Malice 'Mal' Wormwood

[Malice Wormwood]

Malice ‘Mal’ Jack Wormwood
FACE CLAIM: Evan Peters
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AGE: 16
GENDER: Male
ORIENTATION:Entirely Ambiguous
POSITION: Bellefonte Academy Student

POWER: Nightmare Hallucination

Malice has a power accosted with fear, a power which he has not fully explored due to fear of the power, of it hurting somebody severely. So far, there are a few things which he knows he can do. He induce nightmares and hallucinations of your worst fear. Malice's touch causes the person to hallucinate their worst fears and nightmares for an average time of two minutes, which resembles a fit, but with a view on the real world. An arachnophobic would see spiders crawling all over their skin. to an acrophobic, the floor would drop away to reveal immense cliffs. Upon touching a person, the power acts like an injection, and quickly the power begins to take effect, and, instead of the hallucination just immediately appearing, it slowly (about 5 seconds) begins to creep into the world, adding to the realism of the hallucination. He can use the power abut five times a day, but beyond that the energy required for him to use his ability increases exponentially. , This amount is reduced depending on his mental state, the resistance of the target, and the amount of adrenaline in his system (the more he has, the more he can use it in a short period of time, but after than he has the same exhaustion as if he used the power as normal (he would suddenly become exhausted). The most he has ever influenced was eight, and he was unconscious for two days. 
Malice's power does not work on mutants that have the power to block out mental abilities (power suppressors, mental shields, etc), or those with high willpower will be able to block out the hallucination, either if their willpower is exceptionally high, or they are aware that it is about to occur. He has severe trouble controlling this ability, and so tries not to touch people, and wears gloves and clothing which covers most of the body to prevent this. He has little to no control over this. Whilst touching somebody skin to skin always causes a hallucination (unless blocked) but the intensity and length of this hallucination cannot be controlled. He also wears a bracelet, similar to a diabetes bracelet with the words 'DO NOT TOUCH ME. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE GLOVES" written on it, in case he gets injured.


LIMITATIONS:

this power is only active for a couple of minutes after Malice has touched the person. It does not work on those who are asleep or unconscious, as it only affects the conscious mind, not the subconscious. Malice's power does not work on mutants that have the power to block out mental abilities (power suppressors, mental shields, etc), or those with high willpower will be able to block out the hallucination, either if their willpower is exceptionally high, or they have high willpower and are aware that it is about to occur.



POWER: Fear Sense


Malice can find the location of nearby people by the smell of the hormones which cause fear, through doors, through walls, even a trail they leave behind. This power works by a combination of smell and taste, converted to the optical nerves, meaning it appears as human shaped blobs. To Malice, it looks a bit like an infrared camera, with people being picked out as blobs. The stronger the fear in the person the stronger the scent, so much so that while using this ability next to somebody who absolutely reeks of fear, can block out the sense for several minutes. Whilst using this power, his tongue lengthens by about an inch and a half, as it the extra taste buds are needed to detect the fear hormone.


LIMITATIONS:

The fear hormone power works on a combination of taste and smell, and does not work as well if either of these is impaired. Such as a blocked nose, or having eaten something incredibly spicy. Close proximity to high levels of fear hormone can block out this power as well, like flashing a bright light at night vision goggles. Biting his tongue is also a massive nightmare for Malice, as the damage to the tongue means that it doesn't extend properly while using the power, meaning that he does not get a truly accurate image of where people are.
The fear sense kind of puts most of his senses on overtime, so it can only be used for about half an hour before it begins to take a toll on all his senses, and eventually, after an hour, his brain completely shuts down and he falls unconscious, as he learned quite quickly. 


SIDE-EFFECTS:
- Nosebleeds if used repeatedly.

- Irritability.

- Paranoia

- Fatigue

- Unconsciousness

- Organic things rot much faster in his presence.

- When using his power and for some time afterwards, his skin becomes light sensitive and his taste buds become hyper-sensitive.

