Ash the Instigator
From TCWiki
Last Update: 7/8/2009
| Kimura Aiko | |
|---|---|
| Creator: | BozoCat |
| Affiliation: | FGTL |
| Threads: | Rise of the Dark Goddess and after |
Ash is an ex-evil sorceress with a tangled past and a hopeful future. Whether past or future rules her depends heavily on her mood.
Her given name was Kimura Aiko, but though official types and people from her past use it, she never gives that name herself.
Ash is a wanted criminal for the premeditated murder of her parents, and as such is constantly hiding from or fleeing agents of the city government.
Contents
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Physical Description
Ash has mostly red hair with streaks of coal black. She claims she doesn't dye it. Eyes are black (not all black, just the part that would normally be colorful) with creepy red motes in it. Features are south-Asian as her parents immigrated from somewhere in the general vicinity of Pakistan. Her skin is covered in strange swirling grey lines. Westly has claimed that the markings on her face spell out most of the True Name of fire. She's attractive in an anime character sort of way (curvy but skinny), if you can get past the weird demonic markings. Apparently most guys can. She stands 5'0" and weighs around 100 pounds.
Ash's body temperature and preference for temperature in general is well above normal. Ash can frequently be seen wearing heavy winter coats in the middle of summer, sweaters indoors, or generally just hugging herself and shivering or complaining that the heat's too low. She favors boyish clothing because she's a Largoist, but is known to have some damn sexy loligoth gear used to infiltrate Mihoist circles, including a faithful copy of the outfit Miho wore in "In Clubs No One Can Hear You Scream".
Ash is twenty-four years old.
Personality
Ash is inherently self-contradictory. Her past, present, and future all pull her in different directions.
To make an Ash, take five parts Meagen's Largo-fangirlism and bishie-huntingness, two parts WolfDead's knowledge of the proper conduct of Villainy, one part Miho's inherent creepiness, one part willing minion, one part contrary rebellious teenager, a little fire, a little 3vil, a little l337, and a little something undefinable that makes her Ash.
In D&D terms, Ash is lawful chaotic good evil. The only thing she isn't is neutral.
Because of her disparate nature, Ash is very comfortable with illogic and contradiction, frequently using them as tools to achieve her ends. Her mannerisms are dependent on mood and environment. The best way to decide how to write Ash is to look at the place she most recently appeared and work from there, as her moods do not change instantly without strong stimulus.
When she's feeling good, she's a genki wants-to-be-a-hero innocent character, with an attention span longer than Wizard of Kitty's but shorter than Kimiko's. When on a mission she's intense, focused, and usually cool-headed, though she cracks if placed under sufficient pressure (generally leading to snippiness and careless mistakes rather than actual outbursts). When angry, she becomes cold, fierce, and viciously passive-aggressive. She's very loyal to her friends, and not quick to jump to new conclusions. Old conclusions, such as that Mihoists are 3vil, pop up immediately. She has a respect for authority bordering on worship driven into her by the Instigators, but when authority loses her respect, it creates quite a bit of whiplash. Her moral compass is fuzzy. She doesn't really have a conscience (aside from Glider, Kender, and Mahou), but remembers when she had one and generally works from a theoretical basis. ("What would Largo do?") Arella is a significant positive influence on her.
Ash lives in the present almost entirely-- she'll never express regrets or would-have's or should-have's, except as part of learning from previous mistakes, a process she learned in a formalized manner from the Instigators. The one exception is revenge. She has an overdeveloped sense of revenge, and will not forget a wrong. Ever. Which is not to say she's unforgiving. Once she's taken revenge, she forgives, if the person she took revenge on is still alive to tell about it. For instance, after nearly burning Allanon to death, she considers herself "even Steven" with him.
Resources/Abilities/Powers
Ash's abilities come from the her involvement in the Instigators, her involvement in the Followers of Great Teacher Largo and their quest for l337ness, and her partially demonic nature. Ash is one of the weakest combat characters in the game, but makes up for it through cunning and through reliance on more powerful friends to take and deal damage for her.
