The Wanting

Real Name: Dr. Hector Wallen
Villain Name: The Wanting
Title:
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Race: Cuban
Hair: Grey
Eyes: Dull Green
Height: 6,1
Weight: 145
Blood type: B-


The last 9 years have not been kind to Dr. Wallen. Before the accident, he was a rather handsome man, with a bright dream. and a brighter smile. He easily could have been a lady's man if his passions for learning didn't occupy his time. Since the accident, he has become a husk of his former self. His once statuesque body stands crooked and bent in a constant hunch. His defined muscles have long since faded, leaving only the outlines of his ribs. Sunken eyes devoid of any life stare vacantly at nothing. For a man approaching his 40s, he easily looks to be in his late 60s.

In his alternate identity as The Wanting, his appearance is constantly changing as he puppets his bodies. Whether it be man, woman, child. The only constant is the masks the collective host wear. Each body wears one of these simple white masks, stylized after the comedy and tragic masks seen in many theaters. Every mask shows a different static expression of human emotion. Fear, joy, terror, love, sadness, etc. The masks are secured with 3 leather straps fixated at the back of their head.


Dr. Wallen is a broken man. Haunted by the failures of his attempts to help the world, and all the effort fix his soul. He used to think that there would always be a brighter tomorrow as long as you treated others well and tried your best. Now, he sees the world as a cold and uncaring place. After all, no one bothered to visit him after the accident, no one bothered to help him, no one asked him how he felt.

Having lost the ability to feel emotions, his ability to express himself has gradually declined over the years. His smile is too wide, and his laugh is too empty, Every emotion he shows seems forced.  With the loss of his ability to feel, also came the loss of his empathy for others. He knows that what he is doing is horrible, but he just can't seem to care.

The wooden chair creaked as John Decker regained consciousness. His head throbbed and his eyes were pierced by the cheap fluorescent light fixture hanging from the ceiling. He tried to reach up and massage his growing headache but his arms were bound by rope. Looking around the room he saw a vacant room save for his chair, a door, and the peeling faded wallpaper.  Minutes past as he tried in vain to break out of his bindings, but whoever tied these knots knew what they were doing. He was considering trying to tip the chair over to break it when he heard the door open.

Standing in the doorway was a figure wrapped in gauze and bandaging, everything about him was covered save for his piercing blue eyes behind a stark white mask fixed in a snarl. The only article of clothing he wore was a black capelet reaching down to his elbows.

“You’ve finally woken up. I was beginning to think that blow to the head was too much. I’m glad to see otherwise.” The masked man spoke in a monotone and disinterested voice that made John feel like the figure was talking to the wall rather than him.

“Whe-where am I?” His throat was sore and raw.

The figure waved his hand dismissively. “Nowhere important, at least not anymore. What is important is why you are here, detective. You might have thought you were being covert in your investigation and you’d be correct. I applaud your effort and had I been anyone else, well, you wouldn’t find yourself here. I’m not easily fooled, detective

A cold sweat overtook Detective Decker as his concussed mind figured out who the masked man was. Standing in front of him was the Miami Killer. His murders have been all over the news for the last few months. Each body found was more unrecognizable than the last and there was no connection between the victims. Men, women, old and young.

“You’re...him, the Miami Killer.” Decker began to subconsciously struggle with his bindings.

The killer gave a soft clap. “Good, good. It just wouldn’t do if you didn't know who I was given all the effort it took to get you here. I must say, you are awfully distracted by that barista you flirt with, didn’t even notice something was put in your coffee.”

Decker grunted as he struggled with his chair to no avail. “Why am I here? There are hundreds of others looking for you! Why me?”

He began to think the killer wasn’t listening as he just stood there in rigid silence for several moments before suddenly animated like a statue come to life. “Because only you were on the right track. Out of all those hundreds, only you managed to find a lead, and it stops here.”

