Pax Artificium - Janus Ilaris ("James Rex")

Thousands of years ago, Janus Ilaris ruled over a proud people. But times have changed, the elves are dead, including Janus himself, an angry spirit where there was once a king.

It is not known when the spirit of Janus was first able to touch the world, but since he has, he has made quite an impact. Under the name "James Rex," Janus made contact with a young Asian girl, training her for years to unlock the powers of her mind. Rex needed someone corporeal, someone who could achieve his ends on the plane of material things.

But when Anna had fully realized her psionic potential, she discovered Rex's true plan—that he considered her just a pawn to do with as he pleased. She rebelled against him, and he was forced to start anew.

Rex began training three CIA agents: John Banks, Melvin Barnes and Ringo Summers. He was quickly able to gain their allegiance and secure a position in the CIA for himself. (Though Noj knew Rex was actually Janus, he liked the irony of the once king now working for him, and assigned Rex's cell the task of infiltrating Pax Artificium.)

Rex took advantage of his position near Pax Artificium to study several promising individuals (those in whom he sensed magical potential). He used his psionic abilities to flag them, watching them unseen from his bunker outside the city.

Having made an alliance with Gaia, he coordinated a sophisticated and brutal attack against the city, bringing together the individuals into one large group that would be dropped right outside his door—or so he planned. In actuality, Cid ruined his plans by closing the psionic door he had opened before the Saturday group could pass through it (but after the Wednesday group already had).

Fortunately, he had recruited enough people to proceed with his plans. Banks and Summers convinced the group to gather information from Magitech headquarters, testing their abilities while simultaneously accomplishing his surface goal of learning Magitech's secrets.

When a ninja stole the stolen computer core from the Wednesday group, Rex and his men traveled to Russia to track it down. The enmity between Rex and Anna became apparent when they got into a war of psionic mind blasts in the street in broad daylight. Meanwhile, the Saturday group escaped with the core (but of course Rex didn't really care that much).

Rex continued to guide the fates of both the Wednesday and Saturday groups. When Pax Artificium became infected with the Great Healer's sickness, he synthesized an antigen, which not only served his interest (it cured the Wednesday group) but also became a bargaining chip to get the Saturday group to agree to help with his ultimate goal: the destruction of a strange obelisk somehow related to the world's magic.

Eventually, Rex arranged for both groups to travel to the island with the obelisk, so that they could perform a ritual there to destroy it. Daniel Miller had reservations, due to a prophecy that indicated Rex might be seeking vengeance against humankind for the destruction of the elves, but Rex avoided the issue in the simplest way possible: he lied, claiming there was a race more ancient than the elves.

Once at the island, however, things went horribly wrong for Rex. The last thing Noj and Sitruc wanted was for anyone to disturb the obelisk; thus, they both showed up to stop the group from doing so.

Rex stopped Sitruc by calling upon Gaia's aid to swallow him in a tidal wave of imps, but Noj had concocted a more cunning plan. With Rixmann's help (who had developed the technology to bind elven spirits into corporeal forms as wraiths), Noj bound Rex to his will, creating the "Rex wraith," a disturbingly powerful being.

After that, Rex served Noj and Rixmann. Among other things, his powers were used to corrupt John Bishop's gold dragon.

He was finally stopped, along with all the other wraiths, when his spirit was captured in the magical vial that had held the souls of Pax Artificium before Janell restored them to life. That vial's dark contents were later spilled on Anna's flesh, nearly killing her. Thanks to Matt and Sara, however, she survived.

Unfortunately, Rex's spirit had somehow fused with Anna's body, yielding a twisted new creature, torn apart from within by self-loathing. Anna has since joined forces with Josef's evil twin, but to what ends, no one is sure...