App: Drift Fleet

[effluent]

OUT OF CHARACTER:
Name/Handle: Mimi
Contact: glimmers
Reference:
Other characters: None

IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Sarah Turner
Character journal: effluent
Series name: N/A (OC)
Canon notes: Sarah is taken from a version of Earth that is very similar to our own, with only a few small differences.

The greatest difference is the other worlds that are intrinsically linked to Earth. While Earth exists as it always has, an alternate version of Earth lies adjacent to our planet through space and time. In this Earth, every creature has access to the hidden power of "heart". The power of heart provides magical powers to every human and animal on Earth, with each being possessing a unique suite of abilities that are aligned with their nature. With these magical powers, humans built a sprawling utopia that covered the earth, and this magical kingdom was ruled by a wise King and Queen.

The King and Queen had two beautiful daughters, but the younger daughter grew up hating her older sister. While the eldest Princess appeared kind and strong to the public, they were cruel and tormented their weaker sister all throughout childhood. Bitter towards the people of the Kingdom who were deceived by her sister's charm, and angry at her parents who were too distant and busy to see the cruelty in her sister, she retreated from the world. In secret she used her dizzying intellect to develop a forbidden power, the power to take the magic of hearts of others. With this power she stole the hearts and magic of civilians, recruited powerful generals that were sympathetic to her cause, and raised an army of darkness. And then, in a sudden rush she declared war upon her parents and the Kingdom.

No one was prepared for the attack, and the Dark Princess's forces cut through the Kingdom's troops with ruthless efficiency. No one could match the power that the Dark Princess had amassed, and even if the tide of war could be turned... Hundreds of thousands of people were already dead, and the land was utterly ravaged by the struggle. The strongest warriors of the Kingdom gathered together to devise a plan. Researchers in the kingdom had previously discovered the existence of parallel worlds, but in doing so they had discovered something dreadful. If a person dies in a parallel world, not only do they die, but the they are erased from existence in their original world. Because of this discovery, travel to other worlds was deemed too dangerous and the research was suspended indefinitely. But now... The Kingdom's Librarian theorized that if they could defeat the Dark Princess in the parallel Earth (the Earth that we know), then not only would the war be over, but they could save the entire kingdom from the destruction that had already occurred.

So the Shining Warriors of light decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. They would perform a final devastating attack that would weaken the Dark Princess and send her through time and space to the alternate Earth. But their magic would be preserved in gemstones. These gemstones would be delivered by the Kingdom's Librarian to the alternate Earth, where they would be drawn to the humans that were aligned with each Warrior's magic. Then, the new Shining Warriors could defeat the weakened princess once and for all, and in doing so save the entire world.

It was a mad scheme, but it was their only hope. They unleashed their final attack, died and sent their magic on with the Librarian to our Earth. And in doing so, our planet was forever changed. The Dark Princess now lies dormant on the Moon, as her generals gather the hearts of humans in order to awaken her. However, our hearts are weaker, and do not possess the same level of magic as civilians in the Kingdom. This means that The Librarian has time. Time to find the six girls with hearts that align with the Shining Warriors, and time to awaken their heart's magic with the warrior's magic stones. Time to help them train, time to help them defeat the generals one by one, and time to defeat the Dark Princess before she can truly awaken. During this time, that is when our story takes place.

Species: Human

History: Sarah Turner was born with everything. She was the only child of two wealthy and successful professionals who lived in Tacoma, Washington. They were both up and coming figures in their respective areas of work, and it was mutually agreed upon that they would hire a full-time nanny to deal with the day-to-day realities of child rearing so that they could both pursue their careers.

Despite their fears, young Sarah never seemed to resent her parents for this choice. She was always a very intelligent child, and she seemed to quickly understand complex subjects and as a result treated both her parents and her nanny with quiet civility. Her nanny was a fussy woman named Rose, and she watched with growing concern as the quiet baby Sarah grew into a withdrawn young girl. She didn't seem to be particularly interested in... well, anything. She had some toys that she liked, but she seemed to gather little joy from playing pretend. She read fairly regularly, but when Rose asked about these books Sarah would shrug and say that they were "fine". She watched some TV but detested the children shows that Rose insisted on, and watched films and television shows meant for older audiences whenever Rose was preoccupied with other activities.

So as the years went on and Rose entered elementary school, Rose brought her concerns to Sarah's parents. She was worried that Sarah was developing anti-social tendencies and wanted her parents to encourage her to play with the other children. But her parents were distracted by the praises sung by Sarah's teachers, claiming that she was reading and writing at an impressively high grade level. They instructed Rose to remain hands-off and leave Sarah alone in regards to her social development.

