Kustov

* Stable
* Unstable

A being that is no longer human, devoid of the usual understandings of human norms and morals. He simply seeks inner peace, but does not find it.

> "Can I say that I regret anything? Maybe. But it's nothing that worth remembering."
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## Backstory

### Past life

#### Human past

Even as a human, Kustov was fond of science, but, unfortunately, his century had to end quickly due to the disease that affected the body. The benefit of the family has long been gone, and children and a wife have not been able to get.

What the scientist of that time did not try to do with it - nothing helped.

At some point, from the realization of helplessness came despair. The same despair that can completely break a person, or can make them go to extreme measures.

The latter happened to Kustov.

#### Incident of Eidolon

Project Eidolon - a project to study the phantom activity, physiology and other aspects, which was led by an illegal underground group of 5 people with Kustov as a leader, 6 people total, for one purpose - to obtain the capabilities of these long-lived creatures by inhuman experiments on other people. There were quite a lot of such projects at that time, by the way.

Cross himself was looking for some kind of escape from his illness in this project.

The project flowed slowly, developed gradually. This was good in some ways for science, but not enough for Kustov. Time was passing too quickly. Despair came back one day.

The experiments went from less terrible to more and more inhumane.

Most could not withstand the fusion with a somewhat undead creature, and simply the hybrid died before it lasted even a day.

Others went crazy with the realization of what had happened, because the human mind could not understand and accept what had happened.

Someone was becoming an aggressive monster.

At some point, Cross secretly decided to conduct a similar experiment on himself. He had seen the hard work success of that before, and one of the team workers [REDACTED] agreed to let experiment on them in past before Kustov's decision as well. If you hurry, you'll make people laugh.

To survive, he survived, even the disease receded and disappeared. But the changes that happened to him became fatal.

There was no longer that scientist, just an empty shell of a rapidly changing body whose personality would be formed for many years to come.

The newly minted phantom no longer had any memories of it's human life and was in a destabilized aggressive state when it was discovered. No voice, no understanding, no memories, nothing.

The capture of the new intelligent being failed.

It was he who was then called the cause of the 'Incident of Eidolon' with the escape of numerous aggressive samples of such phantoms, which is why this project was considered a failure among many others.

#### Time recovers nothing

Many years of wandering in various places of the world, where only fate will throw, were not in vain for Cross. He learned to speak again, albeit with some difficulty, the changed body did not have a tongue in physical plan, which made the sounds come out foreign, wrong. And while one part of the mind tried to say something in the language of phantoms, the other tried to say something in simple human, eventually mixing both languages and getting something completely absurd. Which is the reason Cross prefers to speak human, than phantom. He can write, but barely speaks.

During his travels, Kustov himself realized that he had once been a human, and the human half of his mind was screaming about something that he could not understand. In his confusion, he could remember nothing more than the knowledge of that he was a human in past.

People mostly didn't trust him, were afraid, and sometimes tried to kill him, and could the phantom blame them for that? No, of course not. Back then, the notoriety of the phantoms was already in full swing. And the Cross itself to some extent contributed to this, often destabilizing and starting to harm people on the streets of cities.

So at some point, while Cross, with his scientific mindset, which he could not explain, for obvious reasons, was looking for at least something that would help him restrain himself and maintain a stable state of the body.

Fortunately, some semblance of an overwhelming remedy was found in the form of potions (potions of poisoning), in order to bring a small damage to the body, forcing it to spend energy on healing, than allowing it to get out of control again. A forced measure.

#### Arriving at Dark's den

Before arriving in Dark's Den, the phantom managed to acquire two companions, which he found just wandering around the world.

The first was the arachnid lost in the caves - Ghostgoingdark. With whom they did not immediately get along, but later somehow still learned to tolerate each other, because the spider often managed to get lost in various places, and Cross had to constantly help out.

Another companion was Quetzer450, Avian, who joined their group for a short time, but managed to make friends with both of them during this time.

At the same time, Kustov gives himself a tacit promise to protect both of his companions, even if one later joined the opposite side.

But, before their separation, all three exchanged promises and created their own small team of 3 creatures, which no one knows about except themselves. Arachnid, Avian, and phantom. Dusk team.

Only then did they say goodbye and go their separate ways: two on the dark side and one on the light side.

Arriving at the Darkside, Kustov was somewhat surprised at how easily they accepted various strangers into their home, which was more like a maze, which Cross cursed out loud several times while building his own room somewhere in the depths of the phantom caves.

He settled in his own room with his own companion, allowing him to occupy the crown of the tree. He knows that spiders like to climb, watching the habits of the Ghost.

