Eric

> To love…is to fear the loss of a person.
>
> Eric, in Volume I - "Sorrow"

Eric Williams is the younger brother of Tony Williams and the information specialist within Aerael (and later Vanaheim). Eric is a creative, intellectual, and logistical asset to the Counsel and has continued to remain a core part of their planning, operations, and strategizing. As a computer expert specializing in encryption/decryption, programming, and information technology, Eric was widely used as a secondary reconnaissance in support of Kara and Sonya's more direct observations. While Kara and a small forward team could observe a target's whereabouts and activities, Eric could access their financial transactions, travel history, itinerary, and personal information without leaving his living room.

Regardless of the path Eric may have taken through *The Legacy of Sorrow* in the wake of The Outbreak and the immense pressure placed on his shoulders, the impact of his actions led to decisive victories in Kara's retrieval from Raven's Phoenix facility, the assault on Raven herself, the ambush leading to Schillinger's death, and the Battle at Washington, D.C. Even in the moments he had expressed anger, disappointment, sarcasm, or sadness, his friendships with Val, Jared, and the Counsel, as well as Tony's safeguarding during his upbringing make Eric a powerful symbol of resilience, success, and the result of holding onto love rather than hate during an otherwise hateful war.

## History

Eric was branded a "Gifted" child at a young age, and although his mother died of cancer when he was eight years old, his father continued to press him for consistent excellence in nearly every aspect of his life. While Eric's father saw Tony as the "rebellious brother" and paid him little attention, Eric was presented to others as the golden child that would bring a name to their otherwise backwoods family. A habitual drunk and notorious gambler, Eric's father did little in the way of motivation, instead opting for brute force methods of guaranteeing success. As a result, Eric was allowed very little social time, few personal hobbies, and very few confidants other than his own brother. Tony remained faithful to Eric, seeing him in need of protection rather than as a sibling of which he was jealous.

Eric graduated high school at 17, planning with Tony (who had graduated at 18 but spent two years searching for a job market that suited his talents) to attend MIT for their respective interests: computer science and engineering. While colleges were barely on the front edge of teaching digital technology, Eric knew his only chance would be at a leading school. With some coaching and aid writing their personal essays, they received mutual acceptance to the prestigious university on full scholarship: Eric due to his academic achievement and Tony due to growing financial need within the family. Although they had received a sizable inheritance from their mother (which was left exclusively for her children and intentionally kept away from her husband), their scholarships guaranteed a route toward a new life and a brighter future.

Unfortunately, their father was angry at his sons' readiness to move away from home and forfeit him the opportunity to leech from their success. This led to heavy drinking the night before and morning of their drive to the university, resulting in a head-on collision with another vehicle on the highway. Eric received injuries far worse than his brother, having been unlucky enough to break his neck in the process of the vehicle rolling over. Their father was killed instantly, being ejected from the vehicle after not wearing a seatbelt, and medical aid came in waves as their attending EMTs, paramedics, and doctors continued to elevate the severity of their near-fatal medical cases. A miracle they had survived at all, Tony continued to fight his injuries enough to remain conscious and lucid, making medical decisions for him and his brother and twice foregoing anesthesia in case a decision about his brother's care needed made while he was in surgery.

Eric was minimally-aware in the best of times, and was entirely paralyzed during brief periods of being awake. His organ functions were declining due to the physical trauma they had endured, and his medical history made an unlikely candidate for a replacement liver, left lung, and trachea. Although he was in a medical come during this time, Tony was visited by Kara herself in the middle of the night, having been referred by Alice and Val after the tragedy had broken as a news story. Appealing to Tony's protective nature, he accepted a mysterious proposal for her aid in remedying both his and his brother's injuries in exchange for relocation and silence. A small price to pay, Tony's only condition was that the solution be implemented immediately. Within 24 hours, Alice had arranged for their medical transport to be "hijacked" by friendly Vampyres en route to another facility and the brothers were brought to Aerael for their lingering recovery. The news coverage further embedded the tragedy as a kidnapping of two critical-care patients and they were presumed dead within the following week.

As Eric recovered, his acceptance of the Vampyre way of life, as well as Aerael's existence, was readily appreciated and acknowledged as a gift and second chance. He listened to his brother's warnings of "deals with the Devil," but was shown enough compassion and care during his first few weeks in the city that he recognized his brother's paranoia as undeserved. Alice's routine testing and care for Eric and Tony led to the first supposition of Vampyre Talents, a more pared-down version of Vampyre Abilities that was dependent on existing knowledge and expertise as their virus enhanced the neurological functions of the brain that specialized in those categories of knowledge. With only Violet having exhibited anything similar to the Williams siblings (in the form of enhanced artistic ability), Alice deduced that Kara's strain of the Vampyre Virus was still capable of making ability-like changes in certain individuals, given that those individuals were already gifted in a specialized realm of study or practice. Although Valterius and Alice themselves were second-generation Vampyres (only subsequent to Schillinger, Kara and Sonya), their conversions of others had never yielded such results, and since Sonya was rarely biologically involved in the conversion of new Vampyres, this discovery was new.

