William Prescott Jones

[Sonji Ishaku]

The above image is the legal property of Saharaam.

Name: William Prescott Jones
Age: 17
NickName: Will or David
Powers: William’s primary ability is the manipulation of stone. More recently he has been developing the ability to, upon touching an object, absorb the properties of that object. He retains complete sentience and normal movement while in this form. He can, at any point, return to his normal state.
Personality: Will is a very calm guy, normally. But he’s very proud and has a strong sense of honor. He sculpts stone as a hobby. He tries hard to please people and make them happy. He is a moderately avid reader, especially around philosophy and ethics. He can sometimes be cocky, overbearing, and playful.
Past (optional):
Will Jones, born William Prescott Jones to Martha June Jones, didn’t know his birth father. It wasn’t until recent years that he learned that his father was a young, smooth-talking Italian conman who had wooed his mother in the summer after she had graduated from high school, and then he disappeared without a trace.
Will was born in the home of his mother’s uncle, who himself had never been wed, but was very close to Martha. She was there because, having discovered she was pregnant, her parents disowned her and forced her from their home.
Will’s great uncle, Jeremy “Prescott” Meyers, was a disk-jockey for a popular radio station in Chicago. He wasn’t particularly wealthy, but he made enough to take care of eighten-year-old Martha and her new-born baby. He was a kind, fast talking man, who had a brilliant sense of humor. He could make anyone laugh if he wanted to. Prescott was what people called him, most of the time. It was some inside joke from his childhood that just stuck.
Martha stayed at home as a full-time mother until Will was ten, at which point she took on a part-time job in the evenings, from six to midnight almost every night. This was largely due to Prescott, who, by then was in his late sixties, was starting to have a decline in his career, with newer and younger disk-jockeys arriving on the scene. Up to this point, Will had always been a very obedient child, doing whatever it was that his mother asked him. He often played with a boy and girl who lived in his neighborhood, Henry Jacobs and Hannah Somner. They were both just about his age and the three of them were very close.
Things started changing after his mother took on her part-time job. Dinner would be at five, and then his mother would put him to bed and head off to her job. But he never stayed in bed. Henry, whose older brother ran with a gang named The Blind Pigs, had been invited to join and shortly invited Will to join as well. He would usually run with them from about six to eleven, then get home and in bed before his mother got home.
Will’s powers had begun developing from around the age of seven. He found that he could mold stones as if they were clay, quickly learning how to do it without even having to touch it. He learned that if he imagined the stone flying very fast when he threw it, it would go very fast. He learned that it worked with other things, too; like clay, brick, cement, asphalt, marble, anything that was very similar to stone, it seemed. He could reach over and scoop a chunk of brick from the side of a building as if it were peanut butter from a jar. He didn’t show people these abilities, though, except for Hannah. She was the only one who knew about it. He did, however, use his ability to throw stones so well. This got him the nickname David after he killed a large, eighteen year old man from another gang at a good thirty paces. He was eleven then.
This continued until he was fourteen. In those four years he had killed well over a dozen men himself, as well as having seen plenty of his friends die in the process. He had drifted away from Hannah, who had been working hard in her schooling and home-life. He was still best friends with Henry, whose brother had died in a gang battle when Will was thirteen. They always ran together, Will using throwing stones and stone bats that he’d made, Henry using a long steel chain. Henry was among the best at fighting with chains. It was during a particularly large and brutal gang battle that occurred in the summer that everything went wrong.
