Casval Regelis
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Casval. | |
| Casval Regelis | |
| Player: Merg | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Casval Gerrard Regelis |
| Known Aliases: | Cas Regelis, Casval G. Regelis, Casval Gerrard, Cas Gerrard |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | appears 16 |
| Height: | 5'7" |
| Weight: | 120 |
| Eye Color: | Green |
| Hair Color: | Brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American? |
| Occupation: | Freelance Arcane Translator |
| Place of Birth: | Unknown |
| Base of Operations: | Unknown |
| Marital Status: | Dating |
| Known Relatives: | None living |
| Known Powers | |
| None | |
| Known Abilities | |
| master of many schools of martial arts, sneaking, lockpicking, able to read ancient arcane languages | |
| Equipment | |
| sword, dagger, throwing knives, lockpicking sets, PC Dimensional Button | |
| He is older than he appears. | |
Casval Regelis is an average-looking teenage boy whose personality and fighting ability seem well beyond his years. He is someone who will always try to do the right thing, even if it's a detriment to himself, especially if it means helping someone he cares about. While those who don't know him may see him as quiet and shy, his friends know that he always likes to get a firm grasp on a situation before voicing his opinions.
Contents |
Background
Old Cas
First Appearance and Recruitment
Casval was found in St. Martial by villain Zhang Keung. Keung, after witnessing the boy's exceptional ability to take down several Tsoo warriors even when badly injured and sensing something mystical about him decided to recruit Casval into his small gang of badguys, a group that was a kind of special forces unit working covertly under the command of Arachnos. Casval, having no memory of his life before waking up in that alley and barely knowing even his own name, decided to go along with the old former Tsoo in exchange for the chance to recover his memories.
Casval took the place of Charlie Fletcher, who had been killed months earlier by one of Keung's own men for attempting to leak vital information to other organizations. Casval, like Charlie before him, would work on covert intelligence and assassination missions. Soon after Casval began to work for Keung, the old man gave Casval a new weapon, an enchanted katana that was strong enough to cut through almost anything and would never break.
With his new sword and his own mysteriously heightened skills, Casval was very good at his job.
Transfer to Paragon City - The Artful Dodgers
Soon, Casval's targets began to reside more and more in Paragon City. The young assassin would no longer be able to work from Keung's hidden base in the Rogue Isles, so he arranged for a new cover in the city of heroes. Casval sought out and joined fledgling group The Artful Dodgers under the guise of a troubled meta-teen in need of a place to stay, and was welcomed with open arms. With his cover in place, he was able to move freely about the city and complete any assignments covertly with ease.
Casval got along fairly well with his unknowing group-mates, and did his best to help out where he could. He also took to heroing rather quickly, and, as with his more deadly assignments, he was quite good at it. He even prided himself on a clean no-kill record, a rare accomplishment for a hero who used a sharp weapon. During this time with the Dodgers, Casval had a short-lived romance with Glassworks, the relationship ending when she moved away with her parents. Not long after, he became involved with Probationary Martyr. But that coupling also ended when she went off to Europe with her father. Eventually he found work as a translator working under The Mystic, the owner of the Talos Island Pandora's Box. Casval wasn't sure why he knew how to read those ancient, dead languages, but the extra job helped cement his cover as a hero on the straight-and-narrow.
Not all was sunshine and roses, however. Some Dodgers noticed Casval's odd behavior and unexplained absences and began to distrust him. Jack Travers in particular seemed to have a keen intuition regarding the hidden nature of Casval's involvement with things seedy. He continued to perform his secret assassinations as well as fight crime. He and the Dodgers even had a few encounters with Arbiter Sands. Despite Jack's distrust, his cover remained solid.
The Big Reveal and the Death of Old Cas
Keung recalled Casval back to the Isles for one final assassination mission. He was to assassinate Arbiter Sands, and when he returned successful, he would have his memory restored. Keung even gave the boy a brand new weapon just for the occasion. What Keung didn't give him was the truth.
Casval snuck into Sands' Faultline-based installation. But there was a reason Sands was an arbiter. He'd been expecting a hit, and managed to trap his assassin. Sands didn't expect to recognize his would-be killer's face, however. And due to his burgeoning relationship with Jack as a sort of twisted mentor, he informed her of his catch. Instead of executing Casval as Keung no doubt intended, the Arachnos Arbiter has his own machinations to worry about and handed Casval over to Jack and the Dodgers as a gesture of good faith. After a short time in a jail cell, Casval escaped and went into hiding with the realization that he'd been played for a fool by Keung all along.