A lead? He tried to think over the mountains of paperwork and evidence he sifted through the last few weeks and only brought up more pain from his headache. He pushed through the pain as the answer could very well save his life.

“You’re working with the Orlando Cleaner and the Alabama Strangler. You’re not just a serial killer, you’re a terrorist group…”

“Wrong. You have the right idea but there is no one else but me. The Greenside Stabber, Hilltop Sniper, even the ones you mentioned, I am all of them. There is no one else but me.”

None of this made sense to Decker, concussion or not. How can one man operate in several states at the same time? Some killings took place within mere hours of each other, it just isn’t possible to move around that quickly...Unless he had superpowers. Teleporting? Doubtful, every killer had a different description, some old, some young, male, female. Hardly anything connected these killers save for them all appearing within the last few months of each other.

“So you’re what, some kind of duplicator, you make copies of yourself?”

“Again, wrong but close. Tell me, detective, do you believe you have a soul?”

A long moment passed as the two stared at each other.

“What does that have to do with anything?” The longer the conversation went on the more frustrating and confusing it became. Hardly anything the killer said made sense. He wasn’t even sure why the killer was bothering to talk given how he was only telling him he was close but wrong.

“Everything. It has to do with everything….” The masked man began pacing the room. “Isn’t it funny how there are people who can fly, use magic, and resurrect the dead, and yet, there are still people who don’t believe in the soul.  I'm sure you’ve heard about the self-proclaimed gods and their afterlives. You may not think you have a soul, but you do and for that I despise you.”

Detective Decker shifted uncomfortably as the killer’s eyes seemed to burn right through him, if there was such a thing as a soul then he must be staring right at it. An overwhelming sense of dread bore down on him behind those eyes and he knew that unless some superhero came to save him, there would be no hope for him. He had to keep this madman talking for as long as possible.

“Why? Why would you hate me for having a soul, wouldn’t you have one?”

The man tilted his head back and gazed up at the leaking roof aimlessly.

“If only…If only...If only it was that simple. I suppose the best way to explain is to start from the beginning of well, all this.” He motioned to the mask he wore.

“What would you do if you could remember everything? Everyone you meet, everything you read, every action you did, remembered, forever. Would you still be willing to forgive someone for hurting you when the pain of betrayal will always be fresh on your mind? I am cursed with not being able to forgive and forget. You’re probably thinking I had a bad childhood that made me resentful, but my parents were loving people. Despite my ‘gift’  I wanted to help fix this harsh world. Tell me, have you heard of Dr. Hector Wallen?”

Decker vaguely remembered a Dr.Wallen. He was some sort of up and coming scientist with big inventions and even bigger ambitions. He used to be in the public eye about 10 years ago but just vanished one day. “You’re Wallen?”

“72 inventions. 72 inventions I made to help the world. Devices to help infants breathe,  medicine to help with growing pains, turning dozens of vaccine shots into ointments so no kid would have to be afraid of the doctor. I’ve done so much to help and not a single person cared about me at the end. I was about to solve the energy crisis. I was so close, had a working prototype and everything.” A long silence passed.

“What happened?”

“I was betrayed. I was going to change the world and the oil industry could not have that. They wouldn’t be able to line their pockets if we no longer needed oil. They tried for years to halt my project, multiple threats of lawsuits, they even trashed my lab a few times, but they couldn’t stop me entirely, everything I did was above board and legal. So they tried to kill me instead. They paid one of my assistance to sabotage my invention and the activation was catastrophic, to say the least.  My device was supposed to channel energy from a dimension of pure energy. It was turned into a bomb instead. Next thing I knew I was in the hospital clinging to life. By the time I recovered my project was deemed too dangerous to fund and I was laughed at by my peers for having an unfeasible dream.”

The masked man pulled out a knife and slit his hand open, letting the blood pool on the floor.

