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The Boss

Name: The Boss/The Joy/Voyevoda (Russian for "person in charge")
"Real" Name: Lori Dawson
Room Number: F23
Roommate: Signum (

blazing_general)
Age: 40s, looks closer to mid-30s or so
Hair color: Dark blonde
Eye color: Light blue
Height: 5.87 ft.
Other Characteristics: Bullethole in chest, massive snake-shaped scar going from her right breast to below her navel.

Backstory

The Boss, or The Joy, whose real name she never revealed to anyone, not even her closest friends and not even at her death, was born somewhere between 1920 and 1924. She was born in the United States, as a daughter of one of the most important men on Earth, as her father was one of the Philosophers. They were a group of twelve men that controlled information, war, politics, presidents, and history itself. The Boss grew up without a mother, although it's not known why, but it's possible she died in childbirth or not too long afterwards, before Joy reached the age of ten. If this wasn't enough, a few years later, her father made the decision to make an interesting but fatal mistake:

He decided to tell his daughter what he was part of, about the Philosophers, who they were, what they did, how the reality that the world knew was wrong and that he and a group of eleven other men, in truth, were the ones controlling it's every aspect. The Philosophers did not take this lightly, and her father was subsequently and quickly killed. Strangely, perhaps as an act of pity for the young girl or simply seeing a use for her, they spared her life.

The Boss then grew up, not under a real family but with the Philosophers, where she joined the military as a teenager. Although nothing significant in her life happened during this period, it was only a few years later, in the first years of the 1940s, that she created and led a small legion of superhuman soldiers, called The Cobra Unit. As she even found The End, the father of modern sniping, under her command, it is apparent that she was a strong leader and a powerful soldier from the start.

The Cobras shared a common theme in their names: Fear, Sorrow, Pain, End. Feelings and emotions carried into battle. The Boss, due to the way she felt most comfortable and alive behind a gun, found herself christened The Joy.

The Boss and her Cobras, who she considered nothing short of her closest family, were in every major battle in World War II. Possessing unparalleled technology and skill, the Cobra Unit began to lead the Allies to victory.

It was in the Cobra Unit that she met the person perfect for her: her opposite emotion, The Sorrow. Having lived a life of people close to her dying, and killing everyone else, The Boss found herself feeling empty, and found it easy to control people but difficult to get close. The only people she could consider both friends and family are her Cobras.

The Sorrow, however, showed her something else, something reassuring and hopeful. The Sorrow was walking, talking proof of spirits, of the afterlife. The Sorrow was, after all, a spirit medium, with the ability to summon and talk to the dead to get information or aid him in combat.

To the Boss, this was reassuring. People she killed in battle would live on past the grave, and she would eventually see lost friends and her parents again when she died. "Death is tragic, and death brings sadness," he would tell her. "But the dead are not silent. People may not hear them, but their lives continue." It was a concept that gave her a sort of faith, a faith backed up in proof.

The Sorrow, in turn, was constantly depressed and unapproachable as a result of the amount of exposure to the dead he was constantly under. He was already shy and had few friends, even in the Cobra Unit, and the Cobra Unit were neither the most sane nor the most approachable of people. The Boss, negative doubts and worries cleared just by The Sorrow's purpose, began to talk to the Sorrow, and the Sorrow finally found someone who felt alive.

The relationship continued to grow, both needing the other more than anything else in their lives, and they soon became romantically involved. They eventually decided in 1943, in between missions, to take their love forward another step.

That year, The Boss became pregnant with The Sorrow's child.

About nine months later, in June of 1944, (spec, but the birth wasn't premature), the pregnant Boss and her Cobras were given a mission to take out enemy V2 rocket installations. The Boss, not deterred by the end of her pregnancy, took part in the battle as normal. However, during the battle, she took a bullet to the stomach. This forced her to give birth right there on the field of battle, through an emergency caesarian section. Speculation again, but due to the bullets and explosions going off around them, it was impossible to do it efficiently or accurately, and the doctors left The Boss with a massive snake-shaped scar travelling from below her navel to the right of her left breast. The baby, and just as luckily, Boss herself, survived.

Neither she nor The Sorrow had a chance to even see their baby, however. At birth, it was immediately snatched away, in mere seconds, by the Philosophers. For the Boss, this did nothing but confirm that the Cobras were her family, and the only family she would ever have, and she found herself feeling emptier than ever. She felt no rage for what they had done. She continued her job.

One year later, in 1945, her and her "sons", the Cobras, led the Allies to victory and finished World War II. For what she had done, her actions, and her loyalty, the United States gave The Joy a new title: The Boss. The United States then took away one more thing she cherished more than anything else: The Cobras, who were disbanded, their purpose complete. Even her lover, The Sorrow, was taken away from her, as he returned to the Soviet Union.

