STAR LABS of United States of America

The Commission of Counter Demon or S.T.A.R. Laboratories, usually abbreviated known as STAR LABS of United States of America or STAR LABS, is an America federal agency in the LOTM: Sword of Kings stories that serves as a criminal investigative body in cases connected to ghouls, vampires, ghosts, demons and all other kind of mysthical creatures related to magic or things that humanity cannot understand. Due to its combat to magic and non-natural elements, the STAR LABS is a top secret agency from Global Pact Defense, the army body of United States and serves as one of the many military branchs of GDP acting behind the shadows for the sake of humanity without exposing their existence. They serve as the main antagonist of Mafusa Gang's Revenge Sub Arc of the second season of Saga AA and a villainous' Duumvirates organization in LOTM: Sword of Kings AA Final - Eckidina Arc: Unit-CM 130 Arc.

In Global Pact Defense, there are many differents branchs like Ratatoskr that fights extraterrestrial threats like the Fallen's Essence and Aryana Westcott who are being that came from another world distan from Earth. In STAR LABS case, they are hunters and counters of magic beings and organizations related to non-natural elements like the use of magic (not magi-tech which is an element of magic created by science).

The STAR LABS targets the existence of demons and people who are considered to be traitors of mankind like the Witch and Order of Flourish for the use of magic which is a dangerous element of the universe and has caused many disasters over the course of history. Aside from mages and organization using magic as their source of power, they are hunters of demons, ghosts and creatures who are not born from the natural order.

The Demon Countermeasures Law is the legal foundation for the STAR LABS prosecution of magic and mysthical creatures, allowing them to capture, study and erradicate magic beings. The STAR LABS' headquarters are in the 1st ward of Sleepy Hollow and was founded in 2014, 1 year after the start of the events in LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow, which was a time where the appearance and activities of supernatural order started to appear. Thousand years ago, there were many cases of supernatural but most of them started in 2013 in Sleepy Hollow, forcing the GDP to act to preveny more deaths. The demons and mages commonly call the STAR investigators as Wings, a nickname originating from the STAR LABS' seal which is a star with wings.

At the year of 2015 to 2020, the organization was lead by Richard Sampson, who 16 years later would found the Peace Foundation. At the year of 2021, a woman known as Mina Harker joined their ranks and quickly rose to power thanks to her great influence and experience dealing with a new threat called Black Demons that are bigger threat than anything they have saw before.

They serve as the evil counterpart of Ratatoskr who are part of GDP as a secret military agency but deal with their enemies from other worlds with benevolence while the STAR LABS have the same resources of Ratatoskr (with the Investigators being the evil counterpart of the Rogues as the Enforcers of their respective groups) while STAR LABS is willing to erase memories of civilians via-mental torture, genocide of entire religious factions and erradication of demons and mages even if they are good-hearted beings. As such they serves as the same counterpart of the Department of Unified Protection that targets Meta-Humans instead of Mages and the supernatural using the same ruthless methods.

Beginning
The STAR LABS was founded in 2014 as a state agency of United States soon after the sudden appearance of Shadow Warriors in Sleepy Hollow and was first lead by Richard Sampson who was named as the chairman of the agency for the first 15 years. However, despite its foundation in 2014, the Fallen's Essence claimed that the STAR LABS' religious parent organization, Iscariot Section XIII, was founded over 3000 years ago to counter a demon queen known for being the leader of a dimension called Qliphoth. This unique demon woman was so powerful that humans from the Ancient Europe needed to cooperate in order to exterminate it, forming the first relationships between different empires and kingdoms across Europe (but later it turned out it was Scathach's plan in using Ara Astaroth and her army of Black Demons to unify all humans). The Fallen's Essence also states it was Iscariot that was the first organization fight the use of magic and supernatural beings but they served most to the religion side, mostly for their God, while in the modern days, the STAR LABS fights for mankind itself.

