Vendetta [S!2 Round 2 ~ Soñaire]

Originally posted on MSPA by SteelKomodo.

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Username: SteelKomodo

Name: Artemis Holloway and Grendel

Gender: Male/Genderless but prefers male pronouns.

Race: Human/Demon Spirit

Colour: Brown (663300) for Artemis, Dark Purple (7c08ff) for Grendel.

Description: Artemis is a 15 year old boy, slim and wiry in appearance and dressed mostly in old, dirty clothes – a gray t-shirt and a pair of jeans – that have been ripped in multiple places. He wears no shoes or socks, his feet having become hard and calloused through years of walking barefoot. His brown hair is a messy, uncut mop that reaches to his shoulders, and he has green eyes. Grendel is a lower-class demon from the Second Circle of Hell, and has no physical form save for the transformations he can become, mostly residing as a voice in Artemis’s head.

Artemis is a generally timid character who seeks only to survive every day with the least amount of damage or trouble. He has a strong conscience which often plagues him, as he knows that in order to survive he has to steal from others, and yet when he sets his sights on anything that might help him he goes after it with determination, not giving up until he has obtained it. Knowing his own position in life, Artemis often does his best to help others in distress, his reasoning being that “at least they’re not me” – he’d rather that people not sink to his squalid lifestyle.

Grendel, by comparison, is crude and selfish, caring little about the situation that others find themselves as long as his desires are fulfilled. His desire to earn a promotion, coupled with the knowledge that his existence and future depend on Artemis’s survival, means that he will go to any lengths to obtain what he wants, even committing acts which shock and horrify the soft-hearted boy. He is actually very well educated and knowledgeable, but prefers not to show it for the sake of his reputation as a demon, using it merely to crack lewd jokes.

Equipment/Abilities: Artemis is not the most physically fit in the universe – all of his skills merely come from his lifetime on the streets. He can run quite fast for a 15-year-old boy, and is also competent in climbing up various structures and hiding in dark corners. These skills, coupled with an excellent sense of direction, have aided him in his life as a street urchin and a pickpocket. When not transformed, Grendel exists as a subconscious voice in the back of Artemis’s mind, advising him on what to do or where to go, or even just poking fun at him. Artemis converses with him via his own thoughts, which Grendel can hear as though they are spoken words – while he can hear Artemis if he speaks normally, they prefer to” talk” in this silent manner to avoid unwanted attention. No-one else can hear Grendel speaking – only by coming into physical contact with another person can Artemis allow Grendel to speak to them as well.

Grendel is a shape-shifting demon, able to take on a variety of forms. As a low-ranking demon, he is unable to exist in his true form outside of Artemis’s subconscious mind, but can exist in physical form by taking on the appearance and properties of different objects that Artemis can use. Whatever the objects are, they always manifest with spiky details or eldritch carvings, hinting at their demonic nature. Grendel’s portfolio of transformations includes various blades, bludgeons and other weapons, but he has also become objects such as lock picks or wooden rafts in the past.

However, there is a limit to the forms Grendel can take. While he is able to mimic organic life-forms such as animals and people, he finds it incredibly taxing, and would rather not do so unless the need to was incredibly pressing. Moreover, he finds mechanical and electronic objects too complex to transform into, as is any sort of firearm or explosive weapon – this means he could not become, say, a car or pistol. He also cannot take the form of anything beyond the technology of the current time period, preventing him from becoming a spaceship or similar, nor can he become multiples of objects – he can only transform into one boot, for example, and not a pair of them.

Grendel has, on occasion, taken complete control of Artemis’s body via possession. When he does this, Grendel has full control over what Artemis says or does, with Artemis himself a silent witness locked away thought magical subconscious nonsense that’s difficult even for Grendel to explain. This only usually occurs when Grendel has an overwhelming need to fulfill his own agendas and the circumstances do not suit anything else, or when he wants to play a prank on Artemis. Needless to say, the results are never pretty.

Biography: Hailing from the outskirts of Portsheath City, Artemis was abandoned at the doorstep of a religious orphanage by his parents, their fate unknown. He was raised throughout the earlier years of his childhood by an elderly priest named Father John, who taught him to the standards the orphanage practiced. Although he was happy living and playing with the other children who frequented the orphanage, Artemis never truly felt as if he fit in with the strict lifestyle and religious fundamentalism that surrounded him, and longed to be a part of something bigger.