#### Peaceful life

Cross just living his live in Dark's den, trying to get materials and resources for his allies, often wandering all alone away from people.

At the moment Kustov does not live in the dark stronghold, prefer to have one main base and few smaller ones. Simply saying he moved out. State of mind getting worser each day.

### 'A creature of my word.'

Nothing peaceful can last long. So the quiet existence of the phantom on the dark side was interrupted by another incident related to the light people.

One day, the dark ally Fa1\_C0N, after a successful deal with Kustov, contacted him again. The case was murky, but simple: take the goods, deliver them there, make sure everything went well, and come back.

Well, Cross agreed, without any conditions, that he would follow the plan if there were any overlaps.

The whole trip was short. Get to the prisoner elytrian, and hand him the things. All. But... First there was one phantom, then the real chaos began.

So Kustov had to back off, before listening to a tirade about why you shouldn't trust the shulkers.

And then the phantom really realized that it was not worth doing so, when he was accused of a partial failure of the mission. Not an uninformed customer, not the banal lack of a backup plan for a critical situation. It was him.

Well, then.

A long story-short, a few days later, the prisoner himself contacted Cross via a communicator.

And that's when the phantom got down to business in earnest.

He'd been dragged into the thick of it, and now it wasn't just a favor, it was a duty to see it through. After all, who, no, WHAT is he, if he can not simply cope with the task? A useless piece of half-dead meat. That's the whole answer.

The prison didn't make much of an impression on Kust, although he had to work out how to get the prisoner out before the guards arrived, without breaking the complex mechanism. I had to break the mechanism. There was no choice, alas. He felt nothing doing that.

Pulled out of the prison, Aqua and Kustov said goodbye right there on the roof of the prison, above the water. And then they parted on their sides and did not intersect again.

Cross is still willing to take responsibility for his actions, but he will not allow himself to be killed, even if there is already a bounty on his head in the capital of the light side.

### Once a criminal always a criminal

#### 'Watch you back'

Due to the fact that Cross had pulled the current emperor out of prison in the past, his name surfaced as the name of a war criminal who had circumvented the security system of the then prison. Unfortunately for the phantom itself, the information was leaked on behalf of a trusted person - Tert, who then came personally with a request for a meeting.

Even if the hybrid did not like it from the words at all, he agreed to the meeting. Surprisingly, the meeting was with the current sole president of Lightwood - Nevi.

Cross doesn't know exactly what Nevi was trying to achieve, but the interview was turned into a somewhat tense exchange of information between the two sides. Both sides were satisfied....

To a greater or lesser extent.

Kustov needs to reconsider some of his views regarding one person...

#### The Talk

Krossnox arranged another meeting with his little phantom friend Tert after quite a while since meeting with Nevi. He needed time for prepare and analyze everything.

Everything seem to be pretty calm until it's not...

Trapping trusting phantom in the box, surrounded by bedrock, obsidian and lava, Cross had to come back to the only one well-working method of gaining someones alliance - physical and mental torture.

Cross forced Tert to join his side, basically brainwashing ghost with usage of his 'strange poison' and pulling right strings, in attempt to confuse soul and mind of younger phantom into hatred and distrust to his own family.

During the talk Kross revealed his true intentions: commit a treason towards dark council only for push blame to light side which will bring tension between light and dark to a new level, alongside with slowly destroying one big 'happy' family for the sake of destroying Tert's mind for make him into an obedient doll.

That caused younger phantom to confront hybrid. Which led to quite horrible consequences for ghost.

Also during their meeting Tert received a simple gift from Kross - white mask.

## Appearance

Krossnox is a tall, skinny creature, humanoid in appearance, with features that go more into a monster-like structure than into a human one. Pieces of bone growths are scattered all over the body: the spine, shoulders and part of the neck, part of the arms from the elbow to the hand, an overgrown tail, calves, feet, claws on the hands, forehead(horns).

Skin mainly colored into pale white color and cold to the touch. The only dark parts is all five limbs, top of the horns and strange outgrows of the face. Feet clawed with pale white huge claws. Haircut is short assymetric to the left side.

The face resembles a strange mask, but still can be seen pretty much animatic, even if hybrid usually have blank face and staring at other people/things, which usually freak others out as much as lack of normal breathing and slowed down heartbeat.

Sometimes you can notice a lack of synchronization of his speech and mouth movements on his face. The reason for this is the presence of two mouths of different purposes: the face one is used for eating, but the second one is hidden under the features of the face and usually it is not visible, but Kross speaks with the second mouth(also the reason why hybrid struggles with talking).

