Fanfic / Highlander Penance

Highlander: Penance is a fanfiction set in the Highlander universe.

Taking place a few years before the events of the original Highlander film, the story follows Penance Cameron, a centuries-old immortal who was only 12-years-old when he suffered his 'first-death'. At the start of the story he is unwillingly forced from his current life in Baltimore. Fleeing to Philadelphia, the boy runs into and ultimately befriends a thieving young girl named 'Whip'. Together they have a run-in with another immortal dedicated to taking whatever heads he can. All the while they're followed by a mysterious nemesis from Penance's past, who leads the boy into the arms of an even greater threat than Penance can ever imagine.

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Highlander: Penance provides examples of:

• Action Figure Justification: Penance is very insistent that’s his stuffed fox head, Galabeg, is not a doll.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Penance’s knife was custom-forged by his mentor, skilled in the art of making ‘liquid steel’ blades. By description, as well as his mentioning that he learned to forge them in India, they appear to be Damascus steel although they throw off a green blast when they strike each other and it appears that one of the only things that can destroy such a blade is another one.

• Adaptation Deviation: Immortals in this continuity have boosted strength proportional to their size, and adult immortals cannot sense the presence of prepubescent immortals through the ‘buzz’. Child immortals can sense adults, but only through deliberate meditation, during which they can see through said immortal’s eyes.

• Affably Evil: Nicnevin is at almost all times genuinely polite, treats her underlings well and goes to lengths to avoid undue suffering in her victims. She is notably repulsed by Black Hat's obsession with Penance and decides to spare Whip's life and release her from captivity after Penance's death. This last decision helps get her killed.

• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Penance's mentor Uallas was prone to giving these to Penance when he did things right. He's become extremely fond of them in general.

• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Penance refuses to tackle other boys his age when playing a pick-up football game. One of the boys assumes Penance is afraid of getting hurt, and Penance doesn't correct him.

• Age Without Youth: Nicnevin did have a youth, but after millennia of living as an elderly immortal she’s almost completely forgotten what it’s like to be young, and will stop at nothing to get it back.

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When Penance is accosted by the first immortal that seeks to take his head and he's easily overpowered he resorts to genuinely, tearfully pleading for his life, which gives his attacker pause and gives Penance the opening he needs to kill him.

• Alarm SOS: Whip trips the fire alarm at the main control station in the basement of the Aurelia Arms during her play to save Penance from being sacrificed. The cultists can't convince authorities that it's a false alarm (à la Die Hard) since they've been stalling on finishing the building for so long that the city of Trenton is solidly fed-up with them.

• Alas, Poor Villain: Grievously wounded, Nicnevin's final moments are spent ignoring Penance and pathetically crawling to Uallas' greasy old mirror to look at her distorted reflection- a symbol of her youth that she wants to have back. When she manages to touch the mirror she streaks the grease off it and sees herself as she is, letting out a tortured wail and, finally, her damaged neck gives out and she dies.

• Alliterative Name: Whip's real name is Willa Will, and Black Hat's real name is Sterlyn Sommer.

• Animal Motifs: The four main characters each have an animal motif:
  • Penance: Foxes.
  • Whip: Birds
  • Black Hat: Wolves/hounds.
  • Nicnevin: Butterflies.

• Artifact Title: Averted with the ‘Highlander’ title. While Penance is a Spaniard, the ‘Highlander’ part takes on a more metaphorical significance.

• Badass in a Nice Suit: The modern day dress code for Nicnevin’s cultists appears to be a sharp black suit. They stand out enough in them to draw Whip’s curiosity when first introduced.

• Battle Amongst the Flames: Penance gets two in quick succession: first with Nicnevin’s cultists when he blows a gas line in the top floor of the Aurelia Arms, and shortly thereafter he engages Nicnevin herself in her bedroom, knocking over some candles in the fight and causing the wooden room to quickly go up.

• Battle Discretion Shot: Penance’s fight with Clara- a girl of similar physical age to him- is not described outside the fact that she got a few gunshots off before he closed the distance between them. The implied result is not left in doubt, however.

• Been There, Shaped History: Penance claims to have had a hand in accidentally cracking the Liberty Bell, while his mentor Uallas was an archer for the Normans at the Battle of Hastings. Nicnevin obliquely claims to have commissioned the invention of gunpowder (although she might have been joking) and some of her followers think that she was responsible for the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

• Bleed 'Em and Weep: Penance breaks down in tears shortly after performing his first kill (committed in desperate self-defense). He never does so again.

• Bound and Gagged: Happens several times to Penance. Twice by people who know his strength and use it as a reasonable precaution to protect themselves. And once by someone who didn't, and paid for it with their mortal life.

• Cheerful Child: Struana, Uallas’s adopted daughter, very much fits the bill and her death at Nicnevin’s hands haunts Penance to no end.

• Chekhov's Gun: Penance picks up a heavy-duty spiked collar (meant for working dogs protecting sheep from wolves) and a gold-plated cigarette lighter at Ikey Boggs' store. the former he uses to kill Nicnevin, and the latter he uses to blow a gas line in the Aurelia Arms and allow him to take out the bulk of Nicnevin's cultists.

• Child Soldier: Technically, in Penance’s case. He is seen in supporting roles in both 17th century Scotland (working in the soldiers’ camp) and the 1800s United States (serving as a powder monkey) on a US ship. Penance doesn’t see anything wrong with this, but when asked how he’d like to see a modern-aged boy he’d befriended undergo the same experience he’s notably disturbed.

• Collapsing Lair: The Aurelia Arms comes crashing down after Nicnevin's defeat, the victim of a gas line explosion and fire.

• Combat Pragmatist: Against his fellow immortals Penance holds nothing back and is completely vicious in a fight, earning the nickname 'The Rabid Fox' from those who've heard of him. Against mortal opponents who aren't trying to sexually assault him, at least he's usually far more gentle.
  • Black Hat's mentor Medici also goes this route when subduing Penance: he just comes up behind the boy and jams an ice pick through the base of his skull.

• Consulting Mister Puppet: Penance often turns to his stuffed fox head Galabeg for advice, and she generally provides him with cold, callous and self-serving suggestions for his current course of actions. Galabeg speaks, after all, for Penance’s survival instincts, and for his part Penance is well aware of this. Helps to explain why he’s not exactly on friendly terms with her, but would do anything to protect her and keep her from harm.

• Dark and Troubled Past: Penance and his family were killed when he was biologically 12-years-old. He came back as an immortal; his family didn't. His later history with Black Hat also fits the bill.

• Deadpan Snarker: Penance can be a pretty sarcastic kid. Whip often gives as good as she gets, too.

• Deliberate Injury Gambit: Immortals being immortals, of the TV series variety, this is obviously a standard tactic in their combat. Penance attempts this during the fight that led to his first kill and Nicnevin successfully used it in her first fight with Penance, shielding her throat by using her forearm to absorb the blow of Penance’s knife.

• Devious Daggers: Penance's weapon of choice is a custom-forged sgian dubh, a traditional small Scottish knife, and Penance is shown to be a brutal and vicious Combat Pragmatist. His use of a small knife, however, is more a pragmatic choice than it is a reflection of his character, as a small boy really doesn't have much of a chance of hiding a broadsword on his person in day-to-day life.

• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Whip insists on everyone using her nickname to address her, as she finds her birth name embarrassing.

• Dye or Die: Penance bleaches his dark hair blond early in the story after running from Baltimore. He almost immediately concedes that it was a mistake. He and several other characters think it makes him look like Madonna.

• Early-Bird Cameo: Nicnevin doesn't actually appear in the story until a couple dozen chapters in, but Black Hat and Medici discuss her modern-day alias much earlier in the story.

• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Black Hat offers to give a bullied Jewish forensic analyst a recommendation for an FBI job after he picks up on some subtle clues in the aftermath of Penance’s fight with Father Kenaz.

• Evil Is Petty: Black Hat terrorizes Penance for centuries, killing his loved ones and tormenting the boy, simply because Penance was responsible for giving Black Hat his immortality when Black Hat tried to rape Penance. He despises the fact that he has one of his assault victims to 'thank' for getting his immortality in his physical prime, and he focuses all his sadism on the boy as a result.

• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Nicnevin's base of operations, the Aurelia Arms, is a large unfinished apartment building in Trenton. Black Hat notes the pitch-black building's dead-looking appearance against the city's night skyline.

• Exact Words: When offered a swig of bourbon by Whip Penance declines and tells her he's an 'addict'. Much later, when she learns he was hooked on heroin for some years and not an alcoholic, he reminds her of his phrasing.

• Faux Affably Evil: Black Hat can be playful, cheerful and mockingly polite at times, but it's all an act and underneath he is a violent, sadistic and controlling sociopath.

• Fiction 500: From what is seen of Nicnevin's operation and living situation in the 1980's it appears that she is wealthy beyond belief, evidently thanks to her real estate empire.

• Foreign Queasine: Subverted. Cadha has Penance help her make Haggis, and as they go through all the steps to make it Penance is baffled about the whole process, thinking it to be inedible. The result sends him over the moon.

• Foreshadowing: At one point early in the story Penance gets upset and throws a book clear across a library, making a sizeable dent in the wall. This is the first hint at his heightened physical strength, which wouldn't be on full display until his fight in Ikey Boggs' office.

• Gender-Blender Name: Penance is called out more than once on the fact that his chosen name is better fitting for a girl. He doesn't seem to care.

• Good Feels Good: Black Hat claims to both Whip and Medici that he feels this way about his work with the FBI and other seemingly positive things he's done over the course of his life. Medici calls Black Hat out on the real reason he found those experiences enjoyable: he likes to be in control of other people, even if that control has positive results for the person, and ultimately the only thing Black Hat cares about is his power over other people.

• Haggis Is Horrible: Inverted. It’s one of Penance’s favorite foods.

• I Call It "Vera": Averted with Penance's knife, which he never bothered to name. When he learns from Medici that some other immortals who've heard of Penance call his knife the 'Fox's Fang' he finds it ridiculous.

  Penance: It's a knife, not a pet cat.
  

• I Cannot Self-Terminate: Penance admits to Whip that he's wanted to die at times, but his Catholic faith prevents that from becoming a viable option. This is notable in that, while Penance still considers himself bound by the tenets of his faith, he's openly hostile to God Himself and refuses to pray to him.

• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: About half of the chapter titles are named after popular songs or their lyrics.

• I Have Many Names: All the immortal characters, naturally, have picked up their share of aliases over the years. Penance rattles off a list of his to Nicnevin's cultists before his battle against them in the Aurelia Arms.

• I Just Want to Be Normal: Penance clearly isn't happy with his immortality, having to quit whatever life he's chosen when he 'ages out' of it within a few years, and would prefer to live a normal life.

• I Know Your True Name: Medici apparently knows Penance’s birth name. It doesn’t do more than give Penance an unpleasant shock, but it does serve to show that Medici certainly knows his stuff.

• Improbable Aiming Skills: Uallas dazzles Penance with his archery skills while on a fox hunt. Penance’s accuracy with his knife is a lesser example.

• Improbable Hairstyle: Whip, a homeless teen runaway living on the streets of Philly, sports a sheen, silky French-braided ponytail, which is out of place both on account of her living circumstances as well as her ethnicity. Multiple people comment on it, but how she maintains it is unknown (although Penance is seen to borrow hair care products from her at one point).

• Information Broker: Medici is an immortal that specializes in compiling detailed dossiers on his fellow immortals, available to anyone with the coin to purchase them. His useful service has seemingly allowed him to live outside the bounds of the ‘game’ and avoid the hassle of duels. At least until he’s killed by his own student.

• Immortal Apathy: Clara expresses this attitude toward the mortal human world in regard to the events of World War 2, urging Penance to give up on fitting in with others and instead travel with her.
  Penance: "Hate to break it to you but we're part of this world, too."
  Clara: "No, we're not, Penance. Not really. And you know it, too."

• Immortal Immaturity: Justified in Penance’s case. An eternally 12-year-old body means an eternally 12-year-old brain. Not that the centuries haven’t matured him a bit.

• Immortality Hurts: Discussed by Penance, at one point, who's actually come to find many comparatively minor injuries to be more painful that catastrophic damage, given the body's coping mechanisms for the latter. He admits that his immortality has 'warped' his sense of pain.

• Inconspicuous Immortal: Being a 12-year-old Penance hasn't got many options for being anything but inconspicuous, spending most of his life as a street urchin or the ward of regular families. Briefly averted several times, most notably when he fell in with the Scottish noblewoman Gilbarta and became the technical chief of Clan Cameron.

• Ironic Nickname: Whip refers to Penance as 'white bread' when she thinks he's a normal runaway child. She continues to do so even after learning he's anything but normal and boring.

• It Gets Easier: A roughly 50-year-old Penance reflects on the pain of having to pack up and move on from whatever 'life' he's been living every few years, to avoid people's suspicion about him not ageing. He figures that after a few centuries of practice it won't bother him anymore. He's wrong.

• Last Unsmoked Cigarette: Penance gets a handful of cigarettes from Whip at one point, and he debates smoking the last one at a certain point but decides to hold on to it. He finally brings it out in the Aurelia Arms and lights it while standing over a broken gas line, where the resulting explosion gives him the upper hand on Nicnevin's cultists. Later he admits that while his maneuver was very cool, he'd rather have kept the cigarette to smoke in hindsight.

• Like a Son to Me: Penance's mentor Uallas comes to feel this way about the boy. It makes his betrayal of Penance to Nicnevin that much harder, but in a choice between sacrificing Penance or his adoptive daughter Struana Penance loses.

• Like Cannot Cut Like: Inverted. The only thing shown to be capable of damaging a liquid-steel knife is another one.

• The Magic Goes Away: Being set a short time before the Gathering it is noted that there are far fewer immortals alive at the moment, and all of them slowly converging on New York City. Nicnevin’s detailed intelligence from global surveillance seems to prove that new immortals are not being born, leaving the few still living to be all that’s left.

• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: When Penance confronts Black Hat at a cemetery and tries goading him into attacking on holy ground (against one of the cardinal rules of immortals) a lightning bolt strikes nearby, and then one strikes again when Penance himself considers attacking Black Hat. The storm, however, had been forming before this, and Black Hat notes that bad weather was previously forecast.

• Mayfly–December Friendship: Though he's presumably had many, Penance's friendship with Gilbarta of Clan Cameron was notable given that he stayed with her for decades, up until her death, all the while posing as her surrogate son.

• Meaningful Name: Penance names his stuffed fox head Galabeg, a shortening of the Gaelic galla beag, meaning 'little bitch'.
  • Nicnevin's modern-day alias is Carlin Gay, and one of the aliases of the mythical witch Nicnevin is 'Gay-Carlin'.
  • Upon saving the life of Cadha and helping birth her daughter (who promptly popped out into a nearby stream and had to be retrieved from it) Uallas was given the honor of naming the girl. He chose 'Struana', meaning 'from the stream' in Gaelic.
  • Father 'Daniel Kenaz' roughly translates to 'the hunter whose only judge is God'. This bit of information puts Black Hat squarely on Penance's scent, as it confirms the identity of the immortal Penance killed.

• Meaningful Rename: Penance chose his new name shortly after his 'first death', believing that his immortality is a curse placed on him for some perceived wickedness he should atone for. He took his last name after living with a Scottish noblewoman for decades, to honor her. His real name hasn't been revealed in the story as of yet although his initials are apparently A.I.

• Mook Horror Show: Penance's battle against the bulk of Nicnevin's cultists is seen through the eyes of a teenaged cultist whose POV is only used for that chapter, and it's used to highlight the terrifying perspective of someone that Penance is battling against with his all.

• My Greatest Failure: Both Penance and Whip have tragedies from their past that they lay on their shoulders, respectively Penance blaming himself for the fates of Cadha, Struana and Uallas, and Whip blaming herself for her disabled brother’s accidental death.

• Mysterious Past: Next to nothing is revealed about Nicnevin’s past, and she’s so old that she has long-since forgotten her mortal life.

• Named Weapons: Some who've heard of Penance call his dagger the Fiacail den Sionnach, or 'Fox's Fang'. Penance finds the name ridiculous. Nicnevin's liquid-steel sword is called the 'Chrysalis Blade' in author notes, but not in the story itself.

