John Beckett

The all-American who joined the Guardian and became close friends with Kyle and Lucy. He was transformed into a living time machine by a time reactor meltdown and the gravity of a black hole, and went on to become one of the Apocalypse Lords.

Joining the Guardian
John helped the Guardian fight against the Ravager on several occasions, and although the Guardian always looked to Sam as his second, John became his strong right hand. John and Kyle helped Kent free his hometown in the Cess and establish a militia group. On one journey, the Guardian made a strategic error which stranded him, the Seeker, Kyle, Lucy and Sam in a city surrounded by a Nargarrg army. John, meanwhile, was trapped aboard the Seeker's drifting ship, pulled into a black hole as the time reactor went into meltdown. Somehow, this endows John with the ability to manipulate time radiation and he travels to the planets surface and eliminates the attacking army. Unable to control his power, he doubles over in agony. The Seeker calms him down, and John fades away to another time.

In the Temporal Matrix
A wounded Guardian returns after the death of Lucy Sumner and asks the Seeker and Chronicler to find John, as he will be able to find the Temporal Matrix. John has landed in medieval Europe, and is received as a kind of warlock. Rather than be burned alive, nine knights have sword loyalty to him. One stays behind and one is killed, but the seven others leave with him. The Seeker briefly entertains the notion that John is the Temporal Matrix, but this is soon proved false. Since John emanates time radiation, he can power and operate the Temporal Matrix effectively. He uses it to save the Guardian from toxic Old Being energy, and the Matrix takes John and his seven knights away on a journey through time that lasts nearly a hundred years.

Travels in Time
When John returns from his century of adventure, he is more confident in his power and able to wield it impressively. He is shocked and saddened to hear about the fates of Sam, Kyle, Lucy, Seeker and Chronicler. However, he grieves only a short time. He explains that he mourns for them, but he has seen death and death again over his travels. Everyone he has ever known has died. Although Kyle was his best friend, he only knew him for a few years. He has lost people he knew for more than fifty years. This is a far cry from the young man who could not sleep at night after first seeing someone die. Upon hearing the Guardian has fallen into the Chasm of Time, he searches for him and does not return for a long time. He eventually finds the Guardian as an old man, clinging to driftwood and washed up on a beach. He rewinds him along his timeline to his youth, which also eliminates the memories which drove him insane. John becomes acquainted with the Guardian's newest crew, Aaron and Kate. Upon a personal request from Kate, he disappears to search for Tom.

He does not return.

He Returns, Emptyhanded
John comes back again, once again in the wake of a catastrophe. Aaron is crippled, Kate has been taken. His knights are dead, the Matrix stolen by a revived Ancient prince. New crewmates include Ted, Yvonne and the IAU PL3-42A, aka "Foray." John has failed to find Tom, lacking any kind of connection to follow. John learns of the IAU/Cybert war, and rescues the Guardian and Foray from the Ravager's explosives after they killed Uncle Jack. He teleports them ahead in time to after the bombs have gone off. They return to the ship and he sees his younger self from fifteen minutes ago. He tells his younger self that the Guardian needs help in the hangar fifteen minutes ago. While initially confused, the younger John understands and goes back in time to save the Guardian. Soon after this, the Guardian asks John to help in the search for Lossoriawath.

The Prince of Time
The threat posed by Lossoriawath is recognized by John. The first place John goes to visit Ted. He approaches one of Ted's bodies, and is flanked by two others. John nervously wonders if he could be infected by Ted. They converse, and Ted's forms become threatening, so John simply teleports them to the future and continues to talk with the single Ted. Ted admits Lossoriawath used to visit often, but has stopped. Perhaps something has happened. John travels to one of these visits and watches as Lossoriawath leaves in the Matrix. Without John piloting it, it secretes a vast quantity of time radiation, making it easy to track.

John reports back to the Guardian, having ascertained the location of Lossoriawath's hideout. The Guardian and John both know they cannot defeat Lossoriawath without a trump card. This prompts them to travel with Foray and Aaron to the tomb of The Other, who sends them into a mystical place. A maze of green chutes. John enters first and is pulled through the tunnels at high speed. He successfully navigates the maze and arrives on a platform floating in the void. He is greeted by the Celestial Gatekeeper, and spots the Celestial Timekeeper silhouetted on a distant mountain. The Guardian joins the Gatekeeper in a chess match, after which John says a month has passed in the real world.

