Eli Drake

Eli (left) playing Hop Dance Mania with Kara.

**Elijah Drake**, better known as **Eli**, is a character in *Magical Girl Policy*. He also makes a minor appearance in the "Monster Insurance" vignette. A freshman at SAU, Eli finds himself involved with the Spirit Guard after a monster attack at work causes his roommate Robert to mysteriously glow and catch the heroes' attention. After inadvertently learning the secret identities of the Spirit Guards, including his sister Mallory, he and his best friend Cory Frost become confidants for the team. Eli has no special skills but supports Rob, Mallory, and the rest of the Spirit Guard however he can. The story occasionally shifts to Eli's perspective to show the world from the eyes of a normal person surrounded by superpowered friends.

## Appearance

Eli is eighteen years old and has a scrawny build that belies his fitness from playing the dancing video game *Hop Dance Mania*. He has short brown hair and green eyes (brown in artwork), with the latter said to have a stern gaze inherited from his father and shared with his sister. Eli is insecure about his height of 5'5'', jealous of his sister for being six feet tall.

## Personality

Eli has a strong sense of responsibility, but is shy and can be socially awkward at times. He is usually rather meek, but if someone close to him is in danger he will disregard his personal safety to aid them. He prefers people call him Eli, and for the most part only his family addresses him as Elijah. His tendency to go on tangents with Cory can unintentionally exclude others from conversation with him, which has him struggle to make new friends. He has difficulty committing names to memory; he often has to meet someone more than once before he correctly remembers their name. Eli's type is girls with blue hair, but his shyness had hindered him from getting into a relationship until he meets Kara.

Eli greatly values honesty and hates keeping secrets. He is a rather poor actor as his body language often reveals his true feelings, so he usually follows Cory's lead when lying. He makes a particularly wide grin when trying to hide his excitement and often wrings his hands when he's hesitant to say something, sharing the latter tic with Mallory. He has a tendency to feel guilty over things even if he is not at fault.

A typical nerd, Eli's hobbies include video games, trading card games, and anime. His favorite video game is *Hop Dance Mania*, which he regularly plays both at home and at the arcade. He is also skilled at the fighting game *Mega Mash Family* and shooter game *Corona Forge*, with him being the best player at his high school at the latter. In the *Invokers* card game, he plays a Purple deck and along with Cory has been a regular tournament participant at the Dungeon Direct shop since the two were in middle school, now playing with fellow SFEERS members as well. Eli's online handle, Quack, is derived from his last name: "Drake" can refer to a male duck, and "quack" is a duck's onomatopoeia.

Eli develops a guilty conscience over his relations with the Spirit Guard. He feels like a creep for finding out their identities when he and Cory spy on Robert's meeting with them. He hates how useless he is while his sister is in constant danger as Spirit Guard Tenacity, and feels especially terrible when it falls to Rob to save Mallory's life. Eli feels directly responsible for Rob's decision to transform into Spirit Guard Serenity, and considers Fate cruel for giving Robynne a destiny where her life is ruined and she's forced into a body she hates.

## Abilities

Like many people in Kessia City, Eli has a large Investiture that is desirable for monsters to drain. Eli unknowingly possesses an aura, but it does not appear to do anything. It is so faint that only Robynne's superior empathokinetic perception can detect it, which senses the aura as giving off a bland, tofu-like taste. Rob and Angela are the only ones known to be aware of the aura's existence.

Eli is skilled in the *Invokers* card game as well as the video games *Hop Dance Mania*, *Corona Forge*, and *Mega Mash Family*.

## Biography

### Background

Elijah Drake was born in Kessia City as the second and youngest child of a rich family. He has always been extremely close to his big sister Mallory and has been best friends with Cory Frost since kindergarten. Eli's father is strict with his son in an attempt to teach him manly responsibility; unlike the doted-on Mallory, Eli has to save up to buy his own car, which he does not yet have, as well as keep a job during college. The summer after graduating high school, Eli becomes a part-time employee at the arcade Loose Change. He takes notice of a blue-haired girl who frequently visits the arcade to play *Hop Dance Mania*. He would like to ask her out, but is too shy to approach her, who he dubs the "HDM Girl".

