Leohart Invictus

Leohart Vashtorn Invictus of the Invictus Family is a Junior Legionnaire with the rank of Brigadier General. He is also the Celestial Dawn Caste of the Invictus Family, an authority second only to the Unconquered Sun in regards to any and all military matters the Invictus Family is involved with.

Personality
Leohart is a hero through and through. Leohart embodies the ideals of the Invictus to a greater degree than most, and as such is loved by his peers and the people of the Valiant Sphere alike. Leohart will throw himself into danger to fly to the defense of others without a moment's hesitation, but will not make any decision that would endangers the lives of his allies without first consulting them. Leohart is an inherently positive person, always trying to look forward and avoid dwelling on the negative. Leohart is a natural born leader, and his charisma and talent coupled with his strength have led to his high status in the Legion despite his young age. Leohart always tries to smile no matter how bad the situation. He does this for many reasons. He wants the public to see him as calm and in control, and wants his friends to trust he can handle the stress of his position. Mostly, he does it as he considers it a battle that doesn't take much effort to fight.

Backstory
Leohart is man with a past both simple and complicated, born to a simple family of farmers but believed from a young age to be destined for great things. Leohart was born with a limp right arm. His disability while unfortunate would have been otherwise unremarkable in any other situation. Leohart however was a very uncommon child. He had extremely vivid dreams and as he grew older he became increasingly convinced he was seeing visions of the past.

Almost as soon as Leohart could speak he began describing his own dreams to his father. The dreams were easier to remember than dreams ought to be, always had a similar theme. Leohart had dreams where he saw, and occasionally lived the lives of ancient heroes. While Leohart remembered the dreams with crystal clarity, there were still many details of his visions shrouded in mystery. Voices and faces were never quite clear, and words could rarely be distinguished. The settings of the dreams as well as the people involved changed regularly, but there were a few common threads that connected them. Each dream had a single person as the focus, an individual that was more distinct than any that surrounded them. As far as Leohart could ever discern, the focus of his visions were always great heroes.

One other common thread was one that felt particularly prophetic. When he was around seven years old, Leohart had a rapid string of visions in succession. Each one was focused on a different hero with a similar ending. During vague conflicts Leohart could never quite make out, these heroes always sacrificed something to overcome their foe to protect their people. Oddly, the thing they sacrificed always seemed to be their right arm. Whether gnawed off in the barely distinct jaws of a massive beast, or severed themselves for reasons that there never quite clear, the end result was the same. The vision would slowly fade until it was indistinct, but that severed arm would remain. It would be more clear than anything else in his visions and would linger long after the rest of the vision had ended. Each time Leohart saw one of these particular visions, he would gain a bit of feeling in his right arm which would fade over time.

By the time Leohart was ten he had become very active in dueling tournaments in the closest city to his family's farm which was famed for it's strong focus on martial arts. For a child his age Leohart was good. Much too good. Leohart went on to be undefeated for several years. He accomplished this feat despite his age, lack of any formal training, and most significantly the use of only one arm. Leohart's first loss would come when he was around thirteen years old. During this time he'd noticed a particular man always sitting in the same spot during all of his matches. This man would turn out to be Hume Invictus, who had actively been seeking out recruits both for the Legion Association and the Invictus Family.

At this time, Leohart had considered leaving to become a Legionnaire but had always considered staying near his family more important. Hume had made convincing arguments about how Leohart's strength could save many more lives out in the field than he would solving petty crimes near his home. Leo knew that this might be the best way to get closer to emulating the figures from his visions, but he was never certain until he met him. Hume had felt his own methods of persuasion would be insufficient and brought in a colleague to try to convince Leohart instead. The man he sent was a tall four armed man in golden armor. Before even introducing himself he challenged Leohart to a duel, believing it would help the two to understand each other. Leohart would only make a single strike, and would surrender before his opponent had even begun a counter attack.

In that brief moment, Leohart was shocked to fight that he knew exactly what kind of man stood before him. A figure just like those in his visions alive in the modern day. After introducing himself as Daylen Invictus, the then #1 ranked Legionnaire, he asked Leohart to consider joining up with Legion. By then Leohart was certain that following this man was the only way he could live up to the ideal he'd hoped to reach.

