Eliza Lockheed

### Affiliation

Umbra Witch clan(defunct), Umbral Moon(formerly), Fenians(formerly), Irish Republican Army(formerly), Maquis(formerly), Masters of the Mystic Arts(formerly), Children of Sol(formerly), Highlander Arsenal, Terra Firma Heavy Engineering, Arcanus Military Industries, Galactic Federation Bounty Hunters, Terran Confederation Marine Corps

Elizabeth d’Arc, currently known as Eliza Lockheed, is a de-pacted Umbra Witch of elven heritage, and to date, the only known such hybrid. A consummate survivor, Eliza has weathered numerous conflicts throughout her lifetime, gifting her with lessons in a wide array of fields which have served her in various ways since the late 15th century to the present day. Despite her long lifespan, very few are aware of many details of her personal life, and the full story remains classified by the Terran Confederation Department of Advanced Warfare.

## Biography

### Birth and Early Life

Eliza was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 16 June 1435 to the heir to the Umbra Witch clan, Jeanne d’Arc, and the eladrin spellsword, Elodin Melwasul. Despite being born amid the conflicts between the Umbra Witches and their light-affiliated counterparts, the Lumen Sages, Eliza’s early childhood was reasonably pleasant, marred only by her grandmother’s rejection of her as an abomination. Because of this familial rejection, Eliza was never brought to Vigrid for training as an Umbra Witch, and instead was trained at home by her mother. This more unorthodox method of instruction proved inadvertently to have saved Eliza’s life, as she was not present when the forces of Paradiso sacked the city and decimated the bulk of the Umbran population. During this period, Elodin also taught his daughter Torillian magic, as well as swordsmanship, aiming to supplement the lessons passed down by Jeanne.

### Pacting and Surviving the Witch Hunts

While Eliza was never particularly close with any members of her clan aside from her mother and her friend, Cereza, the Fall of Vigrid nevertheless had a profound impact on the young woman, and when the time came to complete her training as an Umbra Witch and form a pact with a patron, she elected to form a pact with the spider demon, Phantasmaranae, rather than with more traditional selections that granted an Umbra Witch greater power. This gifted Eliza with a supernatural level of insight into how devices functioned, as well as the ability to hide secrets that would otherwise be impossible to conceal, even with the best attempts. With these gifts in her possession, Eliza was able to innovate a variety of designs, particularly with regards to firearms, all while remaining hidden from history. In the decades that followed, Eliza traveled with her parents, roaming across Europe until, in the late 1580s, Jeanne was discovered by a lone surviving Lumen Sage, and captured. While Elodin and Eliza were able to escape, angels were able to hunt the pair down a week later, and in the ensuing fight, Elodin was slain in order for his daughter to escape. Seeing that the situation on land was too risky at the time, Eliza made for the port city of Naples, from whence she set sail for a new life as a sailor.

### Life On the High Seas

By 1597, when Eliza had first stowed aboard a merchant vessel, she was already more than 150 years old, and had yet to hone the actual skill of crafting false personas. As a result, her original intent had been to make her way to the famed New World, where she might make a new life for herself, perhaps even without the need to conceal her arcane abilities. Unfortunately, while she had managed to sneak about the San Giovanni, bound for the Azores, where she hoped to find passage across the Atlantic to any number of the growing colonies in the Americas, the San Giovanni never reached her destination, falling prey to Barbary Pirates off the coast of Morocco.

While the San Giovanni was armed, as many merchant vessels were of the day, she was unable to fend off the small fleet of faster corsair galleys, Faced with the prospect of enslavement or death, Eliza revealed herself during the fighting, using her arts to cripple the Barbary ships. Though this ultimately allowed her to survive, much of the San Giovanni’s crew, and nearly all of her officers were slain in the fighting. Knowing that if word were to get out regarding her arcane abilities, she would once more be hunted, Eliza then issued an ultimatum to the surviving crew; they would engage in exclusive piracy against the British Crown, and in exchange, a new, more favorable ship’s charter would be established. What followed would become one of the most successful pirate crews of the transatlantic, in large part because of the newly-rechristened Umbral Moon’s strict rule of “join or die” regarding the crews of the vessels they attacked. From 1598 until 1727, Eliza captained various ships, each bearing the same name, her crews sworn to secrecy each time concerning their captain’s penchant for magic and hunting angels. Given their overall success, most were perfectly happy to oblige, and the few that did could be dismissed as the superstitious ramblings of drunkards. Though Eliza did take shore leave periodically, and even fought in the Thirty Years’ War from 1633 to 1640, she would inevitably return to the sea, a trend that only began to end near the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, when she settled in the countryside of County Cork, making a living as a seamstress and occasional tinker servicing travelers in the area.

