Ella (Songbird)

Dressed to avoid Salvation's detection.

### Unique Items

First Aid Kit (FREE), Disassembling Kit (FREE), Walkie Talkie (5). Mobile Phone (10). Flashlight (5). RAD Detector (5). Hologrammatic Matrix (10). Handcuffs (10). Bullets x5

### CP Points

Bulletproof Armour (10). Strongarm (4). Sword (8). Bandages x 6 (15). Stimpack (5). Mechanical Scrap (5). Base Chems x 2 - 3 (Immunoboost recipe).

 Personal Information

### **Appearance**

Ella is about 167cm tall and has a full suite of high-tech (if a little dinged up) combat limb augmentations. She has dark hair currently cropped reasonably short, blue eyes, and is light skinned and reasonably toned. She used to mask this outside of Unity Peak by wearing lots of bulky and / or baggy layers, covering as much of herself as she can to avoid being found by Salvation, though now Salvation knows who she's been associating herself with, she has decided to Stop Giving a Flying Fuck, and just dress comfortably.

### **Personality**

Ella is careful but approachable, and isn't generally noisy - usually preferring to skirt the room and match however everyone else seems to be interacting - though she is easily bored. If left unattended, she's prone to play games on her phone or pull some needles out of her bag and start knitting something to keep herself busy.

Often, she aims to make herself useful somehow, but she is easily wrapped up in side projects. At Unity Peak, she can often be found seeking out and chatting to (or even just curiously observing) people she favours, jogging about the place, or chilling out by the pool with a small stash of strawberries from the food printer.

If offered a weapon, she will more often take a sword than anything else, though now she is in fewer discreet operations, she is beginning to appreciate firearms for their utility.

### **Backstory**

*Triway Chronicle*

Having been born and raised as one of Salvation's Chosen in Paradise bunker, Ella ascended to the surface of Hope when she was about 25. Having been educated in the bunker and having always been raised to understand the importance of self care and the value of human life, she was taught the basics: maths, geography, PE, sign language, infiltration, intelligence operations, first aid (with special training in treating augmented persons), armed combat, and military strategy. She graduated from her class at the age of 18 alongside two of her peers - her best friend and her girlfriend, coincidentally cousins to each other - and they were given their Chosen names of Pine, Cypress and Songbird.

Having shown interest in field operations, following in the footsteps of her father (Osprey), she underwent intensive training with some of the more experienced Chosen for a number of years to prepare her to infiltrate a group known as the Whisperers - as a human, and one that refused augmentation, the mission would require a great deal of combat, evasive and medical training in order for her to keep herself alive. Songbird was to report on any humans she found, and Pine would accompany her once her training was complete and he had reached the age of 25 and been fitted with his augments.

Shortly before their mission began, Cypress disappeared on a mission of her own. Both were distraught, but the mission had to go on - it had been known to be the occasional fate of Chosen - and so, with little time to search for or even mourn for her, they set out on their quest for Lobetful.

After about two and a half years of work, Songbird had established a 'reasonable' (read: verbal) relationship with some of the Whisperers in Lobetful, and she and Pine had, much like some of their fellow Chosen, discovered a threat growing in Lobetful by the name of Beacon - posing a risk to any humans in or near the corpse city, and perhaps further away, to boot. Salvation herself made it known that she wanted Songbird to use her Whisperer status to connect with a mission focusing on taking Beacon down, and to keep tabs on any humans who were part of the operation. Pine moved to investigate the Beacon facility in Lobetful and find out what he could, and Songbird likewise took action to land herself in the Lighthouse Mission, using her given name of Ella to introduce herself to those involved.

Quickly establishing herself as an adept navigator, Ella lead the team through dense scrubland into Lobetful, reporting back to her Chosen peers by leaving information at drop points and with other field agents that were in the area - Talon, a combat specialist who was competitive in the bunker and straight up frightening in the field, and Taurus, a former Ranger and a skilled pilot whom her father had 'rescued from a crashed tiltjet', who was later discovered by Rangers on the mission. At Salvation's request, she at one point kidnapped and drugged the Rangers' Captain Illinois, delivering him to a shack where Salvation could interrogate him before returning to help 'search' for him.

Following this, there were suspicions among Chosen that Salvation had been discovered by the members of the lighthouse mission, so Ella was evacuated and returned briefly to Paradise, where she was instructed (strangely sans Pine) that she was to re-enter the Lighthouse mission with full disclosure of who she was, and what her organisation stood for, and offer to safely relocate the humans on the mission, as well as Glitch (given he had seemed to have formed an emotional connection with Taurus, and they wanted everyone to be happy, after all). Ella obliged, being escorted by Osprey and Artemis to the Triway Peak Facility.

