Teris Renner

**Teris Renner** (b. 22 June, 1981) is an American Metahuman from Dallas, Texas. He has had a long and illustrious career, from costumed superhero, to Lord of the Free State of Texas, to resistance operative and even cosmic explorer. Able to create portals across any distance to any location he can approximate, Teris has demonstrated himself to be a prolific collector of information and operative of considerable skill. A supremely paranoid and idealistic person, bordering on romanticism, Teris has put forth considerable effort in his activities to remain discreet and in the background. His paranoia has limited his ability to achieve both in resistance and dynastic circles, but his abilities have made him an invaluable asset in critical moments.

## Biography

### Phase-R, The Hero They Needed

Born in 1981, Teris was among the last generation of American made metahumans. It was and always will be an imprecise science, but anything a large amount of resources has been put to for over 30 years is bound to improve somewhat. By this point, the winds of politics had shifted, and metas then, more than any time before, were regarded as little more than property of the state for the investment put into them. So when Teris manifested his powers at age 9, he was quickly taken from his home by agents of the Department of Defense. Inducted into the United States Metahuman Exploration and Promotion Program (USMEPP), Teris was trained along with long serving and fellow up and coming metas, under close government supervision. He honed his powers and skills, and received a high school education, which he concluded at the age of 15.

Barely out of puberty, Teris was put into active service to the US Department of Defense as a civilian contractor under his hero name Phase-R, an arrangement enforced by miles of bureaucracy which bound him to the government's whims. After helping in relief efforts after Hurricane Fran, he was also inducted into the US Federal Emergency Management Agency as a rescue meta. He was placed on a team under the senior metahuman Blademaster (Kevin Gallagher) along with the meta Living Picture (Randy Jacobs), handled by DoD Special Agent Nicholas Garder. In this role he quickly became a very preening and flashy metahuman, taking down many notable meta criminals who had defected or slipped through USMEPP. This, coupled with his playful demeanor and eloquence gave him a popular following in the local metahuman community rapidly. He was a team player, able to share the spotlight and defer to his superiors.

The currents under the American Metahuman Community were turning very sour during his ascent to prominence. The passing of the 30th Amendment to the United States Constitution was a contentious time. Even at the age of 16, Teris knew the stakes of such a thing, that he would be unpersoned in the eyes of the government and people he served. When it came to the negotiations, he tried to convince his senator Phil Gramm to vote against the bill. When he refused, Teris was devastated. In his rage following this, he worked with a metacriminal Blastwave to kill the Senator, a bold act which he was able to escape responsibility for with the cooperation of the criminal he now viewed as a comrade. Other metas began to congregate and relations continued to sour. Teris tried his best to keep up good appearances, but by 1999 the situation was grim. Government trackers, fierce disciplining by agency higher-ups who wanted to score political points, and mixed public sentiments dampened his spirits.

When Hurricane Floyd suddenly surged to a Category 5 storm, Teris was on the scene. Going home to home in a devastated Bahamas, Teris brought 274 people to safety. This action was coordinated on his own initiative, against the whims of his DoD handlers. The scale of this effort, along with the 48 hour streak of lifesaving endeavors, was an impressive and widely publicized feat. It sent significant reverberations through the public and metahuman communities. Barely an adult, Teris had done a feat that seemed to only exist in the comic books at the time. Public response was overwhelming, and in a momentous occasion, Phase-R was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House from President Perot. The move was political of course, to try and quell rumblings coming from the metahuman community of mutinies and revolts, but it was still noted as a potential turning point in the view of metahumans by the public.

### Hero to Master

Such a sentiment would not last, however. Teris was informed in November of 1999, only weeks after the ceremony, that Columbia would be leading a revolution against the United States government, with the goal of ending the oppression that they were subjected to. Teris, in his own hubris after being so widely praised, agreed. When the time came to strike on the closing hour of the 2nd millennium, it was through portals that metahumans stormed the missile silos of the USAF, the Capitol, the White House. A perfectly arranged decapitation strike that completely froze the most powerful government in human history. Teris was not the mastermind of course, but he provided input along with many others, and his powers were a critical reason why it was able to occur so quickly and with so little planning.

When Columbia gave her speech from the Oval Office, however, Teris' heart sank. He had known that this would be a global operation, that similar revolts were occurring elsewhere, but he had no idea just how far this ambition flew. When the New World Order was proclaimed, Teris was only standing two people away, beside Juliana Kelvin who would be proclaimed Great Lord of a new North America. The immediate aftermath was ugly, turns out people don't like unilateral overthrows of their government, especially an exceedingly nationalistic United States. This time was one that Teris took to as best he could. After refusing to try to become Great Lord of the now North American Union, he did make an ardent push in a bid to become the Lord of Texas, succeeding in being recognized due to his manifold good relationships across the meta community. He was rapidly hating what he was seeing come into being, and regrets mounted in his mind.

