THEMIS DATABASE: JUAN ANTONIO REYES DELA CRUZ

JUAN ANTONIO REYES DELA CRUZ

BIOMETRICS
FULL NAME: Juan Antonio Reyes dela Cruz
KNOWN ALIASES AND TITLES: Anton dela Cruz, the Orphanage of the Searing Wind
DATE OF BIRTH: December 25, 1993
AGE: 69
NATIONALITY: Chinese-Filipino
DISTINGUISHING MARKS: None

HUNTER DOSSIER
CLASS: Rivers Hunter (Favored Enemy: Amrita)
HOME COMPACT/CONSPIRACY: Zangyaku
RANK: Wolfborn, Oni-Tsukai (Ten)/Nami (Ten)
POSITIONS HELD:

• Operative of the Senshi, Kibo and Seigi
  
• Founder of the Strays of Zangyaku
  

AFFILIATED COMPACTS/CONSPIRACIES:

• The Methuselah, pre-2012 (Sixth Circle Hunter, Anino; Blade: “Wolf’s Choice”)
  
• The Methuselah (Erinyes)
  
• The Midnight Riders (Senior Operative [Dullahan], Ranger Division of the Philippines and Japan)
  
• Netsach (Inquisitor, Liyab; Blade: “Wolf’s Choice”)
  

OTHER AFFILIATED GROUPS: None
TACTICAL DESIGNATION: Front Liner, Saboteur, Scout
FAVORED WEAPONS: Bow, Sword
COMBAT ASSESSMENT: Extremely aggressive, stealth-based fighter whose preference for ranged weaponry does not stymy his ability to adapt to any situation. Specializes in outdoor combat.

HISTORY
Anton was delivered in a box to his father’s doorstep in Christmas Eve. He was the result of Dante’s tryst with a mysterious woman that he had met during his expeditions in China. Dante attempted to be a good father to Anton while pursuing his career as a professional survivalist; as such, Anton spent the entirety of his childhood out in the wilds, with no human contact beyond his father. It was a good life, though, all the way until Dante was killed in the jungles of Mindinao by unidentified supernatural beings.

Orphaned, alone and unwilling to approach other humans, Anton wandered through the wilds and skirted civilian centers for the next few years until he made the mistake of attempting to steal Shane Duskrider’s wallet. Shane ended up taking the boy under his wing, and – once Anton turned 19 – took the boy with him to the Philippines. He introduced Anton to Aidan as a potential recruit, and Anton started training as a Hunter immediately. Aidan assigned the boy to Wolf’s Choice, and – after Anton had proven himself in several engagements, and grew close to his blade mates (especially Aria Skye and Deirdra Max, whom he ended up living with under Calintz and Rilea’s care) – allowed Anton to try and find his mother.

Wolf’s Choice accompanied Anton to China, and Alistair Mordechai – a Rivers Hunter – served as their guide. Interestingly enough, Alistair was the one who identified Anton’s mother: Wu Mei, an independent Rivers who specialized in killing amrita. Anton’s excitement over being reunited with Wu Mei was matched only by his apprehension: he was worried that his mother would not want him. Fortunately, he got what he wanted. Wu Mei had been shocked at the news of Dante’s demise, and felt the need to raise Anton and catch up on the nineteen years that the two of them had lost.

Anton applied himself with newfound fervor to his duties as a Keeper of the Vigil. He slowly began to learn how to interact properly with human beings, and also grew interested in honing his skills with conspiracies like Zangyaku (something that put him in contact with Kalika Shinta, the Changing Breed Balam that he would eventually fall in love with). He later followed the rest of his blade into Netsach, and – sometime before Operation Nyx – managed to discover the ones who had been responsible for his father’s death and avenge Dante, thus making peace with his past.

Soon after Operation Nyx, Anton traveled around Asia, honing his skills as a Hunter. This was also when he started an interesting practice: saving orphans and runaways, and focusing all of his efforts into setting them on the right path or giving them homes of their own. Many of his friends (and naturally, his extended family at the Heartnet-Duskrider house) were both amused and exasperated by this move, but none of their surprised: Anton had been an orphan himself in the past, and had only managed to pick his life back up after Shane Duskrider found him wandering around in South America. This would later earn him an interesting moniker: the Orphanage.

On a more personal note, Anton’s travels deepened his relationship with Alistair Mordechai. Both of them had taken to wandering around the world on Vigil business, and were away from home for long stretches of time (Anton by merit of his interests, Alistair by choice). He was, in a fashion, Alistair’s connection to Japan and the Philippines; he watched over the Seer, while Kalika (whom he married in 2019) watched over Hikaru.