Inabilities
Ash is physically weak, being small, female, and a wimpy spellcaster to boot. She also has zero proficiency with bladed weapons and swords, and negative proficiency in firearms. Ash attempting to cook is something to be ph34red, which makes her ideally qualified for work at the OCSB.
Areas of Knowledge
Ash is a native Japanese speaker, fluent in English, l337, and the unholy language of the Dead, though she won't do that in public. She understands the basics of magical lore sufficiently to learn new spells or follow the recipe in a potion manual, but she does not necessarily succeed all the time in either of these areas. She has considerable knowledge of the city of Megatokyo and of the factions themselves, having worked for the Instigators with their massive bank of intelligence on their enemies. She knows the powers and weak points of most people in the game due to having been in it for so long.
Fire Immunity
"Self immolation is my gag! Get your own."
Ash is immune to the effects of fire and heat. She can eat Hellfire Chili and feels fine about it. She feels comfortable only at temperatures over 100F unless wearing too much clothing. Her fellow factionists feel she is always wearing too much clothing.
Ash does need oxygen to live, but seems to have a reduced need for it when exposed to fire. If one were to place Ash and a fire in the same sealed room, the lack of oxygen would kill Ash and the fire at the same time. Because her need is reduced, she is able to stand inside a fire and not be damaged by the lack of oxygen or the smoke. Shrapnel from explosions is still a serious problem.
Ash's fire immunity is a property of her body rather than a specific magic ability. Anti-magic would not affect it. Anti-weirdshit would.
Cold Vulernability
As part and parcel of being strong against fire, Ash is weak against cold based attacks. Heck, she doesn't even much like water anymore unless it's steaming hot. The showers at her apartment are overclocked to compensate for this. The inability to eat ice cream makes her sad.
Chaos Aura
Things have a tendency to randomly go wrong around Ash, especially with technology. This aura waxes and wanes depending on Ash's mood, and she has some ability to control it. Especially, toasters tend to catch fire or even violently explode in her presence. It has been noted that the explosive yield of these toasters has only been increasing over time. Most recently, she completely demolished a freestanding apartment complex by accident when trying to use a toaster to melt chocolate for Saeko's Valentine's day present.
Ash's chaos aura seems to be a function of her demonic nature, since it was greatly amplified and became controllable when she was briefly changed into a full demon. The chaos aura doesn't seem to affect home computers anymore, possibly as a result of being a Largoist.
Toaster-Doken
Ash's Ultimate Attack consists of pulling a toaster out of weapon-space and chucking it at someone. It then goes boom because it's toaster near Ash. Weapon-space is not technically in a space that's affected by her aura, but she can only store one toaster there.
Acolyte Level Magic
Ash can cast moderate numbers of low level spells through a magic wand made for her by Hikaru and corrupted by the Instigators. When not in use, the wand turns into a thin cylindrical mat of rotting vegetation on her left forearm, easily mistaken for a dark green tattoo.
Ash knows the following spells:
Animate Lesser Undead
One minute incantation time. Requires a corpse or recently destroyed lesser undead. A corpse gets back up as a skeleton or zombie with toughness proportional to Ash's relatively low spell power. The undead is bound to her will and obeys her commands. The undead requires a small magical maintenance cost, making Ash's maximum maintained undead army size seven zombies, skeletons, or ghouls. This is a relatively taxing spell for her to cast.
Control Lesser Undead
Fifteen second casting time. Requires an active minor undead under nobody's or someone else's control. Ash takes permanent control of that undead, and starts paying upkeep to keep it going. Like animated dead, Ash's maximum maintained army size is seven. Bob the Remarkably Durable Zombie is controllable under this spell despite being a greater undead due to Ash's ownership of it.
Undead too powerful to be directly controlled by this spell can still be suggested or persuaded by it.
Dispel Minor Magic
Five second casting time, with incant. Ash can dispel minor magical effects, both hostile and friendly, within a line of sight. This is actually one of her most powerful spells due to its versatility, as often big powerful items are made of lots of small enchantments working together. Disrupt one part of the balance and big things can happen. This is an easy spell to cast.
