OOC: Keats Arlend app
Keats Arlend
Your Name: Loren
Age: 26
Username: iforgotmyyname
Email: lorenfurc@yahoo.com
IM: Shinjiro Castor
Character Name: Keats Arlend
Background:
By 2028, post-apocaylpse Earth was unrecognizable. Bioweapons had reduced it to husks of cities with only 10% of the world's population left to slink around in them. The survivors had more than hunger and horror awaiting them... many of them also developed strange powers as a side effect of the genetic weapons. These varied abilities helped plunge humanity into even deeper chaos. 'Society,' as it existed, did a backslide into medieval conditions and, in one cse, even medieval societal motifs. A rather common power was 'puppeting' or complete physical control over one or more people. These people formed a 'Knighthood' as they called it, but it was closer to a mercenary army. They kidnapped people with the best/most interesting powers and fighting skills, then used them like puppets to attack their enemies.
Keats Arlend was such a puppet from young childhood. His 'Lord' or controller, Oreyn, discovered the boy wandering around the remains of New York City. Somehow the child had managed to get complete strangers to find food for him. At first, Oreyn thought the boy was 'one of them,' but close observation proved otherwise. The boy didn't control, he coerced, or could even inflict pain by linking with the subjects' nervous systems. He'd make a perfect 'Black Knight,' as they called their pawns.
Oreyn lured Keats in with sweet promises. Once he managed to link with the child, he dropped all pretenses... the boy literally could not escape him now. He wasn't unduly harsh with Keats. While the two of them traveled, he did force Keats to hurt or kill a few brigands with his abilities. It was hard for the boy, but Oreyn considered this mere training for the life Keats would now lead. Eventually the two of them arrived at a training grounds in what used to be Massachusets.
Keats met and mingled with the other 'puppet' kids. Most of them weren't as reluctant to accept their fate. After all, they were fed well, clothed, protected from danger... they only had to submit and kill in return. Keats' fate wasn't quite as kind or clear cut. Because of his particular abilities, Oreyn used him to torture prisoners for information as well as kill them.
The boy developed a dual nature as he grew. On the surface, he was charming, friendly, devil may care and quick witted. He often tried to run away or cause mischief. However, the rough charm was little more than a facade for his inner torment. He couldn't shake the guilt from all the deaths and pain he'd caused. Whether or not he chose to hurt them, he'd done it with his own hands and power. He suffered from vicious nightmares and sado masochistic, even suicidal thoughts. As soon as he could get his hands on them, he sought a pleasurable release through alcohol or other drugs. There was always some guard willing to trade for them.
Around Keats' sixteenth birthday, Oreyn began to treat him a little differently and finally seduced him. He used his controlling power to do so, which confused the hell out of the boy as to whether he wanted the sex with him or not. Most of the time he despised his 'Lord,' but now he had a new reason to feel disgusted and used by him. To get the feeling off of him, Keats slept around with the guards, both male and female. He finally got a little too attached to one of the guards, Christine. When Oreyn found out, he had Christine killed, and made sure Keats was the one to find the body.
That snapped something inside of him. He waited, bided his time, until he and Oreyn were summoned to participate in a battle. They needed to lay seige to a well-defended city. In the ensuing, bloodthirsty chaos, Keats waited until Oreyn had an unguarded moment. Then he linked into his 'Lord's' nervous system and killed him. Because they were linked, it nearly killed them both. Keats came to a few minutes later with the battle still raging around him. He staggered to his feet--and did what he would do for years and years to come. He ran.
A 'Black Knight' on the run had a tough time of it. Keats always had to wear long sleeves in order to hide the double dragon insignia on his arms. Other Black Knights and Lords tended to spot him as one of them... which meant he often had to fight and kill his own kind. He did that, ruthlessly when he had to, in order not to be captured again. Freedom was what he craved, even if he had to live on the wing all his life.
