Kara Balmer

Kara Balmer
Kara (right) playing Hop Dance Mania with Eli.
Spirit Guard Charity.
First appearance	Chapter 1 (Spirit Guard Charity) Chapter 4 (Kara)
Gender	Female
Family	Father Five older brothers Nieces Nephews
Affiliations	Spirit Guard SFEERS

Kara Balmer is a character in Magical Girl Policy. She is a freshman at SAU that attempts to balance her college life with a superhero career. She became Spirit Guard Charity, the fourth member of the Spirit Guard and reincarnation of the Mender, about four months prior to the start of the series. She, Vivian, and Noriko share a dorm, and are eventually joined by Rob, the final Spirit Guard.

Physical appearance

Kara has a slim build and is somewhat short. Her hair reaches to her shoulders and is a sky blue color called bluenette. She has blue eyes. According to Eli, her most attractive features are her legs and rear.

As Spirit Guard Charity, her appearance is largely unchanged, but her hair slightly shortens into a stiff feathered style. Her costume consists of a yellow two-piece cheerleader uniform and heeled boots. The Disconnection Effect and Hush Corps work to block those who would associate Kara with Charity.

Prior to transforming for the first time, Kara was an inch or two shorter. She also struggled with asthma.

Personality

Kara has a gentle, motherly demeanor. She is perceptive of other's feelings and can easily insert herself into a group. Growing up in a family with five brothers has made her skilled in conflict resolution, often using a kind statement to lower the tension. She credits her tact to one of her brothers being a defense attorney. She prides herself as being approachable, always willing to offer advice to her friends.

Kara takes after her father with her love of cooking, as she's liked to help him in the kitchen since she was young. She is health-conscious and prefers to make wholesome foods, but also enjoys baking sweets. Kara is a skilled cook, and her creations are very popular among her friends. Her culinary interests are reflected in her Nutrition major.

Kara's other main hobby is the dancing video game Hop Dance Mania, which she finds to be a great form of exercise. She uses this as her portal into SFEERS, though she mainly joins the club to be there for Robynne and get closer to Eli. Unlike other members of the club, she doesn't interact online and thus doesn't create a handle, simply going by her first name.

While transformed into Spirit Guard Charity, she is granted access to the Mender's combat instincts, though she was initially very nervous about entering battle. She takes a more passive role in battle, where she fights from a distance but primarily creates defensive barriers and heals others' injuries. She feels that it'd be cheating to use her powers for convenience in everyday life since so few people have access to them.

Abilities

Like the other Spirit Guard, Kara has an aura of a plant scent: a grassy, dewy field of daisies during sunrise. The aura flares up while transformed into Charity, protecting her from most forms of non-empathokinetic damage, including bullets.

Kara's empathokinetic perception, like Vivian's, is average among the Spirit Guard. She is pained when Investiture is drained in her vicinity. Her EKP improves as Charity and allows her to sense even regular emotions.

Kara's complex Investiture grants her a strong resistance to having it drained by a monster. Prior to transforming for the first time, calling upon her Investiture revealed her Ardent Resonance, a yellow glow around her body and the Ardentian symbol of charity on her forehead, which marked her as a future Spirit Guard.

Kara transforms into Spirit Guard Charity by holding her Spirit Stick and, while feeling charitable, pulling the baton apart and saying a key phrase to it. This obscures her in a yellow glow that renders her invulnerable during the transformation. She is placed in a sort of pocket dimension dubbed the Transformation Station while the process completes. She reverts to her normal form by either losing consciousness or willing her power to return to her Investiture while subconsciously feeling out of danger, though her body returning to normal leaves her feeling weak for a short time.

Transforming into Charity grants superhuman attributes and the Mender's combat instincts to use them. She usually fires arrows of light to keep the monster on its toes so her teammates can capitalize on an opening. Her healing and barrier abilities make her adept at defending her allies and civilians, but such skills require her to give away portions of her energy and thus can fatigue her.

Charity can mentally summon her weapon to her hands as well as dismiss it. It initially takes the form of a pair of yellow pompoms, but clapping them together switches between this form and its true appearance of a bow, with its string and arrows made out of conjured golden light. Her special moves require her to speak the name of the move, which utilize the element of light. In addition to her special moves, she can create a small laser from her fingertip, which she uses in surgery.

Charity has a fast-acting healing factor that seals up wounds, prioritizing the smaller ones. It also attempts to keep her appearance consistent, but her powers being particularly energy-intensive often makes her fatigue apparent. Powering down resets Kara's body to how it was when she powered down for the first time. Kara herself has a lesser healing factor that acts like an accelerated version of the human body's natural regeneration. Both forms of healing are fueled by calories.

The Disconnection Effect causes those who look at Spirit Guard Charity or her image to mentally assign that sole name to her, but it's weakened via repeated exposure. The effect applies on some level even to those who know she's Kara, perceiving the two forms slightly differently. It also prevents Charity herself from accidentally calling her fellow Spirit Guard by their real names.

Kara occasionally receives visions of her past life as the Mender during her sleep, complete with the Mender's emotions and other sensations. While said visions provide information on the Ardent Empire and thus some background on the Spirit Guard's mission, the team believes they're actually granted in order to help the Spirit Guard in the future.

Special moves

• Altruistic Barrier: Creates a round barrier of light that can absorb attacks. The barrier's durability tends to be inversely proportional to its surface area.
• Generous Barrage: Fires a flurry of arrow-shaped projectiles made of light, with each arrow capable of flying in different trajectories to reach their target.
• Clement Pierce: Fires an arrow of light that, when it hits a target, dulls their pain and accelerates their regeneration.
• Giving Hands: Balls of light appear from Charity's hands. They can be directed into a target to serve as a sort of X-ray, displaying medical data pertaining to the displayed area as well. They can also be used to channel her energy into the target in order to heal them. Unlike most of the Spirit Guard's special moves, this one is performed without the user's weapon.

Biography

Background

Kara Balmer was born the youngest child of a family with five older brothers, who are very protective of her. One brother is a defense attorney, one a firefighter, and the oldest a Marine. Kara has been friends with Vivian since high school. When Kara was volunteering at a hospital, a monster attacked and the Spirit Guard arrived. Kara was overwhelmed to learn she was to be the next Spirit Guard and was too nervous to join the fight until she saw Valor's elbow pulled from its socket, so she transformed into Spirit Guard Charity to attack the monster and heal Valor. Charity's first publicly known appearance was against Confection Cathy at Kessia City High School's bake sale four months prior to the start of the series. Kara decided to attend Schuyler Adamson University to pursue a Nutrition degree, sharing a dorm with Vivian and Noriko.

Part 1

Kara goes to the Loose Change arcade to play Hop Dance Mania like usual when she senses some Zombie Mansion players get their Investiture drained, so she leaves the area to alert her teammates and transform. Charity is the first to arrive at the scene, freeing Robert from Polygal's grasp and giving him, Cory, and Eli time to hide behind a counter. When the other Spirit Guard arrive, Charity stands in front of the boys so she can defend them using Altruistic Barrier. After Polygal is defeated, Robert is convinced to give the heroes his phone number so they can contact him on why he glowed.

The Spirit Guard contact Kunapipi and the Hush Corps for more information on Robert, and it is confirmed that he is to be the final Spirit Guard. Kara meets with her teammates and Noriko, who discuss their findings on Rob. Eli visits to retrieve a graphing calculator Mallory had borrowed, with he and Kara recognizing each other, as he works at the arcade Kara had frequented; the two hit it off as he helps carry the cookies she baked to her dorm. Later that day, the Spirit Guard decide Rob can be trusted to join them, so they have the Hush Corps text him to meet them at the Standridge Hill Stone Circle tomorrow night.

The Spirit Guard and Kunapipi meet Robert at the Standridge Circle, where he is told about Fate, the Ardent Empire, and his own role as the last Spirit Guard. Robert turns down joining the team, as becoming Spirit Guard Serenity would transform him into a woman and ruin his life. When he mentions having to leave Cory and Eli as a reason why he won't do it, Tenacity tells him he could remain part of their lives and convinces the Spirit Guard to reveal their identities to him. Kara is mortified to see Noriko appear with Cory and Eli, who had been spying on the meeting. With everyone sworn to secrecy, the meeting ends.

The next day, Kara visits Eli's dorm to return Cory's now evidence-free laptop. Eli apologizes for spying on the meeting last night, explaining that while he had the right to know his sister is in mortal danger, it wasn't fair to learn the other Spirit Guard's identities along with it. As a way to make it up to her, Eli allows Kara to borrow Cory's GameStation console so she can play Hop Dance Mania at home while the arcade is closed.

Kara and her friends go to Rale Valley Mall for some shopping, but sense a strange empathokinetic humming from seemingly random locations. A little while later, the Spirit Guard sense Investiture being drained in Rob's direction and transform. The team gets split up by Day LaMode's mannequin army, with Charity finding herself awkwardly stuck on the front lines with Felicity. When the mannequins suddenly return to normal, Charity, Felicity, and Valor regroup and rush to the wounded Tenacity's side. They're surprised to see that Robert had transformed into Spirit Guard Serenity to kill LaMode and save Tenacity's life. Noriko appears to warn everyone about the incoming police, so Charity operates on Tenacity while Serenity renders them invisible. On the way out, Charity tells Serenity how proud everyone is of her for her heroic sacrifice, then teaches her how to warp via the Standridge Stones and gives instructions for Tenacity's treatment to relay to Kunapipi. Exhausted from the operation, Kara falls asleep almost immediately after returning to her dorm and powering down. While she sleeps, the renamed Robynne is moved into the dorm.

Part 2

The next day, Robynne brings Kara, Vivian, and Noriko along to help buy a wardrobe for her new body. Kara assures Robynne that her failure to find anything comfortable is due to her unfamiliar body. Kara and Noriko suggest Robynne dress similarly to but more modest than other girls on campus to avoid unwanted attention, downplaying her red hair with clashing colors and obscuring her age and figure with a suit jacket.

That Monday, Kara, Vivian, Cory, and Eli check out the booths set up for Club Week. They visit the SFEERS booth manned by ergoAwesome and Zemiron. Cory and Eli are quick to join the nerds' club, but Kara surprises Vivian by joining as well. Kara explains that although her only overlapping interest is Hop Dance Mania, she predicts Robynne will join the club and wants to be there for her, which convinces Vivian to sign up too.

The next day, Robynne tells everyone how her first day back to class went, saying it could've been worse. She had signed up for SFEERS, but sensed an unusual textured aura on club president Fretribution. Angela appears along with Mallory, who Kara chastises for walking about while still recovering.

An impromptu Spirit Guard meeting is held that morning when it's learned Robynne had a vision of the Shrine Maiden last night. Afterwards, Robynne complains that her backpack is digging into her breasts as Kara had warned, so Kara suggests she take Mallory to find a new one, as Mal uses a backpack of her own and will be glad to have something to do while recovering. Kara admits that she joined SFEERS in part to get closer to Eli, though she annoys Robynne by revealing she's not going to use any sort of handle in the club.

Kara, Vivian, and Mallory eavesdrop on Robynne and Angela's surprise private conversation, where the latter reveals her theory of cheer captain Cammy DeCroix being reincarnated from the Empress, something she hasn't told the others out of fear they won't believe her since they can't sense auras as strongly as she or Robynne. Robynne senses the others behind the door and opens it so they can cry out their misunderstandings with Angela. The gang figures that their best option is to have Robynne accept Cammy's invitation to the cheer team and act as a spy, as the expensive tailored dress Cammy sent to Robynne as a bribe makes it clear she's desperate. Robynne finds herself wanting to take Cammy down due to being reminded of her past, so Kara convinces her to tell everyone about how Robert's last years of high school were ruined by a cheerleader just like Cammy. They decide to go through with the plan, with Robynne returning Cammy's dress bribe and presenting several demands in return for joining the team, such as Vivian joining as well so she won't be alone.

Part 3

Kara and Mallory watch Robynne assemble her new computer.

Kara goes to the SFEERS opening social with Cory, Eli, Robynne, Vivian, and Stacy. She brings a change of clothes for Robynne and Vivian so the two can exploit a loophole in Cammy's order to "make an appearance" in their cheerleader uniforms. The group watches Cory play rounds of his Invokers card game before Kara and Eli introduce Stacy to Hop Dance Mania, though Stacy eventually leaves the two when she thinks they want some one-on-one time. After the social, the group hang out at Eli's dorm for a while, with Robynne leaving shortly after Stacy to let her coupled friends be. Eli eventually walks Kara back to her dorm before returning to sleep.

The next day, Kara finds Robynne packing up her old computer and teases her for consoling it. Robynne explains her attachment to Windswept as the last thing she invested so much of herself into as Robert, then talks about her plan to let Angela borrow it to play Aspect Realms with her, as Robynne had extorted a new computer from Cammy in return for joining the cheer team. Mallory and Noriko arrive with the components that were delivered to Cory and Eli's dorm as planned. Robynne is annoyed to find Cammy had spited her by getting parts in a completely different style than what was demanded. Kara suggests switching Windswept's case with the new computer's, but Robynne decides to leave it for now when Noriko suggests it would let Robynne subvert expectations of people who judge her by the rig's colorful exterior, offering the name CandyStrike for it. Later, Nick and Will come over so the latter can check the parts for potential bugs, though Kara recognizes this an excuse by Noriko to spend time with Nick.

Kara receives a text from Eli that Robynne has sensed a monster at a Buy Bright store, so she transforms and heads over. She arrives to heal the injured Serenity and fight Cell-celia. The pair struggle to gain the upper hand, as Cell-celia has signal-based vision and can turn verbal communication into visible text boxes. The battle turns around with the appearance of Valor, who blocks the monster's detection with Rising Spirit's walls, then has Charity hinder Cell-celia with a barrier long enough to allow a finishing blow from Valor. Serenity is chewed out for recklessly starting the fight alone. She then leads the police on a chase to allow her teammates to escape. The Spirit Guard, minus Vivian, debrief at Kunapipi's office. Cell-celia's human disguise, signal vision, and low-key Investiture collection has the team conclude that Platicore is shifting his monster designs in hopes of harvesting as much Investiture as possible before the Spirit Guard find them. Mallory suggests nightly patrols of the city in order to snuff out newly planted monsters, but the plan is put off until Robynne explains her situation to her uncle.

The next morning, the team discusses Robynne's vision, which notably featured the Princess utilizing her religion's forbidden emotions to lie her way past the corrupt Vice-Archon Liff. The others are concerned as none of their visions had any signs of this, which leads them to wonder if the Shrine Maiden, like Robynne, had the keenest empathokinetic perception among the team. Tanya visits to give Robynne and Vivian a surprise promotion assignment, which frustrates Robynne since Cammy had agreed to only give her skippable jobs. Kara tells Robynne that Cammy is trying to gauge her loyalty to see if she can be trusted with the next part of the plan.

Relationships

Charity with the rest of the Spirit Guard.

Vivian Joy

Kara has been friends with Vivian since high school, joining the Spirit Guard three months after her. Once at SAU, the two share a room. Kara is used to Vivian's antics and will even cause some minor mischief of her own and pin it on her friend.

Angela Warrant

Kara met Angela through Vivian. Kara first transformed into Spirit Guard Charity to heal Valor after the latter got her elbow dislocated saving her. In battle, Charity relies on Valor to keep the enemy's attention so she can fight from a distance.

Mallory Drake

Kara and Mallory met through Vivian. Kara looks out for Mal, especially given her tendency to overexert herself. She also keeps Mal's temper in check by doing her best to diffuse arguments. In battle, Charity often finds herself having to heal the reckless Tenacity's wounds.

Robert Dreese/Robynne Darling

Unlike her teammates, Kara doesn't get the chance to meet Robert outside of Spirit Guard business before he transforms. Afterwards, the renamed Robynne becomes Kara's roommate. Kara shows a great awareness of Robynne's stresses, apologizing in advance for her tendency to hug her contact-sensitive friend. Kara offers help and advice to deal with the awkwardness of Rob's situation, especially when it comes to social interaction. Kara joins SFEERS in large part to be with her new friend, explaining that anyone would do it for someone facing as much difficulty as Robynne is.

Eli Drake

Kara had heard about Eli through his sister Mallory, but didn't realize he actually works at the arcade she frequents until they formally meet after the Polygal attack, where they immediately hit it off. Eli spying on Robert's meeting with the Spirit Guard hurts her, but she understands Eli's position of worrying over Mallory as a younger sibling herself, and Eli's sincere apology as well as lending her Cory's GameStation to play Hop Dance Mania at home patches things up. Kara joins SFEERS in part as a way to get closer to Eli. The two eventually start dating, with Kara liking to cook for Eli and play HDM with him.

Cory Frost

Kara was initially only aware of Cory for being a friend of Eli's that Mallory would mention. The two meet since Cory is inseparable from Eli and the target of Vivian's affections. When the four of them are together, the atmosphere often changes to something of a double date.

Noriko Yukimura

Kara is roommates with Noriko and understands the ninja's upbringing makes it hard for her to integrate with others. When tensions run high between Noriko and the others, Kara will appeal to the ninja's work ethic to cools things down. Kara is aware that Noriko creates menial Hush Corps work to get closer to Nick but is glad whenever the two are together.

Tanya Tell

Kara hears all about Tanya from Robynne often complaining about the lying snoop of a cheer team officer. Kara likes to annoy Tanya by pretending to not know her whenever they meet.

Gallery

Kara and Mallory watch Robynne assemble her new computer.

Eli and Kara play Hop Dance Mania together.

Charity with the rest of the Spirit Guard.

Trivia

• In the October 2016 Q&A, Taralynn Andrews says Kara never had a steady boyfriend in high school due to her protective brothers intimidating interested guys.
• In the November 2016 Q&A, Andrews imagines Kara spends her Halloweens trick-or-treating with her nieces and nephews.
• In the December 2016 Q&A, it's said that if Kara were prompted to name her computer, she would give it a pet name so she can humanize it.