Paul Calburn

**Paul Calburn** (b. 1999/2000 - 26 January, 2018) was an American Heretic-born Crossroads Hangman Heretic.

## Biography

### Early Life

When Paul was eight years old, Paul rode a horse and the horse bucked him. Paul was left with a broken arm and a deep-seated fear of horses.

When Paul was nine years old, he played some kind of game when he was supposed to watch his little brother and his little brother drowned. His mother never forgave Paul for it and never looked at him the same way again, even after his parents seperated and he went to live with his father.

On September 2017, Paulwas put on a team with Isaac Acosta, Douglas Frey, Gordon Kuhn , Roxanne Pittman and Jasmine Rhodes  the mentorship of Marina Dupont.

Professor Kararin asked Paul what the Hunter track what Stranger they were about to hunt was and Paul told him they were going to hunt a Jekern. After Professor Katarin told them about what powers a Jekern granted, he put Paul, Roxa and Shiori in one group..

Later, before the Jekern could shoot Shiori, Paul hit in the side with Pain and Panic bfore he rolled backward to avoid its retaliatory tusk-swing. He asked Shiori if she was fine, groaned when Shiori made a tree pun, used a power to split in half when the Jekern charged him, and cut it with Pain and Panic. He fused back together, brought Pain and Panic down on the Jekern when it reared back, and took a knee as his aura flared. He recovered and fought the newest Jekern while Roxa and Shiori recovered and leapt out of way when the Jekern was knocked down. When the last Jekern was killed, Paul and Roxa took turns gulping water from the canteen he brought.

When Professor Benji Carfried told the class that they would be learning a new spell and dumped a bunch of necklaces on his desk, Paul went up to pick up some for his team. He returned to his table and started to hand them out.

When Jazz motioned to Rudolph and that that it was bullshit, Paul told Rudolph that she hadn't meant it like that. when his teammates started to get off-subject, he told them that they hadn't come to talk about Gordon's lack of humor or Jazz's lack of female companionship before he told Isaac that he had heard what he had said but to let it go for now. When Jazz told Rudolph there was nothing wrong with him but that he wasn't Roxa, he told Rudolph that they had come out to talk to him about Roxa. When Rudolph asked them if they thought the teachers were lying to them about what happened to Roxa, Paul said that they thought they were lying to them to protect them or protect Roxa, and that they weren't telling them the whole truth.

When Rudolph asked Paul what Flick Chambers had to do with Roxa, Paul told him that they weren't sure before he asked him if he was tutoring her. When Rudolph asked if Flick and Roxa had ever talked with one another, Paul told him that they weren't sure but that they would find out.

When one of the other students in the Hunter track said that he had heard Hisao  had to leave Eden's Garden because he was too psycho for them, Paul asked him why the headmistress would let him join Crossroads. When Hisao entered the room, he stepped forward and told him that no one had meant anything before Hisao told him that it was fine. When Hisao asked for one of them to tell him what Hunters were supposed to be, he said that Hunters were like the SWAT Team, big guns that were called in to deal with Stranger infestations. When Hisao told those that had been in the track last semester to split up from those that had just joined, Paul moved toward the place Hisao had pointed.

When Hisao told Paul and Erin Redcliffe to fight Flick, Paul said that it didn't seem fair and Hisao told him there wouldn't be room in the arena to maneuver if he added more of them to fight her. When Flick told them she didn't want a boring fight, he promised her that it wouldn't be and offered her good luck.

When the fight began, Paul came at Flick from the front with his hand-axes. When Flick caught one of his axes with her staff, she took a knee to avoid his other axe, snapped her staff her staff around and triggered the kinetic energy to bounce the staff of his head. When he attempted to hit her with his axes, Flick pivoted to the right and drove an elbow into his face. When he recovered, he went at Flick and swung his axes at her shoulders before Flick caught them on her staff and knocked them off-course and summoned sand into his face. He used his power to split in two to deal with the sand and came at flick from the right and left only for her to trigger a blast to send herself into the air. When the explosion of the energy-arrow sent his sleves backwards, Flick caught his fire self in the shoulder, shoved herself up to hit Erin in the chest, and triggered the kinetic energy in her staff to hit his water self in the face. When Flick avoided his fire self's axe, he fused back together only for flick to plant her foot against his lower back, kick off his shoulder, smack him in the face with her staff and send another cloud of sand into his face. When the sand had gotten bad enough, Paul motioned for surrender.

Hisao ended the match and moved to check on Paul to make sure that his breathing was alright. When Flick asked him if he was alright, he told her that he was fine. When Flick extended a hand to Paul, he took it before he told her that they would get her next time.

On January 24th, 2018, Paul met with his team on the roof of the boy's dormitory. He interupted an arguement between Isaac and Gordon, told them that they should get busy and asked if Rudolph had seen where Flick and Avalon had went. After Isaac teleported Jazz to the roof of the girl's dormitory, he told Douglas that it was his turn and to keep his head down to avoid people seeing him. When Isaac asked him if it was okay if things went south later, he told him that it was fine if Isaac was the one who got screwed. When all of them had been teleported onto the roof of the girl's dormitory, he told Gordon to do his thing, waited until Gordon gave the all clear, and had Jazz turn the roof intangible before he dropped down into the apartment beneath them.

