![](http://i.imgur.com/MnVP6Eh.png" "source: imgur.com")
Post by Valery Azarov on Mar 23, 2014 14:30:43 GMT -6
VALERY, ELEKS, AZAROV
21//MALE //UNDECIDED //CUTLERYKINESEIS//BELLFONT COOK// THOMAS LAW
POWER INFO:
Valery has the ability to telekinetically move any inanimate object which is created with the purpose of either making, preparing or eating food. He also has mental sonar which picks up cutlery he can’t see (Range of 15 feet).
When Valery mentally moves an object he must use hand gestures or movement of some part of his body to insinuate a direction. This is used as a mental focus through which he can direct objects. The level of control he exhibits depends on how much concentration he is using and which part of his body he uses to gesture.
For example, Valery would be able to control five different small objects with no trouble (Thing like large knives and ladles) if he was using a single hand to direct their movements. However if he was using no hands and just moving his eyes in a direction both the force with which he could move the objects and the range would be decreased.
Although Valery can control up to five small objects per hand with no trouble and no drawbacks, extended use of heavier objects like pans would tire him. He can move two medium sized objects with just one hand (four if he were to use both hands.) but doing so for a long period of time would tire him. The weight of the objects would begin to translate onto his physical body. Meaning if he were to lift more than his usual capacity (five small objects per hand or two medium objects per hand) he would, after a time of 20 minutes, begin to feel their weight.
If Valery uses his powers with a high level of concentration he can work an entire part of a kitchen with just his mind. However this is tiring and he tends to switch between doing it manually and mentally.
Control
• Valery can control anything within a fifteen foot radius of him.
• Valery can lift 5 small objects per hand and move them at a speed of 15mph. He can also launch them by building up telekinetic energy behind them and letting it go (With about the same force as if they were fired from a rail gun and begin to drop off after a range of 30 feet) . While controlling small objects Valery can use them as if they were being carried by extra arms. For example he can fight with five kitchen knives as if they were being used by five people if he uses all of his concentration. He could do the same with only one extra knife using his eyes and minimal concentration.
• Valery can lift 2 medium sized objects per hand and move them at a speed of 15mph. As with the smaller objects he can launch them as if they were fired from a rail gun but because these objects are considerably heavier they may only have an effective range of 20 feet.
Using any more than two per hand can have side effects life fatigue, headaches and physical aches and pains. Using this power way beyond its limits, for about 40 minutes straight would cause nosebleeds and brain haemorrhaging.
• Valery can lift one very heavy object like an oven with both hands and a lot of concentration. He can only lift something that heavy for thirty seconds without serious side effects like nosebleeds or brain haemorrhaging. Throwing the object would be very difficult but possible, if he were to do so he would be exhausted and unable to use his power for the rest of the day. If Valery were to throw an oven, it would be unlikely to move any further than 6 feet.
Strengths:
• It makes cooking food much easier.
• It is helpful for self-defense.
• He can fire objects at a high velocity, making him dangerous at long range.
Weaknesses
• It is useless against many people’s powers.
• Extensive use can harm him.
• In a place where there’s no cutlery Valery is vulnerable against other people with powers.
GENERAL APPEARANCE:
Valery has medium length brown hair and grey eyes. He is lean and athletic, Valery isn’t strong and lacks body strength of any kind but he does have an incredibly flexible body. His incredible dexterity allows him to move swiftly and seemingly slip through opponents defences with knives. Earning him his nickname “Eviscerator” when he was part of an English street gang.
Valery loves black, he feels comfortable in a colour which lets him fade into the background, where he won’t be noticed. If he is trying to act social, however he will go for the opposite and wear a completely white uniform.
MUST HAVE APPAREL:
Valery always wears a dark grey denim jacket everywhere.
PERSONALITY:
Valery used to act like a seemingly outgoing and somewhat cocky young man. He is reasonably attractive and has a “Bad boy who won’t take any crap from anyone” kind of stance. From the way he stands, back straight, shoulders back and palms facing slightly forwards, you can tell that he is ready for every eventuality. However Valery’s personality is largely a front. If not for such a bloody history he may have grown out to be truly like that, but he’s not. Inside Valery is empty and has very little to live for besides fighting for second chance he doesn’t truly believe exists. If you were to look into Valery’s eyes as he laughed at a pretty good joke in a way that looks very genuine, you wouldn’t see much happiness or mirth in them, only the dead, joylessness of a man who had his childhood cruelly stolen from him.
Under this well-practiced façade Valery isn’t such a bad person, but rather a good person who has done very bad things. His sense of morality was molded with survival as its base rule and not because he truly thinks killing is in any way shape or form excusable, but rather because he had no other choice. It was either live in the shadows or don’t live at all. Now he lives in America, he can allow his true self out, without the fear of others exploiting it. Valery is a hard man, who is not opposed to talking to people and being somewhat normal. He talks in a hard, firm voice and isn’t afraid to speak his mind, because of this he doesn’t waste words and says things the way he sees them.
