Ardent
Hudson City
Where Heroes Lose Their Innocence
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| Ardent
 
|
Played by:
Bodycast: Goes By: Status: Age: Occupation: Special Abilities: |
Torchwood
??? "The Dead Guy", "The Fractured Man", "The Ghost" alive-ish 23 Annoying The Living He's spoooooky. |
Background Story
Personality Romantic Relationships |
He could remember... heat.
Moist and clingy, full of the sounds of insects and birds, and beneath it all the low deep murmur of the eternal river. All things eventually came from and went to the river, though why this was so Ardent couldn't have explained. It was more an internal certainty, (though a faint one), like the echo of old stories long since revised or forgotten lurking just beneath the surface of modern day fables. The river was also life, and death, and that was another certainty. A flicker of leonine shapes moving silently in the green darkness accompanied this memory. And he remembered their coughing cries in the night.
And he could also remember another kind of heat, the heat of the forge, and the dry, biting smell of the iron as it was being bent and quenched, the sweat cutting rivulets through the grime and his muscles aching as the hammer rose and fell, rose and fell. Iron had been his friend then, had been his craft. He had been important, he knew that - his advice sought out by all. It didn’t matter that he was no more intelligent than most, and less so than some. The iron ruled then, and he ruled through the iron, even if his kingdom was a small and grubby one, and himself no Lord.
And he could remember the heat of the cloister and the feel of the rough woolen robes as he performed the steady, calming rituals and routines of the Church, the Latin rising and falling around him day after day, washing upon his life like the tide upon the land. The Church controlled everything: from birth to death you served it in one capacity or another, and the people ticked off the days of their lives in dutiful obedience to its ritual and rule. He remembered sweating upon a donkey on a wooded path, the animal old and placid with white hairs pushing out the gray at the muzzle as it carried him on its broad swayed back on his rounds to the village. He was not a ruler then, more a friend and confidant, and somehow this created problems because he was supposed to ensure obeisance and for some reason he did not. And now whenever he looks upon the stained glass windows of St. Katherine’s, his eyes see fire and pain flickering behind them, casting the Virgin Mother in a most hellish light.
His fists clench...
And he could remember heaps of soft, worn cloth, colored in pale blues and reds and whites, and the quiet murmur of the others as they sat and created gifts and dowries, sewing history into the large square quilts for those skilled enough to read it there. He could see hands toughened and gnarled by time, the flash of needles in the oil lamps, and those hands were his hands, but not his hands. A feeling of age, of monotony clung to this memory, but there were no regrets here, no remorse. It was a hard life, but it had it’s rewards, even if he couldn’t remember what those might have been.
His hands relax...
He could also remember diamonds and clubs and spades and hearts, patterns old and familiar as the patterns in the quilt, but these images are painted or printed on the backs of cards. The cards move with keen accuracy under his hands, well worn and familiar, their backs plain white and grubby or covered with patterns or pictures. The cards are dealt onto tables covered with green felt in various softly-lit, smoky rooms: whisk, whisk, whisk... Or perhaps on stained and battered wooden tables in hot and dusty ones, where the only drink was whiskey or tequila, and violence sat strapped to your leg or lay nestled in the small of your back. Iron again but far more complex than anything he had ever forged. In this place life wasn't worth a tinker's damn when it was all said and done. And there were horses... and heat.
All these memories, all these patterns, but never a name, never a face. The hands were always his hands, though they weren't the hands he had now. The voice always his own even if the words were always just out range of audibility and sometimes sounded a little too feminine. Sounds and smells and the tap tap tap of the keyboard as he navigated the web or wrote a script in PERL, and his hands were covered in flour when they weren't smelling of gun oil or gripping the controls of a plane or holding a martini just so as he (she?) laughed a throaty laugh. Maddening, oh so maddening to remember but not remember. To know but not know how you knew.
Ardent stood in the sky and stuffed slender, pianists hands into his pockets, his multi-colored gaze lost among the clouds. He sighed. The air was cool, and a breeze ruffled his obsidian hair and caused his battered green coat to flutter and snap around thin, jean-clad legs. A soft purple luminescence outlined the soles of his scuffed canvas sneakers, making it appear that he was standing on a ledge made visible only because of his contact upon it. His t-shirt was of the A&F variety, and he liked it mostly because it was soft.
Bars of light and shadow passed over him as the clouds moved around and above him, ponderous and silent and cold. He liked it up here, lost above the city. His memories were like those clouds - seemingly solid and large and recognizable, until you got up close and saw just how diffuse they really were, how... ghostly.
He shuddered at the hated word. But if the shoe fit you wore it.
