Nicole Burns

Salpakan

**Nicole Burns** is a major protagonist in both *SportsFest* and *Wind, Fire, and Ice*.

She was a member of Saint's Hill Academy's Casa de Crucifijo. Upon graduating, she became a celebrity on the video-sharing platform Broadcast. She also entered a long-distance relationship with Ann Lawson during their years in college. Sometime afterward, they became engaged to each other.

## Personality

At the beginning of SportsFest, she was a minor supporting character who frequently goofed off with Orelya Powell. Notably, her biggest quirk was her constant code-switching between Tagalog and English, which made her come off as a lovable idiot to Orelya and Ann.

As she grew up, she became more and more proactive in school events, particularly house events, wherein she became a vice-prefect of Casa de Crucifijo — an effective team player and leader, different from the aloof gal she was before. In college, she became more vocal about politics and controversial topics.

## Background

In the early 21st century, Jonathan Burns met Sara Elias, then a college student from Tondo working part-time as a tour guide, while on summer holiday. He vowed to return to the Philippines so that they could spend more time together, a promise he upheld two years later.

A few months before their marriage, Sara suggested that they move away from Tondo both because of the poor living conditions and because of her family, which had generally reacted poorly to her starting a family with a foreigner. They settled in a modern house in Laguna, got married, and became pregnant with Nicole a few years afterward; while they were away, her family back in Tondo would grow bitter about her 'marrying rich' and subsequently harass her, as her child Nicole would never have to dig in trash heaps for scraps of food at the age of 3, as what was happening to her cousin Maria. In reality, Jonathan was only middle-class by Filipino standards; neither of them were satisfied with their wages, and feared their financial stability would not last long.

Nicole was born on October 15, 2004 and was gentle and kind as a toddler. Starting the age of four, she would sometimes watch her neighbour, Kuya Migz, play Salpakan against his clubbies, a memory she would revisit in 2020. She met her cousins when she was five during their grandparents' 40th wedding anniversary; they were generally kind, and even her aunt and uncle were fond of her, but Maria always had a lingering jealousy of the spotlight and prestige Nicole would get from her relatives.

Her family finally moved away when she was 6 years old, and they re-settled in Saint's Hill City, New Yorkshire. Their old house in Laguna was then given to the Narayrays. Only two months after, her mother became pregnant with her younger brother Lorenzo "Renzo" Burns, which she didn't react kindly to even after he was born; she wasn't fond of his childish tendencies, especially when it became distracting.

Beginning primary school, she had a difficult time adjusting because of her limited English fluency, and no one outside her family could understand her native Tagalog; luckily, her family would visit the Philippines again every Christmas. She eventually grew out of the language barrier, albeit still peppering a few Filipino words across her speech, hence her nickname among her relatives, 'conyorita'. Nonetheless, she had become friends with Belle van Bijenkorf, Katherine Granger, and Angelika Powell by the time she graduated primary school, and got on slightly better terms with Renzo.

## During *SportsFest*

### SportsFest 2018

In 8th year, she won a scholarship to Saint's Hill Academy and became classmates with Orelia Marcos, a fellow half-Filipino she would become very close to. Save for her Taglish, she had little to no problem getting along with her peers, as while she had difficulty with speech alone, she was known for kindness, innocence, cheer, being a team player, and above all, beauty.

In January 2018, she was sorted into Casa de Crucifijo, and signed up to be a cheerleader as well as a starter on the volleyball team. They had dedicated a lot of time into cheerdance practice, though she regretted not being able to add or suggest changes to the choreography because of her general shyness at the time, as well as her language barrier.

Once the Sportsfest had begun, the cheerdance routine had gone well until her classmate Chieli Martinez fell while stacking a human pyramid, which lost the event for the house. However, she refused to lose hope, and began preparing for volleyball after a pep talk with her peers. She was a spiker, and despite her age and short stature, she was extremely agile and had a good combination of timing and jumping abilities. This, combined with Ykielle's serves and Chinny's defence, won their match against Navio. They were confident that they would do just as well against Campana; however, while Crucifijo's team was a powerhouse split between three people, Campana was more well-rounded, and therefore won.

She would eventually join the audience in cheering for Crucifijo during the last two events, the 100-metre dash and the girls' basketball final against Cangrejo.

