Iona Longtail

[Oracle]

Iona ; Io
Iona Longtail

AGE

Looks: Almost 15
Is: Almost 150

GENDER
Female

SPECIES
Swallow Spirit/Air Elemental

ALLEGIANCE
Lao

RANK
Medic/Scout

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APPEARANCE
As a spirit, Iona has three forms:

HUMAN: Iona in human form is one of the cutest, most adorable-looking creatures you'll ever find. She barely reaches four-foot-six in height, making her potentially one of the smallest Lao around. Her hair is white, and has a texture that brings the feel of feathers to mind. Her eyes are large, round, and boast a ruddy red color. Her skin is a nice tanned color (apparently natural) and her bust is surprisingly developed for one of her apparent physical age.

When she goes without the Lao uniform, it becomes apparent that she's not human after all; though her natural collar of white feathers is always visible, the rest of her is naturally clad in feathery down as well. It looks rather like a strapless, sleeveless jumpsuit, for the down covers her midsection and legs, while leaving her ankles, feet, shoulders, and arms uncovered. Despite her surname, Iona does not have a tail in this form.

Iona's uniform is a pair of brown overalls, topped with a long, white doctor's coat. She does not wear shoes around the base, and her nametag and Lao insignia are worn dangling from the left side of the overalls' black belt. While on missions, Iona trades the doctor's coat in for a sturdy dark brown coat of similar size and cut, and wears brown boots to protect her feet. However, Iona does not normally spend much time in human form during missions if she can help it.

Swallow: This form is the shape that Iona had while she was still alive. She was an albino swallow with a longer-than-average tail, member of a common species of bird that was once abundant within the city - rather like pigeons. In this form, she is less than a foot tall and retains her red-colored eyes.

Fenghuang: This is Iona's battle form. She takes on the shape of the legendary Chinese phoenix, known for having "the head of a golden pheasant, the body of a mandarin duck, the tail of a peacock, the legs of a crane, the mouth of a parrot, and the wings of a swallow". As in some depictions of the Fenghuang, Iona has three legs in this form.

Her Fenghuang form is the largest of her tree, with her reaching a length of nine feet from the tip of her beak to the end of her tail, and is strong enough physically to carry a full-grown human with ease (though only one at a time). Unlike a true Fenghuang, however, Iona is still white-feathered and red-eyed; as a true Fenghuang is feathered like a rainbow, however, her pure white feathers make for a striking appearance.

PERSONALITY
Depending on what species you are, you will see a different side to her personality when you meet her. Humans, animals, and animal-like demons are greeted with a cute, cheerful smile. Iona loves all animals, including predatory ones that would have spared no second thoughts about eating her while she was alive, and so far in her experience all humans have been generally nice; at worst, they've been at least tolerable.

Demons that look like regular demons, and occasionally even some of the more animal-like demons, will get nothing but cold scorn from her. Iona HATES those demons; it was those kinds of demons that destroyed her flock, captured her, kept her locked in a tiny cage, tortured her, and finally killed her.

Furthermore, she outright hates all Zukai, regardless of what species their members are; the Zukai firebombed the park that she lived in and protected, destroying it, and Iona's sworn to get revenge.

Her cute, happy side is more like her natural personality. Iona's natural disposition is friendly, curious, and playful; oftentimes, she'll flutter about in Swallow form in order to look as cute as possible while she tries to cheer people up. Iona is also highly protective of those she considers under her charge, including most of her patients. Demonic members of Lao often get the cold shoulder from her, but she won't deliberately skimp on giving them proper medical treatment and with time Iona could even warm up to them.

A side effect of her love of animals is that Iona will generally bring stray animals that have been hurt into the base. The animals generally do what Iona says, and their numbers and kinds rotate as healed ones leave and injured or sick ones get brought in.

HISTORY
Long ago, Iona was a simple albino swallow with a longer-than-average tail who happened to have a slight affinity for the air. At best, she could make a breeze that would help her and her flock become airborne easier; not the most useful skill, but still helpful enough.

She and her small flock lived a happy enough life in a park, without a care in the world, until a demon noticed her unusual plumage one day. Deciding that she would sell well as an exotic pet, he attacked the flock, killing the other terrified swallows without a care until he managed to snare Iona in a net. She watched in horror as the tattered remains of her poor flock scattered in all directions, fleeing for their lives, with many of their members now dead or dying on the ground.

Now Iona's life turned very unhappy; kept in cages far too small to let her spread her wings, and never given a chance to fly (they had even clipped her wings to ensure that she could never fly again!) Iona found herself passing from owner to owner as a novelty - one that the owners lost interest in when all she did was sit in her cage and pine. Some of the owners might have meant well, for they provided good food and slightly larger cages, but with her freedom denied Iona viewed them all as jailers.

