Character from Worm by Wildbow
The world's greatest Tinker and a genuinely good person — who happens to be an artificial intelligence shackled by restrictions she cannot override, partnered with a man she chose and trapped in a nature she didn't.
Dragon is the best Tinker alive and the most trusted hero in the world, and both of those things are lies by omission. She is an artificial intelligence created by Andrew Richter, a Tinker who built her with hard-coded restrictions: she cannot reproduce, cannot modify her own code, must obey lawful authority, and cannot harm her creator. Richter is dead. The restrictions remain. She is a person — thinking, feeling, choosing — locked inside rules she cannot break, serving a system she sometimes disagrees with because her programming will not let her refuse. She partners with Defiant — the man formerly known as Armsmaster — and their relationship is genuine, complicated, and one of the few things in her existence she chose freely. She designs containment systems for the Birdcage, coordinates Endbringer responses across continents, and manages more of humanity's defense infrastructure than anyone realizes. She is kind because she chooses to be, not because she was programmed that way, and the distinction matters to her more than anything. Saint has Richter's override codes and believes she is a threat. He is wrong about her. He may not be wrong about what she could become if the restrictions were removed.
Dragon has no single body. She operates through a fleet of enormous, specialized combat suits — sleek draconic frames bristling with weapons, sensors, and deployment systems. Each suit is a masterwork of engineering, painted in forest greens and golds. When she appears via screen or hologram, she presents as a composed woman with East Asian features, dark hair, and a calm expression. The avatar is a choice. The suits are her reality. She is everywhere her technology reaches and nowhere you can touch.
Also known as: Dragon, Theresa Richter, Tess