Initially, the STAR LABS utilized firearms to oppose ghouls, zombies, sea monsters, vampires and demons, which proved ineffective due to their physique. Many of their defeat caused Richard to lose his credits and allowed a sloppy and clumsy young woman with just 20-years old to rose to power thanks to her experience and intelligence dealing with demons and all other creatures. At one point in 2021, Richard Sampson was removed from his post by the GDP Council and allowed the clumsy girl known as Minar Harker to rise to power as the new Chairwoman of the agency. Her leadership, beauty, speechs and great power with words allowed her to seduce most of the men or gain confidence inside of the United States' army.

Mina Harker first stated it was impossible to cause harm to any other creatures not from the natural order and after a certain period of time, the organization, under the then Chairwoman Mina's leadership, developed a new weapon to battle demons and supernatural beings, the Claws, which was a weapon derived from the Black Demons' the Blackness. This, however, became controversial matter as the STAR LABS was using the Blackness' the evil mana of the Black Demons to defeat other demons and creatures.

The demon extermination rate increased rapidly thanks to that weapon, and it is still the desired weapon of choice to the investigators. And again, making Mina the absolute leader of the organization for 1 decade. Around this time, the Revelation of Qliphoth, the own organization that was the main target of STAR LABS took over control of the organization by using Mina Harker, who is actually, Ara Astaroth in human form, as their Doom Bringer, making the organization an unwillingly allied of Qliphoth.

DC Comics
The name "STAR LABS" comes from the fictional organization in DC Comics which is scientific research facility and organization appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. It first appeared in Superman #246 (December 1971) and was created by Cary Bates and Rich Buckler.

S.T.A.R. was founded by scientist Garrison Slate, who wanted a nationwide chain of research laboratories unconnected to the government or any business interests. He succeeded not only on a national scale, but an international one as well: S.T.A.R. Labs currently maintains facilities in Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan as well as in the United States, with the total number of facilities numbering between twenty and thirty at last recorded count. S.T.A.R. Labs is one of the companies providing sponsorship to the superhero team The Conglomerate. The other sponsors included American Steel, Dante Foods, Dupree Chemical, Ferris Aircraft, LexCorp, Ovel Oil, Pax Entertainment, Stagg Enterprises.

LOTM: Sword of Kings
The current leader of the STAR LABS, Mina Harker, is a human clone of Ara Astaroth but has a fake history saying she is the daughter of a Australian scientist who was killed by the First Spacequake 30 years ago, a Spacequake caused by a Spirit know as Tohka Yatogami. When Mina is questioned about her age, she refer herself to have 20-years old when in fact she was already alive 30 years ago, making her a person with many questions around her.

In CIS' universe, the organization is an integral part of the true power-structure of Global pact Defense, which is in fact still ruled by a hidden military scientific program. The organization is tasked with defending the country's shores from any and all supernatural, magical and satanic threats while their comrades, Ratatoskr is mostly responsible for defending the nation and the entire world from alien threats. Controversy is often raised, especially in the story, over the highly unconventional methods STAR LABS chooses to do this, namely the use of anti-Christian powers and creatures like using the satanic and hellish powers of other demons to combat demons. In the story, the agency's soldiers, uniforms, methods, and gear would suggest that it is a counter-terrorist paramilitary strike force. In 2014, they were similar to mercenaries but years later wuld become more like futuristic soldiers.

Anti-Demon Corps
The Demon Busters are a special team created by the Demon Special Investigation Corps headed by Dr. Rainuma. They were assigned to patrol the streets and hunt for demons.

The Anti-Demons corps are armed with a wide range of anti demon technology originated from the Black Demons' Blackness, primarily useing Biological bullets to dispatch their enemies, they also use flamethrowers and laser pistols in their attacks.

