Inessa

Judicatrix Inessa posing with a pair of antique handguns

### Personality

Bleak, cynical, fatalistic. Holds a deep personal loyalty to Alain, but has strong reservations about his actions and methods.

## Inventorial Information

### Apparel

tank top, camouflage pants, combat bootsJudicatorial armor and robe (alternate)

### Equipment

custom-made Judicatorial tacticoman assortment of lethal and non-lethal grenades

Inessa is a Judicatorial disciple in service of the rogue Judicator Alain, and his arguably most loyal student.

## Overview

As opposed to most other Judicators, Inessa's past is at least fragmentarily known, perhaps declassified owing to the circumstances of her joining the Order and later accompanying Alain in his rogue crusade against Victor Golovkin and Elena Trotskaya.

Born as a human in a family of Nuevocolombian expatriates in 2615 in one of the human ghettos of Thalassa Prime, the innermost of Imperial worlds and the only true hive world where human settlement is officially allowed, Inessa was destined essentially from birth to a life of petty crime, were it not for her father's connections outside the Imperium. Being a minor crime boss, her father would use his connections to arrange for Inessa and her elder sister Dolores to be smuggled out of the Imperium and set up to live on Nueva Colombia in hopes to keep his daughters away from a life of crime and give them an opportunity for a decent life.

That, however, was not to be when Inessa's father's criminal past eventually caught up with him. Unable to repay a debt owed to the Escobar Cartel, one of the most powerful of Nuevocolombian drug cartels, her father and mother were murdered, Inessa and Dolores being abducted and sold into prostitution. Inessa was only 16 at that time.

It was most probable that the girls would have lived short, brutish and miserable lives from there on, were it not for a Judicatorial cell setting out on a mission to dismantle the Escobar cartel. The exact reasons in the Judicators taking interest in crushing a human crime syndicate remain classified. Most believe that mercenaries on Escobar payroll had simply assassinated one Sidh official or raided one cargo shipment too many. Whatever the case, the new mission brought Dolores and Alain, then just a disciple, into contact, resulting in a passionate affair.

Despite disapproval from his mentor Serena Romana, Alain would persist with the romance, obtaining valuable intel from his lover and earning the trust and respect of Inessa as well. The two girls eventually regained their freedom after the Judicator cell shook down the brothel they were held in for intel, rather brutally dispatching of their pimp, a small-time crook known as Marco the Rat by videotaping his confession of the cartel secrets and leaving him bound to a chair with the datachip taped to his forehead for arriving cartel reinforcements to find.

The Judicators succeeded in assassinating the Escobar Cartel boss Juan Carlo Escobar after a brutal battle in his fortified mountain villa, and later proceeded to assassinate most of the remaining cartel bosses with the intent to start a series of gang wars for succession. In this they succeeded, but as it turned out, cartel loyalists were slow to forget their former allegiances, Alain's lover Dolores being savagely murdered in reprisal for her role of the Sidhae obtaining intel to strike at Don Juan Carlo himself.

The Judicator cell left Nuevocolombia with Alain perhaps heartbroken, but the struggle for survival had only began for Inessa as the world descended into chaos and anarchy as the leaderless cartels started to battle for supremacy across the world. Not wanting to be victimized ever again, Inessa would join the fray, learning the necessary fighting skills and serving as a mercenary in various outfits before using her contacts to return to the Imperium after the cartel she fought for was decimated, spelling doom for all who had associated with it before.

Life was tough back in the Imperium, but at least there was no immediate threat of death at the hands of a rival cartel. The discrimination and the lack of perspective for humans eventually convinced Inessa to apply for conversion, fond memories of her sister's Sidh boyfriend contributing to it in no small part. After successfuly converting, Inessa would continue to make a living the only acceptable way she knew - as a smuggler and mercenary - until one day reading a public advertisement that the Order was recruiting new candidates. Despite her handlers denying any knowledge of the existance of a Judicator named Alain at first and her attracting considerable suspicion and scrutiny with her insistence of being made part of his cell, Inessa's request was eventually granted when Alain, recently promoted to a full Judicator, was informed of a recruit taking specific interest in him and agreed to take the young woman into his tutelage. Ever since then, Inessa has faithfully followed Alain, carrying out his commands to the letter even after his going rogue.

## Personality

Inessa is a tough, self-reliant and deeply cynical person, hardened by her difficult pre-conversion life, years of service as a mercenary and especially the loss of her sister. She is deeply loyal to Alain, feeling she owes him for rescuing her and her sister. Outsiders unaware of their previous history believe the two share a romantic involvement, though in reality Inessa sees Alain more as family, an older brother of sorts, the rogue Judicator in turn being reminded of his former love by his apprentice. While reserved about his betrayal of the Order, Inessa is nonetheless determined to follow through with whatever Alain has in mind to the bitter end, feeling there is nothing else left for her in this world anyway.

Despite her self-appointed tough girl image, Inessa is keenly aware of her more feminine side and does not hesitate to use it when it suits her, even having installed a dedicated Socialite augmentation package for that end. She is a quite skilled conversationist and seductress (evidently having one of the best in both to learn from), as is attested by her successful seduction and capture of Marco Webley shortly before the Flight of the Polunochnaya. When violence is required, Inessa specializes in close combat, combining her self-taught martial arts skills from her mercenary days with training received from Alain. The latter is especially evident in her dual-wielding fighting style that mimicks Alain's own.

Inessa is overall the most level-headed and "normal" of Alain's three disciples, as opposed to the twisted ingenuity of Ignatius, who essentially embodies the archetypes of mad scientist and evil genius, or the barely-restrained borederline-psychotic rage of Malachai, who lives true to his Berserker background. It is perhaps for this reason that Alain has allowed her to become something of his personal confidante.

## Trivia

Inessa's last name Elizalde suggests a Basque ancestry, although her middle name Marisol, itself a contraction of Maria Soledad, is distinctly Catalan.