Eli attends Schuyler Adamson University and shares a dorm room in Burton Hall with Cory. One week before classes start, they are joined by another roommate, Robert, who shares their nerdy interests and quickly becomes their friend.

### Week 1

The day before classes start at SAU, Loose Change receives a game called *Zombie Mansion*. Eli notices that the people who play the game seem to get addicted yet sickly and sluggish, but after examining the game booth he doesn't find any traces of drug use or anything else that might explain the odd situation. The children's unsettling behavior causes some customers to leave, which to Eli's frustration includes the HDM Girl, who he'd been working up the courage to talk to. He tells Robert and Cory about all of this when they visit the arcade, so his two friends decide to play *Zombie Mansion* themselves to investigate. Behind the booth's curtain, Rob and Cory discover the machine is inhabited by a monster called Polygal, who drains those who play the game of their Investiture. There is an explosive reaction when Rob somehow resists being drained, flinging him and Cory across the room and revealing the monster to everyone in the arcade. While everyone else gets out of the building, Rob has started mysteriously glowing and stands up to Polygal, with Cory and Eli staying behind to help him. The trio's attempt to oppose the monster sees Robert get ensnared and Cory and Eli held at gunpoint, but they are saved by the Spirit Guard. During the fight, Rob overhears the heroes talk about his now fading glow, so he demands answers from them after Polygal is killed. They tell him they will get in touch with him once they figure out why he glowed, and while Rob is suspicious of the heroes he's never heard of and reluctant to give them his phone number, Cory and Eli tell him the Spirit Guard has been in Kessia City for over a year and can be trusted to keep their word.

Shortly after the Spirit Guards leave, the police enter the arcade to investigate the scene. Eli, Cory, and Robert are questioned about the attack, though they omit parts pertaining to Rob glowing, and are released five hours later. At their dorm, Eli and Cory explain the Spirit Guard to Rob. As Rob had asked, Eli draws the symbol that appeared on Rob's forehead along with the glow, and the trio tries to make sense of all that happened. Mallory visits the dorm with Vivian, as Eli hadn't answered his phone since he lost it during the attack at his workplace, but the two girls are secretly more interested in how Robert acted during the attack. After the trio explains what happened, Mallory berates Eli for not running from Polygal and tells him to leave monsters to the Spirit Guard.

The next day, Eli gets his last paycheck for what is expected to be six weeks, as Loose Change has closed for repairs. On the way to cash the check, he visits Mallory's apartment to retrieve a graphing calculator she had borrowed from him. At the door, he overhears part of a conversation between Mallory and her friends, which unknown to him is a discussion on Robert's character and worthiness of joining the Spirit Guard. Eli meets Mallory's roommate Angela as well as her friends Vivian, Noriko, and Kara. Eli and Kara recognize each other, as she's the "HDM Girl" he'd been crushing on at work; the two hit it off as he helps carry the cookies she baked to her dorm.

Later that afternoon, Eli and Cory are telling Robert about their recent good luck with the girls they're interested in when Rob gets a text from the Spirit Guard: they've found the meaning of his glow and ask him to meet them alone at the Standridge Hill Stone Circle tomorrow night. Eli and Cory think Rob is being paranoid for worrying about what the superheroes might do there, but agree to remotely record the meeting just in case. Cory drives the trio to the park at the appointed time, and the first part of their plan has Robert pretend to remove Cory and Eli's involvement and send them away. The pair drives along a back road and hides out at the groundskeeper's shack, where Eli calls Rob's phone to record the meeting's sound while a hidden camera on Rob's headphones transmits video to Cory's laptop. Eli and Cory watch the Spirit Guard explain Fate, their Ardent Empire origins, their mission to defeat Platicore, and Rob's glow that marks him as the Champion chosen to become Spirit Guard Serenity. Robert receives his Spirit Stick but refuses to transform, as the side effects would force him to live as a woman and ruin his life. One reason he gives is that transforming as the Spirit Guards want would force him apart from Cory and Eli, but Tenacity says he could still be part of their lives and convinces the heroes to reveal their identities to him: Kara, Vivian, Angela, and Mallory. Cory and Eli are caught by Noriko, who confiscates Cory's laptop and threatens the pair into showing themselves to the Spirit Guards. Having found out his sister is Spirit Guard Tenacity, Eli is furious that Mallory hid her life-threatening superhero career from her family, while Mallory can't believe he ignored her warning and got involved in the Spirit Guard's business. Fearing the reaction of their overprotective father, Mallory convinces Eli not to tell their him or their mother, and Eli has her promise to be more open about such things with him like they always have. With Eli, Cory, and Robert sworn to secrecy, everyone leaves.