And should you pull the camera of the eye back back back, why you'd see that there were patterns to the clouds themselves weren't there? Patterns and shapes everywhere you looked, oh yes, but patterns of what? And weren't the shapes always changing and open to interpretation? And ladies and gentleman, in the center of those fluffy patterns and shapes was the dot of Ardent, the "Dead Guy", the "Fractured Man", the "Ghost". Step right up! Plenty of seats left! Marvel at the Freak of Nature!!!
Below him lay the pattern of the streets and canals, the grids of neighborhoods and business parks that made up Hudson City, with little dots moving upon its roads and sidewalks like blood through the arteries and the veins of the human body. And most of the city was healthy, the blood flowing smoothly and well. But there were hints of disease down there, and maybe a cancerous growth or two as well, oh yes indeed. Proof that man imitated nature in all things? Maybe. But definitely proof of patterns. Ardent shut his eyes as a cloud washed over him, cool and moist and silent save the sound of the wind.
Tomorrow he made his official debut with the Conquistadors, and by default to the world. He would become a 'hero', using his 'powers' to help 'make the city a better and safer place'. It was something to do while he tried to work himself out at any rate, and it offered the opportunity to brush elbows with people from all walks of life - to create and spin a new pattern in a new life. To give him a sense of self, perhaps. Or maybe just to pull him out of his shell?
Perhaps.
He'd seen some of the others on the television, or read about them on the web or in newspapers. At times he was astonished at the amount of information that was available to the common man. At others, frustrated because there didn't seem to be enough to answer his questions. And there was that inner multiplicity, spinning his thoughts and feelings into loops and circles like fish upon a shoal. "The common man?" Who used that phrase anymore? “The common man”, “the little people”, “the peasant”. All words he had used before, and with some frequency too, despite their having no place in Today’s America.
Whatever that was...
He opened his eyes to pearly, diffuse light as the cloud moved around him, and he considered what he'd learned in the last month. Mrs. Carmichael at the Public Library, a large matronly woman with a pile of iron gray hair and a penchant for wearing pastel, knitted vests was now to be counted among Ardent's best friends; maybe it was because when he’d first met her he’d asked to see the card catalog, and she’d set down the pen she was holding and smiled as if he was a lost brother despite all his little... strangenesses.
His researching had revealed that some of his soon-to-be-team-mates had books written about them, while for others it was a first step onto a local but nonetheless public stage. And it seemed that everyone had a website or two, full of blog entries and speculation, comments and criticism. Fanboys and Girls across the city had begun these sites, and what he found most amusing were the 'sightings', where people would share that "OMG I saw so-and-so flying-leaping-running over near the Starbucks/Albertsons/at-the-mall, and he/she was just so hawt/looking like shit/didn't even know I was there!!!". But that's what people always did as they sought to understand, or maybe they just wanted to make themselves seem connected to something much bigger than they were.
People always seemed to want to be connected to greatness.
Or infamy.
For at least one other in the group, this would be a return of sorts. Ardent's thin lips twisted into a wry smile as he thought about the man called "Soldier Boy": now there was a guy with a whole lot of water under the old bridge, that was for sure. Interviews, newspaper articles and websites, a thirty year career of saving the world that had been put on hold for reasons that were constantly debated and argued over.
He was a drunk.
Unless he was a hero.
Unless he was a patriot, or a womanizer, or a role model for young boys everywhere or a God-damned freak. Whatever he was, he’d made the news and he'd saved countless lives and maybe even some countries, and now he was here, in Hudson City. Interesting.
And how might Ardent fit into this new life with these famous, (and infamous), people? Well, we’d just have to see about that kiddies, but if nothing else this would give him a refuge of sorts from the New Age nutbags and the ghost hunters and gothies. After all, better a 'superhero' than the "Dead Guy", right?
Yeah... yeah it was. Far below, he could barely make out the gleaming new building that housed DiSantiagoPharmaceuticals - his new employers - and he stared at it long and hard.
The DiSantiago family had been quite receptive to him, even eager. They would do what they could to help him understand his condition, find his past, and he in turn would provide them with another hero for their stable, another prize thoroughbred wearing the family colors to help clean up this dirty city.
Often he wondered what lay behind their perfect smiles and bright eyes, what the pattern of their lives were really like beneath the money. Ardent had come to think of them not as individuals, but as a collective - a beautiful, wealthy force moving through history, laying down the foundations of order and culture and commerce wherever they went, while behind them trailed a shadow of whispers and suspicion and envy. His research into his future employers had thrilled Mrs. Carmichael, and she’d provided him with no end of rumors and gossip surrounding the clan, her eyes bright behind her reading glasses, a spot of color rising in each pale cheek while she spoke of trysts and affairs and dirty business deals (allegedly).
That the Family had climbed to their dazzling heights bloodlessly was naivety - you didn't get that rich without bloodying a few daggers or burning a few buildings, he agreed with Mrs. Carmichael there. But they'd covered such tracks as needed covering well enough, and if the occasional scandal popped up now and again it didn't seem to hold them back. After all, that's what happened with the jet-set, right? "Doctrina, non veste; conversatione, non habita; mente puritate, non cultu..." He smirked again.
