Noah Grewal

Mortal Days

Flyboy’s history is divided between two men: Raphael de la Pole and Noah Grewal.

Raphael de la Pole enlisted in the Marines for the free college, but got caught up in something bigger. His exceptional performance overseas caught the attention of a CIA recruiter, who tapped him after a tour of duty to take part in a blacker-than-black operation. Raphael was skeptical, but video evidence of the “blankbody” phenomenon convinced him to take part.

He knew he would need to be declared Killed in Action to take on the mission, but he hadn’t expected that he needed to actually die. The procedure, logged as a “total blood transfusion,” was an agonizing 18-hour process where Raphael’s blood was completely drained from his body and replaced with 12cc of “preserved abnormal hemoglobin-based solution.” He should have died, but instead became a thin-blood.

After an intense, messy orientation, he was granted a handler and a cover identity: Noah Grewal. He was deployed outside of Chicago, ordered to infiltrate the city’s blankbody community and perform reconnaissance.

Kindred Nights

The first recorded appearance of Noah Grewal dates to 2009, when he begged for his life before the Primogen Council. Portia had discovered Noah on her assigned feeding grounds, slicing open an unconscious victim’s arm (in reality, Noah’s handler) with a fillet knife. The Toreador had him staked and presented for judgement.

Noah told the Primogen that he was a Marine who fell on hard times after an honorable discharge, records of which the Prince’s information security team discovered easily. He came to Chicago looking for work, and ran afoul of a man stalking people at a rest stop outside the city. The man subdued and Embraced Noah, and he has fed outside the city ever since.

Portia saw a potential pawn in Noah, and seconded his pleas for clemency, surprising everyone. The Prince obliged, and Noah was branded with the mark of the crescent moon. He fell in with the thin-bloods, and resumed contact with those he knew in life. To this day, the Camarilla reads everything he texts, save for a few encrypted accounts he keeps to himself.

Under the Camarilla’s watchful eye, he flourished. Portia mentored him in secret, and the thin-bloods taught him alchemy. He took an interest in Kindred politics, and recorded the highlights in a diary. He took a night job at O’Hare Airport, where he learned of Tyler, the infamous Brujah who ruled the city’s air-travel system. He became fascinated, and learned what he could from those who once served her. They told him that sometimes before Noah’s arrival, the woman left Chicago with little warning, at the side of an infamous Kindred named Theo Bell. Her departure left an immense power vacuum, one other Kindred tried to fill to no avail.

For the first time, Noah understood what it meant to be a vampire. He had all the time in the world to make a legacy, and unlike other vampires, he could appear human nearly anywhere. When he discovered the gifts his blood allowed him, he knew what he had to do. He vowed to take the Windy City’s skies for himself, and took the name “Flyboy.”

Over the next decade, Flyboy played his hand carefully. He discovered his blood cannot bond others, but money can, bringing some of Tyler’s old power base into the fold. Tapping into an “undisclosed inheritance” brought others under his banner. He became the first point of contact for Kindred traveling by air.

Six months ago, a furious Jacob Schumpeter cornered Flyboy at Elysium, calling him a worthless thinblood, and Prince Jackson a fool, blind to Masquerade breaches. A few days later, Jacob’s haven was raided by a SWAT team. No one has seen him since, and no one is sure if the raid was Prince Jackson’s doing, or Flyboy’s. Since then, he has had an uneasy, but tolerated, presence in Chicago’s Camarilla.