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Name: Will
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CHARACTER

William Fichtner
Affiliation: Hellfire Club

Name:Vincent Oliver Benson

Codename: Mesmero, White Bishop of the Hellfire Club-NY Branch.

Nicknames: Vinny. Thomas H. Thornton (alias. Any ill-gotten gains using his power are put into an account under this name).

Place of birth: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Age: 49

Time at the Institute: None.

Marital Status: Single

Known Relatives: Susan Benson (mother)

Base of Operations: Hellfire Club, NYC, and Department of Justice, Washington D.C

Sexual Orientation: At this point, physically having sex isn’t that exciting. Mentally f*cking someone is much more arousing, and it really doesn’t matter what gender that person is.

Physical Appearance:
Height: 6’4
Weight: around 150 pounds
Hair: Dark Green, black when using image inducer
Eyes: Red, glowing when he uses his powers. Blue with the image inducer.

His mutation has had an interesting side effect on his complexion. As he used his powers more and more, they turned his skin and his hair green. For a while, his complexion would return to normal if he laid off using his powers for some time. But in the past few years, it hasn’t been going away. He’d used a lot of foundation and dyed his hair, until getting an image inducer from the White King of the Hellfire Club.
Mesmero is tall and lanky. He’s slightly underweight. His visage isn’t pleasant, in fact most find him to be quite ugly. His skin is blotchy and his nose too big. He stares much too often, and the general vibe that he gives off is creepy, just in the way that he moves. Even with his image inducer, he doesn’t make himself too handsome. To top it all off, his forehead is getting higher.

Distinguishing Marks: He’s green. His eyes are which is sort of a giveaway. He usually wears an image inducer while performing his duties with the Department of Justice. Some scar tissue on the left side of his jaw.

Clothing style: Sharply pressed suits. He’s a lawyer, after all. He doesn’t do much physical activity besides skiing, and an occasional hike, so you might see him in some wintery coats on the slopes, or even a t-shirt and jeans, but this is rare.

Uniform: Please. Vincent would not wear anything like that.

Powers: Vincent Benson’s powers could be described as hyper-hypnotism. Vincent can essentially take control of someone’s mind, just by making eye contact with them. He can force someone to do something, which is interesting enough, but better yet, he can make someone want to do something. He can induce strong emotions, change someone’s mind, even make someone hallucinate.

Weakness: He must make eye contact with the victim for his powers to take effect. Telepaths are resistant to his powers. This isn’t to say they are immune to him, but it takes careful planning on his part, and it is possible despite all his plans that they are able to see through his hypnotic commands. Finally, his powers are correlated to his confidence. So, if his confidence is shaken, then his powers won’t work that well.

Physically, Vincent is not strong, nor skilled in the martial arts. He prefers to hypnotize his opponents into deciding that giving him a foot massage would be the superior course of action to punching and kicking him.

Personality: Vincent has always gotten what he wanted, ever since the age of 12. Even before that, his mother was very accommodating, and had a hard time saying no to him. Because he’s never really had to work at what he wanted, being able to skate by on intelligence and his powers, the overwhelming part of Mesmero is boredom. His everyday life in D.C is boring, even though he’s living a much more exciting life than 95% of the country. He’s prosecuting corrupt politicians, Mafiosi, and powerful business leaders. Still, the only thrill Vincent ever gets is from breaking someone’s entire mental persona.

Vincent is a man of duty, his first duty is to the Club and his second to Department of Justice. He’s been willing to throw off federal investigations on Club member’s businesses, and violate ethical rules to keep enterprising DA’s and State Attorneys General off their back. While his current job at the Department of Justice is a political appointment, Mesmero has no political philosophies or beliefs.

He is essentially a rational egotist. Nearly every human being has been a piece of clay in his hands. He can’t help but think of them as tools to pursue his own self-interest. He’s broken ethical codes concerning the law, the DoJ, and basic human decency, and covered them up with his powers.

Unlike his Hellfire brethren, Vincent isn't charming or calculating. He's never needed charm, he could just tell people to like him. Likewise, he never needed to calculate what an opponent was doing, because they'd always change what they were going to do. He is actually a hothead, having yelled down Senators and Congressmen and heads of state. Normally, he promotes an aggressive response when dealing with Club business.

