Black Diamond (Need Help Choosing Illustration)

Black Diamond's story begins in the future with an advanced Cybersoldier identified as XP-19-Protomech who was designed to be the ultimate survivor at the onset to the age of EMPIRE. He had been specifically bred to serve this purpose leading to an extraordinary life traversing the known galaxy before returning as part of a security force to the Terran solar system. During a battle with terrorists on an orbiting space station, he would be flung through a shimmering vortex into the past crashing to Earths surface from its stratosphere. While the larger part of the space station exploded in the skies above Tunguska, Russia in 1908, his fate would take a different path as he crashed to Earth in 1978 rural Mississippi, USA. Surviving due to his unique abilities, he was nonetheless broken and dying as his body was only held together by the nanites desperately working to repair his body.

Mandy Thompson was your ordinary teenage girl who at age thirteen was an accomplished gymnast and cheerleader. But beyond this, there wasn't much to say about her as she was just an ordinary child living an ordinary life until an accident traveling home with her parents after a football game. Discovering her parents were severely injured, Mandy fled to seek help from the nearest home not knowing the nearest house was miles away. Drawn to the accident, XP-19-Protomech could not stop his his survival mechanism and as he began trying to get his bearings, he encountered Mandy who begged him for help... and then she screamed at what was to become of her. Only her father was conscious enough to hear her scream before passing out again only to wake up about an hour later to find a woman walking backwards away from him into the night.

Her mind clouded by what had happened to her, Mandy sought a place to regain her senses and eventually found a farmhouse whose occupiers weren't home. Examining her appearance in a mirror, she was shocked to discover that she was now an adult and it was at this point that a voice in her head made itself known. Calling itself by the human name Hal Winslow, the voice explained that XP-19-Protomech had been through this before and his onboard computer systems developed a human identity which he referred to as his soul. Mandy now possessed Hal's knowledge so that her trauma was lessened and gave her the knowledge to save her parents. Before leaving the farmhouse, she felt an unusual sensation leading her to the bathroom where she discovered something survived from her former male self letting out a gasp finally revealing some emotion saying "No Way"!

Knowing XD-19-Protomech was a killer, with numerous deaths at his hands, wouldn't concern Mandy. She herself was a hunter who had prepared many an animal as food and while she had never killed a human, her father was a police officer which in 1978 Mississippi was no easy task for a black man. Even worse, the disappearance of his daughter led to claims he killed her and his confusion of the accident led to claims she might have been taken by extraterrestrials. Using her love for her father, Mandy sought to honor him by aiding law enforcement only to learn they could sometimes be the criminals rather than the heroes. She was no pillar of virtue herself because her inherited traits of being a trained soldier and her skills as a backwoods hunter led to several acts of extreme violence on her part. In one case, she came upon the scene of a serial killer witnessing the murderer in action and leaving him strung up like a butchered deer.

When her own father became involved in trying to take her in, alive or dead, Mandy departed rather than risk violence against him making her way to Los Angeles and taking the name Black Diamond becoming and anti-hero. She would survive by stealing from the criminal element after dishing out some vigilante justice and leaving a mess for law enforcement often leaving violent criminals wishing they were dead but otherwise still among the living. In the 25th century, most human infirmities have been overcome including old age. But, all humans are expected to contribute and be productive where opportunities to do so exist everywhere. Mandy is hard and unforgiving for this reason so that criminals, drug users and the homeless who refuse help will draw her ire and she will sometimes impersonate a social worker to determine who this might be.

Understanding what Mandy Thompson has become requires knowing events of the future and humanity's development from the 21rst to the 25th century. Humans are essentially immortal for as long as they wish to participate in social constructs where they contribute to the survival of everyone within the EMPIRE. Should they decide they no longer wish to do so, they have essentially signed their death warrant as their bodies belong to the EMPIRE and a myriad of fates await them. For most, they are put to sleep peacefully while their bodies are harvested for their parts by the body banks or are turned into organic produce for nonhuman species. Criminals are not imprisoned but forced to fight in a life and death game known only as The Hunt or are drafted into the military as shock troopers first in battle and first to die. Things like homelessness are equated to mental illness and a sklábos (a small cephalopod-like creature) placed in their brains turning them into slaves.

