Derek Forrester used to be a hero, better known as The Shade. He had powers--but they weren't very impressive compared to the others on the team, so he was mostly ignored. Seen as comic relief. Anytime he'd challenge the leader's position, his strength, he was laughed off. A group of heroes like them didn't care about darkness powers that were near-useless in the daylight. So he snuck around behind their backs, practicing on his own, hunting down spell books--novice, fake ones at first, but then finding himself engantled in more and more darker, sinister magics. He didn't care--he just wanted to show that he should be taken seriously. That he was a force to be reckoned with, with the power of the shadows under his command. Ancient books, experimenting with serums, hacking into databases for any scraps that he could use, something he did ended up alerting the government of his identity, and then the identity of the rest of his teammates.

Oh well, sucks to suck. He faked his own death and lived in hiding a few years as he continued his research, and now he's back, and ready to cause chaos. Make himself stronger, reach his limits and surpass them ten times over. Maybe see just what kind of havoc he was capable of creating.

The dumb kids trying to get in his way just make things more... entertaining.

Zarroff knows how to play nice to get what he wants--he's a master at playing people's strings. But he hasn't been 'genuine' with anyone since high school, nor does he have any plans to. He's got his secrets to keep--this kind of power doesn't come easy, after all--but if he can get someone else to spill theirs? Oh, he's all ears. For the most part? Everything is a veneer for his chaos--a very thin veneer. Press him, and he'll show you a glimpse of it--you'll wish you hadn't in just a few seconds.

Darkness Powers

Has extensive control over darkness powers. He can build shields to block himself from attacks (generally rectangular, slightly curved inwards, glowing purple edges). He can punch or kick with darkness surging near his hands or feet to add a devastating force to his attacks. He can form a weapon out of shadows, typically things like swords or shields--they don't have much durability, and feel lighter than a normal object. He can create chains out of solid darkness, which are especially effective at restraining people with light-based abilities. Can create webbed wings out of darkness that allow him to fly.

• Spectral Soldier - Darkness swirls around him for a few seconds, which has mild attack-deflecting ability, before coalescing into anywhere from five to thirty soldiers of darkness. Said soldiers have inhuman strength, but can be annihilated with a strong attack--especially if it's light-based or fire. If this move is interrupted while the darkness is swirling, then Zarroff won't have enough energy to do it for around 10 minutes. He doesn't have to do the darkness swirl, and can instead summon soldiers from the shadows of wherever he is, or even other people's shadows.
• Monster Creation - Can create monsters using his darkness abilities or with darkness spells, generally with a black and purple color scheme. The more monsters he's trying to make, the smaller they are. But if he focuses on making one BIG monster, it can be devastating. Usually have the 'wrong' number of eyes (Either 1 eye or 4+ eyes, very little variance).
• Shadow Tendrils - Can clench his hand, and tendrils of shadows will wisp around his hand and his target, wrapping around said target and attempting to get into the ears, nose, eyes, and mouth before he drops the victim. The longer the victim is held, the more effective the shadows, though the target can die from being held too long. 3 seconds is long enough to leave a team of heroes immobilized. The victom's vision clouds with darkness, they'll feel cold, and likely start experiencing auditory and sometimes visual hallucinations. The tendrils can rip a person to shreds.
• Shadow Creatures - can manipulate shadows to look like different creatures, then solidify them into said creature. They don't have much attack power, this is moreso for personal entertainment. Can do it with people too--they'll appear entirely grayscale, with glowing white eyes.
• Shadow Travel - Can travel through any shadow and come out of any shadow somewhere else--as long as he knows where he's going/has been in said location before.

Mind Powers

Has a handful of mind-based abilities that he's picked up from his studies.

• Charm - Can control anyone he makes direct eye contact with for 3 seconds or longer. It doesn't last as long as full-blown mind control, and is easier to resist/break both individually and with outside help. It's also harder for Zarroff to control thetarget. The victim's eyes turn purple when under his will.
• Mind Control - Can control anyone as long as they aren't knocked out (or killed) using either a spell or a serum, or by mixing both. It's possible for victims to act normal unless called upon to do otherwise, i which case their eyes will just have a slight purple tint. When Zarroff is using the link more firmly (speaking through them, making them move like he does, etc.) their eyes are bright purple and glowing.
• Nightmare Fuel - Anyone who's hit with this attack suffers one of two affects: A) hallucinate that they're surrounded by monsters/their worst fears and either attack those around them or freeze in terror, or B) knocked out and sent into a hellish dream thats extremely difficult to wake from. The attack does not deflect off surfaces. Victims' eyes start slowly filling with black when struck.
• Fear Aura - he can manipulate a fear aura around himself, causing people to panic, take foolhardy action, freeze up, etc.

Chaos Magic

Can do a variety of things. Copy other people's powers, create monsters, cast a wide range of spells, teleport, and more. There's definitely more. I just don't know yet.

Immortality

Yeeeaaaah good fucking luck killing him. He'll just come back! Lol. Thank the chaos magic!

Serums

He can make serums using his powers mixed with medicine that have several effects.

• Mind Control - Clear in color, makes the victim more willing to obey commands from the magic user/whoever applied the drug. Can backfire and make the victim more willing to follow anyone's orders, including those they're supposed to be fighting against, especially if that person comes off as more threatening or dominant than Zarroff. Has to be reapplied every 24-48 hours for maximum effectiveness.
• Monster - He did the monster mash! In all seriousness, this is his magnum opus--he's trying to find a mix of darkness, chaos, and chemicals that will alter a person's DNA and turn them into a monster under his command. These serums tend to be either black or purple. He's yet to find a permanent solution--most of them tend to only be effective at night/in darkness, and their effects stop at daybreak. That's if the subject doesn't succumb to the darkness and die.