- Every time he uses the  power, he briefly glimpses what his victim is seeing.

- He also has cravings for raw meat

- Hunger

- He struggles to empathize with others for hours afterwards.

- One strange side effect of this power is since it manifested, Malice finds it very hard to achieve REM sleep, and when he does, it's normally replays of fears that he's seen.


HEIGHT: 6’3”
HAIR COLOR: Blonde.
EYE COLOR: Brown

General Appearance: GENERAL APPEARANCE: Malice wears at nearly all times long patched together coat, with many pockets resembling a mod fishtail parka, the pockets of which are filled with a multitude of things, from springs to paper clips. He also wears baggy ex-military camouflage combat trousers, with a similar assortment of pockets. Informally he wears dark black hoodies, beneath which is usually some form of collared shirt. The hood drawn up to cover his headphones and face. He also at nearly all times wears leather gloves. Malice is quite tall, at least six foot tall, with quite a long neck. He is quite gangly and is very thin, like a man made out of stretched toffee. He always carries at least two Silk Cut cigarettes, which he loves to smoke, along with a bag of mixed sweets. Malice has the third stanza of the Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron tattooed on his left shoulder. When forced to dress in school uniform, he tries to keep as many of these features as possible


PERSONALITY: Malice has quite a calm demeanour and is often seen with a playful smile on his face, whilst seemingly apathetic to others. He is quite witty, mocking and verbally attacking others, often with a smile on his face. He can joke even in some of the harshest situations. He quite likes dark humour. Despite this happy outlook on life, Malice is quite miserable, as his power has left him devoid of any human contact. Malice is a cynic and will often assume the worst, for in his words "if you assume the worst and it occurs, you are not disappointed. If anything else occurs, you are mildly surprised.” He has a mild smoking problem, but would never use drugs. He has a severe and violent anti-drug personality. Malice doesn't eat food. He consumes it. He must eat at least a bushel of apples every couple of days. He has a sweet tooth roughly the size of Belgium and constantly carries a bag of around a mixed bag of Lemon Bon-Bons, Cadburys Éclairs and
Werther's Originals.
Malice likes his own space. He likes spaces where he will not be bothered, to sit and read, to eat apples, and to watch the world go by. He is a self-reliant observer, who sees more than most, and knows more than he lets on. Certain types of spaces fill this requirement, and usually high places. So as such, Malice is a good climber, and loves to free climb. Malice has a sketchbook, which is filled with landscapes which he has drawn in unflinching accuracy, from various high places to which he has climbed. He lets nobody see this however. Some quite sensitive incidents have been drawn in this sketchbook. He sees photography as skill-less and is quite derogatory of photographers, whilst having high praise for still life artists. He sees the sketchbook as snapshots, memories. Malice is nosy. That’s part of the attraction of high places. He can see into people's lives, and they can't see him. He enjoys these little snapshots of the lives of people. Because of this, he also has a lot of experience as an urban explorer, breaking into abandoned buildings (and sometimes not abandoned) just for a look around, out of sheer curiosity. 'Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time." although in Malice's case he doesn't take photographs, he draws.
Malice likes being alone, he likes peace and quiet, but after several years of empty birthday parties, he has decided to attempt to integrate at Bellefonte , to try his best to be 'normal'. He is trying to be 'nice' a word which he can define, but not practice. He will read anything by Stephen King, or by Sir Terry Pratchett, but has read many classics, from Milton to Marlowe (he is obsessed by both Faustus and Paradise Lost), and likes to use quotes to display meaning. He talks very. Very fast, and is impatient with people, especially when they don't seem to follow his train of fractured thought. Malice is very, very good at getting into places he isn’t supposed to. He can pick locks, jimmy doors, and hotwire cars. And he has done. Multiple times, getting himself in quite a lot of trouble until his father payed off the victims of his miscreant behaviour.