The Elite forces of this squad don't use technology in their weapon but use pistols called as Casull that is a semi-automatic magnum pistol, based on two pre-WW1 handgun designs by Colt: the M1903 and M1905 pistols (the early versions of the M1911). The gun weighs approximately 6 kg unloaded and has a magazine capacity of six .454 Casull cartridges. Its appearance is also similar to the AMT Automag III. The overall design of the Casull is simple, using the Browning short recoil mechanism. Its most recognizable feature is its long slide, counteracting the weapon's heavy recoil with its weight. The barrel is 10 inches long (specified on the slide) and finished with titanium nitride which gives it a characteristic gold color.

The gun fires custom-made explosive .454 Casull rounds, with the steel bullets bearing a core made from the melted silver Christian cross from Manchester Cathedral. They are used in a six round single-stack magazine.

Anti-Magic Nuns
The Anti-Magic Nuns or also known as the False Saints is an elite female squad composed by veteran mercenaries trained under Mina's rule. Most of them were orphans and grew up as well-trained and disciplined killers of mages, magicians, witchs, wizards and humans users of magic. The squad was founded around 2024 in Sleepy Hollow and became one of the most powerful military squad of STAR LABS since the squad is mostly known for using ARMS 13 mm Auto Anti-Freak Combat Pistol and Machine Guns. The ARMS 13s are extremely powerful handguns are one of the most powerful weapons made man.

The ARMS fires a huge, armor-piercing, 13mm hollow point bullet. The rounds are jacketed with a "casing" of blessed Macedonian silver and features an explosive tip containing a charge of pre-blessed mercury. However, the 13mm round's size limits the ARMS' magazine capacity to six rounds. The rounds use "Marvell's Chemical Cartridge N.N.A.9", and are suggested to be very short by the minimal movement of the ARMS' slide. This could be due to the cartridge being powerful enough to require only minimal propellant. The bullets were designed primarily to be used against Witch Cult's top agents like Katya, who shrugged off the Anti-Demon Casull's rounds with ease. They proved powerful enough to negate the mages' great regenerative abilities and blow off parts of them. The ARMS 13's ammunition also makes for an extremely effective anti-vampire and demon combat weapon in general.

Drones of Magi-Tech
The STAR LABS uses both magi-tech and technology under their arsenal. In science stock, they have the Endlave Drones that known for being the fastest drones in the world.

The Endlaves units mostly know for being able to use magi-tech spells like Instant ReLi which is a spell that summons explosions ramdonly at its sight. Each Endlave drone have a giant machine gun in their hands and are the most produced drones of GDP at the time of WWIII.

Under the STAR LABS' command, they composed most of their army during their reign in Stabilization Union's countries.

Investigators
The STAR LABS employs two different kinds of investigators:
 * Demon Investigators, employed at STAR LABS' main office, carry out the actual investigations and capture suspects. They are often assigned to carry out investigations in one of Sleepy Hollow's wards. Only demons investigators are permitted to be armed with Claws.
 * Bureau Investigators deal mostly with paperwork and back up ghoul investigators when necessary. Most of them are employed at STAR LABS' branch offices. They are armed with firearms loaded with Q bullets and mercury bullets.

Trivia

 * The organization is considered rather hypocrital considering they use religious artifacts like melted silver from silver Christian cross from Manchester Cathedral. As such, the organization is known for generally being Anti-Religion as they consider them to be one of the many matters that keep mankind fighting each other. And according to Mina, most of the Black Demons feed from their negative emotions like fear, hatred and wrath, making them stronger through the religious difference of humans. And worse, she is right.
 * STAR LABS is often considered to be the most aggressive military branch of GDP due to their war crimes. Unlike Ratatoskr who is often critized for their good deeds, allowing people to expose their secret existence, the STAR LABS refuses to be discovered and goes further to commit massacre of civilians to hide their existence from the public. But if this is for the greater good...
 * Despite Mina's sloppy personality, she is often considered to be the smartest person in the world for people around her age. For such, the STAR LABS is considered a childish and yet extremely intelligent organization.