Mirage (Matthew Lam)

"It's funny. Life is funny. The one girl who treated me the kindest, is also the person who has hurt me the most. I am the underdog, and Joseph was the one born with everything. Yet despite how hard I worked, how much effort I put into mission planning, putting up with all the bullshit, putting up with everything for the team, HE became squad leader. HE got the girl. And HE ended up becoming stronger than me with the better powers, with the better looks, with the better body. What I've learned, is that I will never get what I want by being this way. From this day on, Vision is no more. A mere sour memory. Like a Mirage."

- Matthew Lam to Taras Pax regarding his defection from Stormwatch

Matthew "Matt" Lam was a member of the Stormwatch Brigade under the codename Vision due to his ability of prophecy along with prodigy and rival, Joseph "The Guardian" Greziak, his crush Rui "Patcher" Iwatani, and the squad mentor/teacher Logan "Metron" Woodley.

After learning that Joseph obtained the title of squad leader instead of him, Lam found himself jealous and betrayed. Shortly afterwards, unfortunate events conspired, including Matt learning that Rui had fallen in love with Joseph, led to the Stormwatch member to abandoning his team out of anger, frustration, and resentment, and joining Taras "Legion" Pax of the Contingency Initiative, a criminal organization who's underlying plot would be to advance The Second Great War, a devastating prophetic event that would put the world into jeopardy. Taras and Matthew staged his death, where the members of the Stormwatch Brigade had believed he had died in an explosion.

During his time with the Contingency Initiative, Lam swore to become stronger than Joseph in hopes of impressing Rui, and underwent brutal training to obtain the power to contend with The Guardian, which Taras promised he would give him. During the three years, Lam's powers underwent a supernatural development, and became significantly stronger. His exponential growth as a late bloomer attracted and gained recognition amongst his new allies, and his new powers earned him the moniker of The Mirage. As Mirage, Matt leads a team of Contingency Initiative operatives known as Squad Four. Acting as the Squad Leader. However, his little regard for his teammates and disinterest in his position ironically parallels with his initial desire to become Squad Leader in the Stormwatch Brigade.

Matt, due to being loyal to Taras, has been labelled an international criminal, and his identity, under the guise of The Mirage, has been marked a hostile to the Stormwatch Brigade. Due to Taras' influence and corruption, Matt underwent a personality shift, his feelings for Rui turned into feelings of hatred, and his current goal is to kill both her and Joseph, under the guidance of Taras and his organization. Mirage has frequently clashed with the members of the Stormwatch Brigade, with them not knowing that their number one threat is one of their own.

Personality

Matthew is described to be self centred, selfish, sadistic, and bitter. His sole purpose was to eliminate Rui and Joseph from his life, as Rui's kindness and compassion for him fed into his romantic feelings for her, leading to his curse of misfortune from his Level 1 Dogma Bargain which he was unaware of at the time. Matt was hopelessly in love with his teammate, and would always find ways to be by her side in missions, pretending to be caught up in any act so that he could stay by her side.

These feelings would turn into jealousy, as Matt's feelings were contested by Rui's infatuation with his rival, Joseph Greziak. In part of this, Matt found himself unable to keep up with Joseph in both power and charm, as he quickly saw himself losing Rui to his rival. During Matt's training with Taras, he was convinced by the criminal lord that these feelings he had were weakness, and the only way to become stronger would be to eliminate the two from the world. Initially, Matt's love for Rui made him reluctant, but over time, as Matt battled the two as "The Mirage", he would catch the two showing affection to one another, breaking the boy's heart, and leading Matt into a spiral of hopelessness. At some point, it was revealed that Rui and Joseph considered marriage and a child, which was the tipping point for Matt, who finally accepted his role as Taras' right hand man, and throwing away all of his feelings for Rui.

Matt finds joy in others' pain, as he believed that if he could not find happiness, neither could anyone around him. As someone who had given up many things to reach his point in power, Matt found a deep resentment to people who had happiness, and would find ways to rip it from their hands. Matt also does not find enjoyment with his allies in the Contingency Initiative, as he believed that if he had ever become attached with the group, he would eventually develop romantic feelings for certain members, which he believed would result in the same disastrous results as with the Stormwatch Brigade. This has led Matt to do missions often solo, and if he is in teams, he typically goes off on his own and does his own thing, with little regard of how his teammates feel.

Matt has taken an interest in one of Stormwatch's new members, Lucas Lam, as the young recruit also possesses the Dogma of Equivalent Exchange. During his clash with the Brigade, Mirage has made multiple attempts to sway Lucas into leaving the squad and unlocking his powers past Level 1, however has failed numerous times in convincing him.

Prior to his defection from the Stormwatch Brigade, Matt was initially described to be determined, bright, and cheerful. Despite being unpowered, Matt believed that with hard work, would come the rewards he wanted. During his time with Joseph, Rui, and Logan, Matt saw the group as family, and initially had a humorous and healthy relationship with Joseph. Whenever Joseph would pull ahead, Matt would comedically overreact, which other members would find funny. A hard worker and dedicated member to the Stormwatch Brigade, Matt was respected by everybody in the team, especially Logan, who served as the team mentor and supervisor.