This bluntness has a tendency to get him in trouble however and sometimes telling the big guy with a gun pointing at you that he is a “Prat who needs to learn some manners” isn’t a good idea. But Valery would do it anyway.
Valery is prone to impulsive actions. Like getting into a fight with a bunch of goons who were picking on an innocent looking guy, or having a full blown argument with his boss who “didn’t like his attitude”. It turned out “Yeah, well you know where you can stick your opinion of my attitude” wasn’t the right answer.
Cooking, combat training and helping people (redemption for his past crimes) are his usual pastimes. He also enjoys a good drink, mainly spirits. Valery also fears failure more than anything. Especially the fear that he might slip back into his old ways and let Abraham down by being unable to fulfill his promise.
Valery has a few special talents. The most primitive of which would be his incredible affinity for cooking food. He had always felt comfortable in the kitchen and it is the only thing that helps remind him of his mother, who had taught him his cooking skills.
Valery has also become incredibly good at hand to hand combat. Mainly with knives, his incredible dexterity allows him to move swiftly and seemingly slip through opponents defenses with them. Earning him his nickname “Eviscerator” when he was part of an English street gang.
Valery’s dexterity also made him adept at using firearms.
Valery has excessive knowledge of the criminal underworld and how it works. He also has extremely fine-tuned survival instincts which were forced upon him by his difficult years surviving through life without anywhere to call home or anyone to call a friend.
Valery has a rather peculiar sense of morality. As he believed in fighting for the oppressed, sick or homeless (People who basically can’t look after themselves or are treated badly for prejudiced reasons) he had no problem with killing in self-defense or for the protection of someone who he thought needed help (For example a mutant being treated immorally for being a mutant). Also he would never harm an innocent person, this does not include people who get in his way, for example cops. He will try his best not to kill them but if he does by accident he won’t lose any sleep over it.
However after meeting Abraham in prison, his morality changed slightly. Valery no longer has any desire to fight for a cause, but rather to give his second chance the best shot he can. Instead of killing mercilessly Valery would rather go without killing anyone at all, not that he wouldn’t in self-defense or to protect an innocent person’s life, but he would try his best to look for a peaceful solution. Or if all else fails, leave them alive but broken.
EXTRA QUIRK:
Impulsiveness. Valery acts on his emotions without any thoughts as to what the consequences are.
Valery has medium length brown hair and grey eyes. He is lean and athletic, Valery isn’t strong and lacks body strength of any kind but he does have an incredibly flexible body. His incredible dexterity allows him to move swiftly and seemingly slip through opponents defences with knives. Earning him his nickname “Eviscerator” when he was part of an English street gang.
Valery loves black, he feels comfortable in a colour which lets him fade into the background, where he won’t be noticed. If he is trying to act social, however he will go for the opposite and wear a completely white uniform.
MUST HAVE APPAREL:
Valery always wears a dark grey denim jacket everywhere.
PERSONALITY:
Valery used to act like a seemingly outgoing and somewhat cocky young man. He is reasonably attractive and has a “Bad boy who won’t take any crap from anyone” kind of stance. From the way he stands, back straight, shoulders back and palms facing slightly forwards, you can tell that he is ready for every eventuality. However Valery’s personality is largely a front. If not for such a bloody history he may have grown out to be truly like that, but he’s not. Inside Valery is empty and has very little to live for besides fighting for second chance he doesn’t truly believe exists. If you were to look into Valery’s eyes as he laughed at a pretty good joke in a way that looks very genuine, you wouldn’t see much happiness or mirth in them, only the dead, joylessness of a man who had his childhood cruelly stolen from him.
Under this well-practiced façade Valery isn’t such a bad person, but rather a good person who has done very bad things. His sense of morality was molded with survival as its base rule and not because he truly thinks killing is in any way shape or form excusable, but rather because he had no other choice. It was either live in the shadows or don’t live at all. Now he lives in America, he can allow his true self out, without the fear of others exploiting it. Valery is a hard man, who is not opposed to talking to people and being somewhat normal. He talks in a hard, firm voice and isn’t afraid to speak his mind, because of this he doesn’t waste words and says things the way he sees them.
This bluntness has a tendency to get him in trouble however and sometimes telling the big guy with a gun pointing at you that he is a “Prat who needs to learn some manners” isn’t a good idea. But Valery would do it anyway.
Valery is prone to impulsive actions. Like getting into a fight with a bunch of goons who were picking on an innocent looking guy, or having a full blown argument with his boss who “didn’t like his attitude”. It turned out “Yeah, well you know where you can stick your opinion of my attitude” wasn’t the right answer.
Cooking, combat training and helping people (redemption for his past crimes) are his usual pastimes. He also enjoys a good drink, mainly spirits. Valery also fears failure more than anything. Especially the fear that he might slip back into his old ways and let Abraham down by being unable to fulfill his promise.
Valery has a few special talents. The most primitive of which would be his incredible affinity for cooking food. He had always felt comfortable in the kitchen and it is the only thing that helps remind him of his mother, who had taught him his cooking skills.
