Cassandra Cassidy

*“I’m saying that Pantheon Corp does real good in the world. We build infrastructure in third-world countries, we cure diseases, and we are the reason Division One is the best-armed anti-monster unit in the House. None of this is going to matter if the House decides we’ve been conducting illegal experimentation.”*
*“Which you have been.”*— Cassandra Cassidy and Shannon O'Reily, *Esoterrorism*
**Cassandra Cassidy** was the CEO of Pantheon Corp, the daughter of Jonathan Cassidy, the cousin of Roland Cassidy, and the ex-wife of Derek Hawthorne. Having inherited the business from her father, Cassandra was brainwashed by him into marrying Derek to forge a connection between the two families, driving her insane over the years they were married. After being found and saved by The Wazir, Cassandra desired revenge against The House by any means necessary and allied with him. For this purpose, Cassandra recruited Dr. Edward Strickland to make alterations to the Matheson virus, leading to the creation of Matheson-22. This ultimately led to conflict with her ex-husband and his new partner, ending with her death at the Wazir's own hands.

She is the secondary antagonist of *Esoterrorism*.

## Biography

### Marriage to Derek

Cassandra was born into the wealthy Cassidy family, being set to take over Pantheon Corp when the time came. When she did so, she was incredibly ruthless, using the company's status as the House's primary business partner to get away with countless crimes, including taking advantage of war-torn countries for economic gain and even committing murder. She and Derek Hawthorne knew each other - in fact, she helped cover up Ashley Morgan's "death" - but they were not particularly close. However, despite her family being one of the richest in the world, this wasn't enough for her father Jonathon; to further entrench his own power, Jonathon used magic to brainwash Cassandra and force her into an arranged marriage with Derek.

For the entirety of their marriage, Cassandra was conscious enough of her situation to hate her life, yet was powerless to actually do anything about it. This manifested in incidents like trying to outright murder Derek despite acting loving with him only moments before, which Derek only took to be mood swings as he was genuinely falling in love with her. As their marriage finally began to outright collapse, Cassandra was found by The Wazir, who cleared the brainwashing from her mind and gave her control of her body back.

### Revenge

After all the trauma caused by Derek and her father, Cassandra desired revenge by any means necessary and aligned with the Wazir's plans to destroy the House entirely, beginning by mystically sterilizing Derek as a means of punishing him. Connecting with Dr. Strickland, the leader of the House's White Room, the two hatched a plan for Pantheon facilities to be converted into bioweapons labs, while Strickland would head the actual development of the virus. Knowing she would be unable to hide it from The Committee, Cassandra went to them preemptively to reveal her plan to modify the Matheson virus, but presented it as a benevolent measure designed to convert the virus into a miracle cure for various diseases. Knowing that the Committee's greed meant they wouldn't look too close until it was already too late, Cassandra took advantage of her escape plan to finalize the virus.

Once the virus had been finalized, Cassandra turned it over to the Wazir and began focusing on mass distribution, intending to create enough to cause a large-scale zombie apocalypse. After a series of mishaps involving scientists turning into draugr, Strickland completed the virus, At the same time, Cassandra contracted the Sons of Mars mercenary group to act as her private security force.

Once everything was set up on her end, the Wazir launched an attack on the Thompson City Mall, which brought Derek and the Red Room onto her tail.

### Confrontation with Derek

After a group of the Sons of Mars attacked the Red Room and Strickland fled in the chaos, Derek saw the mountain of evidence against her and, wanting to prove her innocence, requested that he and his new partner Shannon O'Reily investigate her themselves. After getting the chance to do so, Derek and Shannon arrived at her Chicago office and talked their way past the guards. Getting to her office, Cassandra was unsurprised by their presence yet maintained her innocence, only relenting on telling a story when Derek seemed genuinely willing to kill her. She even complimented him on his efforts, crediting him with making a threat that appeared legitimate enough to actually frighten her.

After pressing the alarm to summon her security team to prove a point, Cassandra explained that she was working with Dr. Strickland to modify the Matheson virus in an attempt to turn it from a virus to a cure for several deadly diseases like cancer, concealing her ulterior motives while retaining enough of her signature selfishness that Derek believed her. When asked how Pantheon Corp equipment and mercenaries were involved in the attack, Cassandra claimed ignorance and played along with Derek's attempt to locate a mole within her organization. When a scientist fell for his trick, Cassandra played along and scapegoated him, letting Derek and Shannon interrogate him freely.

In the meantime, Cassandra contacted the Committee and negotiated a deal, handing over a large portion of her profits and control of the company in exchange for not being immediately prosecuted for her crimes. While confronting Derek with the deal, she maintained her innocence, continuing to scapegoat Strickland and her scientists despite the clear evidence against her. After Derek received confirmation from Nathan Hawthorne that the deal did in fact exist, Derek and Shannon departed, with Cassandra and Derek exchanging one last goodbye.

