Trace

**Trace** is a character in *Magical Girl Policy*. She works as an errand runner for Platicore, typically assigned to deploy each of his monsters and retrieve their Investiture yield. The story occasionally turns to Trace's perspective to show what Platicore and his forces are up to.

## Appearance

Trace is not from Earth, but passes as a human woman. She has lavender hair and a glare that she has been told can stop someone's heart. She wears a coat.

## Personality

Trace is antisocial and prefers to be alone. She usually repels strangers with her glare, but has had to ward off interested guys with insults as well. She dislikes how the law prevents her from freely attacking those that annoy her, unlike her old home of Triays'e. A criminal at heart, Trace gets a rush out of sneaking past others while on the job.

Trace spends most of her free time at Rusty's Tavern, where she drinks her favorite Johnny Rider 18 scotch in a dark corner booth. Trace is not a native English speaker and has rather poor syntax, so she takes the chance to practice her language skills with Rusty, the bar's owner.

## Abilities

Trace is not known to have empathokinetic powers of her own, but she regularly makes use of tools with such functions given to her by Platicore. She wears a stealth band that can warp other's perception into rendering her invisible, with only Spirit Guard Serenity displaying a strong enough empathokinetic perception to sense Trace's emotions. Trace assembles the readied pieces of a monster to bring it to life, then later returns with an Investiture collector to get the harvest from the monster's empathic capacitor. When she has to set up a monster with people around, she makes use of perception filters to keep others from approaching her.

## Biography

### Background

Trace is a criminal from the relatively lawless Triays'e. She becomes enough of a threat to Fate that she's thrown into a holding cell. After Platicore frees Trace, she agrees to serve him. Trace's main duty is to plant each of Platicore's monsters at the designated area, then collect the monster's Investiture yield and give it to Platicore. Unknown to the Spirit Guard, Trace often invisibly observes them battle the monster.

### Week 1

Some time after Polygal was defeated by the Spirit Guard at the Loose Change arcade, Trace finds that the monster mysteriously left no Investiture at all, which unknown to her is due to Polygal attempting to drain the complex Investiture of Robert Dreese. This strains Platicore's supply as he creates his next monster.

Trace watches the Spirit Guard battle Day LaMode at Rale Valley Mall, seeing the monster beat Spirit Guard Tenacity to near death. Tenacity is saved by the sudden appearance of Spirit Guard Serenity, who handily defeats LaMode. During the battle, Serenity senses something like a guilty conscience and looks directly at the invisible Trace, who flees the scene before Serenity can figure out what she's looking at.

Trace, fearing Platicore's wrath over her not yet having Day LaMode's empathic capacitor, gets him a lime wine cooler from Rusty's Tavern and takes a warp stone to Platicore's lair. Platicore enjoys this drink much more than the previous one, but is furious over the news. When Trace explains that she fled because she was spotted by Serenity while invisible, Platicore commends her for running from the new Spirit Guard's particularly strong empathokinetic perception and plans to upgrade the stealth band. Platicore shoots down Trace's offer to investigate Serenity further due to the Disconnection Effect. Trace promises to return with LaMode's yield within three hours.

With her stealth band drained, Trace sneaks into Rale Valley Mall the old-fashioned way. Trace activates her Investiture collector to materialize Day LaMode's capacitor, and finds that it has more than enough energy to both recharge her stealth band and fuel Platicore's next monster. She is surprised to see the remains of LaMode, as the Spirit Guard's special attacks typically don't leave a corpse. She surmises from the carnage that Serenity was either quick or stealthy enough to stab LaMode in the face before using a boiling water move, deciding to tell Platicore later in case it affects his next monster's design. Trace becomes interested in Serenity for being so different from the other Spirit Guard, and decides to investigate the heroes' secret identities in her spare time.

### Week 5

Trace sets up Platicore's newest monster Cell-celia at a Buy Bright store, having a hard time manipulating people's perception so they wouldn't question her. Trace is unnerved at Cell-celia's human-like appearance and talking about becoming a god during the setup. Later that day, Trace returns, annoyed that the monster lasted less than six hours and got itself pinned to the ceiling where it'll be a pain to retrieve the empathic capacitor.

## Relationships

### Platicore

Trace serves Platicore ever since he freed her from Fate's holding cells. Platicore's mechanical suit having a built-in translator allows Trace to speak her native tongue to him, and she annoys him by nicknaming him Platy. She doesn't particularly trust him and hates asking him for things, admitting to herself that she'd likely betray him if given enough empathokinetic enhancements. She fears his violent mood swings, so she tends to answer his call promptly with a gift whenever she has to deliver bad news. She finds that playing dumb and letting Platicore explain things is a good way to calm him down.

### Robert Dreese/Robynne Darling

Trace takes special interest in Spirit Guard Serenity after spying on her battle with Day LaMode. She initially pegs Serenity as a big-breasted bimbo, but finds her to be unlike the other Spirit Guard for sensing past her stealth band and having a more brutal fighting style. Trace makes it her personal mission to get to know Serenity and find out just how much of a badass she is. Robynne is only vaguely aware of Trace's existence, as Cell-celia mentions Platicore having a stooge.

### Rusty

Trace is familiar with Rusty, the owner of the bar she frequents, though she's pretty sure he doesn't know her name. She likes that he doesn't pry and lets her practice her English without judgment. Trace is such a regular at Rusty's Tavern that he will serve her some Johnny Rider 18 scotch without being asked.

## Trivia

* In Chapter 20's author commentary, Taralynn Andrews says Trace noting the redundancy of the Spirit Guard having both the Disconnection Effect and the Hush Corps to protect their identities is intended to mirror the audience's reaction.