Ceal Maxwell [APPROVED 3-1]

“Sometimes, I look at the sky in the evening and wonder... What would it be like to fly? I've always lived with a motto I got from playing an MMO game way back in the day. Twas a title you could get. “Have Wings, Will Fly” I have always wondered the meaning to that motto, simple with only 4 words, yet so complex it could mean something so different from one man to the next. “If you have the ability to do something, you should do it” I think.. that's what it always meant to me."



Born in the mid west of the United States, Ceal was from a family that could be unmistakably what you'd call average. A father, a mother, a brother. They were of a lower middle class, never quite struggling financially, but never quite well off either. But alas, that is not the focus of this passage.

Having an identical twin brother was pretty much the focus of much Ceal's childhood. Rarely was she seen or spoken of without her other half. They were as close as you would imagine any twin sibling relationship to be. It was typical for siblings to have almost a “bullying” scenario where she came from, so it was a refreshing sight to see something not only out of the ordinary with them being twins, but also with them being friendly toward one another.

For lack of better description , Tryce, her brother, was most everything she was not. Stoic, strong, stable. They admittedly had very many similarities that helped define them as a duo. They were both carefree, kind, even to people who treated them badly. Each strove to learn from the other, perhaps because of that, Ceal became a slight bit of a tomboy in her early years, only growing apart within the high school era. Even then, they weren't too far off from another.

However. Something to note about the twins was that, in their early years, they both developed something only describable as “extraordinary”. Starting at the age of 11, both of them began changing, undergoing a metamorphosis that no one could describe. Admittedly few people knew of this, but only their mother would know what it was. For it was her who accepted an outside source to perform “tests” on them during her pregnancy term.



A project called “Seraph”, spear headed by her family doctor, Dr Steven Styles, was a project that offered to test on embryotic states in an effort to create a genetically enhanced human. On the face of this program, it was said to reduce the likelihood of birth defects, symptoms of frailty or the appearances of certain genetically passed down diseases and health conditions.

However, the reality, while similar was actually much different. There had been reports of humans undergoing a natural state of metamorphosis, called “soul evolution”. So far, it was not known how or why it was happening, only that it was allowing humans to come more to terms with beings of power, such as Soul Reapers, Hollows, and other powerful races. Some say it was because of this very reason that humans were evolving, adapting to increase their chances of survival against overwhelming odds.

Dr Styles realized this and were among the first to dive into the research of genetically fabricating this on human subjects. While his practices skirt the boundaries of humans rights, many believe his heart is in the right place. Wanting to take something previously thought to be random and make it a guarantee. It was likely that Ceal and Tryce were not the first tests to be ran, but Styles did note that they were the first successful patients.

It wasn't long after their 11th birthday that Styles noticed this. Upon their visit, Styles assured them and her mother that this change was to be expected, and was actually and was actually a powerful gift, should they decide to use it. Hey confirmed that their bodies were creating the catalyst soul evolved humans were known to use. While similar to “reiatsu” it was somewhat different, stemming only from their own body, from a physical development, a “gland” for a description. This “force” gradually and subtly augmented their bodies to become just that much better than average. At first it was almost unnoticeable, but after about two or three years, they were able to out perform many peers in their grade levels at athletics with minimal effort actually put in.

Athletics aside, they soon realized that this force could influence the world around them. Ceal's manifested into electrical force. Being able to hear the hum of surging electricity through power lines, affect the currents around her, generate much higher than average voltages within her own body. Tryce's manifested quite differently, despite being twins with identical genome. He was able to take moisture in the air and cause it to freeze, effectively sapping the friction (and therefor heat) from it or things he touched. Styles said himself that it wasn't that he could make things cold, he literally took the energy from the molecules, causing there motion to slow to the point of stagnating, creating a field of “absolute zero”.






”When they came... At first it was like we were being bombed. People panicked, fending for themselves and their families. …I could understand their fear, but maybe I was just more optimistic than they were?”

In the year 2412. A terrifying race came from the very pits of hell and brutally occupied America, the birth place of Ceal and Tryce. They were merely 15 at the time, but their idealistic views on looking for the little bit of solace they could in such a changing time was all they could do not to give in to fear like many others have. Fortunately for them, their small state of Indiana was not one that very much violence had taken place. By the demon queen's own words, those who did not oppose her could live as they would, within reason.

