Gladstone
Legacy Name: Gladstone

character by my good friend acidfull name: unknown
moniker(s): Gladstone
world: BSC
species: Human; artificed
ethnicity: Dutch
birthdate: June 9
hometown: Cape Town, South Africa
current location: Chicago, Illinois
facsimile: Gabriel Aubry


abilities: Astonishing strength, speed, and precision
occupation: Project and pet
hobbies: Something
religion: Evangelist
politics: Conservative


family: David Gladstone (adoptive father)
involved with: Pax Ricci
colleagues:
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Gladstone is defined by the intersection of long lines and sharp planes; in motion, his sinewy grace nearly becomes sensual. He has untidy, faded blonde hair like sun-bleached straw, with long sideburns that emphasise jutting cheekbones. A permanent five o’clock shadow and his reedy, faintly breathless drawl are at odds with the intense glass-blue coldness of deep-set eyes.
Simple and ungroomed, he wears a tattered black vest and leather slacks. His only accessories are a cream silk kerchief knotted casually about his neck, and several twine bracelets accumulated on his wrists, trophies of bygone glory.

Gladstone is disdainful and world-weary, despite being in his prime. He is frosty, irascible, and churlish - but not all at once; his vitriol is usually attenuated to a lazy simmer of majestic ire. He has no patience or tolerance for things he deems bullshit. Belligerence combined with a streak of malice means might, and might makes right in his ‘survival of the strongest’ policies.

An egocentric opportunist armed with a panache of haughty malevolence, Gladstone does pretty much what he pleases, indifferent but not immune to the consequences. He comes off as a petulant child-king prone to sulking. Sleek, chilly, and unruffled, he exudes deliberate crudeness. His glacial contrariness is punctuated by apoplectic rages; his indolent expression and snide remarks are fuelled by a determination to be unreasonable.

That said, the beast is not without attraction. He is honest, assured, and droll, without requisite subtlety or dedication to formality. Some find it refreshing; particularly those who seek him out for cognizant conversation rather than niceties and ass-pats.

David Gladstone, founder of Gladstone Inc., stumbled across the underground slave-fighting rings purely by chance, for he never personally stepped into impoverished urban Cape Town. When he saw the boy fighting silently for his life, like a solitary white lion cornered and surrounded by hyenas, he knew that he had found his prize project.

Raised to be apathetic, brutal, and self-assured, the young Gladstone was torn from his cut-throat world and brought into the confines of sterile white walls. Everyone treated him with utmost respect, and not a single shred of personal interest. The change did not make a difference to him; he was as alone and aloof as he had always been.

He would spend days at a time in bed, hooked to intravenous drips and injections, while tutors directed his attention away from the digital readouts of his fluctuating vitals. They taught him academics and social graces; he learned war in the following weeks when he was brought opponent after opponent, until he could no longer stand. And then it was back to the machines, back to the drugs, the stimulants, and the studies.

When he was eighteen, David Gladstone came to pay his protege a visit. Young Gladstone was not particularly charming. He was haughty, contemptuous, and short-tempered, not eager to please. Instead, he brimmed with an intense animal vitality, the same primal cunning that kept him alive on the streets. David Gladstone was delighted. He had no heir of his own; he would adopt the boy as a godson and successor to his fortune.

Gladstone became a fine toned weapon, unfailing and undefeated. For six years, he did the dirty work for the company, delivering a finishing touch to deals and transactions; Gladstone Inc. wielded wealth and prestige, and violence as a last resort. The South African drug cartels lost large profits to the company watchdog, until they united against Gladstone, staging an ambush for him. In the ensuing skirmish, he received a permanent handicap, an injury in his dominant leg.

His suppressed rage boiled over; anger at the way David Gladstone and Inc. had turned his career and life into a piled-up wreckage of personal crises, and Gladstone turned against his benefactor, leaving the country. He had nowhere to go, nothing to turn to -- nothing, save a name and memory of the daughter of one former client, Pax Delia Ricci.