### Revolutionary

By the late 1700s, Eliza, known locally as Eilís or sometimes Old Elly, had become something of a fixture, expanding her repertoire of skills to baking, blacksmithing, and a variety of other talents, most of which were domestic in nature. Though she was herself content with her present lifestyle, seeing so many of her neighbors, most of whom she called friends, suffer under the discriminatory rule of the British, and while she did not take up arms in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, she did support those that did fight on the side of the United Irishmen. In the wake of the rebellion’s defeat, Eliza began to innovate into weapon designs, anticipating a future conflict with the British, though these designs were shared only with a select few. When the Young Dubliner Rebellion began, however, she was unable to assist, owing to the Great Famine, which forced her to focus on farming simply to survive and help those few she could, and subsequent governing policies would force Eliza to continue this focus until the Easter Rising in 1916, during which she supplied dozens of rifles to members of the Irish Volunteers in County Cork, as well as hundreds of cartridges of ammunition, though she did not herself partake in the fighting. Three years later, this trend of supplying, but not fighting changed, and from 1919 to 1921, Eliza fought alongside the Irish Republican Army as an informant and marksman. When the Anglo-Irish Treaty was presented and ratified, Eliza found this to be an insult, having witnessed the results of British rule in Ireland, and was in favor of driving the British from the whole of the island. As a result, she sided with the anti-Treaty faction of the IRA, though she would provide increasingly less active support as time progressed from the end of the War of Irish Independence. Despite this lessened activity within the IRA, Eliza still partook in military operations, serving as a sniper on occasion, and more often, a bombmaker up until the IRA split into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA, though by 1935, she had moved to the south of France in order to form a new identity. Her timing, unfortunately, led her to living under Nazi occupation, forcing what had been intended to be a cooling period of sorts to be another time of conflict. Initially, Eliza simply ambushed small German patrols alone, making use of her augmented speed and superhuman marksmanship to overwhelm them before reinforcements could be alerted. By the winter of 1942, however, she had integrated within a troop of the Armée secrète in Haute-Savoie, earning the nickname of Fille Canon for her use of a custom-built 15mm revolver, which Eliza put to use in disabling the armored cars used by German forces to carry their patrols. Despite the intensity of the conflict, Eliza did not use any of her more overt forms of magic, though spells like Fog Cloud saw heavy usage in laying down smokescreens to cover advances and retreats.

### Transition To Businesswoman

Following the end of the Second World War, Eliza stayed in France for several more years, before relocating to Dublin in 1957, where she worked for John Rigby & Company until 1969. She had maintained close ties with the IRA up until this time, but when the IRA split into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA, Eliza opted to avoid the split, and moved back to Edinburgh for the first time since the 1500s, effectively ending her ties as an active member, though she would not formally end her connections to the IRA until 1993. In 1974, she founded Highlander Arsenal, under the identity of Mary Silverman, and began manufacturing a variety of small arms, primarily lever-action rifles and revolvers, though as the company grew, their product line expanded, allowing Eliza to enjoy another period of relative peace and comfort.

### Infinity War and Aftermath

In 2012, Eliza came under the attention of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and though she never formally joined the organization, she maintained cordial relations with the various Sanctums, keeping watch on her local area for matters that might require their attention. While she did have an open invitation to learn with them, Eliza’s priorities at the time were with her company, as she hoped to provide humanity with the weapons to fight off offworld threats such as the Chitauri. Even so, Eliza visited the Ancient One on several occasions prior to the Sorcerer Supreme’s death at the hands of Kaelcilus, and following the events surrounding the arrival of the entity known as Dormammu, she developed a similar working relationship with her successor, Doctor Stephen Strange. One year later, yet another danger revealed itself in the form of the Mad Titan, Thanos. Realizing that her current designs were ill-suited for combatting the warriors of the Black Order, Eliza began construction on an upgraded version of the Umbran Armor mechanized units that had been once used during the Battle of Vigrid, though the first operational unit would not be completed until after the infamous Snap. While Eliza was among those that were not erased by the power of the Infinity Stones, her powers were severely disrupted when Thanos used the power of the Stones to shatter them, thereby throwing metaphysics into chaos, radiating out from Sol out into the rest of the universe. The Shattering, as it came to be known, also critically damaged the power core of the one Umbran Armor unit Eliza had completed between the time of the Snap and the Shattering, limiting the amount of power the unit would have until it failed. Faced with this limitation to what would have been her greatest weapon platform yet, Eliza elected to wait until the opportune moment to put it to use, finding that moment five years later against another Thanos and Black Order. Following the defeat of the Mad Titan and his army, Eliza once more returned to working on small arms with her company, and even expanded into ballistic armor, piggybacking off of the advances in materials science spearheaded by Stark Industries.

