Kassandra Scippius

> "*Hear them, hear the voices of the fallen and enjoy my requiem. A chant for those that have honorably perished during this mission. For you Commander, for you Viceroy, I’ll burn everything to the ground. All of them will hear my symphony, until not a soul remains in the barren wastes of this universe!*"
> ― Kassandra Scippius, 59 P.T.
>
>

**Kassandra Scippius** was a Metahuman, Everchosen and Military Officer of the Vortex, specifically, a Marshal. During Legacy, she aided the Supreme Praetor in his coup d'etat within the Atlantean Empire and arose as the leader of the military occupation of Atlann, planning to utilize the planet as a staging point for a larger Vortex invasion of the southern galaxy. Alongside Kedric Castellon and Norgaard Slovknet, she was tasked with creating a plan to destroy Humanity by Leader Pegasus, and she chose her own pathway to revive the God of Thorns (her master and connection to the Dark Pantheon) to carry out the order.

## **Appearance**

Kassandra is an adult woman of average height and physically fit build. Her most defining characteristics are her dark red hair and the scar on her cheek, which she acquired during the planetary sacrifice to the God of Thorns. She wears the standard Vortex Uniform with a badge on her shoulderpads that identifies her as a member of the Marshals (a group comprised of all the Vortex's Evechosens).

## **Personality**

Marshal Scippius could be described as two-sided in her demeanor. Normally, she displays an easygoing and eloquent facet to gain the trust and confidence of her allies. However, her true self is highly agressive, volatile and merciless. Despite her animalistic tendencies whenever emotionally agitated, she is a masterful commander and an unrelenting combatant.

## **Biography**

### **Iron Nations: Legacy**

#### **A Gathering Storm**

Kassandra was a priestess in her homeworld, who was cast out of her religious order for indulging in the study of forbidden scriptures. Within her exile, she discovered the myth of the fight between the God of Thorns and Orion, giving her a newly found sense of duty to revive the former in order to get revenge against the latter. She would later carry out a planetary sacrifice, offering the entire populace for a hint that led her to the god's buried location. After this, she acquired an ability she named Velvet Lotus and a psychological starmap that led her to the God of Thorn's location.

While news of this cosmic disaster spread across her dimension, Chimaera reached her desolate world and after quick negotiations, Pegasus recruited her into the ranks of his faction within the struggle for sucession in the Vortex. After the new Leader reformed the Vortex and continued the Titan's War, she was appointed the rank of Marshal and was one of the key figures within this Everchosen branch of the interdimensional empire.

#### **Deployment to the Orion Dimension**

In March of 46 P.T., she was deployed alongside Commander Norgaard Slovknet and Viceroy Kedric Castellon to the frontlines in the Orion Dimension. At Conqueror Base in the Far North, they were tasked with destroying Humanity for good. While Norgaard and Kedric favored a slow war of attrition with the utilization of a Metahuman army, Kassandra preferred to continue her mission and the leads left behind both by her God and by Pegasus, who had previously sought the deity at Ultheron, but had failed to find him.

After Norgaard's death at the Battle of Enton, Kassandra fully formed a personal Army and Starfleet to prepare for an assault focused on the Mid Rim. However, she realized it would be necessary to establish a staging point somewhere close to Sol in order to decisively destroy the URO. Weeks later, Marshal Scippius would come to acknowledge the political turbulence in the Atlantean Empire, contacting the Supreme Praetor (commander of the Atlantean Armed Forces) in order to carry out a coup. Initially, she provided the resources to assassinate Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner of the MUQ contingent on the planet. For years, the two would conspire to successfully carry out a revolution to install the Praetor as the new Emperor.

#### **Atlantean Galactic Crisis**

On the year 59 Post-Terra, Kassandra and the Supreme Praetor deposed the peaceful Emperor Sylvanus and his cabinet of Grand Captains during the celebration of the Empire's Day. Her flagship was tasked with bombarding the capital, providing a safe landing for her troops to occupy the capital city of Magna Imperiale. After the Grand Captains were taken care of, Marshal Scippius stormed the palace and took out the remaining loyalists with her Velvet Lotus. Then, she dedicated a requiem to her fallen comrades while her starship laid waste to the city before her.

In the following days after the ascension of the Supreme Praetor, she would force him to take control of Congress in order to allow her to dig up the remains of the God of Thorns in the Bay of Conquerors. When she got the equipment and approval, Kassandra would tell the Praetor of her mission, looking on proudly at her deity. Knowing a Galactic Parliament Task Force was on its way to depose her, Scippius rushed to prepare the ritual to awaken the God of Thorns, her surefire plan to annihilate Humanity and their cosmic allies for good.

During the day of the ritual, a Task Force headed by Prince Selenos, Ranger Captain Angelo Blanca and Lieutenant General Grant Crossley attacked Magna Imperiale to install the son of Sylvanus as the new Emperor. When her starfleet, army and personal guard were all defeated, Kassandra awakened the God and caused him to send down a rainfall of lotuses to destroy all forces fighting on the planet. Fleeing the palace to come into contact to seal the bond between Everchosen and God, Kassandra was chased by Elizabeth Jäger's Squad and her Protection Guard, which she easily defeated by deploying her Thorn Colossus ability. Just a few kilometers away from the duel between the Cosmos Man and the God of Thorns, Kassandra was attacked by Johan Van Bronx, Theocydes Lohart and Elizabeth for a final time. Defeating the first two by laying a trap with the ruin corpse of the colossus, Scippius utilized her enhanced Velvet Lotus to nearly kill Elizabeth Jäger, however the Marshal was overrun after the latter awakened her undead ability. In the desperate attempt to save her life, she was bisected and then decapitated by Elizabeth, lamenting her lack of strength to catch up to both Norgaard and Kedric.

## **Abilities**

### **Velvet Lotus**

This power allows Kassandra to deploy a rainfall of pink petals that disintegrate and slash skin upon contact, creating a powerful shield around her. She can form a blade out of the lotuses as well. Velvet Lotus can exert two techniques, *Blast* and *Eviscerate*, both which work in tandem with her Everchosen powers. *Blast* allows Kassandra in her colossus form to fire a beam of lotuses against an enemy to pulverize them, while *Eviscerate* combines her thorns with the lotuses to destroy everything around her in a semi-spherical range.

### **Everchosen of Thorns**

Her connection to the God of Thorns allows her a simple technique to deploy thorny vines that can choke, seize or cut a person; and as a makeshift rope to swing around. An elevated technique is the deployment of a Thorn Colossus, a smaller copy of the God, that she can control while being inside its upper chest. Both the explosion generated by its formation, its capacity to self-destruct and create a trap of vines, and its brutish skill to destroy allow a versatile form in combat. Finally, whenever she makes direct contact with the God of Thorns, the deity allows Kassandra to amplify all her abilities to a maximum and control the celestial being herself. Theoretically, had she achieved this state, she would been capable of destroying entire planets.