Ceres (Starcross)

Summary
Sabrina Trenchard was born on a crowded colony ship some time following Earth’s destruction. Her parents were busy scientists responsible for helping to maintain the ship’s habitability, and, from an early age, Sabrina became highly independent and self-reliant. She never really struggled with loneliness; in fact, she was happy to be left to her own devices.

However, she struggled with social situations, and found herself unable to form any meaningful relationships with her classmates, who she struggled to understand. This led to her being estranged and bullied. Eventually, she stopped going to school regularly, instead researching at her own pace at her home and around the ship.

Outside of her self-directed studies in science and magic, Sabrina found herself feeling apathetic and aimless. Her family’s expectations, combined with the staggering social reality that she was expected to deal with, was exhausting to her. Meanwhile, her curiosity and studies lead her to new discoveries and a deep sense of fulfillment that she found nowhere else.

Eventually, at the age of sixteen, driven in part by her increasingly insatiable curiosity and desperation, she began indiscriminately targeting and killing random citizens on the ship. From there, she went on to mutilate their bodies and dissect them in order to see how they worked. This apparent new serial killer terrified the general populace, something which Sabrina found vaguely amusing but mostly annoying.

Ultimately, becoming bored with the stagnant, predictable reality of her birthplace, she left, becoming a mage travelling the world to learn as much as she could. In her travels, she learned many things and met many mages, devoting herself in her entirety to her research. Her specific interests grew and faded over time, leading her to go through a large variety of magical studies, and she eventually took an interest in angels.

After meeting Venus, Sabrina decided to leverage her knowledge, skills, and resources in return for a steady stream of knowledge from Venus, who accepted her offer. As part of Venus’ reformed Invictus, she was given the codename Ceres.

Appearance
Ceres is a skinny, underweight woman of average height. She has dark, blue-ish gray eyes that tend to look empty, at nearly all times. She has dark-ish gray hair, done up in a bun. Her hair is very coarse and messy, and when she lets it down, it's around shoulder height. She wears glasses, and, overall, tends to look like a pretty unremarkable, normal person. When it comes to clothing, Ceres is nearly always wearing a labcoat, with a simple shirt and pants underneath. She dresses unassumingly and simply even when being casual; everything she wears is dull, unremarkable, bland, and functional. She wears skirts, on occasion, with pantyhose, and for shoes she wears flats. She's not one for fashion, for the most part, seeing it as pointless, but she has a soft spot for some goth fashion.

Personality
Ceres is cold and detached, yet rarely serious. While she lacks much interest in others, and is very impersonal, she tends to joke around a lot, rarely taking things or herself seriously. When she tries, she's a nice person to be around; but she rarely tries. Ceres does not fake being emotionally detached from others, or from her surroundings - there's nothing there. Other people have no importance to her; everything she does is impersonal. She believes that, as everyone is born a blank slate, anyone can become anything - therefore, anyone is replaceable, as with the right knowledge and environment you can make anyone over again. She is completely and utterly amoral.

Every action Ceres takes is efficient, quick, and precise. She doesn't waste her time. She sees many things - entertainment, relationships, media, self-care - as distractions. She only bothers with others if they have something to give her in exchange. Ceres is exceptionally curious and intelligent; the one thing that gives her any satisfaction and happiness is the simple pleasure of learning. Otherwise - she is empty. There is nothing else driving her, only a cold curiosity and passion. Although quiet, Ceres always speaks with absolute confidence, never backing down. Ceres dislikes it when things don't go how she expected, when she's outsmarted, when she can't understand something, and when she is distracted from her work.