There were twenty members from the Blind Pigs and eighteen from the Quality Street gang. Now, normally how fights work is that the two sides fight until one to three people die or become badly wounded, then both sides run away before the cops arrive. It was about dealing one blow at a time, mostly for show. But this particular fight had been sparked by a member of the Quality Street killing a member from the Blind Pigs in cold blood, and in Blind Pig territory. At that time, this was a downright one of the most brutal offenses that someone could commit. Will usually avoided those confrontations, as usually only the oldest members of a gang would participate. But the man killed was Henry’s older brother, so both of them joined the fight that day. Will killed three people and had been cut across his left arm with a straight-edged razor and nearly had his leg broken by a man with a baseball bat during the fight. But it didn’t end right. At least half the people from each side had died before the cops arrived. No one had remembered the police, having been too caught up in revenge. As the sirens blared from just nearby, the two sides scattered, but Will couldn’t run, due to his leg. He was caught by the police, along with four others, and brought to court. He was sentenced to four years at a corrective-youth-facility for alleged manslaughter. He was at that point relieved about two things: the first was that he was only fourteen. If he had been over sixteen, like the other boys, he would have served eight years at a state penitentiary. The second was that Henry hadn’t been caught. He got away.
The cut down his arm never quite healed right, leaving a gnarled scar like the trunk of a tree going from the top of his forearm down to his wrist. His leg healed perfectly well, though.
Both Martha and Prescott had spoken on Will’s behalf at the hearing, but it was to no avail. They were forced to say goodbye to him, with very limited visitation rights. In the correction facility, which was called the Richard Francis Correctional Facility for Young People, he met a nice few people who were way more fucked up than himself. Some had tortured and raped multiple individuals, and most were only about his age. During his time there he had gotten into numerous fist-fights, especially with members from the Quality Street. Each time, he’d be pulled away by a couple of guards and beaten with a wooden stick that had a thin layer of cotton wrapped around it. The others likely had the same treatment. They thought it would weaken us, but it just made us ignorant of the pain.
Will did make some friends, though. Most notably a young woman, fourteen years old when he got there, who’d been there for four years prior and had four more to go before being sent to an advanced adult facility. Her name was Andra Hilde, and by the time she was ten had allegedly killed an excessive of seventy people. She had very different means for the murders, some having slit throats, other bludgeoned to death, others still burned alive. She was said to be the pinnacle of psychopathy and was William’s first love.
They first met after a particularly brutal beating, when he walked into the courtyard while trying to disguise a limp. She was sitting alone at a bench, reading a book by Ayn Rand. That’s something that most people picked up inside that place; reading helped to keep one at least moderately amused. As he passed she spoke to him, without looking up from her book. “He’s dead. The other boy, that is. After you beat him, they beat him some more. And now he’s dead.”
“Serves that bastard right,” said William, spitting some blood on the ground nearby. The guards didn’t like it when people did that, but they did it anyway.
“And what did he do, exactly?” She still didn’t look up.
“He picked a fight with me.” Will forced a smirk. He was a tough kid, but he knew who she was, and it’s generally good to avoid her if you wanted to live.
“So you led him to his death.” She licked her fingers and turned a page.
“Fuck-ever. It’s not my fault,” he said, shrugging.
“David Shrugged,” she said, smiling and looking up at him. She had a beautiful smile, and wild eyes.
After that, every day when he went into the courtyard, he’d find her waiting for him. They got to know each other and things moved fast between them. Many nights were spent together, sometimes in her room, sometimes in his. She was absolutely brilliant, wild, and playful. She was thin, flat-chested, with a rough short bob haircut. Her hair was black, and her eyes, which were both wild and as calm as could be, nestled a dull green. Her face was long and thin, with a petite nose and a mouth that seemed just slightly pursed at any given time. He never asked about the rumours about her, and she never said anything; until the spring of his sixteenth year.
It was only just after his birthday. He had been there for a little less than two years and they’d been together for about one and a half. It was early in the morning and they were in her room. He had just woken up and rolled over to see her sitting in a stark white chair by the window, smoking a cigarette she had gotten from a guard. She was watching something outside the window with a sort of apathy, possibly of sadness. Will watched her for a solid forty minutes before slowly sitting up. He stood and walked up behind her. With sad eyes, she looked up at him.
“I didn’t want to do it,” she said. William leaned down and kissed her on the forehead and told her that it was alright. “Why did I do it? I wonder everyday why it had to be me and not someone else.” She watched a sparrow on a branch outside. She didn’t say anything more about it. Will simply held her from behind the chair.
