Morland Reyes

Morland Reyes is one of the main characters in the Elsaverse, as he is the main villain in the first story arc. Morland was the King of Terrans in the parallel universe, but he forged a secret alliance with his kingdom's enemies to betray his people and came to Sangrive to enjoy a new rise to the top, using evil methods. He is the father of Charles and Chloe Reyes, and he has a foreshadowing power that lets him know in advance the consequences of his words and actions unless Chloe is involved in them. His former Elite Guard, Xara, captured him and brought him back to their realm, where he's currently detained.

Personal
Morland is probably the most powerful Terran alive, as his power allows him to live his life without ever making a single mistake to get what he wants. And, being an evil, ambitious, selfish, and manipulative person, this means that he has all what it takes to become an undisputed leader. Which, indeed, is what he did, rising to the throne and ruling over his people for many years. However, he always felt that the journey is more enjoyable than the destination, and he eventually got bored of it. Knowing about the existence of different universes Terrans can open portals to, he devised a plan to enjoy another raise to the top somewhere else, but playing with a safety net, just in case. So he sealed a secret deal with the Drae, his kingdom's mortal enemies, to give them his throne away in a war; in exchange, they'd keep a portal constantly open so that he could come back to his realm at any moment. One day, the Drae set up an ambush in which all of Morland's Elite Guards bar Xara perished; when she reported back to Morland, he closed the trap, betraying her trust and ordering his most loyal assassin, Crow, to leave her badly hurt and blind. The commotion this originated gave them enough time to flee.

Morland and Crow arrived in Sangrive basically empty-handed, but Morland's power was more than enough to start their journey. And, considering that time moves slower in their homeworld than in Sangrive, which means that they age way slower than humans, they did not need to rush things. Starting small, Morland began to amass money and connections, buying hotels, casinos, and other companies until he became a big tycoon in the city; more than thirty years after his arrival, he was starting to get involved in local politics by trying to put a puppet of him in the Mayoral office. Along the way, he didn't hesitate to resort to more than questionable methods like bribes, threats, extortion, or insurance frauds, but also sexual exploitation, poisoning, and murder; at his service, a little army of whores and assassins to carry out all the dirty jobs for him, duly instructed and disciplined by Crow. Crow's own obedience to him was granted by fulfilling her desires: having a lab in which she could experiment with her potions and poisons, being given total freedom to test those creations on unfortunate subjects she could keep imprisoned in the mansion's dungeons, and getting to have sex with Morland on a regular basis.

In all these years, Morland only made one single mistake: having a daughter with a human woman. Not only Chloe didn't inherit any power from her Terran ascendant but, unfortunately for him, she actually revealed herself as the only blind spot for Morland's power: the consequences he foresees for his actions may not be the real ones if Chloe is involved in them. Moreover, while still being as smart as her father, Chloe also took the moral compass her mother tried to give her, becoming a sweet and kind-hearted young girl. She is exactly the opposite of her brother, Charles, who Morland defines as someone who is "as loyal as a collie, and about as smart", and who got a power that consists on suppressing other people's powers when he's around, except his father's. Charles quickly embraced Morland's lifestyle and goals, to the point of even infecting scarlet fever to his own mother, causing her death; Chloe, on the other hand, just wanted to be an ordinary girl, but Morland made sure to keep her on a tight leash, both literally and figuratively. Through physical and emotional abuse, Morland taught her to fear him; he cut off almost all of her social relationships, scaring away her teenage love, Paul, by threatening him with having Crow kill him, and finally made her enter the family business by forcing her to have sex with one of his potential business partners on her 18th birthday.

From that moment on, Morland used his own daughter as one of his minions, whoring her out and assigning her some minor missions without fully disclosing his plans to her, as he could never be sure about her effectiveness. Frustrated about that malfunction she causes on his power, Morland used to whip Chloe's tattoed right arm whenever she failed on a mission or tried to make her own choices, as a brutal way to keep her in line: the tattoo would cover the scars to not scare her potential targets. However, one day Morland went a bit too far when he ordered Chloe to cause an accident without telling her that it would put her childhood friend, Miranda, in a coma. After visiting her daily for almost a year while Miranda was in bed, Chloe realized she could actually oppose Morland covertly, without him knowing it; and she started to do so when she met Xara, who had been sent to Sangrive to bring Morland and Crow to their home world's justice. Under Morland's eyes, Chloe just began to fail more and more frequently, until she couldn't stop Jessica Springfield from preventing a massacre at Joey Bertradino's Mayoral rally. Chloe's failure in that operation didn't exactly derail his plans, as the less-deadful bombing still hurt Mayor Bertradino's chances for re-election as intended, but Morland completely lost his trust in her daughter and, after a last harsh punishment, he let her go away from him, hoping she would just flee and stop messing with his plans.