Personal Statistics
Origin: Starcross Name: Sabrina Trenchard, "Ceres"

Classification: Human Mage

MBTI: INTJ

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Color Identity: Blue Gender: Female

Age: 127

Date of Birth: No Earth Equivalent

Height: 5'6

Weight: 98 lbs Likes: Learning

Dislikes: Distractions, ignorance

Affiliation: Herself

Combat Statistics
Tier: 9-B, 5-B with angels and weapons | 4-B

Powers and Abilities: Magic, Enhanced Senses, Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Flight, Barrier Creation, Biological Manipulation, Technological Manipulation, Time Manipulation and Stop, Photokinesis, Absorption, Power Mimicry, Soul Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Teleportation, Void Manipulation, Computer Interaction and Hacking, Reactive Evolution, Creation, Dimensional Travel, Shapeshifting, Reality Warping via reality wheels, can absorb magic, her attacks (physical and magical) damage the soul just as they do the body, can absorb magic, Adaptation, Resistance to magical and physical attacks (particularly resistant to any form of "stasis"; including hax such as Reality Warping, Matter, Mind, Soul, Conceptual, and Causality Manipulation, amongst many others), Partial Acausality (Has her own personal causality, which disconnects her from traditional cause and effect; unaffected by changes to the past), angels are Intangible, Incorporeal, Immortal (Types 1 and 3), and can Regenerate (Low-Godly), Immortality (Types 1 and 6, Type 3 after becoming an angel), Regeneration (Low-Godly after becoming an angel; can reconstruct herself just from data)

Attack Potency: Wall level (Ceres is considerably superior to the average mage, and capable of easily punching holes through steel walls with personal magical attacks), Planet level with angels and weapons (Her weapons are capable of destroying planets and harming mages on the level of Earth SOLSTICE. Her angels are even stronger, and capable of fighting and overpowering Venus and Pluto) | Solar System level (In this state, Ceres is equal in power to EQUINOX and capable of fighting against mages on her level)

Speed: Supersonic (Superior to average vampires, who can dodge bullets after they've been fired) with FTL+ reactions (Ceres' processing speed outpaces Venus'), FTL+ attack speed with weapons and with angels | Massively FTL+ (Comparable in speed to EQUINOX, in the same speed range as Fuse)

Lifting Strength: Class 5 (Comparable to average vampires, who can lift trucks with effort), at least Class M with angels (Comparable to EQUINOX, who could lift hundreds of ships and buildings with telekinesis) | Stellar (Superior to Valkyria Neptune, who can lift Kyarne, a literal star, and and on the same level as Fuse, who can easily throw planets and stars across interstellar distances)

Striking Strength: Class KJ, Class NJ with angels | Class XTJ+

Durability: Wall level, Planet level with angels and forcefields, her soul is at least Large Star level+ (Completely unaffected by a major instance of Cell trying to absorb her) | Solar System level

Stamina: Superhuman. Angels have functionally limitless stamina. | Functionally limitless.

Range: Interplanetary (Can command her angels through telepathy from other planets) | Interstellar. Multi-Universal with dimensional travel.

Standard Equipment: A wide variety of magical weapons.

Intelligence: Supergenius. Throughout all her life, only one thing has ever given Ceres any satisfaction, and that is learning. Ceres is a mage of exceptional skill and understanding, possessing deep knowledge of all scientific fields and highly developed knowledge of most magical fields. Her single-minded devotion to learning means that she rarely gives any focus to anything else - she is constantly studying, researching, and experimenting, and constantly learning more and more. Her magical specialties are mostly related to magical programming, creating life, and angels in general. However, while she may be an enormously intelligent mage, Ceres lacks much experience or interest in combat, and struggles with long-term planning. Most of her goals are short-term; any long-term goals are pursued haphazardly while she focuses on her immediate interests, which may be fleeting.

Weaknesses: Ceres' near-complete lack of emotions prevent her from getting the magical power boosts associated with them. She struggles with long-term planning, and lacks a lot of combat experience.

Key: Base | Perfect Ceres (Angel)

Abilities
Magic is the art of using one's Understanding to Control Fantasy.

As Ceres is not a combat mage, her magical array, though well-developed, is not suited towards quick spellcasting, resiliency, and high-power magic. Although she is a very knowledgeable and understanding mage, she lacks combat experience and power, instead relying on magical weapons and constructs. Absolute Barrier: A magical barrier that protects the user from external manipulation and attack, on every level of existence. An Absolute Barrier protects the user’s body, mind, and soul - their cells and atoms, the magical and physical forces keeping them together, and everything else. It is akin to a magical immune system, protecting the mage from threats and adapting to future attack.