Fire bolt
This spell used to be fifteen seconds, with incant, but Ash recently developed the ability to cast it at will in moments of high emotion, and is working on duplicating the effect more controllably. If the incant is delayed at the last syllable, the fire bolt manifests on the end of her wand and stays there, usable as a cutting torch or light source. When completed or instant-casted, the fire bolt zips out of her wand at the speed of an arrow shot from a bow, doing minor burning damage to the thing it hits and possibly setting it on fire if flammable. This is a relatively easy spell, but no more dangerous in combat than a normal person's punch unless she gets a lucky hit on, say, an eye.
Detect Minor Magic
Twenty second incant. Gives the caster information about the type, effect, and power of a minor spell that was just cast or persists. This is a great way to find targets for dispel minor magic. This is a relatively easy spell.
Protection From Fire
Fifteen second incant. Grants protection from fire to the target until an hour has passed or the magical energy of the spell is dissipated by a great deal of fire, whichever comes first. This is the spell Ash uses to keep her clothes from getting too fan-service-y. She's been practicing it a lot-- her bed is made of fire and she'd like to have a boy there some day, after all.
General Traits
Ash's aura is fiery, demonic, and l337, in that order. She is harmed by holy magic. Ash has died once but is not undead. Ash's soul isn't in her body, instead being in Saeko's sword.
Please talk to BozoCat if you think you're going to put her into a situation that will risk her dying, as she has a bunch of weird stuff surrounding dying.
Largoist Abilities
Ash has lately started to show signs of Largo-like resilience.
Ash' l337 senses are moderately developed, allowing her to recognize enemies before they reveal themselves, and to metagame so long as it has something to do with fan-fic.
Ash is somewhat proficient with the use of computers, but cannot program or hack. She good at strategy computer games but bad at twitch-based computer games.
Ash's Apartment
Ash shares an apartment with Casey in an old abandoned bomb shelter beneath a Tokyo subway station, because the two of them would destroy any other building in a matter of weeks. Also both are on the run from the law and the place is pretty off-the-beaten-path. It is serviced by a freight elevator or 81 flights of stairs. KITTEN is housed in the living room. Ash's room has been extensively heat-proofed. Ash sleeps in a gas-powered fireplace, while a gas-heated bed of sand serves as a sleeping spot for her fire kitty, Masha. There's a room in the back where many of the FGTL's backup servers are housed in case of emergency. Ash and Casey are forbidden from entering the room with the server lest they accidentally destroy the equipment.
Ash's zombie, Bob the Remarkably Durable Zombie is not welcome in Ash's apartment, nor are any other members of the vile legions of the dead.
Known Backstory (before her appearance in-game)
Kimura Aiko was born an ordinary girl, but as a rebellious teenager, she fell in with the wrong crowd-- a fallen angel named Esha'shama'im (Ash calls him Shama). She fell in love with him, believing her love could redeem him and they could spend eternity together. Shama's way of expressing his affection for her-- by cutting her up with knives-- made her parents afraid for her safety. First they tried to send her to a foster home for troubled children run by Aneko, but Ash feared losing her freedom and sabotaged her parents' trust in Aneko's reliability. Acting on advice from a Catholic priest from Saint Francis Xavier Parish who believed Aiko's injuries were occult in nature rather than self-inflicted, they consigned her to a Catholic school in an effort to try to free her of whatever unholy influences were trying to turn her astray.
The school was a miserable time for Ash, who was too individualistic for the place, and who had already formed very contrary views about organized religion based on what she'd heard from Shama. However she was quickly rescued from the place by Aneko and went to live at Misogi Orphanage, a general hangout for weird people, that Aneko ran.
From the orphanage, Aiko continued to sneak out to Shama, until Aneko caught her, and then surprisingly assisted her. Around the time of The Great Fanboy War, Aiko and Shama decided to consummate their love in a weird demonic ceremony where he would mutilate her body and change her into a demon. However, the priest that had first become interested in her case got word that Ash was still involved with Shama and warned Ash's parents.