The next day, Eli is visited by Kara, who returns Cory's laptop now that its video of the meeting has been wiped by the Hush Corps. Eli apologizes for spying on the meeting last night, explaining that while he had the right to know his sister is in mortal danger, it wasn't fair to learn the other Spirit Guards' identities along with it. As a way to make it up to Kara, Eli allows her to borrow Cory's GameStation console so she can play *Hop Dance Mania* at home while the arcade is closed.

The next day, Eli, Cory, and Robert go to Rale Valley Mall. They visit the Dungeon Direct store, with Cory making Eli buy him *Invokers* booster packs as payback for giving his GameStation away without permission. Rob finishes buying his *Collider* comic ahead of them and finds Angela and Mallory outside the shop; they along with Kara and Vivian put their shopping trip on hold after sensing a strange hum. Rob has felt it too and offers to join the search, but Mallory knows Eli and Cory will accompany him, so she asks him to leave the mall so he doesn't lead his roommates into possible danger. Rob complies, so when Cory and Eli exit Dungeon Direct and join the group, the conversation quickly finishes and the trio heads for the mall's exit. Before they can leave, the humming is revealed to be a mannequin monster called Day LaMode, who pursues the trio around the mall in hopes of capturing Robert for resisting her Investiture drain and glowing. The friends get bailed out by the Spirit Guard twice, but the second time has Tenacity arrive alone to rescue her brother. Tenacity can't keep up with the faster LaMode and is gravely injured, with Robert having to keep Eli from suicidally running to his sister's side. Mallory's impending death drives the helpless Eli and Cory to tears, causing Robert to order his friends to flee without him so he can transform into Spirit Guard Serenity and rescue her. Eli feels incredible guilt over the comfort he gets from this as well as it being Rob and not him that has to make the sacrifice to save Mallory's life. On Eli and Cory's way out, Noriko appears to direct them toward the HushMobile, where they work with Nick and Will Siekert so evidence of Rob, Cory, and Eli having been in the mall may be removed.

Back at his dorm, Eli works with Cory and Angela to pack up Rob's belongings so they can be moved to Rob's new dorm. When Angela beats herself up over how things could've gone differently if she had convinced Tenacity to stick with the team and Robert to transform earlier, Eli tells her nothing can stop Mallory from protecting her brother, and that Rob only transformed because the decision to save Mallory's life was his own rather than something pushed onto him by the manipulation of Fate and the Shrine Maiden.

After moving everything into Rob's new dorm, Eli's transformed friend appears. Eli and Cory reflexively check out the attractive woman before recognizing Rob by the unchanged expression in her eyes. They discuss Mallory's condition, with Eli offering to help Angela look after her. Rob tells them about her new identity of Robynne Darling, though she has no problem with Eli and Cory continuing to call her Rob. Robynne, not wanting her existential crisis to become apparent and make Eli feel even more guilty, has the others leave so she can eat dinner alone and think. Everyone is concerned about this but complies, with Eli and Cory making it clear they can be called for any reason and that their dorm is still a home for Rob.