### SportsFest 2019

By December of the same year, Ann Lawson started trying to flirt with her, but Nicole would always dismiss her advances. They were very close friends nonetheless.

She signed up for cheerdance and volleyball once again, confident they could win SportsFest this time. Ann, being an editor of the Spark, would leak information through her; Nicole in return was trusted to leak the information Ann had gathered on their opponents to the cheerdance team, but she was reluctant to speak. In the initial round robin of volleyball, her team won against Navio and Campana, but was beaten in a close call against Cangrejo.

On the second day of SportsFest, she watches as Ann gives her cheerdance intel to Kit herself. They break into a short argument, which ends early as Ann calls her 'cute' and says she'll do a better job next time. Unknown to either of them, Kaitlyn and Hana had beaten them to reaching out to Kat; by then, the cheerdance captain had already agreed to underperform for the sake of Campana winning and securing the throne instead of Cangrejo.

Despite the rigging, Nicole still stood out during their performance, and received accolades from the judges for her gracefulness during a solo sequence.

To make up for what had happened during cheerdance, Nicole decided to leak Ann's intelligence on the Cangrejo volleyball team. During the game, they end up having to defend against several particularly aggressive spikes, with one by Martyn injuring Rosalind Wynncraft. This would be added to the charges against Cangrejo once Kaitlyn had raised the petition.

### SportsFest 2020

Nicole's close friends, as well as Ann, cheered her and her team on during the JAM. She sat as a bench player, but entered the semifinal match against the Picoval Falcons as a pinch server during the second set. They eventually won a gold medal against the Grandhall Golden Knights.

After Erina Burgess announced the changes to inter-house competitions, she revealed the list of sporting events that will be held in 2020; one of these was Game of the Generals, or salpakan, which she was delighted about as it was something she could practice with her mother, who told her that she was extremely observant and knew how to spot and make use of extremely precise details; her dad, new to the game though has read the rulebook, also tells her that since salpakan was a game of psychological warfare and not strategy, Nicole would ace it.

She plays a game against Orelya the next day, winning the game by blitzkrieging her flag, albeit with both spies sacrificed in the early game.

The morning before sign-ups, Ann hands her a sheet detailing the Campana volleyball team's plans. Nicole asks how she knows; Ann reveals she'd infiltrated a Campana house meeting and discovered that long before the sign-ups, they already planned their rosters and the positions that everyone would play in their respective sporting events; their volleyball roster was the only one she could get a copy of. She also overheard that Orelya plans to participate in the exact same set of events Nicole does: Cheerdance, Salpakan, and volleyball.

## Between *SportsFest* and *Wind, Fire & Ice*

After hearing news that Ann had successfully got into MIT, Nicole had to bid goodbye for a few years, focusing on getting her sociology degree at St. Duvalier instead. They managed to call each other several times, and even introduced each other to their new friends, eventually forming a Concord server by February of their first year.

After graduating with an honours degree, Nicole moved in with Tita Kwak and her family in the Philippines to pursue further graduate studies in UP Diliman.

## During *Wind, Fire & Ice*

### Three years prior

Nicole was livestreaming for her 13 million follower milestone on Broadcast when Ann showed her an email sent by Eric Hammel, the CEO of ZoekParty, inviting Nicole (and not Ann) to speak at a seminar. Furthermore, the seminar was hosted by Saint Duvalier University, not by ZoekParty. Nonetheless, she accepted.

Midway through the seminar, the fire alarm triggered. She, Hammel, and the attendees rushed downstairs; as people tried to rush outside, shooters also started entering the premises. Nicole was shot in the shoulder trying to protect Professor Willard before texting Ann "I LOVE YOU" and falling unconscious.

Along with the rest of the victims, she was hauled away by various iterations of "joe".

## Relationships

### Ann Lawson

Nicole first met Ann in high school, and though initially privy towards her for being an arrogant rich kid, they both found that they worked well together, got along, and ultimately, were meant to be together. At first, Nicole didn't like the idea of entering a romantic relationship with her as she wasn't sure if she felt the same way, and was afraid of being judged by her conservative relatives, but she eventually gave in to her feelings just before they graduated together.