Naturally, Ceal wanted to this this occupation was wrong, taking a country for themselves in the human world seemed wrong. But, she couldn't help but remind herself that if they really wanted to, they could have easily taken America, and killing anyone it it. Honestly, her life didn't really change that much with their occupation. Aside from the occasional demon, one could honestly forget sometimes. You could look up at the sky and it was still blue, the grass still green.

Indiana didn't have any special laws or rules of immediate government, meaning that demons, humans, and other such races could mingle together with minimal influence from shadowfall or anything thereof. In this time, it was when Ceal met the demon child Raizen. He was a transfer student at her school, directly following the stabilization of the country. He had a kind face and, surprisingly, a kind heart. Many of her peers would look down on him or make him feel unwelcome in his time there. Noticing Ceal smiling a the indifference of what race he may be, they quickly became friends. He was the prime example that, though the world saw the entirety of the demon race as evil, they were wrong. Soon even Ceal herself wondered if Shadowfall themselves were truly evil.






Soon, before she knew it, a year had passed with the demon's occupation. Slowly they saw even more influx of demons vying to live peacefully, though some merely were curious of humans and their lifestyle. Before long, the Indiana everyone knew was no more. It had evolved into something different, borders changed and the name was changed. It was a small country now, tucked deep inside the borders of the shadowfall occupation, yet isolated on a government standpoint. Now called “Metropolis”, the city began to change slowly, life mixing more of human and demon cultures into one. Even Ceal couldn't help but be affected to a degree. She began to study about the demon race's belief on life and death, coming to understand how they believe death to be merely a transcendence from their current vessel. She found all this very intriguing, often times discussing at lengths with Raizen this subject. Ceal loved to learn about things, wanting to seek the truth, no matter how deep. To be “in the know” as much as possible. She wasn't very ignorant nor did she want to be. She believed that if she was, she would be no better than the people who foolishly threw away their lives when shadowfall first began their take over. She felt for them, but she believed their ignorance to be their own undoing and hoped that they found peace in the afterlife.

By this time, Her and Tryce were getting to be quite adept at using their powers, slowly but surely developing truly amazing ideas using what they could influence with their powers. Styles kept a close eye on them for most of their lives, even so much as to greet them on a friendly level often enough to be considered a friend of the family. Even now, he was legally the childrens “godfather” swearing to care for them, should anything happened to their parents. While it was a very human thing to note, it was merely just for fun between them all, never expecting that would actually come to pass.

None of them ever expected anything.

---

”I remember... it was raining heavily. So hard, in fact, that I couldn't even see it. It... it was jarring. It made me hate. It made me so angry to shield the hurt.... the pain... the sudden throbbing of longing. It stabbed me in the heart to prevent the numbness that followed.”

---

While there had been reports. No one ever suspected it would happen here. Coming from the west, there were news articles about a terrible band of human hating demons causing abhorrent atrocities to human cities. Unsurprisingly, Shadowfall didn't bother to make any public comments on the accusations, nor did they even give reporters commenting on the matter the time of day. Frankly, their acts of vandalism and murder were merely seen as aspects of demonic culture. While the acts appeared to be rumors, confirmation of the acts were only downplayed by other demon sources, playing off the fact it was merely childish.

Walking home in a torrential rain, Ceal was coming back from Raizen's house merely around the block and down the street. However, that was the last time she would make such a venture. Raizen had been acting strange all day, as if he were on edge. While Ceal did pick up on it, he couldn't necessarily stop her from leaving his house. Oddly enough, he was frantically pleading that she stay, using their studies as a reason she mustn't go. Not yet. Raizen knew about the nightmare that was to unfold. While he was not a part of it, there was nothing he could do to stop it, short of saving just one person, the human girl that had shown him so much kindness. That same girl who was a the center of his heart, demonic or otherwise.

---

”I was a demon, she was a human. But....

---

Standing in the driveway, Ceal lost her balance her equilibrium suddenly giving out. Was it shock? The sudden pang of despair? She felt as though she couldn't breathe, like the world hold still, and the air being taken from her lungs. Her parents were laid out, blood smeared their clothing as they lay under the falling sky motionless, as if the rain did not affect them. Spread eagle like an execution, they were just in front of the walk way, for all to see. Though dark, Ceal could see them, multiple shadows of darkness moving, showing nothing but the lack of color save for their eyes. They glowed in the night in a stark contrast to their shadowy bodies. Perhaps Ceal's eyes were merely playing a trick on her, but one thing was certain, the person that was in the clutches of the one in the center, was Tryce. He was alive still. He was alive, yet the words that ran across his lips told her to run. He knew that, for him, it was too late. For her, whom the demons had not yet seen, it wasn't. She could run away now. At the expense of her family, of her brother, she could run away.

