tooth for a tooth
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Formalities
Name: Chris Shaffer
Nicknames:
Gender: Male
Age: 30
Species: Human
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Home: Ever-changing
Occupation: Mechanic freelance hunter
Place of work:
Ethnicity: American, primarily, though his background is quite a varied mixed bag
Height: 5'11
Weight: 160 lbs
An absence of permanent lodgings and a subsequent deficiency of personal grooming habits have led to a state of constant ragged disrepair. He is often scruffy and unkempt, narrow storm grey eyes set deep in a face shadowed with stubble as wiry as his rumpled russet hair. Although still young, the lines and creases of anger and worry have just begun to show.
Although he keeps himself in decent health, trading bulk for lean muscle and flexibility for strength, his clothing is often neglected. Chris' customary shabby leathers and frayed denim have become tattered with age, ripped and torn and never replaced. He abides in a state of continual dishevelment, uncaring and indifferent to the sidelong, contemptuous looks on the street.
After all, it's not as if the monsters that he kills ever bother to comment on his appearance.
Personality: There are only two truths in life and everything else is a lie. Firstly, nothing can be trusted and secondly, everything can be bought. Whether it's cash or drugs or love or fame, all it takes is just the right price. This is how the world works and if someone doesn’t like it, they can go and fuck off. For the vast majority of his thirty-odd years of life, Chris has lived by those two inviolable facts and in turn, they've kept him alive.
A rough childhood education on the injustice of life has taught him the value of those truths and how to adapt himself to match them. He is supremely cynical of every single thing and person he encounters, wary of the smallest shadow and suspicious of even the kindest gesture.This sheer inability to believe and accept has led to few social relations and an increasingly detached disposition, reinforcing his ruthlessly calculating outlook upon the world around him.
Upon being forced to interact, he is often brusque and vulgar, determinedly rebuffing unwanted conversation with blunt rejections or clipped, sardonic responses. On the hunt however, Chris enjoys the thrill of the chase. The endless spite and callousness in society make him a cold and efficient predator, broken occasionally by flashes of chaotic violence and indiscriminate slaughter. Nearing the end of the pursuit, lost in the savage glee of a kill, he tends towards impulsive decisions and a reckless disregard for restraint.
In depth
Likes: Massively big storms, beef, getting away from reality, the way a bed feels in the morning, sunrise, take out food, sleeping, loose-fitting clothing
Dislikes: Supernaturals, drug addicts, people, authority, cowards, pacifists, sharing, crowds
Positives: Straightforward, determined, clever, perceptive, uncommonly astute
Negatives: Antisocial, crude, blunt, cynical, skeptical, emotionally unstable, sardonic
Virtues: Caution, honesty, perseverance, simplicity, steadfastness, toughness, zeal, thrift
Vices: Sociopathy, sadism, recklessness, wrath, brutality, addiction, fanaticism, insolence, malice, murderous
Habits: Talking to himself, being a butt, pacing, repeating things he says, eavesdropping
Phobias: Ranidaphobia (fear of frogs)
Afflictions: Paranoid personality disorder
Overview: Nobody would ever go so far as to call him a happy man. Few would even call him a stable man.
He drinks his liquor straight, downs a whole bottle a night sometimes. Bartenders avert their eyes as he drinks himself into a stupor, taking the cash he slams onto the bar with no questions. The thought of supernatural spawn dying at his hands excites him. Sometimes it's the only thing that does. Women don't, gambling doesn't. But eliminating those creatures does. He isn't a polite man, either. Some might be so gracious as to call him blunt—most would simply call him rude. He says what's on his mind without thinking of how the words might impact the person he's speaking to. He keeps a photo of his late sister in his wallet—faded, stained. The photo is torn at the edges, taken from a bigger picture. Her smile warms his heart when he feels as though what he was doing is hopeless. He frequently gets into fights—not because he wants to start them, but because his blunt attitude invites them. Even if he had been interested in women, he would have a hard time winning their affections. He rarely sleeps in a proper bed, and even rarer are the times when he has time for a proper shower and shave. Oftentimes he carries more than just the stench of sweat on him, after he finishes a job. His life is on the road. He has no mailing address, no easy way for anybody to contact him. He has a post box in most cities, under a variety of different names, for his contacts to tell him about new jobs, or new leads.
