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David Charleston

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David Charleston
David portrait.png
by Jamie Knierim
Born ~6 years prior to Calamity's rise
Titles Steelslayer[1]
Groups Reckoners
Residence Newcago
Homeworld Earth (Reckoners)

“I've seen Steelheart bleed. And I will see him bleed again. ”

—David Charleston[2]

David Charleston is a teenage member of the Reckoners on Earth. He spends his childhood in Newcago, where his father is killed by Steelheart when he is eight.[2] After joining the Reckoners, he helps conduct operations in both Newcago and Babilar.[3][4] His determination to save Jonathan Phaedrus takes him to Ildithia,[5] and he ultimately drives Calamity away after discovering the source of Epic powers.[6]

Appearance and Personality

“I mean, bad puns are something of an art, right? So why not bad metaphors? And if they're an art, you are a master painter. ”

—Megan to David[7]

David is a tall young man with tan skin.[8][9] He is a reckless person who often changes plans midstream and pursues what he sees as the Reckoners' goals without seeking or waiting for approval.[10][11] He loves guns, regarding his rifle to be a friend and referring to it as a female. Despite having read an encyclopedia set several times while growing up, he does not like to be called a nerd.[12] He thinks he is very bad at metaphors, though he most often actually attempts to use similes.[7][13]

Attributes and Abilities

Before having powers, David fights with a variety of guns[14] and with Prof's gifted tensor and shielding abilities.[15][16] He generally uses rifles, preferring them over handguns since they are more accurate.[7][14] He is good at thinking on his feet during an operation, and later runs point once he gains the experience to do so.[17][18]

After capturing David, Regalia convinces Calamity to give David Epic powers. However, because David faces his fear of water, he prevents Calamity’s influence from sending him on a destructive rampage. Once Calamity leaves their realm, David can use his powers freely without becoming evil. David’s power set is identical to that of Steelheart’s.

Epic Powers

  • Wind Manipulation: David can move anything in the wind, including himself.
  • Flight: David can propel himself through the air under his own power. When used by Steelheart, it was mentioned separately from his wind manipulation.
  • Steel Transversion: Assumedly like Steelheart, David can spontaneously transform non-living matter around him to solid steel, spreading out from him in a sphere. Steel and iron have the ability to "insulate" against the transfersion, but other metals are transformed to steel. As this ability is tied to his emotions, he sometimes uses it without intent.
  • Invulnerability: Assumedly like Steelheart, David is impervious to harm from all known sources, including bullets, edged weapons, blunt force, suffocation, radiation, electricity and fire.
  • Super Strength: An ability David is still developing.
  • Energy Beams: Like Steelheart, David can project energy beams from his hands that can vaporize people and melt steel with ease.

Unconfirmed Epic Weakness

  • The Ocean: David used to fear the depths, but he has brought his fear under control; in practical terms, what David describes as an uneasy truce. It was revealed that this fear was exaggerated by Calamity when he gave David the powers of Steelheart, but after confronting it, his fear returned to normal. It is unclear if this would affect David anymore, with Calamity gone.

History

Newcago

Childhood

“My education mostly involved learning to avoid gangs and how to keep my head down at school. ”

—David[19]

David grew up in inner-city Chicago.[19] He was six years old and living with his widowed father when Calamity arrived. Two years later, he visited the First Union Bank with his father, where he witnessed him being murdered by the High Epic Steelheart on the Day of Annexation.[2] After a year of living homeless and alone in the city of Newcago, David was taken in by Havendark Factory, where he, along with many other children, worked in exchange for food and board.[20][21] During this time, David became obsessed with researching Epics and finding their weaknesses, particularly that of Steelheart.[21] He attended school half of each day and worked the other half in the factory. He knew he needed the education that the school offered him, but he was wary of appearing too smart and being recruited by Steelheart's administration; because of this, he hid his research into Epics and learned to be very mediocre at lessons.[12]

After graduating from the Factory, David took on a job as a cab driver. However, he proved to be such a terrible driver that the job only lasted one day.[14] At some point he moved in to an apartment at 1532 Ditko Place.[22]

“You know, David, you really need to start thinking your plans through a little more carefully.”

—To himself[14]

Joining the Reckoners

David managed to track down the Reckoners, a rebel group fighting against the Epics, by anticipating where and against whom they would strike next. He found Megan Tarash, a member of the Reckoners, at the Reeve Playhouse seducing Fortuity. When another Epic named Curveball appeared, David assumed that the plan was going awry and intervened.[20] He drew Curveball away from Megan and Fortuity by pretending to be one of Spritzer's employees, but he accidentally gave himself away when he mentioned a man Curveball knew to be dead.[23] Curveball pulled his gun on David, and the commotion caused Fortuity to flee. Megan killed Curveball, then briefly confronted David before giving chase. She initially left David behind by convincing him that a sniper on her team would kill him if he moved, but he realized there was no sniper when no one acted to save her from some of Spritzer's men who arrived on the scene.[24] After Megan and David took down Fortuity, the rest of the Reckoner team picked them up in a garbage truck and took them back to their base in the steel catacombs below the city.[25]

“Your work means something! But it's not enough! So long as the most powerful of the Epics consider themselves immune, nothing will change.”