Aaron passes through the gate, and John, Foray and the Guardian return. When they discover Rorgan and Nhag'Lef are dead, the Guardian correctly predicts that the Ravager has joined Lossoriawath. This creates the urgency to attack. Yvonne will redirect Aaron when he returns. John joins the Guardian and the newly trumanium Foray in entering Lossoriawath's location. Lossoriawath deploys a number of defenses against them, including the Blue Pestilence, the meat trees, zombies from Scilis 6, and more. After passing through them all they confront Lossoriawath. John is hit by a sniper, but rises again as he rewinds his leg along its timeline, the flesh ejecting a bullet. John advances on the sniper, shocked to see the Ravager. Every time he is shot at he teleports ahead in time a second, just enough for the bullet to miss. John wrestles the rifle away and punches the Ravager in his wounded gut. The Ravager kicks John and shoots Foray to no effect. John casually flips the Ravager over the railing and he hits the ground hard.

After the arrival of Aaron and Tom changes the tide of battle, Lossoriawath flees and John apprehends the Ravager. John follows to find the active S'cha-ckl'ueu Arc hitting Foray. John brings them after Lossoriawath even as the Time Serpent is hot on their heels. The Guardian defies prophecy to stay behind as John takes the others on.

The final showdown is in the distant future, at the end of humanity. The end of the Ancients' legacy. Lossoriawath, despite his immense power, is losing to the three Apocalypse Lords. John, controlling time. Kate, controlling space and Foray controlling matter. As Lossoriawath attempts to flee, Tyat'Naghra catches him by surprise and consumes him. Together, the three Apocalypse Lords attack Tyat'Naghra in the Triangle Holocaust, trapping all that power inside the S'cha-ckl'ueu Arc, which the Guardian recovers.

Disrupted Timeline
When the Ravager kills the Guardian, he flies the Temporal Matrix across time. As he does so, he opens the S'cha-ckl'ueu Arc and the full power of the Triangle Holocaust explodes across the universe, destroying several realities and collapsing them into one. In the battle in the city, the Apocalypse Lords are fighting against Tyat'Naghra. When Sean, Zach and the Guardian arrive on their dragon mounts Ectobane, Necrobane and Xenobane, they also attack the Time Serpent, who is pulled apart and consumed by the three dragons.

When Zach creates the new world, John, like everyone else, is rendered powerless. He teams up with Kalve, Foray, Noven and Tom to hunt down Fwatk as a favor to Koryu after the fire being killed the other members of the Council of Light. Fwatk begins cloning himself using the machine from the Fedäkúr Wars, and John destroys the machine with a missile strike. Kalve kills Fwatk's clone with an enchanted Krolor sword, and John kills Fwatk with a trumanium bullet.

When deforestation to house workers on the space program encroaches on Fenrin's territory, an escalating series of conflicts creates the Guardian Civil War. During this time, John finds himself allied with Guardian Tyros. Danyg's rebels have found where the S'cha-ckl'ueu Arc is, and attempt to harness its power. John and Tyros' team (Kate, Foray, Rosa, Aaron) try to fight them into submission. Skorio's kill squad shows up, members of Team Blue led by Captain Nok and members of Team Green led by Captain Terran. John prepares to shoot Ted, but Reina and Danyg open the Arc and its power knocks into everyone in the room. John is confused, something feels different. He prepares to shoot Ted again, and hesitates because the texture of Ted's skin has changed. Suddenly, in a blur, his gun is knocked from his hand. Kalve stands there, looking just as shocked as anyone else. John realizes their powers have been returned.

Kalve cuts through Team Green until Foray disarms him. Danyg orders Kalve to keep fighting, and so he comes up against John. John slows time around him so even when Kalve moves at super speed, he only moves as fast as John. John engages him in a fistfight, increasing the effect so Kalve moves even slower than him. Aaron knocks them both over with a seismic blast, and Danyg begins building a powerful storm. Kate teleports members of her team to safety, and John teleports into the future.

The Chronicler learns of the legend of the Bane, a being capable of killing the Apocalypse Lords. John, Foray and Kate seek this being, but their powers are stolen by Nightmare and placed into Carson, Mechnos and Miranda. John finds that each of the new Lords has a weakened version of the original's power. Together with the dragonlords, they recruit Kalve, who manages to kill both Carson and Miranda but allowing Mechnos to escape and cause a distraction so he could flee as well. Kalve did not trust his "allies," and so eliminated the two enemies he saw as the biggest threat.

Years later, John is fighting the Second Annihilation Wave and is selected to join Flint's group. Niko does not trust Flint yet and assigns John to the group as his insurance policy. After Thorn's group is killed by a village populated by newmans and albinos, John arrives with Flint's group and treats Kevin's wounds. They begin searching for other survivors, and follow Thorn's trail.

