Jace

The Hidden One

Winona Melinno (sister) †

Leon Melinno (brother) †

Jon Tierne (maternal grandfather) †

Percival Tierne (maternal uncle)

Amilie Delfien ("niece")

*"Kingsman, they called him; a servant of the King of Shades. But Jace served no king. He served only his vengeance -- nothing and no-one else."*
―about Jace
**Jace**, formerly Jason Melinno, is a founding member and leader of The Pack, a vigilante group mutants, with the secret mission of taking down The Organisation. After the Organisation murder his family and burnt down his home, Jace was presumed dead -- but he had survived, and from that day on, he devoted his life to destroying the Organisation.

## **Biography**

### ***Before the fire***

Jason Melinno was born on the Day of Shades, 1561, to Alé and Evie Melinno. As he was born on such a sombre holiday, Jason's family celebrated his birthday on the day before, the 28th of Moren.

He had two older siblings, Winona and Leon Melinno, respectively three and two years his senior. Unlike Jason and their mother, they were not mutants.

Jason was a playful and active child, with a habit of trying to climb anything he deemed climbable -- much to his parents' chagrin.

When he was eight, he and his siblings were playing hide and seek, as they normally did.

Jason was not above abusing his newfound invisibility to

### ***"Death"***

*"All five of them died that night. It wasn’t a lie. [Jace] was alive; Jason Melinno was not."*
―Jace, thinking to himself, almost six years after the murder.
Just over a week before Jason's twelfth birthday, on 21st of Moren 1573, the family were having dinner in their home when there was a knock on the door. Alé went to answer it, while Evie followed into the hallway. The children, curious, poked their heads around the dining room doorway to see who it was -- Mr. Moriceau, accompanied by two burly men in masks.

Before Alé could even invite Moriceau and his companions in, the trio shoved inside and stabbed Alé. Evie yelled for the children to runn

Jason and his siblings ran and -- unsure what else to do -- hid from the attackers in another room. They heard their mother's screams as they hid. But it was for nothing; Jason's two siblings, who were scared and panicking, were quickly spotted by the attackers -- but the attackers could not find Jason, hidden by his invisibility. So he simply had to watch the brutal murders of his siblings from his hiding place, unable to stop the killers.

Jason stayed inside the cupboard, cloaked and in shock, until he heard the men yelling to each other about setting the house alight. Forcing himself to move, he realised he needed to escape the house. Jason tried to grab as much as he could from the house, but was only able to get very little.

After successfully escaping (almost unscathed; he burnt his forearm in his escape), Jason watched his family home -- with his family's bodies inside -- burn to ashes from a nearby rooftop, hidden.

Jason realised that Moriceau and whomever he was working with would be out to get him, and that he couldn't trust anyone -- not after seeing what his so-called "family friend" did. And so Jace decided to go to the place where Moriceau would least expect a boy like him to go; Knife's Edge.

Equally aware that using his real name might help Moriceau find him, Jason began to simply go by "Jace" -- deciding that Jason Melinno had truly died along with his family, as the newspapers reported.

### ***Becoming the Ghost of Knife's Edge***

*"Most members of the Crows didn’t call Jace by his name. Just 'Ghost'. Jace hardly seemed to mind; if anything, it seemed like he preferred it that way. It made him more than he was -- a dark figure, something for the other gangs to fear. The Ghost was the silent shade that knew all your secrets, and whose blade you never saw coming. Certainly not a skinny seventeen-year-old boy -- not Jace."*
―A Gang of Three
Almost two months after his family's murder, in Gensium 1574, Jace was causing problems in Knife's Edge. Using his powers of invisibility, he had been hiding in houses for shelter and stealing to survive.

However, various gangs were beginning to blame one another

He met Elisia Delfien and Naithen not long after stealing the latter's coin pouch. At first Jace thought the duo had somehow tracked him down after noticing Jace's theivery, and not wanting to fight them both, Jace returned the wallet -- but immediately regretted it when he found out that Naithen hadn't even noticed the fact it was gone (let alone that Jace had stolen it).