—Convincing the Reckoners to pursue Steelheart[26]

David eventually convinced them, against their usual protocol, to let him join. He told them that he had seen Steelheart bleed and got them to entertain the idea of targeting Steelheart next.[26] The Reckoners were alarmed to discover that he had handwritten notes on various Epics and on themselves back at his apartment.[21] Though they originally wanted to blow up his entire apartment building, David talked them into letting him go retrieve the notes. Cody and Megan accompanied him, and David was able to warn them of the presence of Refractionary as they surveyed the area around his apartment. They agreed to let him enter his apartment and serve as bait, with the ultimate goal of taking out Refractionary.[22] As David gathered up a backpack of his possessions and notebooks, a Core arrived to arrest him. One of the members, Roy, tried to intervene, but as the team was discussing his acquaintance with David, Cody and Megan sniped the two men with Roy. After shooting Roy in the thigh, David took the boy's mobile and called Refractionary to help Cody and Megan locate her.[27] Megan was able to take her down, and David burned his source materials that he had to leave behind. He lied to Roy about working for a new Epic called Limelight before leaving.[27][10] They went back to the Reckoner base, where everyone looked through David's notebooks.[10] Impressed by his information, the Reckoners allowed David to outline his plan against Steelheart and agreed to try it.[28]

Drawing out Steelheart

David began learning how to use the tensors, and then Prof sent him along with Abraham and Megan to buy some arms from Diamond.[29] Just as they wrapped up their deal with Diamond to buy the gauss gun, Nightwielder arrived.[12] While Abraham and Megan worked on digging their way out of the back of Diamond's shop using a tensor, Nightwielder heard them.[30] David came out of hiding, pretending to be an employee who had made the noise while working on a gun, and gave Diamond Abraham's gun to sell to Nightwielder to allay the Epic's suspicion at the blank stretch of wall that had just held the gauss gun. He managed to get video evidence of Nightwielder becoming corporeal in UV light but then quickly had to flee with the others.[31] When the group got back to the base, David and Prof discussed further alterations to their plan and decided to hit the power plant next.[32]

“Ponder. Worry. Stay up nights, frightened for the casualties of your ideology. It will do you good to realize the price of fighting.”

—Prof to David[19]

Cody watched over David and Megan during their infiltration of the plant,[3] during which Megan used her powers to hide the two of them from some guards.[33] They found themselves in a room not on the blueprints, where they grabbed some data chips, and then moved on to acquire some power cells for the gauss gun. They fled with the workers while the rest of the team blew the building and used the explosion to distribute leaflets about Limelight.[33] David was troubled when he realized that Megan had a point when she called Steelheart a decent ruler whose death would lead to more problems, discussing the dilemma with the others.[19] He slowly began to fit in more with the team, even convincing them of his suspicions regarding Firefight.[34]

Tia located the old First Union Bank vault, so the whole team went to look at its contents. David uncovered his father, who had been turned to steel,[35] and Abraham recovered the handgun Blain had used to injure Steelheart and gave it to David.[36] Having decided it was necessary to attempt a hit on Conflux next, the team went after a convoy typical of Conflux's transport.[7] Nightwielder was waiting for them in the van, but David drove him off with a UV flashlight. He rode with Megan as the group split up on motorcycles, and the two of them drew the pressure off of the others.[37] David ended up using the gauss gun to facilitate his and Megan's escape from Enforcement,[16] but their motorcycle died on them, injuring both of them. David dragged Megan away down a tunnel, but he got cornered by soldiers and ended up having to be rescued by Prof.[38] David was devastated by Megan's death after the team failed to be able to treat her injuries. He and the team moved to a new hideout, where they had Conflux captive.[39] David was convinced of Conflux's identity by the answers he provided, and he quickly realized that the Epic had been a captive all along. They told Conflux to quit powering everything, which shut down the city.[40]

“Prof, you said that you worry our failure will depress people. I don't see that. They’ll hear our story and realize that there’s an option other than doing what the Epics command.”

