Kairune

### Relatives

Jack Mercer - Father (deceased)Roxanne Mercer - Mother (deceased)Sarah Lyons - Mentor and Friend (deceased)

### Occupation

Freelance Mercenary - Ragnarök Mercenary CompanySentinel - Brotherhood of Steel (formerly)

## Biographical information

### Marital status

Single but always on the lookout for the lucky lady

## Appearances

### Debut

Ragnarök book 1

Kairune is a free-lance mercenary, and partner of the Ragnarök Mercenary Company. A former Brotherhood of Steel officer, she is cited as the Chain Breaker for offering a direct challenge to Elder Arthur Maxson, resulting in her banishment and mixed opinions of her throughout the Brotherhood Sections in the Boston Commonwealth. Many Knights think of her as just another power hungry Knight, whereas others praise her as an extension of Sarah Lyons will.

## Background

### **Early Life**

Born Autumn Mercer to Roxanne and Jack Mercer in Megaton, they moved to Rivet City not long after and lived there for the majority of her young life, unfortunately when 10yo Autumn was accompanying her parents for some trading with the Citadel, her parents were killed on their way home by a group of raiders. Luckily there was a group of brotherhood knights nearby and they were able to save young Autumn from the same fate, the group of knights decided to take the new orphan with them to Elder Lyons, who after some consideration decided to take in the young girl as a squire.

This decision was met with some resistance from the older generation especially, even with the brotherhood recruiting from the local population, as squire has always been a title reserved for children born into the order. However Autumn flourished and proved to be valuable around the citadel, she studied the Codex and worked hard to memorize the excerpts. It was during this time that she decided to change her name to Kairune to signify a start of a new life.

### **Life in the Brotherhood**

Kairune had many duties including weapon maintenance, mending uniforms, menial labor, and caring for young Arthur Maxson, only an infant at the time. Kairune also spent as much time as she could with the various knights and paladins around the Citadel, especially Sarah Lyons with whom she became fast friends. At the age of 13 Kairune gained the rank of initiate, fairly young for her trajectory she gained the respect of the senior knights she trained under. Not long after Kairune’s 15th birthday she became a full fledged knight and offered a position by recently promoted Sentinel Sarah Lyons in her Pride, it was the proudest moment in Kairune’s young life.

Kairune gained unique skills and renown during her time with the Lyons’ Pride, she gained intimate knowledge about working on power armor systems, how the wasteland works and where the hotspots are, and learned many fighting techniques from Sarah. When Kairune reached the age of 18 she had gained the rank of Knight Captain and the battle for Project Purity had begun, one of the most intense times of Kairune’s life, she was anchored and awe inspired by Sentinel Lyons’ ferocity and resolution in battle and defense of the purifier. Sarah Lyons’ compassion and empathy for the people of the wasteland was incredibly inspiring to Kairune, and cemented Kairune’s belief that the Lyons family were leaders that she would follow to hell and back. After the event of Project Purity Kairune took a major role in the battle against the Enclave, under orders from Paladin Tristan, who was temporarily in command of the Pride as Sarah recovered from injuries she sustained during Battle Purity, Kairune led several squadrons of knights into battle behind the Lone Wanderer at Adam’s Airforce Base, where she acquired a scar on her cheek from shrapnel in an explosion. Several months after her 19th birthday she was promoted to Star Paladin for her part in the war against the Enclave and  high recommendation by Sentinel Lyons.

Kairune continued to carry out orders under Sarah and on her own as afforded to Kairune by her Star Paladin status including some expeditions out of the capital wasteland into neighboring lands. After the Death of Elder Lyons Kairune’s best friend and mentor Sarah Lyons was elevated to position of Elder of the Brotherhood, because of the loss of the only Sentinel due to Sarah’s new title and the retirement of Star Paladin Cross after the Purity War, the new Elder Lyons granted Paladin Vargas the title of Sentinel along with command of the Lyons’ Pride.