It passively protects the user from most types of attack, manipulation, and control, as long as the barrier is strong enough - a witch of substantially greater power can punch straight through one. An Absolute Barrier is passively maintained at all times, even in sleep, requiring no energy to maintain, and can only be removed by a stronger witch actively stripping it away, or by the user consciously lowering them.

Flight: Ceres’ magical abilities allow her to easily fly for extended periods of time, as easily as she would walk. She can fly in combat without issue.

Radar: Ceres’ magical abilities sustain a constant 360° image of her surroundings, which is projected straight to her mind for processing. This radar is far more reliable than conventional senses, and is capable of easily picking up superluminal movement. It constantly operates at Ceres’ maximum processing speed, even when it would normally be restricted so that she can function normally.

Superhuman Physical Characteristics: Though physically lacking in comparison to many of her colleagues and allies, Ceres’ physical capabilities are still superhuman, just to a smaller degree. Her magical abilities are much more potent, however, and she has little interest in risking the dangers of physical combat.

Despite her lack of combat skills, Ceres can still process information at a ridiculously fast rate, indescribable multitudes faster than any normal human - or even the average supercomputer - can. This allows her to process and analyze information quickly, and run through the many calculations needed for magic quickly.

She typically keeps this aspect of her magic restricted when she doesn’t need it, though it will automatically activate if her magic detects a threat. Unfortunately, it tends to activate during times of stress and anxiety, regardless of whether or not Ceres is in legitimate danger. Abyss: Ceres’ soul, while still functional and usable when it comes to magic, is exceptionally abnormal in its existence. It reflects her personality; it is like an endless, empty, insatiable void, held together only by Ceres’ phenomenal willpower. Her magical signature, while present, is so insignificant and small that ambient background magic makes it undetectable.

The overwhelming, staggering emptiness that lies in Ceres is normally not detectable; other mages must delve deeper to see it. This is a dangerous prospect, as Ceres’ soul is inhospitable and suffocating, often disorienting intruders, or, at the very worst, overwriting their existence utterly and absorbing it.

Ceres’ soul is extremely resistant to magic, as magical attacks are often just lost in her soul. This doesn’t make her body any more resistant; while a magical attack may have a negligible effect on her soul, it can still kill her body. Of course, this is not the best prospect, as Ceres’ sheer willpower is more than enough to keep her soul together following bodily death.

Although inhospitable, destructive, and alien compared to other souls, Ceres’ soul still contains many of the same functions and can be sufficiently analyzed and understood, just like anything else.

Abiogeneticist: Ceres’ first magic revolves around the manipulation of life; it allows her to manipulate cells, genes, and all the other building blocks of life - having a physical component is unnecessary. She primarily uses it in her research and experimentation efforts, altering her subjects in multiple ways out of curiosity.

Through this, Ceres can alter the biological makeup of herself and other organisms. Her usage in experiments varies from completely changing organisms into others, or simply splicing various things together. She can also simply create artificial life on her own. These lifeforms form the majority of her protective forces, and she possesses magical control over them. Many others are little more than experiments, meant to test theories and sate Ceres' curiosity.

Machinist: Ceres’ second magic revolves around the creation and control of artificial, technology-based life and machines. She doesn’t use it as much as her biological magic - having lost her interest in it some time ago - but still utilizes it fairly often for experimental and protective purposes. Ceres can also use Machinist to create powerful magical weapons, which she has a wide variety of. This includes things such as armed satellites, missile weapon systems, and so on. Despite her lack of proficiency in combat, these weapons are still dangerous to mages far beyond her level.

Missing Ones: Ceres’ current favored area of interest is angels - more specifically, their complexity, composition and coding. This has lead her to do an extensive amount of experiments, often involving captured angels, in pursuit of finding out as much about angels and their construction as she can.

As part of this, she has attempted to create an angel on many occasions. However, angels are highly complex; every single of Ceres’ attempts has simply come out wrong. They cannot be called true angels, though they approach their existence. The same fate has befallen many of the angels she experiments on. Angels are, in essence, magical programs - their code is complex and hard to understand, riddled with protective measures. Through exploiting flaws in their magical data, Ceres has distorted them and caused them to be warped into something else entirely. The “angels” she created are more a result of her lack of complete understanding on angelic structure.