By the time the Darkest Vigil occurred, Anton was a triple-licensed hunter between Netsach, Zangyaku, and the Midnight Riders. He focused, in particular, on aiding his old blade mates, and his family members from the Shinta side and the Heartnet-Duskrider side. He also continued to save as many orphans as he could, and made it a point to take them in himself if they really had nowhere else to go.


CURRENT STATUS
After the Armistice at Blaece, Anton participated in the Ceremony of Measuring for the Searing Wind. He ended up facing Wu Mei, his own mother, in combat: both of them were vying for the position of Rivers Hunter, which had previously been filled by Kasumi Aoi. Interestingly enough, even though Wu Mei won, Anton gained the position: his mother wished to spend the rest of her life with Shane Duskrider, and being a part of the Searing Wind was not going to let her do that effectively.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE
Anton’s constant exposure to the unforgiving laws of nature combined with his lack of exposure to human systems and structures have given him an incredibly pragmatic view of the way the world ought to be. He believes in hard work, perseverance, and strength: the strong are the ones who determine the laws that everyone else must follow, and the only way to become strong was through constant practice. Prior to becoming an operative of Netsach, “strength” for Anton was purely physical. His relationship with his mother, his blade mates, Kalika (and, by extension, Hikaru), Alistair, Calintz, Shane and Rilea made this change: strength was determined by what one decided to love, because love was something fragile and constantly in need of protection.

Nevertheless, Anton continues to be a simple man with simple pleasures and an ultimately simplistic view point. One fights when one has to fight, one eats when one has to eat, and one sleeps when one has to sleep. He also measures people carefully before he invests his trust in them, and the biggest thing that he considers is whether they have the genuine desire to protect the people they love the most, even at the cost of their own lives. He also makes sure that he’s fully aware of their weaknesses: he needs to be ready in case he has to take them down.


THREAT LEVEL
COMMENDABLE/NON-FACTOR. Anton’s legacy as a Rivers, particularly as a Rivers Hunter that specializes in destroying or dealing with supernatural beings that not many other individuals are capable of facing, already make him a formidable foe on his own right. One must also consider the fact that he is a high-ranking operative of several powerful conspiracies, and a member of the Searing Wind. Nevertheless, the beliefs that he holds closest to his heart align intimately with Pax Deorum’s. It is difficult to imagine him becoming a renegade in the near future.

ELIAS’ NOTES

• Survey operatives of the Strays. Purpose: personal reference.
  

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THEMIS DATABASE: DEIRDRA MAX-REYES

DEIRDRA MAX-REYES

BIOMETRICS
FULL NAME: Deirdra Max-Reyes
KNOWN ALIASES AND TITLES: Daughter of the Storm, the Cavalry
DATE OF BIRTH: November 13, 1991
AGE: 71
NATIONALITY: Filipino-Spanish
DISTINGUISHING MARKS: None

HUNTER DOSSIER
CLASS: Riskbreaker
HOME COMPACT/CONSPIRACY: Netsach
RANK: Inquisitor
POSITIONS HELD:

• Operative of Behemoth, Liyab (Blade: “Wolf’s Choice”)
  
• Part-time Instructor at Balamb Academy (2012-present)
  

AFFILIATED COMPACTS/CONSPIRACIES:

• The Methuselah, pre-2012 (Sixth Circle Hunter, Anino; Blade: “Wolf’s Choice”)
  
• The Methuselah (Senior Operative, Erinyes)
  
• The Midnight Riders (Senior Operative [Dullahan], Rangers Division of the Philippine Chapter)
  
• Zangyaku (Oni-Tsukai {Ten} of the Senshi, Kibo)
  

OTHER AFFILIATED GROUPS: The Black Bullets (Syndicate, Philippine-based)
TACTICAL DESIGNATION: Front Liner
FAVORED WEAPONS: Knives
COMBAT ASSESSMENT: Extremely aggressive, close-ranged fighter that relies on using her physical capabilities and inherent skill to overpower her opponents.

HISTORY
Members of the Black Bullets found Deirdra in a dumpster when she was about a month old. Eula van Leong, the leader of the gang, decided to allow Rico – the man who had found Deirdra – to raise her. Deirdra then grew up among the Black Bullets, and eventually joined the gang herself. The first twenty-one years of her life were then spent honing her skills, ones that ended up proving close to useless when she came face-to-face with her own encounter with the supernatural.

