Laura the Hedgehog

Laura the Hedgehog was a Star Marine Engineer stationed on the G.U.N. Third Interstellar Fleet, stationed aboard the Dragoon II-class Frigate Reaper. However, while on the vessel's maiden voyage, she was slain by a suicide attack by hostile fighters, and died saving the life of her team.

Appearance

A tall, broad female hedgehog, Laura had short, neatly-trimmed ice-blue fur and tan skin, plus sharp, clear blue eyes.

Attire

While off-duty, Laura would wear a white tank-top and blue jeans, plus pink-laced Converse, a gold necklace, and black framed glasses. However, while on duty, Laura wore the standard engineer's attire, a police riot armor-styled suit with full vacuum-helmet, plus additional seals and bulkier armor, in order to allow her a maximum of half-an-hour in open space. This uniform is black and khaki, custom-fitted to her body.

History

Early Life

Laura was born on the outskirts of Central City, not too far from the prison. Her family had long-standing law-enforcement traditions, ranging back to her grandparents. However, unlike the rest of her family, Laura had little interest in working for the law. Instead, she found that her tri-elemental skills, increased by training from her prison-guard mother and police officer father, were guiding her in a different direction. She idolized family members who served overseas as peacekeepers, serving with G.U.N. in response to internal wars. As she grew older, she decided that peacekeeping was her path.

In her teenaged years, Laura developed an interest in rare and experimental technologies, and began training herself as a hacker in order to further her quest for knowledge. These skills caught the eye of the infamous mercenary corps, the Children of Supplicium. Through her school, they contacted her and her family, and offered the group a deal - Laura, a fifteen-year-old, would serve with them as a mercenary, and her family would receive a share of her payments. Uncertain, her family discussed it with her, but the fires of excitement had been set. Laura wasn't interested in hanging back and thinking it over, she wanted the excitement of being a mercenary. Reluctantly, her parents accepted.

Mercenary

Laura's first job as a merc was simple - they were hired by a mining company to stop a conflict between native workers and the government taxing them. In this operation, it was a case of forming a barrier of bodies between the warring forces, and to prevent any violence. In her very first experience, Laura was astonished at the brutality both sides were willing to use, and as such was one of the many elemental wielders using their elements to restrain people on each side, with Laura focusing on using vines and electrical blasts to disable targets. When a resolution was finally forged, the fifteen-year-old was astonished at how callous the career mercenaries were, helping themselves to everything and anything they could. However, her payment was swapped, a ploy the mercs had planned, and instead provided the girl with a small scanner-pack, taken from a mining vehicle. The advanced technology, capable of locating stealthed opponents, became a keen point of interest for the young girl, who immediately got to tinkering in order to find out how it worked. A few more missions had similar results for the girl, and by the time she turned twenty-one, she was fed up and bored with it all. She quit the mercenary forces, and instead did a degree in computer systems back in Central City, a degree that took her four years.

Space Race

Once she acquired her degree in computer systems, Laura shifted into training as a military technician for the G.U.N. Interstellar Fleet. Three years were swallowed up as she underwent the training, learning everything from piloting and maintenance of every common starship in the G.U.N. arsenal to hacking and overriding typical computer systems used by the Black Arms and the Pure Trolls, the main space-faring opponents of G.U.N. In the process of this training, she met Lourne the Hedgehog, a man two years older than her and a technician by trade. The two really hit it off, and rapidly became friends, despite their completely different backgrounds. As soon as they finished, the two were ecstatic to find that they'd been assigned to the same corp, and on top of that, the same ship - the Reaper, a prototype Hammerforge Industries Dragoon II-class Frigate that was part of the Third Interstellar Fleet. As with all others in their corp, the duo were given personal cloaking devices, and had their armor marked with the G.U.N, crest, although Laura retained her scanner pack.

Aboard the Reaper

The technicians beat both the pilots and bridge crew aboard the brand new frigate, and both Lourne and Laura were impressed both at the cleanliness of the warship, and the advanced technology built in. Both were assigned to double-check the fighters on board - one squadron of Sabre-type Interceptors and a second, a motley array of other fighters, a more novice squadron compared to the elite Scythe Squadron. While there, the engineers and specialist mechanics were invited by the arriving pilots to join them in the ready room for a celebration of the new ship. This party started before the ship went underway, although the pilots were rapidly briefed on a mission coming up - trouble in a nearby system, they needed to be ready for anything. As such, on arrival to find three corvettes and a swarm of mixed fighters harassing a convoy, the pilots of both Scythe and Skull Squadrons were ready to launch as soon as the ship returned from slip-space.

Laura was rapidly brought in on a salvage-shuttle, in order to retrieve and analyze the wreckage of a couple of fighters. As she did this, a native of the planet arrived to congratulate the pilots...and accidentally infected them with a virus from her homeworld, resulting in replacement pilots being trained, to Laura's annoyance, knowing rightfully it meant more work. However, she was kept on the project of analyzing the unidentified fighter. After a few days of work, she identified it as a modified A-series Sabre Interceptor, with upgraded engines and weapons, plus a custom 'body kit', altering it's appearance through armor plating. She continued to study the engines as the trainee pilots started to fly against twin corvettes and a swarm of fighters. Once again, Laura was called upon to ID the fighters, but again, the variety of sensor data was to broad, and very few of these fighters were standard.