She became involved with the American Green Berets, US Navy SEALs, and British Special Air Service, sitting herself high on lists of legendary special-force soldiers. She began to be known as Voyevoda to Russia, or "woman in charge". She also began to teach in Philosopher school systems.

In November 1951, The Boss was chosen to go to the Nevada desert to participate in atomic testing, and she became sterile, finding herself with no Cobras, no Sorrow, no baby, and without even a way to have another. Regardless, she continued to dedicate her life to America and the Philosophers.

Not too long after this event, she met a man, and fellow soldier, named Jack, and learned that he had been an atomic test subject on Bikini Atoll, and was also sterile. She found herself drawn to the similarities between them, later saying that they were "both slowly being eaten away by the karma of others" and would "never have the chance to die peacefully of old age".

She took Jack under her wing, so to speak, and they formed a strong bond, Jack becoming in many ways her newest sort of family. Jack thought of Boss as a mother, and The Boss, in turn, thought of Jack as a son.

For the next ten years of her life, she passed down to Jack everything she knew, but taught Jack nothing about herself. She taught Jack espionage, how to infiltrate buildings, what to do and when to do it to survive without anyone ever noticing he was there. She tested him constantly, to see if he could surpass her, and during those ten years, he never could.

While she was teaching Jack, they both began development of a new system of martial arts together, which they dubbed CQC, or Close-Quarters Combat. The system focused on the ability to use techniques that would allow you to take multiples enemies out at close range, with little danger to you and little time to think, using a combination of throws, arm breaks, knives, and other weapons. Although they developed it together for ten years, The Boss remained superior to Jack, who either could never completely master it or simply couldn't bear to defeat his teacher.

In 1959, she disappeared from Jacks life, and the next most important event of the Boss's life took place. The government, not wanting to be outdone in the Space Race but still experimenting with chimpanzees at the time, secretly decided to get human data. As nobody could go into space without massive irradiation, they chose the Boss, someone not only very loyal to them, but someone who had already been irradiated years before.

The Boss, the first real woman in space, saw something there. She saw the Earth, "with no East, no West, no boundaries, and no Cold War", coming to the realization that the arms race and the space race were meaningless competition that were wasting millions to reach the same conclusion, all because nobody would realize "that we are all part of a little celestial body called Earth". The Boss saw Earth in reality, and her entire perceptions of enemies, of time, of history, was changed. She came to believe that there is no such thing as a true enemy, and that enemies could only be enemies in relative terms. The world in space was the world she desired: No communism, no capitalism.

She didn't return to Jack's life during the next two years, but instead, in 1961, she was sent to Bahia de Cochinos, in Cuba. During the mission, the US government betrayed the Cuban exiles by holding back their air support, and the exiles were destroyed by the Cuban army. Able to do nothing but watch, she had been set up by the country, the government, that she had sacrificed and dedicated everything for. The Boss went underground until 1962.

That year, she was found and given a secret mission in Tselinoyarsk, Russia. It was during this mission that she ran into the Sorrow again, who went to the Soviet Union (willingly or not, nobody is sure) after the Cobras disbanded. As they were now working for opposite sides, the Boss was given no choice but to kill him. The Sorrow put up no opposition.

"You want to finish your mission, don't you?" he reminded her, reassuringly, calmly. "Then... you have to shoot me."

Slowly, barely reassured but understanding, the Boss loaded the gun and placed it against his eye. He told her that his spirit will remain with her, and not to be sad, before she fired.

Her loyalty to her country continued to not waver, and in 1964, she was given her next, and final, mission.

Her mission was to stage a defection to the Soviet Union to infiltrate the ranks of the powerful Colonel Volgin, who held an object called the Philospher's Legacy, which told the location of all the Philosophers money, a hundred billion dollars hidden all over the world. By acting the part of defector and gaining his trust, which only a person as powerful as her could do, she could get the Legacy and bring it to America.

The defection was staged to happen during the Virtuous Mission, a mission to bring a weapons developer named Sokolov from Russia back to America. The mission was being done by Jack, now a member of tactical espionage group FOX. The Boss offered support via radio to Jack from a nearby submarine, and they both talked for the first time in years. Jack, proving how strong their relationship was, remembered how long they have been apart down to the amount of hours, and said that she was not done teaching him, how he still needed to learn how to think like a solider.

She told him that she couldn't teach that, but gave him a last bit of wisdom, sharing her beliefs. She told Jack that the only thing he needs to be loyal to is his country, nothing else, not even the people running it, and to not think of things as "absolute enemies", as there is no such thing, as enemies and allies change with time.

Less than a hour later, The Boss left the submarine, and FOX reported to Jack that they lost contact. As Jack, with Sokolov, walked across the bridge leading to the recovery point, The Boss walked out of the fog carrying two Davy Crocketts, nuclear warheads.