### Into the Stars

Towards the end of the 21st century, Eliza stepped away from active leadership of Highlander Arsenal, though she still retained a controlling interest in the company so that she would be able to retake her position at a later date. Freed from the day to day obligations of corporate leadership, she ventured forth into space, joining the first wave of stellar pioneers from Terra since the days of Ancient Humanity. It was during this time that she began a number of startups on Mars, Io, and Europa, never lingering long after each company had reached a stable point and turning leadership over to others in an effort to create a decentralized network of suppliers of weapons and personal armor. Once more, coincidence favored Eliza, as she had been away from Terra when the Gamilas attacked and rendered the planet virtually uninhabitable, and so she survived the conflict. Unfortunately, much of Highlander Arsenal’s operations had been based on Terra, leaving only the Mars branch in New Harmony intact. Following the end of the Gamilas Conflict, Eliza briefly resumed control as CEO of the company before being approached by Weyland-Yutani, which had begun rapidly expanding by buying out companies that had suffered heavy losses due to having the bulk of their assets on Terra. Though Eliza’s personal wealth was considerable, the means by which she had acquired it prevented her from openly denying the offer, even had she been so inclined. The megacorporation had a reputation, however, that persuaded her to play along, and she was able to retain a position as president, while Highlander Arsenal was bought out by Weyland-Yutani. Even this, however, proved to be a largely figurehead position, and 2251, she once again ‘died’, venturing out beyond the Sol System aboard her personal transport, the Errant Night. For 15 years, she traveled the stars, plotting a number of habitable systems to the galactic east of Sol on which Eliza established caches and personal libraries in order to preserve knowledge of human history, having realized how easily much could be lost after the devastation wrought by the Gamilas. Over the course of 6 years, Eliza plotted out a number of habitable worlds through the western half of the Orion Spur before settling on Bryyo, where she lived for another 8 years, learning of new technologies from the Reptilicus, as well as relearning much of her magic for the first time since the Shattering. Though she was welcomed by the locals, and lived well during her stay on Bryyo, Eliza eventually made her way back towards Sol, charting yet more systems as she meandered back to her homeworld over the course of a full year, reaching Terra in late 2266, when she began to quietly purchase shares of Highlander Arsenal and several related subsidiaries now owned by Weyland-Yutani, until she retook her position under yet another identity when Weyland-Yutani was forcibly dissolved by the United States government in 2282. Though this actually led to a net growth of Highlander Arsenal, there was little time to enjoy these gains, as Helmatier’s faction of the Machine Empire launched a 17-year long war and occupation against the Solar Federation. Over the course of the war, Highlander Arsenal produced a variety of small arms and ballistic armor suits for military and civil defense forces alike, though ultimately, it proved futile, and Eliza and many of those that worked for her were forced into hiding when the Solar Federation fleet was defeated and the occupation of Terra began under the command of Count Mecha in 2301.

### Return of the Revolutionary

With the dissolution of virtually every nation-state of Terra and the military occupation of Count Mecha’s machine men, Eliza was unable to work regularly, and so once more began to wage a guerrilla war across much of northern Europe and the British Isles, forming the Children of Sol resistance army over the next several years. Though primarily focused on driving the occupiers off of the homeworld, it was also during this time that Eliza and the CS began gathering alien technology from those slain in various ambushes. After nearly a decade of low-intensity warfare, the machine men left, and a brief period of rebuilding followed before the near-human Illumidas Empire capitalized on Terra’s weakened state and established its own occupation, met with the same sort of resistance as had been given to the machine men. It remains unknown as to the cause of the lifting of the Illumidas occupation, however, but it should be noted that the actions of the CS, nor of Eliza herself played a negligible role, if any at all.

### Rebuilding and Expansion

Following the lifting of the Illumidas occupation, Eliza reopened Highlander Arsenal, though wary of the United Earth Government as a singular governing body for the entire planet, she hid many of the captured alien technologies in the caches she’d established between 2251 to 2266, save for a few small arms that she kept for her personal research and development purposes. As the UEG established itself, and following the invention of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Drive, Eliza expanded the scope of Highlander Arsenal’s operations, even briefly contending with the likes of Misriah Armory before the latter company established itself as the favored manufacturer of small arms for the newly established United Nations Space Command. With corporate offices established in Edinburgh, Paris, and New York, Eliza then moved to establish a presence on Mars, eventually relocating her company’s corporate headquarters to New Harmony, with a testing range in the Olympus Highlands in the late 2390s. Once established as a go-to for civilians and private security, Eliza once more stepped down as CEO, enabling her to slip into relative obscurity while she focused on studying the weapons she’d collected from the occupations of Terra and to further hone her arcane abilities to a degree not seen since before the Shattering. While she had by 2470 acquired a new Slipspace-capable yacht, its drive proved far too slow to make journeys to even the nearest of her libraries outside of Sol in anything approaching a timely manner, and so remained insystem for virtually the entire duration of the UEG’s existence, though this would prove to be in many ways one of the most life-changed experiences she’d yet to go through.