On the way back to their dorm, Eli and Cory vent about the insanity of everything that's occurred. Eli shoots down Cory's theory of Fate being involved in Rob meeting them, saying their friendship was their own decision and that Rob would've transformed to save the life of anyone, not just the sister of a friend. The two feel immense guilt for ogling Robynne and consider it cruel that Fate has cursed Rob with such a body, with Eli admitting he had assumed Robynne would closely resemble Robert. Their conversation is interrupted by Dale, their new roommate that had arrived late. They explain Robert's disappearance as him returning to Deepwater after his father died. Though Eli gets along well with Dale, he is annoyed at how the timing of Dale's arrival colors him as a Rob replacement, and curses Fate for Dale having a thing for scarlettes like Robynne.

### Weeks 2-4

The following morning, Eli comes over to Mallory's apartment to check on his recovering sister. Noticing Angela's lack of sleep over worrying about Mal and Rob, he makes her take a nap while he looks after his sister. Mal tells him that, Robynne, despite her brave face, needs the support of her friends now more than ever. She also says her near-death experience made her realize it'd be for the best if she revealed her secret identity to their parents in the near future.

The next day, Eli, Cory, Kara, and Vivian check out the booths set up for Club Week. They visit the SFEERS booth manned by ergoAwesome and Zemiron. Eli finds out the club has an *Aspect Realms* guild and decides to recommend it to Robynne later. Eli, interested in the club's *Invokers* and *Corona Forge* groups, signs up along with Cory under their respective handles Quack and CannedBurrito. Despite their limited range of nerdy interests, Kara and Vivian join as well, wanting to be there for Robynne.

Eli, Cory, Kara, Vivian, and Noriko meet with Robynne in her dorm the next day and talk about how her first day back to classes went. She says things could've been worse, but she did check out the SFEERS booth and join the club, making particular note of club president Fretribution's unusual aura of crushed velvet texture. Eli is relieved to see Angela appear with Mallory, who has greatly recovered thanks to her healing factor. Robynne is concluded to have the best empathokinetic sense in her tests with Angela, and is the only one to notice a faint aura on Eli that she compares to the bland taste of tofu, but refrains from going into detail with Angela as she feels it would be unflattering for Eli.

Two days later at Eli's dorm, Eli and Cory are shocked when Robynne explains her plan to join the cheer team in order to spy on the dangerous cheer captain Cammy DeCroix and topple her schemes. Eli is worried Rob is suffocating her life with such responsibilities when her situation clearly calls for more outlets of release. They are unexpectedly interrupted by Dale, whose scarlette kink Eli and Cory had warned Robynne about and as a result held the meeting during his band practice. Dale shows immediate interest in Robynne, so Eli and Cory cover for her by saying they met her because she's an old friend of Robert's, who had left for home when his father died. Robynne is uncomfortable around Dale and quickly excuses herself. She decides not to tell Eli and Cory about Dale's relaxing textured aura until she learns more about its potential effects.

Eli attends the SFEERS opening social with Robynne, Cory, Vivian, Kara, and Stacy. Eli tries and fails to explain Cory's *Invokers* game to Stacy, so he and Kara play *Hop Dance Mania* with her instead, though Stacy eventually leaves the two when she feels they want some one-on-one time. After the social, the group hang out at Eli's dorm for a while, with Robynne leaving shortly after Stacy to let her coupled friends be. Eli eventually walks Kara back to her dorm before returning to sleep.

Eli and Dale wake up in the morning to find Cory and Vivian asleep on the couch, which is against the dorm's rule of not letting guests spend the night. Eli explains that he and Cory know Kara and Vivian for being Robynne's roommates and fellow SFEERS members. Dale expresses some interest in the club, but Eli fears Dale being in SFEERS would unnerve Robynne and does his best to dissuade Dale. Vivian, annoyed that Cory let her fall asleep, wakes up and rushes off to meet her family for church. Dale answers a knock at the door and is confused by the boxes of computer components for "Bluster", with Eli and Cory remembering this is what Robynne extorted from Cammy in return for joining the cheer team. They notice the cheerleader Sanvi watching the delivery, and she then comes to their door to promote a party. Eli deduces Sanvi must've been sent by Cammy to watch the packages and find out who Robynne had entrusted them to, and it's apparent that Sanvi assumes the more attractive Dale is the one. After Sanvi leaves, Cory explains the delivery to Dale as Robynne asking Robert to order the parts for her since he has a discount from his Online Jungle Premium subscription. In order to keep Dale away from Robynne, Eli turns down his offer to bring the parts to her dorm and calls Mallory instead. Later, Eli warns Robynne that Dale was seen receiving her computer parts, as it creates a rumor of her dating him that she has to deal with.