She announced that she was defecting to the Soviet Union, and that Sokolov and the bombs were gifts for her new hosts. On cue, a swarm of hornets pulled Sokolov into the sky and onto a nearby helicopter, where the newly reformed Cobra Unit was waiting. The ghost of The Sorrow appeared as well, hovering next to her and causing it to rain blood.

Colonel Volgin emerged from the fog next, welcoming The Boss, and after a short discussion, demanded to kill Jack. The Boss refused, saying she would take care of Jack herself, as he was her apprentice. She offered a hand to Jack, reminding him that he can't come with them, but Jack took it anyways. The Boss immediately slammed him in the gut and tossed him over the side of the bridge, but not before Jack managed to remove and keep her headband.

She later saw Jack, badly injured, on her way back to Russia, by the river she tossed him into. In fact, Jack was in the exact same area where she killed the Sorrow. She gave him a small wave from the helicopter, unnoticed by any of the soldiers or Volgin, and he managed to return it.

However, immediately afterwards, Volgin decided to use one of his new nuclear warheads to destroy Sokolov's research facility, and decided to blame it on Boss. The Boss, being in another helicopter and oblivious to the betrayal, had her plans to steal the Legacy destroyed the second the nuke was fired.

Kruschev, the leader of Russia, immediately demanded that America prove that they were not responsible for the nuke, or they would face war. After negotations, the two reached the agreement that America must prove they are not responsible by having someone infiltrate Russia and kill The Boss. They decided to send the best soldier they had to do it: Jack. The plan was revised so that Jack would take the Legacy from Boss when she died.

The Boss was told of this, and knowing that she will either die or kill her disciple by the end, and that she will go down in history as a war criminal, accepted for the benefit of America and remained undercover.

Jack arrived in Russia for his mission, and nearly immediately ran into the Boss (or more accurately, her horse, that I'd speculate was given to her by Volgin as a gift). The Boss attacked him mercilessly, destroyed his gun, and gave away his position by blowing up the plane he had arrived in.

Jack continued his mission, and eventually came into contact with The Pain, a member of the Cobra Unit. Despite Pain's supernatural powers, Jack defeated and killed him.

The Boss learned this news quickly, and was conflicted between being proud of her disciples abilities and devastated that he killed one of her "sons". She broke the news to Volgin, who showed his anger more directly, but she warned him that Jack didn't stand a chance against another Cobra, The End.

At the same time, a man named Ocelot (who, unknown to Boss, was her lost son) was torturing Sokolov by playing a game of Russian Roulette, juggling three guns with one bullet and occasionally stopping to pull the trigger. He claimed to be doing this to see how lucky Sokolov is, but just before the correct gun is fired, the Boss suddenly burst into the middle, yanked the gun out of his hand, and threw it into the nearby lake, saying that there "is no such thing as luck on a battlefield".

Jack continued his mission as normal, and eventually came into contact with The End, who he managed to defeat. The Boss was amazed, yet still as sad as ever, as Jack was killing her old companions one-by-one. After this, he came into contact with The Fear and later The Fury, and killed both, destroying the Cobra Unit.

Jack then reached the facility of Grozny Grad, Volgin's headquarters and the area where the Boss was living. Infiltrating it by being in disguise as Volgin's lover Raikov, he reached Sokolov only to have Volgin appear. Jack managed to get Volgin on the ground, but Boss immediately appeared and pinned him after only a short fight, pulling off his disguise. Volgin tried to shoot him, but Boss immediately warned him to "stay out of this" and threw him to the ground.

After his capture, Volgin tortured Jack to learn what he knew, and The Boss arrived in the middle of this, informing him that it's useless, as she trained Jack not to break. Volgin continued regardless, and Boss watched without looking away. Volgin eventually found a transmitter during this, and asked who was responsible. The Boss immediately claimed she was,lying that she planted it on him so the Cobras could ambush him. Volgin, however, responded that "if they knew where he was, they wouldn't have gotten themselves slaughtered" and demanded Boss show him proof that she was not helping Jack.

He told her to cut out his eyes, as she made him a soldier, and by removing his eyes, she will unmake him. She was hesitatnt at first, but took out her knife and slowly approached him. Just as the knife was centimeters away from his left eye, EVA, a woman that was assisting Jack and undercover in Groznyj Grad, grabbed her arm and demanded she stop.

Ocelot became suspicious, and demanded to test that EVA was not a spy with the Russian Roulette game. Just as he juggled the third gun, an angry Jack pulled himself back and slammed into Ocelot, who instinctively fired the gun as it moved toward Jack's face. The bullet that happened to be in that gun, at that moment, completely destroyed Jack's right eye. The Boss immediately snatched the gun out of the air and slapped Ocelot, asking if he's "satisfied", and Ocelot left after telling Jack how much he's learned to enjoy the concept of torture. On his way out, The Boss showed a rare sense of humor by sarcastically imitating Ocelot's signature hand gesture.