### Love Discovered

Shortly after resuming her position as CEO of Highlander Arsenal under yet another alias in June of 2490, Eliza met Eredoc Van Schrouder, a Hong Kong-born man of German descent who had recently immigrated to Mars for work, though at the moment, he was unaware than Eliza was in fact his employer. Though he discovered the truth shortly after their initial meeting, Eliza elected to keep their relationship largely informal, as was her penchant as a supervisor. Initially uncertain of such a dynamic, Eliza and Eredoc soon established a relationship that went well beyond that of an executive and their chief of security, and on Friday, 23 March 2496, they were married in New Harmony. Though the growing tensions of various Insurrectionist groups pressured the UNSC in the Outer Colonies, for Eliza and her little corner of the galaxy, life was finally good.

### Family Built, Family Destroyed

A few short years after being married, Eliza gave birth to a daughter, Aileen, and though she was considerably worried about what the future might hold for them both, the advent of her child proved to be one of the most joyous moments in Eliza’s life, even centuries after the event. However, all good things must pass, and it took little time before a young Aileen began to demonstrate an affinity for magic. Though Eliza was initially alarmed, Eredoc proved to be simply intrigued and even amused, revealing that he was perfectly well aware of his wife’s supernatural nature. Aileen, for her part, wanted to learn the powers her mother possessed, fascinated with a number of spells Eliza had made use of when she thought herself alone. After some discussion, Eliza did relent to teach her daughter what she knew of the arcane, save for the matter of pacting, citing the planar barriers and steep cost of making such a pact with a demon of Inferno. Unfortunately, Aileen had inherited her mother’s stubbornness and thirst for knowledge alike, and this denial of knowledge grew to be a point of frequent arguments as she grew into adolescence. Frustrated with her mother’s reticence in this one aspect of magic, and wanting to do more for those around her, Aileen enlisted into the UNSC in spite of, and in fact because of Eliza’s protests, unwilling to remain hidden.This schism was not enough to keep the two women from speaking to each other, however, and Eliza even made a point to be present for Aileen’s graduation from basic training. Tensions rose once more, however, with the advent of the Covenant, a hegemony Eliza had heard only distant rumors of while on Bryyo, and since long-forgotten. As colony after colony fell to the genocidal rampage of the Covenant, Eliza’s fear that she would be visited by Marines with a message she dreaded rose, though it was never realized. In 2540, Eliza and Eredoc moved back to Edinburgh, though Highlander Arsenal headquarters would remain in New Harmony until 2550 While Eliza never admitted as much, she did feel great pride in the work her daughter was doing, even if it became increasingly classified, and the increased lack of communication widened the rift that had never fully mended. In the fall of 2552, however, events took a turn that changed matters permanently, as the Covenant, fresh on the heels of the fall of Reach, located Terra, and began their assault on the human homeworld. Though Edinburgh was miles from any of the Covenant landing forces, several hunting parties did land within the city, and with UNSC personnel busy attempting to counterattack against what was swiftly becoming an occupying army in London, Highlander Arsenal security personnel and other similar private security teams were left to largely fend for themselves, developing into a running gunbattle within the catacombs beneath Edinburgh that left hundreds of security personnel dead. Leading the Covenant forces underground did prove to be a successful tactic, however, and over the course of several hours, the hunting parties were whittled down through numerous ambushes. Unfortunately, Eredoc had sustained serious injuries from a Jiralhanae Spiker, as had Eliza, and while she was able to recover, her husband was not so fortunate, passing away minutes after the last of the hunting party had been slain. A few months later, the Human-Covenant War came to an end in December of 2552. While her daughter did attend Eredoc’s funeral service, a heated argument over Aileen’s military service and the secretive nature of Eliza’s personal life led to further estrangement from her daughter, prompting them to cease all but the most brief of communications via video calls until Aileen’s subsequent disappearance along with the rest of the crew of the UNSC Euclid’s Anvil in 2560.

### Post Human-Covenant War

Rebuilding was a process that came slowly to Eliza, and with her husband dead and daughter barely on speaking terms, she lingered on Earth only long enough to ensure that her company would endure before joining the Colonial Administration Authority’s Colony Survey Fleet in 2554. Throughout the post-war conflicts between the UNSC and various remnant factions of the Covenant, as well as sects of the Insurrection, Eliza scouted the regions around Sol, plotting Slipspace routes to habitable systems, even rediscovering colonies thought lost centuries before in some cases. With her being away from human space so frequently, Eliza also was able to escape subjugation during the Created Conflict, though it did prompt her to journey further along the Orion Spur, deep into what had once been the Covenant Empire.