This ceremony was interrupted by Charles Embers, Allanon Kisigar, and a Largoist by the name of Spike. They caught it halfway through. Allanon healed Ash, but the interrupted transformation left her caught between human and inhuman, leaving the grey marks still on her skin. Allanon banished the demon. Ash still bears lingering resentment against the people whom she believes took away her true love, except for Allanon, upon whom she has already taken vengeance. And also against the priest who betrayed her. I should give him a name at some point.
After breaking out of the UFL Hospital, Ash returned to her parents' house, locked the doors, and burned it to the ground with them inside. More importantly to her, her cat Luke ran inside the house before she destroyed it, and she has vowed never again to harm a kitty. Little does she know that her poor kitty fled through The Fourth Wall and became the OOC Monster. (Yes, I actually wrote a post giving the OOC Monster a backstory, because I'm evil.)
After this crime, she had to flee the police constantly. She failed to make contact with Aneko in person, but was able to keep in contact by postcard. Aneko gave her valuable financial assistance and helped get her in touch with people who would keep her safe-- being young, small, female, and homeless was not a safe combination. However, soon the police efforts got too close and Ash had to break contact with Aneko for Aneko's protection. Nine months after she killed her parents, she was found by and recruited into the Instigators.
Backstory has hinted that at some point while seeing Shama, Ash was briefly given demonic wings, but I haven't written that flashback heavily yet, partially due to ickiness.
In-game History
Rise of the Dark Goddess
In the beginning of Rise of the Dark Goddess the Instigators were tentatively returning to Megatokyo after a year of silence. The first ones out were the most disposable, including a young Initiate named Ash. With a variety of missions available, she gathered information on Sabin Figaro's demonic curse, but failed to intercept in time to interact with him. Shortly afterward, she heard of the FGTL's diggings over at the Zars Tombs, and went over to see what kind of trouble she could make.
There she received orders to place a spell to prevent the zombies from rising so their dark power can be harvested. However she was caught, beaten up, and only barely managed to convince the FGTL to let her assist. The Instigators' seal was placed at the 11th hour, but Mishka, the vile necromancer behind the Zars plague, used Ash's own superior Morpheus as a pawn to break the seal. And so the zombies rose despite her efforts.
Ash spent that night going down into the heart of the tombs themselves with a band of stalwart adventurers, including Bassir, Alexander Mackay, Inferno, and some FGTL snipers. They fought zombies and eventually defeat Morpheus. Ash stole Morpheus' personal affects and headed back to Instigator headquarters, infected with zombie plague.
After a nightmarish night battling and eventually recovering from the palgue, she became involved in a plot pitting the Clans against the Megatokyo Police Cataclysm Division. This plan that involved the arrest and trial of Sabin Figaro. Ash helped show Sabin that in order to survive a night in jail separated from Zanrinelle, his angelic-imbued sword, he would need to teach the wayward angel trapped within him (Vas'tion) self control. However, while she was arranging for his defense on behalf of the Instigators (and she was in fact going to defend him earnestly and not in a half-assed matter), she was at the same time on a quest of a more personal nature.
Falling of Shadows, and consequences
During The Falling of Shadows, a side thread taking place at the same time, she discovered that Allanon was alive and well at the Legion of the Dark Goddess. Aiding a fallen Miko named Terashiko, Ash snooped around the LDG mansion, providing intelligence, poisoning Allanon's boyfriend Bliss, setting fire to the mansion, and trying to steal the Necrowombicon. Her goal was to bring Allanon to such a state of despair that death seemed like a desirable alternative, just as she had felt when Allanon had healed her. She did all this while pretending to be the Mihoists' friends. She also got a huge crush on innocent bishie martial artist Hikaru. Hikaru, Dr. John Markinson and Bliss' friend Addi exposed Ash's treachery in the (tah-dah) nick of time, and Addi blessed her, so that if she died, she'd be unable to join her love in Hell, thus showing that "blessing" and "curse" are relatively terms.
