Graves

Name: Graves
Alias/Nicknames:
- Void (Moniker)
- Gray (Nickname - Jason's)
- Gravy (Nickname - Carmen's)
Gender: Male
Age: 24
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 140 lbs
Birthday: June 4

Ethnicity: Russian
Location: Gotham City

Occupation: None
Affiliation(s): 
- None
- Russian mafia (formerly)

Notable Features: 
- Dark circles + bags under his eyes
- Noticeably, unhealthily pale

Biography

      Positive: Loyal | Rational | Impartial | Attentive | Empathetic
      Negative: Vengeful | Remorseless | Callous | Self-Destructive | Apathetic
      Neutral: Dispassionate | Distant | Pragmatic | Introverted | Aimless

Emerging from the dark is the shadow of a man, tendrils of black still clinging to him, seemingly pulling him back in, beckoning. With a nonchalant shrug, he tears himself away from the void, from whatever he's left behind of himself there in the nothingness. His faith in humanity, for starters, or what a good night's sleep feels like, or having someone to care about, or having someone who cares back. Definitely not a smile, as he never had much to smile for, even before he became acquainted with the darkness within him and all around him. Like his namesake, he is a grave man, one foot already in the hole he's dug himself in the cold, hard dirt. A dead man walking. Rarely eating, rarer still sleeping. But he cannot rest, not while his blood remains restless, not until he's filled cemeteries with the graves of those who destroyed his shot at a better life, at a life worth living. People who make it their job to destroy many people's lives, not just his own, will suffocate in the black coffins of darkness he crafts. 

Graves is a man on a mission, a desolate one, but he does not brand himself as a hero or a champion of the people. No, he is too cynical for the suits and spandex, the symbols and smiles; the stardom that comes with being a superhero on TV dulls the purpose of what he does, which isn't justice but an off-brand bastardized version of it. To put it bluntly, he finds a more permanent solution for those who slip through the cracks of the justice system, the organizations with too much power to be brought down, or those with an abundance of money and connections, who escape the sentencings the average criminal receives. Those who can walk away without chains will find themselves no longer able to walk when Void finds them, his mode of operation being either execution or maiming the offender beyond normal means of repair. A personal vendetta motivates this violence, one he rarely attempts to hide. The organization of criminals who hide in the shadows, ironically named The Light, will be swallowed whole by his shadows, a sense of poetic justice that he finds amusing. His fixation on destroying The Light comes before all else, including his own health, which he neglects in order to keep the search going at all hours of the day. Not surprisingly, this restlessness results in a cranky mood, a cloud that hangs over his head at all times, which only thins out with the assistance of coffee but never fully goes away.

Though he is often at odds with the law and its enforcers, he tries to avoid direct conflicts or injuring either police forces or heroes out of respect for the law and authorities. His vigilantism isn't meant to be proof of his aversion or disdain for the law, as he is merely doling out punishments to those who deserve it, whom the law cannot reach. There are times he'll pass on intel he's gained to the forces of "good" or cooperate to take down larger opponents, but this does not mean he's particularly pleasant about it. He's been classified as untrustworthy due to his demeanor, even though Graves has never made a habit of lying and is, in actuality, honest to the point of brutality.  His cold and distant disposition, combined with his callousness regarding his line of work (and basically everything else), hardly makes him anyone's first, second, or tenth pick for a team. As an ally, he is not talkative, opting to remain silent and observe, analyzing others for any detail that might be a weakness or sore spot, though not for the purpose of exploiting or mocking it. Psychoanalyzing others comes naturally, drawing his own conclusions often with little basis, but he is enabled to keep doing it so long as it keeps being proven correct. In a weird way, it's perhaps the only way he can show he cares. He cares enough to see others for who they really are instead of what they make themselves out to be in an effort to understand them better. It is a shame that, instead, he comes off as someone who pries where he does not belong, someone who is cruel.