Around these years, her mother got a new job at a law firm in Tacoma proper, and with no more massive commute eating into her week, she made the effort to remain at home more often, and spend more time with her daughter. She was delighted by Sarah's intellectual development, and wasted no time in imparting life lessons upon her daughter. How to get what she wanted from people, how to tell what people want, the importance of self-sufficiency... All of these concepts were too weighty for a young child to grasp fully, but they created a foundation on which Sarah would later build her moral compass upon.

As Sarah spent more time observing her parents and growing older, she became quickly disillusioned with their lives. To her eye her parents always seemed tired, their jobs seemed boring, their wealth was a burden of expectations, their friends were of convenience, and they never smiled. With this in mind she always remained polite towards her parents, but their relationship failed before it ever truly began. As she entered late elementary and middle school, Sarah began to spend more time talking with the other students. However she found this to be just as boring if not worse. She gained no real friends, but adopted the ability to make "friends" and discovered how to project the perfect image of herself to others. As other teens entered middle school as gawky insecure messes, Sarah seemed confident, pretty, athletic, and charming... a combination that won her friends and acceptance wherever she sought it.

Her parents saw to it that Sarah was enrolled in a prestigious all-girls school. The joy of gaining praise from her teachers wore off quickly, and she started to work just hard enough to skate through her classes with minimal effort. She worked to forge basic friendships with most of the major cliques in her grade, but the friendships were superficial at best. She built up a reputation as a popular girl who was down for anything, but she dropped farther and farther into a durum of boredom. She continued through middle school and high school like this, until she finally reached her senior year.

It was during this year that everything changed. While she was walking home from school she noticed something strange... She looked down an ally and saw one of her classmates there-- the new girl who had just transferred in. She was crouching and it sounded like she was... talking to someone? As Sarah got closer, she realized that the new girl was talking to a bunny rabbit, and even more the rabbit was talking back. When the two of them realized that Sarah had overheard their conversation, the rushed towards her and told her everything.The new girl had been approached by this talking rabbit a few days ago. This rabbit came from a Kingdom in an alternate reality that was on the brink of extinction... but this rabbit held the key to their salvation. She had six gemstones, and each gemstone contained the magic of a Shining Warrior of light. These gemstones were drawn to their matching partner, to the heart that was compatible to their magic... And the blue gemstone was calling out to Sarah.

She didn't believe what she was hearing, and if a bunny wasn't talking to her right now she would have assumed that this transfer student was crazy. But she also felt a slight thrill for the first time in her life. She had lived her whole life in apathy, not knowing what she wanted or what to do with her life. But this... this was exciting. This was something straight out of the TV shows that she was drawn to as a child. But she played her emotions close to her chest and played along. Over the next few days the bunny gathered together Sarah, the transfer student, and five of their classmates. Then, all crammed together in the transfer student's bedroom, they were all asked to join together and fight against the Dark Princess and her generals.

The bunny told them everything, and introduced herself as The Librarian of the Kingdom of Light. She said that she knew all of these girls, or at least, the grown version of them that existed in the Kingdom of Light. She did not expect to find such young versions of the warriors, but it couldn't be helped. She begged them-- please accept these gemstones and the magic they held. The Dark Princess would destroy this Earth, and the Kingdom of Light if left alone, so if they held any love for their home they had to fight back. The girls would be given as much time as they needed to decide, but most of them had already decided. Together they all accepted the mission that they were given, and accepted their new powers and responsibility.

And so, the Shining Warriors were reborn. Sarah became Shining Aqua, and sized up the other girls that she had been grouped with. The transfer student (now dubbed Shining Life) was a mystery, but the rest were at least slightly familiar. Shining Dawn was Grace Taylor, a popular and vivacious member of the Student Council with an easy smile and loud laugh. Shining Blaze was Zoe Ramos, a loud girl who had developed a reputation as a fight-starter and troublemaker. Shining Crystal was Yu-Jin Park, the towering captain of the volleyball team that was known for her stern face and long hours she spent at the gym. Shining Zephyr was Lakshmi Sing, everyone knew about her trendsetting style and success in art, but she was viewed as a bit of a loner. Shining Dusk was Abigail Burns, a mousy nerd who had been bullied in middle school and now kept to herself in the quiet corners of the classrooms.