“The body is such an amazing thing. This injury for instance.” He held up his bloody hand. “All I need is some stitching and bandages. Give or take a few weeks to a month and it will be as if it never happened, save for the scar. We can break bones, tear a muscle, lose limbs, and still come back from it. I should have died from the bomb, but I pulled through, despite what the doctors thought. After weeks of rehab, they gave me a clean bill of health and sent me on my way. It was only when the medication wore off that I realized how broken I was. My body was fine, but my soul wasn’t, Detective. The energy the device was channeling wasn’t supposed to be that concentrated. There was still so much to learn in regards to the energy itself. Turns out energy in the purest form can affect the very soul. My bones may heal and my skin can be scarred over,  but my soul has forever torn apart.”

“Imagine no longer being able to feel anything. No warmth, no pain, no love. Every moment of every day is muted as you cannot experience anything new. Now imagine if you could still perfectly remember what it used to be like to feel, knowing you will never get that feeling again. I can’t even mourn my loss of self as I can’t even feel sadness over it. I can only feel a hollow numbness over what was. All those self-proclaimed gods and magical beings I mentioned? Not a single one of them had answers for me. I may very well be the only person to have a broken soul.”

Dr. Wallen stumbled a bit as the blood loss was starting to affect him.

“When confronted with the unknown, scientists work to explain it, so I did what even the ‘gods’ themselves didn’t have an answer for. I looked for a way to heal the soul...and found nothing. A decade of work and all I have to show for it is that the soul is a metaphysical force created by means outside anything we know.  We can create life, and end it, but no one knows where the soul begins on a conceptual level. This is beyon- beyond my meansss of skil-skill. There i-”

Dr. Wallen collapsed in a pool of his blood and twitched for a few long moments before Decker saw the once good doctor give his last strained breath.  The room was silent as Decker stared in disbelief that someone could be so far gone that they took their own life without a single thought. He was about to topple his chair to reach for the discarded knife when he heard footsteps.

A lithe girl, probably no older than 12 stood in the doorway, she wore torn-up jeans and a grey hoodie, her face was hidden behind a smiling white mask. Her dull eyes gazed over the room, lingering on the blood pooling around Dr. Wallen’s corpse. She knelt next to the body tracing a happy face in the blood with her finger, giving a soft giggle as the smile faded away. Sighing she grabbed the knife and stood, unconcerned that she was wiping blood on herself. It was only then, that she finally seemed to realize Decker was in the room.

“Well then, it looks like I got caught up in the moment there.” She gave a hollow laugh. “Didn’t even realize I cut an artery there...That's the price to pay for making a point I suppose.”

“What in the fuck?” Detective Decker exclaimed. None of this made any sense to him. Who the fuck was this child, and why did she act like she was the now-dead Dr. Wallen? His head was starting to hurt.

“Look, I don’t know what kind of weird fucking cult you’re running here, but I’m pretty fucking tired of dealing with this shit. I know nothing except you’re all nuts, so either just let me go or kill me already!

The child laughed. Her eyes lit up as she held her side and laughed, laughed for minutes while the detective sat there, annoyed. Finally, with a long sigh, she stopped her mad bout of laughter.
“A cult? I expected better from you Detective, after all, you were good enough to find yourself here. But no, as I said before, I am the only one, just me.” She pointed to the corpse.
“That may no longer be me, but for a time, I was him...Not anymore with him being dead.”

The girl’s phone buzzed and she frowned behind her smiling mask shaking her head. “It looks like our time together is running short. You’d think being multiple people would give you more free time. Turns out it’s just more things to manage.” Decker fidgeted as the girl walked closer to him, knife in hand. “I don’t often get the chance to be myself with someone, have to keep appearances, you know? Despite your outburst you’ve been a good company so I’ll not only will I make it quick, but I’ll share my little secret.” She caressed the detective’s cheek leaving a smear of blood.

