Charles Reyes

Charles Reyes is a side character that appears in several games and short stories set in the Elsaverse, and who seems to be taking the main villain's role for the second story arc. He is Morland Reyes' son, and Chloe's older brother; following Morland's orders, he was in a relationship with Jessica Springfield for some time, just to hurt her. Charles is a Suppressor: other people's powers don't work properly when he is around.

Personal
Charles is, basically, the exact opposite of his sister Chloe: snide, selfish, and evil-hearted, Morland defines him as someone who is "as loyal as a collie, and about as smart". Born from a human mother who tried to give both of his children a moral compass, Charles simply chose to follow in his father's footsteps, shared his goals, and never questioned his methods. From a very young age, he showed some serious evil potential, to the point of even infecting his mother with scarlet fever, which eventually caused her death. As an adult, he became one of Morland's minions and carried out several missions for him. The most important one, at least according to its effects during the period covered in the saga, was to become Jessica Springfield's boyfriend to make her realize she had a power in the most dramatic way, which should prevent her from intervening in the future bombing Morland was planning. They first met at a Mayhem's concert at one of Morland's casinos, and despite his selfish attitude, Charles managed to impress Jessica enough to start a relationship with her; sometime later, though, he break up with her right before one of her concerts: she sang in anger and, due to Jessica's power, that anger infected the audience, fueling a massive brawl that Charles started. As a consequence, five people died, and Jessica fell into a depressive state. About six weeks later, Charles was assigned to plant a bomb inside a car near Mayor Joey Bertradino's rally; fortunately, and thanks to Marc's moral support and Miranda secret actions to protect her using Chloe's insight info, Jessica was able to prevent a huge massacre. However, the bomb still caused some victims and, eventually, led Mayor Bertradino to lose the election, as Morland wished.

In that six-weeks interim, Charles wasn't exactly inactive. Right after causing the riot at Mayhem's concert, he left his apartment to avoid the Police and was seen at Elsa's bookstore selling a book he had borrowed from Jessica. Then, less than a week before the bombing, he tried to trick a man called Patrick Bower into killing an accountant, Lucile, that Morland wanted to eliminate; however, Xara's unexpected intervention foiled that plan, and Charles was assigned to gather as much info as possible about that short, blind woman. A couple of weeks after the bombing, Charles helped Crow to abduct Xara, and he then ran away in a car when Xara's friends came to rescue her.

With Morland gone, and while still hiding from the Police, Charles decided to take over his father's dirty business and started to recruit different people from Sangrive with unnatural abilities. So far, it's known he has convinced Maria, a girl who can draw people's attention to herself so that they don't perceive anything else going on around them, and Trisha Blackhawk, who apparently can make people trust her and confess their secrets. Using Maria as bait, he also tried to get Trisha's brother on board, but Michael refused. Although Charles' ultimate goal remains unknown, thanks to Trisha's efforts he has already achieved something his father never could: stealing the "Morpheus", the magical book of dreams.

Powers
The contrast between Charles and Chloe is especially visible when talking about powers: while Chloe has no powers at all, but causes a malfunction in her father's foreshadowing power, Charles is a Suppressor who shut off other people's power, except Morland's. Powers that affect all people at once, like Maria's distraction power, seem to be totally blocked by his mere presence within a short range of just a few meters from the power bearer; when he is out of that close range, those powers work as usual but still don't affect him. Also, powers that can be focused specifically on someone, like Alexis' or Candace's emotion-reading powers, simply don't work at all when people try to target him, no matter the distance. This particular behavior explains the odd situation experienced at Mayhem's dire concert: as Charles was at some distance from the stage, Jessica was able to broadcast her anger to the audience without him being affected, while Alexis couldn't read his emotions at all despite being relatively away from him - a distance that allowed her to use her power on others as usual.

Ironically, given the effect his power causes on others, Charles can't turn his own power on and off at will, as most people with powers do: his power is always on.

Miscellaneous

 * Charles is infatuated with Crow and used to peep on her having sex with Morland.


 * Charles isn't unveiled as Morland's son and Chloe's brother until the short story FM: Alpha (2017). However, this family link was already hinted at in Redemption for Jessika (2016), when Elsa says that Charles reminded her of someone she met, referring to Chloe.