### Unlikely Allies, Founding a Nation

Eventually, Eliza’s travels took her to the ecumopolis of Daiban late in 2589, where she made contact with yet another species she’d yet to encounter known as the Mantu. Though among the first Terrans to make contact with the Mantu, hers was somewhat different than the other lone explorers, many of whom were also surveyors. Forced to subsist largely on her own for more than 30 years, the Witch had learned a great deal in the area of starship design and maintenance. With her existing vessel near the end of its lifespan, Eliza settled on Daiban, where she set about building a company that specialized in military vessels, capitalizing on the fledgling Coalition of Freed Worlds’ lack of significant navy to rapidly expand through several government contracts supplying member systems for their planetary defense fleets and patrol fleets. By 2600, Arcanus Military Industries had established itself as the premier shipyard for warships and patrol vessels under 800 meters, bringing more than enough resources for Eliza to return to human space. Another decade later, she did exactly this, seeking to establish a foothold among her own people. Though AMI was unable to contend with the likes of SinoViet Heavy Machinery, shipyards over Earth, now dubbed Terra, as well as Reach were constructed, servicing and constructing civilian and security vessels. Despite this series of successes, Eliza felt restless, unable to put aside the number of times already that humanity had nearly been wiped out. With this in mind, she set out once into the void to seek out a place that would serve her purposes, already devising a plan to help humanity’s survival in future struggles.

### A New Mandate

Guided by the charts she had formed from previous expeditions out of Terran space, Eliza made for the Lagoon Nebula, considering its relative remoteness and the general interference the material of the nebula created for long-range sensors as ideal for a hidden redoubt. While aware of the enigmatic Galaxy Railways through rumors she had heard during the Machine War, the Witch opted to make her own way to the nebula, the better to plot a course using hitherto unknown jump points. Though far swifter than the previous Slipdrive-equipped vessel Eliza had flown, the journey still took several months, and was able to maintain her position instead of being determined derelict in her duties or even declared dead only by way of hypercomms beacons that she had purchased for the specific purpose of establishing a communications network to the place she had selected for what would become easily her most ambitious work in her long life- Project Redoubt, a massive world station, shipyard, and research and development facility all in one. Initially, she had only a few construction drones to make use of the abundant materials within the nebula in order to begin building the frame of the megastructure, as well as more drones to speed the process. Even so, Eliza knew she would require additional funding, and to that end, returned to Terra to present her project for government resources and funding. Though initially dubious, world stations were not unknown to the Terran Confederation, and the idea of a station that would be difficult to locate, even if ships produced there would take two to three weeks to reach Terran space, was not wholly unopposed. After several months of negotiations, funding from the Terran Confederation government was approved to assist in the completion of Project Redoubt 21 March 2627. This additional funding allowed AMI to purchase a fleet of advanced mining and construction drones meant for deep space operations, vastly accelerating the projected timeline, though it would still be 200 years before Project Redoubt was complete, bringing the world station known as the Eye of Fire online. Being so isolated would prove a boon a mere two years after construction began in earnest, with the outbreak of the Terran-Kilrathi War, during which AMI took on a number of contracts from the Terran Confederation, though it was never truly at risk, itself, with its headquarters still on far away Daiban. However, among the contracts AMI was awarded was one under the secretive Black Lance Program under Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, to construct a massive mobile base to host his division of special operations soldiers. While this alone allowed AMI to more readily acquire materials needed for existing contracts, it also forced Eliza to step uncomfortably close to the limelight when Admiral Tolwyn’s illegal activities became known, as she was called to testify regarding the extent of his treachery in attempting to seed war between the Terran Confederation and Union of Border Worlds. The confirmation of just how far Tolwyn had gone all but guaranteed his conviction, though the disgraced admiral took his life the following day. Following this, the Black Lance Program was permanently shut down and disbanded, and through some clever negotiations, AMI was granted salvage rights to the incomplete base in order to make up for lost time on Project Redoubt.

