Mathias McGrath was born to a mundane family in the middle of fucking nowhere Montana. His family were not of some great social standing; his father worked as a grifting mechanic and his mother was a waitress at the local diner who was rumored to be the town bicycle. It was just as likely for Mathias' father to be his biological father as it was for any other man in town or passing by. That was probably one of the reasons why his parents fought so often.
He was a quiet, reserved child, but one with a kind heart brimming with curiosity and a sense of duty towards those around him. If he saw any injustice, be it a playground bully or the like he was the one who would step in because he was always the bigger, stronger kid. One would imagine that he was a bullheaded though he also had quite a head on his shoulders. Mathias enjoyed tinkering around with tools and was always curious with how things worked, like the cars his dad worked on. Every now again Mathias was even allowed to help his old man repair some cars in the shop.
But that was when he would see things. Things that no one else could see. The internal structure, the weakest and strongest impact points of the car, his father's shoddy work. While he couldn't understand what it was he could see and what information he was absorbing, he understood that only he could.
And in his dreams, he dreamt of a labyrinth and what sights he would see. Wonderous, yet confusing and unnerving, but with each visit there was something else to see, something else to learn. Awakening from each dream, his gifts would expand and evolve albeit rough and unrefined like coal as it would be without proper guidance. However, with each dream there was always a constant: a voice. It was drowned out, murky to the ears, but there was definitely a voice. As he got older, he found he no longer even needed to even sleep, but meditate to enter the labyrinth, but even then, he would still hear the voice.
Having powers was something that he understood was to be kept a secret. He read plenty of comic books and seen enough cartoons to know that, but they also had confidants, people who they could rely on and talk and like any foolish boy he told his best friend Maverick. He showed him all of his gifts, told him of the labyrinth and like any kid that wanted superpowers, Maverick asked Mathias if he could show him how to enter the labyrinth. Making no promises, Mathias tried, and did do something because Maverick found himself in that twisted world.
At first, things were fine. Maverick was progressing steadily with developing his powers and they even exchanged ideas and different paths of the labyrinth, but overtime something seemed off with him. He looked more haggard, more exhausted as the days turned into weeks into months. He became secretive, unwilling to divulge what he was doing. At the same time, there were strange reports of people's pets going missing. Concerned for his friend, Mathias confronted Maverick, but Maverick flew into a rage screaming that Mathias 'did this to him.' In his dreams, in his waking thoughts, in the corners of his mind all Maverick could see was the labyrinth. He wanted, no, he needed to know what was at the end of it all. Maverick told him that he had something to show him.
Maverick led Mathias to the abandoned refinery plant on the outskirts of town. Mathias smelled it before he saw it: rotting, broken carcasses of animals were strewn about the plants' floor. In his horror, Mathias asked Maverick what this was. It was his lab. For months, Maverick had been experimenting his abilities on living things when he realized that he hit a wall with his development all the while Mathias growth kept improving. It was unfair, infuriating that Mathias could delve deeper and deeper while he couldn't.
Mathias pleaded, begged with his friend to come to his senses when he saw something very much alive wriggling around with tears in its eyes; a little girl tied to a pole with her mouth gagged. With a churned stomach, Mathias asked his best friend what he had done. Maverick said that it was time to move onto human experimentation so they could be both exploring the labyrinth together.
Mathias looked at the monster he had inadvertently created and came to the only conclusion that he could: he had to stop him by any means necessary. The two green horn mages fought, and, in the end, Mathias landed the finishing blow though it was not enough to kill him. However, their battle had caused a flame to erupt due to igniting leftover barrels of crude oil and Mathias was left only enough time to save on person, the little girl or Maverick. Needless to say, Mathias left his best friend to burn alive in the factory.
The factory burned down and apparently whatever remains that were in there were too charred to even be recognized as animal or human. It never got out that Mathias was ever there. He made the little girl swear to secrecy of what she had seen.
Life went on, except Mathias could never forget what he had seen. Never again would he let anyone be a part of that world of his ever again. That voice wouldn't leave him alone, however. No matter how much time passed, he could still hear that murky voice almost taunting him for what he did.
Time passed on and when Mathias was eighteen years old, he joined the United States army as a combat engineer and in four years joined the Special Forces as an engineer sergeant serving in the 5th Special Forces Group. Over the years he had been deployed on several missions though he has no clearance to talk about them. However, there was one mission when he was deployed with a unit to Afghanistan to raid a compound of some terrorist cell leader. When they got there, however, it looked the inside of a meat grinder. Not a single soul was left alive or in one piece, except for one man.