SECRET(S): Jack has chronic hallucinatory psychosis but is currently taking medication for it, and is dealing with it quite well. For some reason, his mental state improves when he uses his powers.


FATHER: Arthur Wormwood (59, Investment Broker, every week he receives a care package from him, containing Chocolate, Sweets, and Cigarettes)
MOTHER: Maria Alaude (Affair, died when Malice was three)
SIBLINGS: Amelia-Marcie Wormwood (32, from Arthur's marriage to Sophia Wormwood)
WORTHY MENTIONS: Mephistopheles, his pet magpie

History: Malice was born in 1997, in the George Washington University Hospital, Washington D.C to Arthur Wormwood and Maria Alaude. Arthur was an investment broker, from London, who travelled about, doing business deals in crowded rooms, in cities from Berlin to Bangkok. Wormwood was old money, richer than Midas, the money originally having made its money financing conflicts, even as far back as the Napoleonic wars. He owned quite a large house in D.C., where Sophia lived, along with several other houses, including one in London. Alaude was a French pianist who was first employed by Wormwood to tune the piano in his London house. However, when he heard her beautiful slender pianist's fingers operating the black behemoth of a grand piano, he fell in love. She was a free spirit, in a world of order and regulations, numbers and rules. They immediately began their affair. Four months later she conceived Malice. Naturally Sophia was outraged at her husband's infidelity, and, whilst she was taken to George Washington University Hospital to give birth, and her medical bills were paid by the family, the child was taken from her, and raised by the Wormwood household, as a member of the family, but with the constant stigma from Sophia of him being an illegitimate child. He knew he was not Sophia's child from a young age, but it was not until he was eight that he discovered something awful. When he was three, his mother had died at her Paris apartment. Immediately his suspicions fell upon his father. An illegitimate child would ruin him and his reputation, and so he assumed that the death was a cover up. He was an intelligent eight year old, who read far too many dramatic novels. From this point on he hated his father with a burning passion.
Since he was old enough, Malice had been sent to private schools, expensive ones, around Europe, but mainly the Talbot School for boys, where his father, and his father before him was educated. Needless to say, he spent a lot of time in behavioural therapy whilst at the school. He was a miscreant. He was intelligent, but skipped classes. He broke into buildings, just for a look around. He started smoking. He stole cars. During the time when he should have been learning the definition of an oxbow lake, he was learning other skills. He learnt to climb, he learnt to pick locks, he learnt to draw, and he learnt a variety of useful and useless skills, mainly from guides on the internet. He can tie a posh tie better than most people he knows. However, there were a few subjects he engaged with. The sciences and mathematics. Whilst his drawing skill was art associated, he found the subject boring and restrictive. But despite his miscreant behaviour, he didn’t want to go home. He felt uncomfortable towards his father, and if he was forced to go home he would lock himself in his room. During his time at various school, he learned a thing or two about spoilt rich kids. One: they didn’t care if they got in trouble. And Two:
They loved Drugs. A student in his year had taken to selling drugs to students in the years below him, for exorbitant prices, and threatening to tell the school if they stopped buying. At a party, while the dealer was drunk and most likely high, he confronted the dealer and threw him off a second floor balcony, breaking his left leg and arm, and right collarbone. Luckily, the dealer was too drunk to remember who it was, but he certainly stopped selling. He took to searching through his father’s desk, trying to find some secret about his mother which had been carefully hidden, behind a secret panel, or in a locked safe. However amongst his father's thinks, in his top desk was a leather folder, bound tightly. It was out of place with the usual assortment of stationery and legal documents.
