Janneke Gaje

Janneke Gaje (also known as Quouar, Elemental, and Zooxanthallae) was alternately the leader of the Red Patches, a captain in the Pirates of the Mississippi, and crazy, abducting rogue villain, depending on her mood. She was killed by Katsuo and the Empire in Washington DC while acting as an ambassador of the Pirates of the Mississippi.

Early History
Gaje first began posting during the Red Patch Wars from a school in Durham, North Carolina where she was trapped with nine other students. During this time, she attempted to negotiate with each side in the Red Wars, trying to convince each that peace, not war was the answer. In response, Kamarov Blak threatened to blow up her school, so she and three other students escaped the school. She continued posting from the post, convincing Cerberus that she was not particularly in favour of either side, but rather, just wanted to see the world united against their common foe - the zombies. Because of this, when Captain Dryfter of the Pirates of the Mississippi met with Cerberus, Gaje was given control of the Reds. Using this newfound power, she ended the Red Wars and withdrew all the Reds to a base in West Virginia.

Leader of the Reds
Initially, Gaje used her troops to help clear the area surrounding the West Virginia base (Fort Muiden) of zombies. During one of her forays, she and her group were overwhelmed by zombies, and Gaje had her left thumb finger bitten off. However, she was rescued by Antistes, former leader of the Clerics, and taken to a hidden base. Despite the fact that she had clearly been exposed to Malaysian Rabies, she demonstrated a partial immunity by becoming very sick, then recovering from the usually fatal virus. Antistes took advantage of this immunity by having her injected with a particularly virulent strain of smallpox mixed with Malaysian Rabies and sent her to Kamarov's base. Meanwhile, he introduced the same virus into Fort Muiden. Gaje was sufficiently quarantined to prevent a full-scale outbreak in Kamarov's base, but the majority of the Reds in Fort Muiden were killed, significiantly diminishing her power.

Still, she became a mediator between Dwight Dunn and the Raiders, using her remaining forces to create a demilitarised zone between them. However, because she found both Dunn and Kamarov personally objectionable, she created a plot with Antistes to start a war between them that would hopefully end up with both of them dead. After all the peace-keeping forces were in place, Gaje disguised some of her troops as Dunn's troops and had them fire wantonly in the demilitarised zone, provoking Kamarov to threaten to detonate the nuclear device he had planted in McChord Air Force Base, Dunn's main base. Gaje attempted to escalate this into a full-scale war between them, but other voices of reason prevailed. A summit was called, during which Gaje had the second in command of the Pirates of the Mississippi, Faust, kidnapped, trying to make it look like Antistes was responsible. A full-scale hunt for both of them was called, eventually resulting in Gaje leading Antistes to Dunn's weapons, then nuking them. Unfortunately, Antistes escaped, hunted by Boone and some of Gaje's soldiers. She returned Faust to Valhalla, the Pirates' base, having lost a chunk of her soldiers and the trust of all the survivor groups. However, Antistes had been found and killed by Boone. During the process of nuking Dunn's weapons, she contracted radiation poisoning and disappeared.

Refugee
After Gaje's disappearance, the Reds dissolved into other groups, primarily ending up at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. There, a girl named Shi Myla began to speak for them on the LastDays website. She and a few other Reds decided to head south to aid Ahmose in the defense of New Orleans against the multitude of zombies that had appeared after the wars. Because of the anonymity provided by a website, and the fact that relatively few people actually knew what she looked like, Gaje was able to masquerade as Shi, and convinced the Pirates to let her in as a scout captain. However, after being in Valhalla for a few weeks, Gaje showed Faust who she really was. Everyone except Captain Dryfter called for her death, so she got to live, as long as she behaved herself.

Pirate
Gaje stayed in Valhalla as a pirate for a while, until she was sent in as a diplomat to rescue Emerald Sumrall during the First Battle of Dreamland. There, she was kidnapped by Antistes's forces. However, she managed to escape, but decided to take personal offense to having been kidnapped, and hunted Antistes down. She found him and sent his location to the Pirates of the Mississippi, but managed to fall down an elevator shaft before she could actually kill him. Confined to Valhalla, she instead antagonised Antistes via LastDays. A week later, he was captured and held in Valhalla until he could be put on trial.

