Paul Grayson
From FABT
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| Biological information | |
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Born: |
14 December 2135 CE |
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Died: |
24 October 2185 CE |
| Physical information | |
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Species: |
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Gender: |
Male |
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Height: |
6.9ft |
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Hair: |
Brown |
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Eyes: |
Green |
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Cybernetics: |
Reverse engineered Reaper cybernetics (2185 CE) |
| Political and military information | |
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Affiliation: |
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Weapon(s): |
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Equipment: |
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Rank(s): |
Lieutenant |
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Era: |
Asari Cycle |
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Battle(s): |
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- "Your father was a deeply troubled man. He was a red sand addict, but a Cerberus operative who believed in what he fought for. He then betrayed that organization to protect you, his daughter. That organization then experimented on him and turned him into an abomination, an abomination that is now dead. There was nothing stable in his life except you. He was willing to betray his own ideals to ensure you were happy and safe...if there's anything to take away from his death, it should be that."
- — Hendel Mitra to Gillian Grayson, Paul's adoptive daughter, in 2186 CE.
Lieutenant Paul Grayson (also known by his Cerberus alias and codename Charlemagne and by his temporary alias Paul Johnson) was a former SIA officer, a Cerberus operative and later rogue agent, and eventually a Reaper-enhanced cyborg. Born on Earth and growing up in Inverness in the European Union, Paul's father died in a car accident before he was born and his mother had to raise him on her own as a result. Joining the SIA in its infancy in 2150 CE, Grayson would serve as a field agent in Sector Six, serving to protect the Alliance's interests, and in the early days of his career, this consisted of being embedded on a colony world, specifically Eden Prime, as a colonist in order to monitor the settlement's development and report on irregularities back to SIA headquarters back on Sydney, Earth: when the First Contact War broke out, Grayson was then tasked with the role of helping the colony prepare for a possible attack, but as the war came and went with no attack, Grayson's role was de-escalated. With the Alliance introduced to the galactic community, SIA operational scope drastically increased, although Grayson's role largely remained unchanged until Sector Six broke away and went rogue in 2158 CE to form Cerberus, with Grayson remaining with them as a steadfast supporter of the Cerberus Manifesto and the Illusive Man's beliefs of putting humanity first. Reassigned briefly to Cronos Station, Grayson soon undertook active operations across the galaxy whilst with Cerberus, taking part in numerous missions that largely involved political espionage and faking eezo spill accidents to generate a supply of biotics for Cerberus to abduct and use in experiments. In 2170 CE, Grayson himself was involved in faking an accident over the Yandoa colony, exposing it to dust-form element zero, which ultimately resulted in Gillian Costanzo being born with biotic nodules while her parents died of cancerous growths: left an orphan, the Illusive Man directed Grayson to take Gillian as his adoptive daughter, given a fake dossier involving a deceased wife, and Grayson was left to foster Gillian as she grew up, overseeing her biotic development on the hope she would be the future of humanity. Grayson, growing attached to his daughter overtime, convinced the Illusive Man not to send her to the Teltin facility on Pragia, choosing to raise her himself.
In 2173 CE, Paul Grayson was partnered with Pel Ladges in a joint spy mission to embed themselves as hired bodyguards for Claude Menneau, a candidate running for the leadership of the Terra Firma party at the time: the Illusive Man wanted Claude eliminated so that Charles Saracino would take control of the party as Cerberus' preferred candidate. Grayson and Ladges are successful in their mission, with Grayson killing another bodyguard, Keo, while Ladges killed Menneau and disposed of the bodies to make sure they were never found. Grayson, with prodding from Ladges, keeps Keo's pistol as a trophy, although Keo's death would haunt Grayson for years after, the pistol only serving as a reminder of the first life he had ever taken. In 2177 CE, seeing an opportunity to infiltrate the Alliance's Ascension program on Jon Grissom Academy, the Illusive Man had Gillian sent to the academy with Jiro Toshiwa sent to oversee her as a doctor: this had a double purpose, as the Illusive Man believed Grayson was becoming too attached to adoptive his daughter and that it would only cloud his judgement, and therefore saw fit to remove her from his care. Separation anxiety saw Grayson become despondent and emotionally compromised, and he eventually developed an addiction to red sand, which he was dependent upon to manage his depression. Despite his addiction, Grayson managed to remain an effective agent, and continued to remain in contact with Dr. Toshiwa, relaying his needs to the Illusive Man as was necessary. When Dr. Toshiwa's cover is blown in 2184 CE due to a Gillian suffering a medically induced seizure, Grayson is sent