He did not stay long after being granted his lordship, merely two days after installing his subordinates and trusted allies across his new dominion. He would give it a name before he left, the Free State of Texas, calling back to its history, and the idealism he held that humanity was to stand together, that the wrongs of the past would not be repeated, and the wrongs of the present would not be replicated. He instructed the creation of a continuation government, modelled after the Texas state government, and his allies were more than happy to take on more supervisory roles than rulership ones. His home state would weather the rippling storms and turmoil with ease, having compromised with strong resistance elements to create a government for metas and humanity together in rejection of the already-forming supremacist narratives.

### Gatekeeper, The Hero They Deserve

Teris Renner did not return to his lordship for 14 months. In that time he spent gathering materials and information. The world was in freefall, and he needed to try to atone. Appearing before the United Nations in Exile for the first time on February 9th, 2001 as Gatekeeper, Teris offered his services to what remained of free humanity, even as it was beaten back on every front and confined to a single island. He provided them early null field technologies, taken from a Houston laboratory in the aftermath of the Revolution. He offered his services to gather intelligence and material for their efforts, it was surprisingly noncommittal for how treasonous it was at first, the lord not even truly considering himself a member of the resistance until around 2008, when he downed an organized congressional airstrike by sending the bomber's fuselage through a portal that the wings didn't fit into.

On the homefront, Teris was a quiet lord, often busy with his extracurricular activities of diving, astronomy, and bowling with former teammates and enemies. He entered a romantic relationship with his former archenemy Tenebrae, a decidedly workable relationship that neither were available enough to pursue all the way. He attended the occasional function, and never had to enforce the will of the Congress on his home state beyond having soldiers sent to combat resistance elements elsewhere. Prosperity kept the uneasy alliance between dynasts and humanists in line, as well as an increasing sense of exceptionalism in perpetuating their former state. That was until Gunslinger, the lord of El Paso, began conspiring with various other lesser lords within the state to overthrow their lord. While the official news story was that Gunslinger had died from an allergic reaction, the reality was that Teris killed him personally via suffocation. The lesser lords understood the situation, and stood down, knowing that while the Lord of the Free State was quiet, he was no wash out.

It wasn't until 2010 that Teris began experimenting again with space exploration. In private facilities in Montana, he began to test his abilities in ways he had not dared risk since he had sent Tenebrae to the moon in 1998. This occupied much of his time and effort for the next two years, the Lord first returning to the moon, then exploring other worlds, and finally, he would seek other stars. This would absorb him for some time, stroking a romanticism in him for mankind as a whole. He would begin petitioning the Resistance High Council, knowing that the Congress had already banned any such measures. The Resistance at the time was unstable, and required results, and thusly Gatekeeper became the founder of the UN COMmunications NETwork, a series of discreetly deployed satellites to coordinate global resistance cells and increase cohesion in Australia. This project was not without attrition and hardship, taking multiple years to finally achieve the discretion required. Following its success, Teris would begin to conduct the Global Coordination Initiative, a Resistance-backed network of groups who could operate independently around the world.

### Teris Renner, The Hero For Tomorrow, The Villain For Today

Finally, he would come to the High Council with the culmination of his exploration and work. In a compartmentalized proposal, he proposed the creation of an extrasolar hideaway for Resistance material and personnel. Dubbed REDOUBT, it would be in the Tau Ceti System, on the Eighth plan of Nine in the system. The planet itself was a miracle, possessing an oxygen atmosphere and liquid water oceans. The tremendous odds of this reality would lead some at the site to speculate that this was made this way by some meta at another point, or some other secret project, as it was nearly impossibly lucky. Regardless, there were some unfortunate realities. The atmosphere was also poisonous, possessing high amounts of low-intensity acids that would harm unshielded humans. Acid rain was the regular, but the soil was not saturated with it, leading there to be speculation as to being able to filter the atmosphere and store the acid in the earth.

Regardless, this opportunity gave Teris a significantly more involved role, moving great amounts of material to this place, bringing experienced personnel willing to work towards a new home far from the insanity that gripped the world. He poured himself into the project, and its prosperity and success, in his mind, would determine the future of free humanity. Now he stood as a man living more lies than truths, stretching the limits of his mind, body, and ability for his idealism. The declaration of war by the World Congress in 2020 would galvanize the man in ways he did not think possible.

