Islay

"Show me your strength, you blooming cockroaches!"

- Islay to her teammates "It's Captain Islay now, actually. I don't drink tea, not anymore."

- Islay

Captain Iona "Islay" McDonald is a student of Bannockburn Girls High School. She is the Overall Commander of her school Sensha-Do club, commanding a British Comet or Tetrach Tank.

Profile
Islay is a second-year student of Scottish origins from Bannockburn Girls High School. She is the Overall Commander of her school Sensha-Do club. She commands mainly a British Comet tank nicknamed "Davy Jones". Her subordinates revere her as Captain. Due to having the most experience in Sensha-Do, She is a mentor for Campbelltown, Speyside and  Highland. She is also an old friend of Darjeeling and Assam and Jasmine, childhood friend of Moira. Even though a big part of her history, she hardly trusts any people from St Gloriana at all, in fact, Islay hates them.

She has a love for military history, especially from late medieval times to early modern era. She practices Historical European Martial Arts, her second hobby after tanking. She plays Bagpipes, fife and organ.

Appearance
"Do you ken this saying: 'Any officer who goes into action without her sword is improperly dressed.'?"

- Islay teasing Darjeeling She is a tall beautiful girl with auburn messy shoulder-length hair, hazel-green eyes and freckled face. She has a scar on above her left eye that she always covers with hair at all times. When she speaks Japanese, she usually ends the sentence with "desu wa" a typical idiosyncratic speech pattern of girls from high society, although she likes to combines this speech pattern with delinquent tone and language, making her speech somewhat darker and grim. She speaks English with distinguishable Scottish accent, and would spurt Scottish slang words from time to time.

She usually wears her school uniform or her Sensha-Do uniform. She wears her schol uniform with its collars turned up and its tie loose. She wears her Sensha-Do tunic with two of its top-most buttons undone. She also accompanied her Sensha-Do uniform with a black leather baldric and scabbard to hold her broadsword when not being used.

Personality
"Full-speed into the abyss!!"

- Islay, commanding her tank to jump over a cliff. She is an energetic, playful, proud, rude girl and has a knack for dry humor. She is also very inspiring when it came to pep-talking her mates. At her worst she is sadistic, wily, manipulative, and war-loving. Being born and raised in a high-class family, she possesses a certain eloquence which she frequently uses to her advantage, especially when dealing with fellow higher class people such as the Alumnae Council. Being a vain and theatric person, Islay likes to wear her clothes improperly, bring (and use if possible) a broadsword to matches and enjoys setting herself in a scene. Even though she has a defiant personality towards St. Gloriana Alumnae Council like many of her schoolmates, she prefers interpreting her superior's order in her and her team's favor and interest instead of disregarding it openly. Islay has an apparent fearlessness—much to the dismay of her crew and teammates, she doesn't hesitate to command her tank from its hatch with more than half of her body outside of the tank while waving around her broadsword and laughing maniacally, nor did she show much concern for doing crazy maneuver which could break her tank or injure the crewmates, like jumping over a cliff, crossing a frozen river or ramming a heavier tank at full speed.

Background
Islay was born in Dundee, Scotland as Iona McDonald. After finished grade school, she and her family moved to Japan and she enrolled to St. Gloriana Middle School.

A couple years ago, she served as the second-in-command of St. Gloriana Middle School's Covenanter Platoon by the name of Scottish Breakfast. On one final match, she and Jasmine won St. Gloriana the match by stealthily crossing a frozen river to secure a bridgehead without authorization, endangering her platoon. This didn't sit right with the Overall Commander, Darjeeling who scolded them. The whole team also hated them for that. However, unlike Jasmine, she decided to stay and "wore the hatred like armor." The incident did bite her later, when she was rejected by St. Gloriana High School Division and automatically accepted to Bannockburn under an excuse that the Alumnae Association needed an experienced commander to rule Bannockburn's new Sensha-Do club, Islay never trusted the association or St. Gloriana ever since.

Islay-Alumnae Council War
"Lord Cromwell is much more elegant than Mr. Churchil, don't you think?"

- Islay

The good result that St. Gloriana achieved in 62nd Nationals fortunately brought more fund and sponsor for Bannockburn. Bannockburn Sensha-Do club was then established by using this fund. Iona "Islay" McDonald, then a freshman in the school was appointed commander of the new team. The alumnae council, then entrusted Islay with the fund for purchasing "tanks that reflect St. Gloriana's elegance," meaning infantry tanks such as Matildas and Churchills. Islay, instead intelligently reinterpreted the order and used the fund to acquire a pair of Excelsior Assault Tanks accompanied by a bunch of Cromwell-based cruiser tanks. thinking they're as elegant as any tank. For this transgression, The council penalized the whole team by disapproving Bannockburn's request to attend the 63rd National Championship and the 41st Winter Continous Track Cup. Islay, manipulative girl that she was, used the disapproval to antagonize the council, fueling the pro-independence sentiment within the school. Not wanting another school to break-free from St. Gloriana's union, The Council backed out and didn't move against Islay and Bannockburn further,

Trivia

 * Her favorite drink is any kind of whisky.
 * Her favorite tank is British Charioteer
 * Her favorite flower is Rhododenron
 * She's a big fan of St. Gloriana's former commander, Earl Grey and Shimada Style Mistress, Chiyo Shimada
 * Islay was born at 8 March, the same date as, the death of Mad Jack Churchill in 1996, a British officer which she was loosely based on.
 * Islay was named after the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland where the majority of its population are involved in whisky production. Famous for fiery, heavily peated whiskies.
 * Her name is pronounced "EYE-lə." Altough many of her teammates pronounce her name as Easley, much to her frustration.
 * Her tea name was Scottish Breakfast.
 * The nickname of her Comet, Davy Jones, is inspired by the mythological sea devil. In Pirates of the Carribean franchise, Davy Jones speaks with Scottish Accent.
 * Her old Covenanter was nicknamed Caledonia.