Over the next few days, the girls found a new routine together. The Librarian assured them that the generals would limit their activity to this city-- her presence and the presence of the Shining Warriors meant that this city was now more magically charged than any other city in the world. The Generals needed to gather the magic in hearts to awaken their Princess, and the hearts in this city now held ten times more magic than the rest of the hearts in the world. These hearts still only had the fraction of the magic that hearts in the Kingdom of Light had... but it was all the Generals had to work with. For the time being, the girls were not strong enough to take on all the Generals at once, their best hope would be to train and become stronger, so that they could confront the Generals individually.

So they patrolled the city together in pairs, destroying the General's monster servants and developing their magical powers. But as they settled into a routine, a thought struck Sarah. What would happen when this was over? This was exciting-- fighting was exhilarating, solving mysteries and stalking those who were possessed by the Generals Monsters was fun.. And when this was all over, their prize would be the knowledge that everything would go back to the way it was. The grey doldrums of boredom would return, and she would return to real life.

As this feeling festered, she was approached one night by one of the Princesses Generals-- Eritheia. She told Sarah that she was free to run, free to stop listening at any time that she wanted... But she would want to listen to this offer. She spoke to Sarah's heart, spoke of all the listless dissatisfaction that Sarah had felt her entire life. She intrinsically knew of Sarah's fears because she saw her own ambition in Sarah. She said that the Librarian couldn't offer anything that Sarah wanted, but the Princess of Darkness could offer so much more. If Sarah helped the dark generals from within the Shining Warrior's ranks, then the Princess would reward her loyalty. The Princess had no interest in this Earth, only in returning to her own world. After waging war against this Earth and returning to their world, they would give Sarah incredible power and leave her to do whatever she wanted. Power, wealth, status.. it could all be Sarah's, if she made the right choice.

Her heart jumped. For the first time someone in this world seemed to understand her. Someone saw through all of her lies and illusions. The general's words pierced her to her core, and she accepted immediately. She barely knew these girls, she wasn't impressed with the Librarian... And this promise fulfilled vague ideals that she had always longed for, but never knew she wanted. For her it was easy, impulsive yet instinctive...

Eritheia granted her magical powers, powers of darkness to make her stronger than the other girls, but she also gave her a limiter so that the Librarian would not catch on. These new extra powers could be kept hidden until they were needed, until the right moment. So she continued to work with the other girls, feeding information to Eritheia all the way.

However, the other girls were strong in their own right. As they fought together, they grew stronger and began to form genuine friendships. Even Sarah wasn't immune, and found herself growing fond of Abigail, meek scared little Shining Dusk. She was one of the most genuinely kind people that Sarah had ever meant, but she also had a secret sassy streak deep down that made Sarah laugh. What started as midnight patrols together ended in a marathon of embarrassing anime late into the night together, and at times Sarah even found herself feeling... Happy. It was a strange warm feeling, her first true friend. But in the back of her mind she knew that she was sharpening the knife to drive in her new companion's back. It was a duality that ate away at her, throwing her heart into confusion.

But she stayed true to Eritheia. As the girls fought and learned more about the Generals, Sarah fed them information and caused problems whenever she could. She brought back information that led them to a confrontation with the physically strongest General, although the other generals were surprised when the girls managed to pull together and defeat this powerful foe. She told Eritheia about the warrior's family members, and as a result when the second general took their loved ones hostage Yu-Jin was severely wounded rescuing them. But again, the warriors surpassed the General's expectations and managed to defeat the second general. Then, finally, she told Eritheia when and how they would be attacking the third general, and the girls were ambushed as a result. They managed to defeat the general and flee, but only because Zoe gave her life to cover their final escape.

As the guilt of her actions grew, and Sarah's desire for true friendship took hold in her heart, Eritheia knew that she was losing her grip on Sarah. She decided to spring her trump card in a final confrontation. She appeared before the girls, revealed Sarah's betrayal, and unleashed Sarah's hidden dark power. With added strength and vitality, her healing powers gave Eritheia the extra edge that she needed to be a truly intimidating foe. However, by cleverly rendering Sarah unconscious they gained the upper hand over Eritheia and defeated her. Shaken by the betrayal, they tied up Sarah, and took her to a secluded location to question her further.

Convinced they would kill her, Sarah answered their questions honestly and dismissively. How long have you been working for her? Since the beginning, and none of you suspected a thing. Why did you do it? Because I could. Were you going to tell us? Maybe, probably not. How could you do this? Didn't you care about Zoe? Do you realize the pain you caused Yu-Jin? How could you lie to our faces?

