Player Name: Manda
Full Name: Io Vesper
Nicknames and Pseudonyms: Three, her 'official'ly fake ID reads Helia Arno but that's hardly her only alias.
Age: 25
Birth Date: April 23, 2288
Role on Ship: The Muscle.
Homeworld: unknown, though her mutations are Tenohan
Significant Relations and Affiliations: The Siren's Song crew, The Flock
Bonds, Obligations, Debts, and Warrants: Yuuuuup.
Appearance: 5'6". Pretty but she doesn't do a thing to enhance it aside from the occasional dark eyeliner and eyebrow shaping. Wears her hair in thin locs or braids - down to roughly the middle of her back, has some light freckles spattered across her nose and a few moles, some random tattoos mostly on her arms and torso. She's not super defined but she's lean muscle and strong for her size. Has some scars, mostly on her knuckles, and has suffered quite a few broken bones over the years.
Io's biggest physical advantage is her 'armor' - the organic composite injected into the bones of her hands and forearms when she was a child to increased the density of her bones and help avoid injury from the crushing blows she lands.
Personality: Sorta...an asshole. Io seems kinda chill at first glance, but it quickly becomes clear that she just says what she thinks, never bothers to explain herself, and has a big attitude problem. Doesn't so much pick fights as...not worry about starting one. In general, she doesn't often yell but if her ire is pricked just right then she'll get snappy and loud.
Dry sense of humor and she tends to default to snark. Io can be downright cruel at times but her bark isn't always fierce; often, the meaner she is, the more she likes someone. If she doesn't like someone, she can't be bothered and tends to just ignore them. Io holds a FUCK of a grudge. She's quick to come to her sisters' defense and will fuck all the shit up if they need her to.
Io hasn't forgiven herself for what she did to Europa, but she doesn't like to talk about it either. Occasionally she'll slip into depressive states where she lashes out at everyone and everything. It's best to try and give her space and allow her to work through it herself.
Io is a lesbian.
Strengths, Talents, Abilities: While her bark is pretty bad, it's her bite that really breaks the skin. With her Tenohan mutation, Io can control her adrenaline and when she chooses to, she can flood her system with excessive amounts of it, allowing her to perform physical feats outside the realm of normal. She's fast and very flexible/nimble - like a spider monkey. Io has trained in various styles of martial arts, but is mostly a grappler. Has a temper like whoa but it's a quiet boil over rather than an explosion. Sort of a one woman wrecking crew. Has some kickass survival skills.
Weaknesses and Fears: She loves her sisters with all her heart and now that she's found them again, she's terrified of losing them. She has an intense fear of being alone in the universe but also has a tendency to push people away.
Can hold her adrenaline rush for roughly eight minutes depending on what she's doing and the physical state she's in. While 'juicing', as she calls it, Io can move almost inhumanely fast and can lift almost 1500 pounds. She can also use that momentum to deliver crushing blows. In short, she's a powerhouse.
That said, Io crashes hard after she juices, and the effects tend to be almost immediate. Because of this, she tends to save it for when she really needs it.
She's also not impervious to injury, though her adrenaline rush may make it hard for her to recognize when she's injured.
History: Like her sisters, Io spent as much of her childhood as she could remember living in the strictly controlled environment of a laboratory. Controlled but not cold; she and her eleven sisters were taught critical thinking, compassion, morals, and to work together. And at first Io and her sisters knew no different, assuming that every child grew up in such an environment and that every family was twelve sisters, all with the same birthday; that all parents were a combination of human doctors and scientists and robot caretakers. That every group of girls studied everything from history to battle tactics.
Io was also taught simultaneously to be a protector and self sufficient, compassionate toward all of her sisters - except when she was ten and her training abruptly changed. Seemingly overnight the majority of their caretakers were replaced with new, less compassionate faces, and from the beginning they began encouraging competition and aggression between Io and Europa. In hindsight, there were more times than Io can remember where the two ended up in a situation that was intentionally created. The sort of situations that fed on their competitive natures, that often ended up with one or both bleeding, that were bound to go too far eventually…
Until one finally did and Io cracked her sister's skull open on the corner of the dinner table.
Europa's death seemed to have a domino effect as it wasn't long afterwards that Victoria shared her suspicions. She couldn't be right though, could she? It all seemed both far fetched and also incredibly plausible.
Io, grieving the loss of Europa, wanted someone to blame. She was furious, wanted to tear her way through the laboratory and rip each of them apart, but her sisters managed to redirect her, convincing her to wait, because Victoria's suspicions were confirmed by one of their caretakers, a scientist named Anita Creed who'd been around for as long as they could remember. But Anita had a plan, a way off the barren wasteland of Shuurg, and they'd all have their roles to play.
But no plan was foolproof and in the end only half of the girls managed to make it to the skiff Anita had arranged as their escape off the tiny planetoid. They had no choice but to continue forward though, because going back wasn't an option, and it took all of Io's considerable strength to drag Libra aboard.
Anita hadn't made it out either, but she'd warned them that they'd need help and that there was someone who could help them: her brother, Nathaniel Creed. Anita had sent him the formula they'd need to survive, without explanation, but it took time to find time; time that the girls didn't have that they quickly began falling ill. Clues pointed them, eventually, to Warden Station, where they found Cormac Trig AKA Nathaniel Creed.
And, at the urging of his sweet-as-cotton candy EO, Daisy, he agreed to help them. Amalthea was too far gone, even after getting the formula, and the girls found themselves mourning another lost sister. It was with a grief filled heart that Io reluctantly turned her eye to the future, to the freedom they'd worked so hard to win, and agreed that it was best if they all went their separate ways.
The next few years saw Io bouncing around the galaxy, from one job to the next, never staying in one place too long before moving on. She took work as a bodyguard, as an underground cage fighter, anything to bring in enough money to survive - until piracy landed in her lap.
Io joined The Black Swan's crew and gleefully did her part to torment Explorer's Inc. Sure, the company may not have done anything to her specifically, but they represented everything that she'd grown to hate over her lifetime and she took it all out on them. It seemed a match made in heaven and Io even grew fond of her crewmates, especially her Captain. It was a fondness that, at least on Io's part, turned into something a little stronger, which abruptly ended with Persephone's death and Io's capture after an ambush that decimated the crew.
Io didn't stay in the hands of Explorers Inc long though. In fact, within an hour, she had made her escape, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. And what else could she assume but that everyone else was dead? That Persephone was dead?
Like she'd done so many times, Io disappeared to lick her wounds and it wasn't long after that Libra got in touch with her. It seemed her sister had joined her own crew of pirates and they could use someone who packed a punch. With everything still raw it took little convincing to get Io to join her sister(s?) and she's been a part of the Siren's Song crew ever since.
Anything Else:
Model: Zoe Kravitz