Unfortunately Elder Sarah Lyons fell less than a year later in a battle that was heavily protested by Sentinel Vargas and Star Paladin Kairune, Kairune was devastated Sarah had been her friend and mentor for years, what followed was several chaotic years of ineffectual Elders while Kairune mourned with the Pride, ultimately ending with young 15yo Arthur Maxson being elevated to Elder status thanks to the intervention of the west coast chapter of the brotherhood sent in a message, that said the chapter needed leadership that was “a soul forged from eternal steel”, a phrase Kairune had heard multiple times while occasionally taking care of young Arthur when she was a squire. The new Elder began making changes to the brotherhood, trying to bring it more to the ideals of the west coast chapter, during this time Sentinel Vargas and the rest of Lyons’ Pride left in disappointment at the abandonment of the Lyons’ ideals, Kairune decided to stay with the Brotherhood to both act as the eyes and ears for the Remnants of the Pride and to see if she could remind Elder Maxson of the tutelage of the Lyons family, his family essentially. The desertion of the leader and bulk of the Lyons' Pride caused Elder Maxson to disband the organization and ban the bearing of the emblem, this was the beginning of the large rift that grew into a personal vendetta between the Elder and Kairune.

However not to long after the departure of Sentinel Vargas sensing Kairune’s true intentions for staying behind, Elder Maxson decided to, in light of how much good she could do for Brotherhood still and their distant friendship when they were young, place Kairune on detached duty out in the wastes and granted her the rank of Sentinel allowing her to command troops she found out in the field if need be, as long as they are not on a direct mission. The deaths of Owen and Sarah Lyons left Kairune feeling lost, unsure of what to do during the drastically changing times, with the changing mission and attitude of the Brotherhood and Kairune's absence from the Citadel she began feeling estranged from the organization and bitter at the Elder for her unofficial exile. During this time Kairune managed to collect and repair armor pieces of the Hellfire Armor that the Enclave wore during the Purity War, using armor schematic holotapes left to her by Sarah Lyons Kairune recreated a suit of Hellfire Armor and adorned it in Brotherhood colors, this visage along with her tendency pop up out of nowhere to help and then disappear off into the wastes again, lead to Kairune gaining the nickname The Steel Wraith among some circles. Kairune spent the next several years assisting the people of the capital wasteland wherever she could, during this time Kairune helped save Lancer-Captain Kells, then a Lancer-sergeant, and his squad from a botched deathclaw nest extermination, this action cemented a friendship between the 2 that lasts to this day. However with the dc wasteland becoming a more stable region Kairune started venturing further and further out, she even considered leaving the area (and Brotherhood possibly) entirely, but at the age of 28 before she could put the plans into action Elder Maxon sounded the rallying cry and ordered the Prydwen to the Boston commonwealth, so Kairune set sail with the bulk of the Brotherhood feeling apprehensive.

### **The Chain-Breaker Incident**

Upon arriving several detachments were sent out to gather intel, interview the local population, and threat assess hotspot areas. Sentinel Kairune was leading a group of knights and initiates through Sanctuary on a threat assessment patrol when they came across a young woman in her late teens being hunted down by several men with unnatural speed and reflexes wearing armored leather long coats and wielding advanced laser weapons accompanied by 10 partially skeletal robots with similar weapons. The group of BOS leapt into action engaging the group in a firefight, after a long grueling battle including attempting to track down one of the armored men who went stealth they emerged victorious. After some deliberation the Kairune decided to take the young girl (who was quite cooperative and informed them that her name is Rayne) back to Elder Maxson for any intel she could provide, on the vertibird ride back Rayne informed Kairune how she escaped the institute to help the people of the commonwealth. Once aboard the Prydwen Rayne was taken by several scribes and Proctor Quinlan, the Proctor then informed Kairune that the Elder wanted to speak to her and assured her that Rayne would not be harmed.

Kairune relayed all she had learned about the Institute and their army of synths and corsers, after finishing her debriefing with the Elder he sat in a grave silence for several minutes before remarking that they had to double their efforts to take care of the problem here in the commonwealth and ordering Kairune to execute the young runaway because they had no way to prove if she was a synth or not. This was the final straw for Kairune, she had thoughts of leaving before during her long exile from the Citadel, but at this point Kairune defied the Elder's order and broke the Chain that Binds. Maxson immediately attempted to demote Kairune to the rank of Knight along with confining her to quarters, Kairune countered this with issuing an honor duel to Arthur, he refused stating that the duel was reserved for "true" brotherhood ones born into it, drawing a knife from his coat Maxson slashed the sentinel ranking on her arm marking her as an oathbreaker, Kairune's official response to this was tossing a makeshift diversion device into the Elders face, getting into a small brawl and shortly knocking out Arthur, and making her escape from the Prydwen on a stolen vertibird with Rayne in tow.