to bring Gillian to a Cerberus facility, only for Kahlee Sanders to take the reins and insist on going to Omega to escape Cerberus. Maintaining his cover, Grayson warns his partner, Ladges, of their impending arrival, and Ladges and his 21st commando platoon are waiting for them when they arrive, taking them into custody. Grayson is unaware of Ladges' intent to betray Cerberus and sell Gillian to the Collectors, believing Ladges' claim that he was awaiting a transport sent by the Illusive Man to pick up Gillian. When Kahlee escapes with Gillian and a few others to the Migrant Fleet with the help of a quarian pilgrim named Lemm'Shal, Grayson accompanies Ladges and his team, along with a quarian traitor and exile Golo'Mekk, to Shelba to stage an ambush on a quarian shuttle, and then takes part in a Cerberus assault on the Idenna to recapture Gillian. It is then that Paul becomes conflicted between his duty to Cerberus and his love for his daughter, ultimately choosing the latter and betraying Cerberus, killing Golo and helping Kahlee and Gillian get to safety. Afterwards, Grayson is transported by shuttle by Kahlee and Lemm'Shal to Cuervo to be handed over to Alliance custody but Grayson, knowing Cerberus would have agents in the Alliance with orders to silence him, escapes and knocks out Kahlee and Lemm, taking the shuttle to Daleon before escaping. After his escape, he informed the Illusive Man he was quitting the organization, and protected Kahlee by threatening that any action taken against her or Gillian would result in Grayson leaking classified Cerberus intelligence to the Alliance. Going on the run, Grayson managed to acquire a fake identity, taking the alias "Paul Johnson" and starting a new life on Omega, free of his addiction to red sand. For two years he was able to elude Cerberus' attempts to find him, maintaining contact with Kahlee during this time.
Unfortunately for Grayson, Cerberus finally tracks him down to Omega in October 2185 CE and sends Kai Leng to abduct Grayson. Grayson, knowing Cerberus has found him and knowing Leng has been tailing him, he quickly sends a message to Kahlee, quickly sending what information he had on Cerberus black sites and then wiping his local data just before Leng captured him. Taken to Pella Station, Grayson is strapped up and experimented on, his body used as a guinea pig to test their second generation of reverse engineered Reaper implants in an attempt to perfect their implementation across the new Cerberus Armed Forces. Grayson struggled to resist the Reaper influence being imposed upon his brain, but the indoctrination was too strong, and with Cerberus using red sand to break down his will and make him more compliant, he quickly succumbs to the experiments and his body is horrifically transformed, infused with Reaper-based cybernetics and granting him abilities that were superhuman. Unknown to Cerberus however, the red sand injections had only made it easier for the Reaper influence to take greater control of Grayson's mind, overriding Cerberus directives and turning him into a Reaper puppet. When the station is raided by forces of the Turian Hierarchy in an attempt to rescue Grayson, he was able to break out of containment and slaughtered everything on the station, Cerberus and turian alike, before boarding the turian frigate, killing everyone onboard and escaping. Forced to send a distress call to Kahlee, Grayson is put to sleep until he receives a response, being told to come to Omega to talk, not realizing that Kahlee had been forced by Aria T'Loak to lure him to the station to kill him in an ambush by both Aria's men and Cerberus. The Reapers realize the trap and Grayson fights his way out, tearing through the ambush effortlessly and he escapes back to the Monolith, escaping again. Once he had escaped, the Reapers used his memories to learn about the Ascension program, believing Gillian was back at the Academy and wanting to indoctrinate her to use her instead of Grayson, as her biotic abilities would make her a more powerful servant. Launching an attack on the Academy, Grayson killed the security staff sent to stop him and began searching for Gillian, but upon realizing she wasn't there, the Reapers chose instead to begin downloading the station's mainframe, wanting to extract all the information they could on the galaxy's current state of readiness. At this time David Anderson, Kahlee and Kai Leng had arrived and attacked him, unwittingly joined later by Nick Donahue and a prolonged fight was exchanged. Despite an attempt to indoctrinate Kahlee and managing to wound Nick, Grayson is eventually overwhelmed and mortally wounded, the Reapers releasing control of him as he was no longer useful to them. Grayson, free of Reaper control, used his last moments to smile up at Kahlee before Leng coldly put two bullets through his skull, finally killing him.
Following Grayson's death, his body was taken by Anderson and Kahlee to the Citadel to present before the Citadel Council in the hope of finally proving to them the existence of the Reapers, but the Council dismiss it as advanced Cerberus augmentation. Learning of the body's location, the Illusive Man sends a cybernetically enhanced Leng to the Citadel to break into the Alliance storage facility where it was being held and steal it, taking it back to Cerberus for further experimentation. Grayson's body would later be used as the foundation for Project Keyhold, the lessons learnt from Grayson's experimentation and augmentation to further Cerberus' efforts to harness indoctrination, take control of Reaper forces and (it was hoped) eventually control the Reapers themselves, all efforts that ended in failure. Grayson's body was dissected and dismantled for the research, and as such nothing of it remained by the time the Reaper War ended.