### Becoming the Hunter

Following the conclusion of Black Lance Conspiracy in 2673, Eliza settled back on Daiban for several years before stepping down as CEO of Arcanus Military Industries, though she maintained a controlling interest in the company, a rotating practice she had done for centuries by now, which enabled her to keep up the appearance of retiring before disappearing and subsequently being declared dead. What was initially intended to be a vacation of sorts became decades of evasion and salvage operations, however, as in 2701, the Promethean Empire launched a massive invasion from the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy. Unlike the force that had occupied Terra so many centuries ago, this war was not merely a splinter faction, but the official state military of the empire, bringing to bear weapons unlike anything any in the Spur had seen before. Despite the dangers, Eliza did not sit idly by, using a network of salvage drones to sift through battlefields both planetside and in space in hopes of bringing technology the Terran Confederation needed in order to survive. Due to the sheer numbers the Machine Men came in, Eliza only engaged a relative handful of times, though enough times to recover a number of small arms, several of which she kept for her own personal research and development purposes. After nearly 20 years of such actions, however, Eliza retreated to one of the uninhabited worlds she had charted in the Spur to hide out for the remainder of the war. She was far from idle, though, and during the following 50 years, Eliza worked developing improvements to her body armor, as well as the first steps to understanding the particle beam weapons she had captured. It would not be until 2772 that Eliza would finally depart from the isolated garden world to survey just how badly the galaxy had suffered, and in the aftermath, she joined a number of other uniquely talented individuals as a registered bounty hunter under the Galactic Federation, focusing primarily on missions where infiltration and reconnaissance was required. This particular occupation suited Eliza rather well, and even after she once again took up the position of CEO within Arcanus Military Industries under yet another alias, she continued to moonlight as a bounty hunter. Initially operating out of Daiban, Eliza relocated both herself and AMI’s corporate headquarters to the Eye of Fire upon its completion in 2827. During the peace that proceeded, AMI purchased Highlander Arsenal, as well as a relatively new munitions company called Terra Firma Heavy Engineering, and organized the latter two as subsidiaries of AMI, thereby opening up still more opportunities to innovate and expand. Among the innovations that Eliza pressed for personally was the Soong-type Macro AI, named for the scientist who had developed the design. Ostensibly, the android-based AI was intended to serve as a research and development assistant for projects that required more hands-on work, though in truth, they were a foray into the concept of machine soldiers, something that could not be converted should the Machine Men ever return. Confederation liaisons quickly informed AMI that the chances that such platforms, however effective, would ever be commissioned were extremely unlikely, and as a result, only 5 Soong-types were ever constructed, in part due to the complexity of constructing their quartz-CNT composite data core. 1 additional Soong-type was later commissioned by Eliza personally, for service as a personal assistant and bodyguard, and though costly, she possessed more than enough credits to afford the unit, who would be christened Veska, and given programming to blend well among living beings to an extent unrivaled by any other ‘dumb’ AI hitherto constructed. For some years, Eliza remained as the head of AMI, retiring in 2890, upon which time the Witch began yet another life. Deciding that she wanted to focus more time as a bounty hunter, Eliza purchased a Spirit-class transport, then modified the vessel extensively with some assistance from Veska to turn what was initially a luxury transport into a stealth capable vessel equal to many Prowlers of the former UNSC, despite being a civilian ship. With the Dancing Goddess, Eliza began taking on more missions though she was careful to never take so many that her ranking climbed too high, lest she draw too much attention to herself. By the mid-2900s, Eliza had once more resumed work at AMI, swiftly reclaiming her old post, this time under her current alias of Eliza Lockheed. The Kromus War proved to be nearly as lucrative as the Machine War for the company, enabling a number of projects to be funded, including Project Jotun, from which the Sable Fire Mechanized Infantry Exosuit was produced. Unlike during the Machine War, however, Eliza refrained from bounty and salvage missions against the Kromus, as the Kromus made heavy use of swarm tactics. Following the conclusion of the war at the end of the Siege of Krom, she resumed bounty hunting, though initially only minor jobs that wouldn’t hinder her ability to perform her duties as CEO. This changed drastically in 2977, when she first took a salvage and recovery mission from the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation to recover a rogue AI. Later that same year, Eliza journeyed to a minor colony world in GalFed space that had gone dark during the Kromus War on a reconnaissance mission offered by the Galactic Federation Police to determine if the world was still viable as a staging ground for military operations, as the Kromus had returned in force that same year. What she and several other hunters discovered, however, was a gruesome truth. The entire population, along with an invasion force of Kromus, had been brutally slain by an unknown parasitic lifeform whose carapace made it difficult to detect with most sensors, and whose blood was alarmingly caustic, such that even ship hulls were not impervious to the corrosive effects. Eliza was able to escape without issue and delivered her findings, though the entire mission was swiftly classified by both the Galactic Federation and Terran Confederation, and later, the Sangheili alongside IMC military forces would sterilize the infestation to prevent any further spread, unaware that this was done too late. In the fall on the Terran calendar of the same year, Eliza took on another salvage mission, this time on the edge of the Sol System itself. By this point, she had made her first suit of power armor, building off of a number of earlier designs constructed by others, and refining them for the unorthodox requirements of a bounty hunter. With fellow bounty hunter Eligos Vanth in tow, she boarded what appeared at first glance to be a derelict. As the pair journeyed into the interior of the ship, they soon discovered the true nature of the vessel, and that they were also not the only ones SinoViet had hired to salvage what they could from the derelict. The Event Horizon had been an experimental design that had been officially recorded as lost with all hands in an accident, and while this was to a degree true, the details were far from the typical spaceship accident. The Void Drive that it had been fitted with had opened a portal into a hellish non-dimension once known as the Void, though since long forgotten, and in so doing, had driven the original crew into a horrific madness that had seen them all kill each other and themselves in a grotesque orgy. The entity responsible for this madness had then possessed the ship, and had plagued the stars ever since. Realizing the danger they were in, Eliza and Eligos, along with the Spartan-III Vincent-A291 determined themselves to destroy the vessel before departing. This was to prove easier said than done, and even after fighting through swathes of twisted undead parodies of creatures, they were unable to prevent the Event Horizon from jumping into the Void, with themselves still aboard. In all the fighting, unlikely allies were also discovered, including two Spartans who had yet to succumb to the demonic vessel’s influence. In what was an extremely unorthodox battle within the engine room of the Event Horizon, the entity was eventually slain with a Machine Empire singularity grenade, and Eliza’s pact holder, Phantasmaranae, was likewise destroyed, thus breaking her pact and opening up untold ways by which she might later further hone her arcane abilities. The destruction of the Void entity possessing the Event Horizon also terminated the vessel’s transit through the Void, emerging in realspace far outside of Confed space. Fortunately, Vincent-A291 was able to contact the task force stationed near Beta Halo in order for the now five to be taken back to Confed space. Between the time taken for the recovery team to reach them and tow them back, however, and the additional time Eliza spent recovering from injuries sustained in the fight aboard the Event Horizon, she was forced to step down as CEO of AMI. Furthermore, with her patron dead, many secrets long held began to unravel, prompting her to give a full account to the Department of Advanced Warfare liaison of just who and what she was in hopes of avoiding serious punishment. While she was successful in this endeavor, it did place her on a very short leash, essentially kept on call for anything DAW required of someone of her talents. Following her medical release, Eliza resumed research on captured Machine Empire weaponry, and finally completed a working prototype particle beam weapon designed to be mounted on the forearm of her armor’s gauntlet after a brief and highly classified mission to Omega Centauri, which confirmed Ridley was still alive, as well as Kromus activity on the single inhabited world in the system. Though the initial objective was to investigate Kromus activities planetside, the revelation of Ridley’s survival, and more pressingly, his aggression towards the hunter team, prompted an immediate retreat to report their findings, both to the Galactic Federation Department of Military Oversight and Defense Affairs, and more secretly by Eliza, to DAW. After assisting in the overseeing of the purging of TX-611, she retired as a bounty hunter, and enlisted into the Terran Confederation Marine Corps.