Naturally nosy, Malice decided to open the folder. It contained letters. From his mother. To his father. It turns out his father loved Alaude, truly loved her. He even planned to leave his current wife for her. What happened in her Paris Apartment really was an accident. There were multitudes of reports in the folder, from various private investigation companies around the world. His father found him three hours later staring into space. His mother had chosen his name, Malice, because she liked the sound of the word, as it sounded like her mother's name, Alice. From there, he and his father reformed their relationship. Malice started to pay attention in school. He started to learn. Since then, he's been on the up and up. Malice’s power manifested age fifteen, at a private school in Ireland, during a free period he had snuck off the private school site to the forest behind the school have a cigarette and to read in peace. Unbeknownst to him, a violent student in the year above Malice had also snuck off the site to take substances. When he found Malice, he thought it amusing to try to mug him, ripping his book in two and punching him. This traumatic incident caused his power to manifest, and he recovered from the blow with a right hook to the guy's nose.
When other delinquents entered the clearing, the violent student was unconscious and had torn out his fingernails scratching deep cuts in his skin to get at what he thought were spiders underneath his skin. His friends assumed he had had a bad trip due to the half empty bag of magic mushrooms in his pocket. But Malice knew he could do this. But the had to keep this power under wraps.
He was already a freak in the school. He managed to keep it under wraps for two weeks until what he refers to as 'The Arndale Incident'. Malice had snuck off from one of his father’s functions, and was sitting at a coffee shop in a shopping centre in Manchester, Malice was attempting to relax in a quiet corner. Unbeknownst to him, Manchester city had won the cup final that day, and the cafe was invaded by a group of supporters who had consumed more than a little cheap booze. One of them decided to attempt to start a fight with Malice if he didn't join in with their drunken disharmony of 'Why, Why, Why, Delilah?” When he stated that he didn't care for football, the drunken supporter punched him.
By the time the U.K. Meta containment force arrived, those one the outer fringe of the ‘fear bubble' had run away, but those close to Malice had begun to experience illusionary forms of their worst fears and nightmares. Although there were no deaths, several people were severely hospitalised. Several people had hurt themselves mid hallucination, by banging on walls or floors etc.
According to Sergeant McKinley, "At the centre of the carnage was what appeared to be an unconscious kid in a suit, probably fifteen or sixteen, who had been reading battered paperback with the Oxfam sticker still on the front. He had large headphones on, which were still blasting Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"." The kid seemed unaware of the carnage, but according to the sergeant "at the centre of the mess was a kid who was slouched across the table, a small bloody pool had dripped from the kid's nose and was forming on the coffee stained table. We didn't seem wise to attempt to wake him, so we activated our stun rifles."
Malice awoke in a containment cell, with his hands attached by manacles to a clear glass table. "What's your name?" asked a fuzzy figure in shadow opposite him. His head was still ringing like a tuning fork.
“Vincent Van Go fuck yourself” he replied, with a smile, and an offensive hand gesture, twisted in the manacles to raise his middle finger skyward.
“We have Malice Wormwood Here” the fuzzy shadow commented, not skipping a beat
“You were lucky you didn't kill anybody. Then we'd be having a completely different talk, Do you know what you did?" the figure had come into focus now and was dressed in a neat crisp black suit, not dissimilar to the one Malice was wearing, except for his suit did not have a red bloody puddle of dried blood smeared across the shirt and left shoulder.
"Not really" said Malice, staring at the figure across from him
"What you did there was manifest a power. For some reason, anyone you touch has a fit. A few of the people from your... little incident, shall we say, have described that they saw their worst fears." the man in the suit leaned forward now, revealing a face wrinkled beyond its years, with a greying streak in dark blonde hair. He picked up a piece of neatly typed paper from the table "some saw their families die, others described being buried alive. The list goes on." he waited for Malice's response, but when it didn't occur, he continued "In this situation, you would most likely be sent to the St. Bethany in Manchester, but for a multitude of reasons, not least your location of manifestation, and due to your dual nationality status. A choice. You can either stay in England, or go to Bellefonte academy, in the United States.”
Two weeks later a black car pulled up outside the gates of the Bellefonte Academy, in Kalispell. Inside lay a young man, wearing a crumpled suit, slouched in the back seat of the car. The car stopped. Malice stared out the window. Standing in the gateway was what appeared to be a girl, dressed in jeans, with brown hair and a hippie-ish look to her. Malice reached out, pulling the black plastic handle, and opened the door