But no amount of cruelness can hide the potential of what Graves could have been, the ghost of a person that lingers in spite of fate's best efforts to kill it. It shows up in rare moments of kindness, where he'll take a bullet for a civilian and carry them to safety. Moments of mercy, where he'll let a small-time robber go with only a threat. Moments of reflection, where he knows he cannot sustain this lifestyle for much longer, knows that at the end of the road, there is nothing left for him should he attain his revenge. Moments of loyalty, where he'll fiercely protect those who have shown him even an ounce of humanity. Graves is a man haunted by what he could have been, what he perhaps should have been, and what he had tried to grasp so long ago but has long since given up on. Even though he tries to exorcise these parts to make peace and reconciliation with what he's done and what he must continue to do, it trails behind him perpetually, a shadow he is casting.

MBTI: ISTJ
Alignment: Lawful Neutral (has his own code; plays by his own morally ambiguous rules)

Hobbies: Street-fighting (now converted into vigilantism), staring into space, reading BuzzFeed articles to "catch up" with popular culture
Likes: Poetry, black coffee, cigarettes, the scent of gunpowder, silent movies, harnesses
Dislikes: Organized criminals and gangs, the strong picking on the weak, overly heroic types, milk

Playlist: [Link]

Aesthetic Board:

Powers

• Umbrakinesis: A manifestation of Graves' metagene makeup. He can create, shape, and manipulate darkness and shadows. By itself, darkness is mostly used to cloud everything into total darkness, but by accessing a dimension of dark energy it can be channeled to a variety of effects, both as an absence of light and a solid substance: he can also control and manipulate the beings that exist there, create and dispel shields and areas of total darkness, create constructs and weapons, and teleport himself through massive distances via shadows.
  
  Pre-Timeskip Abilities (Powers exhibited during S2 of YJ)
  - Shadow Camouflage/Cloaking/Stealth: Can hide in and out of shadows, and can become cloaked in shadows entirely.
  - Teleportation: Can submerge into the shadows and emerge short or great distances away.
  
  Post-Timeskip Abilities (Powers exhibited during S3 of YJ)
  - Umbra-Telekinesis: Projecting/manipulating the shadows around him.
  - Darkness Solidification: Can create constructs out of shadows and solidify them.
  - Shadow Interaction: The power to interact or induce an effect by interacting with a person's shadow. Graves can interact with shadows as if it were tangible. He can mess with the target's shadow as well, by either controlling their shadow's limbs or attacking their shadow, which transfers the damage onto the target.
  - Animated Shadow: Can control and manipulate the shadow beings/doppelgangers that exist in the shadow dimension.

• Hand-to-Hand Combat (Master): Having once been a street brawler, Graves has a brutal, punishing, and powerful hand-to-hand combat style.
• Marksmanship: Utilizes a wide variety of guns, specializes in military grade equipment he's stolen.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

• Unlabeled prescription drugs
• Pistol holster (concealed; under jacket)
• Half-empty cigarette case
• Zippo lighter
• Loose change

Weapons

• Several handhelds (pistols, revolvers)
• Small explosives (hand grenades, mines, etc)
• M16
• Hunting knife

Backstory

Perhaps he was born with a name in mind before his parents gave him up to pay off some kind of debt, perhaps he wasn't and was just born to be given away, but Graves is called many things before he is called "Graves": a product, a kid, a brat, a tool. Sold to the highest bidder at an age where he cannot form any memories, winding up in the hands of one Mr. Fedir Nikitin. Thus began a life of forced labor, where the boy had to learn many things very quickly. Manufacturing, processing, packaging. Textiles, construction, mines. Not once did he think of running, not with the rumors his fellow workers would spread about Mr. Nikitin's ties to the Russian mafia, but that did not mean he accepted his work with grace. No, he'd talk back, spit at the ground, show defiance, and Ferdir would be called in, have to move around the unruly boy, and punish him when necessary, but to no avail. There was a spark in this kid, a spitefulness that had always existed. It wasn't until Ferdir's friend interrupted a particularly brutal punishment that the rambunctious child got to meet Mr. Nikitin's employer, Mr. Zakharov, a man in strangely high spirits to see a bound kid get knocked around. He blows a puff of smoke at him as he leans down to inspect him, lifting the boy by the chin and forcing him to make eye contact... Only to get blood and saliva spat in his face for his trouble. Ferdir looks terrified, but Mr. Zakharov laughs it off and then unbinds the other, much to everyone else's surprise. 

"This kid has fight in him, so let him fight." 