A signature trait Matt had was his verbal tic, where he sometimes ends his sentences with "ya get me?". This tic becomes more frequent whenever Rui is within the vicinity, as Matt becomes nervous. During the three years with the Contingency Initiative, Matt lost this verbal tic.

Powers

Dogma of Equivalent Exchange: Matthew is a vessel for the Dogma's will. Unbeknowst to the boy, the Dogma is an extremely powerful spectral demonic entity that resides in certain humans who were born with inferior attributes, or otherwise considered "unlucky". In Matthew's case, the boy lacked powers and possessed a frail constitution. The Dogma residing in Matthew offers the boy with incredible power akin to the demon itself, but is housed within different levels of power. To unlock these levels of power, the user must initiate a Dogma Bargain, which requires a "sacrifice", as evidenced by its name. When Matthew was little, he unknowingly made a Dogma Bargain for the power of prophecy, in exchange for the boy to never find a woman to love him. After Matthew's training with Taras, the criminal lord tricked Matthew into sacrificing even more of his being to unlock more of his powers, and to make the boy serve as his most powerful soldier in the Contingency Initiative.

The following are the levels of the Dogma that resides in Matthew's body, currently known.

Level 1 - Prophecy: In exchange for the user to never find love in his life, the Dogma grants the user with the ability to predict the future. However, Matt cannot control when these predictions happen, as they only happen in his dreams and appear in cryptic messages. During his time in the Stormwatch Brigade, Matt would record his dreams in a journal, and give them to Rui and Logan to decipher and plan accordingly. At Level 1, the effects of the power aren't visually shown, however, whenever Matthew considers finding love, or fantasizes about it, a brief red jolt courses in his body, causing misfortune to befall the boy.

Level 2 - Amplification: In exchange for an eye, the Dogma grants the user with extremely heightened agility, senses, reflexes, and strength. This is done by unlocking the limiters inside Matthew's body, allowing the Dogma's power to course through his body, and serve on his behalf. When Matt uses his Level 2 power, he describes it as "being able to know what to do, at the right time, and going with the flow". This power provided Matthew with skill to outclass both Metron's trained fighting techniques, and Joseph's supersonic speed/strength.

Unlocking Level 2 caused Matt to lose his right eye, leaving behind a black empty socket. This has caused Matt to wear a mask to cover his missing eye. When Matt calls upon Amplification, his left pupils glow red, and a black circle appears at the centre.

Level 3 - Senkaku: In exchange for an arm, the Dogma permits the user to control shadows, and convert their body into pure darkness. Matt uses Level 3 in an uncountable number of ways, from created a spiky arm shadow replacement, capable of inflicting powerful slashing damage through his dark energy, to creating shadow spectres, and portals, Matt is capable of Shadow Travel.

Of all the powers Matt has trained, he is the most proficient with this power, and has developed numerous creative techniques that set himself apart from his peers in the Contingency Initiative, and even the Stormwatch Brigade. Although with immense potential, this power is unfortunately offset by Matthew's weak constitution and physical health. To counteract this, Matthew uses his power in creative and unorthodox ways. His skill with this power was such to the point where his cunning and deceptive tricks have made him a top level threat worldwide.

• Clones: Matt creates several clones of himself, albeit the clones dissipate when taking too much damage, are capable of inflicting the same amount of damage as he can. However, due to Matt's frail constitution, he can only create a max of two duplicates of himself. Despite this, Matt is capable of performing incredible acrobatic feats with his clones, using his Level 2 powers, and is able to use these powers to fling himself and his clones around, making him an extremely agile and nimble fighter.

• Switch Teleport: Matt stares his target down, and subconsciously creates a portal linking both himself and the target, switching their places. He can use this power on his opponents while they are still in motion, redirecting and confusing them, or he can even use this power on his clones, confusing his opponents into attaching the wrong target. Matt also uses his Level 3 powers in conjunction with one another, by slamming his fist into the ground, sending rocks hurtling into the air with a dark shockwave. Then, using Switch Teleport, he is able to move at seemingly superhuman speeds. During his raid against the Stormwatch Headquarters in an attempt to assassinate Rui, Matt was thought to have superhuman speed, as continued use of Switch Teleport allowed Matt to outpace Joseph's supersonic speed.

• Mirage: Fitting to his name, Matt is capable of creating shadow spectres, but are mere reflections of himself. This gives a significant reduction in stamina cost, but leads to the reflections to not inflict any damage to his opponent. However, Matt, when using Mirage, also uses Switch Teleport continuously on these reflections, causing opponents to be unable to land a hit on the numerous copies of himself, making him almost untouchable in combat. This technique allowed Matt to outclass Logan in hand to hand combat, with the latter being a martial arts master.