Grendel, by contrast, worked on the Second Circle of Hell, maintaining the machine that created the tornadoes that blow the lustful sinners back and forth. Unsatisfied with the boring menial work he put up with as a lower-class demon, he sought to find a way to move up the corporate ladder and join the big league demons. His superiors, however, merely laughed at his idealism and brashness, and constantly reminded him that he could never manage the more hellish and difficult tasks of the Lower Circles. Determined to prove them wrong, Grendel sought for a transfer to a higher station, and was quite pleased when he received an offer for a twenty-year trial on the Possession ring. Should his final report turn out good (as in, chaotically destructive), then he would be considered for a promotion to the Fourth Circle – a difficult job, but one that the demon relished to take on.

One of the rumors on the orphanage playground, circulated by the children, was that no-one should visit the old yew tree in the grounds, for it was said that a witch was burnt there. Children often dared one another to spend the night under the tree, but none yet found the courage to do so. Needless to say, the ever-curious Artemis (now nine years old by this point) took the challenge and visited the place one night. By sheer coincidence, Grendel happened to be passing on his first day on his new job, and took possession of Artemis, hoping to re-enact The Exorcist for laughs. The strong-willed Artemis fought back, however, and the resulting chaos destroyed the orphanage's sacred relic, the arm of a saint who had once (according to legend) slain a dragon that had plagued the village.

For this act of sacrilege, Father John banished Artemis from the orphanage, leaving him to fend for himself. Feeling guilty for the boy’s situation, Grendel revealed his true name - Clarence - and offered to help the child survive on the streets. Artemis accepted, and for six years now the duo has stalked the streets, surviving against anything the world threw at them. Grendel, however, is not satisfied, and wants to obtain that promotion by any means...

Writing Sample (Click Spoiler to View):

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SpoilerAll villages/towns/whatever have homeless people. This is an immutable fact of life that cannot be changed one way or another. On any planet, in any dimension, every inhabited city that you could imagine will have a proportion of the populace that sleep under bridges and feed on the freshest scraps they can scavenge from bins and round the backs of restaurants. It forms a nice contrast with the innumerable fat cats who lounge around in their hot tubs and sip champagne from a martini glass for the sake of wasting their money, well-earned or otherwise, on something other than helping out the aforementioned homeless.

Few cities, however, could be said to have a homeless boy who talked to himself on a regular basis.
Which is exactly what the city of Portsheath had.

“Never again,” Artemis was saying as he hauled himself down the side of a block of flats, feet scrabbling for purchase on the rain-slickened drainpipe. “Not for any amount of money or food would I go through that experience.”

Anyone observing the wiry lad from below, listening to this strange monologue that was directed seemingly at no-one in particular, would be wholly justified in thinking that the poor boy had gone mad from spending most of his life on the streets and rooftops of the city. Portsheath was not the sort of place for anyone who fell under that nebulous class known simply as “homeless” to make a living in – careful planning on the mayor’s part ensured this by placing several miles of chaotic, twisting, car-filled death between all the major shops that a scavenger might be tempted to raid. When faced with a choice of either becoming a bloodied smear on the tarmac or joining the grimy, ill-funded shelters that dotted the suburbs of the city, many agreed that throwing themselves off a skyscraper was a perfect alternative.

That, or it could have been the demon who wouldn’t shut up.

“Look, kid,” grated the voice of Grendel in the teenager’s head, “you wanted that damned coat, didn’t you? Just be thankful you got it in the first place.”

“Easy for you to say,” Artemis grunted as landed, none too gracefully, and sprinted across the concrete walkway. “You’re not the one who has to live with the guilt of robbing the trendiest clothes store in the city.” He increased his pace as a flash of lightning revealed what could have been mistaken for a ramshackle collection of rubbish and plastic, but was in fact, a ramshackle collection of random objects, stacked against a cardboard box.

“Think of it as an achievement,” was the curt response. “No other kid could say they pulled off a heist like that. Scarface himself would be proud of ya.”

“But Scarface didn’t steal coats,” Artemis protested.

“It’s the fucking principle of the thing, okay?!”

“And don’t swear,” snapped the boy as he ducked underneath the box to avoid the torrential rain.

“Whatever.”

Once sure that he was alone and safe, Artemis unwound the thick, heavy coat from his lanky frame and pushed it into a corner, where it joined the growing mound of other clothes and knick-knacks that lay underneath a concrete overhang, out of the rain. The sight of these objects brought another pang of guilt to the teen – all of these items had been pilfered, one way or another, from whomever originally owned them, all ranging from little old ladies in simple cottages to department stores like the one he’d been sprinting away from a mere hour ago. It shamed him to even look at these objects, the knowledge that he’d be looking at a very long jail sentence if found out hanging over him like that storm cloud you can see coming just over the hill.