She eventually grew silent and just stared into the distance. Furious, Yu-Jin said that they had to execute her, it was the only way to ensure that she wouldn't betray them again. Abigail protested, and Sarah felt a sob catch in her breath as Abigail begged the others to forgive Sarah and take her back. Grace suggested a compromise-- it was too dangerous to welcome her back to the group, but they couldn't kill her. Maybe they could just take her gem... exile her.The girls left Sarah to make a decision in private, and she simply leaned back and closed her eyes. She was ready, ready to accept whatever fate they through she deserved.

[NOTE: Sarah is taken from a RPG, and her fate is dependent on several player choices.
1. Who is severely wounded in the battle against the Second General. Sarah will be taken from a canon where it is Yu-Jin.
2. Who died in the battle with the third general. Sarah will be taken from a canon where this is Zoe.
3. Sarah's ultimate fate. This is decided directly by the player character. Because Sarah experiences drastic character development depending on the choice the player makes, and the relatitionship the player forms with the player character, Sarah will be played from before this decision is made in canon. ]

Personality: Sarah is a girl whose personality is mired in contradictions. She's ambitious, yet aimless. She's intelligent, but prone to making ill-informed decisions. She's desperately lonely, but actively pushes people away. And finally she has all the potential to live a happy and productive life, but she is too nihilistic to see that potential in herself and the world around her. It's quite a pitiable existence really, to see so little good in the world. But that's the person she is-- cynical and bitter through and through.

And worse, she has no real reason to feel this way, she simply is. She often thinks that she has no reason to be unhappy. After all, both of her parents are alive and well, she was always reasonably popular and successful in school, and she's had comfortable life free of tragedy. Why does she always feel like there's this gaping hole in her life? A hole that she can't seem to fill, no matter how many nice things she throws into it.That hole that she can't put a name on is her ambition.

At the core of her being, she is a powerful and ambitious person. She wants a lot of ambiguous concepts-- she wants greatness, power, influence, admiration, love... But these are all lofty things to desire, and it can't be hard to picture what these things look like in the real everyday world. So, like most children, when she was grappling with these feelings and looking for meaning in life she observed her parents closely. After all, her parents were both well respected and successful individuals. Her mother was a highly sought-after attorney, and her father was a neuro-surgeon at the top of his field. They were the picture perfect example of someone who was following the American dream and lived a life that was on the right track.

And what she discovered from observing them? Is that she hated their life. Their life was long hours at work, coming home to a loveless and empty marriage. Their life was eating Bertoli pasta at midnight while pouring over case documents, paying bills for some new tiling that was going into the bathroom that was slightly nicer than the old one but still a matching shade, putting on extravagant parties for other members of the community only to spend the whole night grimacing over how much it all cost. It looked like a life of going through the motions, a life of busy work and entrapment. She wanted none of it. Because while Sarah is ambitious, she is also a free spirit at heart. She hates rules, time schedules, and the feeling of being confined.

So if she can't satisfy her ambition by following in the footsteps of her parents, what can she do? She still didn't know, so her keen powers of observation were turned towards her peers. Sarah has always been an observant girl, and what she found in her peers was shocking. The more she observed them, the more she saw how messed up people were. Kids could be cruel, girls could be catty, boys could be assholes... And at the end of the day, the one thing that united all people was a desire to be liked. So she played to that. She practiced telling people what they wanted to hear. Using her keen powers of observation she learned the validation that people wanted, and gave it to them. But this lead to hollow, one-sided friendships that didn't leave her feeling any more satisfied.

As she grew older and exited childhood a new feeling started to grow in her. A gnawing boredom that she could never shake. The hints of ambition that she had in childhood grew as she still had nothing to channel it towards. School was boring with no end-goal in mind. Friendships were meaninglessly easy and simple when you didn't have to put genuine effort into them. Activities like sports felt like a waste of time if you feel like you're not competing against worthy opponents. She became bored, restless, and dissatisfied with a life that might seem perfect to an outside observer.

So she turned to the oldest habit of bored and ruthless teenagers-- drama. With one finger in every social pie at her prestigious all-girls high school, it was almost too easy to stir up drama. It gave her little joy, but at least it was some stimulation in her grey every day life. This nurtured another part of her, a manipulative side. It forced her to practice lying. Life became a game if illusions in her eyes. What illusions could she project about herself? What illusions were other people putting up? Now she lies as easily as she breathes, sometimes even when she has no reason to. Most of the time she wouldn't even be able to say why she does it, it's just an impulse.

