Ixil

Ixil was the fourth Crusader. Back to index

Biography
Born during the height of Fredrick's time as a Crusader, Ixil grew up in poverty and became a simple mercenary in a backwater System upon reaching adulthood. However, Ixil would only spend a short time in this career before being approached by the shadowy Kanos. Mortally wounded, Kanos was searching for a replacement and, after opening his eyes to the wider Universe, Ixil accepted. However, Kanos was only able to instruct him for a few short months before leaving to bid a final goodbye to his daughter, leaving an extremely inexperienced Ixil to take up the role of Crusader. However, Ixil more than made up for this inexperience by being one of the most intelligent and manipulative Crusaders in history. Within months, Ixil had placed himself in the background of almost all Interstellar going-on's, keeping the various powers from destroying each other through sheer guile, without anyone discerning his true nature, or even associating him with the various plots running around them. Ixil was helped in these endeavors by Teckla, a former associate and skilled mercenary, who largely served as Ixil's "attack dog". However, when Lord Ahab's replacement, Xanatos, began a minor war with the Paladins and threatened a larger scale conflict, Ixil decided to enter the scene proper as a Crusader. Taking up shop on the abandoned capital ship Endeavor and being joined by the flirtatious smuggler Lavender and Paladin swordmaster Thomas, Ixil began publicly parading as the descendant of Fredrick. The small group of three (Along with Teckla, although she never joined the group proper and her existence was unknown to everyone but Ixil) dubbed themselves "The Sa Lineage" and, despite a good deal of distrust between the group they managed to work together on numerous successful missions. However, after the Endeavor was almost destroyed by a War Droid strike team, Ixil reviled his true colors to his allies and orchestrated Xanatos's death. Furious at his betrayal, Thomas and Lavender abandoned him. Now working solo, or occasionally alongside Teckla, Ixil continued working as a Crusader, both in the light and shadows, dealing with several high level threats and defusing many more before they even became serious. About this time, Ixil also discovered signs of a second party manipulating Interstellar events, although he passed them off as Xanatos's last few plots. Eventually, after an encounter with the ancient spirit Scarlet, Ixil discovered Kanos's personal account of his encounters with "The Worst Nightmare", as well as the origins of this terrible evil via an ancient cache of Crusader knowledge. Fearful of the prospects of being forced to confront such threats, Ixil abruptly cut ties with Teckla and his running manipulations and departed Lyra Capella, obstinately in an attempt to make contact with another Galaxy.

However, Ixil gave up this quest after less than two years and returned to known space, prepared to confront the terrible threat awaiting him. Not long after arrival, Ixil was forced to confront his past twice: First, on a mission to recover a scroll containing information on the Worst Nightmare from a primitive village, he ran into Thomas and Lavender, now running a successful shipping business. Initially hostile, the three managed to reconcile by the end of the mission, although the two others refused Ixil's offer to work together once again. Secondly, Ixil was approached by Teckla, who at first appeared to want nothing more but to renew there partnership. However, when Ixil denied her requests to become something more, Teckla reviled that she had hated him since the day he had left without warning. This bitter reunion was resolved in a furious duel and Teckla becoming a new obstacle to Ixil's plans. This was soon put out of Ixil's mind when he discovered the second manipulator: The M/W President, in a insane quest to obtain the Zion Stone (The mythical source of the Zion Shards), was doing his best to turn things in his favor, unaware that his efforts would free the Worst Nightmare. This led to a prolonged game of "Chess" between the two (Although Ixil described it more as a game of "Checkers") with virtually the entire Galaxy as the game board. Aside from a few diversions (Such as working with Thomas, Lavender and alternate Crusader to top Teckla from causing irreparable damage to space/time in revenge) Ixil spent the rest of his time as a Crusader making "moves" against the President. Eventually, events came to a head on the peaceful world/dimension of Sanctum, where Teckla was killed by Scarlet, Lavender finished off the president and Ixil sacrificed himself to destory the last Zion Shard, entrapping the Worst Nightmare for good.

This was not the end for Ixil however. As with all modern Crusaders, he went on to the after life while a "Copy" took up rendezvous in the Crusader Sanctuary. However, when the Heretic Queen destroyed the final Zion Shard, and by extension the Worst Nightmare, the nature of his sacrifice forced Ixil to return to the land of the living, practically immortal. It did not take Ixil long to asses the situation: While the other Crusaders focused on the Heretics, Ixil realized that the destabilized War Droid Empire presented even more of a threat than the erstwhile Heretics. In order to do his best to prevent the many dangerous scenarios presented by this, Ixil amplified his angst at being forced back to life and his inability to die in order to hide his true actions, even from the other members of the Trimitive Council. Wanting to implement a ruler who would be strong enough to unite the Empire but weak enough to not lead it to victory over the other Interstellar powers, Ixil engineered Tamantha as the new Empress. Ixil also finalized construction of the Imperial Collective, a small government and fleet under the direct control of the Crusaders. However, Ixil also took part in the actions against the Heretics, fighting the Queen alongside the other Crusaders and eventually sacrificing himself (This time permanently) in the penultimate battle of the war. Although ixil's final schemes were only partially successful (Tamantha DID lead the Empire in a devastating war, but the Imperial Collective played a pivotal role in its defeat) it can not be denied that Ixil's influence played an important role in the Crusaders history.

