Over 800 years ago, the lovely djinn Elalyth renders the wounded knight Adam Destine immortal and they become lovers, starting a family who must keep their powers hidden. That is until twins Rory and Pandora become costumed crime-fighters, bringing their family into the limelight in the age of Super Heroes!
One Big Happy Family
Long ago in ancient Persia, the sorcerer Sujanaa Min Raghbah captured a mystic gem containing a mysterious spiritual female entity, legend held to be a djinn, a genie of sorts, who becomes known as Elalyth; for hundreds of years, she was constrained to serve the evil wizard, but she never loved him as he craved, and he eventually went insane.
In the summer of 1168 AD, during the reign of King Henry II, Adam of Ravenscroft was born. When he was 16, he fell on a scythe, suffering fatal wounds, but as he descended into delirium, his mind made contact with the djinn. Believing his survival was a miracle and his dream a prophecy of a great destiny, the villagers renamed him Adam of Destine. In 1189, Adam traveled to the Holy Land as part of the Third, or King’s, Crusade, subconsciously following the djinn’s call. Through two years of fighting, Adam was never injured, rightly concluding that his “angel” protected him. Hearing of Adam, the Bedouin lord and rival mage Al Kadhdhaab captured him, and told him that he fulfilled a prophecy of the one who could free the world from Ragbah’s evil influence. Unaware Al Kadhdhaab coveted the djinn for himself, Adam accompanied him to the edge of Raghbah’s realm within Persia’s Zagross Mountains; Adam slew Raghbah, but before he could free the djinn, Al Kadhdhaab bushwhacked him. Dying, Adam cut through the rope tethering the gem to the ceiling; it shattered as it hit the floor, freeing the djinn, who slew Al Kadhdhaab and healed Adam, making him immortal and indestructible.
Adam and the djinn Elalyth became lovers, producing numerous children over the centuries. The children inherited longevity from their parents, their aging slowing after puberty, and in their late teens, also developed unique magical talents. Though Adam established a family estate in Ravenscroft, both he and his children traveled the world, and as the family grew, Adam often left new children with an older sibling to raise, unaware of the family heritage until they were old enough to keep the secret. The family’s greatest fear was always discovery, and they soon learned to move on before their slow aging became apparent. When family members died, they would be buried in the family cemetery without dates or surnames inscribed.
Jasmine was the eldest, born sometime before 1209 AD, when she met her grandparents. She developed wide-ranging psychic abilities; able to shift her consciousness into others’ bodies. She evaded death by taking over fresh corpses, earning her the nickname Cuckoo from her siblings. Little is known of her brothers Garth, Lance and Sherlock, save that they were dead by the modern day and interred in the family cemetery.
Thaddeus was a born warrior, able to adopt the aspect of any beast; while his brother, Albert, born in the mid-14th century, was a healer. After Albert painfully failed to stem the Black Death racing across Europe, in 1374, Thaddeus and Adam took him to heal at the Tibet’s Shalu Monastery, but en route were attacked by the rogue Inhuman Tral. Thaddeus was killed, and an enraged Albert slew Tral, an act which still haunts him. Studying mystical techniques and embracing spirituality, by the modern day, he could heal others even from half a planet away. He has restored Cuckoo’s new host forms more than once; though, the spiritual Albert disapproves of her cheating death. He helped her only reluctantly, to repay an unspecified debt.
When Gracie, who was born in 1503, was barely 16, she accompanied Cuckoo, then in a Spanish nobleman’s body, to the newly-discovered land later known as Mexico as part of Hernán Cortés, AKA Cortez, Pizarro’s Conquistadores. However, while the Destines wished to study Aztec culture, they learned Cortés only desired gold, witnessing his men massacre the locals. Separated from Cuckoo and naively believing any means were justified to stop Cortés, Gracie sought to enhance her newly emerging psychic powers by channeling eldritch energies as she had seen Cuckoo do. Ignoring her Aztec companions’ warnings, she located a cosmic power nexus in an ancient ruined temple, but what she had presumed was a latent energy field proved to be the demonic Synraith, using her contact to open a rift from its own dimension. Sensing the mystical activity, Cuckoo arrived in time to seal the rift. Knowing she had shown the demon a route to Earth and that it would try again, Gracie dedicated herself to stopping it. Through the years each time the dimensions aligned, Gracie and Jasmine would block Synraith’s path. Maurice, born after Gracie, could generate unidentified energy around his hands, while his younger sister Florence was seemingly clairvoyant.
The Family Tree
Clan Destine’s family tree starts with their father Adam Destine and the djinn Elalyth. With her genie-like powers, she makes Adam immortal and most of their offspring inherit powers. They look to their father as the leader, while some like Pandora and Rory become crime-fighting Super Heroes.