Ash was pulled off Sabin's case for her disloyalty, and Sabin soon rejected the replacement lawyer, none other than the evil Instigator Vidomina. Anthony Kane then found evidence of the death of the lawyer Ash had been impersonating, and the trial fell apart, leading to Sabin's release. Ash claims this was her intent all along as a way to have Sabin owe her a favor, though there's no evidence one way or the other.
That night, the Instigators decided they'd had enough of her disobedience and used her as a virgin sacrifice to power their evil Thread Necromancy experiment. Unfortunately for them, the experiment went horribly wrong. With the border between realities breached, Ash's demonic side and Esha'shama'im unified, making a giant on-fire thing that set fire to things. A lot. Like, for instance, the sky for three miles in every direction. But the rampage was interrupted by a Pie Flinging Kitten. Ash couldn't bring herself to hurt a kitty, and through this act of mercy her lover was finally redeemed. Of course, being an angel, he couldn't love a mortal girl, so he just revived her and gave her some neat fire powers, to Ash's intense annoyance. Mahou then rescued her from the scene.
That's about the situation when the non-canon story Day of the OOC Monster takes place, but that was OOC, so no more about that here.
A New Confusion in MegaTokyo
In A New Confusion in MegaTokyo, Ash tried to join lots of factions, and only caused herself lots of grief. But the FGTL took her, and there she stays, after passing their very difficult L337 Trials with mixed results.
In the subplot Operation Catalyst, Ash became the center of a conspiracy by the Instigators to take control of Miho herself. Hikaru was kidnapped by Grand Archon Manfloy, the Instigators' leader. Archon Morgan gave Ash her teleportation staff back, and also the wand she lost while trying to protect Hikaru and avoid the police. Unfortunately, her wand had been corrupted by dark and evil magic. (Worse, she seemed to like it better that way.) Morgan also reported that the Instigators had Hikaru, and would use him as leverage to force Ash to conform to some unnamed evil plan of theirs.
When Miho tried to seduce Largo at the Cave of Evil, Ash's inner fangirlism was stirred, and she advocated for swift punishment for the villainous Main Character. Not knowing a thing about how such things worked, she created a plan to kidnap Miho and force her to apologize on citywide television. She even got some of the other Largoists to agree with her, no small feat for a newly-minted member such as herself. However, Westly showed doubts, and there was evidence that the N1NJ4 Tak was working for the enemy, so she made her fiendish plan have fiendish plans, which were kept secret from all but the FGTL's innermost circle. Ash would create a Polyjuice Potion, capture a scrap of Miho with the assistance of some of the other Largoists and Casey, a friend of Noble's. Then she'd impersonate Miho while the real one was kidnapped and made to apologize. As Miho, she'd have the position necessary to subvert the rapidly rising Knights of the Black Ribbon.
Ash's plans rarely work out precisely as intended, and this was no exception. While brewing the complicated potion, a glowstick from the KoBR's promotional announcement fell into her potion and broke. She fished out most of the glowstick fluid from the potion but managed to get some Concentrated Evil from her wand in it instead. When she ingested the potion, this caused her to believe that the world was a dating sim full of multiple choice questions, and that she could see other people's hidden emotional statistics. This made her think she'd become omniscient, leading to a bunch of tactical blunders at the Rave itself.
She did get to disguise herself as Miho, but Miho herself found out and played with her head something awful. She attempted to recruit both the FGTL and the LDG and some other Mihoists (such as Will) to help stop the Instigators, but the two were very suspicious of each other, and several Mihoists saw through her cover. Finally Trish Derrian discovered that she was an impostor and set about trying to destroy her with the True Necrowombicon. Andrew defended her with The C00l Th1ng and the subsequent annihilation reaction powered the Thread Necromancy that revived the thread Fall of the Dark Goddess.
To prevent the good guys from foiling their plans, the Instigators changed Ash into a full demon and Archon Morgan used his demon-controlling powers to make her attack all her friends. Westly and Claire defeated her with help from the Jabes, Ameryll Windwalker, Kyle, Cerise, and a bunch of other folks. Westly and Claire then undid the demon transformation and restored her to normal.