And that leads to her next personality trait, Sarah is impulsive. This is at odds with many other points of her personality, because at the end of the day 90% of her impulsive decisions are incredibly bad decisions. And often times she'll make them even when she knows they're a bad decision. Why? Again, it all comes down to her gnawing sense of boredom. After she's assessed the risk of a situation (and she will have, because she is always assessing things, sizing up all people and situations that she encounters) and makes that bad decision because she knows it's a bad decision. Because in those moments the boredom is so overwhelming that she wants to test herself. She wants to see if she can wiggle out of this jam, or avoid this consequence. Sometimes she succeeds, sometimes she fails... She's not the type of person who cares about winning or loosing, she just cares about the thrill of the chase. But she tries to be smart about it, if she's taken too many risks in a small amount of time she'll hang back for a bit, and develop her respectable reputation. While she likes some trouble now and again, she still cares more about having the freedom to go where she wants and do what she wants-- and that's hard to do when the authority figures in her life are breathing down her neck.

At this point, it's obvious that Sarah isn't a good person. While she can be empathetic, she lacks a basic sense of caring. But this doesn't mean that she's utterly heartless. She actually had a weak spot for kids and genuinely kind people. She doesn't believe that those people exist (at the end of the day, everyone is selfish... at least, that's what she'd say) but when she meets those people they tend to melt her heart. But then she has a tendency to distance herself from those people. After all people like them shouldn't have to deal with assholes like her, and she gets no pleasure from messing with them. Because of this she traps herself in this senseless cycle where she believes in the worst in people, surrounds herself with people who support that belief, and never forms genuine relationships. And ironically, genuine relationships is exactly what she needs! If she had people, or a cause that she cared about, it would give her a place to channel all of her untapped energy. And if she was helping people that she cared about, it would leave her feeling fulfilled and she could finally find purpose in her life.

But for now she remains in this in between. A girl who goes to great lengths to appear perfect to others, but is a passionless husk of a person. Someone who is so dissatisfied with life that she makes terrible decisions in secret hope that something in her life will change as a result. Someone who needs genuine connections in her life but makes no effort to find what she needs. Someone with fiery ambition but no dreams of her own. Someone who asked herself "what's the point of it all?" and found no answer. Someone sad, lonely, pathetic, and foolish, but ultimately someone who has all the potential in the world.

Abilities: At her core, Sarah is an average human being. She's fairly athletic, but she has few outstanding physical attributes.

But when she uses the magic in her pendent to transform, then she is a full-on magical girl. Her hair grows longer, a frilly bow-covered outfit appears, and she receives a magical staff with an icy blue crystal at the end. She gains strength, agility, and endurance beyond a normal human being. While she is stronger than an average person in this state, she is actually one of the weakest on her team when it comes to physical strength. Compared to her teammates her weaknesses are Strength and Magical resistance, she has average agility, and her strengths are endurance and magic. Which means that her primary strength in battle is lasting for the whole fight without tiring, and casting strong as hell magic spells. But much to her chagrin, most of her spells are healing spells.

That's right, it turns out her heart magic is healing others. SHe has a limited array of ice spells, but their focus is manipulating the enemy and freezing them in place. The majority of her spells are dedicated to healing the party. She can cure small to moderate wounds, she can heal several people at once, she can renew energy for tired companions, she can cure status ailments, and she can even grant temporary health regeneration.
Augment Skillset: Communications (being able to snoop and spy and gossip? yes please)
Sample:
[as the video flickers on, a blonde teenager stares intently at the camera before she flashes a toothy smile and leans in closer]

Aaaand there we go. Testing, one two-- [she taps the camera twice and grins a little wider as she hears feedback from her own device]

Is it too late for a Wizard of Zoz reference? Because we sure are not in Kansas any more. [her left hand reaches up to fiddle with a strand of her wavy blonde hair as she looks up, past the camera]

So tell me if I leave anything out, because here's what I've got figured out so far. We're on Survivor: Space Edition, with just a dab of Star Travel mixed in for flavor. And I'm guessing instead of getting voted off the island, we get jetted off into space? Man, and I thought human reality TV was vicious. Turns out aliens are the real assholes.

[but despite that she laughs a bit at her own joke and turns her full attention back to the screen before she continues]

I guess the meet-and-greet comes next. Hey, I'm Sarah. [she wiggles the fingers of her right hand in a half-hearted wave] Nice to meet you, blah blah blah. While we're on the subject of introductions, I looked through the contestant list, and you guys have some wild names. Special shout out to "Belthazar" and "Adrasteius"... I can't tell if your parents were huge nerds, or if they just hated you.

So! Who all is out there? Don't be shy, I don't bite... much. [aaand yep, she accompanies that with another shit-eating-grin. She'll also be lounging around the Marssiva social area if anyone wanted to bother her in person... that is also an option]