• Tendrils: Matt's shadow arm replacement creates several tendrils, either for direct offence, or for a smokescreen. However, Matt more often uses his tendrils to grab and fling his opponents away, or to him, and he uses this in conjunction to his other abilities to make fights extremely one sided due to disorientation, and fast paced.

When Matt made the Dogma Bargain to unlock Level 3, his left arm became corroded, and disintegrated. In place of the arm, Matt attempted to create a subconscious replacement with his shadow powers, but the Dogma's nature forced several red tattoo'd lines to appear on this arm, arcing elegantly up to his neck. These lines are decorated with demonic lettering to signify his pact and allegiance to the Dogma Bargain. When Matt uses his powers, these lines glow a darker crimson. The effort of keeping the arm took too much stamina, leading to Matt to leave his arm missing.

Level 4 - Half Akuma: In exchange for half his soul, Matt gains the ability of the Great Akuma, the primal antagonistic force from the First Great War and the Creator of the Dogma. When Matt was pinned down by the Realmwatch Collective in their battle with the Contingency Initiative, Matt finally gave in to Taras' demands and initiated a Dogma Bargain, in which he sacrificed half his soul to the Devil. When initiated, Matt manifests half of the Great Akuma's being, and his body becomes encased and integrated into a gigantic demonic avatar. This avatar is the size of a skyscraper, dwarfing mountains, and was strong enough to destroy the RWC headquarters, annihilating almost every single Brigade force until his body gave out due to the transformation being incomplete. The transformation however, is not at its full power, and Matt is only able to manifest its skeleton and some of its muscular features.

Matthew Lam is the only being in history to have initiated a Dogma Bargain that manifests the being of the Great Akuma. However, it is stated that for Matt to complete his Akuma transformation, he must initiate a Dogma Bargain and sacrifice the other half of his soul, essentially reawakening the Devil, acting as its vessel.

The Dogma Bargain for this particular level also required a rite of passage, in which Matt's true allegiance was tested. In this rite, Matt was forced to watch himself kill Rui, which Matt reveals that despite his rage and hatred for her, he was still very much in love with his former teammate. Upon killing who he thought was the real Rui, Matt was overwhelmed with despair, and swore his undying allegiance to the Great Akuma, allowing half of his soul to be taken by the devil. This allegiance caused numerous tattooed lines to appear on his body, signifying his loyalty.

This level has also significantly shortened Matthew's lifespan, in which he is fated to die by the age of 30. Matthew is warned that continued use of his Half Akuma transformation will continue shortening his life, and by his rate, he may not live past the age of 25.

Super Moves

Matt's combat style is mainly based on deception and leveraging the fight based on cunning and evasive maneuvers. This is achieved by a planned and efficient combination of all of his levels of Dogma. Several well known coordination techniques have been developed by Matt which have served the operative greatly in his time with the Contingency Initiative.

• Level 2 Amplification: Twisting Bonebreaker: Matt uses his Amplification Dogma to become weightless, and to sense his opponent's motions, planning out the opportunity to latch onto both their arms. Leaping into the air and flipping, Matt twists his body, and dislocates both his opponent's arms, then slams them into the ground. Although this move is repetitive, Matt has trained and fashioned it to possess almost no physical counter. By using his Level 2 Dogma, he can predict the best time to execute the move, meaning preparing for it is almost impossible.

• Level 3 Senkaku: Legion of Mirrors: Matt creates two clones of himself, then simultaneously calls his Mirage ability to create seemingly infinite clones. Calling Switch Teleport for both himself and his clones on these mirages makes him and his clones nearly untouchable, the sheer amount of copies overwhelming his opponent. This technique can only be dissipated by a powerful AoE attack.

1. Amplification and Senkaku: Ultimate Legion: If Matt uses even more of his powers, he is also capable of combining both Level 3 and Level 2 Dogmas to make his mirrored images also evasive. This new technique, although taxing, allows Matt to counteract the AoE weakness. This was developed during Matt's fight against Tony "Ground Zero" Patel, who's explosive power nearly knocked the operative unconscious during his fight against the Stormwatch Brigade.

• Amplification and Senkaku: Slingshot Backbreaker: Matt leaps into the air and uses Senkaku to bind and latch onto his opponent with a dark tendril, then pulls them to his location. Calling Switch Teleport, Matt switches places with his opponent, confusing them, then, simultaneously creating a clone, Matt kicks himself off of his clone to shoot forward and strike the enemy further into the air. Switching places once more, Matt repeats the motion, in an extremely fast pace, then switches places with them to send them into the ground, where Matt teleports to the floor and stops their fall by breaking their back. The sheer momentum causes extreme damage, often leading to bone fracture.

• Level 4 Half Akuma: Anarchy Blade: Matt summons his Half Akuma transformation, and creates a blade of demonic energy, slashing in a massive arc and dealing devastating damage. The sheer force of the slash was enough to destroy the entire RWC headquarters, and annihilate the entire Brigade forces.