Upon arrival, she was detained and questioned, and as she attempted to explain, members of the Lighthouse Mission (specifically Patty, Santiago and Peter) explained to her that the things Salvation was doing was tearing families apart, killing innocent people, and augmenting people against their wishes. It took some repetition, but after some time of talking to her, Ella had become very conflicted about her place in the world. She also noted that one of the Rangers, Niko, had somehow found and taken Pine's spear - when she asked, concerned, he presented a Beacon ID tag, saying he'd found it on a dead guy from Beacon, no augs on him.

She found time in the evening to apologise to Lily, one of the other Whisperers, for having lied to her for the entire time they had known each other. Lily didn't seem overly bothered, still calling Ella a friend who had just been doing as they were meant to do, and the two looked over the landscape and talked about New Yuvon.

When the facility was attacked, she was eventually allowed to take up arms and help, with Yuri noting that he could trust her with it, because if she had come here to try to kill people, she would have done it already. She stood with the Rangers in their fight to end Beacon, defeating them once and for all. The following morning, when Osprey was to come and collect her following her mission's end, she spoke with several of the members of the Lighthouse Mission about what she should do, most notably Santiago, who encouraged her to do what she thought was right, and that the right choice wasn't always an easy one to make. With that in mind, Ella asked to borrow some of Santiago's clothes to disguise herself with, and she hid from the Chosen, who sent Talon into all of the buildings on the peak to search for her (with Glitch and Officer Greene's assistance, she evaded capture by hiding inside an inactive nanite printer).

Having since lived primarily at the now Unity Peak facility for her continued safety, she came to the conclusion of wanting to make a difference and right her wrongs, she briefly made an adventure into Ranger Town to meet with Niko and Lisa, and to arrange to become a Ranger. On learning of the Seekers group, she made her way back to see what capacity she might help in, and nominated herself for the position of Communications Officer, given as her previous training would compliment the role nicely, and she had a great deal of information that could be helpful in saving a large number of lives in the cold conflict with Salvation.

*Seekers Chronicle*

Invited back to the now renamed Unity Peak to take part in the formation of a new organisation, Ella joined the Seekers, and in doing so brought with her a full dossier on the Chosen that she knew to be active, previous operations she was aware of, and similar information on their activity. She assisted in the creation of identikits, allowing herself to be included so as to not give away her position, and assisted in covert operations to improve relationships with various places. She offered herself up as a nominee for the position of communications officer, explaining that while the group had no reason to trust her, she had no intention of betraying anyone - and ended up receiving the position.

((TBC))

## Quotes

### **Quotes By**

* "I am so, so sorry for everything." - to literally anyone affected by Salvation
* "Man, drawing shitty Harry puns is really cathartic right now." - To Cooper, during some downtime before fighting Beacon
* "Ya can't kill me in VR, Talon!" - teasingly, in the Nostromo VR nightclub, after Talon had discovered that it definitely wasn't Artemis using the *\_huntr3ss* VR account or avatar
* "You're here... you're alive." - To Cinders
* "This... this is literally just a safety label, oh my god." - Regarding the Sentinel script on one side of the obelisk jammer device found during Limbo Run
* "You *guys*, it is *fine.*" - After walking into a building and learning her friends were seeing a Psyker illusion warp around her.

### **Quotes About**

* "But Ella is Lily's friend" - To Santiago, Patty and Peter when they had Ella detained
* "Oh, Songbird's here? Why do I have to hole up? It's Songbird ... sure she's Salvation but she's not \*scary\* Salvation or anything." - Harry, after Ella rocked up on the weekender and people advised him to hide.
* "Phoenix ... she's running, I'm not sure she even knows where the finish line is." - Crickets observation

### **Conversations**

* "Songbird, it is my mission to arrange for you to be returned home, if that is your wish. Shall I make the arrangements?" "... No. I've still got things to do up here." - With Pylon #18 during Limbo Run

### **Rumours**

* Apparently seemed rattled emerging from the nanite printer, but who wouldn't be, if Talon had been the one looking for them? She definitely doesn't seem to have claustrophobia, at any rate.

## Inspirations and Soundtrack

* Both available on Spotify: Ella - Starting Fresh (Seekers Chronicle) and Ella (Salvation's Songbird) (Triway Chronicle)