Halley Brankett

"My mother told me that too. That she and I are people, like anyone else. It's just that...when we were born, God gave us some powers that are a little different."

- Halley

Halley is a character from the game Shadow Hearts, he is a street-urchin in London with psychic powers. Halley got separated from his mother when he was very young and has taken care of himself and other orphans on the streets of London ever-since. He has created a group called the London Rats made up of the other orphans of London that would rather fend for themselves than be sent to one of the nightmarish orphanages in the city.

Background:
Halley was born to a single mother in London. Halley's mother was a witch who taught Halley how to use magical powers at a young age. Halley's other only ever used her power to cure people that were hurt or banish evil spirits but use of her powers eventually brought down the attention of the Friar Knights of the Inquisition. Halley's mother viewed the Inquisitors as less than a threat at first and was considerably more powerful than them and escaped them many times. One day through the Inquisitors captured Halley and threatened to kill him if his mother did not come with them; His mother agreed and went quietly with the witch-hunters leaving Halley safe but orphaned and guilt-ridden.

Halley had to fend for himself and found a dilapidated but secure abandon building in London, he cleaned it out and secured then inside of it and set up a secret entrance into the building and dubbed the makeshift home his hide-out. When Halley noticed that many of the children around town disappeared into the doors of the Orphanage and were never heard from again he started to reachout to other orphans around town and offered them a place in his hide-out rather than facing whatever fate awaited them behind the doors of the ominous orphanage. Halley was able to take in several orphans and the crew dubbed themselves the London Rats. Halley taught the London Rats how to pickpocket what they needed and used their pilfered funds to buy their amenities.

Shadow Hearts:
When Yuri, Alice and Zhuzhen arrive in London to pick up on a lead from Margarete. The party sees a man trying to take away one of the London Rats named Joshua. The man says he is taking the boy to an orphanage and not to interfere but Joshua's display of shear terror at the notion and frantic attempts to escape make the Yuri and the others suspicious and they chase the man off. Margarete goes to check on the boy, Joshua says he is fine and quickly runs off after Margarete helps him up. Soon Margarete notices her wallet is missing and realizes Joshua must have taken it. Yuri laughs at her at first for letting herself get pinched by a street urchin until Margarete makes it clear she was the one holding the party's funds and that now they are essentially broke. Yuri soon changes his tone and chases after Joshua. Tracking down Joshua the party eventually finds the London Rats' hideout. Once inside an older girl named Chris greets them and apologizes for Joshua and has him return his wallet. Chris tells the party that they only steal what they need to to get by but that since they helped save Joshua from the orphanage they should have their money back. Soon Halley greets them to apologize for Joshua himself and tells the team that he founded the London Rats to give the orphans a home rather than have them taken to the orphanage. When Halley asked what the travelers were doing in London Alice told him they were looking for a man that her father was trying to meet called Cardinal Albert Simon who might be able to tell them something about a warlock called "Roger Bacon" that had killed her father. In gratitude for helping Joshua Halley takes to a friend of his he calls Old Carl who had lived in London long enough to remember nearly all the old residents of the city. Old Carl tells Halley and the others that Albert Simon's mansion was now acting as the orphanage. Halley agreed to show them where the place was but refused to enter himself for fear of never returning. Alice tries to assure Halley that kids that get sent to orphanages disappear because they are given homes but Halley insists that no one ever adopts the kids that go there and hides outside while the party goes inside.

Inside they meet the orphanage director named Jack and ask him about Cardinal Albert Simon. Jack recognizes the name sure enough but says that it simple was the name of the man who sold the house to him and he didn't know where he had moved to or much about them man. With them unfortunate dead-end in their search for answers about "Roger Bacon" the team asked where all the orphans were. Jack simply said they were asleep. When they asked to see the orphans Jack said it was too late to see them and insisted they leave.Yuri Alice and Margarete left but all considered the orphanage to be highly suspect. Halley greeted them outside and asked them if they had found what they were looking for. They told him they hadn't but were a bit more understanding about his fears about Jack's ominous orphanage. When they party escorted Halley back the London Rats Hideout the orphans were missing and Halley realizes Jack's assistant from before had followed the others there and kidnapped the other orphans when he and the party had been out. In a rage Halley first demonstrates his powers to the team uncontrollably shaking the entire room with his powers when he began to worry about the other children. When they ask him about the power he just displayed Halley just tells them he has powers but has other things on his mind at the moment and does not go into detail instead rushing off to save his friends. Once inside the orphanage Yuri and friends see Halley Jack's assistant who was lying in wait. This time the man fights the team and reveals his true form as a twisted undead creature. Yuri and his friends deal with the orphanage assistant quickly and find a key on him to the children's room. The children say that Chris has already been taken away by Jack. Whatever Jack was planning Halley and Yuri knew it was not good and set off to stop him. Looking through the Orphanage Yuri will find journals from other children. The journals say that the man has a second personality of a little boy and refer to Jack as either "The Man" or "The Boy" depending on who he is acting like. "The Man" had apparently locked them in there rooms and one by one orphans were being dragged off and not returning.The children were comforted by "The Boy" who played with them and some times cried about his missing mommy. But regardless of what was happening the children's journals end abruptly sugesting they to had been taken. Once in Jacks room the party discovers Jack's journal. Jack had gotten a book called the Émigré Manuscript from "Roger Bacon", the warlock Yuri and friends had been pursuing in the first place. The Émigré Manuscript the told how to bring the dead back to life and Jack was trying to use it to resurrect his mother. Jack soon realized his ritual would require much experimentation and blood sacrifices to bring his mother back and had been killing the children brought to his orphanage. Some he killed himself to preform experiments with the Émigré Manuscript but most were thrown into the vat with his mother's remains so the vat could drain them alive and over time accumulate enough life to revive his mother. Halley and Yuri eventually made there way down to the basement to save Chris and stop Jack. Halley became so overcome with anger at Jack that he lost control of his very primal Psychic powers. Halley was calmed down by the disembodied guardian voice that had been guiding Yuri throughout his journeys. When Halley heard the voice he recognized it as his mother. After fighting Jack though his mother, or rather what was supposed to be his mother, comes to life and attacks, killing Jack quickly and turning it's attention on Halley and his friends.

