Chevalier

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Chevalier</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

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<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Chevalier is the leader of the Philadelphia Protectorate team. He later became leader of the Protectorate after Legend stepped down, and ultimately became the leader of The Wardens.

Personality

Chevalier is driven and focused, able to serve as an inspiration to others in his determination to save people as a hero.<ref name="Tarot">The Chariot
"Upright: Control, willpower, victory, assertion, determination
Reversed: Lack of control and direction, aggression"

Chevalier

He overcame his rage and his quest for vengeance as a youth and became a hero, perhaps the one most definitive of determination, willpower and strength. - Major Arcana, bolded addition by Wildbow.</ref>

This drive could get him into trouble at times. An alternate version of him would have continued an assault to accomplish an objective regardless of casualties. Chevalier in the timeline that substantiated actually cares.<ref>“We’ll need our Black Knight, Hannah,” Partisan said. “We bait them into a fight, then sic him on them. He’ll be able to win as long as it’s parahumans he’s fighting. Colin’s squad flanks and infiltrates, my squad scouts and Clarent maintains a defensive line.”

“And if these superweapons attack while our forces are elsewhere?”

“They aren’t attacking. They’re just… there.”

“But if they do attack? If they’re there for this exact eventuality?” the gunwoman asked.

“We’ll push on, striking for the Shepherd’s headquarters, and the rest hold out.”

“It’s reckless.”

“It’s the only option. We’ve got two of the strongest parahumans around on our side,” Partisan said, his voice a little louder. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref> His difference from this planned version can be attributed to his time in the Wards among other developments.<ref name="15.z">We’ll also create a sub-group for minors with powers, so we can strictly structure their environment and development. - Excerpt from Interlude 15.z</ref> He was willing to credit Weaver with the maneuver that turned the tide against Echidna, showcasing a reasonable humble side.

Relationships

Alexandria

Alexandria had a major influence on him when he was a child.<ref name="I24 e4">Chevalier felt strangely calm as he spoke, “Not like that. Alexandria caught up with me at the very end. When I was trying to decide what I’d do with him. She told me she’d stand by and let me kill the guy, if I really had to, but I’d go to jail afterwards. That, or I could come with her. Come here.”

Hero frowned, glancing at Alexandria, who had gathered at one corner of the room with Eidolon and Legend. They were looking at the kids, talking, smiling. “I’m glad you made the right choice.”

Chevalier shrugged. I’m not sure I did.

He was still angry. Still hurt. His little brother’s absence was still a void in his life. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref> Thanks to her he took his first steps in overcoming his anger over his brother's loss.

Due to his thinker power, Chevalier was aware of Alexandria's secret identity as Rebecca Costa-Brown.<ref>Fridge logic moment about Chevalier:
He has the ability to determine on sight whether someone is a parahuman (and based on the glimmers he sees, could reasonably determine who someone is, even when disguised), and was the head of the Philadelphia branch of the Protectorate.

Did he actually never come in contact with Rebecca Costa-Brown, or was he in on the secret of Alexandria being in charge of the PRT?

Wildbow: He was effectively in on quite a few secrets, such as Keene. - Comment by Wildbow</ref>

Myrddin

Was good friends with Myrddin, having a running dialogue over issues of faith.<ref name="I28E1">“I believe it,” Chevalier said. “But the cynic-believer relationship, that was something Myrddin and I joked about. Word for word, your quip just now, you borrowed that from the files.” - Excerpt from Interlude 28</ref> Their association was encouraged by the PRT<ref name="C-PRT"/>

Armsmaster

Was an old friend of Armsmaster and was willing to give him another chance as Defiant.

Miss Militia

Served with Miss Militia in the inaugural wards team,<ref name="I24"/> briefly dated when they were younger.<ref name=lurve/>

Narwhal

She considered him to be too soft,<ref name="I28E2">“Let me go, and I’ll be good.”
Chevalier glanced at Narwhal.
"You’re too soft,” Narwhal said.
“You wouldn’t?”
“I would, but I still think you’re too soft.” - Excerpt from Interlude 28 </ref>it is unknown how they usually interacted.

Reputation

Prior to assuming command of the protectorate Chevalier was considered one of the top heroes in the organization,<ref name="SBWoh"> Parahumans IRC said:
Wildbow: Armsmaster appears in the posters and such of the top Protectorate heroes.
Wildbow:When they do the image of everyone standing in a 'v' formation
Parahumans IRC said:
Wildbow: Nah. Legend in front, Alex and Eidolon to the left and right, respectively. Then Myrddin, Chev, Cinereal, Narwhal, Rime, Exalt, Armsmaster, Dragon suit silhouette in the background, wings echoing the wings of the PRT logo over their heads. - IRC conversation archived on Spacebattles</ref> as such people regularly deferred to him during a crisis if more well-known heroes were not present.