The ship made another hyper-jump, finding an old asteroid field, with an old, run-down destroyer in the center. Intrigued by the Technomage starship, Laura was on the viewing deck as the destroyer suddenly reactivated itself and began firing at the Reaper. Amazed at the firepower and technology that the pirates had activated, Laura was enthralled and visibly upset as the two squadrons of fighters, one of novices, the other of recovered pilots, plus the Reaper itself, battered the ancient ship into submission, blasting it with holes and leaving it venting atmosphere. Lourne was assigned to investigate in a vac-suit, and on his return, he handed Laura a small 'trinket', one of the ancient ship's long-broken warp-drive capacitors. Amazed, she couldn't help herself but repay her friend with a kiss.

Less than a day after the destroyer's attack, a number of fighters on a recon run found the pirate fleet, a rag-tag fleet of starships, foremost amongst them a triad of Dragoon-class Frigates, the Reaper's predecessors. Too many ships to deal with alone, the ship was soon joined by it's sister ships, leaving a small but high-powered task force. With that, they entered battle. Laura spent her time on the engineering decks, maintaining the missile launchers, although she was prepared to jump to a different position to repair battle damage at the drop of hat. In the primary battle, no such damage came to the Reaper, although one of the four other ships was critically damaged. The three remaining ships took on the rest of it's load, and started to hunt the final Dragoon-class frigate.

Her entire corp was called to the shuttle bay, an announcement that Laura assumed was to travel to the stricken frigate. However, half-way down the ship's main corridor, parallel to the outside hull, Laura heard a series of explosions, and realized the ship was under attack. Instantly, she used her Aerokinesis to throw all of her corp out to the other side of a bulkhead, followed by using her electrokinesis to block them out. Unfortunately, Lourne had steeled himself using his skill in wind to hold himself steady, and admitted that he loved her. She simply blushed, dropped her vac helmet, and kissed him in a romantic embrace, the same position they were in when the suicide bombing fighter slammed into their section of hull, venting the lovers into the void of space.

Legacy

As one of the first marines to die on board the Reaper, Laura was farewelled in a marine tradition. Once the Reaper, badly damaged and crewed by robots, returned to Mobius along with one of her sister ships. From the hanger of the second frigate, with the families of all the deceased from that attack, a casket representing each being killed in the attack was expelled from the hanger bay towards the sun, a symbol of an eternal peace that most hoped their loved ones received in the end.

Once the Reaper was recommissioned, the new shuttle assigned to the ship was named the Technical Love, in the memory of both Laura and Lourne.

Abilities

Laura, although somewhat passive, was a powerful Electrokinetic, and held respectable strength in the manipulation of both Wind and Nature. As a teenager, she was able to disable a tank by coming into physical contact with the heavy metal armor, using her electrokinesis to short out the engine. Similarly, she was capable of restraining a large group by manipulating vines to bind and hold, and using aerokinesis to throw a fully armored team of technicians from harms way.

Similarly, despite her disinterest, Laura was a very skilled hand-to-hand fighter, using highly acrobatic techniques combined with close-ranged elemental attacks to trigger a lot of damage.

However, her powers left her with one large overbearing weakness - Fire. A skilled fire-wielder could have overridden her two weaker elements, while at the same time matched her blow-for-blow through elements. This fight was never seen, though, and indeed, most say it's good that it never shall.

Electric Abilities

• Charge
• Chidori
• Lightning Inferno
• Mega Shock
• Shockwave
• Static Cling
• Thunder Axel
• Thunder Punch
• Thunderbolt
• Thundershock

Nature Abilities

• Frenzy Plant
• Leaf Boomerang
• Sleep Powder

Wind Abilities

• Aeroblast
• Air Slash
• Gust
• Razor Wind
• Wind Gate: Roc's Hurricane - Learned as a teen from an elder mercenary.
• Wind Lung

Elementless Abilities

• Acrobatics
• Crush Claw
• Double-Edge
• Down Draw
• Gnaw
• Hi Jump Kick
• Illusion Claw
• Lunge
• Outrage
• Rear Guard

Personality

A quiet, softly-spoken young woman, Laura was always more interested in technology than other people. In addition, she was a rather passive girl, allowing people to almost walk straight over her, although she would fight back to protect someone else, or to defend her own life from dire circumstances.

Ancient technology, such as that created by Technomage millenia ago, was a point of interest for the young woman, who was extremely saddened to see an old Technomage hulk of a starship damaged at all, despite the fact that it was attacking her starship. However, once her crush, one of the boarding party to inspect the ancient ship, provided her with a part off the hulk, she instantly affirmed her love for him.

Relationships

Friends

pending

Allies

• Georgi the Hedgehog - Georgi is a member of the bridge crew, the sensors officer, based on board the Reaper.
• Mazdan the Cryohog - One of the many gunners stationed aboard the Reaper.

Rivals

pending

Enemies

pending