The Warlock

Marcello Elgard, known as The Warlock, is the primary antagonist in the story Stonehall High. He is introduced in the first Flashback Chapter: Chapter 24, but doesn't enter the main story until he is resurrected in Chapter 80. He is a warlock with unparalled magical abilities and the most powerful character in the story. He is driven by the fierce belief that all life must be exterminated due to a rejection of reality itself. His actions led to a Secret War in 1995 where humankind and many other supernatural beings fought against him in Australia. During that war he gained the title of the World's Greatest Mass Murderer. He was eventually killed in battle and remained dead until being revived with the Perfect Revival spell by his student Hades Elgard in 2012 for the purposes of her own plan.

Created by author Zoicite23, The Warlock was designated the primary antagonist when the Great Revival Plot was made and approved after the Introduction Arc that ended in Chapter 10. He is the most drawn character by Zoicite23 and the author's personal favorite. His ideals and beliefs were inspired by Zoicite23's negative views and opinions on the world and life. Prior to his initial death The Warlock was in his mid-twenties and is the same age after his resurrection. When Marcello Elgard took 'The Warlock' as his title in the seventh Flashback Chapter: Chapter 62 and became a villain he was eighteen years old.

Background
Marcello Elgard was raised by monks in the Elgard Temple sometime during the 1970-80s in Stonehall. It is unknown what happened to his parents, Marcello stated that he never knew them. Prior to starting Year 10 in Stonehall High he was homeschooled by the monks. Being a warlock he was trained in the arts of magic in the temple during his schooling life. When he started Year 10 as an enroled student he became acquainted with Collin Desdemona, Ariel, Joey Sanders and Jensen. Being stand-offish and proud, particularly of his magical heritage, Marcello was also very blunt, sometimes insensitive and had difficulty with social interaction and understanding social cues. While in school he defined himself as a logical as apposed to emotional being. Unable to understand people because of this he considered them and social relationships to be too complex, contributing to why he was always blunt and uncaring. Despite this and being mocked and ridiculed early on in his schooling for being so unconcerned with fitting in, he eventually gained friends who admired his individuality and weirdness. Robert Jeffry, Lisa and other students including the aforementioned characters eventually grew an endearing affection towards Marcello. He became friendly with them as well, considering them friends and caring for them sometime during Year 11.

Jensen was immediately attracted to Marcello's strangeness and considered him a friend early on. Throughout their first year together Jensen used to follow Marcello around and while the warlock never voiced it he considered the smaller boy a friend and enjoyed his company. As Marcello was never one to show affection in his first year at Stonehall High, Jensen became disheartened when he didn't try to stay in contact over the end of year holidays. In Year 11 Marcello was forced to realize how much his friend had meant to him and eventually approach a quiet and distant Jensen. He then learns that instead of being angry with him, Jensen felt like he may have been just an irritation to Marcello so avoided his classmate. When Marcello confronts Jensen the smaller boy reveals his romantic attraction which is then reciprocated by Marcello. The two begin dating and their relationship is seemingly accepted by the other members of the group.

Half-way through Year 12 Marcello's life took a turn for the worst. While he had been growing into a happier and kinder person, Jensen's goodness rubbing off on him, everything changed. Jensen became diagnosed with Crohn's disease, this revelation shocked Marcello. For the sake of his lover, Jensen maintained a positive outlook and insisted that soon he would be out of the hospital and the two would resume their life and love together. However Jensen never left the hospital. Not long after his diagnosis he contracted cancer in his colon and was left in horrible pain. With the suffering unmanageable and his death inevitable, Jensen yearned to die but euthanasia was illegal in Australia at that time, and still is today. Denied a dignified death, Jensen eventually died three months later after three bowl obstructions and vomitting his own excretion. The slow process of his death wore Marcello down greatly, and began corrupting his views and acceptance of reality. Due to the horific nature of the circumstance, none of Marcello's friends from school had come to visit him or Jensen. As human nature goes, they couldn't bring themselves to face what was happening and avoided the situation instead. This lead Marcello to believe that friendship isn't real and that fellowship between people is a selfish evoltionary instinct. Dropping out of school Marcello spent several more months dealing with severe depression before deciding to seek power. Deciding to leave the Elgard temple to find those who would teach him the dark magic that the monks wouldn't, Marcello made it his ambition to revive Jensen. After his change Marcello felt disconnected from his former self, instead wishing to be called The Warlock.