He knew he'd met such as them before, but as always could not say exactly where or when. Images of the Church always surfaced and tried to associate themselves with thoughts of the DiSantiago’s. But he didn’t trust them - either the Church or the DiSantiago’s really, and that seemed to make sense. He wondered why here though? Why now? What did Hudson City offer such an entity as the DiSantiago family? And why were they being so helpful to him personally? It’s not like they claimed to know any more about him than the press did (aside from a meticulous and comprehensive background check, and please sir, if you would, urinate in this cup for us...).
Ardent had been... err... alive? Incarnate? Whatever the lingo, he'd been up and running about as whatever-Ardent-was-today for roughly a year now, ever since he opened his eyes in that bloody hospital bed and peered up at a bevy of drop-jawed nurses and a doctor, holding a bloody scalpel. The doctor had whispered "Holy shit!" as his patient sat up and coughed up blood. It had been very bloody, boys and girls. Definitely not PG-13.
These had been his first memories of Hudson City, the first words he had heard, and as the medical team that had been trying to save his life only moments before hurriedly backed away from him, he'd croaked out "Ar...dent...", or something like that at any rate, and it was Happy Birthday to me, we've got a name! Is that your name sir? Sir?
Doctor Slater had said later, once he'd had a chance to calm down and drink some strong coffee, that Ardent's body had just started healing right in front of them, rents and tears closing up smoothly and neat as you please, while a purplish sort of misty light had risen from the body like steam. The good Doctor, (and later the police), informed him that he'd been found lying near-dead in an abandoned building in Freetown, his body bearing nearly a dozen stab wounds, his face sliced, bruised and unrecognizable, his arms and legs broken.
A gun had been lying nearby, but nobody knew who had owned it (serial number filed off, prints = none). There had been no ID, no wallet or money or keys in his jeans pockets. No cell phone. He'd been identified as a John Doe, and nobody knew who had made the 911 call that brought him help that day. The recording of it had become corrupted, somehow. Convenient, that.
Who are you, the police and the doctors and the social workers had asked him about a million times.
Good question, he'd replied every time. But he spoke Latin, and he knew how to work iron, and could quilt, and fly a plane, and program in Java, and he could recite Mass and remember jungles and knew how to behave in polite company... and when he moved he made no noise, and he could walk through walls and didn’t breathe and and and...
He'd been trying to figure out who he was ever since. New name, new face, superpowers... the whole cliché nicely packaged and presented to the world. But somewhere there were answers, and somehow he'd find them out. Maybe this just happened, or maybe it was done to him intentionally. But ‘maybe’ was like a yippy little lap dog, which was full of sound and fury, but signified nothing. He wanted some definite, extra large, with a side of facts.
His gaze shifted, taking in those neighborhoods that he could see from his current elevation, and he wondered how they would all soon be changed. It was inevitable, wasn't it? You couldn't throw in a dozen or so 'superheros' into the mix and not expect there to be a huge ripple effect, now could you? Did they know what they were getting, the citizens of Hudson City? Did anyone? Did he? He’d bet money (if he had any) that the DiSantiago’s did.
Light broke upon him as the cloud, continuing upon its way, left him standing once more in daylight. He was beaded with condensation, sparkling in the air like a jewel as the sunlight shimmered and refracted through the drops of moisture that covered him. He didn't seem to notice, and began to walk down out of the clouds and toward the city, each silent footstep accompanied by it's ghostly pulse of soft purple light.
"TANSTAAFL," Ardent whispered, as he walked down into his future. And somehow, he just knew a truer thing had never been said.
Ardent's main goal is to find out who he once was, and what he now is. He sees the opportunity to work with the Conquistadors as a good way to burn some time while he does this, with the side benefit being that by exercising his powers in a visible way, someone who once knew him might come forward and say "hey, I know that guy!".
Ardent is very patient and very practical, and doesn't have time for hysterics or nonsense. He'll obey the law, sign the forms, be the good little hero in all things - it's just easier that way. One of the funniest things about him is that while he's the stereotypical "undead/ghost guy" from a powers perspective, he doesn't believe in them himself. There's got to be a logical explanation for spooky stuff - mankind just hasn't advanced enough mentally and technologically to figure it all out is the way he sees it.
Ardent is a true seeker of knowledge in all things, and will follow a clue or a thought all the way to the ends of the earth if need be in order to get resolution or understanding.
