Even though the closing of City of Heroes is several months past, this is a project I’ve been wanting to do since my friend Leah posted a page regarding the fates of her characters. I’ve had the pleasure of playing and writing with her, and I thought this was a fitting tribute and send-off. So without further ado, part one of me doing the same thing. Enjoy.
(P.S. I realize a lot of you have little to no context for this. There’s up to eight years of back story for some of these characters. For those of you that do know them, thanks for all the great memories.)
Minty Fresh/ Starlight Mint
Following the destruction of her original cybernetic body to save her friends, Minty’s caretaker James Master was able to use a combination of her sole surviving positronic fragment, the Kheldian energy he’d collected off of her over the years and a bud from the Kheldian Kyne as a blank template to create a brand new being: a reborn Candace Stroeber with all of her original memories intact. The Murdocks took Candace in to their apartment building, giving her a place close by where they could both watch over her and give her the much-needed guidance necessary to harness and control her Kheldian powers. Candace later joined the Young Champions until she reached adulthood, where she then made a modest living writing children’s songs.
The Carnival of Light had had the foresight to make a complete back-up of Minty Fresh’s schematics (something James had never done) and with their help a completely robotic Minty Fresh was rebuilt with her original personality. She remains with the Carnival of Light to this day, patrolling its streets and dispensing her childlike innocence and joy—and candy-flavored justice.
Crashin’ Byrne
The Praetorian War created a boom for Paddock Industries. Helping to rebuild the city created jobs which in turn expanded production. Criofan Byrne decided to focus his efforts within the company for the next few years, finishing his Doctorate in Psychology as well as a Bachelor’s in Business, eventually becoming head of HR. Through the natural attrition of board members, Criofan became a majority shareholder in the company on the board of directors and found himself to be a reasonably wealthy man because of it. Still he takes a very passive role in the company, preferring to let others “get on with runnin’ the joint.”
The war had also decimated the ranks of the Alliance of Champions. Many of its heroes had died or were missing in action. Crashin’ Byrne took the reins as ersatz leader of the AoC after the war, but only did what was necessary to keep the group together until they could rebuild themselves and select a proper leader. He declined any nominations for the position and retained a senior advisor role for the leaders to come.
The alien bio-metal that Vanessa Paddock grafted to Criofan after his rescue from the Rikti eventually achieved a perfect symbiosis with his body; the metal took on the appearance and malleability of his natural flesh while remaining as strong as impervium.
Criofan and Callie Smythe stayed together for several years but with the aftermath of the war and Criofan’s responsibilities they eventually drifted apart, but remain close friends. His one and only regret in life is not telling Amaya Collier how he really felt about her before her disappearance.
Kuraitaka
The alien assassin-turned-Night Widow spent many years with her companion Willa Pottinger (Jamaican Blaze) searching around the world for the ones responsible for the destruction of the Infiltrators’ base and deaths of many of its members. They would occasionally take on mercenary work, mostly through Stephen Deltano’s organization, when needing to resupply but mostly the pair kept to themselves and their self-appointed task.
After several years of nothing but false leads and dead ends, the pair accepted the Infiltrators’ fate as an unsolvable mystery. With no clear direction ahead of them, Willa convinced Kuraitaka to begin searching for a way back to her home world. Kuraitaka and Willa remain inseparable friends as they travel through dimensional portals both magical and technological looking for Kuraitaka’s world. Though in her heart, Kuraitaka has accepted the notion that her true home is wherever she and her only true friend are together.
Silent Shrike/Aly MacIntyre
The influx of Praetorian refugees after the war created no small amount of work for the Paragon Police Department. While Brickstown dealt with the majority of the metas, a record number of new “residents” came to Kings Row. This hit the KRPD doubly hard, as both the precinct and the Cape & Cowl Division were kept constantly busy policing their own backyard and liaising with Vanguard in Bricktown over all the new “capes” in Paragon City helping them out.
For the first few years after the war’s end, Aly’s work as a detective and liaison kept her so busy that she rarely had the time or energy to don the mantle of the Silent Shrike. By the time things settled down enough for everyone to sleep on a regular schedule again, much of her ambition to continue vigilante work had gone.
Aly remains in the apartment where she spent her years as the Silent Shrike, living with her boyfriend Jakob Dalh and his Kheldian symbiont Errys. Though they had many rough patches at first, over time the three of them have reached a stable point. Often Aly doesn’t think of them as two separate people, and because of the unique nature of the Kheldian/Human bond, even they are slowly losing the distinction with each other. Though they decided to never formally marry, Aly and JD/Errys are inseparable. They also decided to forgo having children of their own in favor of adopting one of the many Row children in need of a home. Secretly, Aly has vowed to never pass on the burden of the Silent Shrike to a new generation, it having nearly killed both her and her mother when they carried the bow.
Although Aly never got to realize her dream of snowboarding in the Winter Olympics, she still competes in the National Pro circuit.
Junsei Kuragari/Shinsei Kuragari
Shortly before the outbreak of the Praetorian War, Junsei Kuragari, avatar of Izanami and then Headmistress of St. Raven’s Academy for Troubled Youth, killed one of her students in what witnesses called a ‘fit of rage’. She vanished soon afterwards and everyone simply assumed she had chosen to disappear like every other previous Headmaster of the school, due to the fact that said student was an Arachnos operative. The truth was far more complex. Izanami, like most of the old gods, span multiple dimensions and is weaker in some than in others. She sent her Chosen Daughter to a dimension where Mot’s resurrection and absorption of Diabolique would severely threaten Her hold on the Underworld and death itself without a direct presence in the form of an avatar.
Alone is a strange dimension, Junsei attempted to create a new St. Raven’s Academy, but it was a fruitless task. There was a version of her one and only friend Rhikki Ryan in this dimension, but not having gone through the same ordeals as her counterpart with Junsei’s friendship, she let her ego dominate her actions and never accepted Junsei as an equal, let alone a friend. However, keeping Mot’s destruction contained kept Junsei occupied and eventually she returned to being as cold and cruel as the goddess of death she personified.
However, Izanami had grown fond of the Rhikki that had been left without her friend. After the Academy’s headmistress vanished, Westin Phipps called in every favor he was owed and then some to have St. Raven’s dissolved. He “compassionately” took in the students of his choosing to Haven House, and left the rest to their fates. Many of them were old enough to enroll in Aeon University at this point and many of them, including Rhikki, banded together to create a program in which their younger peers would be monitored by them through the University.
It was after this that a new girl appeared by the name of Mariko (Shinsei Kuragari), an exact physical duplicate of Junsei, except with a mind modeled after the girl Junsei used to be before her death. She met with Rhikki and after an uncertain start, Rhikki accepted Mariko as the friend Junsei had been. Izanami later revealed to Rhikki the truth about Mariko, and that she was a ‘seed’ for a new avatar if the need should arise. In the meantime, Mariko continues to work at Aeon University in Arcane Studies, working with Rhikki to thwart Westin Phipps whenever they can and keep the spirit of St. Raven’s Academy alive.
The Pen of Zen 
Look forward to the rest. The screenshots are a nice touch, I wish I had thought ahead to take some before it went down.