PROJECT GLADYS

> "I'll end this bloodline. Forever."
>
> GLADYS, fka Lissandra, to Madeleine.

**PROJECT GLADYS**, in spite of her designation, is never affiliated to the megacorporation. She is a cybernetic warrior created by the security firm, COALESCENCE out of Laura's orders and curiosity. She is an Iceborn sorceress who was supposedly dead, but her she used the firm to commit unlawful acts of murder in the war and used the opportunity to rebuild the Frost-Seekers at the rise of a new era, missing the opportunity to kill her mortal enemy, the most renowned successor of her own sister, Ashe.

When the war has ended, she clearly shown her loyalty to LORD ANNIHILATOR, but she enlisted the help of Wrathful Arrow, proclaiming him as the "*Bane of Clemirosa*".

## Biography

### Background

Long ago in the ancient Avarshi, three sisters sought to unite and bring peace to their homeland, as the actions of old magical creatures ravaged the mortal realm. Seeking to meddle with these magical powers, each of the sisters paid a terrible price, with Nilda losing her voice to the *Aspect of Twilight,* Clemirosa losing her hearing to the *Void*, and Gladys losing her sight to the claws of the *Polarizor*. Realising they would have to work together to make any sort of progress, Gladys and her sisters united on the battle, which made them nearly unstoppable. However, curiosity led the now blind Gladys to instead explore the world of dreams, and the discovery she would make would severely threaten the alliance with her sisters.

### Madness

Gladys had a vision of the Void and the coming of the Watchers, a race of cataclysmic beings that would surely destroy their world and everything she and her sisters had fought for. To prevent this, Lissandra made a pact with the Watchers kept secret from even her own sisters, stating that in exchange for great power and near-immortality, she would prepare Avarshi for the coming of the Void. With the Void's power on her side, the three sisters and their closest followers became the Iceborn, and would have the ability to survive even the harshest cold of the Avarshi. This word was then immortalised to every person born in Avarshi in the present day.

However, Nilda and Clemirosa were displeased with what Lissandra had done, believing she was meddling with forces beyond her control. Gladys tried to appeal to the Watchers for more time, but the Void didn't answer her requests, beginning their invasion in the far north to bring about the end of Ceyraholt.

With Gladys's betrayal revealed to the entirety of Ceyraholt, she froze everyone in the area in a barrier of True Ice, including her sisters, her allies, and the Watchers themselves in an impenetrable prison. Lissandra hoped that her elemental magic would be enough to contain the Void's power, but she soon realised that it was not enough, as the glacial prison was slowly being corrupted from the inside. The prison of the Frozen Watchers was just a delay of the inevitable; Gladys would have to watch over the prison for centuries to prevent another disaster.

Hoping to contain the damage, Gladys gathered her remaining followers to honour herself and her fallen sisters, pledging to gather more True Ice and people descended from modesty to join their cause. Together, they formed the *Frost-Seekers*, and they sought to rewrite history to hide Lissandra's betrayal from future generations. However, with the emergence of the modern successors of Clemirosa and Nilda, the idealist Ashe and conqueror Lilian, Gladys realises that her attempt to end her sisters' legacy has failed, and now seeks to lock away her secrets by pitting their two factions against one another.

### Dawn of Era: An Uprising

Disgusted to hear that Ashe was killed before she got her hands on the rebellion leader, GLADYS sought to learn more about the fate of the Clemirosans. Much to her disgust, Ashe's daughter, Madeleine has lead her family and the entire tribe. Contrary to her expectations, Madeleine is far more capable than she initially thought, and GLADYS knew she is the daughter by seeing her footage in combat, armed with a bow of True Ice.

#### New Heroes, Another Ultimatum

After Madeleine Clemirosa, Ashe's daughter, gathered all tribes into the Clemirosans, the Iceborn, cyborg sorceress GLADYS managed to rip apart some of the unified tribes. This was accomplished by her trickery and cunning, which prevented her from becoming recognised to the majority of the Iceborn population in the territories of Avarshi. Despite the fact that her cyborg body provided her the ability of sight and amplified her powers, she required someone, a herald, to finally put an end to the Clemirosans. Fortunately for her, she discovered an ideal warrior: Wrathful Arrow, a clone of an infamous demonic archer.

She pushed the clone into punishing trials. Gladys was more than impressed, she picked the right warrior. Upon completing the trials, Wrathful Arrow then decides to end the Clemirosan bloodline, and he needs an army to support him. Gladys has shown her support by sharing the defecting members of the unified tribe, whilst Wrathful Arrow now harnessed the power of True Ice, in the form of a bow. When the clone showed his new weapon, Gladys laughed in malicious satisfaction, proclaiming him as the true key to seal the fate of the Clemirosan bloodline.

## Personality

PROJECT GLADYS has no recollection of her past as she was transformed into a cyborg prototype in the COALESCENCE. As a result, she is cold, relentless, and utterly dedicated to the security firm's values, willing to go to any length to safeguard the organisation and their staff. However, she retained aspects of her old nature, such as her brutal approach to killing her targets and her severely unhealthy fascination with True Ice, as proven when she blanketed an entire lab in ice after discovering that a few COALESCENCE cyborgs had attempted to defect.

When the war ended and she realised that someone had slain ASHE-159 before her, GLADYS wished nothing more than to reclaim her command of the *Frost-Seekers*, which she has done in part. Realizing that the only way to destroy the Iceborns was to kill Ashe's daughter, Madeleine, GLADYS set her sights on killing her, which would permanently end the Clemirosans. She began with Wrathful Arrow, an evil warrior she discovered was ideal for channelling the force of True Ice in the form of a bow.

GLADYS notably embodies the word hatred. She lived her long life hating the Clemirosan bloodline, and the fact that she killed most of them in the past shows that she would do anything to destroy the Clemirosa family, with or without help from anyone else.

## Abilities

GLADYS is merely an enhanced version of herself, but the notable upgrade is that she sports a humanoid face, lacking the headdress that she usually wears in the past, now capable of sight. Now, in her prototype cybernetic body, she has a metallic skeleton encased with durable combat armour, sporting a pair of sharp tails as her main weapons, indicating that she still has the unusually high skirt that is in her original body.

### Moveset

* **ICEBORN SUBMISSION**: When an enemy warrior dies near PROJECT GLADYS they become a *Frozen Thrall*. Frozen Thralls slow nearby enemies and then, after a delay, shatter from the intense cold, dealing magic damage to nearby targets.

* **ICY SHARD**: Standard ability, wherein GLADYS shoots a shard of True Ice that damages the target. It can puncture through most metals with ease.

* **FRIGID RING**: The Cybernetic Ice Sorceress unleashes a ring of True Ice, slowing anyone caught in it and later succumbing to death through freezing and hypothermia.

* **GLACIAL PATHWAY**: GLADYS creates a pathway that damages anything in front of her. Reactivating this allows her to dash towards the marked target and eliminate them with a powerful cryo blast.

* **FROZEN TOMB**: GLADYS kills her enemy by encasing them in a solid block of ice, leaving them nowhere to escape nor have the ability to run. The ice can be destroyed by external sources, or she can destroy it at will.

### Skills

* **Master Manipulator**: In the past, she was a skilled manipulator. As a cyborg for COALESCENCE, this cannot be said the same.

* **Brilliant Tactician**: GLADYS is a brilliant tactician and possessed great knowledge over military tactics and strategies.

## Trivia

### General

* GLADYS was one of COALESCENCE's most sinister secrets. If Ashe had discovered that the security firm had transformed one of her adversaries into a lethal cyborg, she would have annihilated them without hesitation, further understanding her reluctance to trust the firm.
* It has been confirmed that GLADYS survived the war and has declared Wrathful Arrow as one of her servants.
* She strives to kill Ashe by herself, but found herself in extreme disappointment when she found out that a mecha did it first. As a result, she decided to hunt the Clemirosans instead, starting with the daughter: Madeleine.
* GLADYS gave Wrathful Arrow access to unlocking his true potential: Becoming a wielder of the bow of True Ice.
* According to her, she still has some control over the Frost Seekers, composed of hundreds.
* Gladys is filled with hatred against nevanity, hoping to enslave Nexonia Prime, through an ice age.

### Developmental Notes

* She is the driving force behind Wrathful Arrow's impactful threats against Iceborns.
* GLADYS became unknowingly affiliated to ULTIMA at the height of LORD ANNIHILATOR's *True Ultimatum* against the entirety of nevanity. However, she bars no regrets on becoming part of the new megacorporation, knowing that it is for the better good.
* Chosen name is Gladys, though her early name is Lissandra.
* She was designed as a last minute addition to the plot. Early plot threads showcases ASHE-159 fighting her mortal enemies, such as her and LILIAN-395 to the death amidst the freezing lands of Avarshi, taking place in *Technological Lies*.
* The decision of making her a side character to a villain was through aligning it with the contemporary storyline, *Dawn of Era: An Uprising*.
* Gladys' tail blades are derived from AELIA-004, which was an inclusion from the other character purely for fun.
* Gladys' bio is directly sourced from the same character, but a different setting.
* The Ice Sorceress manipulates a dark variant of True Ice, called Dark ice.
* She used her powers to upgrade her cybernetic form, a meld of technology and magic, all in one perfect combination.