Leohart's time training to be a Legionnaire led to several significant developments in his life. The first was having the resources to properly research the subjects of his dreams. Names had always been inaudible but he did occasionally hear their titles. All attempts to find more information about these individuals using their titles or their actions he had seen proves near useless. While he would occasionally find a reference that matched some small details from his memory, they would always be equally or more vague than his dreams themselves had been. Leohart eventually wrote off his dreams as perhaps having come from his parents reading stories similar to these to him when he was young, and his imagination expanding on them.

As a student Legionnaire, Leohart was good though not exceptional. He was strong, and had skill in armed and unarmed combat far beyond his years, somehow learned through his dreams. He was largely held back by his own strength. Soulblaze was so powerful that he had difficulty using it near allies or without destroying his surroundings. During his early months in training, Leohart was constantly overshadowed by his classmate Garret. Garret was just as devoted to training with a sense of justice that rivalled Leohart's own. She also had far greater control of her abilities than Leohart did. In rating games, Garret would often be the lynchpin in their classes' victories, with Leohart unable to adapt due to the narrow scope of his capabilities.

An expedition that nearly ended in disaster would forever change Leohart's life. What should have been a simple expedition with nothing more than a bit of guard duty fell apart when the class was attacked by a group of assassins led by an old rival of Hume Invictus, their teacher. Despite the ambush they held up well, but Garret had been overwhelmed in the initial attack. Feeling powerless, seeing someone who had quickly become one of his closest friends about to die in a battle that had nothing to do with them, awakened something within him. His right arm, always limp and useless suddenly flared with life and power. What he saw when the fighting was over surprised even him, as he was holding a sword that matched one he'd seen in one of his visions down to even the smallest detail.

Leohart's arm returned to be useless shortly afterward. After many attempts with few successes to recreate the phenomenon, Leohart was eventually subject to extensive training under the tutelage of Sierra Rojas to gain control over this power of his, as well as to better contain Soulblaze. While his power seemed to activate reflexively when defending others, he eventually became able to activate it at will by recalling the stories they were used in to himself. Leohart spent the tail end of his first year in the academy rapidly transitioning from acceptable to exceptional.

Leohart and Garret both made the choice to join the Invictus before they had graduated, and spent their second year in training constantly competing with each other. Leohart would eventually gain the edge and keep it for quite some time until their graduation. Almost immediately after graduation, both were given their Caste Marks and recruited into the Sunraisers. Their own desire to join had been met with approval by Daylen Invictus himself. Their time with the Sunraisers was all they could have hoped for. They did good work under a man they trusted with their lives. All was going so well until Tristain's betrayal. Tristain seeming to go mad and snapping at Daylen, attacking him before fleeing seemed to be an omen for the Sunraiser's future. A dark omen indeed.

Leohart was not hit as hard by Daylen's death as many might have assumed he would be. Daylen had prepared him for the moment well. Though many thought otherwise Daylen always felt it important to stress to those who relied on him that he was not invincible. The more capable they thought him, the more of a shock his death would be. If his death caused a panic then more might die that could have been saved because of his passing. Though Daylen had died at a time and in a place no one would have anticipated, Leohart was ready for it, as Daylen had commanded him to be. Though he doesn't like to think of it that way, many attribute the stabilization of the Invictus following Daylen's death to Leohart's sole efforts in stepping into the man's role. Leohart's power had long been under his full control, but it seemed to burn with exponentially greater strength when he imagined Daylen among the heroes who had inspired his powers.

Daylen had stood as a beacon for everything the Invictus idealized. Leohart had sworn to do the same. His strength of character and his natural ability to lead likely stopped dozens of Invictus from defecting in the days after Daylen's passing. While some left, most of those had been tempted away by Tristain's propaganda, any who had worked personally with Leo and the other Sunraisers knew Tristain's lies for what they were. Leohart has taken on a great deal of responsibility in his young adulthood. With Solaris so young and full of doubts, Leohart has become the de-facto leader of the Invictus. He also considers Tristain's continued machinations and Daylen's death to be personal failings of his that he must correct. He was away when Tristain snapped, and had retreated when Daylen died. Leohart has imposed much upon himself, and has had more forced upon him by circumstance, but with his friends at his side, he greets it all with a smile.