“I never could figure out where a soul begins, whether it exists before life or after, but I found out how to make people without souls. They are a far cry from the real thing since they don’t have any free will or thoughts of their own. It’s more accurate to think of them like sacks of meat than a person. It took years of various programming chips and training to get them to pass as a thinking person, but the really interesting thing is that like putting on a coat I can become them. Whether it’s due to my soul being ripped apart or them never having a soul, I’m not quite sure. Regardless, I can be almost anyone. The old man in the cafe, the woman walking her dog, the attractive barista serving you coffee...Now don’t confuse this with those hive mind duplicators out there. I can only be one of my bodies at a time, hence the programming chips.

The girl slowly brought up the knife to Decker’s neck.

“Before I do this, I want you to understand why I'm doing all this. Why I’m killing people instead of researching more. The reason is that I have given up on a cure. I have spent the better part of a decade and millions trying to find one. I have PHDs in just about every field of science and not even I, with all my talents, could find one. A cure doesn’t exist and I would be a fool for trying further but that doesn’t mean there are other solutions.”

The girl pressed the knife into Detective Decker’s throat and held him tightly as he spasmed.

“I am a good person. All I’ve ever done was to help others because I wanted to. Surely with all my inventions, all my efforts to help children, I must be a good person at heart. So it stands to reason that committing evil will go around my moral core. Surely, surely doing something so against my core will make me feel remorse. After All, killing is wrong, and I am a good person.

The girl stared longingly as Decker’s struggle weakened and the blood slowed to a trickle.

“Still, even now, staring at your corpse...I feel nothing. I was hoping if you knew me, that this time would be different, but I still feel nothing.”

For a very long time, she stared at the room. The peeling wallpaper, the bodies, red-stained floor. The only sound was the soft patter of her feet as she stepped through the blood. Closing the door she spoke, just above a whisper, “I need to go bigger.”


Perfect Memory: The Wanting remembers every experience he has ever had, down to the smallest details such as physical sensations, and emotions he felt at the time. He can recall the entirety of his life in absolute clarity, even when he was still in his mother's womb. While this power in itself doesn't grant him a genius intellect, it does allow him to learn at an incredible rate as he only has to understand the material, or skill once. Over the decades The Wanting has grown his skills to the extend that he is a master in every area of applied science and natural science. Furthermore, he is highly skilled in combat, having mastered various forms of hand-to-hand combat and weaponry ranging from more archaic weapons such as sword and bows, to the more modern assault rifles, and helicopter piloting.  

Soul Transfer: After nearly 10 years of experimentation and the unique properties of his torn soul, The Wanting has developed a means to transfer his soul from his body to any of the soulless bodies that make up his Host. Using this power, he leaves his current body behind, and his soul travels to his chosen target. Once he leaves his body, he doesn't have any control beyond choosing one of his bodies until he reaches his next body.

Magical Entrapment: A sufficiently powerful binding circle will stop The Wanting from sending his soul outside his currently trapped body. Any magical ritual or spell designed to contain demons, ghosts, and the like, will also affect him.

Reckless Abandon: The Wanting's need to feel something again outweighs any concern he has for his safety. He is willing to risk life and limb for even the slightest chance of feeling anything. If he hasn't encountered a particular type of experience yet, whether it be a new power he is facing, or weapon, he will give in to his desires and willingly throw himself into harm's way. While he isn't concerned about his body's survival, he is less inclined to risk himself if he doesn't have a spare body to jump to.

A Clear Mind: To body-hop The Wanting needs to concentrate and focus on his chosen body. Hindering his ability to properly focus will stop him from being able to switch bodies. Some examples of ways to hinder him would be powers that affect the mind, and substances that affect the brain such as alcohol and recreational drugs. The last two are particularly effective as The Wanting will not feel the rush and will only realize he's been drugged when the effects are already underway.

Since he inhabits the bodies of his minions he uses their equipment and weaponry. The collective host is equipped with weaponry and equipment comparable to the military. Assault rifles, grenades, etc.


The Crowd

The Wanting is incapable of feeling anything. Emotions, physical sensations, or anything else.