This is all in the pursuit of greater knowledge; she views every single one of her ‘experiments’ as a success, as they have broadened her understanding of the subject. The abilities of Ceres’ “angels” are similar to those of true angels, but ultimately, still distorted. Her angels act as the strongest members of her protective forces. Their flawed halos allow them to restore themselves from nothing but data, though their distorted nature causes them to come back increasingly different and broken.
 * CMN-113: 113 is Ceres’ most powerful angelic construct; as opposed to the others, which are generally left to their own devices in supporting her, 113 always stays as Ceres’ side and their minds are closely linked. When 113 is not needed, it shrinks itself down into one of the buttons on Ceres’ labcoat. When a possible threat is detected, 113 shows itself and begins to act in Ceres’ protection.
 * 113 resembles a faint, featureless gray figure with flayed skin. It is covered in layers of bloody bandages. While it normally does not have any limbs, 113 can grow grasping limbs and tentacles if they are needed. It can extend ribbons of flayed skin, revealing the bloody underside, covered in countless rows of tiny, razor-sharp teeth. Its halo looks faded and insubstantial.
 * Temporal Distortion: 113 can surround itself and Ceres with a field that slows time the closer one is to Ceres, eventually to the point that it will stop. This allows the otherwise sluggish Ceres to dodge attacks from much stronger mages, and allows 113 to retaliate in her defense.


 * CMN-735: 735 is one of Ceres’ strongest angelic constructs. It acts as a long-range defender, protecting Ceres from a distance and sniping those who attack her with high-power beams of magical light while protecting itself with powerful barriers. If cornered, it teleports to a safer position and continues its assault.
 * 735 lacks self-awareness and autonomy, acting only off a basic knowledge of what is in Ceres’ best interests and with more precise direction from her. It resembles a large, glowing sphere ablaze with holy light, with a large halo. There are the vague impressions of internal structures and magical organs.


 * CMN-774: 774 is one of Ceres’ strongest angelic constructs. While 113 stays by Ceres’ side at all times, and 735 stays at a distance and snipes targets, 774 occupies all ranges between those, rapidly pursuing those that attack Ceres. It attacks opponents violently, striking with surgical precision; often, it leaves the victims alive so that Ceres can experiment on them afterwards.
 * 774 lacks self-awareness and autonomy, acting only off a basic knowledge of what is in Ceres’ best interest and with more precise direction from her. 774 resembles a feathery, serpentine monster with broad wings and many small, insectoid legs. Its front end culminates in a large, toothy mouth, while its rear end culminates in a long stinger. It can extend its legs and tail into thorny, bladed weapons. It has a large, glowing halo.

Ceres has many, many other angels that she’s experimented on within her laboratories, but only 113, 735, and 774 occupy her at all times. The others, for the most part, are useless in combat and are primarily used for research purposes. Many of them have died due to Ceres’ experiments.

Reality Wheel: One of the most advanced and powerful magical techniques. A reality wheel acts as a powerful magical extension of its user, and allows its user to change the nature of reality within its range. Reality wheels are incredibly difficult to use and properly control. In addition, they tend to drain a lot of energy and stamina, making it difficult to use them for extended periods of time, although this can be mitigated by more powerful mages. Angel: As an angel, Instant has the traits and powers expected of one, along with the natural, powerful aptitude for magic. Angels are effectively masses of magic, so their bodies are highly malleable and are completely immune to any physical form of attack, as they cannot be said to exist physically.
 * Relative Lightspeed Spiral: A type of reality wheel, created and utilized with the intent of allowing technical faster-than-light movement. It functions by defining the user as their own universe - and in that universe, the speed of light is a variable they can change. So by increasing the speed of light for themselves, they can accelerate past what the rest of the universe defines as the speed of light.