For all intents and purposes, Deirdra should have been killed by a renegade werewolf that had managed to encroach upon the Black Bullets’ territory. What happened instead was that nearly getting beaten to death induced Deirdra’s awakening as a Riskbreaker. Eula immediately contacted her contacts within Anino, and had Deirdra join the Methuselah as one of its hunters. She was later assigned to Wolf’s Choice, and grew close, in particular, to Anton dela Cruz and Aria Skye. She ended up joining them in Rilea Heartnet’s home.

Deirdra later defected to Netsach with the rest of her blade mates. Her initial time with the conspiracy was spent decoding the mystery of her past, and she learned (with Setsuna Shinta’s assistance) that her biological father had died a long time ago, and her mother was actually the Storm Lady, a Qashmallim. Unfortunately, Deirdra was forced to take her own mother’s life. On another note, a little before Operation Nyx, she realized that she had feelings for Gideon Reyes – a member of the Pack, a blade that Wolf’s Choice had grown rather close to through associating with Gideon – and decided to pursue a romantic relationship with him. Thankfully, both of them survived the fight against Nyx.

While many of her blade mates and old hunting buddies from Netsach had opted to involve themselves with the administrative and public relations sides of the Vigil, Deirdra decided to capitalize on what she had always been good at: black ops, saboteur work, and hunting. When she was not serving as an instructor at Balamb, Deirdra was busy chasing down marks and diffusing Vigil-related hostilities for Nestach, Zangyaku, the Methuselah, and the Midnight Riders. She also played one-woman enforcer and clean-up crew in the dealings that the four conspiracies she was licensed to had with various elements in the underworld. Her marriage to Gideon in 2016 did not exactly slow her down; it only added to the many things she applied her full attentions to on a regular basis.

Deirdra primarily worked as a field operative during the Breaking of the Veil and the First Reforms. She did, on many occasions, single-handedly ensure that the word of the conspiracies she represented was followed, and that any issues that cropped up were resolved as quickly as possible before things could get ugly. It was during this period that she earned the moniker, “the Cavalry”.

From the start of the Darkest Vigil all the way down to the Armistice at Blaece, Deirdra stayed right on the front lines of nearly every battlefield, and participated in nearly all of the major operations that Netsach, the Methuselah, and Zangyaku spearheaded. She used the Midnight Riders as her primary means of traveling around, which allowed her to participate in regular patrols and handle whatever she came across while she was en-route to her destination of choice. The only time she broke her routine was when her family members, blade mates, or old hunting buddies called her in for some backup.


CURRENT STATUS
For about a year after the Armistice at Blaece, Deirdra remained on the field in order to aid the Midnight Riders with relief operations and destroying the remnants of Grendal’s forces. At present, however, she is back in the Philippines, and back to her teaching job at Balamb Academy. She now makes it a point to take assignments that are closer to home and only go long distances if the Methuselah requires her aid, seeing as she only has so much time left with her husband Gideon.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE
Deirdra’s childhood was not normal in any sense, and her early exposure to an organized crime syndicate made her believe that violence was a way of life. This sort of thinking only began to came undone after she became a Keeper of the Vigil, particularly because of the influence of Rilea Heartnet and Calintz Duskrider, and the blade mates that she was closest to. In this sense, she learned how to be “human” through emulating the examples of others.

At present, Deirdra is a driven individual with a strong desire to protect anyone whom she considers to be a part of her family. The Vigil is her release, and her means of staying in shape: it also provides her with precisely the kind of stimulus that she needs as a Riskbreaker. Part of her eagerness to work and learn is grounded upon a very real need to remain in touch with others. Having no limits can easily distance an individual from what truly matters, and Deirdra – having come face-to-face with such a scary reality during 2012 – has no intentions of falling.


THREAT LEVEL
COMMENDABLE/FACTOR (1%). By Riskbreaker standards, Deirdra is “young” and is far from reaching the peak of her potential. While her dedication is unquestionable, there remains the possibility of her nature coming into conflict with who she is. Should this happen, she may become a formidable threat to the stability of the Vigil, especially in light of the knowledge that she now has at her disposal.

ELIAS’ NOTES

• Contact Inquisitor Max-Reyes re: routine overseas engagements. Situations in various countries within the ASEAN require immediate attention. But just one a month should suffice, no matter what she says. She’s got a family, after all.
  

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