During the invasion, Teris fought for the resistance decisively, intercepting bombers, destroying the command ship Liaoning, and disrupting logistics how he could. At the same time, he presented himself as a Lord advising for peaceable solutions to the war and lenience towards fighters. In reality, he sought the dispersion of the Resistance. He believed that holding their own land had made them think like the tyrants they opposed, and that the more resources could be dispersed, the better able they would be to combat their enemies rather than meeting them in the field. But the war continued, the beachheads were made, and the Lord of Texas would need to be decisive outside the field of battle.

## Abilities

* **Portal Creation:** Teris' signature power, the ability to link two areas in space together has become second nature to the man after 30 years of experience. Purely a mental exercise, he need only picture or approximate a location spatially to link the two before a portal near-instantly manifests. Distance is no issue, he can just as easily link two points on a desk as the vast space between stars. The portals must appear in or adjacent to open liquids or gasses. The size of the portals determine how capable Teris is to sustain them. Portals 12 square meters in area or less he can sustain indefinitely with no issue. Scaling between 12 square meters and 100 meters he can sustain for limited periods of time before he starts to be physically drained, typically he can maintain such portals for perhaps an hour a day before becoming physically limited. Beyond this size, the power becomes rapidly draining and potentially dangerous in very short periods of time. Teris similarly has difficulty maintaining a second portal, as being able to keep the two links separate in his mind is incredibly draining.
* **Superhuman Physique:** Teris has an improved physique common to metas of his generation. Able to withstand small arms fire without much beyond superficial damage and with the endurance to last multiple days of intense normal physical activity, he has significant physical prowess. Able to lift up to a half-ton on his impressive but not massive frame, it is clear that his physique is enhanced beyond human performance.
* **Lightning Reflexes:** Of note related to but exceptional from his superhuman physique, Teris' mind can process time and space with astounding speed and efficiency. Able to comprehend distances at a glance, he can react to incoming gunfire and mentally predict paths of motion for objects as they move, a valuable tool when coupled with his portals. This also indirectly grants him an exceptional eye for detail and spatial memory.

## Equipment

* **Null Field:** Teris will often carry an advanced Mk. 29 personal null field on his person when potential danger is expected. A Texan make derived from acquired Resistance technology, it is able to project a field similar in strength to a unit that would be found on an armored vehicle, severely disrupting most metas. Being a meta himself, he rarely uses such a tool, even though he has developed a mental tolerance for them it does still disable his portal abilities completely, and severely diminishes his physical capabilities to around top decile human. He uses such a device when cornered by powerful metas, something clearly unlikely given his powerset.

* **Operative Suit:** When Teris gears up for combat, he regularly wears his Operative Suit. A North American Union development for special forces and espionage supersoldiers that has seen replication among some other groups, it is designed with infiltration in mind. The suit is sealed, allowing for diving and protection from airborne agents. It possesses a unique self-sealing fibrous design to seal wounds and retain airtightness. The skin is armored, comparable to Level IV body armor, which is slightly redundant on the meta but does still grant somewhat increased survivability against larger caliber munitions. Finally it comes equipped with an advanced optics array which can see Thermal, IR, and Approximated Witchsight (AW).

* **Spoof Chip:** An esoteric piece of equipment, a gift magical in nature from a friend in the CIA. Teris has implanted in his molar a hidden device he can activate by gnashing his teeth together. This device will retroactively scramble remote viewing which catches Teris. The effects can vary, from a nondescript silhouette in his place, distortion of voice and body, to complete removal from the record. Those investigating Gatekeeper have often been frustrated by this, often assuming it to be part of his metahuman abilities.

## Trivia

* Teris is a 16-year member of the Dallas Star Bowling League along with his former teammates Blademaster and Living Picture as well as his former enemy-turned-lover Tenebrae. He bowls an average of 208, the second highest of his team.
* Teris' current net worth is approximately 88 million North American Dollars, putting him squarely in the bottom 10 for wealthiest North American Lords. Despite profitable investments in Texan industries, his deferral of tithe back to the Free State has significantly reduced his potential wealth.
* Teris has liscensed his likeness under his Phase-R persona for many projects, including a comic line, the animated TV-series METAMEN (1992-2000) where he voiced himself, and the hit arcade game "PHASE-RUNNER" Currently, the Lord of Texas has made his likeness open to the public domain.
* Teris has used submarines to explore many seabeds around the world, notably having assisted in documenting the Great Barrier Reef as well as explorations into the Abyssal Layer.