The children of Adam and Elalyth include, Albert Destine; Walter Destine, AKA Wallop; Newton Destine; Dominic Destine, AKA Hex; Samantha (Sam) Destine, AKA Argent; William (Will) Destine, AKA Cap'n Oz; Grace Destine, AKA Gracie Gamble; Pandora Destine, AKA Imp; Rory Destine, AKA Crimson Crusader; Jasmine (Kay Cera), AKA Cuckoo; and Nathaniel Destine.
Sometimes Blood’s Thicker Than Water
The family battled their own demons after Vincent Destine destroyed their family home and committed crimes. The family’s leader, and father, Adam reluctantly slayed him, but he returned later as a spirit that attempted to resurrect himself by using Logan/James Howlett, AKA Wolverine, as a host body.
Clan Destine faces several threats to their family, including the Guild, the demonic being Synraith, as well as Hywel Griffin, AKA Alpha, and his Omegans.
The Family Silver
Clan Destine makes few allies over the centuries since they largely stay under the radar. But the ones they do make include Professor X and his X-Men Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, and Wolverine who help them defeat the demon Synraith. They even protect Wolverine from their brother Vincent’s spirit, who tries to take over his body. Matt Murdoch, AKA Daredevil, and Dr. Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange also act as allies to the clan.
All In The Family
Like Gracie, many of the family found purpose in their lives using their powers to fight evil. In 1612, Adam visited Russia, helping establish the Romanov dynasty. After three years, he departed to help Albert and Gracie protect the Japanese Shogun Tokugawa from a coup. En route via the Sayan Mountains, he chanced across alien scouts building a teleportation gate for their main army to come through. Having never seen extraterrestrials before, the curious Adam moved closer; the aliens attacked, but Adam proved invulnerable to all their weapons, one of which exploded when Adam blocked it with his fist. Believing all mankind was as powerful, the surviving alien fled. As civilization spread, their fear of discovery increased, and the family mostly abandoned covert heroics. To ensure the discovery of one Destine did not betray all of them, Newton Destine, whose genius-level enhanced intellect made him an expert in innumerable scientific fields, devised an elaborate series of counterfeit names and identities—the Relative Stranger Protocol.
Despite this desire to remain unnoticed, in 1849, Adam clashed with the ancient criminal conspiracy known as the Guild. Nathaniel’s relative position in the order of the family’s births remains unrevealed, as do his powers, while Walter was born prior to 1823, and could cause his muscles to swell, growing in size and strength. He discovered the full extent of his abilities in 1944 while working for British Military Intelligence. When a Nazi war machine attacked a top-secret Allied leaders conference at Bunbrook Bomber Station and overpowered the Invaders, Walt intervened, his skin turning blue and hair catching fire as he grew larger and stronger than ever before, easily ripping the machine apart. Forced to flee rather than fight Allied troops who mistook him for an enemy, Walter became reluctant to use his powers in the future, concerned both by the murderous rage he felt while transformed and that it took weeks for his physiognomy to return fully to normal afterwards.
William was born after Walter, and possessed superhuman strength and agility. His younger brother Dominic, born prior the 1940s, was raised by Newton; when Dom’s senses became superhumanly acute, Newton designed an anechoic chamber where Dom could rest, protected from outside stimuli. Despite finding the presence of other humans uncomfortable as a result, Dom briefly pursued a stage career as the illusionist Hex in the 1960s. He never felt close to his father, acutely aware that centuries of invulnerability and never tiring had robbed Adam of normal human body language, so that he seemed cold and aloof. Vincent, whose powers remain unrevealed, followed Dominic, and then, around 1950, Samantha (Sam) was born, able to generate and shape metallic protoplasm. A couple of decades ago, Cuckoo and Gracie drove Synraith back again, this time with mutant Professor X’s assistance; unknown to them, it marked the trio so that it would not have to wait for another dimensional alignment to try again.
Around 14 years ago, the twins Rory and Pandora were born. When they were still infants, and Cuckoo in her 43rd host body, Vincent destroyed the family mansion and committed other, unspecified crimes. Convinced Vincent was evil, Adam reluctantly killed him, then overcome with grief and guilt, departed Earth in a van that Newton modified. Dom, angered by Adam’s actions and Walter’s support for them, went into seclusion on a small island off the coast of Ilfracombe, England, while Newton also left his native reality (Reality-616), picking up a new engineered body on Narcissus 4 before becoming Warlord of Ethera (Earth-2803). Florence and Walter became Rory and Pandora’s guardians, living in Ravenscroft village near the family home and passing themselves off as the children’s grandmother and uncle, respectively. Walt supported them by writing the Vanessa Victorious romance adventures under the pseudonym Sabrina Bentley.
The rest of the family scattered. By the modern day, Maurice “Fortuit” resided in the Swiss Alps, and Samantha “Hasard” in France. Will ‘Take a’ “Chance” was an Australian actor playing “Cap’n Oz,” while Jasmine or “Kay Cera” lived a jetsetter’s lifestyle running her own fashion house. Albert was a master monk in the Seventh Moon Monastery in Nepal, while Professor Gracie “Gamble” led archaeological expeditions around the world.
Because they were twins, Rory and Pandora’s powers developed early. Although, they only worked when the pair was close to one another; Rory could manipulate gravity, while Pandora controlled light. Believing they were mutants and enamored of American Super Heroes, they covertly became crime-fighters, the Crimson Crusader and Imp, wearing Halloween costumes Kay had made. They tried to stop the hijacking of a genetic stabilizer called Genetic Realignment Yield, Polarity, Harmonizing, Orientation Net (GRYPHON) en route to the Griffin Research Complex, but were attacked by both sides—the genetically-engineered Lenz’s unstable hybrids and geneticist Hywel Griffin, AKA Alpha’s guards. The twins fled with the GRYPHON to stop the fighting, but Lenz’s hybrids snagged Imp’s cape, and its Kay Cera Exclusives label led them to Cuckoo, killing her. Luckily, her mind survived by shifting hosts; Kay’s notebook locket led the hybrids to others in the family. Maurice and Florence were killed, but Samantha, Will and Walter destroyed their attackers. Believing the family under attack, Walter told the twins of their heritage and contacted Dom and Newton to track their assailants down.
Meanwhile, in deep space, Adam sensed his children dying and hastily returned home. After mistakenly first confronting Alpha and his Omegans, the family battled Lenz and his hybrids. Lenz overpowered them, but when Adam arrived, the hybrids sacrificed their life forces to power Lenz’s futile attacks against him. Feeling too many lives had been lost and that Lenz had acted only out of a desire to survive, Adam let Lenz depart. Concerned about the twins’ continued desire to fight crime, Walter threatened to separate them so they could not use their powers. The twins ran away, flying to New York in hopes of joining a Super Hero team, where they were saved from a street gang by Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man.
Meanwhile, also in New York, Cuckoo attempted to reclaim her company, passing her new host off as her previous body’s daughter, but her executive director Mr. Kramer, worried that “Kay Jr.” would discover his embezzling, hired an assassin, the Skyline Killer. Cuckoo’s power display convinced the Killer that Kramer had set him up. The Killer captured Cuckoo and Sam to interrogate them, but Cuckoo telepathically alerted the twins, who rescued their sisters with Spider-Man’s assistance. The Killer escaped and murdered Kramer, only to be slain by Frank Castle, AKA Punisher, who was possibly led to him by Cuckoo.
Synraith later tricked Gracie into casting a spell to give it access to Earth ahead of the next dimensional alignment, then teleported Gracie and Cuckoo to Xavier Mansion, home of Xavier’s X-Men. There, it used the holographic technology of Xavier’s Danger Room to fool Gracie and Cuckoo into believing they had been transported into Synraith’s dimension. Snatching Xavier and his student Piotr Rasputin, AKA Colossus, too, the demon tricked the psychics into trying to anchor it there until the portal between realities closed, unaware they were really drawing it through to Earth. Newton teleported the other Destines to the Danger Room in pursuit, encountering Storm and Wolverine. Despite Synraith’s subterfuge, the heroes eventually saw through its illusions, and the psychics held Synraith trapped halfway through the portal as it collapsed, apparently destroying the demon.
The twin’s ongoing crimefighting disrupted Guild operations. Figuring out the Destines’ identities, the Guild leaked them to Griffin. Dr. Griffin returned with the Omegans to enact his vengeance against the Destines. Meanwhile, Dominic’s powerful senses were so overwhelming that Newton helped him by building a device to lessen them. Dominic also had a run-in with Excalibur, the Super Hero group, and the Inhumans, while he traveled through time and space. Adam came to his family’s rescue by reducing Griffin to an infant state, and warned the Omegans to stay away from his family. He is then reunited with Elalyth, the djinn mother of the clan, both now living in the mystical realm of Yden together. Afterward, an energy emerged from the Ravenscroft grounds and dives into Vincent’s grave, cracking the tombstone.
When the robot Plastoid came onto the Destines’ radar, Cuckoo thought it was a parasitic elemental possessing the robotic form. Though, her family thought that it was Vincent’s spirit, returned from the dead. They try to stop Cuckoo from destroying Plastoid and are aided by Daredevil and Doctor Strange. Daredevil ended up destroying the robot, which released Vincent’s spirit, confirming the family’s instincts correct.
With Vincent’s spirit on the loose, the family chased him down. Cuckoo used her telepathy to fully confirm that it was Vincent’s spirit that they tracked. Vincent uses his abilities as a spirit to animate ancient Heliopolitan gods to attack the family and their latest ally Wolverine. He then revealed that he manipulated previous events to reunite their parents to bring about his resurrection, and his intention to use Wolverine as a host for his spirit since the X-Man was the perfect superhuman to contain his powers. Though, Rory, Pandora, and Wolverine worked together and destroyed Vincent before he can accomplish his plan.
