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 Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 4:47 pm
o. A Brief Introduction
Jenner Roce is my own creation; an original character made for Sidekick Academy, a B/C shop.
While creating him, though, Jenner took a life of his own. He gained two families; the canon Roces, and the AU family consisting of his father Malachi and his sister Lucinda. This is written as an AU to the shop-canon, which can be viewed through Jenner's IC journal here.
The stories herein are not in order, though they do follow a bit of chronology if you look closely. I will also include a listing in this post of the stories in their Time-Line order, which means that this order will be in a constant state of change. If you just want to read for the sake of reading, go ahead and read the way they're posted, but if you must read the stories in Chronological order, then feel free to follow the list below.
Not all the characters mentioned are of my design. The characters that are mine are Jenner, Malachi, Lucinda, Cain, and a few others who have yet to introduce themselves. Straffe Einehart, The Captain, and other characters mentioned but not actually played are from the Sidekick Academy shop, and if their players would like me to refrain from writing them into the AU, feel free to PM me and I'll remove them.
Thank you, and please enjoy these tails of sorrow, heartache, murder, and blood.
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Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:34 pm
i. Running from the Devil
He’s been running for so long. But you can’t run forever; not from the shadow that’s attached to your feet and not from the Shadow looming over your neck. Jenner Roce, Penumbra, Shadow Man, The Devil’s Double. He’s picked up so many names while he was running from the police, the Academy, and Mal and Lucinda. When did he sprout up like a weed? Was it before Mal ruined his life, or after he’d kidnapped him? If he stopped in Cranten to visit his father, would there be a line on the doorway where She marked how tall he was getting? His memories were slipping past like water in a desperately clutched hand. He couldn’t remember anything but her face and the fear permanently etched into her eyes when The Devil strangled the life out of her Shadow. It was one of the things Jenner feared most about Malachi. He could do what Jenner could never hope to: Touch someone’s Living Shadow.
The Devil’s Double; that was the closest name to what he really was that anyone would call him. The Devil’s Son, more like, but those words would die in the throat of whoever dared make that assumption. Mal had done so much damage, and damn it, he couldn’t claim that he hadn’t been there. He could’ve stopped it, but he didn’t want to. The burden of being His son. And damn her for making him do it, too. Mal’s daughter, the Prodigy Child, the perfect one. If she was so ******** perfect, why did Mal need both of them?
Hell, why did Mal need one of them? Lucinda was useful, but batshit insane, and Jenner… He’d been running since his feet hit the ground.
Jenner slid into an alley, the Shadow Man drawing up around him to shield him from the eyes of the cops chasing after him. While Mal had gotten lucky, Jenner’s face was plastered all over the city. WANTED blazed above his mug shot. MURDERER, ARMED AND DANGEROUS. If the Captain could only see him now.
His breath came in short bursts. Jenner didn’t dare breathe more. Greedy gulps would give him away. He sunk against the brick, closing his eyes as the Shadow Man melted away. God, it was such a mess. Tears welled up in his eyes as Jenner sunk down, his knees pressed into his chest. He just wanted to go home.
A can toppled over in the alley. Jenner jerked, looking over sharply. Just a cat. He sniffed, rubbing his nose and pushing himself back up. He couldn’t stop running, not now. Maybe if he went to the Academy, things would—No. No, he couldn’t go back there again. They’d be the first to arrest him.
With a rock of regret settling into his stomach, Jenner began to ascend a fire escape ladder. Travelling across roofs was safer than in the street. And he had to get back to Mal, before the Devil did something drastic. Running as far as he could didn’t make a difference when Mal still held his heart in the palm of his hand.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:10 am
ii. Meeting Malachi
Malachi stood in front of Jenner, smirking to himself at the way Jenner shook. He was terrified, and rightly so. “It’s so good to see you, Son of Mine. What? No smile for your old man?” His tone was practically gleeful; deranged. It made Jenner cringe. The tip of his cane came to rest on Jenner’s chin, forcing his gaze off the marble floor and up at the Devil himself. Jenner wasn’t sure what was more worrying: That this man was his father…
Or that he could see himself in Malachi. The gold eyes, the sharp nose, the dark hair. All things his parents never had. He couldn’t deny that Malachi was his father, or at least a very close stand-in. He forced himself to watch Malachi as the man crouched in front of him. Malachi grinned slowly, and Jenner could see how they got into this mess. Malachi was charming. Evangeline was loyal to Louis, but Jenner couldn’t blame her for trusting that Mal just wanted to see his son for the first time.