Appearance

As a child, he wore makeshift armor and carried a club.<ref name="I24">Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref>

As an adult Chevalier wears a distinctive silver-and-gold armor and wields a cannonblade - a cross between a two-handed sword and a gun.<ref>Chevalier wore his gold and silver armor, heavily decorated and etched until every square inch looked like a miniature work of art. It didn’t strike me as something that would hold up to any abuse, but I’d heard how tough it really was. - Excerpt from Drone 23.3</ref> This became a distintice color that was associated with him.<ref name="II4.1e1">She paused at a manicurist’s, looking within. There were rows of comfortable looking chairs with small tables beside them and foot baths below each seat. Ads in the window showed a variety of nail art.

Ashley held out her hand in front of her, her black nail polish contrasted with the colorful ‘Chevalier’ pattern, mimicking the delicate gold flourishes on a silver background. She moved her hand to compare to the ‘Alexandria’ image. - Excerpt from Shade 4.1</ref>

During Gold Morning he integrated parts of the Simurgh's wing and Behemoth's severed foot into his armor and sword. It is unknown if the armor's new black and red coloring is from the addition of these parts or if it was an aesthetic choice by Chevalier. It is presumed he kept this equipment later on.

Powers and Equipment

Chevalier has the power to combine the properties of several items into one - selectively taking their attributes into his primary weapons. He viewed these different attributes as shapes and lines in an abstract representation of the object's properties. His power also grants him the ability to see certain details of other capes' trigger events, or even metaphorical visions of their passengers, as a sort of overlay when he looks at them.<ref name="I24 e7">He could see the shadows, as he now thought of them.
[...]
Glimmers of memories and dreams, the conclusion had been, after long discussions with Eidolon and the parahuman researchers. An effect of the thinker power required to manage his own ability, tied to trigger events in some fashion.
[...]
His ability to see the ‘shadows’ about people was an extension of this power. He could see the general makeup of the two weapons, the phantom images, the underlying physics, in lines and shapes and patterns. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref> People who had had second trigger events had a noticeable intensity to them. The images grew more distinct when people used their powers. Viewing Eidolon's gave him a migraine after long periods.<ref>He’d raised the subject of the images with others. When his proximity to Eidolon had started to give him migraines, he’d confessed about the images. He’d feared a kind of schizophrenia, but Eidolon had reassured him otherwise.

It was a piece of the puzzle, but that puzzle was still far from complete. Until they had more to work with, it was merely data. Glimmers of memories and dreams, the conclusion had been, after long discussions with Eidolon and the parahuman researchers. An effect of the thinker power required to manage his own ability, tied to trigger events in some fashion. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x

</ref> It was considered classified information.<ref name="I28 e1">“I can see you. On a lot of levels. I can see your power, and I can see what you’ve made of it. You’re something special, putting it to uses like you do. Brave.”

He frowned.

“I know about your special sight.”

“My sight is classified,” he said.. - Excerpt from Interlude 28</ref>

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The fabled cannonblade by Wildbow

All of his equipment is specially constructed so that the different versions matched up as much as possible. His distinctive "cannon-blade" was constructed by overlaying three distinct swords, all with identical cannons mechanisms built within; and he has three suits of armor.<ref name="I24"/> The armor is combined from the decorative suit that he is known for, a suit that is light as aluminum, and a gigantic scaled up version made from welded steel construction.<ref>His armor was the same, only it was too large to bring on the craft. A veritable mountain of construction grade steel, as light as aluminum, with the decoration of a third set. It had required some concentration, to maintain the balances he’d set, but he was confident he could fight outside of the kill aura’s range. Interlude 24.x</ref> The harder one is combining his three swords, one a decorative ceramic blade with a molecular cutting edge, a functional lightweight aluminum sword for ease of use, and a massive steel sword usually transported as the floor of a Dragonflight carrier.