Morland never thought her daughter could be betraying and sabotaging him on purpose, but she was; when he found Xara and his power told him that the best course of action would be to abduct the blind warrior and keep her alive in his dungeon, Morland didn't even imagine that Chloe could be involved with her. So, when Xara's group stormed into his mansion to free her and he found himself cornered by an expert fighter like Xara and a totally uncontrollable agent like Chloe, Morland was in serious danger for the first time since his arrival in Sangrive. He couldn't rely on his power, as Chloe's presence wouldn't let him know for sure the outcome of this situation, so he just tried to shamelessly run away through the interdimensional portal and back to his homeworld. Chloe tried to stop him and even pointed a gun at him, but she just couldn't shoot her father. Feeling a bit proud of his daughter after knowing she was indeed fighting him all this time, Morland waved her off and started walking towards the portal, but Chloe's boyfriend, Paul, tackled him down and knocked him out, full of rage. Then Xara only had to take his unconscious body, get through the portal, and fight her way back to the Terran High Command, where Morland was safely put away.

Powers
Morland has the power of strategic foreshadowing, which lets him know in advance the outcome of his words and actions. This way he can automatically choose the best course of action on every occasion, as he can also foresee other people's reactions to his movements. Among other benefits, this allows him to measure the info he gives to his minions, letting them know only what they need to know to successfully carry out their missions. It's debatable whether his power has some kind of time restriction, as some of his past choices might not seem optimal in the long run; however, the only limit explicitly mentioned in the saga is Chloe's involvement in the process: if she has a role on it, the outcomes Morland foresees may not happen, and he can't even know if she's going to be involved at all.

Morland's plottings have affected several characters in the Elsaverse. He threatened Chloe's boyfriend, Paul, to have Crow kill him when he was only a teenager, in order to make Paul break his relationship with Chloe. Miranda's coma was accidentally caused by Chloe in some minor business operation, although breaking that relationship between the two girls may have been also a goal in itself. Morland used one of his female minions, Karen, to drive Lucas crazy so that he would be fired from his company; this caused that company to start struggling, which eventually let Morland buy it at a reduced cost. Jan van Bruyn was a respected pro boxer before Morland agreed to host a title fight in one of his hotels; shortly before the fight, though, Jan was falsely accused of taking bribes: even though he denied those claims, his career was ruined and the fight was canceled, with the hotel getting a nice amount of money from the insurance company. Lucile, an accountant, had a worse fate: she ended up dead from a heart attack after Morland deemed Crow as the most suitable agent to deal with her, once his initial plan was surprisingly dismantled by Xara as a side effect of one of Chloe's tip-offs.

But Morland's most ambitious plan was the one he devised to control the city government by putting a puppet in the Mayoral office. He started to cover for candidate Anne Kruin's expenses for many months and then used a slow-acting poison made by Crow to force Kruin to follow his orders if she wanted to get the antidote. Meanwhile, he organized a Mayhem's concert at one of his hotels to make Jessica Springfield meet his son, Charles: as planned, they started a romantic relationship, until Charles broke up with her right before another concert. Jessica, who was still unaware of her own power, sang in anger, and Charles used that anger she was broadcasting to her audience to start a massive brawl that resulted in several deaths. Jessica felt guilty about it and fell into a depressive state that should have prevented her from stopping Morland's big strike: a deadly bombing at a Mayor Bertradino's rally. Chloe only had to make sure that Jessica wouldn't overcome her trauma thanks to Marc, so that they wouldn't attend the rally; however, Miranda stopped Chloe thanks to the insight info that the very same Chloe was feeding Xara with, and Jessica was able to avoid a total massacre. Fortunately for Morland, the bombing still caused some victims, and the Sangrive Police Department's inability to find the culprits made Bertradino drop in the election polls; Anne Kruin was eventually elected as the new Mayor, but he wasn't there to see it.

Miscellaneous

 * Morland's last name, Reyes, literally means 'Kings' in Spanish. And 'El Rey' Casino means literally 'The King' Casino. It's unknown whether that's his original last name or he just adopted it upon arriving at Sangrive.


 * In Chasing Beth (2021) it's hinted that Morland got help from at least two other Terrans, Anton Blackhawk and his wife Tatiana, during his first years in Sangrive.


 * Tora Productions's artist, Mortze, said that a famous Hollywood actor inspired him to create Morland's look. Tlaero mentioned that she was watching the TV show "Elementary" when it came time to name him: in that show there's a character named Morland Holmes, who is the father of the legendary fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes.