Soliana "Colt Python" Marquese

**Soliana Marquese**, better known as "Colt Python", is a member of the Snake Tong and its Unit 8, the Cloak and Dagger team for Assassination and Espionage missions. A former street rat from France abandoned by family, she was adopted into the Tong and trained to be one of their agents, her Physic ability allows her to bypass normal magical defenses by Plunder. And when all else fails, nothing beats a good ole' headshot with her Colt Python revolver, her namesake.

## Background

Soliana Marquese, or Colt Python as she would prefer to be called, is the last known member of the Marquese family. She was born in Versailles, France. The Marquese family were renowned within the Grand Order for having a particularly powerful psychic ability, the ability to plundering very concepts from objects and even people. As a young girlm Soliana was a rowdy young lady. She loved to run around, get into things she shouldn’t, and was much more interested in speeding her time roaming the city then taking her training seriously. It was during these escapades that she met her childhood friend who wasn’t involved in the mystic world, so hanging out with him was like a relief from the pressure of her life. She would often sneak out to hang out with him. It was this habit that ultimately saved her life. One night, after coming back from an escapade Soliana found her family home deserted. *“Mom? Dad?”* the young girl called out looking through the estate. She scoured it for hours and hours finding nothing. They were just gone.

The next years would be very tough on Soliana. Eventually, her family home was taken, leaving her on the streets. Her friend Mathis wasn’t visiting at that point so she was all alone. She had to get smart and survive on the streets. So, she began to rely on her psychic ability. Stealing food and money from people. This on the job training worked wonders for progressing her abilities. She made sure only to steal enough for herself, and would sometimes help the other children she met on the street as well. She had to keep one jump ahead of the lawmen, and one swing ahead of the sword. She would only steal what she couldn’t afford, which was everything). Soliana would be offered the opportunity to escape this life soon enough.

It was like any normal day. Soliana was scoping out targets when she came across a peculiar group. People dressed in fancy suits sneaking around the streets. Curious about them, she followed them trailing them throughout the streets. Seeing an opening, Soliana stole from them, and ran away with her spoils. She went back to her common hiding place, only to run into the woman she’d stolen from. She was floored that she was not only able to track her down, but sneak up in her as well. She went to flee, but was offered a proposition by the woman. Come join her organization, where she would be fed and clothed. Soliana refused at first, leading to what the woman referred to as a “surprise adoption”.

So Soliana was “adopted” from France to the Philippines. When she first awoke she was angered by the “adoption”. She was very stubborn in the beginning, even refusing to eat. Of course this endeared her to Katja even more who tried harder to move past her stubbornness to get her to join. Katja would visit her on a daily basis, and bring along food which would be refused by Soliana. She did appreciate the visits after awhile slowly warming up to the woman. Eventually, she opened up to the mercenary telling her about how she was abandoned by her family. Recognizing the issues, the eccentric women began to slowly counsel Soliana in her own way. After a couple months of this, the girl had completely opened up to the woman. With a little bit more convincing, Soliana joined her squad. At first she was very shy. All the other members seemed a lot more experienced and better in every way. She felt inferior to them, and essentially bumbled through her first missions. Her psychic ability came in handy a couple times, but it was nothing anyone else couldn’t have done. During this time she began to become attached to Mao, one of the Unit 8 agents. She often was “babysat” by the Stray Cat, and began to openly admire her. She also began to break out of her shy shell.

The first few missions are always the hardest. After those initial hurdles, Soliana began to improve drastically. In addition to her training with the squad she began to pick up various traits from them as well. Most notably her love of guns, and multi-genre taste in music. When it came time to choose her code name, she picked Colt Python based on the most powerful revolver in the world. With her training her proficiency with her abilities progressed. She slowly but surely began to pull her own weight in the squad. There’s were some notable missions like the great tennis match, the grand underwear caper, and the legendary golden hoof heist. Her sneaky ability to steal things undetected was critical in certain operations as well. Colt was flying high with a new family, and was even glad that she finally wasn't the "youngest" when Fang-od joined the team.

## Personality

Colt likes to portray the façade of a calm and collected merc who always gets the job done at the end of the day. In this manner, she acts rather cold and heartless to those who don’t know her. However, anyone who has known her for more than a day knows this is a big lie. Colt acts like this mainly due to the influence of her "senpai" and her "Granny Senpai". The real Colt is a lot more reckless and willing to take huge risks to accomplish her goals. She is someone who can see an opportunity, and shoot her shot at it, then smile even if she misses. When put in a team it can lead to her getting her mates into some crazy situations. With this in mind, her intelligence, analytical skills, and attention to details can turn these disadvantageous situations into power moves that end up with them on top. Colt can also be rather impulsive, and stubborn, and has a tendency to latch onto people who show her affection. It can get to the point of becoming slightly overbearing at times.

There is a reason for this behavior. When she was young, Colt was abandoned by her parents in her view. She did not know that they hid her to protect her from the ones coming after their family, so she ended up blaming them for the misery she suffered on the streets. Where she had to steal to survive, and often went hungry. Thanks to this Colt latches onto the people she likes, viewing it as a way to prevent them from leaving. She is relatively pretty easy to tease, for an example complimenting her sexy French accent is a sure was to get her red. However, she doesn’t want to show too much affection as that could be seen as weird. There is one exception to this rule however...