He’d charmed his way in, and in the blind of an eye, their house had disappeared beneath them in the explosion. When Jenner woke, he was chained to a wall, Evangeline across from him, and Malachi standing between them. Evangeline hadn’t seen the Devil knocking on her door, and Jenner had been so eager to meet this man, to see if there was some connection to this and his powers…
God, what blind stupidity.
“You’re still so young, Jenner.” He said with a smile. “So impressionable. It’s too bad I didn’t find you before that slag handed you off. Who knows what we could’ve accomplished—"
“Don’t touch my son, you monster!”
“Oh, look who’s awake.” Malachi straightened up, turning away from Jenner and walking towards where his mother had been chained up. Jenner watched him, and started pulling on his chains, grimacing at the effort. He was so tired. He just wanted this nightmare to end, to wake up warm and comfortable in the Academy with Straffe snoring alongside him. “’Scuse me, kiddo. We’ve got some unfinished business, your Mum and I.” He smiled at Jenner, his gold eyes gleaming brightly in the dark of their prison.
Jenner pulled harder, struggling to get up. “L-leave her alone!” He demanded, wishing that he wasn’t fourteen and still a kid and that his voice hadn’t snapped when he spoke. Desperation wouldn’t win him any points with Malachi. A dark part of him snickered in his head. If you hadn’t come home to visit, he never would’ve come. You wouldn’t have met him; he would have never taken her. This is your entire fault. All your fault, all your fault—
He flinched away from his inner demon, pulling harder on the chains. “Malachi!”
Malachi turned, and growled a little. “I’m your father. Talk to me like that again, and I’ll snap your throat, kid.”
“P-please, just let her go.” Jenner pleaded, standing up and pulling hard on the chains that held him back from doing anything more. “I’ll stay, I will, just let her go—“
“Sorry, kid.” Malachi smiled evenly. “I can’t do that. If you have something to go back to, you’ll always run.” He turned back to Evangeline. Jenner wanted to look away, desperate to not see, but he couldn’t. His eyes widened sharply as he watched Malachi reach out, stroking Evangeline’s shadow away from the wall.
It came to him, like a rat coming to the Pied Piper. He practically petted it, before closing his fingers around the shadow’s throat. Jenner watched, mortified, as the Devil himself started to close his fist around the Shadow’s throat.
But it wasn’t the Shadow that suffered. It was Evangeline who choked and gasped for air, trying to claw at her throat as if the hands could be removed. Jenner pulled hard on the chains, the only sounds in the room being his struggles and Evangeline’s desperate gasps.
“Malachi, please! Don’t! D-don’t, I’ll stay, I swear—“ Tears streamed down his face as Evangeline’s gaze turned to him, fear making her eyes wide and bright. And then, like that, with a snap of his wrist, Evangeline’s head was jerked to the side at a horrible angle. The crack echoed in the room.
Jenner dropped to his knees, sobs forcing their way out of his throat. Malachi dropped the shadow, watching it melt back to the wall, and turned around with a cheerful smile. “There we go.” He said, walking back to Jenner. “I’m sorry, Son of Mine.” He crouched down, unchaining him. “But if we’re going to kill people, we really must start at the source of your burdening sense of morality.”
He picked up the fourteen year old like it was nothing, and they were gone, slipping out of the abandoned house on the feet of shadows. Time for a good ol’ family reunion. “Lucy’s going to love having a little brother.” Mal murmured, gleeful for all the wrong reasons.
Jenner just cried.
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