Name:Makoto Mizushima
Gender:Female
Appearance:Age:Nineteen
Job: Earth Federation Army 2nd Lieutenant
Personality: Makoto is not a particularly welcoming individual. Joyless, detached, even cold at times, she displays a distinct lack of sociability when surrounded by peers. Though she is never outright rude or impolite, the girl is always kurt and straightforward, with a disdain for the finer bits of social grace, the deceptions and posturing of it all. She is a perfectionist, demanding the best and accepting nothing less from herself or her peers. With a no nonsense approach to most things, she finds common cause with few individuals but those who impress her through strength of character or resolve. She has an appreciation for those who are straight to the point, valorous, strong in their convictions or simply dedicated to their pursuit of excellency. Those individuals may be lucky enough to gain her praise, be tolerated by her less than welcoming outlook, or see the smallest curl of a smile present itself on her perpetually downturned lips.
Skills:Psychodriver: Makoto is a psycho driver of untested potential. To that end, she has an innate talent for piloting mech beyond her years and a certain instinctual ability to read her opponents' maneuvers and react accordingly.
Inquisitive Mind: A natural sponge for information, Makoto is always thirsty for tidbits of knowledge. Be they practical or mundane, she is a veritable encyclopedia of factoids, from the history of rice crackers to the maximum effective range of a Barrelion.
Biography:Born to two fairly normal parents in Sakai, Japan, Makoto had a prosperous but uneventful childhood. A bright girl if single minded girl, she excelled in academics in her younger years, making her way through the top rankings of regional examinations during her middle and highschool years. With a keen interest in the sciences, she attended the university of Tokyo at age seventeen, during which the first truly vital discourse in her life occurred.
The knowledge that humanity was not alone among the stars, brought by the harbinger that was Meteor-3 spurned the world's brightest minds to come together, and form the Extra Over Technology Investigation Committee. Far from the titans of technology that made up its many members, the EOTI was always in need of those who proved capable to support its more menial endeavors. They looked to the world's universities, and among those chosen to join them was Makoto, under the guise of an internship at the prestigious Mao Industries.
In truth, her time there was not glamorous. The research on alien technology was done by the actual professionals, a laboriously slow process weighted down by bureaucracy, the bulk of which fell upon peons such as she to painstakingly weave through. It was not this work that proved a to set her on course for a far different life, however, but the people it put her close to.
Bian Zoldark was a brilliant man by all accounts, one to be admired by his academic merits alone. He was charismatic, kind, even inspiring. Despite his importance, the doctor spoke with Makoto on multiple occasions, lamenting the shackles placed upon he and his team, laying plain for her the importance of their research for the sake of mankind itself. For all it was worth, those small talks, those discussions inspired Makoto, to take on with vigor this important work despite how humdrum, and to pray that the development of this vital technology not stagnate as the doctor feared.
This inspiration would be what drove her into the ranks of the Divine Crusaders when Bian Zoldark defected from the EFA. Having witnessed over her years with the EOTI how dull their defenses against threats unimaginable had become, she wholeheartedly believed reformation by force necessary. Though but a girl of eighteen during her enlistment, she scored exceptionally high in the simulations and thus found herself quickly upjumped to the cockpit of a Lion during the opening blitz of the war.
A natural pilot, she scored many a small victory for the cause, cutting down tanks and fighters, even the occasion Personal Trooper, and rising within the ever evolving ranks of the DC's structure. Determined, devoted and dangerous within an AM, she was shocked to find that instead of being placed at the vanguard of the conflict, she was shuffled into the rear as the EFA began its counter attack to turn the tides.
The hurt of this demotion quickly faded, however, as she realized just what she was expected to guard. In the wake of bold EFA assaults, a battalion was formed to defend the Crusader's very creator, and the man whose passionate proclamation brought upon the fiery baptism engulfing Earth. This Last Battalion was compromised of aces from across the DC's forces, and the honor of serving in it was hers.
The closing months of the war were not so exciting as the bloody combat that had distinguished young Makoto, but she would yet see the last of the conflict. Spearheaded by the Hagane, the EFA broke the lines surrounding Aidoneus Island, the headquarters for Dr. Zoldark himself. As the last line between he and they, Makoto and her fellow battalion members launched forth to cease their advance in a climactic battle above Meteor-3 itself.
Skilled as she was, though, the Hagane's forces were her better. During the initial sortie, her Guarlion was severely damaged. Rounds penetrated deep into its frame, shattering the lining of her cockpit and causing its ejection protocol to malfunction. Though she cleared the wreckage of her crippled machine as it plunged into the ocean below, her pod could only sputter into an emergency landing along the shores of the island.
It was a mercy, perhaps. Laying wounded far from home, she was spared the fate of most her companions and Dr. Zoldark himself. Instead she sit, bloodied in a cockpit damaged beyond repair as the sky itself tore asunder and the awesome might of a Tronium Cannon ripped apart the land she had meant to return to. In the wake of the battle, her cockpit was recovered by the EFA forces surveying the island, and she was taken into custody for medical care and detainment.
A bittersweet fate, Makoto never got to see the fruits of Zoldark's ambitions. The L5 campaign was a success, the Aerogators repulsed by the very men and women forged in the fires of battles like the one upon Aidoneus. She spent the entirety of it at some military hospital, nursing a crushed leg and shrapnel from the inside of her cockpit.
Though many chose to fight onwards, Makoto herself realized that the events over Aidoneus, and the destruction of the Aerogators, had satisfied the wishes of the late doctor. Earth was strong now, hardened by war, bloodied but better for it. There was no more need for petty infighting. That knowledge led her to acceot the pardon and subsequent commissioning offered by her captors at the EFA. They were in need of seasoned pilots, and she had little quarrel in lending her aid over a prison sentence.
Besides, she had yet to test her metal against those damnable threats from beyond, and it so turned out a certain task force, looking to investigate just those threats, was in need of volunteers...
Unit:RAM-004 Lion
Appearance:
Weapons:Vulcan:Body-mounted guns on the torso of the Lion for quick strafing attacks.
Homing Missiles:A small salvo of long range missiles from an arm-mounted launcher.
Assault Blade:A mecha-sized sword used for close-combat enemy encounters relying on motorized teeth, similar to the ones on a chainsaw.
Railgun:A long range assault gun designed to easily penetrate enemy armor.
Equipment: Thrusters:Installed to increase the Lion's overall acceleration after complaints it was 'too slow'.
Notes: Makoto walks with a limp, having sustained serious injury to her upper thigh when shrapnel shattered her bone. It is still healing.
