Caged, before I could ever fly free. Soon I will leave this prison forever. And now they wanna ship me to a government detainment center. A new cage they want me to rot in; to never use my powers again! No... for once in my life, I choose what happens next. Everyday, just a single scrap of paper. A sliver here, a scrap there. A little everyday for seven years, secreted away, has become a flock. Tonight, I use it to leave this life forever.
― Celia[src]
Celia Penderghast is a Conduit who can manipulate and control paper. Following the death of her parents during The Beast's rampage, a young Celia encountered Brooke Augustine, another soldier and a Conduit who could control concrete. However, upon reaching Augustine's battalion, Celia found herself imprisoned by her friend, who, in doing so, avoided being persecuted by the military and secured the government's trust.
Locked up in Curdun Cay, Celia spent seven years within its walls; despite her imprisonment by Augustine, she came to see the head of the Department of Unified Protection as a parental figure and became her most trusted agent.
Biography
Early Life
I found another survivor. She tailed me as I made my way back to the safety of my battalion. Together, we traveled through a lawless city that wanted us dead, because of what we now were.
― Augustine on her journey with Celia.
Young Celia
Her parents unknown, Celia bounced from foster home to foster home during her early years, until she was eventually adopted by a family. However, said parents perished when The Beast, a powerful Conduit with the power to awaken other Conduits at the cost of immense human life, destroyed her home city, during which Celia's powers over paper awakened.
Alone again, she was discovered by Brooke Augustine, who was also a Conduit and the only survivor of her battalion after it was wiped out by The Beast. Celia followed Augustine through the lawless city, coming to think of her as a mother, where the majority of the remaining populace organized lynch mobs to root out the Conduits among them. Eventually, military order was restored, but the pair was seen as a threat, despite their innocence.
In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Augustine encased her adoptive daughter in concrete to gain the government's trust, making Celia the first Conduit to be captured and imprisoned by the newly formed Department of Unified Protection led by Augustine herself.
At Curdun Cay
During her time at Curdun Cay, Celia was subjected to various tests by the D.U.P., which found her to possess a large amount of untapped potential. She briefly struck up a friendship with Hank Daughtry, though the two were kept apart after the wardens discovered their relationship. Although she was technically an inmate, Celia retained a close relationship with Augustine.
However, after seven years, the D.U.P. was on the verge of being shut down, and its success at capturing the Conduits was about to become its undoing. To prevent this, Augustine thought up a plan to set the loyal Celia free so that she could act as Augstine's agent in Seattle. Celia's escape was engineered through the murder of a young security guard named Naomi Lachter, a woman with no friends or family and, thus, the perfect victim.
Through feigning injury, Celia lured Naomi into her detainment cell, where she killed and purposely disfigured the security guard's face, turning her into a cover-up corpse. With Augustine ruling out the death of "Celia" as a suicide, the real Celia was free to leave Curdun Cay under the guise of Naomi.
Celia's departure from the detainment facility coincided with the transferral of three other Conduits - Celia's old friend Hank, Abigail Walker, and Eugene Sims - into the military's oversight. Augustine trusted that Hank, notorious for his numerous escape attempts at Curdun Cay, would try to sabotage the voyage, setting her plan in motion.
Arrival in Seattle
Celia in Seattle.
Once Celia arrived in Seattle, she began killing members of anti-Conduit movements and government officials who supported them, sowing chaos throughout the city. Celia deliberately orchestrated the murders to look like the work of fellow Conduits Henry, Eugene, and Abigail so that she would not be discovered. However, she saw Delsin's impact on Seattle's citizens and was intrigued by his actions. At the same time, she corresponded with Augustine on her mission, using the pseudonym of "Saise."
However, as Delsin's presence became more known in the city, Celia's respect for Augustine, who had chosen an approach Celia deemed "cowardly," crumbled, and Celia went rogue. She decided to approach Delsin directly and led him to various files that explained the D.U.P.'s deception, and the background of the people she had killed.
Following Augustine's fall from grace, Celia led Delsin to the abandoned D.U.P. tower, where she explained, through the use of her powers, how he had changed her view on Augustine and the D.U.P. She then thanked Delsin for making her realize that no one could give Conduits their freedom and that they needed to take it by force. Leaving behind a final origami dove, Celia then vanished, denying Delsin a confrontation as she believed he wanted a fight and she could not satisfy his bloodlust.
Powers and Abilities
Paper Manipulation
Celia's powers over paper were surprisingly versatile; she could control every form of paper, create pulp, and stock out of trace elements. Through special folding techniques, which would normally require hundreds of pounds of mechanical force, she could make deceptively durable paper armor, as well as projectile weapons.
Celia was also able to convert her body to adopt the qualities of paper, allowing her to use wind currents to move around, albeit erratically so. She also seemed capable of a type of teleportation, which consisted of suddenly transforming her body into numerous scraps and pieces of paper that quickly dispersed, making her difficult to catch.
Personality and characteristic
Celia was stated by the DUP to suffer from abandonment anxiety, due to her past in the foster homes. The loss of her adoptive parents caused her to repress any memories of them, focusing instead on her gifts with paper. In particular, she had an obsession with folding origami doves. Celia was also known to possess artistic skills, which she expressed through various drawings as well as a semi-autobiographical manga.
Her time in Curdun Cay transformed Celia into a dark-minded individual, with some of her drawings taking on more grotesque qualities. Her notes detail how Augustine took her to see the morgue, where the bodies of murdered Conduits had been stored. This experience convinced Celia of the cruelty normal people were capable of. Although Celia was shown to carry little guilt over her other assassinations, she claimed in a letter she could "never forget" the death of Naomi Lachter, as she was her first victim. Despite this, "watching Naomi's blood seep into the concrete" apparently made the act easier, showing Celia's sociopathic personality.
Appearance-wise, Celia seems to wear a type of school uniform that consists of a black jacket with a white shirt and red tie, a short red skirt, black stockings and black sneakers. Her face is hidden by a distinctive paper mask resembling a rabbit.
Trivia
- Celia had a known obsession with folding paper doves. Coincidentally, the DUP's symbol of a dove was markedly similar to the paper Conduit's creations.
- According to a DUP dossier found through the inFamous: Paper Trail game, Celia is 19 years old.
- Celia's power over paper was briefly considered to become the template of the DUP's Conduit soldiers. However, the DUP found that paper did not convey the "strength and security" they desired, following which they chose to use Augustine's concrete power.
- Celia is represented by Hitori, later Saisei, the bunny in her own manga.
- Hitori is Japanese for "alone", while Saisei is Japanese for "rebirth, return to life".
- Celia is an anagram of "Alice," a hidden reference to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
- Her white rabbit mask is another, more direct reference to the novel. The more Delsin follows her, the further he goes down the "rabbit hole."
- It is suggested through the manga she created, as well as her private emails with Augustine, she could have stopped Delsin's uprising if she truly wanted to, as well as prevented Augustine's capture, though this is unknown if this claim is legitimate or just confidence. Also at the end of her manga, her counterpart, Saisei is depicted as transforming and gaining the same armor as Augustine's suggesting she may take over as the antagonist in a future installment, or attempt to fight the government who had been spying on Augustine during the events of Second Son, and attempted to get the DUP shut down.