One of the first things people notice is that his eyes are constantly changing color. They don't glow or anything, nor do they take on unusual or inhuman hues - they just slowly fade from blue to brown to green to hazel to... you get the picture. One of the second things people notice (after spending any amount of time with him) are his speech patterns. He'll jump from normal guy, to stern matron, to socialite, to priest or to geek as the situation merits. His voice doesn't necessarily change, but his word choice becomes different as does inflection. And he'll sometimes say things that would have been perfectly acceptable 10 or 100 or 1000 years ago, but really aren't in vogue today.
At the start of the campaign, he's got one true friend: the librarian, Mrs. Carmichael. They share a love of history and chocolate, in equal measure. She could care less that he's kind of spooky - he's smart and good-looking and seems to appreciate her mind, and has a thirst for knowledge that's refreshing in todays Cliffs Notes age. What she (and really he) doesn't realize is that once Ardent really WAS an old woman, so he understands where she's coming from and can relate.
That's the funny thing about him, he seems to be able to relate to people on their own level very easily, and treats everyone as friendly and amiable until they prove themselves not to be. This could be because he IS a group organism of sorts, and if you can keep all the voices in your own head from fighting, you probably can do pretty well with the ones outside of it.
Ardent's dislikes include the press (who continuously label him as an undead curiosity) and psychics and mediums, who always get angry at him for 'disrupting the psychic vibrations' wherever he goes. He also has a dislike of the Church, and organized religion in general. Something 'happened' to him, or at least he thinks it did, a long time ago, and whatever that something was it was very unpleasant and may have even caused his death - and the Church was behind it all.
Maybe...
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Blue/Brown/Green/Gray/Hazel - ever shifting
Height: 5' 11
Weight: 170
Ardent is a slender young man in his early twenties, with obsidian black hair and eyes that constantly change from one color to the next. He prefers to wear loose fitting shirts and hoodies, (sometimes over a well-worn t-shirt), jeans and tennis shoes. On occasion he'll be seen in a weathered old green trench coat as well, despite the weather or temperature.
He is probably the most outgoing person you'll ever meet - not cheery or bubbly necessarily, but he'll talk to anyone at any time, be it the stranger he just passed on the sidewalk, or the hooker as she leans into the car window to turn a trick (usually to ask directions in the latter case, which has earned him not much good will in the red light districts of the city - and yes, he does it on purpose). And he'll talk to everyone as if he's known them forever.
He moves with a purpose, no matter what errand he's about, and people often have to tell him to slow down if their stride isn't long enough.
Ardent possesses powers that seem to mimic the fictional and/or stereotypical abilities of ghostly, or undead beings. He can pass through most objects effortlessly, with the exceptions being intense magnetic energy fields and things made of iron. As he passes through an object (or as an object passes through him) his body swirls and ripples with a purplish, smoke-like effect.
He is able to walk on air, doesn't seem to have to breathe anymore, and rarely sleeps or eats. He is unaffected by extremes in temperature, and has the ability to generate intense cold at a distance. He can also summon forth a putrid green or pale purple light, which in appearance mirrors reports of 'ghostlights' seen by travelers in bogs or marshes. Not that he needs such a thing, as he now can see perfectly well in the dark.
Ardent moves without making a sound, and also is transparent to the Ultraviolet spectrum. Again, why this is he does not know. It is also widely speculated, based upon his origins, that he can come back from the dead.
His last major known ability is the generation of a 'poltergeist field' - he can move objects about with a thought, and do so invisibly. The strength of this field so far seems to be that of a normal man, and it is unknown if it will ever increase.
Ardent will use his powers as he best sees fit for each situation. He's not a glory hound, and isn't flashy. He'll skulk around the scene, saving people from burning wreckage or plucking guns out of bad guys hands one-by-one, and let his team mates focus on taking on the supers if he can. He watches and waits for his opportunity to do the most good in any situation, and never, ever, ever gets all hysterical. Nor does he let himself get baited by taunts. If things are really bad, he'll run away to fight another day if that's what the situation merits. But he'll never leave anyone in harms way if he can avoid doing so.
He's respectful of property, but will use the environment to his advantage if need be. Things are ultimately replaceable, while lives rarely are (himself being a possible contradiction to that rule). He's a guerrilla fighter, not a front line kind of guy, and because he's totally silent until he speaks, he'll use that to his advantage.
Ardent is strongly affected by things that affect ghostly beings - strong magnetic fields (think the little boxes in Ghostbusters), Iron (which is what most magnets are made of) and various energy fields that extend out from the EM spectrum.
At present, Ardent's only supporting cast member is Mrs. Olivia Carmichael, Chief Librarian for the HC Public Library.
Knowledge of Other Characters:
At the start of the game, Ardent's only knowledge of the other characters is what he can glean through online research, or through searching the stacks in the library. He has not yet physically met any of the others (that he knows about).
...........
1. To make this Conquistadors thing work
2. Discover his own past
3. Do Some Good
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Main | The Story | Who's Who | Hudson City | The World | Base & Toys | The Cast