Three weeks later, in the merry month of May, a group of men wearing military uniforms came to the correctional facility and spoke with the man who was in charge. Then they left. That night, as William sat beside Andra on her bed, she told him that she was sorry. He asked why. She told him that she would be going away in the morning and would probably never return. He was upset by this and asked why. That seemed to be all he could do; ask why. She said that she was special. She had killed well over seventy people without even meaning to. She told him that she knew he was special too. It was what first drew her to him. But people knew about her. There was nothing she could do to stop them at this point. He suggested that they run away. It wouldn’t be hard, with his abilities. But she told him that she, like Atlas, had a duty to fulfill; a destiny that she could not shrug off. He said that he wouldn’t let them take her and she said that it wasn’t his choice. This is what she had to do, and wanted him to become something better. “Choose a better fate,” she said. And after that she wouldn’t speak any more about it.
When he woke up in the morning, she was already gone. She had left a pair of dogtags that she had always worn on the desk in the room. It took William a week to leave her room. He couldn’t deal with anyone or anything. He didn’t eat and he didn’t sleep. He merely watched out the window. Until, while watching the day go by, a small sparrow flew down and landed on a branch outside. It seemed to watch him for a few moments before flying away. He decided that he would not disgrace Andra by letting her words go to waste. He decided that he would become something better, something that she would be proud of. And some day, he vowed, he would find her again.
That night, under the cover of darkness, he carved a hole through the concrete wall of the room. It wasn’t long before he was outside, and none were the wiser. Within a few days he had hitched his way back to Chicago. It had only been two years since he was last there, but he felt as if he was a ghost among the living. It didn’t take long to learn that Henry was still running with the Blind Pigs. Henry invited him to join them again, but Will refused. Will told him that it wasn’t worth it. Life was too short to get yourself killed. “It’s your loss,” said Henry. He was one of the top members of the gang.
He found Hannah soon after, although he barely recognized her. In just the two years he’d been gone, she grew into an absolutely gorgeous young woman. She had a perfectly rounded face and cleanly curved body. She was surprised to see him, but hugged him and asked how he’d been and that it’d been too long. He started by saying that he was sorry. Sorry that he had grown away from her, that he’d been such a fool in joining the Blind Pigs and getting into that stupid fight. She told him that she’d always had a thing for him, ever since they were young. He told her that he had felt similarly, but after what had happened, he was in love with another. Then he told her that he had to leave, but would check in again every once in a while. “Take care of yourself,” she said.
He couldn’t bring himself to see his mother, so he went to Prescott. He was in the middle of a broadcast when Will walked into the studio. Prescott quickly wrapped up what he was saying and handed over control to his co-host. They went outside to chat and walk around. His career had been doing surprisingly well, Prescott told him, having gotten a lucky break when some celebrity heard his broadcast and paid him to do a voice-over gig. After that, stations were clamoring to get at him. Martha took up drinking and was fired from her work. She tried to kill herself twice in the first year. After that, Prescott tried to set her up with various men, but nothing seemed to last long. That is, until about half a year ago, when she met this brilliant mathematician at a bar. Prescott said that he didn’t think she’d go for that type, but they were doing very well. She had only recently moved in with him. She eased up on her drinking and has taken up various hobbies to keep herself occupied. Will thanked him and said that he’d keep in contact.
The next morning he skipped out of town and started hitch-hiking wherever he could go. He carried only the dogtags that had belonged to Andra, a bandage around his left arm as a reminder of his past, and the clothes on his back. While he was traveling he discovered that a new ability was developing through him, giving him the ability to absorb the properties of objects. He believes this development is due to becoming so close to Andra. Every once in a while, while going through a town or city, he’d find a man harassing a woman or a mugging or something of the like and stop it. He felt that this was a better way of spending his life. He would also make stone sculptures to sell, primarily for food. He’s gotten quite good at it.
It was a little over a year before he came upon Lonely Oaks…
Role Played By: SonjiIshaku