After practicing dark magic that twisted and warped his mind, The Warlock grew remarkably strong in his relentless quest for power. Due to his belief that existance itself was evil, The Warlock decided that all life should be extinguished. He felt that by killing people he was freeing them from the reality he fiercely rejected, and that their death would also save them from ever facing the same fate as he or Jensen. The Warlock began to consider himself a god-like figure because of his power and views. He considered defying the laws of nature (i.e. selfish procreating and creating peace) to be a way of transcending to a realm beyond the flawed reality that it belonged to. As life's purpose was to live and create more life, The Warlock considered the path to surpassing mortality rejecting these views and working toward ending existance. As these views go totally against nature. Due to this he often referred to himself as supremacy, the next step in evolution and even, at one point, God. When he was strong enough The Warlock returned to the Elgard temple and killed all of the monks, taking his old home as his own. While The Warlock wanted to end all life as a means of ending pain, he acknowledged that even with his unsurpassed power he couldn't do it immediately and painlessly. When his enemies had differing views to his own The Warlock would sometimes try to make them suffer as a way to show them how wrong reality is. Deciding that life was pointless anyway, The Warlock decided he could have fun as he slowly purged the world, city by city.

In 1994 The Warlock's power was recognized as a global threat. To speed up his work and help fight the Hunters  who rallied against him, The Warlock began persuading supernatural species to serve under his command. Most were convinced to betray the human governments that made the rules as they wished to be superior and kill the seemingly weaker species as they pleased. Others were threatened and joined The Warlock's ranks out of fear. Many people who worked for The Warlock were in awe of his great power and magic, considering him a god for what he could do and how he was changing the world. In 1995 a war was waged in Australia between The Warlock's forces and the human race, allied with other species. Despite the fact that The Warlock had others on his side, ultimately his intention was always to exterminate all life. The war seemed dire, and the world experienced a fear it had never faced before. Cities upon cities were wiped out. The Warlock was eventually killed by his old school friends. Collin Desdemona crudely insulted Jensen, thereby throwing The Warlock off guard and allowing Lisa Jeffry to kill him. Afterwards the war was named the Secret War, as it was never to be mentioned to future generations. Due to the impact, chaos and damage of all The Warlock had done before his death it was believed that the world's first step to recovery was to forget. The Warlock died just before nuclear weapons could be used to end the war.

Prior to his death The Warlock tried incessantly to create a spell that could perfectly revive someone who died. Although zombies and ghosts are a form of resurrection, he wanted to creat a 'Perfect Revival'. Something which was said to be impossible. As he went about destroying populations he came across Hades, a very young witch who's family died in the destruction. Seeing potential in her he took Hades to be his student believing that if he were to die she might have the chance to complete the Perfect Revival. Hades lived with The Warlock in the Elgard temple. To keep her company The Warlock transformed an orphan from another one of the towns he destroyed into a cat with a powerful spell. Solomon was to keep Hades company because The Warlock was not one for companionship, although he never physically abused her he would threaten to. Hades was nine when The Warlock died. The Elgard Temple was destroyed and burnt to the ground in a victory rampage, and later converted into a cemetary in Stonehall to burry the vast number of people who died in the Secret War.