### **Ragnarök Mercenary Company**

Kairune's time with Ragnarök had a rocky start what with the knocking Crow off the Constitution when they first met but it has since been the best of her life after the dismantling of The Lyons' Pride, Kairune feels at peace with Ragnarök like she finally found a home and family that feels like her time with the pride and she will defend that to her last breath. Rayne has become like a little sister to Kairune over the years, providing Kairune with a much needed moral anchor after her exodus from the Brotherhood, including her fall from proud warrior to outcast mercenary.

Crow has definitely been a great if crazy friend to Kairune, his devotion to Atom worries her at times, but Kairune has learned over time how to redirect or channel this energy, Kairune often humorously remarks on the fact that her best friend is walking proof of the Brotherhoods fear about dangerous tech being in the wrong hands.

Kairune has nothing but admiration for Deathwave as leader of RMC, even ignoring his massive contribution to the power armor systems they designed together with Rayne, his vast network he created and his ability with computers definitely put him in mad scientist territory, which makes Kairune happy that he's on their side.

Chaos shares the Heavy role with Crow, which Kairune has played before in the past with her use of scavenged Hellfire Armor during her exile from the Citadel. Chaos's design for his armor impressed Kairune with his use of a modular rail system built into the right arm of his armor, allowing for one handed use of swappable heavy weapon systems, and a collapsible ballistic shield built into the left arm.

Abigail, the newest member of RMC, has seriously intimidated Kairune with both her beauty, which had Kairune developing a crush on her, and her sniper skills, which after Abi showed RMC her 20mm rifle that she could barely lift, Kairune knew they could improve on those skills even more.

## Biographical Info

### **Personality**

Kairune is fiercely loyal to her friends and companions to the point of bullheaded stubbornness sometimes, refusing to leave the battlefield until the others are safe a trait she picked up from her time with the younger Lyons'. She has a fairly laid back and quiet, but warm personality when interacting with her friends and a cold fury when dealing with her enemies. Kairune's combat style is honed over her years in the Brotherhood to be focused and efficient, with her customized power armor that has increased mobility and speed, she is able to fight in a way she always wanted including much more melee combat and martial movement. Kairune has a fairly deep understanding of weapons, power armor, cybernetics, hydraulics, and various other techs that she has gained through out her time with the Brotherhood during which she learned all she could from the various scribe orders, this is also how she became good friends with some of the current Proctors of the Scribe Orders. Also during her time with the Brotherhood Kairune developed a love of fantasy books that she found and read religiously in the Citadel's library, this led to a love of knight and chivalric imagery that intertwined with her Lyons' Brotherhood ideals; especially the image of Lyons' Pride as a group of traveling knights protecting the wasteland was a powerful one to her, Kairune also liked the knight in shining armor trope though she envisioned herself as the knight rescuing the princess from the dragon. Kairune tends to prefer energy weapons over kinetic, but Abi is slowly changing her mind about ballistics. Kairune will awkwardly flirt with any woman she finds attractive, with varying success, some examples include Piper, Abi, Irma, and Overseer McNamara.

### **Appearance**

Kairune has fair skin, honey blonde hair that she later dyes black after leaving the Brotherhood, brilliant green eyes, and a curvy athletic body from a lifetime of living in and training in the citadel and almost constantly wearing power armor. Kairune has a fairly soft angled face, with a small nose, and kind eyes, she often gets underestimated for her fighting prowess. She has shoulder length hair that she usually keeps in a ponytail unless she's just lounging around. Her distinguishing features include a Lyons’ Pride tattoo on her left upper arm, a scar running down her right cheek that she acquired from the battle of Adam's air force base, and a spinal implant developed by Proctor Ingram in an experimental power armor neural integration program.

## Armaments

### **Armor System**

Kairune in her time with RMC alongside Deathwave and Rayne helped develop a new modular frame design for power armor that they designated Advanced Modular Power Armor System (A.M.P.A.S.) that is divided into multiple systems. The custom tailored aspect of the suit make it the most comfortable Kairune has ever worn, plus the added mobility and speed of the hydraulics just added to the experience of it being **her** suit of armor and an amazing one at that. The advanced hydraulics, servos, and electronic systems used by the armor requires the use of 2 fusion cores to run, one in the subframe and one in the main suit and is installed with 2 auxiliary cores in the main suit to aid in high energy stress maneuvers such as engaging the thrusters for high speed burst movement. Kairune's suit is the fastest out of the RMC with the help of thrusters built into the suit and advanced servos and hydraulics that Rayne and Deathwave designed and help integrate into the system. Kairune loves options in battle that's why she and the others designed the A.M.P.A.S. to be very modular with Kairune's version having 2 sets of non powered armor sets in addition to the main suit.