The armor she wears is fused permanently to her body and is formed from a adamantine metal difficult to impossible for 21rst century weapons to damage. Her bones are covered by a thin layer of this adamantine metal but this does not make her invulnerable. At every joint her bones are vulnerable to breaks, dislocation and being severed and, in fact, she has lost a forearm and a lower leg for this reason. The metal is piecemeal allowing her full movement and her skin is imbued with a light coating of the metal that is flexible but more easily damaged. She possesses nanites that heal her and seal injuries until such time as a missing body part might be replaced. An example of this was when she lost parts of a leg and arm which she took body parts from corpses to replace that the nanites eventually gene-coded to be identical to what she lost.

Cybersoldiers had existed since the Great War in the 22nd century that devastated the planet and the age of super-science emerged with humanities rebirth during the Ruined Earth period. XP-19-Protomech was a product of 23rsd century science to improve the cybersoldier with nanite technologies of which only a small number proved successful in establishing the perfect synthesis that was desired. Part of their function allowed XP-19-Protomech to fully merge with another being should he be so damaged that the nanites could not repair all the damage to its organics. This "survival mechanism" was enacted at least three times before Mandy including with an alien being whose attributes sometimes re-emerge such as the mandibles and sharp metallic teeth that the nanites reabsorb into her because she finds them undesirable.

XP-19-Protomech survived many catastrophic events but he was by no means invulnerable but as advanced as his systems were, the events leading him to merge with Mandy had caused his body to begin burning out it's organics. Very little of his original organics survived the process of merging with Mandy but some things always survived the process or became replicated when needed. Mandy possesses certain weapons and devices that her body replicates such as her fusion-based plasma rifle but these generally require something to build upon such as 21rst century weapons or even something like a lead pipe might be transformed. Should she lose her weapon, they revert back to their original form so that her enemies do not gain a weapon to use against her. She often creates javelins, metal nets and mauls but must still have something metallic to create them from.

While she can't escape her armor, she possesses a chameleon circuit implanted into her manubrium (upper part of the sternum) that looks like a cameo. This device allows her to create powerful holographic projections that gives her the appearance she desires but the projections aren't perfect as any recording device capturing her will be blurred concealing her appearance completely. Using this ability, she infiltrates society but it seems limited to things Hal has duplicated by scanning people, clothing and other things people wear where the illusion is shattered if people touch her and notice what they feel does not match what their eyes see. Hal can also create up to three floating orbs to aid it in gathering intelligence of her surroundings which it can create holograms around to make them appear like animal companions of things like balloons or model planes.

Hal is an onboard computer with the ability to tap into communications devices and orbiting satellites providing her intelligence about her surroundings. The orbs Hal creates give Mandy greater control over the intel Hal gathers because many things can interfere with the intelligence it tries to gather from 21rst century technology. Referring to it more personally as a he, Mandy relies on Hal for many things particularly to do with enhancing her senses as she can see and hear in almost any environmental condition often using adverse conditions to her advantage. Using Hal, she can control almost anything with a computer and, being an advanced form of artificial intelligence, Hal is nonetheless a slave program dedicated to serving Mandy preventing it from attaining consciousness. Mandy is more aware of Hals abilities when it forms a protective helmet around her head where he manifests on the interior viewscreens.

While she is a hunter, she's also the hunted as law enforcement around the world pursue her and Dark Ops occasionally has run-ins with her where they might decide they want to capture her but, generally, she's more useful to them as a mercenary. It's through them that Mandy learned about Project Guardstar, an orbiting space station created by Dark Ops from the surviving half of the space station to survived in orbit unseen because of its cloaking technologies which Mandy discovered she could duplicate. She has been to Guardstar on at least two occasions, once as a prisoner held in a cell until they had use for her talents and then as a soldier useful in hunting down malevolent shapeshifting half demon creatures called Xenogoths that had slipped through a rift between dimensions to become a threat to all living beings upon the Earth.

Black Diamond is evolving as her inner nature is changing (if only slightly) revealing her identity as Mandy Thompson might be influencing her further development. She enjoys watching sports and more than once returned to Mississippi to learn about her family. She attended the funerals of her parents and was a secret benefactor to her siblings and their children helping them when times were difficult. Her strength levels are three times that of a normal human and she is extremely nimble, agile and fast in spite of the fact she weighs about 300 lbs because of her cybernetics. Mandy is an attractive woman who stands around six feet tall who is known for her love of sports and chewing bubblegum. While she avoids law enforcement, not wishing to harm anyone doing their legal duty protecting the public, she doesn't shy away from people nor care to be seen because she actually likes to be admired as she possesses a bit of vanity about her.

I might just leave it like this but are any of the AI generated images here stand out images that I might use to illustrate this? Maybe you can create something better? There is no actual design to it as sometimes she has a helmet, sometimes a mask, sometimes no mask and the armor can look different ways including with lights.