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Evangeline Athanasia Katherine McDowell (エヴァンジェリン・アタナシア・カテリン・マクダウェル, Evanjerin Atanashia Katerin Makudaueru) listed as Evangeline A.K. McDowell is a character from the series Negima!: Magister Negi Magi by Ken Akamatsu and a protagonist in Kuro Arashi: The Black Storm and The Unsung War. She is the 26th student in Japanese alphabetical order of class 3-A. She is actually a centuries-old vampire cursed to remain at the school by Nagi Springfield, the father of her teacher Negi Springfield.
Initially an antagonist for Negi due to his father's actions, she eventually becomes an important teacher and guide for the young mage and his allies as they fight and search for his missing father. However, Eva remains a cruel, powerful mage in her own right, yet with the sensitivities of her former human life.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Evangeline was born in a castle in Europe during the Middle Ages, possibly in Ireland or Scotland from her surname, although it is not known if she was royalty or not. When she awoke on her tenth birthday, she found she had been turned into a vampire while she slept (through sorcery, not by being bitten, thus making her a Shinso vampire or "True Blood Vampire"). Initially she had the customary weakness of a vampire towards sunlight and so on that she learned to overcome. She developed her magical powers in order to get revenge on the man who turned her, whom she killed. She was initially forced to lead an itinerant life since she could not hide the fact that her body no longer aged, though later she uses magic to disguise herself as an adult.
Little more is known about her history until more recent times when she was saved by the Thousand Master, then pursued him mercilessly out of love thereafter until he managed to shake her off. Feeling rejected, she finally tracked him down in Japan, but was tricked into walking into an "anti-vampire soup" composed of garlic and leeks. Employing the powerful Infernus Scholasticus (School Hell) curse, the Thousand Master confined her to the grounds of Mahora Academy and put in place a barrier to restrict her abilities. He claimed that Eva should try to "live in the light for a change" and promised her that he would free her from the curse when she graduated. Unfortunately, five years later, he disappeared, thus her chance of being free from the curse was gone until his son Negi came. Konoemon Konoe, the school dean, employed her as a security guard, personally keeping him informed about events occurring in the school.
Class 3-A[]
- Main article: Class 3-A
Initially, Evangeline watched Negi with some intent upon his arrival at Mahora Academy and eventually attacked him. She claimed that the draining of blood from the son of the Thousand Master would enable her to break the curse binding her to the Mahora campus. Yet, her intention to remove the curse via blood draining remained questionable, and her claim has yet to be verified.
Negi convinces her to become his master in magical combat after he sees her true power in Kyoto. As demanding teacher, she expects menial servitude from her student, as well as a daily payment of blood for the lessons. This is considered somewhat in contradiction to her earlier statement, that drinking Negi's blood would break the Thousand Master's curse. Yet, it is possible that only by drinking all of his blood at once, would she be able to boost her power to where she could overcome the curse, or that smaller doses such as this are either insufficient for the task or simply build up the needed energy slower. Despite the assistance she gave Negi in Kyoto, Herrman never captured her when he captured the girls who helped him in Kyoto, and in fact deliberately avoided her. But she watched the ensuing battle from a distance with Chachamaru Karakuri and Kaede Nagase, noting with satisfaction that Negi's adversity helped him develop his abilities further.
Some hints indicate a romantic interest in Negi, including some jealousy upon discovery of additional lessons from Ku Fei. More recently, she gave him a rather sensual kiss at her resort.
Kuro Arashi[]
When the rogue group of reprobates in nearby Hinata surfaced and formed an alliance with Mahora, Evangeline initially attended the first "meet and greet" along with the magically-aware students in Negi's class. When informed by Mutsumi Otohime that she possessed one of the white auras that signified the fated destiny of a Chosen Hero, Evangeline responded with shock and outrage, vehemently stating her role as a villain and the final boss, not an adventurer. Mutsumi responded that one can't escape their fate, but Evangeline still refused to join the group at that point in time.