Shaman
While he is the Celestial Dawn Caste, Leohart possesses several abilities that, while enhanced by his Caste Mark, do not originate from the Invictus Family. Leohart is a powerful Shaman, largely using Spiritual Energy make himself more powerful and perform various attacks.

Physical Enhancement: Leohart is able to use Spiritual Energy to enhance every part of his body. By doing so, he is able to casually perform incredible feats of strength and speed.

Spiritual Awareness: Leohart is able to see and communicate with disembodied spirits. He is also able to see the souls of living things, and determine various things about them based on the appearance and feel of their soul.

Immense Spiritual Power: Leohart's soul itself is massive, so much as that term can be applied to a soul. To those capable of viewing Souls, Leohart's would seem to encompass an area orders of magnitude larger than a normal person. His soul also appears to any observer to be multilayered, being thin near the edges and blindingly bright and powerful at the center, growing more and more potent in rows between the two. This grants Leohart incredible stamina, and allows him to perform many techniques on a massive scale.

Spiritual Pressure: While traditionally friendly, should Leohart sense hostility from someone or deem it necessary in himself, he is able to use the immense power of his soul to smother the opponent in his contempt. When he does this, he will appear far larger and more menacing to those who see him, and those with particularly weak wills may feel physical pain or faint outright. His soul is also able to interact with objects physically, causing objects to be incinerated by golden plasma, and burn larger attacks as they pass through it, lessening their power by the time they hit him. This power also causes opponents to feel an oppressive heat, far greater than any natural temperature, and makes focusing and fighting more difficult.

Soulblaze
Soulblaze is Leohart's own ability, and began developing before he ever understood his visions, and continued to do so afterward. Leohart is able to metabolize his own soul, burning it away to produce massive bursts of power. When doing so, his body burns with plasma of varying colors, the range matching the range of colors of various types of stars. From the outside, Leohart would look exactly like a miniature star while using Soulblaze. When Leohart uses Soulblaze, it is at one of 4 distinct levels. While using Soulblaze, plasma will erupt from his body will colors ranging from Red, Yellow, White, to Blue. This plasma is always mixed with the Golden flames of the Invictus Ignis. Due to the range and power expanding with each level, Leohart often has to hold himself back when fighting with a team as while he won't accidentally harm his allies, he can obscure sight and sensory capabilities if he extends his reach too far. He is able to somewhat mitigate this by limiting his range, but the higher levels are still so bright to others that he must be somewhat careful about their use.
 * Corona: The plasma created by Soulblaze erupt outward from Leohart's body with incredible force, that increases with each subsequent level. This plasma is generally harmless to bystanders and Leohart's surroundings, but will incinerate his opponents in close range. Aside from just burning things that get close, the speed and force the plasma project outward with will slow or stop many attacks outright. Leohart has a degree of control over which way the plasma flow. He can push them in various directions depending on how he wishes to deflect attacks. Leohart can also prevent the outward force of Corona long enough for him to engage in melee combat win an opponent, and reactivate it at will to depend against their attacks. As Leohart progresses through the levels of Soulblaze, Corona will gain greater force and extend that force across a wider range. Eventually being able to burn enemies and suppress attacks beginning from dozens of meters away when it reaches it's peak.
 * Dynamo: The displays of power creating by Soulblaze are more than external. The process of Leohart's Soulblaze also converts a great deal of spiritual power into physical power. This causes a great deal of energy to cycle through Leohart's body. He is able to increase his strength and speed greatly while using Soulblaze, with the level of amplification raising as he rises through the various levels of Soulblaze.
 * Prominence: The plasma created by Soulblaze can do much more than protect. Leohart is able to create large waves and lashes of plasma to attack anything in his surroundings. As Leohart rises through the levels of Soulblaze, both the potency and range of the attacks he can create exponentially magnifies. At it's peak Leohart is able to either create focused gouts of plasma that can hit precise targets hundreds of meters away, or cause mass destruction across a smaller area.
 * Supernova: When Leohart eventually reaches his limit and can no longer sustain the highest level of Soulblaze, he has one of two options. In most situations Leohart will gradually "cool down" working his way back down the levels of Soulblaze before it eventually fizzles out. However, there is another option Leohart can take in the most desperate of circumstances. When Leohart reaches his limit, he is actually reaching the limit of how much power can utilize safely. The very core of Leohart's soul, much like that of a real star, is phenomenally dense and powerful. Should Leohart ever use this power, his strength will be pushed far beyond it's normal limits, but he risks destroying his very soul, and ending his life, in the process. The aura of Soulblaze will condense until all of it is contained within Leohart's body, before erupting out with force orders of magnitude greater than normal. Supernova will push every aspect of Soulblaze to an utterly ludicrous extreme. The fallout is extremely severe, and using it only briefly has near killed Leohart in the past.

Hero of Ages
Leohart's visions have shaped these abilities greatly. While visually indistinct, the visions impart a kind of instinctual knowledge into Leohart. He learns things about the subjects of his visions even if he can't clearly see or hear those things. This way of absorbing information allowed Leohart to become a skilled warrior far beyond his years before he ever knew what he was doing. Once he did understand what he was doing, he was able to internalize far more complex things. Different aspects of each of them has been ingrained into Leohart, and their own powers are manifest within himself when he follows their ideals. While his knowledge is still very limited, Leohart's dreams continue into his adulthood, allowing him to slowly learn more about each person he emulates. The greater the detail he understands their lore, the better his grasp of their powers. Since his childhood, Leohart's visions have shaped his skills without him even realizing. When he truly focusing his power, he is able to create manifestations of the heroes he emulates, usually in the form of some kind of weapon or artifact they wielded.

The Ascendant Warrior
The Ascendant Warrior was a being with the wisdom of a thousand lifetimes and the power of a thousand souls. He held the power to protect in his left arm, and the power to destroy in his right. The conflicting powers within himself forced The Ascendant Warrior into a strange kind of neutrality. Using one side's power too much would cause the other to overtake more of his being. A touch from his right hand could erase a being's very soul, while his left hand could pull the souls of the deceased back into their bodies to restore them. Only when using the powers in equal measure, always wary of the balance, could he fight to protect those he loved. This balance was upheld through the power of meditation and absolute control over his own soul. At some point, The Ascendant Warrior cast aside the balance he'd worked so hard to maintain. He turned his power to destroy upon itself, destroying his right arm and allowing him to serve as a purely protective force from that day forward.

Leohart has seen very little of how the Ascendant Warrior actually fought in battle. As such what Leohart mostly gained from his visions of him was a high degree of control over his soul. Leohart's connection to the Ascendant Warrior is the most tenuous, and he does not have any direct manifestation tied to him.


 * Spirit Control: Forged by his dreams and refined by training under Sierra Rojas, Leohart's fundamental abilities as a Shaman are exceptional. In his early months in the academy, Leohart already possessed great skill in Channeling despite a complete lack of formal instruction prior to that time. Leohart is able to sense souls with extreme position, and it make very difficult to do so to himself. Leohart is capable of suppressing his normally massive spiritual presence to nearly nothing, or completely changing the way his soul senses to others, making him hard to identify through sensory means.

The Knight Radiant
The Knight Radiant was as his title would imply. He was much like the ideal of the Knight in Shining Armor. Almost an archetypal hero of fantasy. The Knight Radiant fought criminals, monsters, and even natural disasters to protect others. He could fight for hours, days, or even longer without showing the slightest sign of fatigue. Any weapon he touched seemed to become an implement designed to destroy evil, and his shield was never so much as scratched. The Knight Radiant once had to fight a massive beast whose vitality seemed just as great as his own. During this fight The Knight's right arm was severed along with the weapon it held. He would go on to win the fight, fighting with only the shield in his left hand until the beast was exhausted and bested.

Leohart's connection to the Knight Radiant formed the basis of his martial skill in his youth. Strengthening this connection over the years has allowed Leohart several manifestations of the Knight Radiant's power.