He is dressed in a dark, slightly tight-fitting suit with a bright cross pattern on the chest. It is belted at once with 2 toxic-green bright belts, same clolor as cross on the chest. And he wears light grey sweatpants.

On top, he usually throws a greyish green dark jacket with black stiff shoulders, which usually open.

Cross choose that clothes style so his unhuman features will be hidden as much as possible, to represent false opinion of 'a little bit freaky but innocent being'.

## Body changes

Note:

Please understand that contrary to the majority who draw the image of the phantom from the game, as something hardly dangerous, rather annoying, because they're the reason player have to sleep at night, I have my own personal idea of them as *real flying nightmares*. For me, phantoms are a kind of messengers of the coming insomnia and madness, appearing under the cover of night and slowly, playfully, bringing their victim to death, so that they can then feast on both soul and body. And the older the phantom, which already are undead being of flesh and bones, the more it looks like a ghost. Basically phantom for me is something that appears in the terrible times, led to living creatures by insatiable hunger.

And because of that forceful experimentation to become one of the phantom hybrids(splice phantom to be exact) will turn subject into complete horrible mess of a creature, that might desperately fight for it's survival or die in unstoppable agony.

### Main body changes

The most global changes occurred in the appearance of Cross. From a human, he turned into something incomprehensible, to put it mildly: faded to almost completely white roughened skin, blackened limbs, bone growths of varying degrees of strength throughout the body, modified limbs. The only humanoid features remained from his past self it's two legged posture and some bit of mind.

The hybrid also suffers from a slight underweight. This is due to the fact that during metamorphosis, the body tried to adapt more to the phantom, which is a kind of flying undead, and therefore can not have too much weight, which why part of the weight of the subject was lost, although not too much due to the fact that Cross was originally a human, and not a hybrid.

In addition, a part of the skeleton, namely the bones themselves, somewhat condensed and acquired a dark, practical black, color and passed from the inner to the outer cover: it is especially noticeable on the spine, which has acquired a long extension in the form of a tail, ribs, limbs, head(horns).

All of the above changes correspond to what Cross' predecessor looked like in the phantom line of his current being.

The face of the hybrid is something similar to a mask, except that the yellow eyes can still disappear(when Cross is asleep or blinking) and change their location in the eye sockets, as well as the mouth is able to move, albeit stiffly. This is all due to the fact that almost the entire upper part of the subject's face has become ossified, forming a kind of real mask. Because of this Krossnox can not normally show their emotions, which are already not very much understands or feels.

It's jaws are able to spread unnaturally wide due to the hybrid nature of the subject. Usually, Cross does not open its upper mouth due to the reaction of others to such an action(an unpleasant sight). Yes, because of an unplanned mutation that occurred with Kross, it's mouth has split and each performs its own separate function: the upper, also known as the facial, serves for food consumption, the lower, hidden one, for conversation, while the fangs in both mouths are curved back and sharp. In order not to accidentally shock anyone, subject has learned to move two mouths simultaneously during conversations, so that everything looks more or less natural(although sometimes Cross still forgets to do this). And even if it has two mouths connected together, it has only one tongue. Mutations are scary things.

It is worth noting that due to the flying type of undead, Krossnox is seen trying to grow wings. Unfortunately, these limbs will never grow properly, remaining in a rudimentary state of bare bones with fragments of overgrown muscles and webs. The process is painful in itself, and if you do not cut off the useless limbs in time, then rotting will slowly begin, and there all sorts of infections are not far away. It is better to cut and heal the wounds than to suffer because of your own indecision.

### Physiology

It has already described the approximate structure of the face, but now I will explain the presence of some kind of antennae on the edges of the head of Cross. This is a kind of auxiliary organ of perception that reacts to the negative that is in the air. Thanks to this, the subject can more sensitively feel the mood of the interlocutor in order to disappear in case of danger or in other situations. Inherited from its predecessor. Whether it was a mutation of that phantom, or not - history is silent.

Let's now go through the internal changes of the body and physiology in general.

The hybrid itself almost does not breathe due to the fact that by some miracle it manages to balance on the fine line between being a human and a phantom, like an artificially created hybrid. Because of this, his breathing, as well as part of his life rhythms, is knocked down and does not work like an ordinary person. Many times he led his friends to panic by the banal fact that he accidentally fell asleep, which made him look more like a corpse than a living being.

The blood flow was also slow, and the heartbeat wasn't too fast. But the reason for this behavior of the heart is not one, because the blood composition has also changed. Now Cross's blood instead of both human and red, somewhat viscous and black. A strange substance, something like ink.