Personality
In his youth while attending Stonehall High School, Marcello Elgard was a lone-wolf. He was very proud of his heritage so insisted on wearing his warlock garments to school, despite being bullied for them. Marcello never tried to fit in, and this also lead to antagonism as students noticed his strangeness. He was fierce and intelligent, considering himself a logical as opposed to an emotional being. Social interaction was beyond him, finding people were two-faced or sometimes hid how they truly felt, it was all too complex for Marcello and he preferred to avoid socializing with others completely. Marcello also found it difficult to apologize and to openly show affection to another person. He changed after dating and falling in love with Jensen. While still remaining an individual of character he became more kind to others, even openly considering Collin, Joey, Lisa, Robert, Ariel and many others his friends.

After the traumatic events leading up to Jensen's death, The Warlock became an incredibly dark and corrupted individual. He became passionately obsessed with ending all existances, believing it was the purpose of his life as a god. After transforming into The Warlock, he believed that all that existed inside of him was vast hatred and rage. When Cody Burkett tried to argue with him about his views he snapped back, losing his normally cool compisition to become manic and twitchy. The Warlock shows great pleasure at killing his enemies, laughing and having fun with it at times. While he can be loud and insane in battle he can also be passive, the change bewteen these two polar opposites can be startling. The Warlock is such a powerful and evil person that he has a specific aura that terrifies those in his presence. The three protagonists were initially paralyzed by fear, Kaitlyn Desdemona even started crying. Having a massive superiority complex he considers humans to be weak and disgusting. He believed that in order to see real truth one would have to lose everything they were attached to, thus breaking down all illusions to become the same as him. The Warlock felt that the right form of hatred was the greatest motivator and that only by discarding inhibiting factors like morality and the essense of one's self could they harness their true potential. Whenever he killed he would consider it freeing people from the horrid reality they existed within.

While believing that truly good people existed in the world, like Jensen, The Warlock believed it did no good for such people to exist in a reality that was evil. He believed that Cody was good and commented that his aura was similar to that of Jensen. Cody's and Jensen's will conflicted with The Warlock's majorly, causing the base of the moral arguments that occured in the story. In an attempt to prove Cody wrong and help him understand truth, he killed his lover and boyfriend Dylan Wilson so that he would face a similar pain. While Cody became bloodthirsty and ballistic for a time and underwent a large personality change afterwards he held firm in his belief that The Warlock was insane and incorrect. The Warlock also argued over whether the magical or human race was superior with Lora Desdemona. After meeting the three protagonists, The Warlock tried to kill Kaitlyn first after seeing the Illusionary Staff in her possession. He made the correct assumption that she was Collin's daughter and was still enraged with the senior Desdemona's insult towards Jensen that although happened seventeen years ago was only an instant to him as he'd just been revived. The Warlock had a lot of negative emotions like hatred, anger and coldness to the point of being a psychopath, but he is nomrally calm and collected. In battles where his skill or ideals are being challenged he can become visibly insane. Usually he enjoys fighting and killing, cackling madly with enjoyment. He didn't show emotions like sadness and true joy until Jensen was revived with the Perfect Revival at the end of the story, shocking everyone who saw him by crying. The Warlock told Jensen that with him there it felt like he was 'feeling' for the first time in so long, and that it was like being Marcello Elgard again.

Appearance
Zoicite23 intended for The Warlock's appearance to be gaunt and frightening, matching with the intensely intimidating aura he instilled in others. He has worn warlock garments since his youth, however his modern clothes were more stylistically and practically improved for the Secret War. The Warlock wears black sandles and long black robes that part in the middle, held together by a black sash. He also wears a darker armour chest-plate with shoulder spikes. When his armour was broken and he tore off his robe, underneath The Warlock wore black pants that came just past his knees. As a child Marcello wore mostly black or grey robes with white edges or patterns, making him stand out in school. After first meeting Jensen he got a comment about the strangeness of his hair, shoulder length but with spikes through it. It was the style that his hair naturally assumed, The Warlock's hair reached just beyond his collar bone. His eyes, like all witches and warlocks, were like cats' eyes and were white like his hair. It wasn't until The Warlock began studying dark magic that corrupted his soul and mind that his sclera turned black, making his appearance even more eerie. The Warlock's skin is fairly tan, his face has a series of withered lines around his eyes despite only being in his mid-twenties.

