I used to believe in the system. In justice. I just don't believe in anything anymore.
—Acina Waverunner.
Acina Waverunner, also known as Keel, was a female Human/Chiss hybrid Force Adept who worked in law enforcement as a police officer and Sector Ranger before becoming a cyborg mercenary after a fatal shot to the head. Born prematurely on Talravin to Zhavi and Isla Waverunner but raised on Shimka's Well, Acina was trained at the local Enclave alongside her younger siblings Atem and Meetra Waverunner up until her graduation in early 59 ATC.
Following her graduation, Acina surprised her parents by applying for a position at a police academy on the Republic capital of Coruscant, where she began a two year course which she ultimately graduated with honors. Joining the Coruscant Security Force in 61 ATC, Acina quickly proved herself an effective officer and completed numerous voluntary training modules to expand her skill set in the hopes of advancing her career in the future. Although her eagerness won her no friends among her fellow officers, in 63 ATC Acina's superiors – impressed with her record and her obvious drive – arranged for her to be fast-tracked into the ranks of the Sector Rangers at her own request, where she was assigned to Agent Ganner for on-the-job training on a probationary basis.
Assisting Agent Ganner with an ongoing investigation, Acina quickly proved herself an asset by helping to uncover evidence of corruption in the Galactic Senate, but when the senator at the heart of their investigation unexpectedly committed suicide ahead of his trial the pair chose to continue their investigation covertly, believing they had been misled and that the true culprit was still at large. Unfortunately, while infiltrating a Hutt Cartel facility in pursuit of a new lead, the law enforcement officers were discovered; Agent Ganner was killed and Acina was incapacitated by the Falleen Cartel enforcer Kendra Joul. She was transferred to a slave vessel while unconscious but – as it traveled deep below the surface of Nar Shaddaa – managed to break free before it reached its destination, only to be shot in the head and dropped to the streets below by the transport's security escort.
She was spotted as she fell by local criminal Petra Bakshi, who located her body and took her to a street surgeon for the installation of life-saving cybernetic implants. Acina woke up three months later in the company of her mysterious savior and her associates; Spikes, Kelsie Sayaki and Xak 'Scratch' Hussain, quickly befriending the group and, not long after, Xak took Acina under his wing, inviting her to move in with him and his "grandmother" – the kindly old Wookiee known as Nana Gwook – until she could get back on her feet and find her own place. The pair became partners in crime, earning a living through the brutal mercenary work common in the hidden city known as "The Under", during which time Acina learned that leaving the city was – thanks to a high-tech security grid – impossible. Acina went on to begin an on-off relationship with Petra while hiding her worsening cybernetic psychosis from her newfound friends, a condition which caused her to suffer from headaches, nausea, vomiting, bleeding and vivid hallucinatory episodes, episodes which frequently caused her to see distorted images of her family.
Over the years, Acina built up a reputation as an effective and reliable gun-for-hire, but when she and her team attempted to infiltrate the corporate offices of SpiraTech her fortunes took a turn for the worse. Xak was brutally murdered by a security droid, while Acina was beaten and dismembered, only escaping with her life thanks to Kelsie's remote slicing of one of the merciless machines, which she temporarily turned into an ally. After being nursed back to health by Kelsie and Spikes, Acina and Kelsie grew close, with Petra having gone to ground to save herself after the debacle at SpiraTech headquarters rather than helping her friends. Petra later attempted to set Kelsie up out of jealously, revealing her location to SpiraTech in the hopes of taking the heat off herself and Acina and eliminating her romantic rival. Unfortunately, she unwittingly gave up her own location in the process, prompting SpiraTech to send hit squads to eliminate both women and forcing Acina to choose who to rescue first. Caring for both women in spite of Petra's behavior, Acina was torn, but ultimately chose to rush to Kelsie's aid; by the time she reached Petra's hiding place, the rogue had been stripped of her organs and cybernetics. What remained of Petra Bakshi was dumped, left abandoned in the bathtub of a derelict apartment.
Kelsie and Acina began a romantic relationship shortly after, laying low for a while to recover from the loss of Xak and Petra. As gang violence continued to whittle away their friends and associates, Acina decided to resume her search for an escape from the city in 66 ATC, upsetting Kelsie. Realizing she could not be talked out of her plan, however, Kelsie gave Acina her mother's necklace, at the heart of which was a crystal suitable for use in a lightsaber. Acina used the crystal to construct a lightsaber and wielded it in a risky assault on the city's control server, where her deepening psychosis caused her to encounter aggressive hallucinations of her mother Isla. After confronting Elaine Yast to get to the server access node, Acina connected her cranial implant and her consciousness was uploaded to The Under's control server. Inside, she uncovered a staggering revelation; the city had been secretly built on the orders of Hutt businessman Gaddim and was controlled by a council of his subordinates, a collective who were all under the sway of an extra-galactic organization located just beyond the galaxy's edge.