### ***Starting the Pack***

*"You’re playing a dangerous game, Ghost."*
―Cel Descatt, to Jace as he left the former's gang.
In Vocamn 1579, Jace, Elisia, and Nate decided to inform Cel Descatt, the leader of the Brass Crows, that they would be leaving his gang. Nate and Elisia were apprehensive of simply telling the vicious gang leader that they wanted to leave, but Jace was confident that Descatt would let them leave. They soon found out why; Jace had discovered that Descatt had a mistress and threatened to tell Descatt's wife if he didn't let the trio leave. When Descatt then pulled a gun on Jace, stating that Deimosi wouldn't hear it he shot the three of them and dumped their bodies in a gutter, Jace calmly informed Descatt that if anything happened to him, Nate, or Elisia, Descatt's mistress' name and address would be sent to every rival gang leader in Knife's Edge.

Realising he was beaten, Descatt let the trio go, and even agreed to Jace's demand for the next month of wages for each of them. Jace, Elisia, and Nate walked out of Descatt's gambling house, feeling *"as if they were the kings and queen of Knife’s Edge"*.

Roughly a year after starting their "crusade", as they'd come to call it, the trio came across an abandoned factory in the old industrial district of Darchant.

### ***Leading alone***

By 1583, the Pack had been going strong for almost four years, achieving progress in both their more public vigilantism, and secret

The Pack at this point consisted of eleven members, Jace included.

In Amar 1583, Elisia realised she was pregnant with Nate's baby. Deciding they didn't want to raise their child while in any kind of gang, the couple

Jace didn't take it well, and an argument soon erupted

After the argument and them leaving, Jace refused to see or talk to his two closest friends. Although, unbeknownst to them, he would sometimes watch their home, cloaked, to try to build up the courage to apologise.

### ***Reuniting with his friends***

Little did Jace know, but Elisia had received a vision of Jace

Jace apologised for what he'd said and for his reaction. Nate and Elisia then apologised for what they'd said too.

Jace then met Amilie, Nate and Elisia's daughter, for whom they'd left the Pack.

### ***Discovered***

In late Intimum, 1583, Jace was infiltrating an Organisation meeting

Seeing the opportunity to escape, Jace threw himself out the window and -- acting on panicked instinct -- freeran to Nate and Elisia's home.

A small argument broke out as Elisia got annoyed with how Jace refused to tell his friends about his past. Jace, angry and injured, half-accidentally revealed that Moriceau had murdered his family in front of him. Realising he couldn't take it back now, Jace then quietly explained the rest of what happened and why he had devoted his life to stopping the Organisation. Elisia and Nate were understanding, albeit somewhat shocked at the fact Jace had finally revealed his past after almost decade of knowing him.

### ***Harbouring Corinne***

During this time, Corinne revealed that two Pack members, Nate and Aurelia, were first cousins. Jace didn't react with much surprise to this news. Nate almost considered the idea that Jace might have known about this previously, but decided that the lack of shock was likely due to Jace having trained himself to not show much emotion than it being because Jace had prior knowledge.

### ***Burning down the Old Factory***

Jace remained at the Old Factory with Cko and Hayda, having finished their mission for the night.

He was the first of the three to realise that

Jace told Cko and Hayda to leave and warn the others not to return to the Old Factory and that their missions may have been discovered -- not knowing that the Organisation had already intercepted the other teams. Cko and Hayda

Moriceau's second-sighted bodyguard broke into the already-ablaze factory with the intention of dragging Jace out. The two fought amongst the flames, but Jace prevailed -- thanks to a beam collapsing onto his much larger opponent. Jace then escaped the burning base with what little he could carry, and once again watched his home burn into the winter night.

Moriceau briefly spotted Jace watching him from the rooftops during the blaze. He later wondered why Jace had let himself be seen, and equally why he hadn't then killed Moriceau, who was now without the one person who could fight Jace.

### ***Missing***

*"You can’t just... disappear like that! We thought you were dead!"*
―Elisia Delfien, yelling at Jace after his absence.
A week after the fire, the Pack was reeling from its losses. Corinne was dead and Kaspar had been captured by the Organisation. Most of The Pack assumed Jace was among these losses, and had died or been captured. Nobody had heard from him since he sent Cko and Hayda off, and the latter had returned to the Old Factory to find it in flames and surrounded by the Organisation -- which didn't look good for Jace's survival.