History:Vincent Benson never knew who his father was. Well, not entirely. He knew that his father was a rather high-ranking Air Force officer. His mother was a waitress in an exotic dance night club down the highway from Colorado Springs, and the officer was looking for a good time. Vincent’s father already had a wife, but he paid a small stipend to Vincent and his mother to keep them quiet.

It was clear at a very young age that Vincent was a bright young man, and that he got what he wanted. It’d be hard to pinpoint when exactly Vincent’s powers manifested. Vincent’s power, without the explosions and eyebeams that other mutants have, was much more subtle. Vincent doesn’t even remember when exactly he put together that he was special. When he convinced his 4th grade teacher to extend an essay due date, was that his own persuasiveness or the first inkling of his power?

Regardless, by the age of 12 or 13, Vince knew he had the power to get people to do what he wanted. In middle school, he used this power to make himself laugh. He made a few kids start singing showtunes in class, just to ruin their tough guy image. It took him a year to think of using the power to get him a girlfriend, or two.

Using his powers, he was able to put himself in Harvard, and convinced some rich folk to sponsor his education. He learned honestly, but if there was a grade that he wasn’t happy with, the professor was happy to change it after talking to Vincent.

During the summer breaks, Vincent spent his time using his powers to make money at upper-class parties. He’d hypnotize these socialites, take their cash, and leave them with a smile on their face. He made quite a bit of money doing this, enough to pay for Harvard Law School. Vincent may have been the only person to leave Harvard Law richer than he entered it. He made so much that he went into public service. He got a job in the US Attorney of Southern New York’s office. While working there, he was approached by an emissary of the Hellfire Club. They knew about Mr. Benson’s power, and they had a very interesting proposition.

After two years with the US Attorney, Benson went to work at the Justice Department. He was good at his job, and with his excellent merit interviews allowed him to jump through rungs of bureaucracy to get at the top of the Justice Department. Earlier this month, after meeting with the President-elect, and the Attorney General-Designate, he was asked to be the Deputy Attorney General.

Meanwhile, at the Hellfire Club, Mesmero made alliances. Forge, the White King, didn’t have friends, but Mesmero was useful. His contacts and pull in the Justice department, combined with his powers, allowed many Hellfire Club members to escape prosecution. He was made the White Bishop of the Hellfire court earlier this year.

SAMPLE RP POST:
“Congressman-Congressman,” Vincent repeated himself slowly and deliberately, trying to cut through a particularly odious congressman’s bloviations, “Congressman Utrecht, let me stop you there. If you call my office about Senator Shaffran’s trial again, I will charge you with obstruction of a federal investigation, and I will convict you. I was third in the class at Harvard Law, you went to a technical college and majored in construction management. I am much, much smarter than you.”

“Furthermore, if you or any other member of the New Jersey Democratic delegation calls me about it, I will leak to the New Jersey Republican party that you’ve been tampering a FBI corruption case. Tell me, how do you think the good people of the New Jersey 6th will react to that news? Just because Democrats are running the Department of Justice does not, I repeat, does not give them free reign to take bribes” The deputy Attorney General closed his cell phone, and stooped into the limousine, “The codeword today, James, is ‘Tegucigalpa’.” The Hellfire driver nodded and started driving towards the club.

Vincent scratched his chin and waited for the limousine to pull up to the Club. He’d prefer that he had a newspaper, but he was in a hurry. He had good news for the White King, and one does not dally when the king calls for one’s presence. Stopping to buy the Times just wasn’t in the cards.

He was ushered in by the pawns with all due reverence for his high stature. “My liege,” the words slipped through his lips coldly and oily, “I’ve spoken with Congressman Brennan and Congresswoman McKenna. They’ve been persuaded about the Adversary project. They’ll pass it through the subcommittee, and once it gets on the defense appropriations, no member in congress will vote against it.“

After some time of plotting with his King, Vincent found a particularly pneumatic waitress that he invited to his private suite. He decided to make her think that she was in her teens, worried about her father walking in on them. Something had to break up the monotony of his life.