Hanai

# The Pilot

Hanai lies constantly about her past life. She does this not only to lend her new identity some sort of legitimacy, but also to mask who she was. Most of the knowledge about her past life comes from the lower level pilots she talked with while on comms duty as a fortress, prior to her reconstructing her suit. The only absolute fact she tells anyone is that she was from Kansas, and that she misses it. Everything else is surrounded by lies and anecdotes that contradict each other. She makes no attempt to stick with one story, and always finishes the stories with the same aphorism; “Who cares about who I was, what matters is who I am now.” Hanai has claimed to be five different people before suitfall. The first and most common story involved her claiming that she used to be just a girl growing up in Kansas. This one is generally accepted to be an outright lie, based on her behavior and general demeanor being far from that of a conservative girl from the midwest. The second story has Hanai claiming to have been a fat, middle aged plumber with a wife and three kids. She says that this one’s a joke outright, but some pilots believe that she really was, considering what she presents herself as now. The third story she tells about is of her being a college-aged NEET girl, with the majority of her interactions happening through online games, both video and roleplaying. This is the first of the actually debated stories. Not only does she go into great details of what she did, stories she had while playing the games and general stories to corroborate this, but she also seems to fit the demeanor of a girl trying way too hard to fit in. However, the skeptics reject this one based off the fact that she talks far more about this than the other believable stories. Others see the final two stories as the one-offs like many other backgrounds Hanai throws out there as jokes, and accept the NEET girl story as the correct one. The naysayers see the believers of this story as thirsty nerds. The last two stories were only ever told once each, and are only notable due to the explanations given for why she chose to be who she is now. However, she delivered both in the same manner, and many argue over which one of the two is most correct. In the first one, Hanai told of how she used to be a teenaged boy with a lot of loneliness, and made herself the way she is to try and overcome that loneliness. The second was how she was a twenty-something man with an identity crisis, and made herself into a character to escape the confusion and follow a simple rhythm for social interaction. There is no conclusive evidence anywhere that confirms one story over any of the others. Some assume that none of the stories are correct and are all just fronts, with some being intentionally more believable, based on Hanai’s ability to act. Some think that all the stories have truths to them, but those people tend to get yelled at by all sides.

Hanai has never told anyone about what she did directly after suitfall, but mentioned she was second wave, and joined AC after a fairly long period of not being in AC.

Since her joining AC, she has been on several missions and interacted with most, if not all of the field brass of AC. Since about 2016 though, she’s been out in the shit being a comms specialist. To all of the pilots, tin men, civilians and humanitarian workers she talked to on the job, she said that she had a choice between being a specialist and continuing to be a grunt, and she chose specialist. Something about the whole process felt off for her at the time, and she wanted to actually help those in the world, or just all the little guys who helped after the Bright Offensive. She got rewarded for it, though, and she proudly wears her specialist stripes on her clothes and her suit, both as a badge of pride and as a connection to the non-pilots.

Now, she has returned to combat duty after wanting another change of pace, and reformed her suit as well. She used to be a fortress, but changed into a medium. The people that knew her as a specialist would be surprised. The pilots that knew her from before then had saw more dramatic changes from her, and it’s not much of a surprise. While she fits in with all the high brass pilots, being that she knew all of them as friends, she’s definitely not as high ranking as all the rest of them. It’s slightly discomforting, but she had changed as much as the rest of the pilots over the years. She’s still adjusting.

## Appearance

Hanai has two distinct physical appearances. Both appear to be her, but at different ages. This can cause some issues with those that don't know her well enough to know both of her “ages,” but she acts pretty much the same in both bodies. The only exception to this is her attitude towards sexuality, which obviously varies based on her apparent age. As both, she has extremely prominent elf ears. And for those that've been around her for a decently long time know that she has some strange form of narcolepsy.
Hanai's form that she has had for the past few years is apparently teenaged, around college age. She keeps her blond hair short, just enough to surround her ears and cover her forehead. She would be describable as pear shaped, considering her proportions. She's fairly short in this form, but not nearly as short as her other form. She's around 5’5”, but this is actually a variable thing. Typically, it depends on her mood or what she has to present herself as. For example, she would normally make herself taller in preparation for a meeting with subordinates to make herself more commanding.
Her younger form is something that is only recently resurfaced. Before, she had given it up after losing her twintails and innocence to a certain lady. Only people that knew her back then recognize her as herself in this form: everyone else wouldn't. She's even more diminutive like this, and she tends to be 4’6”, appearing mostly like a 12 year old child. The most striking feature she has in this form is her enormous golden twintails that pretty much go down to her ankles. Even so, as an elf, Hanai is exceptionally durable in this form.

## Relations & Allies

### Armor Corps

**Whitefalcon (White Falcon):** Used to have an enormous crush on Falcon. It’s a long story. And she doesn’t tell anyone about it anymore, after Zonda, and especially after he left the planet. She’s over him for the most part. If anyone would want to know more, they’d have to ask from secondary sources.

**Mark Wolfe (Silver Knight):** Extremely friendly with, as with most Armored Corps pilots. Got him knighted, for real.
**Pally (Silver Knight's AI:** Only met her face-to-face once, but they get along fairly well. Really interested in teaching her the ways of the Knight, much to Silver’s chagrin.

**Everyone else:** Hanai gets around quite a bit. She makes a point to be friends with everyone, and acts like she’s friends with everyone already just because they’re a part of the Corps. Acts the same around non-pilots as well.

### Moqaddas

**Joumun Gander (Joumun):** Hates. Absolutely detests. Reserves no judgement against her and is her antithesis. She was the one who fucked up her visage in the first place and cut her twintails off from her, and led her to change herself with Canvas II. Still hates her for it, even after getting her twintails back.

### The Engineers

**Tommy Wilder (Carrier Prime):** Hanai’s nearest thing to a true friend. They get along really well, even beyond her typical friendly attitude. She doesn’t show this off around many other people, but whenever she’s with Tommy, she’s actually herself.

**Editi Eadrom (Carrier Prime's AI):** In an awkward spot with Editi. They linked cyberbrains and traded emotions, but Hanai took this mischievously and tried to mess with Editi, which made her distrust Hanai. She feels bad about it, but doesn’t know how to apologize over it, considering she betrayed Editi’s trust, assumedly the only trust she gave to anyone other than Tommy.

### Phoenix Collective

Hanai doesn’t know anyone on the Vertex team, but sees them around pilot events and on missions. Doesn’t exactly trust any of them, either. Wants to get to know them, though.