Property Damage
But Hikaru was still missing, so Ash went searching for him, accompanied by Westly and Cerise, whom Ash thought was a 3vil kitty thanks to shape-shifting. He was last seen breaking out of Instigator custody in the Stick Realm. After a long adventure in the Stick Realm in which Hikaru showed his creepy side and Westly met another version of his arch-nemesis and Ash fought off yet another evil twin of herself, they arrived safe and sound at the LDG manor, only to be attacked by Allanon who was understandably pissed off about Ash trying to set fire to him and poisoning his boyfriend. However Aneko took the brunt of the assault and Allanon quickly regretted his actions.
Ash was also hunted by the idiotic Niwatori Chinou, ninja of the night, who was on contract from the ninja corporation to bring in known criminals among the factionists. However, after Chinou accidentally reduced Ash's intelligence by a factor so great that it bent space-time, he was fired. Ash's stupidity was then cured by massive ingestion of L337 B33r. Her final act of the thread was to inform the MegaTokyo Police Cataclysm Division of the impending Demon Invasion (plot), causing it to be delayed for a year and a half thus creating the IC time-jump.
Soft Canon Filler Arc
In the soft-canon threads, because of their soft-canon status, nothing world-shattering happened. She gave a lecture on fighting the undead before most of the city's factionist population. She got a checkup from Allanon which determined that she could, in fact, have children. She got fire kitties as pets. She bought a Protection from Fire spell from Erika Multinational. She held a wide variety of day jobs to pay for an apartment she destroyed.
However, she did spend some time investigating the Shadow Mages to a greater extent, spurred by her concern over Lazyass. She necromantically reanimated a Shadow Mage defector who had been killed to silence him. Using information from this defector, she came up with a way to several Shadow Mages from their magical abilities. She would plunge them into the Dark Side of the Page using a Trackball. Since Stick Figures cast no shadows, the mages' shadow magics would be unable to access their home plane. Ash defeated Ira in a climactic battle using the stickification technique, but finally saw for the first time that her parents' arranged rescue of her from Esha'shama'im may not have been an evil act. However unlike Allanon, Ash allowed Ira to die. She's still not sure how she feels about this.
Eventually, the Shadow Mages abducted Lazyass, stripped their god out of him, and left him. Ash led a group to rescue him which recovered the body and blasted its way out of the Dark Side of the Page, sealing the Dark Portal behind them.
Beyond that emotional damage, Ash started some more serious character development. Hikaru dumped her. Arella was becoming something of a role-model for her. She was becoming more l337. But fundamentally, she was stuck, and needed something to push her beyond the contradictory place she'd ended up.
Demon Invasion
At the Largoists' 4th (or possibly 5th-- they're too hung over to remember) anniversary party, Ash decided to figure out whether she should be dating Sareth or Lazyass by flirting with both of them. Sareth managed to get her to have a date with him to walk kitties, while Andrew sang her a personalized song and embarrassed the hell out of her. James Coffin kidnapped her as she was leaving the party, and then Mokushi kidnapped her from James. Mokushi then traded Ash to Theresa, who wanted Ash to help her destroy the ability of the Factions to damage anything but themselves. Ash assisted Theresa briefly, but Theresa decided this whole enslavement thing was kind of barbaric, and decided to nullify the contract. The only way to do so was to have Ash murder her rescuer, so Theresa had Ash kill Sareth.
Ash is presently angsting about this act of betrayal.
Important Forum Posts
These are the most important posts in terms of formative moments of Ash's life. Most of them are flashbacks, and a few concern events inside the game. Warning: Some of these posts, especially those involving Ash being sacrificed by various people, are violent and gory and I probably should've put them on a different site and merely linked them, if I'd had taste. Such is life.
'Character begins'
'Backstory'
Ash's sacrifice by the demon Esha'shama'im.
Ash's rescue by factionists from the demon.
Allanon's healing of Ash after the rescue
Ash's revenge on her parents for the rescue
Ash's recruitment to the Instigators.
