#Ode To A Ghost Of An Improvised Past

[fieldagentellis]

//up to date bio. Please note this is a sideblog and follows back from empatheticagent.

Name: Marco Ellis

Age: 48 49 50 (Jan 3rd)

Codename: Erebus

FC: Oded Fehr

Occupation: Level 5 Special Ops Field Agent

Level 6 Special Ops Field Agent/head of Training and Integration department

Mentor and trainer for powered agents/agents who have been injured/traumatised in their line of work

Abilities: hand-to-hand combat (Brazilian Ju Jitsu/Judo)

Trained in hand gun use, but rarely uses them

Trained in weapons use (e.g. knife combat)

Specialises in stealth missions, especially night ops

Good at improvising

Able to speak/read Hebrew

Powers: Umbrakinesis (darkness manipulation)

Marco is able to create, manipulate and blend into shadows. His most common usage is for stealth, darkening areas to make himself harder to spot. He can form a ghostly-looking hand out of shadows, which he is able to control like a regular hand to grab and attack with. It can either work as an extension to his own arms, or as a completely separate floating one. He can see clearly in the dark.

The ghost-like hand and other constructs can be solidified into usable objects like a knife. Marco can use it to fight with, like a normal knife, but it will simply 'burst' and disappear if he drops it or it's exposed to a bright light meaning others cannot take it and use it unless he willingly hands it over.

His powers don’t work as well in bright light, whether artificial or natural.

His powers make him more sensitive to brighter lighting at times, but this can be counteracted to an extent with sunglasses.

He can ‘shadow jump’, a sort of short distance teleport, that works only between dark spaces (like shadows). At night, this expands to line of sight, unless of course the area is brightly lit. He is still trying to understand how this technique works, mostly only able to use it so far by accident when he's desperately wanted to be somewhere else (e.g. closer to an ally who is in quick need of assistance in a fight)

Bio:

-Marco grew up in Israel, but moved to the US so his parents could take jobs as teachers at the same High school he was attending.

-He was never really into the idea of teaching like his parents. Instead he trained in martial arts, intending to join the military. Over time though, he has found himself gravitating toward a teaching role within SHIELD.

-His powers originally were just the ability to create and blend into shadows. When he went to join the military, Marco instead found himself recruited by Hydra. They experimented on him to expand his powers to allow him to solidify the shadows. He was trained as an assassin for Hydra and worked as one for a few years, but SHIELD eventually rescued and recruited him.

-His memory of his time in Hydra is foggy, having been made to comply in a similar way to the Winter Soldier.

-Marco has since been trained as a SHIELD field agent, specialising in stealth because of his powers.

-Marco recently went on an off-the-books mission to the Hydra base he used to be stationed at, sent by Fury who was secretly using the mission as a loyalty/skill test before offering promotions. Marco went alongside a women who was a former Soldier also stationed at the same Hydra base, hoping it would help both of them move on from past traumas surrounding Hydra and their work at the base.

It went wrong however, as the base wasn't entirely abandoned and the two were injured by the apparently enhanced Grant Ward (@coldbloodedward). Marco had to quickly be evacuated and assessed and was then put on leave to recover from multiple broken ribs.

[bluehazeus]

Marc Charig, Keith Tippett & Ann Winter - Ode To A Ghost Of An Improvised Past (1977)