At some point over the following two weeks, Eli participates in a meeting with the entire Spirit Guard team to plan out Robynne's infiltration of the cheer team. Wanting to help Robynne in her stressful life, Cory and Eli come up with the "Guys' Night", a recurring get-together focused on the three of them; by giving Rob a break from her new roommates in favor of her original ones, the goal is to bring Rob the sort of comfortable experiences she had before she transformed. The first Guys' Night is at the Cory and Eli's dorm, but Dale shows up and hits on Rob. The second goes better with the group playing video games at Rob's dorm with Vivian and Kara, but the trio feels the girlfriends' inclusion went against the purpose of the Guys' Night, so they decide future instances will be away from the dorms.

It is also during this period that Mallory reveals she is a Spirit Guard to her parents. In order to make her father go easier on Eli, she exaggerates Eli's involvement in the Polygal attack by claiming he went out of his way to lead the children to safety. This convinces their father that Eli has fully learned discipline and no longer needs a job while at college. After learning of this, Eli decides he will likely not return to work Loose Change. He does, however, go there for his first date with Kara, which works out well.

### Week 5

Eli, Cory, and Robynne head to Buy Bright to find a birthday present for Cory's father on their way to a Guys' Night at the Headlights restaurant. Mallory had apparently forgotten to tell Rob about the meeting with her parents about Spirit Guard business, so Eli fills Rob in on what happened. The trio finds Stacy and briefly chats with her. Shortly after Stacy splits from the group, Rob senses trace amounts of Investiture getting drained from people all around them. When a particular store employee touches a phone, a sort of empathokinetic virus is placed that spreads around and drains Investiture from a person whenever their phone sends a message, with the energy flowing to the employee. The trio predicts the virus will quickly spread to the whole city if left alone for long, so Rob has Cory and Eli contact the rest of the team and gives them her own infected phone for Will to examine. Eli advises against starting the fight alone, but Rob wants to deal with the monster before it gets much stronger and so sends her friends away. Eli is proven right as Serenity is ambushed by the revealed Cell-celia immediately after transforming, as the monster's signal-based detection system had her notice Rob and co.'s suspicious movements right away. The difficult battle is won after Spirit Guards Charity and Valor arrive, and while debriefing with Kunapipi, Rob finds that Cory and Eli have not yet met with the Hush Corps to deliver her phone.

Eli plans to participate in SFEERS's *Mega Mash Family Battle* tournament the following night. He learns that Dale has also decided to attend the event, so he texts Kara about it and she tells the other Spirit Guards and Noriko at their afternoon meeting.

## Relationships

### Cory Frost

Eli has been best friends with Cory since the two were in kindergarten. The pair shares the same hobbies and are inseparable to the point where some think of them as a single unit. The two often get sidetracked in conversation to the exclusion of those around them, which is a contributing factor to their friendship being prohibitively tight-knit. Eli often ends up playing the straight man to his more dramatic, jokey, and mischievous friend. Eli can often predict what Cory is thinking and vice-versa. Cory is so close to Eli and Mallory that he considers himself an honorary member of the Drake family.

### Mallory Drake

Eli and his older sister Mallory have always been incredibly close. He is jealous over his sister's preferential treatment by their father, but never holds it against her. Mallory teases Eli by treating him like a little kid and dismissing his nerdy hobbies, but the two think very highly of each other, with Mallory even admitting to her friends that Eli is more responsible than her. The two have never kept important secrets from one another, which leads to Eli's uncharacteristic fury when he discovers his sister has been risking her life as Spirit Guard Tenacity. Whenever the siblings argue, they do so in alternating waves of anger and cooling off, as their shared stern expression makes it difficult to maintain eye contact with one another. The older, more athletic Mallory has always been protective of her meeker brother, but Eli too will fly to his sister's defense at a moment's notice.

