Justicars: For Great Justice!/Nexus

Jerome Jay - Nexus

Jerome is a soft-spoken, 27-year old African-American video game animator who lived an entirely unremarkable life until the day he came home to find himself already there, white-haired, wrinkled, and smiling at some private joke. On that day, Jerome quit his job, left his home, and embarked on a decidedly extraordinary life. Under the name Nexus, he wields the amazing power of the Paradox; a hero to many, a danger to time itself to a select few.

The Paradox:

The source of Nexus's powers, Jerome gave this mysterious object to his past self when he retired from superheroics. Said to be an artifact forged by the shadowy denizens Paradox Realm, it appears in our world as a softball-sized sphere through which an observer can see some other place made of swirling energy and stars. It follows it's owner and generally ignores the laws of physics.

The power of the Paradox allows Nexus to summon living beings from the past and inanimate objects from the future. The more distant the time of origin, the easier an object is to summon. So, while dinosaurs are easy enough to pull into the modern world, a conversation with Abraham Lincoln might require a week or more of intense concentration. At the end of his career, Jerome will somehow send himself backwards through time to meet his earlier self, though whether that will be possible through a better understanding of the Paradox or some other method is unclear.

When summoning dinosaurs or other animals, the power finds the individuals who, out of the trillions throughout time, are most predisposed to doing whatever Nexus needs them to do. This, along with the Paradox's uncanny ability to predict what it's owner will need in the near future, can make it seem as though Nexus has direct control of the creatures he summons. In fact, he has no such control, which has led to a few near disasters. Luckily for citizens not disposed to being eaten by spinosaurs, sending creatures and objects back to their time of origin is much faster and easier than summoning them originally.

Summoning artifacts from the future is an even less predictable use of the power, in part because Nexus has no way of knowing what artifacts are actually possible. Additionally, artifacts from beyond a millennia or so in the future seem to almost always be constructed from a seemingly nano-technological material that turns into radioactive ash seconds after appearing in our time.

Some notable things Nexus has summoned over the past few years include a small spacecraft (that he gave to NASA for study), Jesus (who stopped answering questions after witnessing a crowd of protesters erupt into a riot at his appearance- a fiasco that cost Nexus a lot of public support), an unidentified self-replicating device (the duplicates of which are currently building something on the moon, even after Nexus dismissed the original), and Abraham Lincoln (who was really very pleasant).

Also:

Ancient Beings:

• Jaguar: Jerome's tame utahraptor, a large feathered blue and green dinosaur with distinctive black spots, who consents to let Jerome to ride her. Highly intelligent and generally loyal, Jaguar makes a suburb sidekick.
• Roc: A member of a previously unknown extinct species of eagle, Roc is larger even than Haast's eagle. With a wingspan of over four meters, Roc can carry a full-grown person into the air, either on her back or in her talons.
• River Messenger: Possibly the greatest martial artist ever produced by humanity, Messenger lived six thousand years ago in what is now Turkey. A very short, dark skinned, clean-shaven man with distinctive tattoos, Messenger was a priest of an animistic religion that treated hand-to-hand combat as a natural sacrament. The legend of Messenger's martial prowess persisted in the Fertile Crescent in several forms for millennia after his death, before finally being lost to time. Now, he agrees to let Nexus summon him on occasion, to provide training in exchange for being able to experience the wonders of the modern age.

Artifacts of the Future:

• Reflector: This twisted, burned chunk of metal appears to be a piece broken off of a much larger machine. Several inches in diameter, an American flag with a white skull wearing the crown of the Statue of Liberty instead of the familiar field of stars can just be made out under the burn marks. When activated by sending a current through one of the exposed wires hanging from it's casing, the device somehow redirects the force of attacks aimed near it, sending projectiles and energy blasts back at their point of origin. Nexus wears it on a chain around his neck when danger threatens.
• Laser Pistol: An elaborately decorated energy sidearm made of some unknown black polymer with gold trim. One one side, the words "The First of The Risen City" are written in Swahili, surrounded by pictures of what might be spacecraft.
• Exo-Thread: One of the few artifacts from the truly distant future that doesn't collapse into ash in our time, the Exo-Thread is a long golden string that, when touched to a person's skin, wraps itself around all of their limbs in a complicated pattern of knots and loops. When active, it acts like an exo-skeleton, providing the user with enhanced strength and speed. Sometimes, it sends telepathic messages to Jerome or others, though the meanings of messages have so far been indecipherable. Occasionally, when things are very still and quiet, it sings.

Origin:

Gimmick ( +2 Awareness )

Abilities:

• Prowess: 5
• Coordination: 6
• Strength: 6
• Intellect: 4
• Awareness: 5
• Willpower: 3

• Stamina: 6
• Determination: 1

Powers:

• Wizardry (The Paradox)
  • Animal Control (Summoned Creatures) 4
  • Postcognition 2
  • Precognition 2
• Blast (Laser) 4
• Reflection 5
• Super Speed (Jaguar) 2
• Flight (Roc) 2

Aspects:

Qualities:

• Impulsive: When something seems fun or interesting, Jerome has a tendency to act without considering the consequences.
• The Untapped Power of The Paradox: Nexus will never truly understand The Paradox, and the powers he gains from it probably only scratch the surface of it's true potential.
• River Messenger: This martial arts master from an age of legend is Jerome's friend and trainer. (Connection)
• The Paradox Realm: The mysterious denizens of a place that lies outside of causality itself who somehow created the Paradox and chose Jerome as it's wielder. Their motivations are unknown. (Connection)

Challenges:

• Temporal Vigilantes: Though treaties between the temporal authorities of our reality and the denizens of the Paradox Realm provide Nexus with a sort of diplomatic immunity, his reckless twisting of the timeline would normally mark him as a temporal outlaw. Those who see the Paradox Realm as a hidden enemy to our reality may opt to ignore the ancient treaties and attempt to take Nexus out of the picture. (Enemy)
• Bad PR: Summoning Jesus, letting strange robots gain a foothold on the moon, the occasional giant dinosaur-related mass panic.. Nexus has made a few very public blunders. (Social)