##### Undersuit

A custom black and grey under armor suit with a vault suit like appearance designed to integrate into her spinal implant to help with neural integration of the power armor system. The suit has ballistic weave and cybernetic circuits integrated throughout it, strengthening and connecting the suit. The cybernetic circuits running through the suit connect with the subframe making the whole system respond in real time.

##### Cyberframe

A cybernetic frame designed to help ease the burden and make room for more auxiliary systems on the main system, covers her arms, hands, chest and legs with various hardpoints throughout the frame, along with the back piece integrating into her spinal implant with the undersuit to make a more complete and responsive system. Included in the arms is a sliding hydraulic rod system that helps augment her unarmed strikes. Her helmet is one of the most important pieces of her armor it is integrated into her undersuit and subframe system with a filtration system along the jaw portion, fairly streamlined and made of a composite alloy material, it is designed similar to a traditional knight helmet. The helmet features a wide visor with periphery vision and a multitude of features including an advanced targeting Hud that links into the RMC Network. (the network includes the other members targeting Huds, the Valkyrie's surveillance equipment, and Abi's Spybot, this allows for great intel on the battlefield giving RMC an amazing tactical edge.) The rounded face of the helmet is able to split open into 4 sections that slide back out of the way, 2 upper pieces including the visor and 2 lower pieces that fit over her communication mic, and hermetically seals when it closes. The filtration system is fairly advanced with its main purpose being the large amounts of radiation Kairune is exposed to regularly, in addition when connected to the air supply in the main suit the vents will seal making a completely sealed environment. The filtration vents are integrated into the jaw piece of the helm allowing for more protection from the upper chest piece.

##### Nightstalker Auxiliary System

A light mobile armor plate system that is designed to hook onto the subframe system, can only be used out of the main power suit as the pieces use the same hardpoints. The N.A.S. has an augmented stealthboy system that runs for about 25 seconds at a time with a 10 sec recharge and a limited jump jet system integrated into the back, shoulders, inner lower arms, and back of the leg plates that increases her mobility and gives her about a 40 foot vertical and 75 foot long jumps.

##### Main Power Suit

The main suit is a specialty system that is made up of many more individual armor pieces than traditional power armor and made of a similar composite alloy that is found in Hellfire armor tweaked by herself, Deathwave and Rayne to be more resistant to radiation and explosions allowing Kairune to stay on the frontlines with the Nuclear Arsonist on the battlefield. The armor system shifts the plates around in a limited fashion to different configurations of protection including but not limited to shoulder pads with smaller plates underneath that slide down and around the arms, upper chest plate that can slide up to protect the neck and lower head, abdominal plates that can shift to allow more movement in the waist and torso, and bracer plates that can shift and expand to provide makeshift shields, almost all of the alternative configurations trade mobility for protection. Impact dampeners are integrated throughout the suit frame, with jets at certain points around the armor to help with stabilization and preventing knockback, alongside a ‘floating’ suspension system that connects to the subframe hardpoints and allows for incredible protection against kinetic impacts, explosions, and falls. Kairune's helmet integrates into the system through a air hose/wire plugin that connects from the back of the system into the back of the helmet allowing the Hud to integrate with the suit and provides her with a limited air supply allowing Kairune to survive underwater or in extremely hazardous environments for up to 10 minutes. The armor is tough but not anywhere near indestructible so the suit also includes an emergency ejection when the armor system sustains too much damage, the back armor pieces including the arms and legs are detached and launched while Kairune is simultaneously ejected and injected with a small dose of jet to allow for a tactical assessment and a moment to collect herself.

### **Weaponry**

Kairune has an arsenal of customized weapons she's developed over the years with RMC, most designed and fabricated herself with a few helpful hints and tidbits from the other members. Some of the designs are even projects from her Brotherhood days including The Pride's Revenge and The Steel Phoenix unfinished until recently with Kairune lacking time, materials, and technical knowledge to complete them, which her time with RMC provided her with. Many of her weapons are interchangeable, after all Kairune only has so many places to store them, the abundance of armaments allow her to change her loadout according to the environment the battle will take place in and what enemies they will be facing.

