The Black Engel
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| The dark heart of magic is one thing.
Losing yourself in it is another. | |
| The Black Engel
(Called to Action: 1997) | |
| Player: | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 24 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Felicia Engel |
| Known Aliases: | Felicia, Big Bad Red, Endora, The Black Engel |
| Species: | Mutant Sorceress |
| Age: | 26 |
| Height: | 5'11" |
| Weight: | 129 |
| Eye Color: | Blue |
| Hair Color: | Red |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | British |
| Occupation: | Magic Shop Owner, Witch |
| Place of Birth: | Unknown |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon City |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Emelyn Engel (Grandfather, deceased?), Alice Engel, (Grandmother, deceased), Edward Engel (Father, deceased), Emilia Engel, (Mother, deceased), Emily Engel (Sister) Duncan Garrick, (Brother in Law) |
| Known Powers | |
| Magic, Ritualism, Demon Banishment,
Clarent (A Broken Long Sword, She uses its angered soul as a Flaming sword.) | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Olympic level fitness, Magic, Archaic Weapon Expert | |
| Equipment | |
| Varied gadgets, magical parphinalea, Engelrangs | |
| No additional information available. | |
The Black Engel is a name that has been used by two distinctly different heroes in Paragon City at various different points in time.
For information about the original Black Engel, (alias Emelyn Engel) please refer to the character Seiken.
Contents |
Overview
Felicia is a gifted Witch and Sorceress. Currently she is serving with the Dawn Patrol in England, although with the recent occurences in the Second Rikti Invasion and her former association with Hero-1, there is little doubt that when news of that reaches her, she'll be riding her broom back to Paragon in a heartbeat with blood in her eyes.
Origins
Felicia Engel is the first born child of Edward and Emilia Engel.
She grew up within a magic oriented family and started her studies around the age of 6. Tending to watch over her younger sister, Felicia was the kind of girl not above beating the snot out of a boy for being a jerk. Around the age of ten, she experienced horrible debilitating nightmares. She often awoke at night screaming and in a cold sweat. Following one particularly horrible dream, she screamed with such intensity that it shattered the glass in the entire Engel house. Edward and Alice made certain to hide the fact from Paragon, and took her to her aging grandfather, Emlyn Engel. Emelyn knew immediately what was wrong. His grand-daughter was a mutant attuned to the entities. Emelyn also knew that without proper guidance she could lose control, or worse.
The training came at the right time. It took almost ten years but Felicia slowly became skilled at communing with the entities and often travelled abroad. She kept her mutant heritage a large secret to everyone except Emelyn, eventually explaining it away to her parents as a magical "swell". She lived up the ideallic teenage witch image in high school, even owning a broom at one point. (Much to her father's extreme chagrin)
Sadly these happier times were not meant to last. Tragedy struck, and the "New Warlord" made his move, ironically making the same mistake as his precursor. The elimination of all family and friends. While Emily went to school, Felicia and the family went to go see a movie together. Upon exitting Felicia ran ahead to bring the car around. Upon driving up to her parents, she witnessed a White haired man motion to a gunman, who shot both Edward and Emelia dead.
She didnt stay long, and she had a good idea already what was happening, having heard Emelyn's occasional guarded discussions about his hero days. The war was coming. A call from the school at her home warned her that Emily too was missing and arcane scans revealed nothing. Only a dark intent that was growing. Something was out to destroy the Engels. Flying all night to find Emelyn, she tried to warn him, only to find his home ransacked and Emelyn gone. The only clue remaining was a lock of bloody white hair, and Emelyn's cane.
Realizing that it had to be Julius, Felicia faked her own death. Rigging the family car with a makeshift gasoline bomb she cut her hair and took other steps both arcane and physically to disguise herself. Animal bones enchanted with her blood to appear as her own bone fragments, clothing she had worn, all were piled into the family car along with a false psychic impression of herself being killed and dragged to the car. Which she then blew up. Taking on the second name Endora Dobbins she withdrew from Paragon, leaving the authorities and her friends in Paragon City, to percieve that all members of the Engel family were dead.
Life in England
Arriving in Liverpool, Felicia now calling herself Endora opened a small time magic and illusion shop called "Bewitchment". For nearly a year she remained simply a bookwormish type woman interested only in simple illusions and the selling of ecclectic books. However in 1997 a panic in England broke out when a unknown being of dark energy began to prowl amongst the populace. This being left a calling card in the form of its victims being sucked dry of all life energy, a lifeless husk.