After writing the first three Flash Chapters (flashback chapters) Zoicite23 drew multiple pictures of The Warlock for the purposes of making the video at the top of the page. It was only showed to the other authors at first and received positive feedback. Initially the length of The Warlock's hair also caused some confusion due to some of Zoicite23's pictures, but it has been decided in the story that his hair is shoulder-length. As the story progressed and more drawings of the villain were made the style of his fringe became more pronounced. The Warlock's appearance was meant to mimic his personality as a vastly evil individual, capable of gaining the title of the World's Greatest Mass Murderer, but also as an incredibly damaged and corrupted individual. After he was revived with the Perfect Revival by Hades he had the Black Blood product instilled into his body. It could be seen worming through his veins under his skin, particularly when he began fighting bare-chested after Chapter 99 in the story. The Warlock is most likely average in height and has a fit body, attributing to his great fighting ability. He also has long broken nails on each hand.

Abilities
The Warlock has a wide range of powerful abilities that make him the strongest character in the story.

Pyromancy: The Warlock can breathe incredible volumes of fire from his mouth, much greater than even a Dragon. His firebreathing could also expand into a wide range. Unlike Hades he was unable to shape the fire or manipulate it signifigantly.

Deflection Spell: Using an invisible shield The Warlock was able to deflect projectiles or energy attacks, such as the Illusionary Staff's energy blasts by aiming his open hand.

Transfiguration: Although unable to use this power in a battle situation, The Warlock was responcible for transforming Solomon into a cat at an early age. The spell was powerful enough to remain even after The Warlock's death.

Black Magic: Shadow Casting was one of The Warlock's greatest skills. Using his shadow to create enormous tendrils of darkness and domes that spanned kilometres, his shape manipulation and raw power was greater than Diana's. The Warlock could create weapons out of darkness and change their shape at will. His strongest defence was his impenetrable darkness armor that only had one weak point, his eyes for visibility.

Aura Skill: The Warlock was intune with individual auras. He could sense people's emotions and character to an extent. He could also instill his evil aura into those nearby, and often did it without the need of conscious effort. This gave off strong feelings of fear, awe and doom to those around him.

Blood Magic: Using a form of unique blood magic The Warlock invented, he could create Chimera. From his body he could summon hideous black monsters of varying sizes with various animal parts. They could be giant or small, and moved autonomously although appeared under The Warlock's mental control as well. They gave off their own sickly aura. The strongest chimera is the Colossus, a monster with several transformation stages, the final being unrivalled in size by all creatures in the history of nature. The Warlock could also grow parts of chimera from his own body, e.g. limbs, wings.

Regeneration: The Warlock could heal himself quickly with only his thoughts. This made it impossible for him to die unless his mind was destroyed. It is the same power as Bianca, but considering his superior magic it is probably faster and less draining. Because of this power The Warlock had no qualms about allowing himself to get injured during the final fight.

On top of these powers it is presumed The Warlock had a great many other minor powers that weren't explored during this story.

Stonehall High
The Warlock has five of the Flash Chapters, four of them as Marcello Elgard. Despite his appearances in flashback chapters The Warlock doesn't make an appearance in the present timeline of the story until his revival in Chapter 80.

Introduction Arc:
Before a major plot and story-line was decided The Warlock played no part in the story.

Vampires In The Mall Arc:
Hades Elgard was introduced as the leader of The Coven, an organization that's purpose would later be revealed as the revival of The Warlock.

Birthday Party Arc:
Three Flash Chapters reveal The Warlock firstly from Collin Desdemona's perspective in the last battle of the Secret War where he reveals his frightening powers and Colossus. The second Flash Chapter shows a young Marcello starting his first day at Stonehall High School and him meeting Jensen, Collin, Joey and various other characters in their youth. The third chapter reveals that Hades was the student of The Warlock and lived with him, he died when she was nine years old and left her with his quest to complete a spell that could perfectly revive someone.