Carol Tea

Carol, based on her appearance in Tides of Chaos 2

"*Without her... you won't exist. And I won't have the one who stuck with me... who TRULY stuck with me as a sister ever since the Scarves...*"
—Carol Tea, to Sash about her ancestor before she goes to confront Corazon alone
Carol Hizuko Tea is the head mechanic and combat specialtist of AvaMerc, a mercenary group of Avalice and Mobius. She's a hot-headed wildcat girl with a soft spot for a certain kitsune and Crunch Roll sushi, and is known to be the most flexible and reactive of the group.

Carol helped Sash when they originally built the Treehouse base. When she's not tinkering with her mechanical contracts or doing some work with Tails, she's usually seen at various dojos in Shang Mu or scrap shops for materials for her contracts.

## Appearance

Carol is a moderate-bust light green furred Avalician wildcat, with darker green accents across her limbs and face, with white fur on her torso, outlined by a thin yellow fur outline, coming up to just below her neck. She also has a black-tipped green tail and black tips on her ears. Her normal attire consists of a form-fitting U-cut black sports bra and short green cargo shorts, tied off with a hemp rope belt. She also wears specially customized boots and fingerless gloves, as well as an arm sleeve with a red fire pattern on it. Usually seen with her are one of two weapons; either a black leather-wrapped hilted steel blade katana, which was originally a gift from Coral, or the Mech-Blade, a piece of draconic technology forged as a piece of the Tea lineage.

## Personality

Known for being sometimes dangerously reckless, Carol has a heart for always living for the moment and loving her friends. Carol acts reckless for the most part, but mostly for trying to be living in the moment and being herself. She's gotten a bit more interested into mechanics into the past couple of years thanks to her lovable kitsune, and she's slowly been working on modifying her bike to make it a bit more sleek and practical.

## Affinities

 *Stage 2:****Metal Claw*** | Major improvements to the Whirlwind Claw, greatly reducing the energy cost while increasing speed and protection. | ×

## Skills

* **Wild Claw:** Part of her affinity and training as a Tea, Carol's claws are honed and sharpened enough to rip through reinforced steel.
* **Reflexes & Flexibility:** Carol, being a feline species Avalician, has a surprising amount of flexibility and lightning-fast reflexes. She can usually react to things within split-seconds to danger. She's also able to squeeze her body through holes she can fit her head into, and bend an contort her body to fit into cramped spaces for hiding.
* **Swordplay & Overrides:** Carol is adept at using her katana in a fight, and is able to perform a manual override whenever she stabs it into the central brain unit of a robot or mech.

## History

### The Threatened Timeline Incident

Three years pass since the Crossed Worlds Incident, and Carol has become part of a mercenary group with her pals on Avalice while taking contracts for good pay. Recently their contract has them tracking down an unknown criminal that has been genociding dragons across Avalice, culminating in AvaMerc having a meeting with the Kingdom leaders in Shang Mu. The meeting progresses normally until several explosions are heard outside, AvaMerc rushing out to find several parts of the city up in flames before they encounter the culprit behind it; Corazon Tea with a mysterious figure accompanying her. Before they leave, she has her greasemonkey deploy several mechs to destroy the rest of Shang Mu and take more countless lives. AvaMerc springs into action and takes care of the situation before they plan a ruin investigation they think might be linked to this.

Upon investigating the ruins, the group finds an old teleporter to a dragon tech base. After warping there and having another run-in with Corazon, the group finds old audio logs that reveal some rather telling info on Corazon's 'mistress' Merga. Once they get out of the base, they head for Mobius to head to the past and find out what's going on.

Upon reaching the South Lakes on Mobius, the group meet Amy and Cream, who have done some growing in the time Sonic and Tails were away from Mobius. The seven head to the past to confront the group, only for Merga to reawaken the Bakunawa. Sonic and Sash give pursuit onto the airship, whine the rest of the group pursuits them back to Avalice to cause an intervention.

After a failed intervention leaving most of Shang Mu destroyed, Zao berates the group thoroughly before ending with unintentionally insulting Carol's bloodline. Broken and demoralized, Carol abandons the group to hide away for the rest of the incident... had it not been for Tails following her. After some convincing, Carol gives it one last shot and heads back to the Treehouse to regroup.

After returning and saving Sash's life in the nick of time, the group prepares a diversion on Shang Mu to goad Corazon into firing. After a successful goading and detonation, Corazon loses it and plans to erase the history of the two planets altogether. The group chases them down there back to the past to put an end to her schemes for good.