##### Main Weapons

The Pride's Revenge - Oversized break action plasma rifle with a diamond shaped cross-section, modified to elongate and increase velocity of the plasma, changing the projectile from a slower moving ball to a high speed bolt. Runs off fusion cores, semi, 20 rounds per core. Named of course in honor of the Lyons' Pride and more specifically Sarah Lyons' herself. In exchange for Kairune gifting Crow a small sample of U-234 from the Manhattan Project tests, believed by Crow and the Children of Atom to be the birthplace of Atom himself, Crow brought The Pride’s Revenge to Atom’s Spring to be blessed by Atom. Kairune was skeptical at first but ever since Crow returned with Atom’s Gift the weapon packs a little more punch and the plasma glows a little brighter, not to mention the faintly glowing Children of Atom styled web work that now adorns the weapon that Crow insists he had no part of.

Iron Dragon - A tri rail magnetic rifle, designed entirely by Rayne with help from Deathwave, capable of firing many different projectiles due to the magnetic suspension in the receiver and barrel. The design includes 3 smaller twisting rails fixed under the main rails, while the main rails fire with every trigger pull the secondary rails are activated by holding the trigger and charging the whole system adding velocity, distance and spin. Kairune usually keeps it chambered with 10mm slugs but has been known to kick it up to 20mm hardened steel slugs when dealing with power armored enemies.

##### Side arms

Black Rose - One of the twin revolvers designed by Kairune after feeling the need for a small high caliber firearm and being impressed with Abi’s Colt Dragoon, Abigail provided many design features unknowingly helping design her own revolver too. Chambered in .50 Magnum RAC (Ragnarök Armament Calibers a catchall for various ammo calibers developed by RMC) with a 5 round cylinder and thick design. The revolver has a black steel finish with silver filigree engraved throughout the piece and a dark walnut handle with a Lyon’s Pride trinket hanging off the bottom of the laidback grip. The revolver is carried on a cross draw hip holster on her left hip, includes a mechanism that rotates and ejects when Kairune emergency ejects from her power armor to provide her with an immediate weapon.

Wyvern's Breath - A custom plasma pistol with a more sleek almost old western appearance, able to be toggled between a spread pattern and a flamer type setting, The pistol was designed to complement her melee weapons allowing close quarters combat

##### Melee Weapons

Steel Phoenix - A massive 7 1/2 foot single edged great sword custom system. This system is designed to superheat the 6 foot long blade, through use of a heating unit that makes up the "cross guard" and continues up along the back of the blade, for a few seconds to facilitate cutting through armor, this in effect ruins the blade which is then ejected from the main heating unit. Additional blades are stored in the mounting unit, which resembles a large metal sheath with the top and one side open, allowing her to reload a new blade. This is done by sliding the tip of the heating unit down and in to the base of the mounting unit and then swinging the handle closed, almost like closing scissors, which then locks the sword in and inserts a new blade. The mounting unit is attached to the back of Kairune’s armor, which also acts as a sheath when the sword is not in use. The heating unit is powered by a specialized power core developed by Deathwave, it is thinner but longer than a fusion core and is inserted into the handle through the base. Almost exclusively used in power armor except for dire circumstances as the Steel Phoenix is an incredibly heavy sword and quite unwieldy without the use of the strength enhancements afforded to Kairune in the main suit.

Falling Star - A one handed blackened steel maul, that allows custom crafted explosive directional charges to be attached to one side, including high incendiary for soft targets and pulse charge for mechanically armored or robotic opponents, with the other side sporting a dual over-under super sledge rocket system. The blackened steel head was created with high carbon steel to help withstand the explosions and since Kairune loves options in battle she also made some additional attachments that rotate and snap into the explosive slot, including an axe head, a powered saw blade, a tesla pad, and "Atom's Justice" a Crow specialty that delivers radiation damage without explosions.

Lyons’ Claw - A smaller dagger system similar to the Steel Phoenix, the mounting unit is affixed to Kairune's thigh portion of her subframe and features a slimmer profile so it doesn't get in the way inside the power armor. The dagger is 16 inches long with a 10 inch blade, the heating unit doesn't have the power of it's larger sibling, as the Lyons' Claw was designed to pierce power armor seams and weak points and lower grade armor, so this allows the blade to stay in a useable heated state for longer. The blade's are double sided and are reloaded by sliding the heating unit down into the mounting unit just like sheathing a dagger.

##### Heavy Arsenal Airdrop

Maw of Cerberus - Heavy underlug energy weapon made with a 3 modified assaultron eyebeams that fires a large beam with a 10” diameter, can fire 10 pulses or two 10 sec continuous beams before the battery burns out for good. It uses specially made oversized fusion cores (around the size of mini nukes) called FM Batteries or FMBs.