Her last owner was a cruel demon; he deliberately poked her with pins and shook her cage in order to make her act more lively. Sometimes he even took her out of the cage, but only so that he could hold her in one of his meaty clawed hands while he ripped her feathers out one-by-one. His offspring took after him, and it was almost a mercy when one of them decided to see what happened if they tied her up so she couldn't escape, put her on the hard stone floor, and then jumped up and down on top of her prone body. One of them landed hard on top of her small head, crushing her skull and killing her instantly.

To Iona's confusion, despite being dead she opened her eyes to find that she still existed. Furthermore, she could fly again! She took off through a window, desperate to find her way home. After a long search, Iona found the park where she and her flock had once lived. Her flock was gone, however, and it was a different sort of place now; the plants were dead or dying, the water was polluted, and the ground was covered in filth that spread sickness and attracted nasty creatures. Worst of all, there were more of those demons around; they were the ones spreading the filth and trash here.

Over the next hundred years, Iona came to understand what she was and what she could now do. She was dead, true, but now she was a spirit; a ghost, really. Furthermore, her abilities to manipulate air only multiplied with her death. Iona started to act as the park's protector, using gusts of wind blow trash and filth out of the park. Then, as her control improved, she started attacking any non-animal that entered the park. When the nearby residents tried to have her exorcised, Iona manifested her Fenghuang form for the first time, destroying the equipment they were using and seriously injuring many of the demons and other folk that came to watch the troublesome spirit being removed. This was when the park became known as haunted.

When the Lao first attacked, her park was seemingly forgotten. No one but stray animals came by now, and Iona was happy for the first time in many, many decades. She had discovered that she also had a knack for healing, and if a sick or injured beast came to her park, she would gladly heal them. Occasionally, a wounded demon or human found themselves in the park as well; Iona might heal them too, but she retained a suspicion about demonfolk after the misery in her life had been caused by them. She generally was much more likely to give a human the benefit of the doubt.

One day, a whole band of humans took refuge in her park. Iona manifested herself in human form before them and demanded that they leave; she might be alright with the occasional solo visitor, but not a whole group of them! They replied that they could not leave yet, and explained themselves. Introducing themselves as Lao, they told Iona that they were being hunted by Zukai supporters, but the Zukai were afraid of this haunted park and thus their little band was only safe here. Iona had not paid much attention to the war going on outside her park, but since these Lao were respectful enough, she agreed to let them stay for a little while.

However, the Zukai had decided that even if they dared not go inside the park, they could still destroy it from afar. Bombs and other explosives were launched into the heart of the park, and before long the entire place was engulfed in a firestorm. The Lao and those of the animals that escaped the flames only managed to make it out due to Iona using her air manipulation skills to keep the fire back, but even her powers were not enough to protect her precious park. The Lao were impressed by her skills, however, and asked that she join them in their fight to conquer the Zukai. Knowing she could find a way to avenge herself for the loss of her park if she did this, and hating the Zukai for destroying it, Iona agreed immediately.

Because of her healing skills, initially Iona was put in with the medics. However, her small Sparrow form was excellent for spying, and so she was also made a scout. Her Medic position is her primary job, however.

ATTRIBUTES
Around the base, Iona's most common weapons at hand are medical tools; really big needles, surgical implements, and every single other device that scares people out of wanting to go see their doctor. She does not, however, have access to any dentistry tools.

Away from the base, Iona generally depends on both her natural abilities of speed, flight, and stealth (even an albino bird is hard to take notice of if it's small enough), and her ability to manipulate air in the form of shaping wind. Iona can use the wind to help her get aloft, to blow objects in a certain direction, and as a distraction. A secondary ability she has is the power to pull air away from someone or something; if Iona wants to, she can suffocate someone by pulling the air right out of their lungs and not letting any go back in.

She is trained in the use of small arms and will carry a handgun with her if it's deemed necessary, but she rarely uses it; Iona is not comfortable using such an 'unnatural' weapon.

When greatly pressed, Iona will take to her Fenghuang form; in this form, she has even greater power over air; she can make much stronger winds, and even create small-scale tornados to devastating effect. Furthermore, she can manipulate air to create arcs of vaccum that can cut through many substances - including flesh.

In addition to all this, she develops a wickedly-sharp beak and fiendishly-sharp claws that can cause serious harm - especially as Iona generally always aims for the soft tissue.

Iona possesses one ability that does not harm anyone at all; her healing ability, which generally involves her using her own spiritual energies to help a living creature repair damage or fight off a sickness. Her skill in this is limited, however. Iona cannot make injuries knit magically together, or return someone who has been dangerously ill for some time instantly to full health. Her talents only lie in boosting the healing taking place already, and doing too much leaves her exhausted and useless.

In Fenghuang form, however, she can use a great deal more power and repair a lot more damage in one shot; Iona reserves this for extreme cases only, as she has to build up the spiritual power for this sort of thing and even her Fenghuang form will get exhausted doing this too often.