Mr. Zakharov, the new head of the Odessa mafia, takes the boy under his wing to join the family, finds a new purpose to better suit him. But this is no fairytale storybook, where the boy is given a title or power, given freedom or some found family nonsense. No, he remains a cashcow for the family, a participant in the Odessa Fight Club, an illegal street-fighter. Although this isn't quite the freedom he imagined, he accepts it to some degree, as well as the first name he is ever given that is not just assigned numbers: Graves, his boxing name, in reference to all the graves he'd dig for his opponents. Needless to say, it sticks, and with all of his pent up frustration, the fighting is an outlet. So he breaks bones, bashes skulls with his bare hands, and Zakharov cashes in the bets. Rinse and repeat. For what it's worth, he's given a decent percentage with a particularly special bonus, samplings of opioids that the family also happens to sell. It helps with the bruises, the pain, so he accepts it, eventually coming to seek it out.

When Graves outgrows the arena, Mr. Zakharov does not wish to throw away his investment. He offers him grunt work, dealing out hits for the Odessa mafia, and just as always, he learns quickly. Nothing new, still gravedigging, still working for someone else. The drugs he takes numb the pain, not just physically, either. It helps to forget that some of the men he killed had families, had made simple mistakes and paid for them permanently. He does this for several years, earning a reputation in the criminal underworld as a deadly shot. Although Mr. Zakharov sings his praises, says he's proud of the boy who went from rags to riches, Graves doesn't feel anything. Not pride, not regret. Nothing. He's tired of feeling nothing.

So, for the first time ever in his life, he runs. 

There wasn't any triggering incident, nothing that happened in particular to set him off. Just one night, under the veil of darkness, he takes flight, doesn't look back. Uses the money he saved to get smuggled far away from there, somehow winding up in Marseille, France. It was an odd choice to say the least as he knew little French, but the distance made him feel a bit more at ease. Except he was now stranded in a foreign country with zero documentation, having spent the last of his money, and sorely craving numb. He does things he's not proud of to earn a little cash here and there, but he figures his hands are too bloodied, too sullied to start keeping count now. But that's when he finds her, a beacon of light and hope. Claire Ambre, an angel that came out of nowhere, probably heaven, standing over him as he overdosed in some dingy alley. Too high to realize she was real, too low to care. For some god forsaken reason, he feels compelled to take her outstretched hand, feels invited by her warm smile, something that has never been offered to him. 

He wakes up somewhere else, somewhere else being a bed in a well-lit quaintly decorated room. Claire is sitting at the foot of the bed, turning a page over in the book she read, but notices his movement immediately, delighted he has awoken. Graves learns he is in "De Lune Suites," a hotel that offers free bed and board for people like him, people who are lost, aimless, addicted. Though his instinct is to roll his eyes and reject the pity food and rest, Claire's smile once again has him taking whatever she offered, practically eating right out of her hands. It's almost too good to be true — but that's because it is. De Lune Suites was a front for a metahuman trafficking operation, and after some bloodwork, it was clear that Graves had the metagene marker, and Claire, whose ties were with the supervillain organization The Light, couldn't have been happier to have found yet another experiment. Not long after, he is drugged and taken in for research conducted by The Reach, in association with The Light. Once again, Graves had found his way back into servitude for a gang of criminals, and the betrayal cut deep. He had trusted her, adored her, wished to be embraced by her warm hands... Now he couldn't wait to get his hands around her neck.

It didn't look like he'd get the opportunity any time soon, what with the high-tech security all around him. Trapped in some strange pod, there wasn't much he could do. So he lay there, occasionally poked and prodded by strange alien insectoids, merely festering, thinking of all the wrong that has been done to him up until that point. Even though he had tried to escape the life he led under the Odessa mafia, he had merely wound up back here, trapped, used. If the universe was trying to give him a sign that he wasn't meant to just live a normal life, to redeem himself, this was it. As his thoughts continued to darken, losing hope, so did the stasis cell he was trapped in. Arms of shadow began to coil all around him, blotting out his vision, setting off alarms, but whether these alarms were in his head or happening outside his pod, he could not tell. He let the shadows embrace him, drown him.

And suddenly he's falling,
                                   falling,
                                       falling.