But then again, it was that or starve to death.

With a sigh, Artemis reached into another small cardboard box that stood by the side of the one he hid under, pushing the flaps aside and taking out a chunk of… well, the icing and cheery colors indicated it had once been a birthday cake. Time and a lack of proper packaging, however, had rendered the object hard and tasteless, the cream and jam mixing into a congealed mush that did nothing to improve the stale flavor. As if expecting this event, the air in front of the boy suddenly shimmered, turned red for a moment, and then became a spike-ringed circle of reddish-gray metal, which clattered into his lap in a rather sullen manner. Artemis had long learned to accept that Grendel often did things out of a sense of rituality, rather than any well-being he might have had, and transforming into a dinner plate fit for a H.P. Lovecraft story was one of them.

As the boy gave his jaws a workout, a car rushed by on the road outside, briefly illuminating the alleyway with its headlights before disappearing. For a few moments, there was no speech. Only the rain, beating relentlessly on the concrete, and the occasional rumble of thunder as the storm moved over the city, clearly in no hurry to leave. It would be nice to think that Artemis was reflecting on the moments in his life where he had been happy – playing with the children in the orphanage, learning his ABC’s with Father John, reading Peter Rabbit at bedtime, all that stuff. But memories are not food or shelter, and those were things the boy needed if he was going to live. So he merely concentrated on trying to make the cake not taste like week-old sandpaper, a task which was proving more and more difficult.

“This isn’t going anywhere,” muttered the plate, suddenly.

Artemis paused, the remains of the cake halfway to his mouth.

“What?”

“You bloody well heard me,” snapped Grendel. “This isn’t what we should be doing – stealing coats and eating week-old cake from a box! This isn’t any fucking way for a kid to live!”

“Clarence,” Artemis began.

“Grendel.”

“Grendel, then,” the homeless boy sighed. “We’ve been over this. How am I supposed to better myself in the situation I’m in now? If you’re thinking of hijacking the lifestyle of some rich aristocrat on the coast, then think again, because subjecting someone to my daily life as it is right now is about as heartless as anyone can get.” And coming from a boy whose only education came from a religiously-inclined nutcase, he thought to himself as let crumbs spill off his chin, that’s saying a lot.

“Think, lad, think,” the plate retorted, shimmering. “Would you rather be spending the rest of your life in some shitty cardboard box, eating the scum off the edge of a pond and having security guards chase you with stun batons and handcuffs? Or would you rather try and find a lifestyle that doesn’t carry a long community service sentence in juvenile delinquency? Which of these options sounds more promising to you, eh?”

Artemis mulled this over through another mouthful of stone-hard cake. Grendel had been talking a lot like this lately – suggesting that the boy had better find a way to improve his situation, get out of the alleyways and find a calling in life that would eventually lead up the road of fortune to the big grand motel of stardom. Mind you, how he got there seemed to be another matter entirely, and one that the boy would prefer a spell over a pit of scorpions to. Nothing from forging birth certificates to raiding charities buildings for their donation boxes seemed to be below the demon’s consideration, and every one of his long-winded, convoluted plans carried the looming threat of jail and the electric chair the same way a holiday to Tokyo carried the looming threat of a Godzilla rampage.

Of course, like everything the demon suggested, the idea was tempting. To not have to live on the streets anymore, to have a warm bed and properly-cooked food and a roof that was not made of flimsy cardboard… it would be a huge improvement over what he was living like now. Of course, Grendel would embellish the boy’s daydreams with pictures of ridiculously-fast cars and semi-naked women, the last one of which Artemis had not been entirely that comfortable with, but the idea remained the same – get off the ground and find a way to a well-paid job and a secure, stress-free lifestyle that promised a longer life and (probably) happiness. And there would be shoes, Grendel had promised. Artemis had never worn shoes before.

But it seemed to Artemis that his demon companion wasn’t really interested in all that stuff…

“Well, where do we-?” he began to say to the plate-shaped Grendel.

And then, quite suddenly, they both vanished. One minute, there had been a conversation, the next, the only clue that someone had been there before was a small lump of half-eaten sponge cake on the concrete.

The rain beat down, ignorant of what had transpired. Another rumble of thunder rolled through the city.

And then a scraggly black cat, who had been lurking in the bins for some time now, leapt out of the bin and approached the scene warily, staring with that aloof suspicion that all cats have. When sniffing the lump of cake produced no result, it merely wandered into the box and began to clean itself, content with no explanation other than it had been imagining things.