Meet Doctor Ioanna Kallistos, occasionally known in the super-circuit as 'Doctor Gnosis,' although she tries to discourage the moniker given to her by the Eternal Man.

Doctor Kallistos was obsessed with discovering what exactly precipitated the deluge of super-powers and similar phenomena at the break of the 1960s. She did not dismiss the earlier legends of antiquity as exaggerated stories an myths, but considered that the current proliferation of extraordinary powers indicated that those stories might have included more than just a kernel of truth: super-beings may have walked the earth in the ancient past, and feats that defied what was known about the laws of the universe may have been possible...

Until they weren't anymore. Kallistos observed that such reports and stories ceased roughly around the early fifteenth century- from then on, heroes in stories and legends exhibited some extraordinary abilities, but never along the same lines as the mythic heroes of the past. Not until the resurgence of the 60s, six hundred years later.

Kallisto stumbled upon what she thought was the answer while traveling with the Loughains and their associates, specializing as they did in strange and unusual phenomena. During an encounter at the ruins of Baldoon Castle in 1995, Doctor Kallistos found that the 'hauntings' attributed to the famous Scottish ruins were actually caused by some sort of dimensional tear, and that the 'manifestations' of spirits in the ruins were projections of entities that existed beyond the veil. Could superhuman and supernatural phenomena be attributed to certain intrusive elements from that other dimension? From that point on, Dr. Kallistos began to work towards means of piercing the veil- which she successfully did in December of 2001.

Doctor Kallistos was able to enter what she later christened as 'The Faded World'- a pocket dimension of staggering magnitude which was seemingly populated by a wide variety of beings- many of whom claimed to be creatures of terran myth such as the Fae, or the remnants of the ancient pantheons of earth. Whether she found those claims credible or not, Doctor Kallistos did find -one- inhabitant of that realm who was of pure human stock: Angelique de Montsalvat , the heroine who had fought the Nazis in World War II under the name of 'Eos', and who had vanished mysteriously. Angelique had not aged a day- it seemed as if time had no meaning in that realm- and had spent the last several years under the tutelage of seven women known only as The Seven Sisters.

Kallistos returned with Montsalvat, but the transition between dimensions was not without accident: after she transported Montsalvat, Kallisto's machinery malfunction and made her return almost fatal, momentarily placing her between dimensions.

Long weeks of medical observation followed, with Kallistos complaining of visions and disjointed images surrounding her. She kept seeing images of herself standing nearby, and for a while feared that her sanity had been eroded by her experience. What was worse- she found no evidence that the Faded Realms were the origin of extraordinary powers in the terran dimension. Depression almost conquered her- until one of her 'other selves' started communicating with her.

Kallistos learned that she had not, actually, come back entirely 'whole' from her journey to the Faded Realms: a portion of her had remained behind in that twilight world, and (unmoored as that dimension was from a particular timeline) from that particular vantage point she could not only communicate with Ioanna... but with different alternate Ioannas who stretched along different points in alternate timelines.

Doctor Kallistos is able to consult with alternate versions of herself, which she can summon out of her own being, and tap into their memories and experiences. This ability is not a ticket to omniscience, as there are timelines with different conditions and events that can render specific information inapplicable, but there are also some timelines that are similar enough- Kallistos is able to glean knowledge of what may be, and in some cases what certain individuals may be capable of.

Although it would seem that her new ability proved her original hypothesis, she knew that it had been caused by an accident and not by active intervention from the Faded World. Kallisto's alternate selves have provided some insight, though no confirmation, but on their advice she has turned her attention towards the son of her old team-mates Olivier Loughain and the Nereid Psalakantha. Something of significance boiling in the city of Green Sparrows, North Carolina, and Ioanna intuits that she may find her answers in what is to come.