He can adjust which properties to use on the fly, making his weapons heavier, larger, sharper, etc. when it provides the most benefit. He can enlarge his weapons while they're embedded in something, damaging it.<ref name="cast">Chevalier – A major member of the Protectorate, heading the Philadelphia branch. Wears an ornate suit of knight’s armor and carries a trademark cannonblade, which is both a bastard sword and a gun. His power lets him grow and/or condense his gear, rendering it larger or more durable, while he ignores any alterations in weight or scale. - Basic Cast Page</ref> <ref name="I24"/> He could apply the properties of one to only a portion of another,<ref>His sword wasn’t much better. The ceramic properties he’d applied to the edge were heat-resistant, but the remainder of the weapon were growing more nebulous in shape, the hottest parts of the metal flowing down to obscure the edge.- Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref> take the appearance of one and the properties of another,<ref>He’d drawn them into one blade, with the appearance of the larger, the properties of the smaller.
[...]
Combining the first blade with this one proved more difficult. He granted the weapon the appearance of this blade, gave it the cutting edge, but retained the lightweight mass and the durability of the largest weapon.- Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref> and manipulate the properties to a point in-between those of two different items he'd combined.<ref>Chevalier focused his power on his blade, making it as large as he could.
[...]
The size of the weapon and the effect of the firing pin seemed to help with the jammed mechanism. That, or the transition to being closer to his largest blade had shifted something in a fractional way. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref>

His power is interfered with by some other space-warping effects, such as in the core of an Endbringer<ref name="I24"> - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref>, or Foil's power,<ref name="R1">Using her power on Chevalier's sword would have broken it, like the space warping around the Endbringer core did. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref> causing the individual objects to separate. He needed stamina and concentration to use his power.<ref name="I24"/>

History

Background

The boy who would be Chevalier grew up in a family with at least one younger brother.

He would trigger during a car crash trapping him within a metal shell. He found out later his brother was kidnapped during the confusion; the crash had been deliberately set up by a kidnapping ring called the "Snatchers". Three years later, he heard about the group again and was almost given the codename "Relentless" for the way in which he pursued them. After taking them down, he was recruited into the Inaugural Wards Team team by Alexandria.<ref name="I24 e4"/> He became friends with Hannah, even having a short relationship in high-school before they drifted apart as their roles ate up more of their lives.<ref name=lurve>He allowed himself a moment to think of Hannah. They’d dated briefly, then separated. It had been a high school romance, and they’d both been too busy to really pursue things. What had been one or two dates a week became maybes, then had ceased to happen at all. He’d graduated to the Protectorate, changed cities, and they hadn’t said a word on the subject. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref>

He became a regular attendee of Endbringer attacks and stepped into a major role in the Protectorate.<ref name="C-PRT">Chevalier started out as a Ward, which gave him a buffer of a few years where he was trained, got an education, got a rundown in tactics and exercises, and wasn't involved in things. Then he 'graduated' and became Protectorate, and given the timeframe, pretty quickly became a leader, passing on the lessons he was taught as a Ward. He's never been much of a patrol type, and putting him in that role wouldn't leverage his strengths.

Heroes can take a variety of approaches, and this includes patrolling and presence, signaling virtues (often aimed at kids), liaising with police... and it can also include more targeted takedowns of key individuals and threats. Chevalier is the guy you call in when there's someone as scary or problematic as Lung who isn't as under-the-radar as Lung was 75% of the time. They don't set him up against time manipulators like Cody or niche threats, they use him as the wrecking ball against big threats. Most of the time the investigative work is already done, or the baseline work is done, and Chevalier is decent enough as an investigator by his baseline skills (he was tracking down people even before he was a Ward). His shard-vision lets him figure out where capes are, and though he won't explicitly go after capes in their civilian identities, it's pretty good as a tool to track them down in the first place.

Sic him against warlords and monsters, get video footage where necessary, bonus points if you have video where Myrddin is helping out and Chevalier is wading through a sea of ensnaring green mist, fire, or a storm of lightning (with precautions made) to punch out or cut down a seemingly unbreakable Brute. Sell him as a pillar of virtues in a way that gets traction with kids, ensure he's surrounded by other good capes who build up his image as he's portrayed front and center, and you've got a good cape with international traction. Play on that traction by sending him overseas to deal with warlords and giant robots, master-derived minions and other threats.

I wouldn't use the loss to Cody as a mark against him. That's like saying Skitter's worthless because August Prince and Nice Guy had her on the ropes. - Chev's Career (Wildbow, Reddit.com, 2019-09-30)</ref>

Chevalier and Myrddin encountered Faultline’s Crew, according to Newter they were beaten by the mercenaries.<ref name="I5">“And you beat them,” the dark haired girl said, disbelieving.

“We didn’t lose!” Newter crowed.

“It was a close call,” Gregor added his own two cents. “Chevalier is leader of Protectorate in Philadelphia. Myrddin leads Protectorate of Chicago. These are people whole world recognizes. They got positions protecting big cities in America because they are strong, because they are smart and talented. We got the job done, as we always do, and we walked away.” - Excerpt from Interlude 5</ref>

Story Start

He appears with many other heroes when forces are gathered to repel the Endbringer attack on Brockton Bay.<ref>Extermination 8.1</ref>

When Skitter said she could track leviathan with her bugs Chevalier gave the okay for her to be airlifted to keep track of the monstrosity.<ref>Extermination 8.5</ref>

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine

Returned to Brockton Bay to fight another S-Class threat.<ref>Queen 18.4</ref>

When The Triumvirate were incapacitated during the fight responding parahumans followed Chevalier's orders.