The mystics of England were in a state of panic, and called a meeting between the varied Witch Covens and Mages from around Great Britain. A meeting at Stonehenge was too high profile however, so Endora opted to allow her shop serve as the front for the meeting, where a powerful scrying was done to ascertain the nature of the threat.
At the culmination of the ritual the elder crone grew rigid and screamed without sound, seeming to be attacked although no one could tell from where. Unable to watch more, Endora revealed her own talents as a Witch, and as a collective they managed to snap the elder crone from the malevolent entity. Two phrases came from the mouth of the elder Crone before she died from the strain of the attack.
"Engel."
"...Witch Lord Zaraknis.."
Realizing that somehow against all odds, Zaraknis had tracked her residual energy signature to England, Endora explained the entire story behind her family, their deaths, and the Witch Lord. The twelve men and women were stunned, but agreed to secrecy and pledged to help Engel however they could. Initiating Endora into their "family" the Thirteen Witches took to the streets and proactively fought varied threats that Zaraknis spawned, vanquishing each threat where it emerged time and again. From the Time shifting demon Jafiki to the succubus, Nebula, and the Witch hunting clergyman, Inquisitor.
This battle took place on the back alleys and underworld of England, usually at night to better hide their presence from the public. Over the course of a year Endora recieved help from several British heroes including Hero-1. Although she never mentioned her name to the beings they fought, they eventually came to refer to her as the Black Engel, and she became as a result the focus of Zaraknis' assaults. Taking up her grandfather's hero name further drove Zaraknis to new heights of fury. History was repeating.
Endora finally revealed herself when Zaraknis unleashed a wave of Esygll Demons on the innocent town of Oakridge, nearly obliterating it for another thwarted plan. It took literally every adept in Great Britain including Hero-1 to defeat the manifestation of Eochai and the Esgyll demons.
Tired of the long-standing secret wars, she traced Zaraknis energies to the legendary Sherwood Forest, and issued a psychic challenge. If he wanted the Black Engel, he would get her. So it was that after five and a half years of mystical conflict and hiding as a civilian, she finally met the murderer of her family under the shadows of Major Oak, the legendary Tree that Robin Hood himself was said to live in.
Zaraknis spoke heavily of coming gods and consistently referred to a being of pure entropy that had claimed him as its champion.
Touching on her years of training both as a historian and witch, Felicia connected that he referred to a enigmatic being called Karesh. Zaraknis then went further to elaborate how while he had gained Emily, his true target had always been Felicia and he still desired her. As the Warlord before him, he had become infatuated with his mortal enemy, and demanded that she submit to him.
Endora spurned him and stated that she would fight him and all his works for all time. Enraged, Zaraknis called to the shadows and manifested the dead before her eyes. Her parents, her friends, people she had never met but had been slain by Zaraknis, The Witch Lord raised against her. Zaraknis was at his most powerful within the forest due to the strife that had occured there centuries prior.
However.. he also was over confident.
Endora had expected a trap and the Thirteen were prepared. At a signal the battle was joined, and Sherwood Forest erupted into such conflict as had not been seen since the days of Hood. Although the thirteen were reduced to nine as a result, Those survivors held a distinct honor which had likely ensured their survival. They were the greatest among England's elemental and psycho-kinetic Sorcerors. Endora Dobbins, Lynna Ambrose, Kevin Darby, Eris Darby, Brand Falkirk, Kayle Smythe, Alair Wagner, Manfred Fayte, and Vincent Mcnider. Together they managed to beat back the forces of Zaraknis. Channeling the culminated power of the elemental forces of existance, they merged their energy into a single energy flow. From the nine, a golden white energy current, the truest representation of humanity's divinity and inherent creativity came to life. This energy, later termed the Seraphic Radiance by Endora, utterly incinerated Zaraknis body, and forced his enraged spirit to flee weakened and badly scattered.
The Thirteenth Knight
Realizing Zaraknis might still be a threat to the world at large, the nine plumbed all available resources in England and France. While searching varied texts they sought a place where "Darkness lingered" and "Countless were slain for justice". The Elder Book of Shadows stated that such a place would be a powerful convergence of dark magic and leylines. Essentially though Zaraknis had lost his physical body, he would eventually regenerate if not fought at the source where his spirit slowly recovered.
