App for Dirty Vegas
OOC
Name: Sara
Contact: AIM--CrawfordSands, Email--sandpuppeteer@gmail.com
Age: 26
Current characters: N/A
IC
Name: Balthazar
Fandom: Constantine (Movie)
History link: There is no link that I can find that's just for Balthazar, but here' the gist of Constantine itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_(film)
And now for my summarized history for Balthazar:
Balthazar's history is long and complicated. Unfortunately, not much is known of it. He was human at one time, as all demons had been. But long ago when civilization had a completely different shape and isolated in scattered pockets around the globe. After finding himself in Hell, he didn't twist and writhe with the other sinners. No, he seized the opportunity and rose through the ranks. High enough that he could slip out of Hell when he felt the need.
At some point, he crossed paths with an angel on the verge of falling. The less than sane Gabriel presented him with the opportunity he needed to raise his rank even further. The angel wanted to punish humanity and weed out those worth of God's love by bringing Hell to earth. Expanding his boss' domain would earn him some points so he filled in a few gaps in the plan and began his partnership with the angel.
They worked well together, in the years it took to piece it all together. They needed just the right medium. Just the right tools. It seemed to all be coming together, gathering in LA. That is, until a nosy little exorcist decided to start investigating the death of a woman at a mental hospital. An irritating little thorn in Balthazar's side that refused to just roll over and die. So like he'd done with previous encounters, he employed some of his innate abilities to demoralize Constantine. Kill a few friends. That always did the trick.
Alas, he ended up pushing it a little too far. He shoved the exorcist past depression into righteous anger and found himself at the business end of a holy shotgun, blessed brass knuckles and one well-aimed prayer. Through such torture, he was forced to give up the one detail the bastard needed to stop the whole deal, even if he had hand-delivered the psychic girl to them.
After being blown away, Balthazar clung to his half-human shell. The angel, his accomplice, finished the job in dispatching him back to Hell. Even though he had been far more successful than the little God-slave so far. While the demon lurked below, the entire plan unraveled and Mammon, the son of the devil, was none to pleased. It is assumed that since the angel remained on earth as a human, Mammon turned to the only one involved that he could get his claws on (this part is head canon, but quite plausible given how utterly pissed off Mammon was when the plan failed).
However, after an untold amount of time in the fire pits, the demon found himself in a newly minted body, though the same model as the last, dropped into a new and strange city.
Age: No age given. Implied that he is old enough to have seen the ancient Romans in their day. Physically looks to be in his early 30's.
Canon point: After the end of the movie and he's been kicking around hell for a while.
Personality: Cold. Calculating. Chillingly confident. He possesses all the usual features one might expect in a demon. He loves everything there is to love about being evil. Though he won't outright show it, because that would be painting a target on his chest. At least, in the world he's from. He takes great joy in corrupting people, especially those who would seem uncorruptible, with a certain taste for priests, exorcists and their accomplices.
He is not above taking up with unlikely partners to execute complex plans. Angels, humans, anyone who might further his task. Not that he'd ever trust them. They don't trust him, so why should things be any different on his side? Besides, it has nothing to do with trust. Trust leads to sloppy mistakes. If one were to always be suspicious of their cohorts, they never let their guard down.
Though he may enjoy being evil, he does not particularly enjoy the setting which spawned such a thing. Hell is full of disgusting, writhing beasts, everything overflowing with slime, blood and excrement, severed heads, limbs and other such body parts strung about like so many Christmas decorations. He would much rather prefer a clean setting, a sharp suit and a landscape free of rot.
He prefers solitude, most of the time. Working alone and from the shadows is best. Other villains seemed to feel the need to make themselves known, boast about their goals and bring attention to themselves. Sure, he had his tendencies to gloat from time to time, but in a much more private matter. Such as having his arch enemy struggling to breathe under his crushing grasp. But only when victory was so close he could touch it. Until then, he would much rather manipulate the strings from the background. Whisper a suggestion the right ear. And allow everyone else to take the heat.
Powers/Abilities: All the powers he possesses are inherently unholy and can be resisted or dispelled with the right holy tools or temperament.
- Fly swarm: Can turn into massive swarm of black insects.
- Mind reading: Exactly what it says on the tin. He can hear people's thoughts. With extra effort, he can dig deeper than the surface.
- Suggestion: Can get inside people's head and plant suggestions that seem like their own thoughts.