Meanwhile, Keung had what he wanted. He'd learned about Casval's special nature not long after he picked him up in St. Martial. The enchanted sword was more than he'd said it was. The sword absorbed life energy. With each target Casval killed, the energy stored in the weapon grew. And combined with the odd aura Keung had sensed back in that St. Martial alley, the resulting power would make him a force to be reckoned with. But he'd made a huge mistake. It wasn't the souls stored in the sword that he needed, but Casval himself. After learning that Sands hadn't killed the boy, he sent his minions on a quest to root out Casval from wherever he was hiding. His gang of specialized combatants attacked members of the Dodgers, hoping to tempt his former lackey into showing himself. While his goons were each defeated, his plan was successful.
In the evening on Spanky's Boardwalk in Talos Island, the battle between Keung, Casval, and the Dodgers came to a head. Keung used all the arcane tricks he had up his sleeve to defeat the boy, using up the souls stored in the sword to fuel his speed and strength. Casval was stabbed with the sword, and his seemingly unlimited energy began flowing into Keung as the Dodgers fought against shadow-form versions of Keung's lackeys. But Jack managed to push through the melee and, using her innate ability to absorb life force, diverted some of Casval's leaking energy into herself.
Keung and Jack fought each other, both using the stolen magic from Casval, Keung using practiced spells while Jack relied only on her instincts. In the end, Jack emerged victorious. The battle left a glass bowl on the beach, and both Keung and Casval in comas.
New Cas
New Beginning
Casval awoke in a hospital bed a few weeks later. He had no idea where he was, or what he had done to end up in a hospital. The memories of the past two years were gone. He didn't remember the fight on the boardwalk, the Dodgers, Keung, or even waking up in that St. Martial alley. What he did remember was everything else. He knew who he was and where he'd come from. He could remember his entire life now, and as far as he knew, this was his first time waking up in this world. He soon realized that the world he was in was different from his own, and that the awesome power he was able to wield in his home dimension was severely limited here. But he didn't need magical powers to fight badguys. All he needed were his body and his sword.
Reluctantly, the Dodgers accepted him back into their ranks. But this Casval was different. While he still seemed reluctant to talk about his past, his personality had changed. He was more earnest and more trustworthy than his previous incarnation. The other Dodgers, Jack included, found it easier to trust him. He continued his heroing work, now showing more skill with and without his sword than ever before. He helped out the Dodgers more, trying to take a more active role in assisting his new family. Ironically, the person he seemed to bond with the most was Jack, the young woman who'd so despised and distrusted him before.
Demons from the Past
While looking through the Midnighter archives, Casval happened upon an old picture from World War 1. It depicted a sergeant and his troops, posing near a European battlefield. Though the sergeant, listed as Edward Fletcher, was clearly older, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Casval himself. Casval came to the realization that this man must have been this dimension's version of him, which could mean that he had some sort of family living in this world. Casval would never be able to have a real family of his own, and pursuing this was something that he was very interested in. Unfortunately, he wouldn't get the chance.
Keung, rendered comatose in the fight on the boardwalk with Jack and the Dodgers, was found dead of apparent heart failure. Jack, who was listed as a contact when Keung was brought into the hospital, was called down to confirm the identity of the body. Casval joined her. But he soon realized his old enemy's death was anything but natural.
Two tiny marks on Keung's arm sent Casval into a frenzy. He'd immediately recognized what had killed Keung: a vampire. He rushed off, leaving a stunned and frustrated Jack. Casval became obsessed with finding Keung's murderer, barely sleeping or eating. He pushed himself hard, the death of that vampire his singular focus.
But what was the connection? Why Keung? Moses Waterson, Keung's right hand man and electronics expert was one part. An information junkie, he'd become obsessed with Casval, or rather the lack of information about him. To a person used to being able to hack any database and find out any information about anyone in the world, he'd become frustrated with the complete lack of data on the boy ever since they worked together under Keung. Something in him had snapped, and now he only had one goal: to kill Casval and erase his failure permanently. But he wasn't working alone. Charlie, the man Casval had replaced when he entered Keung's employ, had come back from the dead. In fact, he was dead the whole time. He'd been a vampire for decades, but kept that fact hidden from his compatriots. Keung's bullet to the head couldn't kill a vampire, after all.
Casval finally caught up with Charlie at an old hero hangout, the Paragon Dance Party. The two fought among the ravers, causing quite a scene. But they'd underestimated each other. Charlie dislocated Casval's shoulder and sunk his fangs into his neck, but Casval's blood was somehow violently offensive to the vampire, making him recoil in pain. Casval used this opportunity to rid Charlie of his hands and legs, but before he could cast the final blow, a super-speed robot suit burst in and rescued the bloodsucker, fleeing off into the night carrying his gravely injured friend with him.
