Zefholm

"Fast, powerful, and versatile. The Elemental of Tempest is the perfect partner to help me protect the people of Langran!" - Alia Winchester

A B-Class Wind Elemental (blessed by Zef, the spirit of Tempest), Zefholm can be thought of as essentially Cybuster Lite, fighting with the same mix of long and close range weapons, high speed, and capability for independent flight over great distances. While not as powerful as the Elemental Lord of Wind, Zefholm was constructed much later in the project, benefitting from a very efficient design that enables it to be only slightly weaker than the A-Class Cybuster.

History
Originally part of Langran's project to produce roughly two dozen unique, high-performance Elemental Machines to protect the nation against a prophecy of doom, Zefholm's construction was interrupted by the disasters that befell Langran Kingdom circa NCA 117-118. Once Langran began to recover, its military leaders turned an eye to rebuilding their defenses and decided to complete Zefholm. While construction continued, surface worlder Alia Winchester arrived in Langran, applying for citizenship and seeking to turn her life around.

Initially assigned to a Blowel, Alia's loyal service over the following year as well as efforts in keeping the Devil Gundam from even reaching Langran's borders were rewarded with an interest in reassigning her to a more powerful machine. Zefholm was an obvious fit given her preference for high speed combat, and Princess Xenia Grania Bilseia made a few adjustments to the nearly-complete design, intending to tune it more closely to the preferences of its likely pilot.

By mid-NCA 119, Zefholm was complete. A brief ceremony was held, at the end of which Alia was accepted as the new primary pilot. Since then Zefholm has been used to protect Langran from direct threats, and also participated in campaigns against the Zentradi and GENESIS; two genocide-level threats.

Technology
As a B-Class Wind Elemental, Zefholm has a mix of technological and magical equipment. Some of its features are typical for most Elementals, such as a Prana Converter that takes its emotions and prana (spirit energy, in a broad sense) and turns them into a variety of attacks from the machine. Likewise its spirit-link systems enable the pilot to simply place hands on the two control orbs and think and emote what they want done. This can range from simply giving the Elemental a basic idea and letting it choose how to carry it out, to very detailed, precise control. Another common system is the Spirit Radar, which tends to function as a conventional radar but also enables detection of living beings, and as the name suggests, supernatural entities as well.

Zefholm lacks the transformation systems of Cybuster, but features similar performance. It is a very agile machine, and capable of high-speed, long-distance flight. It is capable of entering and leaving atmosphere on its own, allowing Alia to act independently.

Weapons Systems
Zefholm has a mix of weapons that enable it to engage most foes with a realistic chance of success. While primarily long-range oriented, its close combat armament is passable.

Hyper Railgun - A smaller version of the Linear Railgun, this is essentially a portable 'mini-cannon' that fires high-speed projectiles over a long range. This is the exact same weapon carried by [Jaohm].

Valkyrie Halberd - Unlike most of Langran's Wind Elementals, Zefholm employs a halberd; a polearm with an axe head, spear tip, and curved hook to give it a variety of ways to strike. This versatility does not translate into extra power however, and the weapon is directly comparable to the Discutter longsword employed by most of its peers. This weapon may be summoned or dismissed at will.

Caloric Missile - Two versions of this weapon exist; one fires conventional explosive warheads, while the other type fires bolts of sparkly magical energy that detonate on impact. Zefholm uses the latter type as a direct-fire weapon, with the shots originating from the chest in most cases.

Wing Beams - The six gems on the edges of Zefholm's wings may fire energy rays at their target. Each shot is thin, but since several are fired the effect is similar to being attacked by a 'beam shotgun.' Zefholm's wings usually spread out prior to firing this, so as not to hit itself.

Raging Storm - This involves conjuring various storms in the area, lashing out at targets with various winds, mini-tornados, and so on. It is classified as a MAP Weapon (but not a "MAPW", which is something else entirely), but Alia has modest control over where the storms appear and thus can discriminate between friend and foe.

Tornado - Zefholm creates a horizontally aligned tornado roughly 2/3 as tall as itself and fires this at the target, trying to cut through it with what amounts to intense air pressure and magical slashing winds. Radiant Buster - Starting out as a pink outline of a circle with a star design within and arcane rune patterns laid around it, the circle is pointed at a target. It then turns into a thick beam of prana energy, stretching across the sky to try to gut whatever is in its path. The effect is similar to those of various beam cannons employed on a variety of surface world machines.

Whirlwind Smasher - A tornado forms in front of Zefholm, large enough to hold the Wind Elemental within while the tip of the storm is pointed at an enemy. Once Zefholm is within, it flies feet-first toward that target, spinning all the way. Essentially a 'tornado-based Rider Kick'.

Tempest Divide - Zefholm summons a vertical tornado roughly as large as the machine itself, and fires it at a target. Enroute, it splits into an identical copy of itself, and the twin storms converge upon their target from roughly 45 degree angles.

Pilots
As a B-Class Wind Elemental, Zefholm can only be piloted by certain individuals. On the practical side, a pilot must have sufficient prana energy to use it; any pilot that doesn't could potentially kill themself from overexerting themselves on the machine.

Zefholm's spirit also has limitations on who it will accept, though it isn't as picky as Langran's Elemental Lords (who only accept one chosen pilot). Zefholm prefers Alia to be its pilot, but will accept anyone that meets the prana requirements and has Langran's best interests at heart, or else is generally a moral individual and doesn't plan to use it for ends that would harm Langran. This makes stealing it a questionable choice; Zefholm is unlikely to work with anyone who would do so, though this could be circumvented by placing it under a magical geas.

In practical terms this means that Alia is Zefholm's default and primary pilot, though most of Langran's other elite pilots could use it if needed, much like how [Jaohm] has occasionally been swapped between Masaki Andoh and Genneji, and even briefly used by Xenia when Masaki hopped out of Jaohm mid-battle to transfer to Cybuster.

Significant Errata
None of note.