RIFTRIFT
History:
Kyle Grant became a fashion model at a young age and grew up on the runways of the world, but Kyle also had a secret life. As his modeling career took him all over the world, young Kyle would seek out magic shops wherever he could. Kyle would purchase books on magic and began to teach himself. This was not stage magic that Kyle was learning, but the true mystic arts. Occasionally Kyle would attract the attention of other sorcerers and through them he would learn some spells and rituals, but he was never in one city long enough to learn much. When Kyle was 18 he was told he had inherited a mansion in Empire City in the U.S. from some uncle he had never heard of. Kyle returned to the States to claim his inheritance, intending to sell whatever he could and get back to his career. While exploring the old mansion, however, Kyle came across a chest containing an amulet. Even with his limited mystic abilities Kyle knew that the amulet was powerful so he took it.
After a few hours after he began examining the amulet, Kyle suddenly realized there were intruders in the mansion. He followed the intruders through a secret tunnel in the mansion's basement to a series of caverns deep in the hillside the house was built on. Kyle discovered that intruder were members of the Crime Cartel who were using the caves as a base of operations in Empire City. Kyle had entered the caves at the same time as a group of fledgling heroes who were pursuing a group of Cartel agents. Kyle joined forces with the heroes, and using the amulet to augment his own mystic abilities, helped defeat the Cartel's forces. When the heroes decided to band together as a permanent hero team Kyle decided he'd join as well. Choosing the code-name Rift, Kyle became one of the founding members of the Guardians.
Next to Tazer, Kyle was the youngest member of the team at 18 years old. Tired of being treated as immature Kyle actually used his amulet to age himself to 21. This frivolous use of his power didn't change how the rest of the team treated him, but at least he could get into bars now. Initially, Kyle wore a series of costumes as Rift but never attempted to conceal his true identity. Figuring any publicity was good publicity, Kyle often spoke to the press after battles the Guardians had been in (unless his teammate and fellow glory-hound Crossfire got there first). Kyle eventually stopped wearing costumes, instead he would often enter battle sporting clothing he himself had designed, hoping to launch his own fashion line.
The team began using the old Cartel base in the caverns as their headquarters and Kyle moved into the mansion. The team soon learned that the mansion was not at all normal. For starters, when seen from the outside the house had three floors, but inside there was a fourth floor, and it covered much more area than should have been possible. The fourth floor contained stately bedrooms, an indoor forest (complete with running stream and small woodland creatures), and on top of this, it had a staircase that led up, up to the mansion's basement!? The house would also sometimes act as gateway, to other places on Earth or beyond. The rooms on the third and fourth floor would periodically rearrange themselves so one never knew which room a particular door would lead to. Occasionally a completely new door would appear leading to an existing room, a new room, or a completely different place on Earth or beyond. There was a hedge maze in the backyard that once brought Kyle to the garden of Destiny of the Endless, Rift's teammate Tazer and her roommate Debbie discovered a closet that led to a closet in their apartment, and the entire team was once teleported to the realm of Gemworld where they had to battle the forces of Amethyst to return home. It was in Gemworld that Kyle began to learn about the true nature of his amulet.
Before his first journey to Gemworld, all Kyle had been able to learn about his amulet was its name: the Zodiac Amulet. In Gemworld, Rift realized that his amulet was somehow connected with that place. The Zodiac Amulet contained 12 gemstones, which corresponded to the twelve kingdoms of the Gemworld. During the Revelations crisis Kyle learned the origin of the amulet when he was kidnapped by Amethyst, who had allied herself with the Nemesinian forces who sought to cleanse the Earth. Kyle was rescued by a young sorceress named Aurora, who said she was a princess from Gemworld's future whose family had freed the realm from Amethyst with the help of the Guardians (an event that was still in Kyle's future). Aurora also possessed the Zodiac Amulet, she was its future owner. Aurora explained to Kyle that the gemstones in the amulet were actually fragments of the 12 Zodiac Crystals from ancient Atlantis (the Houses of Gemworld could also trace their lineage to the Crystals).