It is also worth noting that some of the organs that are not important for life simply atrophied and stopped working. Now it's just unnecessary garbage in the body that you can safely get rid of.

The remaining organs have undergone changes and now work more on wear and tear than in a quiet mode. In particular, the digestive system has changed, due to the phantom nature of the hybrid, and now the subject is able to eat anything, but the hunger rarely subsides for long, forcing Kross to constantly carry more food with them than others. In particular, because of this, the body itself suffers a little, but the diet has suffered to a greater extent, since the hybrid, which practically does not feel the taste, simply eats anything it can get.

In particular, the dependence on the consumption of various poisons has a negative impact on the changed body, due to the fact that... *when it was normal to voluntarily drink poison in clearly lethal quantities?* Fortunately, the developed resistance does not allow him to die completely.

Also, due to the same phantom nature and pale as death skin, Cross can not tolerate the light from the word at all, quickly getting burned in the light.

*To sum up:*

*Artificially launched metamorphosis from a human to a hybrid 'human-phantom' brought Kross extremely many problems, especially with health. Nevertheless, the subject is quite capable of existence, as it has repeatedly proved in various ways.*

## Personality

Krossnox is mostly a calm creature, but gloomy and silent. He often wanders alone, performing some of his assigned tasks in order to distract attention from personal problems.

He does not try to run away from them, no, he just prefers not to clog his head with unnecessary obsessive thoughts. Considering how many times he'd seen this kind of thing cause many people to hesitate at crucial moments in their lives. If he needs to clear his mind of such things, it is easier to occupy himself with somewhat meaningless worries and problems than to indulge in internal conflicts.

True, Cross has an internal conflict. Due to his past existence as a human being and current physical resistance to the manifestation of emotions, he does not understand what he should feel at one time or another. And occasionally, in very critical situations, it is destabilized, bringing itself to the mental and physical limit.

Cross often performs actions that are somewhat condemned by people, which from his point of view seem to be the only right thing in this situation, even if something is at stake. The victims justify the result. Hence his commitment to take responsibility for his words.

Never attacks first, only if provoked. In particular, he does not like to arrange fights or fight too much. Although the desire is sometimes there.

He also has a somewhat bright side, because he is quite capable of joking and conducting simple conversations if he wants.

He became very attached to both of his friends for some unknown reason. I made a silent promise to myself to try to keep these two alive as much as possible.

To sum up:

Krossnox is an inhuman being with a practical lack of understanding of typical human morals, doing most things based on cold calculation than on emotionality.

But, nevertheless, quite a calm and even a good friend. You can rely on him in an extreme situation, but you should not expect much if he does not consider you a trusted person. One incident taught him that well.

Unfortunately to keep himself sane, alive and stable addicted to potions(Potion of Poison) for canon reasons.

## State: Unstable

Being a human-to-phantom unnatural hybrid Krossnox can't stay in stable condition forever. Actions or events will drag him to the very edge of his right mind and body stabilisation. This state sending a wave of pain through the entire body, forcing Kross to act mainly on instincts and at the limit of his capabilities, which is not good fo his health at all: major inner damage and exhaustion after being unstable.

Main traits of that state is complete silence from Cross, opened mouth, long tongue fully visible usually, dark blood-like substance leaking from his eye sockets and mouth, uncontrollable violent behavior and intent to kill any threat immediately at the sight.

Usually he suppresses this state by potions(potions of poison), dealing inner damage to himself, so his body have no other choice but to start slow healing process instead of going rampant. Sadly his addiction to that type of potions will lead to the habituation, from which Kust will have to switch to stronger methods for calming himself down.

## Relationships

### Friends

**Ghostgoingdark**

First friend that Cross made in his long traveling time of his live. Although those two mostly hates each other, often arguing over stupid things, which sometimes leads to non-canon death for one of them(mostly for Ghost), they still count themselves as some kind of wicked friends. Kross can't explain the feeling but he feel obligated to protect this childish spider being that often getting lost in the world.

**Quetzer450**

An avian friend that sadly got to the light side of the world. Both being travellers in the soul those two quickly found language to become friends. Kross can't explain the feeling but he feel obligated to protect this ⏃⎐⟟⏃⋏ ☊⊑⟟⌰⎅ as he calls him.

### Trusted allies

**UnderscoreWulfx\_**

Was a good helping hand quite a lot of times, especially with getting materials for Dark base or other projects. Kross will help him with no second thought. *Where he might be now...?*

**SwegosaurusRex**

A fellow ghost phantom that helps a lot. Kross will help him with no second thought.

Raven/ \_\_\_Core\_\_\_

A friendly enderian that helped Kross a lot. Had fun shenanigans with getting villagers to the base and etc. Good person to trust.