Post-Echidna

Held a press conference for when Weaver was welcomed into the Protectorate.

Informed Weaver of the compromise that Glenn Chambers proposed that allowed her to join the wards and by extension the Protectorate.

As the leader of the Protectorate, he participated in the Battle against Behemoth. In the early stages, he met with Tattletale and Accord to plan the attack on Endbringer only to be attacked by the rogue Yangban member intent on gaining revenge against the later thinker. Coming to in the hospital he was briefed by Tattletale regarding the situation and personally entering single combat against Behemoth with the help of Usher's power.<ref name="I24">Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref>

Post-Timeskip

In succeeding Legend as leader of the Protectorate Chevalier would also become the head of the New York Protectorate.<ref>Weaver spoke up, “I noted Shatterbirds and Burnscars leaving, some Damsels, bunch of others I didn’t catch, but they had weapons and I’m thinking Winter or Crimson. There were some I parsed as hostages, but it’s only in retrospect that I’m thinking they were Nice Guys.”

“The second group made their way to New York.”

“Bonesaw and a captive Nilbog that’s apparently rigged to create things on demand,” Weaver said. “Crawlers, Breeds and a handful of others I didn’t identify.”

Chevalier reacted to that, flinching.

His city, Golem thought. - Excerpt from Interlude 26a</ref>

Gold Morning

He rallied the Protectorate forces against the threat. He was wounded in the initial engagement and refused healing so he could actually get work done. He had to deal with visits from Ingenue. Eventually, he had a meeting with Legend and planned some last-ditch tactics. Glaistig Uaine came to talk to him.

Following the Rise of Khepri and the end of Gold Morning, Chevalier helped head one of the known factions, the Wardens - forming from the remnants of the Protectorate - alongside Legend, and was there when Valkyrie was inaugurated.<ref> - Excerpt from Teneral e.1</ref>

According to a conversation between Ingenue and Teacher, Ingenue and Chevalier held some sort of relationship post-Gold Morning, though this is ending or has ended as of the conversation.<ref>Teneral e.5</ref>

Early-Ward

Was the leader and spokesperson for the Wardens and was considered a key member.<ref>Flare 2.1</ref> As such he had his own statue in the lobby of the Warden's HQ.<ref name="II3.6">Inside the building, statues of key members stood off to either side of the lobby. Chevalier, Narwhal, Valkyrie, Legend, Cinereal, Stonewall, Topflight and Miss Militia.
[...]
“Is Weld getting a statue?” Tristan asked.

“Not for a while,” Sveta said. “That’s more for people who’ve put in the years, and he only just got in. He’s got a preliminary thing in the gift shop.” - Excerpt from Glare 3.6</ref>

Post-Fallen Fall

The Crowleys carried out a terrorist attack that caused widespread devastation, expanding the portals and stranding Chevalier, as well as other key members of the Wardens.

At the time of the Hard Boil incident, where Breakthrough has gone public about the Gold Morning, Chevalier has found his way back and returned to his public relations role.<ref>Gleaming 9.2</ref>

Post-Time Bubble Pop

His group was defeated and captured by The Fallen during The Wardens' assault on Teacher's Compound.<ref>Dying 15.6</ref> Chevalier was tortured by Christine Mathers for some time, before Precipice, Love Lost and Colt arrived and disposed of the Fallen. He led survivors to Teacher's command post.<ref name="15.zII">Interlude 15.z</ref>

Post-Attack on Teacher

Following the invasion of a Shin super-weapon that was fashioned after himself, into The City borders and The Kronos Titan attack on it. Chevalier and his people deployed against both of them.<ref name="II17.5">Sundown 17.5</ref> Chevalier blocked the path for Kronos with his sword, which proved enough to stop him.<ref name="II17.6">Sundown 17.6</ref>

Trivia

• According to Valkyrie, Chevalier is the keeper of the "Destroyer" shard.<ref name="E.1">Teneral e.1</ref>.
• Chevalier is pronounced “Che-va-lier”<ref>Worm Audiobook pronounciation guide (confirmed by Wildbow)</ref>
• Chevalier's middle name is Michael. <ref name="Interlude 28">Try my middle name. Michael. - Excerpt from Interlude 28</ref>

Fanart Gallery

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  Illustration by Ughzubat
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  Illustration to Interlude 24.x by YunYunHakusho
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  Image by Late Penguins
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  By Pabel and Nine on tumblr

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References

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