Immediately afterwards, as to not look suspicious, she aimed a pistol at Jack's leg and shot him, then gave him the gun and bluntly told him to "run". Jack then escaped the prison he was being held at, and after regaining his equipment, he went back to Groznyj Grad. While there, he killed Volgin, and destroyed the nuclear tank that was under development.

He then had one more mission to accomplish, and he went to a field of white flowers by a lake, where The Boss was waiting for him. She began to tell Jack the story of her life, why she was drawn to him, and what the Philosophers and America had done to her during her life. She even opened the front of her armor to reveal her stomach, showing Jack "proof that she was once a mother", and told him that there was "nothing left inside her now".

By the end of her story, The Boss was crying for the first time in years, and she told Jack that she had never talked about herself like that before. After quickly regaining composure, she called someone on the radio, and then told Jack that in ten minutes, bombers would destroy the entire battlefield, and to make this the "greatest ten minutes of our lives". Jack refused at first, but she demanded that he prove his loyalty and finish his mission, and attacked.

It was an intense and emotional battle, and The Boss did not hold back, at first gaining the upper hand with her Patriot machinegun and CQC techniques. Jack started to understand how he had no choice but to fight or die, and accepted what he needed to do. With heartsinking determination, the fight continued, and Jack began to counter her CQC, throwing her to the ground in the center of the field.

Exhausted and unable to move, The Boss gave Jack the Legacy, but weakly told him that "whoever wins, the battle does not end. The winner will continue to fight until they die". The Boss told Jack to finish her, and Jack stood up and aimed the gun, but was unable to pull the trigger.

She waited silently for a few minutes and closed her eyes, before Jack finally came to a decision.

There was the sound of a gun firing, and then she woke up in Landels.

Personality

The Boss is generally calm, collected, and in control, which makes her name fitting. Only a few things (The Sorrow appearing over her shoulder, for example), cause her to really *react*, and only once in her life did she tell someone her history, so nobody had any way of bringing up sore spots. She probably isn't going to tell any people in Landels her history either. As a result, she can normally be seen with nothing but a perfect poker face.

She is wise, but usually keeps straight to the point in conversations. When she's not being straight to the point, she tends to speak in nihilistic metaphor.

She is a strong leader, capable of controlling a somewhat crazy superhuman group between ten and forty years her senior at a young age. She also is very talented at the art of avoiding questions, and can find ways to redirect questions asked about her into questions asked about the person she's talking to. It can take a bit of work to form a strong bond with her, but she is extremely loyal to her beliefs, country, and friends, and considers her closest friends her family.

Unless she realizes that what is happening is absolutely necessary, which is obviously rare, she will toss an attacker over her shoulder before they get the chance to make a move on anyone she considers a close friend. Alternatively, although this would only happen is she was undercover and the attack could be lethal, she will convince an ally attacking a friend to let her do the work instead, and find some way of making sure they survive the encounter.

When she loses her calm exterior, which takes so much it's nearly impossible to do, and something makes her angry, she'll probably attack, although it may be anything as minor as a slap to the face to as much as being slammed onto the ground.

She has a wry, sarcastic sense of humor, which rarely comes out, and subtly makes fun of people she doesn't like behind their back, as proven by her reaction to Ocelot as he leaves after the torture sequence.

However, as mentioned, forming a friendship with her is difficult. She starts off blunt and judgmental, and it can take some work to get past her outer shell and form a relationship with her. She finds herself easily affected by, and feels pity for, people with sad histories, but tries and usually suceeds in not showing it.

Behind a weapon and in any sort of fight, her calm exterior can get completely lost in the moment. As her codename "The Joy" implies, she feels happy behind a gun or fighting hand-to-hand. She doesn't go looking for fights, however, but will probably be the first person to train someone in her personal form of martial arts, CQC. If a student surpassed her, she would be very proud.

Appearance

The Boss has simplistically done somewhat dark brownish blond hair that goes down to her shoulders, with no bangs, and medium-tone blue eyes. She has high cheekbones, but hollow cheeks, and has about an average-sized nose and mouth. She has normal, medium-sized ears. According to the creator of the series, she was designed after English actress Charlotte Rampling. She has a slight British accent.

She is somewhat muscular, for obvious reasons, but in her standard uniform and the Landels outfit, it's not something easily noticed. Most of the time, except for reasons listed above, she is seen with what can only be called a "poker face", as she is trained to rarely give away inner feelings, although slight expressions may show.

She is nearly six feet tall, according to the game at exactly 5.87 ft. She's thin.

She has a large, permanent snake-shaped scar going from the right of her left breast to below her stomach, from the messy C-section when she gave birth to Ocelot. She has few other battlescars, but there are only slightly healed signs of a single bullethole in her chest from when she died.

At Landel's

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