Derek Gideon's band of criminals has taken in Thorn, Aaron, Linda and Fijin. While Derek talks to Thorn, Fijin has convinced the others about the threat posed by Kira. They defect to him and he announces a "war" on the Empire. Flint's group arrive and Flint shoots Doctor, telling Fijin his war is over. In the ensuing battle, John fights alongside Flint and Aaron against the superhuman Alston Bolt, who fires electricity from his fingers. Svarken breaks up the fight and Flint makes it a priority to find Viper. After short discussion, John sends Wilfred after Flint.

Flint and Viper are found to be in cahoots, and they play their final hand as Inferus and snake-men pour into the stone pyramid. Foray, Reina, Fenrin and Aaron are being overwhelmed in the depths of the pyramid by an onslaught of Inferus forms. Gunfire breaks out and they are rescued by John alongside Will, Ken, Rick, Pierre, Trevor, Angus, Henrik, Kevin, Wraith and Derek. They make it through the tunnels to the exit zone.

A meeting later with Fijin, Dust and Mace's group makes Trevor choose John, Ken, Pierre and Derek to alert forces along the wall and in surrounding villages that the Inferus is coming. When Trevor asks the Empire for reinforcements, John and Derek both call him mad. John believes if they retreat now they can erect the Maginot line from the First Annihilation Wave.

When the wall finally breaks, Eidolon convinces Ben to go to Tulyon. Fenrin and Foray initially disagree with him, but when John arrives with a wounded Ger he convinces them it is the best move. They are one of the last ships to arrive in Tulyon, and John gets all his charges safely to Formin.

Under the Moonlight
In the Moonlight Game, as pairs competed through a maze to reach the spigot room, John was paired with Kate. They were ensnared by living chains, and hundreds of crabs came out to gorge on their flesh. Luckily, the Guardian reached the spigot and gave them back their power, which allows Kate to teleport them away and John to heal their injuries.

When the predetermined number of contestants is eliminated, they all join Chronicler in the looping forest. Yvonne has already aged to death, but John keeps everyone else alive until they can escape. They are followed by a broken down Mechnos, who tries to attack them. John grabs him by the throat and holds him just inside the ring as he ages to rust.

After the Moonlight Game has ended, Kyle and Lucy elect to retire and live together on Earth. The Guardian is saddened by this as he remembers Tom's fate. He forces them to have their memories erased. John also tells that he wishes to retire, but begs the Guardian not to erase his memories in case he needs him.

John is left with his memories, and becomes a police officer. He keeps an eye on Kyle and Lucy always. They remember each other, and him. He becomes close with them again. All is well, but one day he receives gifts. They are what was left to him in the Guardian's will. He attends the Guardian's funeral, buried next to Aaron and Yvonne and the Guardian's original body.

Working with the New Guardian
When John notices something strange stalking Kyle and Lucy, he immediately signals for a Guardian. To his surprise, the one that received the message is an old man named Aldrich, who has taken control and the title of Guardian. It is revealed to be a trap by Takara, who takes Aldrich and Amy hostage. Kalve escapes and alerts John. Together, they enter the factory and take out newmans by the dozen, freeing the prisoners which include two brothers, Erik and Brody.

John and Amy are tying down the unconscious Fenrin in the med bay when the wolfman comes to. He knocks John down and uses Amy as a human shield to escape, locking John in the med bay. John pounds on the door, and hears a commotion as Fenrin runs into the brothers.

After the time distortion on Haond, John is present at Aldrich's funeral and is part of the committee to elect a new Guardian. Ted even nominates John, but he politely turns down the offer. He agrees when Danyg is nominated, and offers him support during his tenure as Guardian.

Somewhere to Lie Low
At several points during Danyg's time as Guardian, he would find himself struggling to go on, and although he was loathe to put John in danger, occasionally asked him to watch over Beth, trusting him more than the Seeker's safe houses.

When The Other is released again, and the Third Inferus Outbreak and Tabbaroth invasions are undone, Danyg, Reina and Takara arrive on Earth with nothing left to do. Danyg feels despondent in a way, and asks John if he and Reina can lie low there for a while. Takara departs to live among humans. John has Kyle and Lucy over as guests, and he introduces them to Danyg and Reina. After they've left, he receives a message on one of the communications devices the Guardian left him. It is from the Tabbaroth, trying to reach Danyg. They have Fenrin and Skorio captive, among others. John sees Danyg realize this is a reason for him to stay as the Guardian, since The Other and The One cannot be trusted to deal with such a "minor" issue. John makes one last call, promising them a ride. A ship appears out of time, and the Guardian steps out.