Revenant

Jeremy Chambers isn't precisely well known, but there's always talk in the rougher parts of NYC that if you need a problem solved -- a serious problem -- there's a guy at the Rusty Nail who solves them. Usually by beating them senseless.

Background
Nobody talks publicly about the Chambers family, and the last son of it. But there are always whispers, spoken behind locked doors. Voices hushed as they wonder how tragedy could have come so cruelly.

Jeremy seemed perfectly normal, growing up. A bright young man, a bright future, one of promise. A well-off family, a good home... all betrayed by a slumbering genetic change about to awaken. When Jeremy was seventeen, something shifted... and all hell broke loose.

He awoke in a cold sweat, limbs shaking. Sick, and in pain. Jeremy staggered from his room, only to collapse in the hall, found by his parents a moment later. An ambulance was called, as he slipped into unconsciousness -- and a private hell. For the next two weeks his body twisted and warped, a latent X-gene activating to full strength and perhaps not quite working right. For the change was agonizing -- Jermey had to be restrained in his hospital bed as his flesh tightened and sank on his frame, his hair turned gray, and his face warped into a mockery of humanity. Claws grew and retracted, as his eyes drowned into pits of glowing crimson like radioactive blood.

His parents were devastated, as they brought their traumatized, twisted son home. Perhaps if his mutation had been purely internal it would not have been so stressful -- but no one could mistake Jeremy for anything other than a monster now. The mistake they made was in assuming Jeremy could not hear the heated arguments, his mother trying to convince his father that they should look into therapy, his father insisting they should send him away before he caused trouble. Jeremy settled the issue by breaking free of his restraints, and vanishing from the place he had called home.

In truth, Jeremy had not fully recovered. His mind was disjointed, his memories in tatters as he somehow wandered like a starving ghost along the roads. He left something of a tale behind him as he shambled into New York City -- a ghastly creature that did not take kindly to people, but tolerated them if they acted peaceably.

How long Jeremy existed in a shadow state, a hideous street-person, even he can't say. A few years, perhaps. But gradually his mind and soul knitted back together into coherence, and with focus came a desire for purpose. It started with thugs and lowlifes being snatched away as they attempted to ply a criminal trade, beaten senseless. Then a drug dealer was found stripped down to his skivvies, his wares dumped into a toilet and his money gone. Something was hunting urban predators and taking a cruel delight in humiliating them. With every heroic (well, reasonably heroic) act, Jeremy seemed to pull himself together a little more.

He'd gathered enough cash to actually dress himself, clean himself up, and had hired on as a bouncer at a nasty little bar called the Rusty Nail. When the owner found his son had fallen in with a bad crowd -- a dangerous crowd -- Jeremy repaid him by getting his son loose (through the simple expedient of beating every other member of the gang into the ground). Now Jeremy acts as a 'problem solver'. He doesn't think of himself as a hero, or a mercenary. Just someone who solves the problems that afflict people nowadays.

Personality
Nobody talks publicly about the Chambers family, and the last son of it. But there are always whispers, spoken behind locked doors. Voices hushed as they wonder how tragedy could have come so cruelly.

Jeremy seemed perfectly normal, growing up. A bright young man, a bright future, one of promise. A well-off family, a good home... all betrayed by a slumbering genetic change about to awaken. When Jeremy was seventeen, something shifted... and all hell broke loose.

He awoke in a cold sweat, limbs shaking. Sick, and in pain. Jeremy staggered from his room, only to collapse in the hall, found by his parents a moment later. An ambulance was called, as he slipped into unconsciousness -- and a private hell. For the next two weeks his body twisted and warped, a latent X-gene activating to full strength and perhaps not quite working right. For the change was agonizing -- Jermey had to be restrained in his hospital bed as his flesh tightened and sank on his frame, his hair turned gray, and his face warped into a mockery of humanity. Claws grew and retracted, as his eyes drowned into pits of glowing crimson like radioactive blood.

His parents were devastated, as they brought their traumatized, twisted son home. Perhaps if his mutation had been purely internal it would not have been so stressful -- but no one could mistake Jeremy for anything other than a monster now. The mistake they made was in assuming Jeremy could not hear the heated arguments, his mother trying to convince his father that they should look into therapy, his father insisting they should send him away before he caused trouble. Jeremy settled the issue by breaking free of his restraints, and vanishing from the place he had called home.

In truth, Jeremy had not fully recovered. His mind was disjointed, his memories in tatters as he somehow wandered like a starving ghost along the roads. He left something of a tale behind him as he shambled into New York City -- a ghastly creature that did not take kindly to people, but tolerated them if they acted peaceably.

How long Jeremy existed in a shadow state, a hideous street-person, even he can't say. A few years, perhaps. But gradually his mind and soul knitted back together into coherence, and with focus came a desire for purpose. It started with thugs and lowlifes being snatched away as they attempted to ply a criminal trade, beaten senseless. Then a drug dealer was found stripped down to his skivvies, his wares dumped into a toilet and his money gone. Something was hunting urban predators and taking a cruel delight in humiliating them. With every heroic (well, reasonably heroic) act, Jeremy seemed to pull himself together a little more.

He'd gathered enough cash to actually dress himself, clean himself up, and had hired on as a bouncer at a nasty little bar called the Rusty Nail. When the owner found his son had fallen in with a bad crowd -- a dangerous crowd -- Jeremy repaid him by getting his son loose (through the simple expedient of beating every other member of the gang into the ground). Now Jeremy acts as a 'problem solver'. He doesn't think of himself as a hero, or a mercenary. Just someone who solves the problems that afflict people nowadays.