More information on mansion and amulet also came to
light during Revelations. The mystic Samuel Vision
revealed to Kyle that both the house and amulet belonged to sets of three items.
The amulet was one of three artifacts representing Body, Mind, and Spirit.
Vision possessed a mystic "eye" amulet that granted powerful
extra-sensory perception, which represented Mind, and the villain Philip
Adler had been in possession of an amulet that protected him from all harm,
which represented Body. Kyle's Zodiac amulet was the third of the triumvirate,
representing Spirit. The mansion was also one of three mystic buildings which
shared a link. The other two were Vision's mysterious mansion in Cloister,
Vermont (which briefly served as the headquarters for the mystic group called
the Arcane), and Wintersgate Manor, home to the
enigmatic Baron Winters.
The mystery of the mansion deepened when one of Kyle's spells went awry and transported the team through time to the 1940s. In that time period the team went to the mansion, only to discover it was possessed by a great evil. More details of the mansion's recent past soon came to light, though. As Kyle's professional career was garnering more success he found himself being courted by two different media moguls, each with a dark secret. The first was publishing magnate Colin Thornton, actually the mortal guise of the demonic Lord Satanus; and talent agent David MacMillan, in reality just a mortal disguise being used by the demon Mellikon. Both sought to control Rift by getting him to sign a contract with one of them. It had been Lord Satanus that had arranged for Kyle to inherit the estate with the mansion and the amulet. The amulet was protected from the likes of Satanus so he needed a mortal pawn, and chose Kyle. Mellikon learned of Satanus' plans and chose to intervene, as much to gain control of the Zodiac Amulet as to annoy Satanus (disrupting the plans of other demons was a favorite pastime of Mellikon). Kyle eventually signed with MacMillan/Mellikon but when he learned the demonic nature of the contract he was able to break out of it by choosing to reject the fame and fortune it offered.
Kyle now began aligning his priorities away from his professional career and onto the study of magic. As he gained more knowledge and control he became an even greater asset to the Guardians, but his association with that team would end abruptly. When the mythic beings known as the Millennium Giants arose and began to destroy the Earth, Empire City was one of their targets. Because the city lay on a mystical ley-line nexus, the Giant known as Sekhmet was homing in on it. The Guardians and several other teams tried in vain to stop Sekhmet and as the creature approached the city, Rift was contacted by Samuel Vision. His told Rift that if the two combined their powers they could use the bond between their respective artifacts and mansions to disrupt the ley-line nexus, removing what was drawing Sekhmet to it. The plan succeeded but as a result both mansions were expelled from the Earth realm. Vision managed to escape his before it vanished but Kyle remained trapped in his. Desperate for escape he leapt into one of the mysterious doors and again found himself on Gemworld. When last seen, Rift was helping rebel forces on Gemworld battle Princess Amethyst, perhaps the very rebellion which would place Princess Aurora's family on the throne. If that is the case then Rift and the Guardians will meet again.
Powers and Abilities:
Before finding the Zodiac Amulet, Kyle Grant was a talented but novice sorcerer. He had accumulated a fair amount of mystic knowledge but could perform very few feats. The little formal training Kyle had received from other wizards over the years had taught him some basic offensive and defensive spells. Kyle knew how to protect himself with a magical shield, fire blasts of magical force, and had even mastered a spell that allowed him to fly. The Zodiac Amulet is a powerful mystic artifact with origins dating back to ancient Atlantis. The Amulet is a reservoir of magical energies. In the hands of someone knowledgeable in the mystic arts it allows the user to accomplish almost anything imaginable. The only real limitation on the Amulet is the spirit of the owner. The greater the task the user attempted to accomplish with the amulet the more strain it placed on the user. So while the amulet could accomplish nearly anything, using it to perform powerful feats could gravely harm or kill the user. Kyle was also a talented fashion runway model and clothing designer.
