Finally made art of her I was happy with, so I'd like to introduce: Cyna (she/her)
Info on the adaptable racer and her tragic backstory under the cut:
One of the playable characters in the 2013 Wreck-It Studios game 'Turbo Time Junior Racing', Cyna is the legacy character to their recent smash hit 'Hero's Duty'
Raised on earth by her mum, Cyna was born under the name Grace Adlering, daughter of an incredibly talented engineer.
Cyna was created to capitalise on the fanbase's love of cy-bugs; her cart looked like a juvenile cy-bug, her motorbike was based on scrapped concepts from the original Hero's Duty, and even her racing abilities were based on the eat and copy mechanic of the cy-bugs
To match the game she was based on, Cyna was outfitted with a tragic backstory. Most of it is found outside of gameplay (primarily the guide book and the official game site), but hints to it remain in the Hero's Duty themed track: Lab With No Name
To unlock Cyna in story mode, players are required to beat her in a race in the newly unlocked track 'Lab With No Name', where a small lab on the Planet With No Name is under siege by cy-bugs (the cy-bugs act more like pirahna plants in Mario Kart, so no teenagers are getting consumed, unfortunately)
Once unlocked, her primary ability is, "Eat, Destroy", where Cyna is able to (briefly) use the abilities of other racers immediately after removing a piece of their cart. Her special, "Multiply", causes a swarm of young cy-bugs to surround her, damaging any carts that get within it's radius, and the cost of some of her carts added parts
Her tragic backstory goes like this:
Most people know what happened.
The first cy-bug breaks out of containment and becomes the cy-bug Queen, birthing an army, forcing the government to send the space marines, who arrive six months into the lab being on lock down, most of the civilians confined to the canteen while they waited out the swarm
Grace was one of those citizens, but she was not in the canteen. She was delivering lunch to her mother, who worked on the upper floors, developing the metal alloys that make up the cy-bug bodies
By the time Ms Adlering found her daughter, with the help of friend and coworker Dr Brad Scott, two days have passed, and Grace had become Cyna, a cy-brid of Grace and a cy-bug she named Hopper
At this time, Cyna was much closer in appearance to a juvenile cy-bug, two eyes, no wings, a small tail, her modified brain visible beneath a clear headcase. Her voice had also changed, duplicating over itself as she spoke, though she could now communicate like a cy-bug, could now communicate to them
Scott believed that Cyna was not Grace and was just a cy-bug that managed to eat the poor nine year old girl and obsorb her memories. Adlering believed Cyna and refused to harm her daughter
When Scott asked to use Cyna so he could create weapons capable of killing the queen, Adlering ran, her daughter in her arms
The two managed to survive the six months of lockdown without ever entering the csnteen, not one cy-bug ever attacking or threatening them
When the space marines find the two, the recently activated beacon causing Cyna to fall asleep, it takes Adlering throwing herself on top of her daughter to stop the marines from shooting an unconscious Cyna on sight
It was General Lockload that signed the papers that defined Cyna as minimum risk, a non-combatant in their war against the cy-bugs. But that did not make her harmless
He also decided to keep her confined to the planet, not to be released until the queen was destroyed. With the main lab under the control of the cy-bugs, Lockload set up a new lab multiple miles away, the Lab With No Name
Adlering on the other hand is sent back to earth on Lockload's orders, dragged kicking and screaming off the planet, with the promise of financial support and access to 24/7 communication with her daughter
Coincidentally, the marines would be attacked the same night Adlering was sent away, a group of cy-bugs targeting the supplies that would be used to build the minor lab. Lockload was hospitalised during this attack
The marines held up their promise, Adlering had all the money she could have, 24/7 communication with her daughter, and anything else she demanded from the marines, far more than could be said of other scientists who worked on the Planet With No Name when the cy-bugs broke out
When Cyna was 11, General Lockload was forced to return to earth due to health problems caused by the Cy-bug attack
When Cyna was 12, she transformed, gaining the form seen in the image above
It's only at the age of 14 that she's left the planet for the first time in half a decade, becoming a racer alongside other teens being trained by Turbo Sr., thanks to Adlering working with the retired racer to get her daughter into the school. The attack on the lab by cy-bugs the very day Turbo Sr. sent other teens to pick her up was pure coincidence
No one has to know Cyna brought a few friends with her (They know. The other teens play games with the juveniles, and Turbo Sr. is trying to train some of the adults to move scrap metal out of the race track without eating it)