Valery has also become incredibly good at hand to hand combat. Mainly with knives, his incredible dexterity allows him to move swiftly and seemingly slip through opponents defenses with them. Earning him his nickname “Eviscerator” when he was part of an English street gang.
Valery’s dexterity also made him adept at using firearms.
Valery has excessive knowledge of the criminal underworld and how it works. He also has extremely fine-tuned survival instincts which were forced upon him by his difficult years surviving through life without anywhere to call home or anyone to call a friend.
Valery has a rather peculiar sense of morality. As he believed in fighting for the oppressed, sick or homeless (People who basically can’t look after themselves or are treated badly for prejudiced reasons) he had no problem with killing in self-defense or for the protection of someone who he thought needed help (For example a mutant being treated immorally for being a mutant). Also he would never harm an innocent person, this does not include people who get in his way, for example cops. He will try his best not to kill them but if he does by accident he won’t lose any sleep over it.
However after meeting Abraham in prison, his morality changed slightly. Valery no longer has any desire to fight for a cause, but rather to give his second chance the best shot he can. Instead of killing mercilessly Valery would rather go without killing anyone at all, not that he wouldn’t in self-defense or to protect an innocent person’s life, but he would try his best to look for a peaceful solution. Or if all else fails, leave them alive but broken.
EXTRA QUIRK:
Impulsiveness. Valery acts on his emotions without any thoughts as to what the consequences are.
FATHER:
Artur Azarov
MOTHER:
Anna Azarov
BROTHER:
None
SISTER:
None
PET:
None
SIGNIFICANT OTHER:
None
WORTHY MENTIONS:
None
Artur Azarov
MOTHER:
Anna Azarov
BROTHER:
None
SISTER:
None
PET:
None
SIGNIFICANT OTHER:
None
WORTHY MENTIONS:
None
HISTORY:
Valery was born in a town called Azov in Russia, close the border of Ukraine. He was an only child and lived happily in a small house with his mother and father for a while. When Valery hit the age of four his father died in a plane crash, leaving him and his mother to fend for them. Unable to earn enough money to keep them both afloat, his mother remarried a more wealthy man when Valery was six.
The first few years of this new life were fine; Valery went to school and lived a regular life. He would come home every day and cook food with his mother and then go off and play with the other children. Unfortunately his stepfather was a man who believed in appearances and found Valery embarrassing to have around.
At the age of eight the last happy year of Valery Azarov came to an end as his stepfathers business went bankrupt. Frustrated the man turned to drink and would often come home drunk and violent to hurt Valery and his mother. This Valery and his mother could live with, for a while. But the violent outburst began to happen more and more often until it was almost daily.
When Valery was a couple of months into his 11th year his stepfather came home drunker than ever and angrier than ever. Valery’s mother raised a kitchen knife they were using to make the dinner to defend herself without thinking. She hadn’t really intended to use it, only force the violent man to calm down. Valery’s stepfather thought differently, his mind clouded by drink. He took the knife and killed his wife with it, in front of Valery.
Valery had never felt hatred or white hot fury before but this was about to change. He turned to his stunned stepfather and shouted one single word at him “DIE!” All of the cutlery in the room; Pots, pans, plates, bowls and naturally knives flew at the poor man. He never stood a chance.
Valery looked down at himself, stunned. Looking at the pile of stuff under which his stepfather had died. He willed a knife to his hand and it came, covered in blood. Valery was no fool. He knew he couldn’t stay, but still he spent the rest of the day crying over his mother and cursing his stepfather’s body. Before leaving he found all the valuables and money in the house. It all rounded off at about 16,0000 Rubles (Roughly $5000). He got a gym bag, filled it with kitchen knives and money, took one last look at his house and burnt it to the ground.
The first thing Valery did was leave the country; he paid a group of Russian smugglers good money to sneak him into Ukraine. From there he lived all over the world moving from one country to another, never staying long and only long enough to learn the language. While he lived he stole money and food from the rich with his power, still not knowing what it was. He assumed it was some kind of magic early in his life.
Throughout the years he joined various criminal groups, nothing major. Just street gangs, Most of them were happy to have him; he was an asset, a natural killer who did so remorselessly. He had lived in so many countries, England, Ukraine, France, Spain, and all over Africa doing various things like illegal arms deals and hit man jobs, killing for money. Although this was all very immoral he stuck to guidelines. Give money he earned to the poor and take only from the rich and overindulgent. This belief came from his mother; he didn’t want people to be helpless like she was against her husband. He would always back the underdog and the poor. After all he felt a kind of brotherhood to men like beggars and cutthroats.
His beliefs were not so profound, only slight moral guidelines but that changed when he became eighteen. His whole life he had been wandering aimlessly with no reason to live until he came across a man in a suit beating up a homeless man, demanding money which obviously wasn’t there. Not a particularly unusual sight, Valery had seen every type of human atrocity to exist by this age but for some reason this one just made him snap. He called upon his knives and sent them flying. Then took the man’s wallet and all of his money, threw half of it to the bleeding beggar saying “Thank Eviscerator for that, spread the word. Anyone who treats people like us unfairly again, I’ll be coming for them”
The name Eviscerator had been given to him by a gang he was part of for a couple of months called the Mad Dogs after they saw what he could do with a knife. That was when he was fifteen and now he had decided to use it again. Making his outfit he traveled the world, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor and making sure people left them alone. The truth was he had no idea why he was doing it, he just felt like it was right.