During her recovery in Valhalla, she was told by Charon, a psychopath running around New Orleans, that he had tortured her mentor, Cerberus, to death, and that she could have Cerberus's journals. At the same time, Captain Dryfter was thought to have been killed in the fight against Charon. Gaje took the news that her protector was dead rather badly and set herself on fire. She survived, but was left scarring on her arms, legs, and face. However, she recovered substantially with the realisation that Dryfter had, in fact, survived.

She, Kamarov, and Faust then put Antistes on trial, finding him guilty of numerous charges and sentenced him to death in a month. However, before he could be executed, Gaje let him out and took him to a plane he could steal from Agatha Rights. When Christopher Sturz shot the escaping Antistes, Gaje rigged the gas lines to pump poison gas into the hangar, allowing Antistes to clamber into the plane and escape. She had an allergic reaction to the tranquliser, though, and so was found at the hangar. During her time spent recovering yet again, Gaje used Cerberus's journals to discover a hidden potential antidote for the virus in Washington D.C. She, Sturz, Boone, and Zaid flew there, and Gaje found vials with a clear blue liquid. However, rather than handing the liquid over to the Pirates, she kept it and attempted to modify it using a test subject confined on a boat, Sophia Han. Her experiments attempting to control Han's mind using the vaccine resulted in her going utterly mad. Despite the fact that it was fairly obvious Gaje was doing villainous things, the whole thing blew over rather quickly, and she maintained the trust of the Pirates.

Upon realising she was pregnant, she took a boat from the Pirates and left Valhalla to explore the world and get away before it was found out. During this time, she located her surviving family and killed them for reasons unknown. She returned to the Gulf of Mexico and gave birth to a son, naming him Speedbump Rowboat Jungle-Bumpkin Thingy. Considering Antistes was the father, the whole situation was rather awkward. Rather than go back to Valhalla, Gaje continued to sail around, eventually becoming part of the council of the IDS, Dwight Dunn's group. During a meeting with the IDS council, Gaje and the rest of the council were held hostage by Chloe Matlock, a woman working for Jonah Wiggins in a plot to obtain all the vaccine as well as Cell 2147. However, as Chloe was severely mentally unbalanced, she said she killed the entire council, and Gaje was once again presumed dead.

Reappearance
Gaje and Chloe were discovered by Antistes and Lark Ahmad several months later, wandering the Canadian wilderness. They were taken to a CotA base where Chloe promptly escaped, but Gaje stayed. She agreed to help them in their fight against Kamarov and his Raiders, but during this time, her child was taken from her and thrown to the zombies. Having been told by Antistes that Kamarov was responsible, she attacked him, but was knocked out and captured. She was eventually returned to the Pirates.

After several months, Gaje began to work with the Pirates again, this time serving as an ambassador to the newly arrived and self-proclaimed Empire, located in Washington D.C. While there, she was once again captured, this time by Katsuo Hiraku acting through Chloe Matlock. This time, however, Gaje was legitimately killed, her body having been left at a New Order base in an effort to frame them for her murder.

Motivations and Effects
Gaje's major motivation for her actions was a quest for power stemming from her beginnings being trapped in a school. Ultimately, she had no true loyalty except to Captain Dryfter, and that only because he continuously protected her, even when it was not in his best interests to do so. She also tended to hold grudges much longer than necessary, stating at one point that her major goal in life was to kill Kamarov Blak as revenge for him threatening her during the Red Wars. She initially held a similar sentiment towards Antistes and Dwight Dunn, but in both cases, this was not quite so virulent.

Gaje's unbalanced and sociopathic nature made her untrustworthy at the best of times, and dangerous at the worst. Still, for some reason people continued to trust her, and over time, she began to trust them as well, sometimes actually being friendly. Ultimately, however, she still desired power, and that desire brought about her death in Washington D.C. In her arrogance, she believed she was immune to whatever Katsuo would attempt to do, as well as thinking she was more powerful and valuable than she actually was.