Interlude
Casval's obsessive search sprung from his mysterious past. He considered vampires to be his most hated enemy, and would stop at nothing to find and kill them all. But despite his obsession, he found himself pulled back to reality, if only for a moment, by Jack. He cared deeply for her, and when he saw that she was having major problems with her dark, demon-derived powers, he knew he would do anything to help her. His powers, though limited, still boiled beneath the surface. They were for the most part Light-based, and he knew that if Jack pulled in all that power, it might destroy her demonic energy for good. He offered up his magic. If he couldn't use it himself, he'd gladly give it to someone who could. Jack used her energy absorbing abilities to drain him of his locked-away magic, and in doing so rid herself of her demon-based powers.
A Decision
Finding himself back on the warpath against the elusive vampire, Casval received some disturbing news from the Midnighter Head Archivist. The vampire he was pursuing had a terrible connection to the boy: Charlie Fletcher was the grandson of Edward Fletcher, the man in the WW1 photograph. Casval's hopes of finding a lost family were dashed. Soon after, he made a decision. He would kill Charlie, because he considered the vampire to be his responsibility. But afterward, he would give up hunting after the undead. He knew if he continued to obsess, he'd never return to the Dodgers or to Jack again.
Eventually, Casval found Moses and Charlie's hideout. After a long, grueling battle with holographically disguised undead Freakshow, he faced down his vampire foe, newly upgraded with cybernetic parts not unlike the robot he'd seen save him in the club. It was the most difficult battle he'd faced since he came to this world. Casval had to use every ounce of his skill, speed, and strength to defeat his opponent. But in the end, the boy emerged victorious. Charlie, stabbed by a sword infused with Holy energy, dissolved into nothing, leaving only a pair of useless cybernetic legs and hands.
Moses was nowhere to be found.
Aftermath
As Casval and Jack pursued a romantic relationship, he was also helping her learn to use he new Light-based powers. He gave her his sword to use as a training tool and began to rely only on his hands and feet to continue fighting crime. He continued helping his Dodger and non-Dodger friends with any problems he could, including attempting to get rid of a demonic power suit powered by a shard of Bat'Zul.
Consequences
Eventually, Casval noticed a change starting to take hold of him. He got tired more easily, found himself weakening over time, and had aches and pains in his body. Ever the martyr, Casval had known this was a possible consequence of giving all of his power to Jack, but neglected to tell anyone else. What little power he'd had was keeping him alive, a consequence of falling from a cliff years ago, breaking every bone in his body and rupturing his organs. He'd died that day, only to be brought back by a tenuous magical "hack." But now with his power gone, his wounds were slowly returning.
It wasn't until an attack on the Dodgers' base that others found out. Moses, his mind now trapped inside a robot body, used a holographic disguise to infiltrate the Dodgers' base. He attacked their senior security officer, Holo Lad as a prelude to finally destroying his nemesis, Casval. When Casval and others attempted to intervene, Moses proved to be too strong for them, injuring Holo Lad and tossing Casval hard into a wall. It was only Jack who could hurt the villain using Casval's sword wrapped in her own Light energy. She lopped off one of his arms, causing him to recoil and retreat in surprise.
But the damage was done. A hit like that wouldn't normally have seriously injured Casval, but because of his condition several bones were broken, and he was forced to finally tell his friends what he'd known for weeks: he was dying. Despite every effort to save him both technologically and magically, the progression of his condition would not stop. Casval seemed at peace with this, though whether or not he was in his right mind is up for debate.
Musical Bodies, Part 1
When Moira Nyksea heard of Casval's condition, she knew what she had to do. Like Casval, she was willing to die to protect her friends, and she saw this as an opportunity to do so. Because she had the same kind of power as Casval, she could transfer hers to him in order to save his life. Unlike Casval, she told the others what might happen to her. Because she was made to be like him, she may have his same condition. After reluctantly agreeing to help her, Jack, Kassandra, Father Goat, and Aidon performed a secret rite to transfer Moira's power to Casval.
It worked, and much better than expected. Not only did Casval recover, but he now had his full magical abilities at his disposal. Unfortunately, Moira did not fare so well. She was already showing signs of Casval's condition, so she was placed in a magical stasis field to slow it down until something could be done.
The Knight of Shuhadak
Casval was a new man, his powers coursing energetically through his body. He was truly back to his old self again, but Moira's situation weighed heavily on his mind, and he began formulating a plan to save her. Even Casval recognized that his abilities were stifled for a reason. He came from a world where those powers were needed, where the monsters and demons required such energy to vanquish. But here, it was simply overkill. Someone, of course, had limited his powers. And he knew who it was.
The Moirae, the goddess of Fate herself had to be involved. On his own world, she was the source of his Order's magic. He had to speak with her, to work out some sort of deal. But gods don't speak with any mere mortal, even a superhero. Casval had an advantage over others. Because he wasn't supposed to have his old magic back, he could use that to get the goddess' attention.