**Amudo\_**

Cross meet that phantom in Dark's Den and nowadays in good terms with this one strange creature. Krossnox might be fairly interested in Amudo, but not showing. Had a few destabilization near this ghost, but yet this one thinks that Cross still a friend. *...weird.*

### Unsure

**Aqua**

Former ally in jailbreak arc. Cross felt obligated to help him escape since he was dragged into that by another dark person, Fa1\_C0N. "The job must be done."

**Fa1\_C0N**

Dark ally, which is shulk, that dragged Kross into shady situation with Aqua. Although Kust still having business and trades with that person, he's still can't trust him.

**Darkslayer1309**

An ally that collects head. Promised to get Kross's head one day with using advantage of weak state, which made him wary.

**M4C4RR4O**

They seemed to be nice to Kross even if he was in KOS list and even gave him food one day. Cross grateful for that, but still wary.

**AlmightyDaniel**

Both see each other around quite a lot. Kross unsure if he should trust or no, still keeping polite distance. Krossnox can't understand the intent to harm people from this child.

**Erty**

Although Cross couldn't trust this quite strange enderian, something feels odd about Erty to Krossnox. *Did we met him before?*

**Obturo**

A fellow phantom. Kross's feeling odd about them for a reason he can't explain. *Did we met him before?*

### Enemies

**ThisRedPanda74**

a stubborn tresspasser that refuses to leave main base of dark side. Cross can't understand disobeying the orders on an enemy's territory and desire of death of that merling. Temporary was banned.

### Protege

**TinyTert**

A child-like person with high self-esteem. Krossnox will have to teach this phantom few lessons before he will try to betray his ***friend***.

## Gear

### Armor

**Lost Kin**

Kross's armor set of full enchanted netherite. The name came from that Cross can't refer himself nor to human kind nor to phantom kind.

**Silent promise :)** & **(:**

Two armor sets of full enchanted netherite that Cross made as a gift to his friends, only for gave them more protection from this world.

### Weapons/Tools

**Clover**

first fully enchanted netherite pickaxe that was named to a four-leaf clover as it have a Fortune III enchantment on it. Were the one pickaxe that Krossnox use to free Aqua from his prison. Always with it's rightful owner.

**Touché**

was the second one Kross's fully enchanted netherite pickaxe on the server, with Silk Touch enchantment on it. Always with it's rightful owner.

**Tempted Wrath/BEGONE THOT**

second fully enchanted sword Cross had for kill living creatures. This sword was the one Krossnox took his friend, Ghostgoingdark, head with. Always with it's rightful owner.

Was renamed to *BEGONE THOT* for fun.

**Death Wish**

was third sword that Kross made for kill the undead. This sword keeping the blood of few players on it. Always with it's rightful owner.

**Color of Sadness**

Maxed out long-bow is the reason Krossnox always having two or more stacks of arrows on himself. Preferring melee fighting tactics Cross rarely using it in battles, mostly again Ghasts, Blazes, Skeletons or Creepers. Always with it's rightful owner.

**Temperance**

Crossbow that will shoot arrows and only arrows, as Kross had decided. The second reason of having 2 or more stacks of arrows for Cross. Always with it's rightful owner.

Krossnox planning to make another few crossbows, just incase.

**Silence**

enchanted fishroad that Kross usually keeps in his enderchest. He's using it only when he's bored to do anything else, or in need of quick food.

### Rare items

Pigstep

All 4 versions of Wither boss skulls.

***Marc***'s head

## Theme songs

**Creature - ☊⍀⍜ ⌇ ⌇'s theme by Danuge**

**Color of hatred - Vs ☊⍀⍜ ⌇ ⌇ by Danuge**

**Smoke - Willyecho**

**Welcome To Live - Awake At Last**

## Quotes

"I'm a creature of my word." - Cross to Aqua when he came to break him out of prison.

"⍙⊑⏃⏁ ⋔⎍⌇⏁ ⏚⟒ ⎅⍜⋏⟒ ⍙⟟⌰⌰ ⏚⟒ ⎅⍜⋏⟒. ⏃⋏⎅ ⊬⍜⎍ ☍⋏⍜⍙ ⏁⊑⏃⏁, ☊⊑⟟⌰⎅ ⍜⎎ ⏁⊑⟒ ⍜☊⟒⏃⋏." - Cross to Dipiz about the jailbreak.

"The job had to be finished. Don't matter will it be me or somebody else." - Cross's silent promise to himself.

"Their family is rotting from the inside." - Krossnox to Tert during 'The Talk'.