### Robert Dreese/Robynne Darling

Eli immediately bonds with his roommate Robert over their shared interests, and he and Cory take to calling him Rob. In the span of a week, Rob manages to become part of Eli and Cory's seemingly impenetrable friendship, with the three so loyal that they'll endanger themselves to stand by each other. Eli feels extraordinary guilt over Robert transforming into Spirit Guard Serenity, believing it's not fair that Fate has made it so his friend is the one to sacrifice his way of life to save Mallory. The transformed Robynne tries her best to soothe Eli's guilt, but Eli can tell through her calm exterior that she's heavily burdened by the life thrust upon her. They no longer room with her, but Eli and Cory's friendship with Rob is otherwise unchanged, which serves as a pillar of stability for her in a situation where nothing is the same. Eli is constantly concerned for Robynne's well-being and supports her in any way he can, such as finding her a new *Aspect Realms* group at SFEERS and arranging "Guys' Nights" where she can take a break from her female roommates to hang with Eli and Cory just like old times.

### Kara Balmer

Eli had been infatuated with Kara ever since he would watch her regularly play *Hop Dance Mania* at the arcade he worked at, with him admitting to Rob and Cory that she's basically his dream girl. Once they formally meet, the two recognize each other and immediately hit it off. Eli spying on Robert's meeting with the Spirit Guard hurts her, but she understands Eli's position of worrying over Mallory as a younger sibling herself, and Eli's sincere apology as well as lending her Cory's GameStation to play *HDM* at home patches things up. Kara joins SFEERS in part as a way to get closer to Eli. The two eventually start dating, with Kara liking to cook for Eli and play *HDM* with him.

### Vivian Feliz

Eli finds Vivian to be similar to Cory, as she fits right in with the two friends. Eli is surprised to see the sometimes insufferable Cory make a strong impression on her. Eli, Cory, Kara, and Vivian being together often forms into something of a double date.

### Angela Warrant

Eli is quick to befriend Angela for being Mallory's closest friend and doing everything she can to help Rob. Eli looks out for her by readily pointing out when she's unnecessarily stressing herself over things she can't control or spreading herself too thin as the Spirit Guard's leader.

### Noriko Yukimura

Eli is often uneasy around Noriko for being a ninja that would gladly kill if allowed, but decides to trust her since Mallory does. Kara tells him that Noriko's upbringing has made it difficult for her to fit in with regular people, but she means no harm.

### Dale Bridges

Eli quickly befriends his new roommate Dale, but laments how the situation with Robynne has tainted Eli's perception of him. Dale arriving mere hours after Rob is moved out has Eli feel like he's some sort of replacement to Rob, not liking how he lives in what was once Robert's room. Eli's promise of his dorm still being home to Robynne is difficult to keep when they have to make sure Dale is absent when she comes over, as his thinly veiled attraction to her makes her uncomfortable.

## In *MGP Alpha*

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## Trivia

* In the August 2016 Q&A, Taralynn Andrews gives some background on the creation of Eli:
	+ Eli and Cory's roles as two normal friends of the extraordinary protagonist stem from the characters Kunkida and Taniguchi from the anime series *The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi*.
	+ Eli's last name of Drake is derived from the name of Andrews's online friend Duck, as "drake" is a word for a male duck.
	+ Eli's personality and being the straight man was born from Andrews, Duck, and Frostykun simulating conversations between Rob, Eli, and Cory during the early stages of *Magical Girl Policy*. Andrews cites this as a reason she finds Eli and Cory's dialogue easy to write.
* In the November 2016 Q&A, Andrews imagines Eli's Halloweens often involve Cory dragging him and Mallory into watching schlocky horror films.