Except, she couldn't. Her legs wouldn't move. While the tears mixed with the rainfall, she fell to her knees. For a brief moment, she lost herself to sadness. To the overwhelming despair.

Then, the faint sound of crackling filled the air, slightly being heard over the padding of the raindrops. Eventually, that crackling became louder and louder until finally, Ceal's scream made it to her lips. Past the denial, past the shock and the fear, past every negative emotion that was rolling their her head, it was all being shielded by one emotion. That emotion manifested itself into the surging ferocity of electricity.

However, anything she would be able to do was to be cut short. With a sharp pain on the back of her neck, Ceal became stunned. Her vision of the night sky clouded by one man. Perhaps he was a demon. She didn't know, and her confusion was stopped short because at the time, the pain of her neck, of her emotions, all began to fade. With it, her sight which could see the world as vibrantly as it was all began to fade to white. Like bad reception on a television, it felt as if her existence was fading to white.

---

”For so long.... I could not hear... feel.... or think,”

---

Waking up to a bright and blurry room. It was cold and Ceal couldn't stop the ringing in her ears. No matter what she did, plugging her ears or otherwise. That ringing wouldn't go away. Once her sight cleared up, she could realize a pair of piercing blue eyes staring at her from a chair next to her bed. Those blue eyes only belonged to one person. It was Dr. Styles.

Apparently, he recovered her body from the site and was the primary reason she was able to recover. He had rushed her into the emergency room and saw to it that she was taken care of. Ceal was in a coma for 3 years. Her life had been almost given up on. The one footing the bill, Styles, would not give up on her. Part of it was his investment into the Seraph program, the other part was he did, genuinely, care for her. She eventually came to learn that while her brother was presumed dead, shot in the head, his body was not found or recovered. She had missed their funeral, 3 years ago. Though she felt like she wanted to cry upon hearing all this, the tears wouldn't come. Instead, her eyes just burned, looking around the room. Her enhanced vision, something she self named “stargazer”, was gone. Now when she looked on, it seemed like she was watching a movie through bad reception. Seeing white noise in shadows of the room, her vision flickering occasionally if she looked around too fast. Noticing the changes, she almost had a nervous break down, the pulse detector on her body going crazy.

Styles did all he could to calm her down, stating facts about what happened to her body and how much of a miracle it was that she even came back from her coma. She was declared legally brain dead a month after her injury. Apparently the demons caused supposedly irreversible damage to her nervous system. Styles point out that they would have been right, provided that she was an ordinary human. Styles studied her condition with the knowledge of the Seraph project and waited for this day. He suspected she would awake different. She would have certain conditions, but he had came prepared. Her body had adapted to the fact that parts of her nervous system were cut, severed from the others. Most notably, at her neck, the conduit for all of her bodies functions, was cut completely. In any other circumstance, they would have no salvation of any current medical science. However, miraculously, her bodies added ability to subconsciously generate voltages caused a phenomenon with arguably no name in the medical field. Her brain was sending messages to the body using this electrical current, theoretically “bypassing” the severance. The ending result was that, while she regained her bodily functions to a slightly flawed degree, her brain could no longer reserve the energy to keep her stargazer ability functioning. While she might have the voltage required, her brain capacity was limited.

Styles predicted that outside interference would end up causing problems for Ceal's “jury rigged” system and devised a tool to cancel out the noise and interference of other forms of waves the like. Ingeniously designed like a pair of over the ear headphones (fully functional too), Styles designed them to give Ceal some comfort should she suffer any splitting headaches or ear splitting noises from the waves in the air that could cause interference. They were designed to be powered off of Ceal's own natural voltage generation, came blue tooth ready, and honestly looked pretty stylish to Ceal.

So, it was then that Ceal put on the headphones, something that would symbolize her existence for a time to come.




Now it is current day and after being in a coma for 3 years, life is starting to get back to normal for her. The past still hurts, but even though it was so traumatic, she is unable to allow it to get her down anymore, at least not until she lays her head down some nights. Styles was good on his word, with the passing of her parents and the disappearance of her brother, he never hesitated to file for adoption, legally becoming her guardian.

