pretended to be a good samaritan that was merely trying to help her get home. What he did not expect was their relationship to actually grow into an actual friendship. Yonu saw Zona as an easy target, merely waiting for his moment to strike at her pockets but Zona saw him as a person that did not judge her. Treated her equally like everyone else did, mostly because he treated everyone equally, equal targets for lightening their pockets into his. This never occurred between the two, as they always found to have met each other in the most peculiar of places.

### Kose

Zona had met Kose through Yonu. Though their interactions were brief, they had come to a mutual understanding of making sure Yonu stops getting into trouble.

They both bond and share over their love of Spicy food.

## Gallery

Zona illustrated by HelixelOld Zona design with casual sports outfitFirst appearance of Zona in her first issue comic in 2016Full body spread