William Riverside

Lieutenant **William Riverside** is a former VIPER officer and current leaders of Project Hecate. When he was sixteen, Riverside's parents were killed by DEMON due to the threat his father posed to the organization. When DEMON came for William next, he used the power of an ancient book to defend himself. During this time, VIPER learned of his abilities and recruited him, ultimately becoming an enhanced operative known as the **Shadowstalker**. For nearly a decade, he would eliminate anyone who aided DEMON, becoming infamous as VIPER's top operative. When U.N.T.I.L. raided his compound, he was unexpectedly defeated by Yu Shigyoku and brought in, triggering him to remember his old life and want to escape VIPER.

In the wake of the seizure of his VIPER compound, the Shadowstalker was repurposed by Project Mind Games' Tora Fujibayashi, who worked to undo VIPER's conditioning treatments in order to remove any possibilities of a VIPER sleeper agent infiltrating U.N.T.I.L. He was given false memories to supplant any missed time, and handed over to SPECOPS, where he worked under Yu Shigyoku as her Lieutenant.

When U.N.T.I.L. came under threat from Makumba for harboring the Torque of Vigrid, Riverside joined Project Hecate to help fight off the witch. During the conflict, Riverside was dragged into the Qliphoth through a wormhole created by Nameless.

## Biography

### Early Life

William Riverside was born to Howard and Analissa Riverside in Durham, North Carolina. His father was a bookbinder and owned a rare books shop with his mother, who was a historical adventure novelist. William grew up with a book clutched in one hand and a stout branch in the other, dividing his time between reading tales of courageous heroes and leading bands of kids throughout the neighborhood using their imaginations to conjure beasts and vanquish them.

#### Young Officer at Durham

When he was 16, William joined a young officer program in Durham and became an intern at the local office. Though he had a fantastic imagination and creativity, he always felt that he needed to help people first and foremost.

#### Losing his parents

Due to his father'sincreasing interest with arcane texts, amassing a collection of rare magical paraphrenelia. Unbeknownst to him, Howard attracted the attention of DEMON, who killed both Howard and Analissa in order to protect the deeper secrets of magic, leaving their bodies for William to discover when he returned from meeting with his friends.

#### Attack on Durham Police Department

After meeting with the police and giving his statement, William was taken to the police department to wait for a relative to pick him up. While there, he found a birthday present hidden in his backpack, containing a dark tome and a note that said "defend yourself". Moments later, the police station was attacked by a hoarde of demons. William was thrown clear of the door by the explosion, still clutching onto the book. Wounded and trapped in the back of the police station, William opened the book, hoping to find something to save him.

As he read the book, he discovered it wasn't written in any human language. Terrified, William began to accept his fate when the book opened to a page containing one passage that was completely clear to him. When he read it, shadows leaped up and began tearing at the Infernals.

In the aftermath, William had learned that the entire town was attacked, only for VIPER and a few heroes to have helped defeat the Infernals. William was taken to a VIPER medical facility, where they learned of his ability to control shadows. He was tested and found not to be a metahuman, but was extended an invitation to join VIPER with the distinct opportunity of officership when he gets older. Alone and devastated by his family's death, William accepted the offer with the hopes of getting a chance to avenge his mother and father.

### Working for VIPER

For the next four years, William was faced with brutal conditions as he was trained extensively and was given conditioning meant to remove his sense of empathy, most of which were prolonged due to William rebelling against the programming. At the end of every session, he still had an unfailing moral compass, but they had stripped him of most of his conscience. He would kill whatever got in his way when in pursuit of his goals. As his infamy grew William Riverside became known as Shadowstalker. His skills became great, and his promotions brought him far. He was considered a master at marksmanship and stealth, singling out targets and eliminating them with extreme prejudice, but he was a loner and too self-reliant for the duties of a leader. Shadowstalker became Viper’s ace in the hole against DEMON threats, as he was obsessed with the destruction of DEMON and anything that associated with it. He spent another 4 years in VIPER continuing to perform unflinchingly until the nest he was stationed at in the remote Falkland Islands was attacked by UNTIL, it was at that point, torn between his want to continue destroying DEMON and his latent morality, that Shadowstalker put down his gun and surrendered to the UNTIL forces.

Riverside thinks that he was an agent in UNTIL’s Project Mind Games, acting as a counterintelligence operative for two years. He believes his career in Mind Games was not particularly illustrious, having been reprimanded for disobedience countless times and turned down for advancement four times due to lack of psionic resistance. But in reality, he was transferred to Mind Games after his capture and underwent drastic reprogramming, turning him back into a semblance of the person he was. Riverside might appear green and bumbling, but he is still a utilitarian killer who will sacrifice one to save 100 or 100 to save 1000 and he does so without blinking. Mind Games could not entirely mitigate his latent sympathy for VIPER and he occasionally speaks of their goals with more interest than he should.

After two years he was released into UNTIL proper.

## Personality

William Riverside is described as open and bland by his colleagues, though he is an enthusiastic worker nonetheless. Riverside has no hobbies, no particular likes or dislikes and no social life. He does not drink, nor gamble, he has no interest in relationships and no particular want for sex; because he is essentially just a shell. The death of his parents and his near-fatal encounter damaged his young psyche and all the years he spent in viper crushed what was left. Then when he thought he was beginning to grow into something, his mind was erased and altered by UNTIL so as to repair the cancerous VIPER mentality. All he has left is his training and his imagination, which never left him.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **Darkness Manipulation**: William Riverside, after reading the text from an ancient book, is able to generate and manipulate darkness and shadows.

## Relationships

* Howard Riverside † - Father

Allies* U.N.T.I.L.
	+ Yu Shigyoku/Purple Jade
	+ Jack Sheridan - Mentor
	+ John Paxton
	+ Chelsea Tate/Daggerhawk
	+ Mark Coal
* Project Hecate
	+ Petra Gjallarson/Bifrost
	+ Miyria
	+ Nameless
	+ Patricia Morgenstern/Maelstrom
	+ Matthias Corvinus/Grimm
	+ Atheris Fullson
* Project Mind Games
	+ Tora Fujibayashi

* DEMON
* ARGENT
* Makumba

## References

The *Project Hecate Wiki* has a collection of images and media related to ***William Riverside***.