Odds & Ends
Lacking Kanos, Jason and Fredrick's raw power, Ixil instead decided to take his intelligence and planning to the next level, manipulating entire events to his favor and playing his enemies and allies alike like a chess game, although he preferred to call it checkers. Via these plans, Ixil took down Xanatos, the M/.W President, severely wounded the Worst Nightmare, created the Imperial Collective and minimized the losses of the Imperial Crusades. If something major happens in Horizons Zion or War-front, you can beat Ixil had a hand in it.

Differing from his mentor, Ixil would once again take up the large Crusader armory, wielding many different blades, firearms and owning a suit of Delta.6 power armor. Physically, Ixil remained in his prime even at his death at the age of 152, due to his natural Eternal physique. As with all Crusaders, Ixil had much greater reflexes, speed and strength than most sentients. He was well versed in the supernatural, displaying reasonable skill with energy manipulation/creation and telekinesis, although Kanos easily dwarfed him in this regard. Although all Crusaders had superhuman reflexes, Ixil took this to its fullest extent, slowing his perception down to bullet time, allowing him to constantly and expertly asses situations and gain a major advantage over her foes. Ixil had no skill in elemental or telepathic powers.

Although on the surface Ixil's phaseblade was of standard design, it was actually a double bladed weapon: The second blade (which was 1/2 as long as the main one) was only very rarely used, generally to surprise his enemy’s or close quarter defense. Its blade color was a burnt orange, giving it a distinctive glow. In combat, as befitting his over all personality, Ixil would fight with a irregular but balanced fighting style that disguised his true style: stalling his enemy with his blade while searching for the high ground or anything else that would give him the advantage. In practice, Ixil's fighting style wasn't the strongest, but ti was very controlling: whether on the defense or offense Ixil was constantly manipulating things, with even opponents who constantly beat him commenting that they felt he was always in control of there duels. Although he was in general the weakest of the Crusaders dueling wise, Ixil was still a competent swordsman, outmaneuvering and defeating Xanatos, Thomas Sa, Teckla and several others. After his forced resurrection, Ixil's fighting style devolved into a ridiculously aggressive and borderline suicidal form, as his rebirth had left him unkillable, something he wasn't very pleased with.

Authors Notes
Out of all the Crusaders, Ixil has the dubious honor of being the authors personal least favorite lead character. This most likely steams from him originating as a rather flat placeholder of sorts, although he was significantly fleshed out later on.

Most likely because he started out as Fredrick from an alternate time-line, Ixil has cropped up quite a bit in the wider Horizons Multiverse. "Alpha" Fredrick is something of a hybrid between the titular Crusader and Ixil in terms of personality, while "Beta" Ixil is the commander of the Insurgency special ops squad 44. "Gamma" Ixil actually serves as the second in command of the Crusaders and "Epsilon" Ixil sacrificed himself to keep the Nightmare from returning to reality.

Although, as has been already stated, Ixil relied on long term manipulation and planning over straight up combat prowess, he was still no slouch on the battlefield. Living up to the reputation of the Crusaders, very few in his era could match him. In particular, Ixil's sheer perception and speed allowed him to seemingly slow down time itself, examining the combat arena in a single moment, using sheer ingenuity to craft a plan to defeat his foe in a single moment. Skilled and powerful, Ixil's greatest weapon was his intelligence.

Standing at several inches shorter than six feet, Ixil was the shortest of the Crusaders. With sandy blonde hair and light green eyes, Ixil's appearance added to his unassuming and unimposing facade. Although he almost always wore there trademark brown coat, Ixil would often forgo the Crusaders trademark hat. His chosen weapon was a seemingly standard Phaseblade, although it hid a second, shorter blade.

As befitting his M.O, Ixil's personality on first glance and after careful examination was very different. On the surface, Ixil seemed to be the most carefree and non-serious of the Crusaders, treating life in general as one big adventure. However, those who spent a good deal of time with him also noticed he would also spend a good deal of time being quite and thoughtful, simply studying and observing his surroundings. However, as the second "Dark" Crusader, Ixil was in fact a very manipulative man, playing individuals and nations alike as simple chess pieces. This lead to alienation among himself and friends, and even a self crisis, as Ixil himself became terrified at how good he was at "playing" people.

Ixil himself held no animosity towards Jason and Fredrick, although they sometimes questioned just how far there successor was willing to go. Kanos, on the other hand, had much more heated interactions with his student. Although they later on developed more of a friendly rivalry, there initial relationship was one of mutual dislike, the two driving a majority of the conflict in the Trimitive Council.

Ixil's "Keepsake" was a trademark silver coin, which he had always carried on his person in life.