Furthermore, The Under itself was designed to facilitate widespread cybernetic psychosis through excessive reliance on cybernetic implants; those who lost their minds to the condition were captured by the authorities and their consciousnesses were "uploaded" to a database beneath the city – a bizarre reactor of insanity and terror that was intended to power some form of eldritch dark Force hypergate, allowing the extra-galactic organization a way into the galaxy after centuries of failed attempts elsewhere. When she attempted to leave cyberspace with access codes that would allow her to escape the city, Acina learned that her body had been clinically dead for thirty minutes, yet as the sole "user" in the virtual world she had complete control over all of its subordinate functions, including the building her body was in. Commandeering the virtual world, Acina was able to use the chair her body was plugged into to restart her heart and revitalize dead brain cells using advanced nanotechnology, a process which reconfigured her body's DNA, fixing the problem with her implant and curing her cybernetic psychosis.
Downloading her consciousness back into her body, Acina soon discovered that her Force-sensitivity had been stripped by the reconstruction process, though she was unmoved by the loss. On her escape, Acina and Kelsie argued briefly about the former's desire to descend beneath the city and deal with the database containing the trapped psychosis victims, and despite beginning the journey she ultimately stopped herself and returned to Kelsie, using access codes she had acquired inside the control server to pass through the security grid and leave The Under, taking Kelsie with her. Stopping briefly on Corellia to show Kelsie her first sunrise, Acina eagerly returned to her family on Shimka's Well, discovering on her arrival that her brother Atem had gone missing around the same time as she had – and, bizarrely, made his own return mere hours after Acina herself, wearing Mandalorian armor, carrying a baby and with his own unsettling news concerning a sinister threat at the edge of the galaxy.
Acina explained the situation in The Under to her parents, but did not stay while they deliberated and instead left for Coruscant the following day to exact her revenge on Senator Nadya, the corrupt senator who had been behind the framing and "suicide" of his unfortunate colleague, Acina's abduction and who was was, indirectly, responsible for the death of Agent Ganner – in addition to the years of suffering Acina had endured in The Under. Within hours of Nadya being thrown from the balcony of his high-rise apartment, Acina had been identified as a suspect and was wanted for questioning by Republic authorities, although by that time she had returned to Shimka's Well and volunteered to help with a planned assault on The Under, joining her parents and a team of Shimkan Jedi to destroy the sinister portal that had been partially constructed beneath the city and free the tortured minds trapped inside the database.
In the process, the group learned of the connection between the extra-galactic group and the starweirds Zhavi and Isla had repeatedly encountered over the course of their careers. Acina later proposed to Kelsie while traversing the canals of the Shimka's Well and gifted her a baby varactyl named Jewel as an engagement present, but before they could set a date both Kelsie and Jewel were killed when a suicide starfighter sent by Gaddim crashed into the Mesa Temple on Shimka's Well, sending Acina spiraling into a deep depression. Becoming increasingly unstable, Acina returned to The Under in a vain attempt to feel close to Kelsie once again. Not long after returning, she was contacted by Lady Gravity, who was looking to fill the power vacuum left by the massacre of the corporate conspirators. The pair became lovers, and as Lady Gravity became increasingly powerful and brutal, Acina's own moral standards declined to match. She became cruel and apathetic towards the suffering of the people she had once wanted to protect, inspiring a resistance group led by the reluctant Darsun Lambert, who had also been trapped in The Under years earlier. It was Darsun who assigned the code name "Keel" to reference Acina in resistance communications, a name which stuck with her throughout the conflict even after Acina became aware of it.
Despite the close relationship between the Waverunner and Lambert families, Acina did not hesitate to try and kill Darsun on multiple occasions, eventually succeeding in a fierce but ultimately one-sided confrontation instigated by Darsun after his wife, Eta Sky, was killed during an encounter with Acina. As a precaution, Darsun contacted Shimka's Well before confronting her, and two weeks after his death Zhavi, Isla, Meetra and her husband Sethos Lambert arrived in The Under to stop both Lady Gravity and Acina. The gangsters refused to submit to their authority, leading to a short battle in which Lady Gravity was cut to pieces and Acina was seriously wounded. Acina's regenerative nanites began rapidly healing her injuries, but before she could be detained she asked Zhavi to show her mercy by killing her. Despite trying to reason with her, Zhavi sensed the damage Kelsie's death had done to Acina, and so ultimately – and reluctantly – agreed to her firstborn child's morbid request, stabbing her through the heart and killing her instantly.
Zhavi and Isla returned Acina's body home to Shimka's Well and a private funeral was held, with family and friends in attendance. Acina's ashes and lightsaber were buried alongside the remains of Kelsie and Jewel. Isla and Meetra worked together to create a beautiful mosaic to decorate the couple's grave, as a tribute to the daughter and sister they remembered, rather than the villain she had become.