Maria Shigama

"Jintak was a fool to cut my funding and expel me from their labs. Now, they’ll pay with their lives, as well the lives of people like you who try and stop me."

- Maria

Dr. Maria Shigama is the main antagonist and later main protagonist villain of the web-comic "Liquid Mercury". A murderously insane mad scientist, she uses nanotechnology to convert her enemies into battle machines, with the overall goal of destroying the Jintak Corporation who prevented her from using her technology to create artificial life on ethical grounds.

History
According to Special Forces Sergeant Corey Matthews, Dr. Maria Shigama worked for Jintak Technology, a subdivision of the Lennox Labs Company, as a research scientist before being fired two weeks before the story took place after she requested that the corporation allowed her to use human test subjects to test her procedures for creating new life forms. after being fired, Maria used her liquid metal nanomachine slaves to seize control of the underground lab at Lennox Labs, and was refusing to allow anyone access.

After a first special forces team entered the lab, Maria used her "mercury" nanomachine to kill them all. As a result, Sergeant Matthews's division were sent in to capture or kill Maria in order to end her treat once an for all.

Private Derrick Kolanski of the second team found one of the bodies, which belonged to his old friend Corporal Simmons, and initially thought that it was still bleeding, but then realised on further inspection that the "blood" was in fact a thick grey ooze. Private Connors realised that something was moving in the body and tried to shoot at it to prevent it from hurting Derrick, but the ooze fired itself out of the body at high speed and cut Connors in half at the waist, before impaling Private Matheus in the head, utterly destroying his brain, and stabbing Derrick in the chest.

Derrick was writhing in pain on the floor when an electronic device held by Dr. Shigama, who suddenly opened the door to reveal herself in the room, ordered it to halt. Maria then said “I guess that’s enough testing of my goo’s combat abilities. I’m glad you had the guts to fight back; the last team was too terrified to do anything but scream.”, after which Derrick called her a "psycho-bitch who'd created a killing machine".

Maria was insulted that Derrick thought her goo was only a killing machine, and told her about the transmutational abilities of this nanomachine, and its potential to save lives and create foodstocks around the world, before discussing her infuriation with Jintak for saying that she had simply "created a monster".She then told Derrick that as he was the only live test subject she had, she was going to use him as her human test subject, and have her goo consume and assimilate his body, turning it into an "immortal goddess among mankind, and an absolute slave under my [Maria's] control".

Maria then used her device to command the goo into consuming and assimilating Derrick's body, causing it to smother him and enter him through his mouth. Working from the inside and the outside of his body, Maria's goo took on a metallic hue as it dissolved and re-moulded parts of his body, causing Derrick to take on a female appearance and anatomy, albeit with metal "skin" and an entirely nanotech body.

Once her creation awoke, it still had Derrick's mind and memories, and started to panic and lashed out at Maria. To stop this, she used her device to order the nanomachine to completely consume Derrick's mind, and while he desparately tried to fight its influence, in the end Derricks's thoughts had been overrun by thoughts to "serve, protect, and obey" Maria. He also completely lost all other emotions.

Maria started to laugh after succeeding in transforming Derrick, and renamed his new form "Diane Mercury". She then ordered Diane to kill all of the special forces officers who were still hunting her (Maria).