### Rampage

However, later that evening, Derek and Shannon were attacked by a Japanese Oni and members of the Sons of Mars, confirming to them that Cassandra was trying to kill them (only surviving because Derek received a warning from his actual soul manifesting in a dream). In the meantime, Cassandra fled Chicago outright, covering her tracks as much as possible. With a muffler spell covering her movements, Cassandra tracked down her father and murdered him, making it look like a heart attack. At the same time, the Sons of Mars launched simultaneous attacks on House substations all over the world, backed by the Wazir and the Emerald Eye, and Cassandra had United States Senators reevaluate their relationships with the House to damage them economically as well. It became clear that Cassandra's motivation was to completely destroy the entire House.

However, at this point, Cassandra and the Wazir's business relationship fractured completely, with their forces gradually turning against each other. Eventually, Cassandra retreated to her fortress and withdrew her forces to protect her, granting her momentary security.

### Final Assault

Eventually, the Wazir outright betrayed her by giving Derek resources to join the Committee with the intent of getting him to attack Cassandra directly. As a result of the new inter-Division cooperation he fostered, Derek located Cassandra's base on a Pacific island owned by Indonesia and gathered a team to attack it, consisting of Derek, Shannon, Penny Hawthorne, and Ben Talbot; the end goal was to attack the base and destroy it. By the time they arrived, the Wazir had found her and stormed the base himself, leading to an all-out war on the base.

Soon enough, Cassandra became aware of Derek's presence and taunted him by playing their wedding song over the loudspeakers, giving the massacre a disturbing soundtrack. As Derek's group got in an elevator to the bottom floor, Cassandra came over the intercom and began taunting them, making clear that no one would get out of the building alive one way or the other. Shortly after, the group came across Cassandra's main lab producing Matheson-22, making Derek realize that Cassandra likely intended to use the virus on targets of her own.

### Death

After the group defeated Tommy Moretti, Cassandra confronted them personally and shot Derek; however, despite her being armed, she was easily defeated and rendered unconscious by the agents. As they started coming up with a plan to get her out and interrogate her, Shannon kissed her, received the memories of the torture she endured during her marriage, and passed the memories on to Derek. As Derek tried to emotionally recover from what he learned, the Wazir arrived and used magic to destroy Cassandra's heart, killing her.

## Legacy

Cassandra's death was avenged a few minutes later when Derek and Shannon teamed up to kill the Wazir for good. Following this, the team destroyed Cassandra's base, wiping out any remains of her power base, though the Sons of Mars were able to continue on without her.

Cassandra's actions crippled the House for the short remainder of its existence, as her rampage killed countless agents and forces that they were never able to replace. In particular, Derek never recovered from the trauma of learning what he accidentally did to her, and her memory became a driving force of his actions from then on.

Later on, her cousin Roland teamed up with Nathan Hawthorne to avenge her death by targeting Derek, Shannon, and the entire House, with the aim of raising Balor to destroy the House and break the masquerade. Though he was ultimately unsuccessful in raising Balor, he was successful in destroying the House and bringing the supernatural to light, succeeding where Cassandra failed.

## Personality

*“You don’t get to be head of a multinational like Pantheon Corp by inheriting it even from a family as rich as the Cassidys. You must be ruthless as hell. Her sweet exterior is a front.”*— Derek Hawthorne
Even at a high point in her life, Cassandra was always ruthless and selfish, putting her company and desires above all. Even before she went mad, she played a role in everything from the exploitation of war-torn nations to outright murder, knowing that her wealth made her too powerful for the Committee to ever get rid of. Even though her company was already the most powerful in the world, both in financial and political power, Cassandra never felt it was enough and would take any step required to gain even more power for herself.

After the mental trauma caused by her father, Cassandra went from greedy to outright unstable and sadistic. Her method of revenge was designed to be as damaging and sadistically cruel as it could possibly be, and she wasn't only insensitive to potential civilian casualties, she outright welcomed them. She went out of her way to be as cruel as she possibly could be, including to her ex-husband Derek by magically sterilizing him so he could never have kids like he always wanted, even though he had nothing to do with the brainwashing she suffered. Her instability was to the point that even while her own forces were being massacred, she tormented Derek personally by playing their wedding song over the loudspeakers.

However, underneath all of this, Derek's glimpse into her emotions showed that she was very insecure and unsure of her place in the world. She admitted internally that getting the groveling masses under her control wouldn't fill the void caused by her father's actions, but that having people groveling for her would at least feel nice. She also knew that her partnership with the Wazir was limited because his world had no place for her, but she still went along with it because she had nothing else. All in all, underneath Cassandra's instability and sadism was a deeply broken woman who had no outlet for all of her rage, turning her into a puppet for a madman who killed her without a thought.