The monster was beaten but with another lead traced back to the villainous warlock Roger Bacon and the revelation that not only was Halley's mother alive but also the the voice guiding Yuri, the heroes focused their attention on tracking down their mysterious guardian. Halley said his mother was taken to the Calios Mental Hospital, a Inquisitorial hall. Halley had tried to get in many time but had always been found and removed by the guards before he could get into see his mother. After a while he had assumed she was tortured and killed like all the other "witches" brought there. With Yuri's help Halley was able to get in to the "Mental Hospital". Upon engaging the guards to the hospital the party finds out that the Inquisitors' hand mistaken the manifestation of Malice for holy power and were using it to transform into inhuman monsters. Making way into the heart of the dungeon the party encounters the head of the Inquisitors, Viscount Rausan. After defeating Rausan Halley found a ventilation duct and used it to sneak into the cell while Yuri and the others stayed behind to try to force open the main door. Inside Halley found his mother sure enough but she was in a self-induced trance to avoid the pain of being tortured for years. Halley was unable to snap his mother out of it and was soon ambushed by Bacon and his henchman ghost Olga. Yuri and the others broke in shortly but already found Halley captured and at the mercy of Bacon. Bacon easily overpowered Yuri's initial attack but seeing Halley in danger awoke his mother from her trance and she confronted Bacon. For the first time in the game Bacon seemed to meet his peer in terms of power, however he still had Halley as a hostage and agreed to let him go if Halley's mother helped him. It is at this time the player will find out two very important facts, the first is that the warlock was not the real Roger Bacon and the second is that Halley's mother is Koudelka Iasant. Koudelka is from an early game called Koudelka which until then was not eluded to by Shadow Hearts at all. Koudelka despite her powers could not stop the fake "Bacon" from finishing off Halley and so Koudelka agreed to go with him peacefully to help complete his plans in exchange for sparing Halley's life. "Bacon" left Olga to hold off Yuri and Halley while he teleported away with Koudelka. Yuri and the others defeated Olga once and for all and went off to Wales on Koudelka's parting advice where they would meet the real Roger Bacon whom Koudelka had met in her previous adventures. Halley continues to adventure with Yuri and the others as a permanent playable character to reunite with his mother and help defeat the mad warlock. Eventually Koudelka is rescued and at the end of the game after defeating the fake Roger Bacon Halley travels to America to try to find his father, Edward, who had moved to the US many years ago.

Personality:
Halley is highly emotional and has trouble controlling his temper which often triggers his powers.Halley was heavily guilt-ridden until he was reunited with Koudelka because he believes his powers were what attracted the witch hunters. For years Halley considered his powers to be the source of his mother's disappearance. Halley is an thief but seems to only steal what he needs to for survival. Halley is the second least mature party member, just ahead of Yuri. Yuri loses his patience with Halley and hits him when he starts crying about being the reason "Bacon" got his mother. Halley's lose of his mother and his self-sufficiency is what prompted him to start looking out for other orphans in London. When Halley leaves for the US with his mother it is unclear what happened to the other orphans but it is likely either Koudelka found homes for them or brought them to the new director of the orphanage who replaced Jack after he was killed.

Powers and Abilities:
Halley has a variety of powers which are accredited to being psychic however all of them seem to be massive elemental attacks. Presumably Halley is just using large scale telekinesis to toss various primal forces at his foes. Halley uses a slingshot as his weapon but his physical attacks are rather weak compared to Yuri, Margarete and Keith though stronger than Alice and Zhuzhen, making Halley the physically strongest mage. Halley's powers are ESP abilities all of which are very strong and because they vary in elemental type they can be used to quickly deal out a lot of damage no matter what type of foe the party goes up against. Halley's ESP has a major drawback though, first off all use up a considerable amount of his Mana Points and secondly Halley has the lowest MP of any of the mage characters making Halley's powers very expensive even at high levels to cast. Halley is best used against non-boss monsters since he can quickly end a simple encounter but for battles that drag on he is less useful since he depletes his magic quickly and his physical attacks are less potent than the fighter characters.