It was Lynna who found the site where Zaraknis would regain material form and return to the world of the living. Romania. In a place once called Wallachia, several children had gone missing over the course of the last two months. The remaining members of the Thirteen bent their energy to scrying the situation. At the heart of the dark magic was a Castle. A castle once ruled by a Ottoman Viovode (Prince) named Vlad III, or as Vlad III was known in popular culture, Dracula.
The connection made, Endora left for Wallachia with her friends. Descending into the castle of the Impaler, they were beset by members of the Circle of Thorns and the Nightmare Society. Fighting on alone while her friends contested with the forces of a deranged priest named Rhyos outside, and worked to free the captive children who were to be used as part of a sacrifice to ressurect Zaraknis, she came to the Keep of the Dragon.
In this church where Vlad himself had gone insane, she encountered Zaraknis' disembodied spirit who spoke to her of her sister still being alive, but fused to a demon herself and thus something that a true witch would eventually have to destroy. Zaraknis also revealed that he had tortured Emelyn by not allowing him to pass on. He offered that he could set all things right if Endora gave up her own body to him. Endora refused and began a ritual to purify the ruins. Enraged at her defiance, Zaraknis implored his dark master for physical form, and drawing off the darkness of the human soul and Vlad's own sinister acts of cruelty in life, reformed himself as the Witch Lord, a immense armored juggernaut that burnt with hate.
The battle seemed to Endora as she later wrote in her personal Book of Shadows, to last for a eternity and yet at the same time only for a minute. What truly turned the tide of the fight in her favor was the last minute realization that for every point of darkness, there must also be a equal point of light and good. Calling out to that force, the golden light materialized again and the twisted entity once a man called Julius, was utterly destroyed for a second, final time, his spirit cast into the abyss.
Exhausted Endora returned to England where she resumed work in her magic shop. The eight remaining witches by now her closest friends, went on to form a premiere magic using super-group for Great Britain's defense. The Excelsior Eight. Endora kept in contact with them and remained abreast of mystical happenings in the United Kingdom and Europe, but prefered working alone as a result of her own opinions. Zaraknis words had deeply affected her. The thought that perhaps because of her, Zaraknis had slaughtered her family made her eschew working and growing too close to people. The tale of the Warlord had closed, but to Endora, they had left deep scars.
Unfortunately peace would not last, for before long a new threat arrived and in 2003, a new war was fought, one that would test the strength of the Excelsior Eight, and indeed all superheroes in the world.
This threat was called, The Rikti.
The Rikti War
The Rikti War was a difficult engagement and a trying time for Felicia. Based in England, she was a a member of Omega Team and travelled with Hero-1 to Paragon City, when the time came for the Omega Team to enter the Rikti Homeworld. Shortly after the arrival of the Excelsior Eight and Omega Team to America, a massive battle broke out in the streets of Atlas Park. Struck by ordinance from the Rikti Invaders, Felicia was nearly killed if not for the timely arrival of Paragon Maiden. Driving the invaders back with her energy blasts, Maiden spirited Engel from the front and to the closest hospital.
When Felicia woke, her world had yet again been turned upside-down. Aside from Manfred, the Excelsior Eight were destroyed, the victims of a Rikti Plasma Tank. Making matters worse Hero-1 had gone to the Rikti Homeworld himself in what seemed a noble yet suicidal act.
The trauma caused Felicia to fall into a deep lapsing depression from which she did not recover until some years later when she was watching television and caught a mention of the reappearance of Emily Engel.
Her sister lived..?
..Maybe. Maybe not. But the Black Engel intended to find out one way or the other.
Over the course of a month, The Black Engel became Luficia's personal thorn, catching criminals before she could, stalking her patrols at night and always on the fringes of her sight. Seiken assuming Felicia had died years ago thought (as Felicia assumed with Luficia) that Julius had returned and was preparing to strike. Further aware of the Black Engel and that HE was the original one, Emelyn gave Luficia a good cause to fear the woman and it seemed as if a clash between heroes was gearing up in Paragon City.
The pair met at the burned out remains of the Engel's old residence. At first Seiken was suspicious, but when he finally felt the energy comprising the spellwork that was being used, the red hair, and the withering gaze of determination, Emelyn knew that Felicia had survived and revealed himself her. Felicia in her turn was shocked to learn that the grandfather and sister she had long mourned as dead were alive also. United, the Engel sisters returned to Paragon and began a long and successful campaign against Arachnos as members of The Steadfast Pact.
