Charis

"That's why it has to be me. I can't deny it any longer. None of us can. He's gone mad. He has to be put down. At least let it be someone who cares for him."
Character Stat Sheet
==Public Information==
Throughout history, a ghost, a shadow. Deaths-- all over the world, when some men gather to learn the glorious art of combat, some die. That is the nature of combat, though, an art steeped in blood, etched with steel and fist. Some deaths have no explanation. Some gathering places, razed to the ground without reason.
Nemesis.
==History==
Charis was born on Khera, several thousands of years ago. An Adarastean Kherubim, she did not have the same life as those of true Kheran stock-- she was a member of a servitor race, and thus less.
Charis never really considered herself lesser.
As she grew up, she became a rather gifted thief. She would have been content-- perhaps not happy, but content-- to remain such, stealing from the true Kheran, the 'Kherubim', for her own needs and amusement. But fate had another path for her.
Perhaps stealing from Majestros was a bad idea. He was a Warlord, after all, and one of the highest of the high, a member of the Pantheon and holder of a seat on the Council. But she did, and she would have gotten away with it had he not needed that which she had taken. So she returned to him.
Their romance was unexpected and forbidden, but what can stop two people in love? And they risked much to be with each other. He even used his political powers to gain her entry into the Coda Sisterhood. She was the only Adarastean-- the only non-Kherubim at all!-- to gain entry.
They made it more difficult for her than they would have for one of their own. She would not fail, no matter how much they wanted her to. And that determination and raw skill, waiting to be honed into a weapon of great power, was enough to catch the attention of the Coda's leader.
Her friendship... tutelage... with Zannah was strained in many ways; but it was there. She had everything she could have ever dreamed of: love, respect, a position in the Sisterhood. And she and her love set their minds on more permanent things... a child, perhaps.
But the Pantheon knew of Lord Majestros's 'shame', and moved to use him to heal a rift with both Coda and the Priestesses. He would do his duty to the people, and be with Lady Zannah instead... and then with a small number of other Coda, until a child could come from it-- a pure Kherubim child. They kept him away and busy with one after the other, going from ritual to ritual-- while Charis's time to give him a child dwindled. By the time he was released, she was no longer fertile. From all they knew, she would never be again.
Charis tucked that hurt away and redoubled her focus on the Sisterhood. They were what she had left. But her relationship with Majestros suffered and failed; the Pantheon had managed what they wanted: to drive a rift between them.
When the Creation Engine gasped its last, the Council decreed that the engine be melted down and turned into a pair of warblades; to be gifted to the most powerful swordsman or swordswoman on Khera. The tournament for the swords lasted months; but the final round came down between the Coda's leader, Zealot, and her protege, Charis. The battle was fierce, but in the end, Charis was the victor-- though just barely.
The twinned swords and a single boon was granted to her-- and Charis pushed for the creation of a Brotherhood of the Blade to be created so that men not Kherubim could serve in the war efforts more effectively. Zannah fought her on this, but ultimately, the Brotherhood was created, with Raven as their leader. Charis gave him one of the two swords as the symbol of his office; driving a further rift between her and Zannah.
Still, she joined Majestros's crew to fight the Daemonites, with many of her sisters and the newly founded Brotherhood of the Blade, as well as Majestros's other allies, including Lord Yohn Kohl, Lord Sl'yton, Lord Emp and his brother Lord Entropous, and Majestros's son, Majestrate.
Their ship crashed on Earth, along with the ship of the Daemonites they had been fighting. The primitive peoples of this planet had no chance against the evil that has been unleashed upon them. Raven betrayed her, framed her, for the murder of Majestrate and the sabotage of their ship.
He had framed her well. And perhaps it was her fault. She should have seen it coming. After all, hadn't they been lovers? Hadn't she helped to train him? Shouldn't she have seen or felt what he and his traitors were planning to do?
Her own death was never an option. So she ran, unknown to her, guided and protected by the goddesses Artemis and Athena, the latter whom had foreseen that she would one day be necessary to save this world.
Her friends and allies swore vengeance, to kill her themselves. Raven remained with them, a snake in their midst, for a time.
For five thousand years, she hunted down the Brotherhood and those they trained, hunted down nests of Daemonites. She was a thief and a sneak first and foremost, so staying one step ahead of her former allies was, perhaps not easy, but doable. She was already a traitor, so occasionally 'working with' the Daemonites to find out their game to betray them later seemed laudable. So she did. She watched. She learned. She killed where she could, where they would not find her out. She slaughtered her way through the bloody annuals of history; and her name-- the name Zannah had given her when she thought she had betrayed them all: Nemesis... became a monster tale, a fairy story.
Whenever she could help her old friends without being seen, she did. It was her thrown blade that spared Emp a fatal stroke from his brother. It was her swords that slew the Brotherhood laying in wait for Kenesha on her first 'adventure'.
When she found out about Kara-- a small human-Daemonite hybrid child, her veins pumped full of the essence of the Lazurus Pits-- if the girl was activated, the world would end. So she risked being caught, and threw away any cover she had to remove the girl from the nest that she had been hidden away in. The girl was proof enough, perhaps, that her betrayal was falsified, and so she returned to the WildCATS with the activator.
Majestros was away, and the rest of the team was wary, but with HALO Corporation's assistance they discovered her words were true. Emp and Hadrian insisted on her being reinstated-- so now, Charis is working with the team now named the WildCATS again, though things are strained. Thousands of years of working solo means that working with a team again is difficult for her. Thousands of years of the team believing she betrayed them means it is difficult for them.
But she will do whatever she must. She had only one demand of Zannah when she came back: Raven's death will be at Charis's hands. He betrayed her. He killed her people. He turned her friends against her. When the head of the Brotherhood is found, it will be Charis who cuts it off.
==Personality==
Charis is bold and headstrong, though those tendencies are tempered with millennia of experience. She is passionate and a touch temperamental... In many ways, the opposite of Majestros, who was her lover for so long. Where he is logical and rational to a point of frustration, she is passion and fire, quick to act, though not always in the most brilliant of fashions, it is always decisive.
She is a warrior both in training and in spirit. She is quick-witted and fast on her feet both on and off the battlefield. A thief before her training with the Sisterhood, she is capable of acts of guile and cunning, and oftentimes prefers them.
She is loyal to those she loves, and does not handle betrayal well-- when the Brotherhood of the Blade betrayed her and framed her for the murder of Majestros's son and the sabotage of their ship, she spent five millennia hunting them down intent on destroying them utterly.
Her empathic abilities give her a somewhat soft heart, though she guards it jealously, having been hurt deeply before... And the worst of those hurts have both been, at their hearts, directly involving Majestros, whom she will always love, and Zannah, whom she considers friend, enemy, mentor, ally, and adversary all at once.
==Logs==
* 0000-00-00 5262 Years Ago - The Last Supper - A bold and daring plan is outlined, destined for disastrous results.
* 1942-04-20 - Daemonites and Destiny - Elijah Snow and Marc Slayton move in to recover the lost Spear of Destiny... and get an assist from an unexpected ally.
* 2013-12-03 - Special Delivery - An old frienemy returns to the WildCATS, with news and a addition to the team.
* 2014-06-02 - Reunion - Isn't it sweet when a pair of old lovers meet again, after three millenia of trying to kill each other?
Category:Wildstorm Features
Category:WildCATS
Category:Coda Sisterhood
Category:Special Characters
Category:Immortality
Category:Aliens
Category:Kherans
Category:Veteran Superhero
Category:Taken Characters
Category:Telepathy
Category:Telekinesis
Category:Regenerative Healing
Category:Sword Mastery