Member
FourtyTwo
PrinceAlexus
LadyAmber
Name: Nora Kelly
Alias: Nelly, Sandstorm (Interior Handle), @NitroNora
Team: Southern Cross
Gender: Female
Age: 24
Languages: English, Mandarin, Arabic
Appearance: Nora Kelly stands 5'8" and is fit but not built. Her white hair and odd eyes are the result of cosmetic augs that she got to differentiate herself, her eyes being styled to look like a jet engine cutting through a blue sky. She has a series of tattoos along her back and arms that show off her love of racing, from early AGs to a full back piece that shows an AG streaking into the sky at a near-ninety degree angle. More recently, Nora has gained a series of plugs and induction pads along her body to more fully integrate her with her ship and its systems. She wears revealing, punk-style clothes when not directed otherwise by the team, seeing her body and ink as art to be shown off, not hidden away in shame.
Personality: Nora Kelly is an ambitious woman whos in-your-face attitude and irreverence for the established way of doing things lead to her label as an underdog and black sheep. This reputation only served to strengthen her convictions, however, and is backed by a fierce intelligence and a stubborn nature. These traits allowed her to flourish in the Interior Circuit after being thrown out of the AG Rookie League, with her stubborn pride and adrenaline thrills seeing her meteoric rise through the scene.
Noras pride won't let her settle for second best, and that includes the quality of her opponents. She sees herself as the one who can push the sport to its peak, but at the end of the day what she truly craves is competition. In this pursuit she is always looking to push her competitors and teammates as far as they can go, and to put on a good show to the media while doing so as she plays up her punk nature and pushes an antagonistic vibe against the established norms of the sport.
On the track, Nora is all guts and glory, taking joy in the raw speed and feeding that back into her team, her near-maniacal laughter when overtaking filled with an infectious energy.
Backstory: Nora Kellys racing career started in an AG Rookie program, and everyone thought it would end there when she was thrown out halfway through her first season for overly dangerous racing and disorderly conduct both on and off the track. After being thrown out of the program she still felt the itch to go fast, eventually leading her to Australia's underground racing scene, known locally as the Interior Circuit and filled with a heady mixture of jetbikes, early AGs, and final-gen F1 cars tackling a wide variety of tracks and challenges, all run by the local crime syndicates. To survive in this scene without owing all but your soul in debt and favors you had to be the best of the best, and that's what Nora was; She piloted a wicked fast first-gen experimental AG unaugment against racers tweaked up with black markets Augs and performance enhancers and winning more often than not... even when she was pressured to lose. Nora spent about five years running the Interior Circuit before pressure from the Crew, her sponsor and one of the crime families that ran the interior circuit, eventually lead to her looking for an out. And what an out she found, one that sought her out in the most unexpected of places.
When Nora saw her Uncle walk into the dive bar she'd been sent to by her engineer for a meeting with a mysterious friend, doubly so when her uncle, looking as surprised as she was, told her that the job he'd always been cagey about at family dinners was a talent scout for the Southern Cross AG team. He'd heard of a racer from a friend of a friend, one who went by the nickname Sandstorm after the storm kicked up by her ships unstable AG generators in the desert sands. Imagine his surprise when Sandstorm turned out to be his niece who'd disappeared after being thrown out of Rookie AG. Nora could ill afford to turn down her uncles offer, not when she was facing pressure from the Crew, pressure that others before her had disappeared from. Later that night, Noras life had turned upside down again and she was stepping up to a new stage, one that would lift her higher than ever before.
Racing DNA
Overview: Nora is a speed demon with rock solid stability, her highly tuned instincts and Augs allowing her to ride the feistiest ships as smooth as silk. This balance allows her to hold nothing back on the track, shooting for even the narrowest gaps with confidence as her ship responds to her with the speed of thought. With her all-out aggression on the track, Noras main strategy is to overtake and overshoot her opponents so fast they don't have a chance to block or drain her. Her worst fear on the track is a drawn-out ELS battle, as the system is entirely new to her.
Skills: Nora is first and foremost a speed freak with a penchant for balancing acts. She excels at pulling every last m/s out of her ship while whipping around corner and between other racers. She is also remarkably adept at spotting and countering cheating and underhanded tactics after her experiences racing in the no-holds-barred tracks of the Interior Circuit. Off the track, she fosters a niche but dedicated fanbase as the self-proclaimed Bad Girl of the track, pushing an aggressive punk vibe.
Special Trait: To fly the unflyable, and to push it beyond what the engineers thought possible. She has an almost instinctual feel for whatever ship she is flying, and is able to coax out as much speed as possible from the machine, especially when the machine is unstable or temperamental. The Southern Cross engineers have worked to harness these instincts, tailoring her implants to hook deep into her instincts and letting her react with nearly unmatched speed as her craft responds to her intent and internal balance as she pilots it.
Controversy: Noras brief stint in the Rookie league and her years racing the underground Interior Circuit both do little to waylay her image as a loose cannon and dangerous racer. She was also signed on by her uncle, a talent scout for Southern Cross, under mysterious circumstances and a recommendation from a sketchy source. These connections and Southern Cross signing her apparently out of the blue have also raised questions about the teams standards, and about their connections and financing.
MISC
Theme Song: Kickstart My Heart - Mötley Crüe
Likes: Speed, Competition, Heavy Music, Directness
Dislikes: Dirty Racing, Cowards, talking behind someone's back
Other Information: Despite her reputation, connections, and past, the worst vice Nora has ever engaged in is alcohol.