Bastilla Stratus

Bastilla is a Parasympathetic Arcane Deviation regarded as part human and part plant. With flowers blooming on the vines that run through her hair, she has an affinity for nature that her magic revolves around. As the Mechanical Lotus, Bastilla is where mother nature meets man of steel as she uses her cybernetic enhancements and marksman training in tandem with her Lotus Control spells to serve Blackout and more importantly, her master.

Background
Bastilla was born with a vine attached to her central nervous system, protruding from the back of her neck. As she grew up, smaller vines branched off, entangled themselves in her hair, and eventually bloomed flowers. She has a deep sense of nature from her early life, and her magical power developed around it. Bastilla can tap into the energy of non-sentient souls and cast spells from them. Unfortunately, this normally results in the being's death, so she avoids casting magic from the souls of anything other than the flowers that grow in her hair. Bastilla was nearly 15 when the Blackout rose to power in the western hemisphere, a military organization interested in cybernetic and genetic enhancement. Scientist Xephyer Krome ordered the capture of all PADs encountered by Blackout forces under his command. Bastilla was specifically tracked down and taken from her home in the plains of what used to be the central United States. Xephyer believed that PADs held many answers concerning both genetic and cybernetic augmentation, and as such subjected them all to crude nervous experimentation and anatomical alteration. Bastilla was his favorite and most successful subject. The visible transition from human to plant nerves in her neck were relatively easy to reverse engineer. Because of this, he spared her from the usually-fatal experiments, opting to make her into a display for his advancements in cybernetic tech.

The internals both of Bastilla’s arms were replaced, becoming entirely mechanical, save for most of her skin. The anatomy of her chest was also redesigned to accommodate a power supply and two internally sheathed short swords. After that point, Xephyer could have chosen to train her to become a super soldier of sorts, but she was his prized possession. As such he made it a point to make sure she never saw combat, keeping her by his side as his intimidating pet instead.

Eventually, when conflict rose throughout the Krome family, Bastilla and several other PAD subjects were forced into battle on behalf of their master. She was defeated in battle against Lucreas Krome’s mercenaries, sustaining injuries that cut several of her vines, including the main one connected to her spine. She was evacuated and hidden by her allies, but the rest of Xephyer’s servants were destroyed by Lucreas’ forces. When Bastilla next awoke, she could only remember her name after playing back the last transmission she’d received from a man she couldn’t remember anymore. It said “Bastilla, show this world why you were created.”

Bastilla Stratus was created by ERG Sunshine.