### To War

Upon her enlistment, Eliza turned over her armor to DAW for research purposes, and attended basic combat training on Reach, as well as her advanced individual training as an intelligence specialist. Under advisement from DAW prior to her enlistment, she took care to conceal her more esoteric abilities, as well as the full extent of her physical capabilities, though she strove to excel all the same, as she intended to work towards an assignment under DAW, where her abilities could be fully utilized. This effort paid off several months later, and in June of 2978, Eliza was assigned to Havok Squad under the command of 1st Lieutenant Mauk, one of the relatively few Jiralhanae service members in the Terran Confederation Armed Forces. Eliza had little time to get settled in her barracks on Reach before Havok Squad was deployed to the colony world of Vanaheim roughly two months later to investigate initial intel pointing to Kromus activity. As it turned out, this was accurate, though in an extremely unusual manner. Upon arriving in-system, Havok Squad confirmed the presence of a Kromus battle group, though rather than bombarding the world with plasma as was often the case with such incursions, they had occupied the planet. Further investigation by Eliza revealed that the Kromus forces were refugees from an unknown and hostile force referred to as the Kriken. Seeing that the citizens of Vanaheim were not under particular threat, Eliza returned to her squad to recommend to Mauk that arrangements be made for a truce with this particular faction of Kromus, and relayed the information regarding the Kriken of the Alimbic Cluster and how it related to a vision she had had burned into her mind prior to their arrival in the Vanaheim System. Faced with potentially another threat even more dangerous than the Kromus, DAW soon issued orders for Havok Squad to set out to investigate what might be happening in the Alimbic Cluster.