What the Pack didn't know was that Jace had survived, but had decided to resume working alone to stop the Organisation. He hadn't taken a break to deal with the failures, not even for his 22nd birthday -- the day after the Old Factory fire -- and since the disaster on 28 Moren, he had been staying at one of his storehouses located throughout the city while trying to move out of the check the Organisation had put him in.

Unable to completely abandon the Pack, he had been checking in on them in the week to see how they were -- which was how he found out the extent of their damages that night.

### ***Taking Moriceau down***

**Durel Moriceau**: "*You think that if I fall, the Organisation will too? No. The Organisation is far stronger than that. It will always rise again.*"
**Jace**: "*And I will be there to stop it.*"
**Durel Moriceau**: "*You won’t be around forever, Mr. Melinno.*"
**Jace**: "*Ghosts have a habit of sticking around.*"
—Jace and Durel Moriceau, standing in front of the ruins of the Melinno home.

### ***Epilogue***

**Elisia Delfien**: "*So what are you going to do now?*"
**Jace**: "*I... don't know. Everything since that night has just been about… getting revenge.*"
**Elisia Delfien**: "*And now it's over.*"
—Elisia and Jace, discussing the latter's future.
After his mission was completed -- with Moriceau dead and the main components of The Organisation in Darchant dismantled -- Jace was unsure what to do with his life. He had dedicated every moment before to his revenge, but now

Elisia found him standing among the wreckage of the Old Factory, contemplating his past and future. After discussing recent events and Jace's lack of path forward, she invited him to come for dinner at hers and Nate's, and to spend some time with his unofficial "niece". Jace jokingly pointed out that he had never agreed to be Amilie's uncle, before accepting his friend's invitation.

## **Personality**

*"You’re damn infuriating, you know that, right?"*
―Naithen Delfien, to Jace, 1584
Jace has adapted to surviving in a world that doesn't want him alive.

He can be quite blunt in his speech, not bothering to sugar-coat things for the sake of others' emotions. Equally, he is incredibly manipulative, using and withholding the information he has gained to try to influence and control the city, much like a chess player. He will easily manipulate anyone, even his closest friends -- as seen by the years he spent lying about his knowledge of the Organisation to Elisia and Nate, and pretending the trio had found out about the group and its crimes all together so that Jace could use them to get his revenge. This bluntness and manipulation often causes him to get into arguments with his friends and allies. His withholding of information started an argument between him, Elisia and Nate after he had been injured.

Jace puts his mission to destroy the Organisation and gain revenge above all else, including his own health and friends.

He doesn't often let his emotions influence his decisions above logic, and nor does he often let himself express much emotion or let others know what he's thinking and feeling. However, mention of his family's murders and Durel Moriceau can both easily break this cool logic and mask of emotionlessness.

Despite negative characteristics, he is a natural leader, whom the rest of The Pack -- if somewhat begrudgingly -- hold a great respect for.

## **Skills and abilities**

*"It might have been a dangerous game for anyone else, but Jace wasn’t anyone else. He was a ghost; the Ghost of Knife’s Edge. The Ghost of all Darchant some nights. He could slip in anywhere, entirely unnoticed, like a shadow."*
―Old Blood
Jace's mutation gives him two abilities. One, his main mutation, allows him to shift into invisibility to all senses. When in this state, he is hidden from all five senses -- even hidden to those with heightened senses. He uses this ability to
Jace's secondary mutation gives him near-complete immunity to all focused mutant powers. However, he is not immune to general, unfocused abilities, such as second sights.

His information-gathering skills rely primarily on his mutant invisibility, but he has learnt many other skills to help him in this. He is a proficient pick-pocket and lockpicker, which allows him to get into places he can't reach with invisibilty alone.

Jace is a smart man and a very good tactician, as shown by his years

He knows when to strike, both covertly and overtly, and when to "play" information so situations goes as he would like.

While he prefers to stay hidden and not fight when he can, Jace is a skilled fighter thanks to years spent as a gang member on the streets of Knife's Edge. His immunity to focused abilities often removes mutant opponent's advantages in fights,

## **Trivia**

* His name is pronounced "jay-sun / mel-in-oh".
* Jace is bi-ace.

## **Gallery**

Jace without his maskJace as a teenJace as the young Ghost of Knife’s EdgeJace (Jason Melinno) as a child