SAMPLE: A brief light, a singular dot appeared on the roof of the building, and then was gone, disappeared, snuffed out by some unknown force. To the casual observer it might have been the dull blinking of a security alarm, or the headlamps of a vehicle reflecting off as hard of glass. But to the person who created the light, it was a cigarette lighter. Malice took a deep rattling drag on the cigarette and exhaled, the smoke from the cigarette drifting into the night sky, before being carried off by some unknown wind.
He laid back, the movement wafting dust dregs about the roof around his body, and he stared at the sky. The skies were remarkably clear here, with only the dim light from the town to muddy the sky, he could see each and every star in perfect detail. Every star was born from an immense cloud, he had heard somewhere, and died in an explosive finale, a beautiful swansong which could outshine entire galaxies. Every star in the sky will, at some point die, like a flower. It was strangely beautiful, he pondered, as he reached into his pocket, and pulled out a yellow-green apple, and inspected the green surface for bruises, cracks, anything to break the perfect star like sphere. He threw it up in the air, for a moment the apple was a bright shining star, amongst thousands of others, before returning to earth. Malice plucked it from the air with practiced ease, and thought 'what comes up must come down'. And he bit into the apple, scarring a deep furrow into the skin, carving out a fleshy canyon, into which a small pool of juice formed. He took a few more bites, extending the canyon into a torus of muddy white flesh. He finished the apple, removing the seeds and stalk with surgical precision. He flicked the seeds into the flowerbed beneath the roof, before taking another drag on his cigarette.
From the messenger back which sat in the dust next to him he removed a faux leather covered book, with a spiral ring binder splitting the covers like a nail in a piece of wood. Malice flicked through the book, which had pages of a similar consistency to card. Each page was covered in detailed, Lowry-sequel pencil drawings, each from high places, rooftops, or clock towers, or the occasional balcony. He pulled a small pencil from his bag, and swore under his breath, when he discovered that the graphite tip extruding from the painted wood had snapped. He placed the useless pencil in his mouth alongside the glowing tip of a cigarette, while he delved into the bag to attempt to recover a pencil sharpener. When he did, he removed the pencil from his mouth, and sharpened it, slivers of wood being cleaved by the blade, forming a neat little pile. He blew on the pencil, shaking the last particles of wood dust from the tip with an exhale of smoky breath, and began to draw. He drew the contours of trees, the angular shapes of the windows, the people through the windows, each one performing some task, important in their own small world, but, like the stars that shone above, that importance was lost in the multitude of others executing similar plans. He drew the person running below, hurrying from place to place, and lost in their own plans. Everyone had plans, grand schemes whichever came to fruition, like the apple which never grew because of unfavourable conditions, or insects, or frost. But a single, well executed plan could change the world. For every plan that succeeded there was a dozen which failed. He sketched cars on the road in the distance, lining the horizon like mourners holding a candlelit vigil over the town below. He sketched someone bending down by the back wheel of a black SUV which was parked at a jaunty angle. He sketched the halls, from which the light blazed from a thousand bulbs, each one glowing like artificial stars. Life in a snapshot, a single perfect image, before things changed, and the cars moved, the figure put his hand under theca, the pattern of lights changed. He took a final drag on the cigarette, which by now had reduced to but a stub, and ground it out on the rooftop, before flicking it into the flowerbed, to join the apple pips.

USERNAME: Whatever you want. KingDuncan, Devourer, Grey. Take your pick.

AGE GROUP: Late teens

EXPERIENCE: about six years

WHERE DID YOU FIND US? MY THE POWER OF MAGGIE

[Mel *]

Welcome to the Bellefonte Academy, KingDuncan!
I can't wait to see Malice interact with the rest!
Here's a link to the CLAIMS!