The Death of Felicia Engel
It started simply enough. Paragon Maiden was fighting the remnants of Requiem's Fifth Column. When a strange spellbook came up, PM elected to pass the artifact on to the resident mystics of the Steadfast Pact. After a length of time studying the pages of the book, Luficia surmised that the book contained a detailed set of incantations for a ritual of Requiem's called "The Dark Call."
Suspicious of this "Dark Calling" Felicia and Sonia began a extensive investigation into the Council's doings and took many of its soldiers into custody. As more agents were arrested, a clearer picture slowly manifested. The Dark Calling was a ritual that the Fifth Column, and later the Council used to create a branch of the "Path of the Dark" A nexus point where Nictus could enter into the world. By setting up a "Path of the Dark" in Paragon City, The Center intended to allow the Nictus a new means to invade Paragon.
Now that the name of the enemy was known. Paragon Maiden and Felicia decided to do some investigating of parellel universes at Portal Corps in the hopes of finding a means to counter the spell, while Luficia contacted her husband Moonflash, a Kheldian Peacebringer and elite Nictus Hunter. On Earth 92-b they found a desolate world filled with wolves and shadows. The sun never shone on this world, and as a PM and Engel sifted through the rubble, they found a more alarming fact. The creation of a "Path of the Dark" in Paragon City, coupled with the leylines that resided there would create a "Void Portal" which would permit countless Nictus to enter. Earth would become as it had on this desolate reality a darkened hub from which the Nictus would spread out like a cancer across the world, continuing in their mission to consume all light and living things.
Returning to Earth, Paragon Maiden and Engel knew what to look for and began to raid varied Council bases in a effort to learn when and where this entire ritual would go down. Several bases fell before a clue finally dropped. Arakahn was overseeing the creation of this particular portal, and the Center was against it. Indeed for all intents and purposes it looked as if the Center was on their side, as the arch villain had left a detailed map for the heroes on where the ritual was set to occur!
Armed with this information, The Pact went to Striga Isle and found a massive Nictus Fortress half buried under the waters. Infiltrating the ancient fortress of doom, The Pact led by Luficia and Maiden tore through the Vampyri and Nictus with the fury of a hurricane. Reaching the crypts of the submerged Fortress, they found Arakahn and Requiem preparing a massive shadow cyst of energy which pulsed with the primordial fury of the darkness between space. After dispatching some guards with ease, Moonflash entered into combat against Requiem, the veteran Peacebringer standing toe to toe with the dreaded Science Lord. Blightbane and Luficia led a attack on Arakahn, while Felicia using her own skills as a mystic, strove to counterspell the portal before it grew too large and the reinforcements that were constantly spewing from it became too much for the Pact to hold off.
Time stretched into a eternity as the counterspells failed time and again to seal the growing rift. Giving off a fit of laughter Requiem stated to the Pact that the Portal had now grown too large for any normal spell to affect it. Promising to pay them back at a later time, he and Arakahn retreated confident that the Nictus swarms and the portal would easily finish off the heroes.
Felicia could see the look of frustration in her mentor's eyes, and the fatigue on her sisters face as time and again, the Pact threw the Nictus back and where the defeated were destroyed more appeared to replace them. It was a battle of impossible odds, and terrible consequences if they lost. Even Moonflash began to grow tired from the constant barrages of energy and fighting and his light seemed to be dimming. In that instant Felicia recalled Hero-1's words during the Rikti War, and knew what she had to do.
Picking up the focus crystal that the Portal was fed by, Felicia shattered it on the ground before taking the book in her hands and destroying it with a burst of elemental fire. Moonflash's eyes widened as he realized what the witch planned. Try though he might Moonflash could not however prevent what Felicia, The Black Engel did next. She leapt off of the outcropping of rock and fell downward in the shaft, her body impacting the portal as she screamed out a final incantation that would turn her body into a potent counter spelling vessel.
With a crack of lightning and a explosion of light and dark energies, the portal imploded on itself and was dispersed. Without a connection to their origin point, and lacking reinforcements the remaining Nictus were easily dispatched and defeated. In the dim torchlight of the fortress of the Nicti, Felicia Engel laid apparently dead, having made the ultimate sacrifice for Paragon City as Hero-1 had years earlier.