Mao. Or as Colt refers to as Senpai. Colt idolizes Mao to the highest degree. It’s akin to a teenage girl’s crush on a pop sensation. It started from the first time she saw the Stray Cat in action. Colt believed her to be so cool, and perfect in every way. Following this intense blind admiration is what led her to being taken into the Shiai-Shi. This made her place more admiration towards Mao as the one who got her out of her predicament. From that day forward she trained hard to try to impress and earn the respect of her senpai. She'd relish missions together, or exchanging banter in their off-time, to trying to beat Mao when they play fighting games, or during Katja's Beer and Boardgames nights at their café hangout.

Colt is huge fan of music. Her taste is strange, and all over the place. You could go from classical piano to gangsta rap in the span of one song. She likes randomizing it so she can feel surprised by what songs come on. She is secretly a huge nerd, but she tries to keep this under wraps as it conflicts with her cool persona. She inherited her love of guns, with her favorite being the Colt Python revolver series from which she gets her code name. She has a soft spot for little kids, and is surprisingly good at handling them. Colt is pretty infamous for her inability to stay still. She is constantly in motion and feels uncomfortable when forced to stop moving. Her colleagues think she might have ADHD, but she denies it. She enjoys spicy foods and dislikes bitter bland tasting shit. Season your food! She tends to smother those she likes, but to this day has never had a significant other.

## Abilities

### Plunder

Colt Python has a unique psychic ability that goes by the name of **Plunder**. An ability that allows her to steal aspects from other objects and people. Due to training with Unit 8 and other Drillmasters of the Tong, her control over the ability has progressed to high levels of optimization. There are two ways she usually uses this ability, at range, and up close. When stealing an object, they are contained within bubbles for future use. Due to how the ability functions it is able to bypass a magus’s resistance making her an indispensable asset to the Snake Tong.

**Long Range:** It requires a direct line of sight with the object that she is plundering, but she is able to steal physical objects from a distance. It makes her very useful in stealth missions as she can use her ability to disarm an opponent from far. It can even be used as a projectile defense, as long as she can see said attacks. The longer range is actually an innovation pioneered by Colt based off of her mission experience.

**Short Range:** The bread and butter of the psychic ability. It is at its most useful in short range. There is one main stipulation for this is physical contact with what she is plundering. While she can plunder from a distance it is much more potent when she can make physical contact with the object. When doing this, she can go beyond just taking physical objects. More abstract objects can be taken such as; the sound from one’s body, The sight from ones eyes, the hearing from ones ears so on and so forth. It is a very versatile ability that has seen Colt through a multitude of missions.

### Magic

While her parents were magi, they primarily focused on their innate psychic abilities. Colt was trained in the basics in her youth but neglected further study. It was only after she became part of Unit 8 that she learned combat magic as well as the fundamental magic one needed to study to make them effective when fighting other magi.

### Martial Arts

Gjerta and Katja have drilled their mix of intense close quarters combat training into Soliana, and further honed thanks to constant sparring with Cards and Mao. While she preferred guns, Soliana does not shy away when forced to fight in melee. Her Plunder combined with multiple styles of martial arts make her a deadly fighter. Outside of her psychic abilities, Colt is a crack shot. Her specialty is one handed firearms as they are light, and allow her to move around easily. She prioritizes a speedy approach reminiscent of her street rat days.

### Equipment

#### Snake Key

A standard issue Balisong knife made to disperse magic without alerting the source, allowing agents to create holes in magical defenses undetected, hence the title of a key. It is not suited for intense battle and Colt mostly uses it for utility and weakening the magical defenses of an enemy via Reinforcement or Alteration.

#### S11 'BB' Bulletproof Body Suit

Standard issue magic armor that Snake Tong provides its members. It is a black suit which was made to be bulletproof (tested with 9mm, 7.62, NATO/.308) and provides magic resistance, dispelling low level spells. It is considered to be one of the iconic uniforms of the Shiai-shi. The suit is made with a composite of multiple magical materials, a major one being Huohuan Bu Silk from a Spider Yaoguai. This makes the Suit durable (enough to withstand modern gunfire and magical projectiles), easily enchantable with magic, and has innate fire resistance. If the Suit was stained, one simply needs to burn the area with the stain and the mess will soon disappear without damaging the cloth. Soliana had a custom design she personally sent in, and the Tong Outfitter gladly obliged, featuring white and green colors.

#### "Shroud Ties"

Shroud Ties are standard issue magic armor and head protection, cleverly disguised as neckties that allow them to blend in with the Bulletproof Snake suit style. By pulling down the tie and channeling mana through them, the ties transform into balaclava masks that provide full coverage of the head and neck. The material is made to be as bulletproof as the suits and also provide the same magical protection. The Shroud Tie can be deactivated by the user removing the mask, and it will turn back into their necktie forms.

Soliana also had her Shroud customized to be the same green as her suit as well as feature white Python fangs on the mask.