At the age of nineteen, Valery had set up a rather elaborate heist, to take a million English pounds from an incredibly rich business owner. Unfortunately for him his luck had run out. The authorities had been on his tail for the past year and a half. Valery had avoided them masterfully until now; sadly this would be his cause’s last stand.
Gathering many of the associates and allies he had, Valery went in; the money would make a huge difference to the lives of homeless people on the street. The plan was to force the owner of the house to transfer about one and a half million pounds to a homeless charity. The plan was flawed, however and for the first time Valery was outsmarted by one of his fellow robbers, knocked out and tied up at the crime scene. The ex-gang member had made off with the money himself and set his mutant associate up as the robber.
Luckily for Valery the authorities who arrested him had next to no proof that he was the man named “Eviscerator”. Not only that, but Valery was obviously not the man who made off with the money. At the end Valery was sentenced to two years in prison for Accessory to theft. A small sentence, but one that would change his life for the better.
Valery had done well to cover his tracks; early in life he had made sure that everything about him was gone. Even the government files on his stepfathers and mothers demise. So, when the English authorities were presented with an apparently non-existent man they had no idea what to do, they couldn’t send him back to Russia, they couldn’t prove he was Russian. In the end they just stuck him in prison and left dealing with him to the end of his sentence.
While in prison Valery went through many changes, the formality and monotonous life snuffed the flames of his youth. By the end of the first year his desire to fight for a cause had been completely quenched. For the entire first year of his sentence Valery would wake up from a nightmare, then spend the morning reflecting on his past, the things he had done, what he wanted to do when he got out.
Valery still couldn’t count the amount of hours he spent thinking, hell. He could barely count as it was, through lack of formal education. He could do everything the average adult could academically but maths was still difficult. Again, something to think about. Should he try education once he had left? Try again for a new life? Start it out as a normal person. Putting his past behind him completely?
Valery didn’t know. There were simply too many possibilities.
Then, on his thirteenth month of confinement in prison, Valery met the man who would change his life forever. They met in a typical circumstance. One Valery met lots of people in; it was nothing strange for him. And it happened in a canteen.
One day Valery was sitting in the canteen, picking at his food with a plastic fork. He wasn’t really hungry and the food in prison was barely appetizing as it was. That’s when the table behind him was flipped and voices started to rise in volume. Of course fights like this were hardly uncommon, but this one was different. At least for Valery.
Turning towards the commotion casually, the scene ahead was one which annoyed Valery even years later. The table had flipped, landing on top of who looked like a man in his late fifties. Not only that, but the boiling hot food had landed all over him. The teenage miscreants who had flipped the table were laughing hysterically and were moving in for some more fun.
The Security officers were about to change so there was a five minute window, during which the prisoners were unsupervised, if you ignore the security cameras. The elderly man scrambled backwards, doing his best to wipe off the hot food.
Sighing Valery got ready to break his neutrality. He had done his best to stay out of fights but that wouldn’t cut it this time. With a flick of the wrist he sent the tablecloth on one guy, who subsequently fell face-first into the corner of the table, out cold. With his other hand he levitated the dishes and sent them, one after another, into the second man’s face, who also dropped unconscious.
Stepping over the unconscious bodies Valery offered a hand to the elderly man. “You look like you could use a hand” he muttered as a greeting.
Over time Valery got to know the old man who later revealed his name as Abraham. Abraham was inside for “Manslaughter” which was really just murder, well covered up murder. Unlike Valery Abraham had only served five months of his twenty year sentence and was a big believer in the idea of things happening for a reason.
The more time Valery spent with the old man the more he began to like him. Abraham told him everything about his past, his failed marriages, and various criminal activities. Valery and Abraham quickly began to form a Father-Son relationship and Abraham saw the young mutant as his chance for redemption. If he could persuade the teenager to start again, and try to redeem himself for past crimes, he might not be such a bad person himself.
The elderly man spent many days persuading Valery that he wasn’t a bad person, but rather a good person who had been forced to do bad things; it wasn’t too late for redemption. The process was long and Valery resisted the man he had come to care for. But even he couldn’t give up on himself completely. Eventually he was persuaded a month before his release.
“Listen Val, you aren’t a bad person. I can see it in your eyes. If you were a bad person would you have come to my aid when I needed it? If things had gone differently you could have been a hero, you know that?” Abraham was going on with his usual about destiny and redemption for the both of them. Valery merely grunted in response, but smiled slightly all the same. It was nice to hear, even if he didn’t truly believe it.
“Listen,” Abraham said, rubbing his hands together and edging forwards in his chair a little. “When I got here, I thought it was over for me. The big man above won’t accept me; I’ve done bad things, seen bad things. People who kill just for the pleasure of it, people who would slit your throat just for fiver in your wallet, But you aren’t like that. You fought for a reason. Did bad things to survive, not to hurt people.”
Valery sighed, something he did at least three or four times a minute. “Listen, I don’t know. When I get out I’ll just go my own way and…”
“No, Valery. I’m going to tell you something I hadn’t beforehand. You are my chance at redemption” Abraham jabbed his thumb into his chest roughly, looking determined to sway Valery. “As soon as you told me about your history I thought, “You know what? If I can save this young man and persuade him to redeem himself for his sins, then maybe indirectly every good thing he does. Is a good thing that I have done”” The old man Valery had come to think of as a father hadn’t spoke of this before, It shook the young man to his core.
Valery meant to reply but couldn’t. What was there to say? Abraham continued his rant, not once taking his eyes off the young mutants. “Please, if not for yourself. Do it for me…Once you have gone, there won’t be anyone to protect me. I’ll die in here and we both know it. At least let me die knowing I did something right.”
Valery looked at Abraham, suddenly furious. How could he talk like that? As if he didn’t matter? Standing up, Valery leaned forwards until their eyes were only a couple of centimeters apart. “Don’t you dare speak like that!” He spat.
Abraham looked surprised, then sad. A pathetic smile spread across his face. “If you are such a bad person, why do you wake up at night screaming your mother’s name and begging for mercy?” His tone was quiet, but sure. Abraham knew that last line would win Valery over, he was right.
The fight went out of Valery. He slumped back onto his chair. The one thing he thought nobody knew about him, his one regret. Not being able to save his mother. Failure, his biggest fear.
After the conversation Valery had sworn to do his best, to be as good as a man like himself could be, that was. On his day of release Valery walked out a changed man. He had no desire to do anything other than live a semi-normal life. No doubt his past crimes would come to haunt him but he would take it as it came.
Valery was born in a town called Azov in Russia, close the border of Ukraine. He was an only child and lived happily in a small house with his mother and father for a while. When Valery hit the age of four his father died in a plane crash, leaving him and his mother to fend for them. Unable to earn enough money to keep them both afloat, his mother remarried a more wealthy man when Valery was six.
The first few years of this new life were fine; Valery went to school and lived a regular life. He would come home every day and cook food with his mother and then go off and play with the other children. Unfortunately his stepfather was a man who believed in appearances and found Valery embarrassing to have around.
At the age of eight the last happy year of Valery Azarov came to an end as his stepfathers business went bankrupt. Frustrated the man turned to drink and would often come home drunk and violent to hurt Valery and his mother. This Valery and his mother could live with, for a while. But the violent outburst began to happen more and more often until it was almost daily.
When Valery was a couple of months into his 11th year his stepfather came home drunker than ever and angrier than ever. Valery’s mother raised a kitchen knife they were using to make the dinner to defend herself without thinking. She hadn’t really intended to use it, only force the violent man to calm down. Valery’s stepfather thought differently, his mind clouded by drink. He took the knife and killed his wife with it, in front of Valery.
Valery had never felt hatred or white hot fury before but this was about to change. He turned to his stunned stepfather and shouted one single word at him “DIE!” All of the cutlery in the room; Pots, pans, plates, bowls and naturally knives flew at the poor man. He never stood a chance.
Valery looked down at himself, stunned. Looking at the pile of stuff under which his stepfather had died. He willed a knife to his hand and it came, covered in blood. Valery was no fool. He knew he couldn’t stay, but still he spent the rest of the day crying over his mother and cursing his stepfather’s body. Before leaving he found all the valuables and money in the house. It all rounded off at about 16,0000 Rubles (Roughly $5000). He got a gym bag, filled it with kitchen knives and money, took one last look at his house and burnt it to the ground.
The first thing Valery did was leave the country; he paid a group of Russian smugglers good money to sneak him into Ukraine. From there he lived all over the world moving from one country to another, never staying long and only long enough to learn the language. While he lived he stole money and food from the rich with his power, still not knowing what it was. He assumed it was some kind of magic early in his life.
Throughout the years he joined various criminal groups, nothing major. Just street gangs, Most of them were happy to have him; he was an asset, a natural killer who did so remorselessly. He had lived in so many countries, England, Ukraine, France, Spain, and all over Africa doing various things like illegal arms deals and hit man jobs, killing for money. Although this was all very immoral he stuck to guidelines. Give money he earned to the poor and take only from the rich and overindulgent. This belief came from his mother; he didn’t want people to be helpless like she was against her husband. He would always back the underdog and the poor. After all he felt a kind of brotherhood to men like beggars and cutthroats.
His beliefs were not so profound, only slight moral guidelines but that changed when he became eighteen. His whole life he had been wandering aimlessly with no reason to live until he came across a man in a suit beating up a homeless man, demanding money which obviously wasn’t there. Not a particularly unusual sight, Valery had seen every type of human atrocity to exist by this age but for some reason this one just made him snap. He called upon his knives and sent them flying. Then took the man’s wallet and all of his money, threw half of it to the bleeding beggar saying “Thank Eviscerator for that, spread the word. Anyone who treats people like us unfairly again, I’ll be coming for them”
The name Eviscerator had been given to him by a gang he was part of for a couple of months called the Mad Dogs after they saw what he could do with a knife. That was when he was fifteen and now he had decided to use it again. Making his outfit he traveled the world, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor and making sure people left them alone. The truth was he had no idea why he was doing it, he just felt like it was right.
At the age of nineteen, Valery had set up a rather elaborate heist, to take a million English pounds from an incredibly rich business owner. Unfortunately for him his luck had run out. The authorities had been on his tail for the past year and a half. Valery had avoided them masterfully until now; sadly this would be his cause’s last stand.
Gathering many of the associates and allies he had, Valery went in; the money would make a huge difference to the lives of homeless people on the street. The plan was to force the owner of the house to transfer about one and a half million pounds to a homeless charity. The plan was flawed, however and for the first time Valery was outsmarted by one of his fellow robbers, knocked out and tied up at the crime scene. The ex-gang member had made off with the money himself and set his mutant associate up as the robber.
Luckily for Valery the authorities who arrested him had next to no proof that he was the man named “Eviscerator”. Not only that, but Valery was obviously not the man who made off with the money. At the end Valery was sentenced to two years in prison for Accessory to theft. A small sentence, but one that would change his life for the better.
Valery had done well to cover his tracks; early in life he had made sure that everything about him was gone. Even the government files on his stepfathers and mothers demise. So, when the English authorities were presented with an apparently non-existent man they had no idea what to do, they couldn’t send him back to Russia, they couldn’t prove he was Russian. In the end they just stuck him in prison and left dealing with him to the end of his sentence.
While in prison Valery went through many changes, the formality and monotonous life snuffed the flames of his youth. By the end of the first year his desire to fight for a cause had been completely quenched. For the entire first year of his sentence Valery would wake up from a nightmare, then spend the morning reflecting on his past, the things he had done, what he wanted to do when he got out.
Valery still couldn’t count the amount of hours he spent thinking, hell. He could barely count as it was, through lack of formal education. He could do everything the average adult could academically but maths was still difficult. Again, something to think about. Should he try education once he had left? Try again for a new life? Start it out as a normal person. Putting his past behind him completely?
Valery didn’t know. There were simply too many possibilities.
Then, on his thirteenth month of confinement in prison, Valery met the man who would change his life forever. They met in a typical circumstance. One Valery met lots of people in; it was nothing strange for him. And it happened in a canteen.
One day Valery was sitting in the canteen, picking at his food with a plastic fork. He wasn’t really hungry and the food in prison was barely appetizing as it was. That’s when the table behind him was flipped and voices started to rise in volume. Of course fights like this were hardly uncommon, but this one was different. At least for Valery.
Turning towards the commotion casually, the scene ahead was one which annoyed Valery even years later. The table had flipped, landing on top of who looked like a man in his late fifties. Not only that, but the boiling hot food had landed all over him. The teenage miscreants who had flipped the table were laughing hysterically and were moving in for some more fun.
The Security officers were about to change so there was a five minute window, during which the prisoners were unsupervised, if you ignore the security cameras. The elderly man scrambled backwards, doing his best to wipe off the hot food.
Sighing Valery got ready to break his neutrality. He had done his best to stay out of fights but that wouldn’t cut it this time. With a flick of the wrist he sent the tablecloth on one guy, who subsequently fell face-first into the corner of the table, out cold. With his other hand he levitated the dishes and sent them, one after another, into the second man’s face, who also dropped unconscious.
Stepping over the unconscious bodies Valery offered a hand to the elderly man. “You look like you could use a hand” he muttered as a greeting.
Over time Valery got to know the old man who later revealed his name as Abraham. Abraham was inside for “Manslaughter” which was really just murder, well covered up murder. Unlike Valery Abraham had only served five months of his twenty year sentence and was a big believer in the idea of things happening for a reason.
The more time Valery spent with the old man the more he began to like him. Abraham told him everything about his past, his failed marriages, and various criminal activities. Valery and Abraham quickly began to form a Father-Son relationship and Abraham saw the young mutant as his chance for redemption. If he could persuade the teenager to start again, and try to redeem himself for past crimes, he might not be such a bad person himself.
The elderly man spent many days persuading Valery that he wasn’t a bad person, but rather a good person who had been forced to do bad things; it wasn’t too late for redemption. The process was long and Valery resisted the man he had come to care for. But even he couldn’t give up on himself completely. Eventually he was persuaded a month before his release.
“Listen Val, you aren’t a bad person. I can see it in your eyes. If you were a bad person would you have come to my aid when I needed it? If things had gone differently you could have been a hero, you know that?” Abraham was going on with his usual about destiny and redemption for the both of them. Valery merely grunted in response, but smiled slightly all the same. It was nice to hear, even if he didn’t truly believe it.
“Listen,” Abraham said, rubbing his hands together and edging forwards in his chair a little. “When I got here, I thought it was over for me. The big man above won’t accept me; I’ve done bad things, seen bad things. People who kill just for the pleasure of it, people who would slit your throat just for fiver in your wallet, But you aren’t like that. You fought for a reason. Did bad things to survive, not to hurt people.”
Valery sighed, something he did at least three or four times a minute. “Listen, I don’t know. When I get out I’ll just go my own way and…”
“No, Valery. I’m going to tell you something I hadn’t beforehand. You are my chance at redemption” Abraham jabbed his thumb into his chest roughly, looking determined to sway Valery. “As soon as you told me about your history I thought, “You know what? If I can save this young man and persuade him to redeem himself for his sins, then maybe indirectly every good thing he does. Is a good thing that I have done”” The old man Valery had come to think of as a father hadn’t spoke of this before, It shook the young man to his core.
Valery meant to reply but couldn’t. What was there to say? Abraham continued his rant, not once taking his eyes off the young mutants. “Please, if not for yourself. Do it for me…Once you have gone, there won’t be anyone to protect me. I’ll die in here and we both know it. At least let me die knowing I did something right.”
Valery looked at Abraham, suddenly furious. How could he talk like that? As if he didn’t matter? Standing up, Valery leaned forwards until their eyes were only a couple of centimeters apart. “Don’t you dare speak like that!” He spat.
Abraham looked surprised, then sad. A pathetic smile spread across his face. “If you are such a bad person, why do you wake up at night screaming your mother’s name and begging for mercy?” His tone was quiet, but sure. Abraham knew that last line would win Valery over, he was right.
The fight went out of Valery. He slumped back onto his chair. The one thing he thought nobody knew about him, his one regret. Not being able to save his mother. Failure, his biggest fear.
After the conversation Valery had sworn to do his best, to be as good as a man like himself could be, that was. On his day of release Valery walked out a changed man. He had no desire to do anything other than live a semi-normal life. No doubt his past crimes would come to haunt him but he would take it as it came.
SAMPLE:
The pained groaning was enough to tell Valery that he wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight. He instantly knew that the reoccurring nightmare had revisited him. It was always the same, no matter what.
He wanted to scream, he wanted to turn away, he wanted to curl up and cover his ears. He couldn’t. It was like a first person video, rewound and played again, and again, and again. He had no control over what was about to happen.
Next, to accompany the moaning came the beating, the beating of someone’s heart. His own, just the way it had done on the day his mother was taken from him.
Next the gasp of pain, then another moan followed by a whisper. “Valery…Valery my son, come to me.”
His eyes opened. The room was round, circular with various paintings on the wall, each one a fragment of his life, they told a story. From his birth to his arrest and time in prison. The room was filled up to his ankles in a deep red liquid with a metallic smell. In the middle lay a woman groaning, calling his name.
“Valery! Valery! Where are you?”
He wanted to cry, tell her to stop. Tell her he was sorry for letting this happen. Again, he couldn’t. The only thing he could do was watch. She got up, dripping and red. The knife nestled in her abdomen. She shouted his name, stumbled around; arms outstretched looking for her son. It broke his heart every time.
Then a voice came from the very walls themselves, young and high pitched. His voice from then, exactly what he had said back then. “Mother! Mother don’t! Don’t pull it…!” She did, the knife came out. Gleaming in the unnatural red light, then slumped to the floor.
The worst part of the nightmare was this part, the bit where it released his body. Allowing him to move. He splashed across the room to his mother’s body, footsteps in time with the beating sound.
He slumped next to her body. The red liquid slashed up his arms and legs, but he ignored it. His head went down to his mother’s chest and he gripped the apron she was wearing as if for dear life. He groaned, which quickly became a scream of frustration. Why hadn’t he saved her? Why did she marry that b******? Why did she bring a knife up to defend herself? Why hadn’t she just let her husband beat on Valery like usual?
What happened next was the same as always. The blood around her bubbled in a ring which she quickly began to sink into, as if it were a deep pit. No matter how much he held on, Valery would lose her, just like he had done he last time. Only it would hurt twice as much. In a matter of seconds she was gone, taken by the god forsaken world they lived in.
He stood, he screamed. So loud that the dome above began to crack, chunks of sickly pink stone began to descend, revealing an all-consuming blackness behind. Then, mercifully a huge spike of stone descended from directly above him, closer, closer until it made contact with his face.
Abruptly Valery sat up, still screaming, pulling his hair and punching the wall behind him. He quickly began to cool off, blood dripping from his knuckles. Tears threatened to come but he pushed them away. Swinging his legs over the side of his bed Valery lay his head in his hands. Breathing heavily, waiting until his heartbeat returned to its usual rate and the sweat stopped flowing from his pores.
His hand slipped under the bed and pulled up the bottle of vodka he kept there, standing he took a swig. It burned as it went down, but the warmth in his chest was well worth it. It was the closest thing he could come to a nice feeling. After setting the bottle down and pulling on some underwear Valery walked into the kitchen/living room of his small, cheap apartment and looked at the alarm which read 4:32. Not bad, three hours of sleep was better than the usual.
Waving his hand at the cupboard he levitated of a coffee mug, set it down next to the kettle which was full of water already. Clicking down the on switch he left it to boil. Caffeine was what he needed. Tomorrow would be long and stressful. He put in the coffee and levitated a spoon over to the mug, stirring it with his mind while pouring the water. He took a long gulp of the boiling hot liquid. The burn was good, it reminded him that he was awake and not in another nightmare.
Because he could he turned to the knife block which contained multiple kitchen knives. With a flick of the wrist the rose into the air, floating towards him, he spun 180 degrees and pointed at the dartboard against the wall. Each knife made contact with a vibrating thud. Six bull’s-eyes.
“Good. Something to do until the rest of society wakes up.” He muttered to himself bitterly and continued to strike, again and again mercilessly, just as he had done to countless people in the past.
USERNAME:
People usually call me James or Brit.
AGE GROUP:
17
EXPERIENCE:
About a year now.
The pained groaning was enough to tell Valery that he wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight. He instantly knew that the reoccurring nightmare had revisited him. It was always the same, no matter what.
He wanted to scream, he wanted to turn away, he wanted to curl up and cover his ears. He couldn’t. It was like a first person video, rewound and played again, and again, and again. He had no control over what was about to happen.
Next, to accompany the moaning came the beating, the beating of someone’s heart. His own, just the way it had done on the day his mother was taken from him.
Next the gasp of pain, then another moan followed by a whisper. “Valery…Valery my son, come to me.”
His eyes opened. The room was round, circular with various paintings on the wall, each one a fragment of his life, they told a story. From his birth to his arrest and time in prison. The room was filled up to his ankles in a deep red liquid with a metallic smell. In the middle lay a woman groaning, calling his name.
“Valery! Valery! Where are you?”
He wanted to cry, tell her to stop. Tell her he was sorry for letting this happen. Again, he couldn’t. The only thing he could do was watch. She got up, dripping and red. The knife nestled in her abdomen. She shouted his name, stumbled around; arms outstretched looking for her son. It broke his heart every time.
Then a voice came from the very walls themselves, young and high pitched. His voice from then, exactly what he had said back then. “Mother! Mother don’t! Don’t pull it…!” She did, the knife came out. Gleaming in the unnatural red light, then slumped to the floor.
The worst part of the nightmare was this part, the bit where it released his body. Allowing him to move. He splashed across the room to his mother’s body, footsteps in time with the beating sound.
He slumped next to her body. The red liquid slashed up his arms and legs, but he ignored it. His head went down to his mother’s chest and he gripped the apron she was wearing as if for dear life. He groaned, which quickly became a scream of frustration. Why hadn’t he saved her? Why did she marry that b******? Why did she bring a knife up to defend herself? Why hadn’t she just let her husband beat on Valery like usual?
What happened next was the same as always. The blood around her bubbled in a ring which she quickly began to sink into, as if it were a deep pit. No matter how much he held on, Valery would lose her, just like he had done he last time. Only it would hurt twice as much. In a matter of seconds she was gone, taken by the god forsaken world they lived in.
He stood, he screamed. So loud that the dome above began to crack, chunks of sickly pink stone began to descend, revealing an all-consuming blackness behind. Then, mercifully a huge spike of stone descended from directly above him, closer, closer until it made contact with his face.
Abruptly Valery sat up, still screaming, pulling his hair and punching the wall behind him. He quickly began to cool off, blood dripping from his knuckles. Tears threatened to come but he pushed them away. Swinging his legs over the side of his bed Valery lay his head in his hands. Breathing heavily, waiting until his heartbeat returned to its usual rate and the sweat stopped flowing from his pores.
His hand slipped under the bed and pulled up the bottle of vodka he kept there, standing he took a swig. It burned as it went down, but the warmth in his chest was well worth it. It was the closest thing he could come to a nice feeling. After setting the bottle down and pulling on some underwear Valery walked into the kitchen/living room of his small, cheap apartment and looked at the alarm which read 4:32. Not bad, three hours of sleep was better than the usual.
Waving his hand at the cupboard he levitated of a coffee mug, set it down next to the kettle which was full of water already. Clicking down the on switch he left it to boil. Caffeine was what he needed. Tomorrow would be long and stressful. He put in the coffee and levitated a spoon over to the mug, stirring it with his mind while pouring the water. He took a long gulp of the boiling hot liquid. The burn was good, it reminded him that he was awake and not in another nightmare.
Because he could he turned to the knife block which contained multiple kitchen knives. With a flick of the wrist the rose into the air, floating towards him, he spun 180 degrees and pointed at the dartboard against the wall. Each knife made contact with a vibrating thud. Six bull’s-eyes.
“Good. Something to do until the rest of society wakes up.” He muttered to himself bitterly and continued to strike, again and again mercilessly, just as he had done to countless people in the past.
USERNAME:
People usually call me James or Brit.
AGE GROUP:
17
EXPERIENCE:
About a year now.