Ceres became an angel after an extensive period of time spent studying them, and, ultimately, absorbing several of them. As angels are an artificial type of magical being, any entity can potentially become one, given understanding, patience, and time.
 * Halo: The halo of an angel is actually a complex reality wheel, passively maintained without draining and energy. A halo has multiple functions in maintaining an angel’s existence and safety.
 * Angelic Data: A halo contains the magical information that makes up an angel’s existence (typically referred to as just “data”). Through this, an angel can regenerate from any scale of physical wounds through their halo, even complete physical destruction. As a halo is a magical construct, no amount of conventional physical harm can damage it, and even directly attacking it with magic can be difficult. If an angel’s halo is shattered, it will immediately and passively reconstruct itself; when an angel is actually killed, the halo will shatter and finally disappear.
 * Fear Not: An angel’s true nature and form is obscured by magic under normal circumstances, so an angel normally seems to be an individual of the viewer’s species, though their exact appearance is still up to them. In addition, they are normally clearly angelic, with the halo and wings representative of angels.
 * Messenger: An angel can teleport immense distances and open portals to other worlds. This allows them to leave Heaven and travel across other universes.
 * Protection from Harm: A halo protects its bearer from offensive magic of all varieties, including those that seek to warp or manipulate them through other means. It is particularly effective in protecting against the corrupting influence of demons.
 * Wings: The wings of an angel are special, unique constructs formed out of magic, and are used to direct and manipulate magical energies as limbs. They can even absorb magic and other energy with ease. The wings are the most sensitive and important part of an angel’s body, and they are carefully maintained at all times.

Immaculate Consumption: A powerful magical ability formed from Ceres’ own powers, the void within her, and the angels she absorbed; foremost among them, Cell. The insatiable void within Ceres is receptive to change, and the suffocating effects that it has on others makes it simple to absorb others through it. This power becomes even more powerful when combined with Cell’s abilities; through it, she can assimilate their minds, souls, bodies, and powers in their entirety.

Void: Following achieving a greater understanding of herself and her soul, Ceres gained the power to weaponize it to a greater extent, with greater control and precision. When used in an offensive manner, the void erases things - whether physical or magical - from existence, taking them into itself. Even space is erased by the void. The easiest way to manifest her soul’s power outside of her body is in things like extradimensional limbs and tendrils tearing though space or reinforcing her body like armor.
 * Change: While most mages can adapt to attacks they have been exposed to to become more resistant through their Absolute Barriers, due to the everchanging nature of Ceres’ void, her ability to change and adapt is in a whole other league, a power that grows greater and greater as she becomes increasingly powerful.
 * Nega-Stasis: The chaotic void within Ceres is in a state of constant change, as already explained. As a result, any attempt to inflict ‘stasis’ on her - stopping time, paralyzing her body, freezing her, petrifying her, anything, even destroying her soul, mind and/or thoughts - is something that her soul strives against in its entirety, making it extremely difficult.
 * Chaos: The endless void that encompasses Ceres’ soul is saturated with magical power, a formless yet everchanging chaos filled with creative power and raw energy. She can shape this void into new life, a form of magical creation that far surpasses her old methods. She can, in essence, create anything she can imagine, as long as she understands it and makes it work. While she has absorbed all of the angels she created and experimented upon in the past by this point, she can recreate them with a far greater scale of power from the void and information within her.
 * Collector: Ceres’ soul contains the many angels she’s absorbed; and, therefore, it grants her the powers of all these angels.
 * Computer System: Through Cell’s powers, Ceres can interface with computers, whether conventional or magical, to access information, and can store and process information in the same way. She can easily hack into systems, process and read programming languages, and severely damage the systems. Similarly to a computer virus, Ceres can also spread herself through computer systems, absorbing and/or destroying information and leaving the computer system a ruin behind her. She can also pick up on and intercept signals used by computer networks.
 * Time Manipulation: Ceres can use the powers of 113 to a much greater extent than the original ever could; slowing time becomes quite simple; Ceres can slow and accelerate time both in a field around her, and at a greater range. She can also, stop time, though this is strains her, and the range is much more limited.
 * Timeless Oblivion: Ceres can use her time powers, combined with the void within her, to erase the time and space in a small area, leaving nothing but an empty, yawning chaos that drags anything within into a state of complete destruction.

Others
Notable Victories:

Notable Losses:

Inconclusive Matches: