Melissa Mao - Fictional Character History

Fictional Character History

Melissa Mao is born on May 11, 1976, to Chinese-American parents in New York City, New York. She was brought up under strict Chinese traditions that included her supposed arranged marriage. However, on her wedding day, Melissa escaped the church and went to the nearest United States Marine Corps recruitment office while still in her wedding gown. She signed her recruitment papers on the same day. She was eventually given a dishonorable discharge several years later, but Melissa is still bitter at her father, who served in the Air Force. After leaving the Marines, Melissa went to Hong Kong, then under British control, and stayed with some of her maternal relatives. While in Hong Kong, Mithril agents sought her out and recruited her.

Given her service in the Corps, Melissa was given the command of her own team until two of her comrades were permanently injured while on active duty. She went head to MITHRIL's secret training camp in the forests of Berutarube to scout for new replacements. An Israeli, a Peruvian, and an Italian soldier emerged as her most probable candidates after days of studying the recruits.

Kurz Weber also had his eyes on her, but his womanizing attempts and poor marksmanship turns her off. Sousuke Sagara also had low test scores and seemingly overall mediocrity, but gets Melissa's attention after an AS battle drill. In the drill, her Israeli candidate, who piloted an M6, was badly defeated by an old RK-92 Savage AS. She discovers that Sousuke was its pilot.

After the Berugan president had called MITHRIL personnel in Berutarube to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Maria, and eliminate a communist rebel cell, she was left with Sousuke, Kurz, and Jimmer after a first strike attempt had netted the capture of most of the MITHRIL instructors and recruits.

Realizing that Sousuke and Kurz were hiding their skills from her, she forced them to come clean and ordered them to battle with the guerrillas, overpowering their ASs and forcing the rebels to surrender. She eventually decided to let Sousuke and Kurz enter her squad as the new members. Afterwards, she was sent into Tokyo with the rest of her squad to guard Kaname Chidori. Nearing the end of the first series, she was wounded by Gauron during AS combat at a U.S. chemical weapons disarmament facility on Berildaobu Island, Republic of Perio. Although she was mostly incapacitated, she managed to assist Kurz in killing Guen Bien Bo by tossing surgical scalpels into him, a skill that she did not show until near the end of the anime.

Melissa is a friend to Tessa and as such, has access to her office.

Early on in her MITHRIL career, Mao was good friends with Gail McAllen and Belfangan Clouseau, both soldiers who later became commanding officers of Tuatha De Danaan's SRT unit. This friendship has helped her maintain a good working relationship with both men, although Clouseau asked her to hide his friendship with him and McAllen from the SRT troops.

With the heavy losses suffered by the Special Response Team in the defense of Merida Island, Mao has become the second in command of the SRT.