Moira Lacrima

Moira’s parents were the kind who pretty much let her do whatever it was that she wanted, provided she wasn’t hurting anyone in the process. They weren’t exactly interested in what their child was doing, more than just making sure it was all above board, but that mostly just pushed her to find friends who were interested in the same sort of things - as a child, that wasn’t too hard. Most children her age were also excited by heroes of justice fighting against evil monsters and whatnot.

What made Moira unusual (at least relatively speaking) was that the interest in that sort of thing never really faded, even when she was relentlessly bullied for being a ‘nerd’ and a ‘baby’. As it was, she just kept her head down and quietly waited until the end of her mandatory education, after which she figured she would be free to pursue her own interests.

Well, sort of. Naturally, Moira needed a job, and although working in various stores and restaurants in her city was about enough for her to live on, it certainly wasn’t enough for her to move out, and more importantly to Moira, they were also almost unendurably boring. Spending her time cleaning the floors again just wasn’t how she wanted to live her life. So she took a chance, and applied to be a volunteer for a tiny production company that fairly desperate for unpaid help, on the off chance it’d lead to some kind of opportunity.

As it turned out, they made a series mostly about Kaiju - giant monsters duking it out for reasons only known to the people who bothered to read the flimsy scripts. The studio wasn’t hugely well off, so their ‘monsters’ were Zoids that people happened to own, painted up to resemble monsters. It didn’t matter, though - Moira’s imagination was well and truly captured. She spent a long, long time working hard to be the one to have pilot a Zoid to be questionably modelled on - it didn’t cross her mind at the time, but later she realised that all she needed was the proper motivation, and she could stomach all the deathly boring jobs she could get her hands on. Eventually she saved the money up for a Zoid - a Spino Sapper, since she figured a dinosaur like that could really make a cool monster, even if it was a little on the big side.

Moira eventually got her chance to star in an episode quite some time after she bought it. The interim had been filled with dropping not-so-subtle hints, but it was quite a large Zoid, and nobody was particularly keen to try to paint it until the director decided that they needed a fierce new monster to revive interest in their series, especially since they were only just keeping their head above water. For Moira’s debut, only half of her Spino Sapper ended up being painted - they hid the rest of it with scenery, but it was enough to spark some new appreciation for their production. At the very least, it convinced the network to let them air it for just a bit longer.  They still didn’t have much money though - revived interest or not, it didn’t change the fact that they’d only just been doing well enough before to just about cover their costs. Most of the cast and crew had other jobs, and were really only still doing what they were doing because they loved it.

Getting into Zoid battles was really only by chance for Moira - had she not forgotten to buy herself food on the way home, she probably wouldn’t have walked past a bar when it was open, and showing footage from a Zoid fight. She probably wouldn’t have noticed the prize money being advertised or the fact her city had an arena that wasn’t hugely far away. It wasn’t a perfect solution - if she’d lost a limb or broken the Spino Sapper entirely those first few battles, it was quite likely that she would have ruined the series - it was only gaining traction at all because the Spino Sapper looked just… slightly less bad than the Gordos or the Iguan. She was lucky, though - as a new pilot, even with such a heavy Zoid, she was only matched up against other newcomers who’d mostly brought lightly armoured things, relying on their speed to confound slow foes. Or, well, slow foes without chainsaws on their Zoids.

Her luck couldn’t hold up forever, though - when she’d been battling for about a month, and was just about feeling comfortable juggling fighting and performing, it appeared. A Zoid that she’d never seen before, and one she only saw for a few seconds before the video feed in the cockpit went dark and the battle was over.

Dark Spiner. It was just what the show needed - despite its advertising, the Sapper didn’t really look that much like a spinosaurus, with its short snout and lack of a real sail. The other Zoid looked perfect - surely that would be the thing that would finally lift the company out of the dust. Moira was resolved to find that pilot, find out where they got their Zoid. Fate had other plans, however - Moira never saw them again, even after she got the Sapper put back together after it had been taken apart so savagely. Even when she started fighting again with a vengeance, that pilot never showed their face.

It wasn’t that mysterious, Moira supposed - whoever they were, they’d really made a mess of her Zoid, as well as the other pilots they’d faced that day. They probably just got bored and gone off to find a proper challenge. That day, she resolved that she’d improve her skills, and find them again. If nothing else, she wanted a rematch - it was rather embarrassing, going down in five-seconds-flat.