A few years of this hardened him. He rarely stayed in any place longer than a couple weeks. Sometimes he ended up using his powers to help the inhabitants... when he could overcome his reluctance at displaying them. If he did that, he left immediately afterward. People tended to look at him as a hero for killing Black Knights or other dangerous bastards. They didn't understand that he was one himself. He was trained to kill, and torture, and his first instincts (or so he believed) were cruel ones. Conflicting impulses or not, he didn't trust himself around others.
Appearance:
One of those 'good looking if cleaned up,' types with choppy, uneven dark hair and (usually) enough stubble to warrant a shave. His features are even and youthful, but his gaze is calculating enough for a man twice his age. His eyes are heavily shadowed with a constant exhaustion, and he's pale enough to look sick. At 19, he's 5'10 and wiry at 165 pounds. He tends to slouch, lean, and otherwise seem relaxed even at tense moments. His fingers are always itching for something to do, sliding up over his face or through his hair, if not holding a cigarette, weapon, or bottle. Uneven white scars can be found on his back, chest and legs, some of them upraised.
PB: Thomas Dekker
Spoken / written languages: English, Spanish and some German
Abilities:
Keats has the ability to link (psychically) with another person via their nervous system. From there, he can induce the body to feel pain, pleasure, he can read their chemical emotions (sort of like empathy) he can induce enough sensory pain to kill someone. He can only do this with one person at a time and it requires total concentration. He couldn't do this while fighting. All of these abilities would be lessened or dampened on the Elegante. The ability to kill through the link would be negated.
Items: A few changes of clothes, the pack of cigarettes and flask of bourbon he had on him, and the holsters for his guns (without the guns themselves, of course)
Third Person Sample: (300 words or more, please. Can be any situation!)
Keats rolled back his shoulders in a liquid motion and casually yanked out his gun. The psychopath--the one who had killed twenty people in this town-- lurked just in the next room. He could feel the man as an elevated bundle of nerves and elation. If he pressed into that feeling a little further, he'd link into him. Once there, he'd be able to kill him without ever opening the door, or laying eyes on the man.
He didn't feel like it.
Instead, with a swift kick, he broke the rotted door open. He stepped into the quiet shadows of what used to be a schoolrom. A dust-covered pile of desks and chairs cast macabre shadows into the room. Nothing bright. Everything too quiet. Until the man slid out behind him. He felt him do it, and turned quick enough to get impressions. Greasy hair, eyes bright and veined red with mania.
"We can do this easy, or hard," Keats said, training his gun on the man. The psychopath had one, too, also pointed at him. Stalemate. Then, the crazy bastard fired.
Keats twisted out of the way, but not quick enough. The bullet tore at his shoulder in a sudden blaze of pain, distracting as hell. He grit his teeth against it and fired... a shot to distract the man, just above his head. Then a second one that caught the psychopath full in the chest. He wavered for a moment...dropped his gun with a 'clink' and fell, twitching on the floor, his eyes jerking back and forth without seeing anything. Keats slowly walked over and knelt at the man's side.
How many times had he seen this? A person in the throes of death, after he'd killed them. Hundreds of nameless people. But they could never be faceless...
A voice came from the doorway, at jarring dissonance with Keats' thoughts. "Oh... thank you, thank you. The rest of us are safe now because you..."
An anger rose up in him, a rage he didn't understand or want to leash. So, he reacted. He turned and shot... not at the ignorant, relieved man, but at the wall next to him. His eyes blazed into the man's until he saw fear instead of relief. Good. That's what should be.
"Don't talk to me right now...leave me the hell alone, all of you." Keats turned back to the dying man. He knelt there until it was done.
Then, without a word to anyone in that town, he left.
First Person Sample:
Look, I'm not some friendly nice guy. Think whatever you want, but only stupid bastards trust whatever they see and hear. Most of them get let down. A lot of them get dead.
I should know... I killed some of them. If that's the kind of risk you wanna take, hell, come a little closer. Be dumb enough to trust me when I smile. One of these days you'll find a knife in your back, whether I put it there or not. I promise.
If you're that stupid, maybe I'll just protect you from yourself.