Eric's early days in Aerael were spent in a lust for knowledge, spending days and weeks with Valterius, Sonya, and others to learn the history and storied past of the city and its people. Looking for ways in which he could help improve their infrastructure, he worked with Tony (waiting to release information until his brother was comfortable) improving the city's power distribution, generation, and storage. Eric's magnum opus as a fledgling Vampyre was the creation of a staggered-failsafe nuclear reactor, approved by the Counsel and created alongside Tony in secret so as to prevent the device from being used against them as a weapon in the future. The reactor would go on to generate power far in excess of the city's needs, leading to upgraded computer systems and the creation of a modernized hospital (previous power demands prevented more than one X-ray machine and no capability for more complex imaging devices). Alice and Eric, being compassionate and alike in their sense of goodwill, bonded while Tony attempted to shake his gnawing feeling of obligation to the city and its Counsel while Violet was still seen as a developing child and "little cousin" to Eric and Tony in spite of her age.

With Kara's request, Tony and Eric were invited to sit in on a Counsel meeting with Krystal, Alice, Kara, Sonya, and Valterius, as well as Violet in an informal capacity. While the William's brothers weren't aware, Kara had proposed a test of the siblings, creating a false plan for infiltrating a Taliban village. As she reviewed the plan, she requested feedback, and Eric and Tony each caught a number of errors that may have been fatal should the plan have been followed through. With their contributions, the false battle plans became successful for the imaginary scenario, and the two were informed that they would now be a critical part of enhancing and critiquing the strategy of the war against Kilkovf and Schillinger.

As Tony began to accept the depth and gravity of their roles and responsibilities, Eric followed suit by developing a complex set of systems that would provide the same type of real-time battlefield analysis and correction that existed in Kara's fictional scenario. Although human technology and his ability to access the necessary networks were not yet developed enough to make the plan come to fruition, he managed to implement a functional system for surveillance and generalized computing needs (encryption/decryption, programming, and process handling). Kara and Sonya deeply approved of and appreciated his contributions in the same way Tony's architectural improvements were, and his treatment in the city became no different from the rest of the Counsel.

## Personality & Beliefs

While most of his work revolves around the desk in his apartment, he refuses to meet the "introverted computer nerd" stereotype and revels in the opportunity to join friends on adventures to nightclubs, tech conventions, or random road trips. His personally is diametrically opposed to his brother's, having no reason to distrust or push away as his friendships within the Counsel grew over time.

His only major attitude change came alongside the Outbreak, wherein he left the Counsel due to the traumas and immense pressures placed upon him as someone promised to be far away from the gory details of the war itself. Being recruited by Raven to build Vanaheim during the Outbreak, he spent a great deal of time around those in her circle, picking up and absorbing traces of nihilism, narcissism, and pessimism without succumbing to those traits completely. Kara had described them as a "taint" on his personality, and was only encouraged by the events brought forth by Legacy's crimes against humanity.

## Description

Eric is slightly shorter than his brother at five feet and nine inches tall, and has baby-blue eyes that attract women throughout Aerael. He maintains his own fitness in spite of Val offering to spar or weight-lift with him, and he takes pride in ensuring he remains professional, presentable, and well-built in spite of wearing a hoodie and jeans or lounge pants during most of his off-time. Eric doesn't have any tattoos, and as a mixed-background American (Irish-Italian) from New York, has pale skin like much of the other European-originating Counsel. His hair is a slightly lighter brown than his brother's, although the swooping, medium-length fringe accompanied by shaven sides was shared by the pair.

## Titles

### *Hack*

A codename given to Eric so as to maintain his standing within Kara's Counsel as anonymous to others.

## Relationships

Eric found long-term relationships difficult due to the nature of his work, with much of his duties to the Counsel buried in layers of secrets that even some Counsel members didn't have the privilege to know immediately. With only his hobbies and conversation skills to fuel a romantic partnership, he found himself different from the women he desired in lacking the need for advancement and progress in the same way most did within their careers. Eric was perfectly content knowing the impact he made within Aerael and the Vampyre War, and was accepting of the fact that "more of the same" would propel others forward even if it meant stagnating his own interests. While he found company in a few flings and months-long relationships, there were no partners that Eric found compatible with his way of life.

*Expanded Universe: It is inferred, although not directly stated in the Starlight Epilogues of Depair that Eric had entered into a relationship with the former Archangel dancer, Maria, but he was notoriously tight-lipped about the rumor to most.*