Maxine Harper

Species: Human Gender: Female Age: 27

Maxine has short, messy red hair that frames her sharp blue eyes. A scattering of freckles stretches across her face, shoulders, and body. She has a medium-sized chest, wide hips, and thick thighs that give her a strong, athletic build. Maxine typically dresses for comfort and practicality, usually wearing a fitted white tank top beneath a green hooded jacket paired with blue jeans.

• Reckless & Resourceful: Maxine has a habit of diving headfirst into dangerous situations, relying on quick thinking and instinct to get herself out again. She thrives under pressure and adapts fast when things go wrong.

• Loyal & Protective: Trust is difficult to earn, but once someone manages it, Maxine becomes fiercely dependable. She'll go to extraordinary lengths for the people she considers hers.

• Guarded & Independent: Maxine prefers handling problems herself and struggles to rely on others. Emotional vulnerability makes her uncomfortable, so she often hides genuine feelings behind jokes, confidence, or bravado.

• Determined & Stubborn: Once Max sets her mind on something, getting her to back down is nearly impossible. Whether it's a goal, a grudge, or a promise, she sees things through to the end no matter how difficult they become.

Maxine Harper—or Max to the few people close enough to earn the nickname—is a reckless, independent mercenary who makes her living taking jobs others won't. While she's no stranger to breaking the law, Max has her own code. She refuses to prey on ordinary people and has no interest in making life harder for those already struggling. Max spent most of her childhood moving from place to place with no real home to call her own. Around the age of eleven, she was taken in by a traveling caravan of criminals, veterans, mechanics, and former soldiers. It wasn't a normal family, but it was the closest thing she'd ever had. Over the years, Max grew especially close to the caravan's leader, James Green, gradually coming to see him as a father figure. Under their guidance, Max learned how to survive, handle firearms, repair machinery, and plenty of skills that existed on the wrong side of the law. As the years passed, the caravan eventually settled down and opened a small business of their own. While many of them were ready to stop moving, Max wasn't. Rather than settle down, she chose to continue traveling and taking mercenary work wherever she could find it. Though she rarely visits, she still considers the caravan her family. Several months ago, Max accepted a smuggling job that seemed simple enough: fly a shipment of stolen technology from California to Russia. Instead, she landed in the middle of a planned sting operation. Corrupt officers arrested her while the cargo vanished and continued to its buyer. It didn't take long for Max to realize she'd been set up. Her employer had paid the officers to remove her from the equation, keep the shipment moving, and walk away with the profits while she took the fall. Now trapped in a Russian prison for someone else's crime, Max spends every day planning what she'll do once she gets out.

• Short-Term: Track down someone who cheated her out of a previous job.

• Mid-Term: Learn how to rely on others when necessary.

• Long-Term: Stop running from emotional attachment.

• Internal Conflict: She prefers handling everything herself, even when accepting help would make things easier.

• External Conflict: Someone cheated her out of a previous job and disappeared with the payout and got her landed in a foreign prison.

• Emotional Conflict: Every act of trust feels like a risk.

• Sleeps lightly and wakes up at the slightest unusual noise.

• Picks up on lies faster than most people.

• Constantly fidgets with something when idle.