History
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Growing up in a small town in the state of Michigan wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for Chris. For one, wasn't really allowed to go to school; mom used to sneer at him whenever he'd so much as mention it. "Who needs book smarts when all you need is right here," she'd say, indicating their 'family business.' If you could even call it that. The only thing that really even resulted from it was his dad being locked up in prison, the cops swarming the house on a regular basis, and the rumors. In case you might need a bigger hint: his parents were drug dealers. But not only did they sell them—they also used them. Frequently. You can just imagine how much fun he had when he was younger, with all flavors of danger around 24/7. The front door was never even locked. Anyone could just waltz right in, take the money and miscellaneous "stashes" that were always strewn all over the floor, and leave. They could have guns, axes, knives… his mother didn't care. He hated it. Mom didn't care, despite the fact that his little nine-year-old autistic sister was sleeping right across the hall. What a legacy, huh?
Chris resisted. He tried and tried and tried to steer his life in a different direction because he wanted something better for himself. Something better for his sister. The last thing he desired was for her to become a by-product of their filthy environment. She still had a fighting chance, was still pure and innocent, but he was already fifteen; got kicked out of middle school for hardly showing up, and when he did show, he was always grimy and running his mouth to his teachers. He wasn't smart by any stretch of the imagination… didn't have much experience with anything outside of drugs, either. His options were limited. Plus the older his mom got, the worse her addiction became, which usually ended with some sort of physical abuse whenever she was upset—which was more often than not back in those days. That was why he elected to start running drugs for her to paying clients. Most of the time it kept her relatively happy, and in turn, his sister safe. Life continued on in the same dysfunctional way for about two years.
Every single day he'd get up, fill his backpack with the "goods," then take them wherever they needed to go; across the street, across town, down in shaded alleyways… it didn't matter. His dad's clientele somehow always had bundles of cold hard cash to give him, although they could never manage to pay their rent on time. Whatever. If there was one thing his newfound career had taught him, rather early on, it was to never ask questions. He was just the delivery boy. As such, after Chris finished his morning rounds he'd bring the money back to the house for his mom to count (provided she was sober enough) and she'd give him his share. Then he'd go pick up his sister from the daycare center a few blocks away, walk her home, spend a few hours making sure she was taken care of before the afternoon shift would start—and repeat. It was an endless cycle, but he finally had a purpose in life. That's the thing that mattered most. Because he was actually useful. There was a reason for him to wake up each day, which made his situation even the slightest bit bearable. Besides, if he made enough money he could probably afford to send his sister to school.
If he thought about it that way, everybody won. Right? Whoever said that money can't solve all your problems clearly had no idea what they were talking about. With his new goal in mind, it wasn't long before Chris started making extra runs on the side—unbeknownst to his mother. There were times he wouldn't get home until well after midnight, his family already asleep, and sneak up to his room to put his earnings beneath his mattress; only to get back up at nine AM the next day and do it all over again. It became a regular habit for him, though he always made sure to pick up his sister from daycare, make sure she didn't need anything. That part he could never forget, and in the beginning things were going pretty well. Until one night he came home especially late—somewhere around four in the morning—dragging his feet from exhaustion. As he made his way up the stairs, fully intending to collapse into bed, he felt the need to go check on his sister. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary; he checked on her a lot when he came home. He was just tired and he didn't want to do anything other than go to sleep. But he did, against the will of his protesting muscles, since he was a responsible older brother.
Chris crept down the hallway, an alarm immediately going off in his head when he saw her bedroom door already open. He checked just to be sure, pulling off her comforter, looking through her closet, but she wasn't there. His adrenaline was pumping furiously by the time he ran to search the bathroom, the kitchen, his own room… There was nothing. He shouted her name, whole body trembling once he finally went to wake his mom up. Of course she had no idea where her special needs' daughter was; didn't even seem that concerned. Meanwhile, he was absolutely horrified. Though you can believe her face drained whiter than a ghost's as he grabbed the phone and dialed 911, basically telling them the address and to "get here now, my sister's missing you've gotta come help," then hanging up and bolting outside to go look for her. It felt like hours before the cops showed up, but he could hear the multitude of sirens screaming from halfway down the next block. The rest of the night passed in a blur. He remembers that they arrested his mom, and transported him in a separate cop car to some place where they asked him a bunch of ridiculous questions, but he didn't say much of anything other than "where's my sister?"
They told him the next morning. He spent the night in an uncomfortable plastic chair huddled with a thin, funny smelling blanket. Didn't sleep at all.
How could he, thinking about his sister lost in the dark—unfamiliar surroundings, scared, crying… so when a uniformed man and woman came in, silent and grim-faced, Chris demanded to know where she was. Their eyes fell to the floor. The woman spoke first. "I'm very sorry," she told him, and his stomach filled with a very real sickening sense of apprehension, "She's dead." It was like getting hit with a 10-ton truck, and he refused to believe a word she was saying. His sister couldn't be dead. She just… she couldn't. It wasn't possible. They made a mistake. Law enforcement made mistakes all the time, right? This was another one—a big one. He screamed that very sentiment at both of them. Why were they here telling him all this stuff that wasn’t true when they could still be out there looking for her? However, the officers just stared at him with soft, sad eyes. "I'm so sorry," the man said, stepping forward to put a hand on his shoulder. "We found her body this morning. She's dead."
Before he could begin come up with a rebuttal for that, he was presented him with a file. He grasped it in shaking hands, looking at the blank cover for several moments. The second he opened it, he wished he never had, a noise coming from deep within his throat that sounded like a frightened and wounded animal. There were dozens of photos, taken at different angles, of a child's body—what was left of it, anyway—lying on the cement. He picked up each one and studied it, though his eyes started to sting by the fourth. The child was wearing bunny footy pajamas, just like his sister had been the last time he saw her. Except that this one was ripped and stained an awful shade of red. But other than that they were an identical pair, because her initials had been stitched onto the side. Just like in the photo. Chris swallowed around the massive lump that was lodged inside his throat, chest heaving. He couldn't hear past the blood roaring in his own ears, even when he started scream-sobbing at the top of his lungs. When he finally stopped crying, he felt hollow.
There wasn't much he remembered after that. But because he was barely seventeen, he was still a minor, and therefore couldn't be responsible for taking care of himself. Since both of his parents were incarcerated, and the other members of his family weren't capable of—or willing to—receive him, he was placed in foster care. Unfortunately, due to all of the recent trauma he'd experienced, life wasn't easy for him. No one really understood what he had gone through. Despite being forced to attend school, he remained obstinate and refused to participate; instead choosing to badmouth his teachers and isolate himself from his peers. Because of this he was quickly deemed a "problem child" and passed from home to home to home. The only thing that seemed to relieve him of his funk was the library. Chris would often find escape there, spending hours soaking up all the knowledge he possibly could about unsolved murder cases. He researched every individual connected to cases in which victims' bodies were ripped apart seamlessly… and stumbled upon something he never could have imagined.
The descriptions of the crime matched with those most associated with creatures, not mankind; ghouls, aliens, vampires, demons, werewolves. At first he thought he was going crazy, but he lied awake at night, head filled with more questions than answers. So he dug deeper and deeper, discovering hundreds of thousands of cases with "cause of death unknown." It lit him up inside. Suddenly he had found his purpose again. It was a month after his eighteenth birthday, and he was released from foster care. He was legally an adult, but he had no job, little more than loose change in his pocket, and no friends to speak of. The only things he did have were a festering hole in his heart to remember his sister by, an unhealthy obsession for vengeance, and a worsening addiction to alcohol. ("It's less lethal than what my parents were into.") Chris had been hearing about a string of murders down in New Versailles via the newspapers and radio and was itching to go and check it out. So he did what any other sensible person in his situation would do—he hitchhiked.
Along the way he was picked up by a multitude of complete strangers, some nicer than others, and within three and a half weeks he made it to Louisiana. By that time the killings had become more frequent, not to mention escalated in gruesomeness. Everyone was on high alert. It made him an easy target for suspicion since he basically came out of the blue for no apparent reason. The only person who welcomed him openly was a local priest. He offered to show him around, but urged him to be very careful. Two days later, when law enforcement found the priest dead outside the church with his neck sliced through, Chris knew a vampire had to be responsible. He managed to hunt the beast down a week or so later with a vial of holy water and a stake. Regardless of how messy it was, it was his first kill, and the first time he felt at peace in years.
This was what he was meant to do. Making Versailles his new place of residence was easier than he originally thought it might be, but he was hired as a part-time mechanic for the autoshop downtown faster than he could even blink. He didn't know if they were just desperate to have more people working for them or if the owner saw some spark of potential in him. Either way, he caught on fast and was actually good at what he did. It was an honest trade that gave him a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. The best part was, he had saved enough money in a year and a half to be able to buy a modest, simple little house away from most of the populace—and most importantly, finally move out of the hotel he'd been staying in. It allowed him the privacy he needed to do his true job.
Slaughtering monsters.