Luficia was inconsolable and refused to accept it. Calling out repeatedly to her sister, she sensed that in some strange way Felicia still existed, floating around the room in a thousand places at once. Taking Engel's body back to Paragon, the Pact waited and hoped for a miracle.
Grave Matters
None was forthcoming and with a heavy heart the heroes buried Felicia at Founder's Falls. However no sooner had they put their fallen comrade to rest and tried to pick up the pieces of their lives, than the grave was found disturbed. Felicia's body was gone. Initially Luficia had hoped to think that Felicia might be alive, until Moonflash pointed out that no living being took their coffin with them. It was a outside job and someone wanted her remains.
In a rage, Luficia went on the warpath having a good idea that the Council had taken her. Following a tip from her husband's connections with the Peacebringers she found a lab where Nosferatsu had stored Felicia's body and intended to create a Vampyre from her remains. This proved to be a severe error of judgment on his part as Luficia used a small fragment of the hellish energy in her for the first time she created her own entrance in to the base suprising the Council. Beating Nosferatsu within a inch of his life, she barely came out of the rage until the sight of Felicia's body and Seiken's voice drew her back to her senses. Realizing that anger over her sister's death would do no good, she returned her body to her grave and sealed the tomb with several magical spells of warding to protect it. If someone tampered with it again, Luficia would know instantly.
As the Steadfast Pact crumbled and varied members went different ways, three remained vigilant and strove to uphold the group and its ideals. First to depart were the Android units and Shortwave, followed next by Barmace and True Silver, who by this point comfortably emmeshed in his teaching career. Quantum Tare simply vanished one day which led to speculation that his planeskimming and collecting had finally landed him in hot water. (One doesnt keep a pocket dimension full of nuclear warheads, salvaged Titans and other more deadly weapons of mass destruction and not break some form of law in the present or future..) Blightbane joined a special task force with the Kheldians to deal with a Nictus threat and was soon off earth more often than not. Spider and Sootfire became busy in the defense of Warburg, and gradually the pact was left with only four true members.
It was at this point that Felicia's tomb became a hotpoint of trouble for the "Steadfast Remnant". A sudden explosion of magical energy around the tomb manifested and broke through Luficia's wards and sealings with minimal ease. Upon the investigation of the tomb, Felicia's body was gone with witnesses saying that a column of flame had erupted from the tomb and then torn its way out.
Searching for this mysterious new villain, the four heroes began a massive manhunt for the various enemies that Felicia had gained in life. While such entities as the Rikti Traditionalists, and the Vahzilok under Spinal Tap and Dr. Moort, were still in the Zigg ruling out a potential Eidolon reanimation. Nonetheless they were brought in for questioning on the off hope that some clue would manifest. The Council, and the Circle of Thorns being left as the prime suspects, felt a severe crunch on their numbers as Mr. Tiny Tiger, Moonflash, Paragon Maiden and Luficia ransacked countless bases of their operations in a vain effort to locate Felicia's corpse.
But in the end no one had taken it, or even knew what had happened. Indeed all parties were equally confused.
Forced to give up the hunt, Luficia consigned herself to the knowledge that her sister was dead and her body was missing. A small part of her hoped that wasnt the case, but as days stretched into weeks and weeks into a year she began to fear the worst.
The Second Rikti Invasion
(Coming when my Internet returns.)
Personality
Felicia is still in many ways the de-facto guardian of her sister, as her new husband Duncan / Moonflash has found out. She roasts the Kheldian with criticism when his duties take him off world, she baits him to verbal spars, bears the sardonic attitude of Emelyn, and in short is the sister in law from hell.
..Which also happens to be a witch.
When Duncan and Felicia argue, its a good rule of thumb for nuetral observers to hit the deck. She's liable to hex him, or pull off something in a mischief oriented vein; (Like turning his face blue at Christmas, or shrinking him to Leprechaun size on St. Patrick's day). At the end of all things however, she admits that Moonflash is good for her sister, and cares for her as much as she does. Thus she eventually relents, and resumes doing what she does effortlessly. Making the calm and composed Kheldian lose his cool.
Powers
Felicia uses a unique blending of martial prowess and magic spells. Due to her time sundered from her body, she is no stranger to the ethereal realm and has become quite comfortable in shifting immaterial when the need is called for. While she seems to use what Azuria calls "Psychonically charged fire" as her primary weapon, It remains to be seen how deeply her "death" has affected her powers and her latent skills as a Psionic.
Rogue's Gallery
Deathfog
The Witch Lord