Come the initiation of Chao Lingshen's Operation: VALID in the form of the Mages vs. Mars attack, Evangeline stayed out of the combat entirely, choosing to observe from above the battlegrounds. She loaned Chachamaru to Chao to use as necessary, and told her not to hold anything back against Negi. She expressed disdain at the Kuro crew's actions during the battle, with her actions and statements giving the appearance that she wished to observe their ability to fight and affect change before deciding whether or not to join them.
Later Life and UNSC Service[]
At some unknown point during the intervening 500 years following the adventures of Kuro Arashi and Ala Alba, Evangeline joined the United Nations Space Command, rising to the rank of colonel within the UNSC Marine Corps and earning command of the 3rd Marine Special Operations Division. Using the pseudonym Yukihime kept her undetected by the Office of Naval Intelligence mage hunters, allowing her to continue her work to prepare for the war against the Covenant, and eventually the Office of Naval Intelligence, in secret. Unusually for an officer of the Marine Corps, she also received command of the supercarrier UNSC Yamato, outfitting it with numerous magic-based features and weapons not seen on any other UNSC ships. As commander of the 3MSOD, she utilized her years of observations, as well as Chachamaru's ability to hack into every human database in existence, to manipulate the careers of those descended from powerful mages and the heroes of the old days, ensuring their placement in her division, and therefore their training as mages.
Each individual she recruited was forced to undergo first a psychological evaluation, usually a survival horror situation with repeated use of magic and illusions, and if they passed this without cracking, they then received full magical-based training in her resort in the depths of the sector command base she inhabited in the mountains of Japan, Tama's Nest. Successful trainees became deadly-proficient combat mages, and those who failed to rise to their potential were cross-trained into the navy to man the UNSC Yamato.
The Unsung War[]
In October and November of 2552, with the Covenant laying siege to Earth, Evangeline completed the training of the last squad of descendants. After recovering Chao Lingshen, who was returning to her time period from the past, Evangeline and her division first escorted delegations of the UNSC and the Sangheili to the Magic World for the sake of formalizing and completing an alliance between the humans and the Covenant Separatists, and then returned to participate in the defense of Earth.
Accompanied by the Pious Inquisitor and its complement, Evangeline commanded the Yamato in the Liberation of Mahora from Covenant Loyalist forces. She did not participate directly in the battle, instead providing command and control from her ship.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Doll Master: One of Evangeline's unique abilities stems from the fact that, not only is she able to animate dolls, but she can also control people against their will as if they were puppets, both through her vampiric powers, as well as threads that she can manipulate to ensnare others, controlling them in the same manner as a marionette.
- Magical Prowess: As a dark mage and vampire, Evangeline specializes in ice-based spells and dark magic, and is shown to be incredibly powerful once in her full capacities. Prior to earning her immunities to common vampiric weaknesses and developing the extent of her high-level magic, Evangeline depended on a spell form she created known as Magia Erebea. Drawing on negative emotions, the user absorbs offensive magic designed to harm the enemy into his own body, to the point where it fuses with their very soul. The technique feeds on the user's body and soul, but in return the user gains power many times that of any ordinary person.
- Physical Ability: Even devoid of her magical powers, she is still a very skilled fighter and can effortlessly take down a man twice her size, largely due to her mastery of the Japanese martial art aikido. It is implied that Evangeline learnt the art from its creator Morihei Ueshiba himself, as she casually referred to having "picked it up from that old geezer when I came to Japan 80 years ago." Such is her degree of mastery in Aikido that she is able to easily overcome already fearsome warriors like Setsuna with her physical abilities alone.
- Vampiric Ability: Along with the common traits of enhanced speed, strength, and senses, Evangeline, being over 500 years old, has trained herself into becoming a Shinso vampire, and therefore immune to all typical weaknesses of vampires such as daylight, though garlic still irritates her due to her enhanced smell. She also possesses the power of self-sustained flight and incredible regenerative powers, to the point that she claims no normal weapon can harm her. This was demonstrated during the Incident at Kyoto in which she was impaled by a stone spear by Fate Averruncus and suffered no ill effects.
Appearances[]
- The Inquisition Mahora Epilogue (Mentioned only) (Non-canonical)
- Kuro Arashi: The Black Storm
- PokéFiends (Non-canonical)
- The Unsung War (First appearance)