Surrounded by darkness on all sides, he cannot see or feel anything, a type of numbness he'd never experienced with any drug. In a panic, he tries to make the shadows clear, but untrained, it will not listen to him. He runs around blindly, hearing both everything and nothing at the same time. He runs and he runs, runs for two whole years trapped there, in a dimension of nothingness, a void. At some point, he just stops running, embraces it. A fate worse than death was fitting for him perhaps, but he could only wish he could drag down everyone else with him, everyone who deserved it, who was responsible for his predicament. He wasn't the only one deserving a fate worse than death. And when he squeezes his eyes shut, makes peace with the darkness within him, the shadows vanish, and he is standing in the middle of a bustling city's street, gets honked and cursed at by a driver. Given a second chance, an opportunity. Graves will not waste it.

Time had passed, more than two years, since he had been deceived by Claire. Graves immediately wishes to catch up with the Odessa mafia, wants to waste no time in his vengeance. Metahuman trafficking was the newest underground market, selling faster than hot cakes, and he was certain his old "family" would have a hand in it. So he steps foot into the shadows once more, emerging in an armory, a kid in a candy store. It was easier to traverse the shadows this time around, almost instinctive now, but this did not make him fear the dark any less. Graves never wished to get lost in the shadows ever again, so he could never let his guard down, not even to rest. No rest for the wicked, not that he could sleep regardless, so wholly focused on his fantasy of shooting Mr. Zakharov dead, the shock on his face as it'd slowly dawn on him that the consequences of his actions had finally caught up with him.

But perhaps he should have been more prepared this time around, rather than rushing to get the job done. What he hadn't expected were the metahuman bodyguards the man would have under his employ. He was taken out almost instantly, though he had managed to take down several people with him. When he awoke, a garish collar, cold to the touch, sat upon his neck. An "inhibitor collar," they called it. What were the odds that he'd get trafficked not once, not twice, but three goddamn times. The kicker? He would be put up for auction in a metahuman battle royale centre. A fight club. Graves could almost laugh at the irony. He didn't.

Fights to the death(ish) among other trafficked young adults. The winners in each bracket would be bid on. The rules were simple: there were none. Graves needed to survive, had to win to live another day, to kill them all. Every single one of them, not just the Odessas. Every damn bastard who was participating in this, profiting off of this. So he does as they say, he takes down everyone they put before him with practiced ease. He had done this fighting schtick before, unlike many of the unfortunate souls who were dealing with their first-ever trafficking. Ha ha. Guess he should be grateful to Mr. Zakharov, who attended each fight, met his unwavering gaze after every win. Graves was going to end this on his own terms even if it killed him. Thankfully, it didn't get to that. Before he could be sold off, they were interrupted by a loud crash. A raid, except not the police, not any type of normal authority. Suited heroes. The Justice League, who had launched a simultaneous attack on every single metahuman trafficking ring. Graves should be feeling relief as some red-and-yellow suited guy removes his inhibitor collar as his friends mop the place up, preventing everyone's escape. In the pandemonium, he is searching the crowds, trying to find him.

Him. Mr. Zakharov. He's been bound by some... Bat man. Graves had never paid much attention to the whole superhero thing. The hero next to him is asking him if he's alright but receives no response as Graves walks towards Mr. Zakharov, and the hero shrugs and rushes past, resuming freeing the other metahumans. Then, in one quick motion, Graves reaches into Mr. Zakharov's jacket, where he knows the man always keeps his gun holster, and shoots the man square between the eyes at point-blank. No words, no warning. The silence after the shot is deafening. The heroes hadn't expected it, hadn't seen it coming, but Graves wasn't going to wait around for them to react. The void of shadows takes him away, and Graves plans for his next kill.  And the list of names and faces is long. The vigilante and outlaw 'Void' is born.

Trivia

• Voiceclaim: Sean Chiplock.
• Essentially homeless; jumps from motel to motel. Also has access to Red Hood's safe houses.
• Can speak English, Russian, and some French.
• Uses a black flip-phone, even in the age of smartphones.
• Graves largely only targets organized crime groups; therefore, he tends not to execute the average criminal on the street acting alone (a purse-snatcher, for example) and is more likely just to intimidate or scare them off, if not outright ignore them.