After his team had navigated down to and entered flick's dorm room, Paul told them to get busy and told Gordon to keep a lookout. When Jazz showed them a bag of enchanted coins that she had found, he told her to take one of the coins so that they could try to find a counter spell that would allow them to hear what Flick was talking about when she used them. When he asked Douglas if he had gotten into Flick's labtop, Douglas told him that he had, but that the emails he found were boring. When Gordon told them that Flick was coming back, he told them to put everything back and to move to Flick's side of the room. When Jazz told them to touch her, he grabbed onto her before she used her power to turn them all invisible. He listened in on Flick's conversation and, after Flick left and Isaac mentioned the name Asenath, asked Isaac if he had heard the name before. Isaac told him that he had seen a vampire named Asenath ambush and murder one of his ancestors in his Edge vision. He said that the name Asenath wasn't proof of, but that it was a rare name.

After he asked his team if they had an address and Isaac told them that they had one, he told them that they would need to go down there, check to see if Asenath was a vampire, and use it as proof that Flick was working with Eden's Garden. When Jazz asked him how they were going to get to Wyoming, he told her to leave it to him, that it might take a couple of days and that they should get out of there.

On January 26th, 2018, when Isaac told Paul that he thought his plan involved teleportation, Paul told him that they had teleported from Crossroads to his parent's place in Montana. When Rudolph mentioned that it was lucky that Paul's dad didn't mind him going on a roadtrip when he was supposed to be visiting, Paul told him that his dad let him do what he want as long as he didn't cause trouble before he asked if everyone was all right. After they told him that they were, and after they reached Laramie Falls, Douglas asked his power how to get to Flick's home and directed Paul there. Paul pulled into a corner gas station near Flick's street, stepped out to stretch his legs, and headed out on foot to look for anything out of the ordinary. Before Paul stepepd onto Flick's street, he made everyone stop, cluster around Jazz and let her summon her invisibility power around them, and then headed toward Flick's house. When Rudolph mentioned that it looked normal, he said that it didn't mean anything, told them he would check them into the motel they had found online, and that they would watch the house in pairs until something happened.

An hour later, Paul woke up abruptly in the van and apologized for dozing off before he asked Isaac if everything was still quiet. When someone repeated his question, he jerked around to find someone that looked like him in the backseat before Isaac injected a syringe into his neck. Isaac told him that the person in the backseat was a doppleganger, Fetch, that his benefactors had sent in because they thought they needed help and that fetch would take over him. Isaac told him that it had been a pain to keep their team focused, told him that he had erased their memories of deciding to talk to Flick, and that maybe with the doppleganger they could gather the evidence they needed to take down Flick and potentially even Headmistress Sinclaire.W hen he asked if Flick wasn't bad, Isaac asked him if he meant the real one or the one that they had overheard. When Isaac wondered if they would let him keep Flick when it was over, Paul called him a piece of shit before Isaac told him that it had been a long time since had been able to be himself.

When Isaac told Paul that the look on his face was like the look on Professor Pericles' face, Paul asked him if he had killed Professor Pericles. Isaac told him that would have been cool, but that they wouldn't let him do it and that he was just the distraction. Paul asked Isaac why he was doing this and Isaac told him that he did it because it was fun. When Fetch said that he was done, Isaac told Paul that Fetch could lock onto the spirit of whoever he spent a few minutes with and copy all of their memories, skills and powers. Isaac told paul that fetch would only be able to copy him for a few months, but that it would be long enough. Paul jerked forward in his seat only to receive a knife in the chest before Isaac told him that he had no idea how long he wanted to do that. The last thing that Paul heard was Isaac telling him to die already because he wanted to see how many powers he would get.

## Physical appearance

Paul is described as a six foot even boy with sandy blonde hair and an average, unremarkable face. His uniform is lined with the green trim of the Hunter track.

## Abilities and skills

As a Crossroads Hangman Heretic, Paul was immune to the Bystander Effect, capable of utilizing magic and absorbing the powers from the Strangers or Heretics that he killed.

* **Elemental Division**: Paul had the power to divide himself into two halves. Each division had half of his body, with the other half of their body being fire or water.

* **Enhanced Strength**: Paul had enhanced strength.
* **Regeneration**: Paul had the power to heal from physical injury.

## Possessions

* **Heretical Weapon**: Paul's Heretic Weapon was a pair of hand-axes that he named **Pain** and **Panic**. Each target struck by the weapons received the physical damage dealt to every subsequent target struck by the weapons within the ten minutes following when they were first struck.

## Notes and references

1. ↑ Word of God - Paul has to be born by the end of October 1999 in order to attend Crossroads Academy at the age of 17 on 3 September 2017. Had he been born in November 1999, he would only be 16 on 3 September 2017.
2. ↑ Word of God - Paul was born in Tennessee.