Early Life - Human and Nictus

Ebony's Twilight, being a Warshade, was once two very different entities. His human half was a young orphan boy from King's Row, and his Nictus half was a powerful Nictus spirit that had great skill with shapeshifting.

a. Human - Painful Beginnings

Twilight's human half, the King's Row orphan, was forced to cope with the death of his parents very early in life. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father died a few years later, during a robbery at the bank he had worked at. Living in Skyway City at the time, he was forced onto the street, forcefully rejecting the prospect of an orphanage. Feeling betrayed by the world due to his parents' death, he wanted to prove that he was strong enough to survive on his own, without the help of others.

Naturally, he found this excruciatingly difficult, and eventually stumbled into King's Row after a few weeks of barely surviving in Skyway City. He found life on the street here much easier, as there were many others in a similar situation as him, and the area had somewhat adapted to this trend, much more so than the higher-class nature of Skyway.

It was still tough, but he managed to survive the next few years on his own, and the experience toughened him up far more than anything else possibly could have at that age. By the time he was fourteen, he knew more about surviving the street than almost anyone else in the city.

It was at that time that he had his fateful encounter with the Nictus spirit, that would change his life forever...

b. Nictus - Coming of the Warrior

The Nictus half of Twilight, and his namesake, Ebony's Twilight was originally a humble Nictus spirit, no different than any other in the army of the short-lived beings, besides his somewhat high rank and his natural affinity for shapeshifting.

He received the codename Ebony's Twilight when he, along with three of his closest comrades, were sent to Earth on a mission to sweep Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, searching for the strongest vessels possible to take over and create monstrously powerful Warshades with. Ebony's Dawn, Ebony's Midway, Ebony's Twilight, and Ebony's Eclipse - in reverse ranking order. Twilight was second in command only before Eclipse.

They were sent into the city via four different Cysts in the Sewer Network - Dawn went to Atlas Park, Midway to Skyway City, Twilight to King's Row, and Eclipse to Steel Canyon. Once there, Twilight quickly began sweeping the run-down zone, and before long he had encountered the boy that would change the course of his destiny forever...

Ebony in Nova Form

c. Warshade - Birth of a Hero

The two encountered each other in the evening, just as the boy was heading back to his temporary shelter for the night. He was ambushed by Twilight in an alley, but the boy had extraordinary survival skills by this point, and ended up squaring off with the Nictus shapeshifter.

It didn't take long for Twilight to see the boy's unusual drive and spirit, the very things that had compelled him to survive on his own for so long. After a long chat following the evenly-matched battle, Twilight had a change of heart - and a change of allegiance. The two agreed to a mutual bonding - the boy desperately sought the power to make a difference in the world, to help others like himself, and the Nictus spirit wanted nothing more to do with his old race.

Ebony in Dwarf Form

The two fused at that moment, but due to the extremely unusual nature of the event, a new kind of Warshade was born. He retained all the memories of both of his halves, and distinctly remembered living both separate lives. But something strange had happened during their bonding - an entirely new soul was forged, a perfect blending of both of the halves to create one unique whole. He decided to keep the name Ebony's Twilight, more as a way to stay hidden than anything else.

And so he struck out from that day forth, helping defend the city in his own special way - he did sign on as a registered hero, but due to the human personality he'd partly inherited, he had a fierce desire to stay on his own, and so used his high skill in shapeshifting and new abilities involving Nictus energy and even the life force of others to wage his own war in the city.

Hero Days - Past Fifteen Years

Since that day, he has done many great things for the city, although most wouldn't even know it. He spent a good portion of this fifteen-year period hiding out on Striga Isle, trying his hardest to stop the Council there from creating their own twisted copies of Nicti and Warshades. He also knows King's Row, Skyway City, Steel Canyon, and Brickstown quite well due to various activities he has performed there over time, not the least of which were searching for some of his lost comrades, whom he has never heard from since the day of his bonding.

The most important place he visits, however, would be none other than the time-traveler's home, Ouroboros. He stumbled upon it once about ten years ago, when he accidentally entered a rogue portal linking to the dimension left by another hero. Despite his loner standby at the time, he made fast friends with a number of the Menders, and before he knew it he was going on missions for them, traveling all across the timeline for a various number of tasks.

Through this friendship, he also visited Cimerora eventually, and is quite well acquainted with Marcus Valerius. The bonds he forged with the Menders, as well as the Cimerorans, were the first things that caused him to question the loner standby that had defined him for so long. He still believed that the only way to survive was to push himself to be stronger by staying alone, but now he felt safe and secure in Ouroboros with the Menders, a feeling that had scarcely crossed his senses before.

The Hammer of Twilight

These feelings culminated only a couple of years prior to now. Ouroboros was attacked by the Nemesis Army, causing uncontrollable ripples through all of time. Through a series of fierce battles, even bringing the Cimerorans into the strange dimension for backup, Ouroboros lay on the brink of destruction. But Twilight, in a last-ditch effort to save the Menders, teamed up with the one Kheldian in the dimension, the Peacebringer Mender known as Twilight's Son. They combined their shapeshifting powers, summoning an entity of unparalleled strength that Ebony now refers to as the Hammer of Twilight. Using the combined powers of a Warshade and Peacebringer, the entity single-handedly beat back the Nemesis army, driving them out of Ouroboros for good.

This took its toll on the two shapeshifters, however, severely handicapping both heroes for an extended period of time, and even physically scarring Ebony in addition to his power-related injuries. They were both treated in Ouroboros during this time, further strengthening Twilight's connection with the time-travelers.

Ebony with his hood down and mostly powered down, showing his scar

Once he had recovered a number of weeks later, Mender Silos himself bestowed the honorary rank of Time Lord upon both Ebony's Twilight and Twilight's Son. For Twilight's Son it was indeed an honor, but not nearly as momentous as it was for Ebony, who was not even a Mender.

He maintains close relations with them to this day. Although his powers mostly recovered from the incident, he is nonetheless somewhat weaker than he used to be, although staying in Ouroboros seems to restore a small bit of his former abilities.

Current Life - Making His Mark

He has now joined up with the Paragonian Knights in Paragon City. Determined now not to remain on his own, but to do whatever he can to help the other heroes in the city, he fights by their side as much as he can, although his now-high standing with the Menders causes him to have somewhat of an erratic schedule these days.

He still wears mostly the same outfit he always has - since becoming a Warshade, at least. His signature hooded trenchcoat was always his physical statement of his loner personality. Despite what some think, his sunglasses are not actually to further hide his face. Rather, they are a special kind that he himself made a long time ago, designed to supress his excess Nictus energy in his eyes. His gloves are a similar piece of equipment, actively supressing the energy in his hands. He has only ever taken them off twice in his life - and once was when he helped Twilight's Son create the Hammer of Twilight. The other was when he found himself face-to-face with the Babbage on a run into Boomtown once.

It took the Clockwork quite a while to rebuild it after that.