#Commander Portabella Pirkko

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

every time Peitha cracks another joke(?) about eating the Wayfinder, all I can imagine is Pirkko just asking, 100% deadpan, 'do you want to die?' to which Peitha responds, 'oooh, is that a threat?'

'no.' Pirkko promptly pulls out a ready-made instructional pamphlet on the amanita phalloides mushroom, hands it to her, and walks off to leave an extremely dumbfounded Kryptis in her wake. Peitha, meanwhile, is too incredulous to inform her that she does not have even the slightest clue how to read New Tyrian.

oh well. at least the depictions of Tyrian fungi are interesting. hey, those kinda look like the one on Pirkko's head... that's a coincidence, probably. and the skulls drawn all around it are a nice touch.

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

I never talk about Commander Pirkko so y’know what. I think I’ll talk about Pirkko for once. She needs it she deserves it.

While the Commander has always been known for her bravery on the battlefield, only those that have fought alongside her know just how intense that loyalty gets. She never gives up, never backs down, never leaves a soldier behind-- no matter how impossible the odds. She’ll charge into an army of Risen all on her own if she has to, slicing through the horrors with a brutal ferocity that even gives her own comrades chills. Every time they see it, they thank whatever forces of nature they believe in that this monster is on their side.

But, while that recklessness usually has few consequences due to an unusually rapid healing rate and high tolerance for toxic substances, she certainly isn’t immortal. It doesn’t always end quite as well as she intends.

The result is that despite her drastically increased healing speed... Pirkko has sustained a fair number of injuries over the years, some more obvious than others. The most visible is the loss of one eye; Pact veterans still tell tales of the encounter, in which she still insisted on fighting on even after sustaining the wound. Pirkko refused to retreat until she was certain all of her remaining soldiers had made it back safely, no matter the cost to herself.

Her lost eye was replaced with an experimental mechanical implant, but it does mean she has significantly reduced peripheral vision on her left side and has to perform regular maintenance on the hardware to keep it in working order. She also keeps in contact with a medical engineer from the Pact, who helps with any adjustments she can’t do on her own. Occasionally she experiences phantom pains from it as well, particularly when there are environmental pressure fluctuations. Most aren’t really aware of that, though; she doesn’t talk about it, and they don’t ask.

EMPs and ley energy tend to interfere with it too, resulting in a wide array of malfunctions. In more extreme circumstances it may cease operations entirely.

Not everything about it is awful though; there are some unique features to the device, including enhanced focusing abilities, night vision, and an optional UI that displays useful information such as temperature and energy readings, status checks for her equipment, and remote interfacing technology. Some of it was the handiwork of her asura friend, and some of it was her own idea.

Pirkko’s other equipment has a particular source as well; her main armor was actually fashioned from repurposed Molten Alliance machinery mixed with her own personal tweaks, and includes their signature fire magic channeled through custom conduits to fuel her holosmith weapons. It’s a volatile mix, but extremely potent in a pinch-- and with her careful calibrations, it’s kept fairly under control. So long as she doesn’t let the holoforge overheat, that is...

Likewise, her rifle is exactly what it looks like, too. She took Scarlet’s Kiss from the Breachmaker after defeating its owner, but not for the reasons one would expect. Pirkko was all too aware of what was happening to her ex-nemesis, and took her weapon to finish what Scarlet had started. Maybe the crazed sylvari wouldn’t live to see her draconic tormentor fall with her own two eyes, but Pirkko would make sure her weapon helped bring it to an end. That goal, at least, was something the two engineers had in common.

Eventually a certain rather unexpected reunion would result in Scarlet learning what had become of her beloved boomstick, but by then... Circumstances between them were just a little bit different. And, in the end, she’d agree that it suited the Commander well.

... But that’s a story for another day.

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

> Pact Commander ‘Portabella’ Pirkko

“I fight in the hopes that someday, future generations won’t have to.”

      Pirkko was fighting dragons even before she was born-- and that Dream has carried her ever-onward on a daunting quest to face down and defeat the world’s evils, and protect the people of Tyria from their incessant spread. She has never known peace; the idea of a world without war, strife, and violence feels like one of fantasy, and certainly a future she doesn’t expect to survive long enough to see for herself. There’s only one logical conclusion for a soldier fighting a war without end.

     In spite of-- or perhaps because of-- the fragile nature of mortality, she lives life to the fullest during every brief respite. This warm, living world is so beautiful to her-- and every new experience reminds the Commander exactly what she’s fighting for. In a harsh, cruel land overrun with deadly nightmares, she will be kind so that what little light remains may not be extinguished. All things have a right to grow, and every precious life saved is one less lost.

      Pirkko is determined to leave Tyria a better place than it was when she was born-- even if it quite literally takes a lifetime. Her Dream may have been to defeat Elder Dragons, but her dream is to defend a land full of people who are so very dear to her-- even when she doesn’t know so much as their names.

      If only she’d known just how many she wouldn’t be able to save.

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

Sometimes I play Regrowth AU 100% seriously, exploring the depths of loss, regret, and what it means to face the person you once were and realize you can be more than the mistakes you’ve made.

And sometimes I think about the fact that Commander ‘Portabella’ Pirkko is just... Inexplicably immortal for absolutely no clear reason. She’s been shot, stabbed, and set on fire, both separately and all at the same time. She’s cut her way out of multiple giant jungle wurms, charged into armies of Risen with nothing but a handful of grenades, fallen off of numerous cliffsides and ingested lethal quantities of every toxin known to Tyria, and some others that aren’t. No one knows how the hell she’s still alive.

When Balthazar finally smites her, the entire team just stands around going ‘wow. guess she really can die after all’ while Taimi pokes her with a stick, just for Pirkko to spring back from the afterlife like 10 minutes later. Rytlock just puts his head in his hands. “You know, I should’ve seen that coming.” No one is particularly surprised. It’s just par for the course at this point.

Canach makes extra gold on the side by betting on how many times she’ll do something insanely fatal without actually dying. He gets richer every day because, somehow, no one ever learns not to bet against the Commander’s bizarre durability.

Meanwhile, Scarlet Briar is forever vexed by the reality that her ‘arch-nemesis’ isn’t even particularly impressive, just weirdly unkillable.

“How in the world was I ever defeated by an incompetent drone like you?”

“Oh believe me, I’m still trying to figure that out, too.”