Spellcasting

He has studied many ancient tomes on chaos and darkness magic, and has memorized a few spells so intimately he can cast them without a verbal component.

Side Effects

His attacks are still somewhat weaker during the daytime--as such, he tries to control the setting wherein he launches his attacks/is confronted. Nighttime, darkened warehouses, alleys, sewers are all fair game. He's also sensitive to bright flashes of light, and his powers tend to lose their effect around flame. The more attacks he uses at any one time, his veins start to fill with black and/or purple energy--too much at any one time can overload him.

Weapons

• Knives - Heroes never expect this, for some reason.
• Guns - Of course, the only thing better than bringing a knife to a hero fight is bringing a gun. They never expect this.
• Shadow Weapons

From the moment he was born, he had expectations on him. On top of his parents owning some big-shot local business, they were also part of some shadowy cabal of darkness users, and were expecting him to inherit both. He wasn't interested in the slightest--they could take their business and shove it up their ass, and he didn't take kindly to being ridiculed over how 'weak' his powers were constantly, so what was the point of trying to please them anyways?!

His parents didn't take well to his rebellion. 'Rebellion doesn't suit a Forrester,' they always said every time he acted out and earned a punishment. His father's goddamn cigarettes were always snuffed out on his arms as punishment, and his mother's tongue lashings were always accompanied with a belt. Whatever 'respect' for them they were trying to instill backfired--he just hated the both of them. Immensely.

The Team

High school changed all of that. He and a few other kids got caught up in an accident near an energy plant, and ended up with powers--or, his got boosted, but still. Around that time, other people who were also affected by the accident started acting out, and mutated monsters started showing up left and right, so they all rallied around the defacto leader--Preston Fishbach, the most popular guy among them.

Seriously?! Leadership based on a popularity contest?! He'd been training with his powers for years, and yet he was laughed off whenever he even suggested he would be the more fitting leader. It didn't help that his powers tended to fizzle out under pressure, especially in the daytime. Truth be told, they didn't give a shit about the powers--they relegated him to comic relief, and the news regarded him as a joke. Comic relief, even. If they didn't, they saw him as a threat--darkness was always tied to evil, right?! Look at all the other villains that used darkness!

He'd prove them wrong--he'd get so powerful they'd have to see him as leader, and respect him as a hero! He started off with library books--but the spells in those ended up being fake, getting him laughed off the battle field. So then he went to a different library, sneaking into the shadow cabal's library behind his parent's back and scouring the tomes, taking notes and practicing whenever he could. Even still, that wasn't enough--he was still a laughing stock, the butt of everyone's jokes, and Preston started shoving him around both in and out of school--not like he could do anything about it, in his eyes. Frustration turned to anger turned to hatred, and he delved further and further into darker and more powerful books. He found portals to different, more sinister libraries of ancient tomes by the time he hit college--including one by someone named Beelzemontus, who'd made a deal with a chaos entity via a certain ritual...

The Deal, The Consequences

He knew he needed to make that deal--gathering the materials to do so would be the hardest part. Even still, he set about gathering the materials necessary--which involved quite a few blood sacrifices made in the entity's name. He had no qualms about that--cutting the brakes on his parents' car before they went out for a business meeting one night did the trick for the first bit needed. The police never suspected him--he was in the library studying up for an exam all night with a study group, on a campus across the state. They didn't think to consider he'd just teleport there--he got away with a lot more crimes that way.

It took almost his entire undergrad to get everything he needed, but he finally did it. He summoned the Entity and struck the deal--his soul for immeasureable power over chaos itself, and the ability to sustain himself off it eternally... until he crossed it's rules, and would be dragged to hell. Just following a few rules, for all the power he could dream of--and access to a whole new subset of magic?

Consequences followed shortly after. Something he'd done along the way had alerted the government of his identity, and he came back to his apartment to find government agents attempting to ambush him. With his newfound power, he destroyed them easily, consuming their life force to power his own in a matter of instants. They were naught but dust on the floor. But it was clear he wasn't out of the woods. Still--an only child, his parents long dead, and other family too distant to give a shit, he had the perfect opportunity to simply disappear. He dropped his classes--he was never really interested in becoming a doctor anyways--killed his roommate, and vanished into the night. The only thing left to do was prove that he was the strongest after all--by killing Preston Fishbach.

He never got that shot. Preston vanished off the face of the Earth, and Zarroff watched from the shadows as nearly every other member of his own team followed suit. Whether they were killed where they stood, or kidnapped for scientific testing, Zarroff didn't interfere. Except for a few times, when someone got to them before the government did...

Villainy Unhinged

So maybe his initial target was dead and gone. So what! He had an immortal life to live, plenty of time to study more tomes, grow in power, and see just what exactly he could be capable of. Shadow cabals and dark moonlit rituals were childs play compared to what he could do now! He just wants to enjoy the finer things--nice clothes, nice drinks, nice one night stands, and excelling in powers. He just wants to cause chaos, and continue his 'research.' Make himself stronger, reach his limits and surpass them ten, twenty, a hundred times over! Most of all, he wants to rule--and turn people into monsters to do so.

He'd been keeping an eye on the last few team members for awhile now, and after a certain point only Anthony was left. He probably had never been found out--he'd always worn that full-faced mask, and rarely even directly fought any monsters. He was consumed with grief and rage... perfect for molding into chaos. He managed to convince the man to step into the dark side of villainy, though made sure he didn't know what exactly his plans were--after all, the darkest most twisted hearts would make the best monsters, and Anthony wasn't quite there yet...

A bunch of dumb kids have decided to get in his way. Remember when? But had no sentimentality for them in his heart--or for anyone. In fact, he was just trying to think of how to mold them into something useful for him...