Elma

Elma is a main playable character in Xenoblade Chronicles X. She serves as the central protagonist of the story. She is a team leader of BLADE—her main responsibility is to recover the Lifehold.

Appearance and personality
Elma is a human with shoulder-length white hair, blue eyes, and dark skin. Her outfit consists of armored clothings of which is mostly red with some hints of black, white, and purple.

Elma is a capable leader who tries to protect humanity at all cost. She has a tendency to be serious while at work. She is well-respected by her peers and has even developed a good reputation among the citizens of New Los Angeles. She tries to be inclusive of everyone, inviting various xenoforms to the city. Outside of work, she acts friendly and caring towards other. At the same time, she has built up a wall around her and seems to harbor secrets about her past. She rarely divulges to anyone about certain aspects of her past, indicating that she has been traumatized by whatever happened to her.

Story arc
Elma received intel that a war between the Samaar Federation and the Ghosts would take place on Earth. She set out on a mission to save mankind, so she arrived on their planet in the early to mid-2020s to warn them. After convincing the Coalition government that the threat was real, they established the Earthlife Colonization Project. Elma provided them various alien technologies which led to the creation of Skells, light-speed travel, and mimeosomes. During her time on Earth, she grew attached to the peoples and cultures. She also seemingly developed strong feelings for a certain guy from a country known for their cherry blossom trees.

The war had begun in July 2054 AD, and so Elma boarded the White Whale to escape Earth. After two years wandering in space, the Ghosts had caught up with them and assaulted the ark ship. Both Elma and the guy that she admired used a tandem Skell to ward off the invasion. During the attack, the unnamed hero ejected Elma out of the Skell, presumably to save her. The hero and the Ghosts seemingly vanished during all of the chaos. As a result of the attack, the White Whale's flight system was shut down causing it to crash-land into a nearby planet known as Mira. As a team leader of BLADE, Elma was tasked with finding crash survivors on Mira.

Two months after the crash, she found Cross asleep inside a stasis chamber south of New Los Angeles. Upon awakening them, she discovers that they do not have any recollection of past events. She hands them a weapon to defend themselves against the Miran wildlife. After a quick battle against a lurking predator, she recognized their potential and encourages them to join BLADE. She guides Cross back to New Los Angeles. They bump into BLADE's most talented Skell mechanic named Lin, who introduces herself as a team member of Elma's crew. The three take a quick tour of the city, before eventually meeting up with Secretary Nagi. Elma and Nagi give a brief recap on BLADE's role on Mira.

Elma takes in Cross to become the third member of her unit. After Cross is given a training assignment to become a BLADE, Elma and Lin bring them outside of the city's walls to install a data probe. They take down a Tyrant that had been wreaking havoc to the area surrounding the designated probe installation site. Upon completing their task, they return to their base in the city to meet up with Nagi and Commander Vandham. Cross is officially established as a member of BLADE.

Elma's crew accept a mission to find a team who went missing. Using the missing team's last known location, they travel to eastern Primordia to investigate.

Gallery
Elma