So, he'd use his newly recovered powers to take care of some unfinished business. Previously insurmountable obstacles were now almost child's play for him. The shard of Bat'Zul that had plagued his friend for weeks was a monstrous demonic entity even with just a fraction of the real Bat'Zul's power. But Casval bested it easily, vaporizing its form within a cone of his Light magic. Gray Albert, a powerful arcane illusionist from Jack and Stripling's past returned, but Casval repelled him as easily as a common thug. He was also able to solve more personal, smaller problems for his friends.
Musical bodies, Part 2
Finally, his meddling had the desired effect. The Moirae sent an envoy to invite him up to Mount Olympus. He, along with Jack, Kassandra, Aidon, and Father Goat, went to have a chat with the goddess of Fate. Making claims only a Knight with his abilities could back up in the face of a goddess, Casval threatened to return to Earth and continue "causing trouble" by defeating powerful demons, monsters, and villains. But after a laborious negotiation, a deal was finally struck: Casval would cease causing "trouble" and give up his extra power, granting it to Moira. In this way, they would both maintain just enough magic to sustain them against any further degradation of their bodies.
Upon their return to the mortal plane, Moira was back to her old self, fully restored, and Casval was also back to his previous self, only able to cast simple parlor tricks once again. But problems loomed just over the horizon, as Gray Albert wasn't quite defeated yet...
Powers
Fighting
His eerily skillful fighting abilities sometimes seem supernatural. Casval is a master of more techniques than someone even three times his apparent age should be. He is rarely hit in a fight, and even while facing the toughest of villains he seems oddly casual about his battles, as if he's not worried about being defeated. He most commonly uses a single sword when fighting, in an elegant but not overly flashy style. He will sometimes use a combination of his sword and a dagger, and is also fully capable of defending himself without any weapon at all. (NOTE: He currently focuses on unarmed combat, as Jack still has need of his sword for training.)
Magic
Though most of his magic is gone or subdued, he retains some ability to perform simpler magics. These mostly take the form of convenience spells such as self-cleaning and clothes-changing. He is unable to manifest any overtly offensive or defensive spells.
Vision
He's able to see supernatural things normally hidden from view such as invisible ghosts and demons, magical glyphs and traps, and the life force auras of those around him.
Health
He does not get sick from disease, and he is resistant to many poisons and medicines. This can be both a blessing and a curse; harmful substances don't affect him as much, but the effects of beneficial medicines are also suppressed.
Equipment
Sword
His sword's visual design is rather basic, consisting of a simple double-edged, western-style straight blade, a golden hilt and pommel with a black wrapped handle and plain black hard sheath. His sword has certain unique properties, however, in that it can't be broken, is amazingly sharp, and is infused with Light energy, rendering it especially effective against creatures of darkness. He carries it on his left hip.
Dagger
The dagger has a much more notable design than the sword. It has gold inlay in the handle and blade, with a matching hard sheath. Like his sword, his dagger is also immune to breaking and is infused with Light magic, but the dagger seems to have more of it, despite being a smaller weapon. He carries it on the back of his swordbelt, just under his jacket.
Throwing Knives
His jacket is lined with these small, metal knives. He has a double ring of them around each cuff and several rows hidden in the breast. He also has rows along the cuffs of his jeans. Unlike his main weapons, the throwing knives aren't special at all, having been purchased from a local dealer. Casval has been known to use the rings of knives in his jacket cuffs as makeshift armor, and has been seen using the knives between his fingers as makeshift claw weapons, though he is generally more effective with just his hands and feet.
Lockpicking Kits
He keeps several of these hidden on his person. They are bundled small enough that he's able to place them in strategic locations.
PC Dimensional Button
A device he acquired before he regained his memory. It is an experimental Portal Corp device, roughly an inch in diameter that when attached to an object opens a hole to a pocket dimension. The project was scrapped when another department began having more success with fewer negative side effects. Casval was given a free prototype due to his previous work with Portal Corp. He keeps it active on the inside of his jacket, and enjoys being able to carry many more things than he would be able to otherwise.
OOC Info
Casval is my main, and thus my most fully fleshed-out character. I took a character I'd been attempting unsuccessfully to make for years in other MMOs and was delighted when I found I could finally make an acceptable version in CoH. He originally started as a Stalker back when I was only able to access CoV, but I remade him as a Scrapper when I decided to join up with The Artful Dodgers and never looked back. I currently have no less than 4 versions of this character(3 Scrappers, 1 Stalker) as well as one or two that I made but deleted. All versions are fully IO'd out, but not all are incarnated yet.
Current Status
Casval is doing his best to help out his fellow Dodgers. When he has time, he also does translation work for The Mystic of the Talos Island Pandora's Box magic shop.