'The past returns to haunt'
Ash's revenge on Allanon for healing her starts here
'Death of Ash'
Preparation for Ash's death by the Instigators.
But she's foiled and prevented from going to Hell to be with Shama
Ash's death by the Instigators, and a flashback to the sacrifice scene from her viewpoint
Ash's rampage, unification with Shama, feline intervention, and redemption
'Largoism
Ash's decision to try the Largoists
Ash shows up at FGTL Headquarters looking to join
Ash starts sounding like a Largoist, including lighting pants on fire
Ash sounds like Vizini the Sicilian. This is the best example I have of how Ash thinks.
Ash's trial in the H4ll of b33r.
'The Ash as Miho Arc'
Awesome motorbike chase. Also Ash drinks the 3vil polyjuice.
Ash under evil polyjuice, encounter with Largo.
With Ash under evil polyjuice, Miho influences Ash
Ash acting all Mihoey under the influence of 3vil polyjuice
Ash helps wield the c00l th1ng
'Modern cool posts'
Ash fights Niwatori Chinou (multiple posts)
'Self Doubt'
Ira's Death Reminds Ash of Backstory
'Demon Invasion'
Dead Sareths aren't much fun (Continued)
Dead Sareths aren't much fun (MOAR continued)
Relationships
Ash knows most factionists in the city, due to her gregarious nature, Instigator-bred noziness, and her author's high posting rate. To get a relationship entry, a character must have repeatedly interacted with Ash in an ongoing fashion, and currently be active. Otherwise the list would get too long.
Friends and Allies
These are people Ash considers friends or allies.
Lazyass: The leader of her beloved FGTL, a figure to be revered and crushed on. His recent admittance that he has a crush on Ash has led her to wonder if it's okay to date him despite him being her superior.
Skorpion: Second in command of the FGTL. Ash considers him solid and reliable about the practicalities of day-to-day Largoism, but has seen that his lack of a conscience makes him a poor moral sounding board, since Ash lacks one as well. They're lab partners due to Ash's fire immunity. They have an ongoing practice of pranking each other in the lab, usually with painful results.
Aneko: The closest Ash has ever come to a positive mother-figure. Ash trembles at the thought of the day when her disaparate loyalties to the FGTL and Aneko might be put into conflict.
Glider: Ash's conscience, a cute hamster with wings. Ash can't understand a thing he says, but that's typical for Largoist consciences.
Kender: Ash's other conscience. Ash thinks Kender's really nice, and doesn't really want to be a romantic rival with her over Lazyass. This could get messy.
Arella Silverstone: Ash's sole female friend among the Largoists and surrogate moral compass. Ash considers it her job to protect the timid Arella from danger even though Arella's a much more competent fighter than Ash is. Through Aneko, they are adopted sisters. Because Aneko seems to adopt everyone.
Sareth: Another relatively new Largoist, who also has a crush on Ash. Ash would love to have a crush back on him, but the whole thing where Ash just murdered him is putting a crimp on their relationship.
Masha: Ash's fire kitty. A backdoor gift from both of her exes. Ash doesn't hold it against the kitty though, 'cause, y'know, kitty.
Sandra: Sareth's fire kitty. Used to hang out with Ash constantly, but is now more of an acquaintance now that Ash owns her own fire kitty.
Saeko: Ash's adoptive sister through Aneko. They have a friendly rivalry in faction politics and fan-fiction. Ash thinks Saeko would be totally awesome if she'd just: 1. Stop hitting on family members. 2. Stop worshiping that undead wench.
Casey: Ash's roommate, who is chronically unlucky. Ash has begun to realize that Casey is not as unlucky as she appears, but has not fully quantified Casey's abilities, partially because Casey won't let Ash experiment on her.
Anaryn: Anaryn briefly employed Ash in one of her many day jobs.