Even now, even though it were demons who murdered her family and crippled her for life. She could not find it within herself to hate them. No matter who they are in this world, everyone has a choice. Every individual has a choice whether they want to do good or bad. Ceal could not, would not allow that to affect her judgment on all the members of the demon race.

According to Styles, Raizen ended up losing contact with him some time last year, but never once did he let go of the fact he blamed himself. He had tried so hard, and now he's out there, somewhere probably looking for a way to fix it all. She needed to go, find him and tell him everything. That it wasn't his fault, that it never changed her views.


In this world where hope is fleeting, in the heart of darkness, she shone as brightly as ever. Her experience may have changed her a little bit, making her just a bit more reserved. A bit sensitive and tender. But the main thing it did to her, was make her strive for peace that much harder, make her “want” to be a beacon to people who have lost hope. For a moment, she felt as though the responsibility of what she was about to take on was bigger than her. Just then, though, she thought of herself and what it could have been had she been a hero, if she had a hero at that time. Would her life been changed? With that thought in mind, she steeled herself with the thought of what was to come and the thought of reuniting with her brother, and her best friend in this world.

"Many of us started our journeys with good intentions, only to lose ourselves along the way... Though, maybe it was that we found our true purpose, after all." ~Quote of a Shadowfall Knight.

America was her home, the placed she'd lived for, watched her family die in. If she had to think about it, she might be shackled here. Shackled to the past that so defined her. In this world, one of turmoil and random chaos, was there really a beacon of hope, could she really shine so brightly and not be corrupted by those who could see?

Perhaps Ceal was too naive in her youth, too hopeful and idealistic to pursue what it is that she wanted to accomplish and not lose her path. Perhaps yet there is still room for salvation, perhaps it's too late.

With Curiosity burning in her heart, wanting answers she could not answer herself. She wanted a purpose to be, to find a reason to exist in this world that had left her behind. She was stuck in a still frame from the past, her soul shackled in a picture from when her family was still alive.

It felt that time had since stopped. The clock stopped on that moment in time, that day, that hour, that minute when she watched everything she loved be ripped from her. The feeling of terrible helplessness, of being unable to stop something so terrifyingly earth shattering.

She might be over there death now, but it didn't fix Ceal's lack of purpose. She felt the need to find something.. or someone to believe in, for the future. She felt that her being given power, the chance to change, for a reason. She indeed sought out that thought.

For a time, Shadowfall was all she knew of the militant world. They had occupied America, and then pretty much left it to her own devices. With this in mind, she sought out the leader of the major power: Mana Asthavon.

There is a saying that curiosity killed the cat, and while that may not have happened to Ceal, what did happen would change her for the foreseeable future.

Upon her visit with the Queen of demons, Ceal had been affected and potentially eternally corrupted by her sinister aura. It's manic energy inspires chaos and mania throughout people weak enough to succumb to it's power.

Thought faint at first, it was enough to push Ceal into vying to pledge her allegiance to Mana, to pay her debt in her service by any means. When Mana took her up on this offer, signing the contract on Ceal's body, she had branded her with an ancient sigil said to have been borne of the ancient greek goddess of chaos and discord: Eris when she took her virginity. The mark is said to bring great power to those who wield it, but will also surely haunt their minds with the manic energy from the goddess herself.

During this encounter with Mana, with the infusion of her power unto Ceal, and the brand of Eris. The demon magicks served to also repair and counteract any negative or terminal ailments inflicting it's host. this also meant that her power as a soul evolution human had also been restored to a point it no longer was detrimental to her.

True it was that Ceal gained outstanding attributes from such a mark, and as it would develop and take hold of her, so too would she have to battle with the images in her head, the voices that whispered to her. She would now forever have to battle the darkness within her heart.




(This part is current and future history)

With the ancient sigil known as the Mark of Eris on her body, is as since branded Ceal as a "Child of Eris". Marked to be the reincarnation of the ancient forces of discord, she will inevitably develop one or more of the cardinal natures of those spirits and demons. They are spirits who breed negativity in the world, to stir up the elements of chaos and discord throughout the mortal realm.

It seems that the incarnation of Ate, the demonic spirit child of Ruin and Delusion has since followed the girl, toying with her mind and haunting her, waiting. This spirit is particularly fond of leading would-be heroes or defenders of justice astray, filling their heads with subtle thoughts of grandeur and self worth, of fame and riches, or anything else their heart most desires. Alas, though, it is all a farce, a terrible sick game the spirit plays only to watch the ending when they fall and lose everything unto ruin.