Difference between revisions of "Scarlet Mirage"

Alexandrine Deruisseau, who was to become known as the occult villain ‘Mystère’ later in her life, was born in 1990 as the sole daughter of Celestine Deruisseau, a woman of Creole descent from Harfleur, a suburb of Le Havre in France. Her father was a member of the House of Lords of the British Parliament, who strives to keep his short-lived, extramarital affair with Celestine a secret to this very day.

Growing up in the small town Harfleur, the silver-haired and purple-eyed Alexandrine was but a pariah to her peers.
Over the years, she developed a disdain for the people around her and the disregard of her father towards her mother and herself played no small part in this. It was only to due the kind and gracious Celestine, that Alexandrine didn’t utilize her formidable innate talents for the arcane arts in acts of vengeance, against those who wronged her and her mother.

Alexandrine’s talents manifested early on during her childhood, what contributed to the eerie aura that surrounded her. She could see, hear and feel the flow of magical energies in the world around her and it took her little effort to manipulate, bind and shape these forces for effects of her design. With practice, she was able to use complex arcane geometry to command terrifying power of increasing potency.

However, Celestine Deruisseau was terminally ill and when she eventually succumbed to her deteriorating health, there was nothing left that could hold Alexandrine back anymore. It was in 2007, when she adopted the name Mystère and began her short-lived but callous reign of terror across Europe, which was not to end until October 2009.

Apart from taking what she wanted with absolute disregard to anyone in her way, she sought repeatedly to exert revenge on her father, which ultimately culminated in the ritual that she attempted on Samhain in 2009, inside the Clock Tower of Westminster Palace.

Joanna Sinclair was born on the 31st of July 1980; her parents were Catherine Sinclair, a nurse at the Conquest Hospital in St. Leonards-on-Sea, and John Sinclair, a police officer in Hastings, which was also the hometown of the Sinclair family.

The tall, auburn-haired Joanna grew up to be a gentle and kind person, who always strived to improve the lives of the people around her. It was not much of a surprise that she decided to begin training as a paramedic after finishing school. A move her parents were less approving of, however, was her decision to join the Royal Army Medical Corps.

After her military training to become a CMT, now Lance Corporal Sinclair served her first tour of duty in post-war Kosovo. It was here at a field hospital, where she was given her nickname ‘Red Florence’, after tending exemplarily for the wounded there, both soldiers and civilians. Another activity she picked up during that time from another soldier was photography and several of her photos were published in a magazine of the British Army.

It was during her second tour of duty in late 2005 in Afghanistan, when she met Captain Zachary Wolfe for the first time. Wolfe was in charge of a patrol in the Helmand Province, which was supposed to be uneventful, but in the end only narrowly escaped disaster. Even today, Zachary Wolfe, who was severely wounded in an ambush, doesn’t tire to emphasise that if it weren’t for the actions of Lance Corporal Sinclair, he had not survived that day.<p/>

Other members were Markus Kirsch, a German inventor and builder of the team’s equipment; Sean McNeal, a mutant with considerable strength from Scotland and Nerea Viteri, a Basque mystic and the team’s expert on matters supernatural.

The headquarters of the team was situated in Bexley, a borough of London, within a mansion that Wolfe inherited.
It was in 2008 and throughout the following year, that the team repeatedly encountered the Mystère and stood up against her schemes, with varying degrees of success. This enmity came to its apex on the 31st of October 2009, the night of Samhain.

Repeatedly, Alexandrine’s father had evaded her brand of justice being done to him. In October 2009, however, she was not going to let him get away again. Willing to work malice on the whole city of London in order to get him, she prepared a ritual of terrifying power inside the Clock Tower of Westminster Palace. The arcane geometry she was utilizing was drawing power from Ley lines from all over Britain and was aimed at opening a portal to the Netherworld and teleporting the entire city there and Alexandrine’s father with it.
Moments before the ritual was to be completed, the Mystère was tracked down by the Wolfe’s team. After an intense battle against the silver-haired sorceress and her summoned, demonic minions, Alexandrine Deruisseau was accidently fatally injured. In a bid to escape death, she used the accumulated energies from her occult array to transmute the last person who came into contact with her into a copy of herself, in both body and mind. This person was Joanna Sinclair, the team’s medic who attempted to save the sorceress’ life. The Mystère’s body was disintegrated in the process, leaving nothing to be found by the police afterwards and the ‘new’ Mystère quickly made her escape.

A few days later, the new Mystère attempted the ritual again, this time at Hyde Park, setting up an arcane array west of the Serpentine, the dividing lake in the park. The remainder of the team engaged her again here. However, the sorceress and her minions quickly managed to incapacitate both Wolfe and McNeal. It was only due to the intervention of Nere Viteri that the ritual failed.
The Basque mystic had realized what the Mystère had done and after a protracted battle, she was able to subdue her opponent and neutralize the evil witch’s influence on Joanna’s mind. This came at a price, however. Viteri was gravely injured in the fight and did not see the end of the day.

With the help of Markus Kirsch, Joanna retreated to the team’s headquarters, seeking to hide away from the rest of her team and the authorities. Without any evidence, she was unable to prove that she was indeed herself and not the Mystère.

In the aftermath of the incident in Hyde Park, Zachary Wolfe was hospitalized and had to undergo a replacement of many of his cybernetic implants, followed by rehabilitation; Sean McNeal disappeared and some have suggested, that he might have gone back into one of the dark holes of the underworld of Glasgow where he had originally come from. With the help of Markus Kirsch, Joanna Sinclair spent most of the next two years in hiding from the authorities, who were still after the Mystère.

With the help of a mystic from the dark, occult underbelly of London, Joanna was eventually able to master her new talents to a degree and eventually, through the use of simple enchantments, she was able to temporarily change her appearance enough to allow her some freedom of movement. Seeking out other arcanists within and without London’s boundaries, she was gradually able to gain more control over Alexandrine Deruisseau’s abilities, however, without reaching her level of skill, for which the Mystère had many years to master.

In early 2012, Joanna decided that it was time to move on. Again enlisting the help of Markus Kirsch, his technical aptitude and contacts within the British authorities, they created the identity of Elizabeth Kensington. Having assumed this new identity, she enrolled at the CUL and began taking courses in journalism.

Two years later, after progressively improving her occult skills and maintaining her identity as a journalism student, she seized the opportunity of furthering her journalism studies at the MCU. The reason for this however, was not merely an academic interest. Rather it was for the opportunities Millennium City had to offer in regards of improving her skills further, as well as utilising them for a good purpose. For all the harm this magic had done, she intended not to have Nerea Viteri’s sacrifice been in vain.

Shortly after, a new student from overseas took up courses at the MCU and the Red Mirage appeared for the first time in West Side, Millennium City.

Amidst a howling wind, voices can be heard.
What the voices say is unintelligible, however, one of them sounds furious and raging; another one is demanding, commanding even; a third voice is crying and lamenting an unknown fate.
Far away, in the middle of the desolate plain, there seems to be an area of calm, where the wind and the voices don't reach.