There was a man that stood in the middle of the viscera, a man that looked so eerily like Mathias. At first. that appeared disinterested until he saw Mathias.
"How interesting."
It was the voice. It was the same voice he had been hearing for years.
Before he could question the man, all hell broke loose. Bloody mist sprayed the air like the juice of watermelon smashed by a hammer. His entire unit in an instant was turned into fleshy pulp. Mathias fought for his life, but nothing he did worked. Every shot, every bomb, every spell failed to leave any mark. By all rights, he should've died right then and there, but the man just let him live with a knowing grin.
Never before had Mathias felt so powerless, so angry. His comrades died in the blink of an eye except for him for some inexplicable reason, but he also left to report this disaster. Now how in the hell does anyone report that not only the entire compound was butchered, but so were the troops? Well, as it turned out it happens way more frequently than one would think.
Originally, his superiors were just going to wipe his memory clean with magic, but before they could do Mathias admitted that he had powers and demanded what was going on. His superiors quickly caught on to the fact that Mathias had no idea who he was or even the greater scope of the Dark Sphere, so they told him everything. The labyrinths, the Dark City, the houses, everything, including the man who slaughtered his entire team.
The man that attacked them was only known to them as simply The Mist due to how illusive he was and how he leaves his victims. They could never track him down no matter how what they did. He was too good at covering his tracks and the few times that they did find him, a platoon would be killed instantly. Except this time, he left Mathias alive. There was a connection between them, a lead that they could go off on.
They offered Mathias to join a special taskforce, the 0th Special Forces Group tasked by the Dark Sphere Command (DSC), to defend their nation from rogue mages and mages from other countries, friendly or otherwise. Typically, they worked with the Houses although those shaky relationships at best. When asked if he would be able to find The Mist, they said that there was a chance, but that as enough for Mathias. He needed answers and he needed that man's head on a pike.
Mathias, eager to get to work, needed training. He received proper training and guidance by mages within the Special Forces Group. It was truly the first time that he had really explored that side of his world again with another, not since Maverick, but he learned quickly that this was not the norm. Anything that went beyond what was standard knowledge was met with cold gazes of people protective of their spell craft. Still, he eventually found himself a role in this supernatural squadron and with each mission he understood the dark reality that he stepped into. Still, it was worth it. He needed answers and he'll keep delving in deeper into that darkness for it though lurking in it is someone that should have stayed dead.
To understand the complexities of the world, one must have eyes unclouded to bend it to your will. That is one way to explain his craft. He absorbs, analyzes, and breaks down highly detailed information at a rate that no other human could process. To go back to the car example when he was a child, he could look at it and breakdown everything about it. The internal structure, the car's physical weak points, the strength of the metal, the tensile strength, the heat it could with stand, how it runs, and so on. However, it is also possible to overload him with information if one were to try hard enough and prolonged use is exhausting on the brain and the eyes.
However, that is only one part of the craft. Once analyzed, he can create, manipulate, and dismantle. For example, he could create concrete, manipulate existing concrete, or dismantle concrete to its components. This can be applied to more complex objects such as guns or to things such as fire or water. There are some caveats to this. All three of these abilities are subject to the relation of size and power. The bigger something is, the more magic it is going to need to do it and may suffer from effects such as slower creation speed. He cannot just spawn a tank or a pile of TNT with a snap of his fingers.
Along with his main craft he picked up several different crafts from his time with Maverick and from when he trained with the 0th Special Forces Group.
From his time with Maverick, he learned a basic level of electromagnetism. From the Special Forces group, he picked up an array of crafts. Reinforcement, detection, presence suppression, strength and speed augmentation, telepathy, light generation, body temperature
Mann, this is the coolest thing since sliced bread, but when declaring interest initially, I didn’t realise how bad the timing was, haha. I’ll still be travelling until the end of the week, so I don’t think I can really sit down and finish a character in time.
Maybe if there’s more slots later on or if someone drops, I can try again though? Would love to be part of this eventually.
In the same boat as Vertigo - I've been too busy with work to get very far into my CS, and am working through Wednesday. I have a few days off after that; would also be down to change up my character to make her of the Dynamicism Crest so we have all the crests represented, though again, I wouldn't be able to get it done by Wednesday.