Other People Ash Knows
Mahou: Always an enigma. Mahou helped Ash after she died, but Ash doesn't know why. As the leader of the enemy faction, Mahou should consider Ash an enemy, and yet she doesn't seem to, despite the fact that Ash tried to burn down her house, take her stuff, and get people she cared about killed. Briefly, Mahou and her more aggressive side, Mitsuya were physically separated. Ash really liked Mahou then without her dark side/creepiness. Unfortunately for Ash, once reunited, Mahou has shown signs of returning to the Legion. Ash considers Mahou to be her 3vil conscience. Ash is not presently aware that Mahou is behind her enslavement by Mokushi and Theresa.
Allanon: After taking revenge on him for saving her from Shama, Ash considers herself on even terms, trying to get better than even. Allanon is Ash's doctor.
Fish: He's ok, despite being a Mihoist. Ash thinks his crush on Casey is soooo cute.
Esha'shama'im: Ash isn't sure how he feels about her, now that he's an angel and not supposed to be nice to demonic creatures. She suspects he still has a soft-spot for her. She has mostly moved on from him, but looks back on her time with him wistfully. Though he still exists, she pretends he doesn't to keep her feelings simpler.
Mikawa Sayuri: Exiled heir of the Mikawa family. Helped nurse Hikaru back to health while Ash's legs were broken, but Ash can't help but feel that Sayuri was going to steal Hikaru from her. Thus Ash regards Sayuri with a greater deal of suspicion than even the average Mihoist.
Hikaru: Ash's ex. They had a fun relationship, but Hikaru got all dark and scary and mysterious, and had to go off and do mysterious stuff. Ash would suspect him of cheating on her, except that the person she thought he would cheat with got the same done to her. Currently considered a big meanie-head but not explicitly an enemy.
Sabin: Ash got a big kick out of the drubbing he gave Tak over Tak's betrayal, but Sabin seems to partially blame Ash for it. She's not sure she's safe around him.
Enemies/Victims
Tak: Held her at kunai-point, is always attempting to catch her doing something evil. Ash loves annoying/baiting Tak, but some part of her feels that Aneko's complete subjugation of him is deeply disturbing. On the other hand, N1NJ4s should not work for deadies, and that makes him a traitor, even if it's not really his fault. Tak has tried to make up to Ash with flowers and revealing his dragon side, but Ash does not feel that true repentance can be accomplished without a change of behavior. Though Sabin's drubbing of him may have made things even.
Charles Embers: Ash hasn't gotten revenge on him for helping Allanon rescue her from Shama yet. Partially this is because his author stopped writing for the game.
Spike: Also due for some revenge, but he's just an NPC, so whatever.
Miho: Evil undead wench stole her teleportation staff. Plus she's Miho!
Archon Morgan: Ash's distant superior among the Instigators, who personally took an interest in ruining her life during Operation Catalyst.
Niho: With a convert's fervor, Ash believes Niho to be the embodiment of true 3vil. Of course, she also still thinks he's totally hot, but that gets into the murky underworld of Ash's subconscious. Trust me, you don't want to go there.
Tallic: MegaTokyo's bad penny Villain. He just keeps reappearing. Ash is hoping to isolate his location using herself as bait and then get the area nailed with a giant fireball. Maybe an aerial FAE bunker buster. Mmmm... FAEs.
Ira: Ash considered Ira to be her evil doppelganger for a long time. But Ira's death revealed to Ash that they were both one another's evil twins. Ash will have to come to terms with this next time she goes to the Hall of B33r
Niwatori Chinou: This chicken-brained ninja was sent by the MTPD to harass Ash and bring her in. He failed, though Ash doesn't remember how, due massive l337 b33r-induced memory loss.
Marius: This fallen angel was sitting conveniently inside Andrew's head. However he's been removed, taking much of Andrew's memories with it. Ash wouldn't mind giving him a case of permanent amnesia as payback.
Mokushi: Demon bureaucrat the arranged for Ash to be summoned into demonic service to him. Ash has little idea of Mokushi's true goals.
Therasa: Ash's handler during the demon invasion, ordered her to kill Sareth.
Present Status
Ash is in an alley in MegaTokyo trying to mentally recover from the trauma of having killed Sareth.
