Gods Among Us Character Application
Character DescriptionName: James Washington
Aliases: The Revenant
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Appearance:
MotivationsGoals: Gain vengeance on the US Government for it's seemingly unjust treatment of criminals and it's willingness to maintain the death penalty.
Fears: Exposed electricity, lightning, restraints
Strengths and WeaknessesSource of Power: Latent, stress induced activation of Meta-Gene
Powers :Abilities:
- Exponential Healing: The regeneration that James has does not make the day to day any easier. Due to how his meta-gene came to fruition, his regeneration becomes faster and more efficient the more traumatic the wound. A sliver or papercut will take weeks to heal, escalating to a missing limb or bisection healing fully in minutes if not seconds.
Equipment:
- Ride the Lightning: As a result of surviving two separate attempts at execution, a vast majority of James' nerve tissue has been irreparably damaged, leaving him either unable to feel pain, or have an obnoxiously high tolerance for pain.
- No Pain, Yet Gain: The mechanical stresses involved with the human locomotor system when muscles are pushed to their highest tension point are enough to tear muscle tissue, tendons, and ligaments, while also fracturing bone. Thanks to his inability to feel pain, and the rather swift recovery, James' only limit to his strength is the upper threshold of human capability.
Weaknesses:
- Glock 19
- Level III Kevlar Vest
- AKMS
- Ballistic Safety Goggles
- One Eyed Bandit: Obviously, James only has one eye, a very vulnerable eye. With the loss of this, his already shoddy vision will result in a complete inability to properly fight or even function. It will regrow with time, but until that time, he'll be essentially useless.
- Snap, Crackle, Pop: The upper limit for James' strength still requires some recovery time. Anything less than an all out usage of his natural strength will leave him with a non marginal buffer time in which his body needs to heal from self imposed damage.
- Death by 1000 Cuts: The anathema to his powers is small unsuspecting injuries. Slowly having his body sliced open by a razor blade over the course of hours will cause him to bleed out and die.
- Ridden with Miasma: His powers simply work in regards to physical injury, James is still vulnerable to disease and pestilence.
Background:Job: Hired Gun
Legal Status: US Felon w/ Restored Rights
Backstory: James Washington was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1987. Born to a impoverished family in South Omaha, James didn't have much in terms of anything, leaving him to revolve around the older delinquents in his neighborhood. While not exactly a well to do child, he still maintained a level of morality despite his status as a gang member. Despite this, he was still notably social individual in school when time permitted. Making connections with people of most walks of life, unless a part of a rival gang.
This known capacity to avoid violent crimes did not save him when he was arrested as a suspect of the rape and murder of one of his high school classmates in 2004. Evidence of the event was notably scarce, but what evidence was found, in combination with his gang affiliation and the run up of smaller misdemeanors and possession of legal firearms, one of which was used in the murder, eventually pitted the Jury against him. The case was regarded as open and shut and he was subsequently sentenced to death.
From June of 2005 to August of 2006, James spent most of his time flowing in and out of Tecumseh State Correctional Institution to the courthouse for the appeals process for a retrial and for a reexamination of evidence, but it was all for naught. In September 2006, he was transferred to Nebraska State Penitentiary, specifically to Death Row, James' future was coming to an end, and the only method in Nebraska for execution at that time was the electric chair.
On September 19th 2006, James Washington was pronounced dead at 12:48 PM after being electrocuted for 2 minutes. At 1:18 PM, James underwent an unexpected case of Lazarus syndrome and returned to the land of the living. This process resulted in some legal and moral grey area, as James had been killed in accordance with his sentencing, technically. An appeal process started later that month, but eventually fell through after a bitter 13 month struggle. On November 23rd, 2007, James once again found himself in the electric chair.
Under normal circumstances, death by electric chair rarely takes more than a minute, and most definitely less than 2 jolts. But the electric chair has fallen out of use for a reason. Due to unknown circumstances regarding the set up, and the spontaneous event of James' meta-gene coming to fruition, James sat in the electric chair for 15 minutes. On fire, flailing, screaming, and regenerating all the while. Eventually, the wooden chair burnt away, leaving nothing more to do than for the attending officers try and wait for him to die in accordance with state law, but he didn't. Witnesses of the execution almost all needed counselling after the event, and James himself was changed permanently both physically and mentally.
The appeal process this time was notably more swift, highly televised and covered on multiple news stations. James was finally alleviated of the death penalty after evidence came to light regarding his original crime. Being framed of the charge for which he was initially arrested, the true perpetrator had confessed mere hours before James' second execution. Exonerated of the death penalty, and declared to have served his time for the misdemeanors he had committed, he was released from prison. After which time he all but disappeared off the face of the earth. In 2010, the judge that had originally sentenced him to death, and his family were found dead.
After this, James eventually made his way to New York, where he maintains a connection to the local chapter of the gang he once ran with, as well as the local villains as a hired gun.