 * Martial Prowess: The Knight Radiant was a master of many forms of armed and unarmed combat, and Leohart was able to gain a significant degree of this skill even as a youth. Leohart has the skills and muscle memory of a man with many times his battle experience. Leohart is comfortable fighting unarmed or with nearly any kind of weapon.
 * Bulwark: Leohart is also able to manifest the Knight Radiant's shield. While it can be used as a normal shield, this is not it's primary use. Simply holding this item allows Leohart to project his spiritual power defensively across a wide range, allowing him to protect groups or defend against large attacks.

The Bearer of Agonies
Experiencing snippets of the Bearer of Agonies was very different for Leohart than any others he saw. While heroes he saw were often defined by their successes, the Bearer of Agonies seemed defined by his failures. He lived in a much harsher time than any other Leohart has seen. The very world seemed determined to see all he sought to protect destroyed, and it often succeeded. Knowing he could not destroy the sources of everyone's pain, he decided to simply bear that pain himself. The Bearer of Agonies labored and suffered through pain few would ever be able to survive, all so as many others as possible might live their lives just a bit easier. The Bearer of Agonies would come to realize that however much he healed, more would always hurt. Eventually he decided that the pain of the innocent did not belong to him, it belonged to the guilty. Funneling the pain and suffering he had taken upon himself into a single part of his body, he severed his own right arm and forged it into a weapon to fight against the darkness of his world.

Leohart has learned much from the Bearer of Agonies. He was slow to anger and even slower to violence. He was selfless, perhaps to a fault, and made time to assist with any problems within his power.


 * Immortal Mind: One of the greatest strengths the Bearer of Agonies gave to Leohart was mental. Leohart has felt the Bearer of Agonies pain and withstood it from a young age. He has felt pain, despair, and misery beyond his control and continued marching through it. Leohart can withstand pain and exhaustion far past the point that would incapacitate or kill most people.
 * Judgement: A manifestation of the Bearer of Agonies' wrath, Judgement is possibly the strongest and most dangerous of Leohart's manifestations. The Bearer of Agonies' weapon was a massive axe that had to be used once drawn. When Leohart wields this weapon, it is only in extreme rage toward someone he sees as utterly despicable. The axe can not be used without sacrifice. The Bearer of Agonies had to sacrifice his mercy, the thing that was most precious to him. Leohart loses control. Other manifestations can be temporarily consumed by the Axe, and Leohart's control of his power wanes considerably when using it. Leohart's fighting becomes far more dangerous to those around him, his power normally left tightly in check sent running wild.

Exalted Dawn
Leohart is not only a Dawn Caste, but following the death of Daylen Invictus, he is the most powerful Dawn Caste of the Invictus Family. Leohart's Dawn Caste mark is on the center of his forehead, and becomes visible for all to see when he calls upon it's power. Like all Dawns, his caste mark grants him increased power and makes the creation and mastery of combat related abilities and techniques far easier.
 * Invictus Ignis: A common ability of Dawn Castes is to summon the Invictus Ignis, a powerful golden flame. While at a glance it is indistinguishable from normal fire aside from it's color, it will only burn that which Leohart chooses. Soulblaze resonates strongly with this ability, causing a fusion of sorts between the two. This completely prevents the formerly massive levels of collateral damage that Soulblaze could formerly cause. This resonance causes all of Leohart's techniques with Soulblaze to have a tinge of gold regardless of the primary color of the attack.
 * All Searing Noon: Leohart's ultimate attack begins with his Soul's power becoming visible to all, even those traditionally unable to see souls. It colors the sky a bright gold, bringing intense brightness to even the darkest night, with a bright sun-like source of light at the height of the brightened area. The boundaries of Leohart's influence will be marked by massive walls of golden plasma converging into a dome that will burn any enemies that try to escape through it. Leohart will raise an arm to the false sun, releasing a blast of Invictus Ignis that strikes the light and creates a violent reaction that causes a supernova like explosion. Leohart can finish the attack in one of two ways, let the explosion carry out and eradicate all hostile forces within it's area of effect, or draw the totality of the explosion back into his body, releasing all of the power against a single individual. Regardless of the method used, as is true for all attacks based on Invictus Ignis, only those targeted by Leohart will be affected, with friendly combatants, civilians, and even the surrounding environment being completely unaffected.