- Illusion: A side effect of the above, he can make people see things and make them believe they are real. With a tendency of making nightmares a reality.
- Control: If so inclined, he can push suggestion much further and force people to do things. This however is a great deal more difficult.
- Telepathy: A less stealth variation on suggestions, he can simply speak directly to a person in their mind.
- Fire resistance: part of being from Hell means he can't be hurt by heat or flame, though his swanky clothes can.
- Technically, his body is little more than an illusion. Getting hit with holy water forces it to become his true, demonic body. However, the body is very much physical, and as much as he despises it, it is half human to keep it rooted in the physical plane.
Prose sample: (Taken from a narrative written for the game The Wake)
Tick. Tock.
The sound permeated every corner of the city. It wasn't so simple as the basic mechanism in a wall clock. More complex than even the large clock towers in old cities. But the basic sound was still the same and it all meant just one thing: time was running out.
He'd never considered time would apply to him. Not in such a finite sense. There were always deadlines and time frames. But never an end. Nothing so constrictive. But everything was different here. Their prison could strip him of everything faster than anything an exorcist could throw at him. The idea that there was even a chance he could have his abilities removed triggered a feeling that he'd thought himself immune to.
Terror.
It wasn't the paralyzing fear that he'd inflicted upon so many, but it was there. A cold fear, seizing him at strategic points. Just enough to induce a state that some might call mild paranoia. But a world like paranoia would imply without logical reason. There were many threats out there. An angel. An exorcist. A psychic more powerful than himself. A rather angry woman with an arm-mounted canon. His victims come back to life or their friends out for revenge. Or punishment. The revenge he could take, death was of no consequence here--even if they could find a way to actually kill him. But the punishment, that prison...the idea alone made him cringe.
But honestly, which was worse? Being shoved into a prison and stripped of his abilities or cowering in dark corners, waiting for them to forget about him? Hiding was beneath him. Lurking he was more than capable of, watching. Shrouding himself in shadow was something he prided himself in. But cowering? Never.
Tick. Tock.
Weeks had passed since he'd been outed by that blasted psychic. And he'd outed himself, in a fashion. Was that the plan? Had the city turned him into his exact opposite so he might be brought down by something so sickeningly ironic? There was nothing in creation he despised more than angels. And here he'd become one and willingly helped these people.
A coin tumbled down his fingers as he tried to decide what to do. He could stay here. This city was not terrible in it's own right. But the limitations were far too constrictive for his taste. He'd left the rules behind. There he'd only adhered to them out of self interest. Break them too often and he'd have every exorcist in the city jumping down his throat. But in this clock work city, the rules weren't an option. They were natural laws, and could not be broken. Plus, it was so sparsely populated there was nothing with which to entertain himself. The red sky and scorching heat did little to help his desire to stay. If he wanted any of that, he'd return home. LA or Hell, it didn't matter.
Tick. Tock.
There there was Kalliste. He'd spent the first few days there, but rather quickly realized it was a place to be used only as a last resort. It was broken. Already ravaged by a war and abandoned. Supposedly it was being rebuilt, but overall it was little more than a pile of broken glass, with even fewer people than Helix. An excellent hiding place, but far too mind-numbingly dull to remain.
He needed to know if they were even still looking for him. The city behaved strangely, the inhabitants letting important details slide, while focusing on something inane and miniscule. Throwing parties while he and Legato picked off the residents. It was always possible they'd given up the search for him. On average, the people of Nautilus had the attention span of a seven year old child hopped up on caffeine and sugar.
Tick. Tock.
No. It was too much to hope for. If nothing else, Samus would remember. And he felt no desire to evade her for the rest of his days.
He needed to do something. He needed to know what was going on. He needed to get into contact with Damon. He was through cowering. He was a demon. They could hardly fault him for doing only what came naturally to him. It wasn't as though he unmade anyone, and every last one had a choice to follow his suggestions or ignore them. Except Mao. There was no choice involved in that one.
Tick. Tock.
Pocketing the coin, he made his way toward the exit of the building. It was obvious, really. He'd just need to make them accept that punishment was hardly necessary in his case. Whether through words or other methods.
Links:
The continuation of the above sample: http://community.livejournal.com/thewakelogs/359673.html
How he handles a threat: http://community.livejournal.com/thewakelogs/333591.html