## Personality

Despite her careful avoidance of the limelight, Eliza’s personality is not one easily forgotten, being almost a force of nature with her drive to excel in all things. Due to her half-eladrin nature, she experiences emotions more intensely than do humans, leading to a disposition that is at once charismatic and off putting. Among her most distinctive traits is the depth of her loyalty once she has given it, or indeed her hatred once it has been kindled. The centuries have only partially tempered these extremes, as well, and it is for this reason among others that she had Veska created, to help ground her more fey-like tendencies. Beyond all of this, Eliza is extremely intelligent, and while not at the same level as individuals such as Tony Stark in the 21st century or Catherine Halsey in the 26th, her vast life experience has granted her the ability to gain the same knowledge at a more restrained pace, enabling her to design and maintain her personal transport, despite being equipped with a Slipspace-capable drive ordinarily installed in vessels twice the size of the Dancing Goddess, and to reverse-engineer Machine Empire particle beam rifles and build one of her own design half the size while retaining the same power. Because of such accomplishments, she also possesses a degree of arrogance, if somewhat earned, though she is all too aware of her limitations in spite of this pride.

## Physical Appearance

Eliza is striking in appearance, with her white hair and intense green eyes, though her stature is quite unimposing. A mere 5’4”, Eliza is below the Terran female average in height, and were it not for the manner in which she carries herself, she would be easily overlooked. Though not overly muscular, Eliza’s body is toned to peak condition, a testament to the training instilled by her clan so many years ago.

## Physical Abilities

Trained from childhood as an Umbra Witch, Eliza is extremely skilled in a number of martial arts, with a particular focus on savate, bare knuckle boxing, and aikido, on top of the more esoteric Umbra Bullet Arts. Beyond this, she is a master of parkour, able to maneuver in even the most challenging terrain with an agile swiftness no baseline human could ever hope to match. As a part of the ancient rites of her clan, Eliza’s body has also been augmented by magic, enabling her to move and react faster, apply greater strength, and exert herself for longer periods compared to unaugmented humans. Under ideal conditions, she is capable of sprinting as fast as 46 mph(74kmh) and leaping as far as 46 feet(14 meters) or as high as 14 feet(4 meters). Coupled with her extensive mastery in the use of firearms, and it is little wonder that she has survived for as long as she has. This of course says nothing of her more unique abilities, which are not physical in nature, but arcane.

## Equipment

### Powered Armor

Built off a combination of the UNSC’s Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Battle Dress Uniform and the Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor, along with a variety of technological upgrades developed since the days of the UNSC, the Iron Man Mk2 Powered Combat Hardsuit provides superb protection while preserving mobility, and to date is arguably the most advanced armor system in civilian hands. With recharging shields and an array of integrated weapons, there is little that rivals the Mk2 short of augmentive armor systems such as MJOLNIR.

### Magnetically Accelerated Rail Sidearm(MARS)

A design built off a licensing agreement with Advanced Mechanics and Defense Concepts’ ÆSIR Magnum, Eliza carries a pair of MARS, each capable of firing a 20 gram ferrous tungsten slug at up to Mach 4, packing the firepower of a high-powered rifle into a handgun. Though the recoil is too severe for unaugmented humans to comfortably fire without use of a brace, Eliza is well-practiced at dual wielding such weapons, often to devastating effect.

### Valkyrie Gauss Rifle

An essentially scaled up version of the MARS platform, the Valkyrie’s longer rail system and cushioned stock allow even untrained humans to utilize a battle rifle that delivers the energy of an anti-material rifle, enabling shielded foes to be countered readily without need for more costly directed energy weapons. Eliza often uses her Valkyrie as a sniper rifle, or for times when maximum firepower is called for.

### Type-2 Terran Plasma Dagger

Based heavily on the Sangheili Energy Dagger, the Type-2 Terran Plasma Dagger is essentially a scaled-down variant made with the human physiology in mind. Whereas the Type-1 is produced as a standalone weapon similar to the more widely known Sangheili Energy Sword, the Type-2 is an integrated weapon made to be installed into the forearm section of the user’s armor, and is traditionally powered by the armor’s power supply.

### Plasma Saber

As visually impressive as a plasma blade is, most humans lack the skill and reflexes to safely wield one, to say nothing of effectively doing so in a combat scenario. As such, Terran plasma sabers are typically constructed on an individual basis, and Eliza’s is no exception. Drawing heavy inspiration from the cavalry sabers of old, Eliza’s proficiency with this weapon is testament to her superhuman agility, even if she uses it relatively little.

### Mk1 Particle Beam Cannon

Eliza’s most recent addition to her personal arsenal, the Mk1 Particle Beam Cannon is the first production model built from reverse-engineering captured Machine Empire particle rifles, and in spite of its small size, is devastatingly powerful, capable of penetrating even unshielded armored vehicles under optimal circumstances with its 150 kilojoule yield.

Catagory:Characters