—David[41]

Confrontation with Steelheart

After Steelheart sent out an invitation for Limelight to meet him in combat,[40] David suggested Soldier Field as a good location. The team discussed their theories on Steelheart's weakness, David positing that he could be wounded by crossfire. He began to feel anxious and excited that the confrontation would finally happen.[41] Per their plan, David and Cody dug extra tunnels under the stadium with tensors and created various rooms and pockets. David finished rigging up his sniper's nest with an escape route fifteen minutes prior to the Reckoners summoning Steelheart.[42]

When Steelheart and his soldiers arrived, it quickly became clear to the team that their preparations had been compromised. Nightwielder went after David, who ran into the stadium and was distracted by an image of Megan appearing in a hallway.[43] He fought Nightwielder off, reporting his sighting of Megan to the team, but the Epic kept ambushing him as he attempted to get to the field to try shooting Steelheart with his father's gun. David ran into another "illusion" of Megan, but this one spoke to him, mentioning the word knees. Deciding not to shoot her, he instead grabbed onto her and discovered that she was real right as an explosion knocked him down.[44] Realizing both that Megan had disappeared again and that Steelheart's team must be listening in on their conversation, David lured Nightwielder and Megan to him again and managed to kill Nightwielder. He understood suddenly that Megan had been Firefight all along. Megan appeared to just be coming back to full awareness, with memories of the past still trickling in, but in the end she let David go, and he went to join Prof.[45] David helped cover Abraham and Cody's retreat to the copter, but then he ran out to the confrontation between Prof and Steelheart and shot the latter with his father's gun.[15]

“We are all afraid of you. Fortunately I know someone who isn't afraid of you, and never has been.”

—David to Steelheart[46]

The bullets failed to harm Steelheart, and Prof was forced to jump in and save David. Steelheart savagely attacked Prof, leading David to think that he was dead. As Steelheart advanced on him, David finally put together the Epic's weakness. He quickly rigged the handgun to explode, pointing it at Steelheart so that the Epic would grab it and try to kill him with it. Steelheart fired, killing himself in the explosion.[46] Prof kept the explosion from harming himself and David, revealing to David that he was really an Epic. They discussed his powers and Megan's identity as Firefight, and then Prof handed David Steelheart's steel skull. As Prof waited on the field for Tia to bring the helicopter, David ran into the stadium again and sought out Megan. He tried to convince her to come with him, but she refused; failing that, he warned her not to use her powers for a while so her mind could clear. The copter arrived, and Prof called David out to the team.[47] They flew away from Soldier Field as the citizens of Newcago gathered outside to look up at the sky in daylight.[48]

Mitosis

After the death of Steelheart, the Reckoners have to defend the city of Newcago against Epics from another place in the world. An Epic with replicating powers known as Mitosis arrives in Newcago and confronts David after hearing that he had killed Steelheart. Upon fighting Mitosis, David realizes that Epic weaknesses always have to deal in some way with the Epic's past.

Firefight

Journey to Babilar

The Reckoners learn that Epics, including Mitosis, were being sent to Newcago by a High Epic known as Regalia in Babilar, formerly New York City. David, Prof, and Tia travel to Babilar to take on Regalia; but David's primary reason for going to the city is to find Megan after hearing that she killed a Reckoner based in Babilar known as Sam. Throughout the book, David to struggles to adjust his perspective on Epics after meeting Prof, Megan, and even Dawnslight, an Epic responsible for the nourishment of the people residing in Babilar.

A Familiar Face

In Babilar, David meets more members of the Reckoners and finds Megan camping out in the city. There, David learns that Megan's illusion powers are actually reality warping powers and that she is struggling to fight the corruption resulting from the use of her powers. After he shares intimate moments with Megan, a bond between the two of them grows and a potential romantic relationship begins to bud.

Revelations

Regalia reveals to David that Calamity is an Epic or some sort of higher being that gifts people with powers and then attempts to turn him into an Epic. Because David refuses to accept the powers and confronts his fear of the ocean, Regalia believes she failed to turn him into an Epic. She then reveals to David that she intends to make Prof succumb to the corruption of his powers so he can succeed her. This, along with Megan's revelation that her fear and her weakness is fire, leads David to the conclusion that by confronting your fears hold back the corruption resulting from your Epic powers.

An Unexpected Twist

David discovers that Prof brought him to Babilar to use him to help them find and kill Megan. Having spied on David for the whole trip, Prof locks David in a room and goes to kill Megan, but David makes a deal with Regalia so that he can escape. David eventually succeeds in bringing down Regalia and Newton, another High Epic in Babilar, but fails to stop Prof from luring Megan into a burning building to "save" David. After David repeatedly urged him to accept his Epic status on the theory that he could fight the corruption, Prof overreaches by using a massive amount of epic power to protect Babilar, becomes completely corrupted, and wreaks havoc. Prof's destruction leads to the deaths of both Val and Exel. Because Megan confronted her fears by running into the burning building, and had died by remote-fire sniper suicide rather than flames, her death was not permanent and she managed to save David.

Calamity

With Prof turned, David must lead the Reckoners on a desperate chase to recall their mentor, destroy Calamity, and save the world. David comes to the conclusion that not all Epics are evil and adopts a philosophy similar to the Faithful. The book begins with David, now the leader of the Reckoners, leading them through a mission to steal equipment from Knighthawk to fight Prof. There, David reveals that he intends not to kill his former leader, but free him from the corruption and use him to fight Calamity. He eventually attempts to save Tia from Prof but this leads to Prof accidentally killing her. This breaks Prof and the Reckoners. In his final face off with Prof, he and Megan find out that Prof's weakness is failure and manages to defeat him. Obliteration teleports David to Calamity's glass base in space. David later finds out that he himself is actually an Epic with Steelheart's powers but he subconsciously blocked his ability to use them. After failing to kill Calamity with a bomb and being rescued by Prof, who is finally confronting his fear of failure, David forces Calamity to leave by making Calamity face his own fears. He uses his powers to save Prof, Megan, and himself from crashing to Earth after defeating Calamity. After Calamity leaves, Epics no longer go dark and David shows his acceptance of the powers gifted to him.

Relationships

Blain Charleston

“I hadn't been fighting because of my father's death. I fought because of his dreams. ”

—David[48]

Blain Charleston, David's father, dies when David is only eight.[2] His death greatly affects David, whose primary motivation in the subsequent ten years is revenge.[35] Though during those years David thinks his father's belief in good Epics who would come to help humanity is foolish,[35] he realizes that his father was right as he uncovers the truth about first Megan and then Prof.[49] The two meet again in Firefight's alternate dimension, where Blain has been grieving David's death.[6] They express their forgiveness toward each other and begin building a new relationship founded on their shared power set.[6][50]

Megan Tarash

“I think I fell for you that first day. Stupid, huh? Love at first sight. What a cliché. ”

—David to Megan[38]

David is attracted to Megan from their first encounter.[38] During the incident, she convinces him that there is a sniper watching him and leaves him kneeling in an alleyway; this is the origin of her nickname for him, Knees, that endures even their confrontation with Calamity.[51][50] At first Megan resents David for upending the team dynamic and convincing them to target Steelheart, but David is incredibly attracted to her for her competence and lack of fear.[3] He believes in her goodness before anyone else is prepared to.[49]

Trivia

Notes

  1. ↑ Mitosis chapter 1#
  2. ↑ a b c d Steelheart prologue#
  3. ↑ a b c Steelheart chapter 21#
  4. ↑ Firefight chapter 7#
  5. ↑ Calamity chapter 9#
  6. ↑ a b c d Calamity chapter 51#
  7. ↑ a b c d Steelheart chapter 27#
  8. ↑ Firefight chapter 19#
  9. ↑ Firefight chapter 47#
  10. ↑ a b c Steelheart chapter 11#
  11. ↑ Firefight chapter 30#
  12. ↑ a b c Steelheart chapter 16#
  13. ↑ Firefight epilogue#
  14. ↑ a b c d Steelheart chapter 4#
  15. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 39#
  16. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 29#
  17. ↑ Firefight chapter 26#
  18. ↑ Firefight chapter 1#
  19. ↑ a b c d Steelheart chapter 23#
  20. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 1#
  21. ↑ a b c Steelheart chapter 8#
  22. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 9#
  23. ↑ Steelheart chapter 2#
  24. ↑ Steelheart chapter 3#
  25. ↑ Steelheart chapter 5#
  26. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 7#
  27. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 10#
  28. ↑ Steelheart chapter 13#
  29. ↑ Steelheart chapter 14#
  30. ↑ Steelheart chapter 17#
  31. ↑ Steelheart chapter 18#
  32. ↑ Steelheart chapter 20#
  33. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 22#
  34. ↑ Steelheart chapter 24#
  35. ↑ a b c Steelheart chapter 25#
  36. ↑ Steelheart chapter 26#
  37. ↑ Steelheart chapter 28#
  38. ↑ a b c Steelheart chapter 30#
  39. ↑ Steelheart chapter 31#
  40. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 32#
  41. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 33#
  42. ↑ Steelheart chapter 34#
  43. ↑ Steelheart chapter 36#
  44. ↑ Steelheart chapter 37#
  45. ↑ a b Steelheart chapter 38#
  46. ↑ a b c Steelheart chapter 40#
  47. ↑ Steelheart chapter 41#
  48. ↑ a b Steelheart epilogue#
  49. ↑ a b c d e Firefight chapter 4#
  50. ↑ a b Calamity epilogue#
  51. ↑ Steelheart chapter 6#
  52. ↑ Firefight chapter 46#
  53. ↑ Firefight chapter 50#
  54. ↑ Calamity chapter 30#
  55. ↑ Calamity chapter 43#
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