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Whip's fence and handler is a man naked Ikey 'Babysplitter' Boggs. Two guesses as to whether he's on the up and up or not. And Nicnevin gets her name from a legendary witch from Scottish lore that was said to feast on Christian flesh, take ungrateful children from their parents... and steal unfinished knitting at the eve of the new year.

• Nay-Theist: Penance absolutely believes in God, but he also blames Him for his immortality, so he’s not on speaking terms.

• Never Grew Up: Penance’s body will remain 12 years old until he dies.

• The Nicknamer: Penance has a habit of calling his opponents descriptive nicknames preceded by the word ‘Mister’ (eg: a man with stadium food on his breath is ‘Mister Corndog’). Whip reflexively does it late in the story, much to her annoyance.
  • Whip often refers to Penance as 'white bread'.

• Oddly Shaped Sword: Nicnevin's liquid steel sword is described as being fat and blimpy like an insect's pupa, befitting her character motif..

• The Older Immortal: Nicnevin is easily the oldest of the main cast of immortals, by a wide margin, although based on some of the details of Father Kenaz's little speech to Penance about his death he might also fit the bill.

• Pædo Hunt: Black Hat is a serial child rapist, and Penance killing him before he could assault Penance is the impetus for his continual torture of the boy.

• The Peeping Tom: Penance accuses Whip of this after learning she spied on him while he was bathing. She counters that she didn't do it for any prurient reasons, but rather to confirm that his body had no bruises after he fell down the side of a building and thus prove his supernatural nature.

• Phony Psychic Nicnevin claims to have developed additional powers beyond those available to other immortals, including the ability to sense immortal children. Black Hat thinks she’s a posturing con artist. He’s wrong.

• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: In the fanfic's continuity all immortals have a proportional boost to their strength. Penance describes his own abilities as akin to an adult bodybuilder, but the adult immortals are stronger, still, and while Penance can handle almost any regular human in a one-on-one fight adult immortals can toss him around as easily as one can toss around any scrawny-looking 12-year-old.

• Poor Communication Kills: When Medici shows surprise that Penance has never heard of Carlin Gay he appears as if he's about to mention her other alias, Nicnevin, a name Penance knows very well, but Penance cuts him off in irritation. Furthermore, when Whip claims someone called the 'Banshee' is after the boy Penance similarly shows no recognition. Turns out she misheard the word 'Banrigh', which means queen.

• Rare Guns: Whip gets her hands on a Beretta 93R machine pistol in the Aurelia Arms. Penance is dismissive of the weapon's selective fire ability and, as it turns out, is skilled enough with a pistol to only need one bullet per target anyway.

• Really 700 Years Old: Naturally. Penance is 385 years old in the present day of the story. His mentor, Uallas, is closer to the letter of the trope, at 636 before his death. Meanwhile, Black Hat is likely not much older than 340, or so and easily the youngest of the main cast of immortals in the story. Taking the cake, however, would be Nicnevin, who is likely between 2000 and 5000 years old.

• Red Baron: Penance is called the 'Rabid Fox' by those who've heard of the boy.
  • Father Kenaz is known by other immortals as 'The Hunter'.
  • Nicnevin, appropriately enough, is known to some as the 'Child Eater'.

• Red Oni, Blue Oni: While he can sometimes lose himself and act his physical age, Penance is generally the sullen and subdued blue to Whip’s more spirited and combative red.

• Religion of Evil: Nicnevin has a loyal cult of followers who basically worship her and see to her every needs in 1650s Scotland, primarily by tracking down immortal child sacrifices for her. It survives into the 1980s, when she relocates to America and funds it with her real estate empire.

• Reluctant Warrior: Penance does not play the Game and actively avoids starting fights with his fellow immortals, but he will finish them...

• Right-Hand Attack Dog: Black Hat eventually recruits a trained dog using his FBI resources, claiming he's going to use her against Penance. Subverted in that the dog is not an attack dog, but an explosives-detecting dog, and he's using her against Nicnevin, not Penance.

• Sadistic Choice: Nicnevin makes Uallas choose to either give-up his immortal apprentice Penance or 'pre-immortal' adoptive daughter Struana as a sacrifice. He chooses Penance, though the decision is agonizing for him.

• Seeking Sanctuary: Penance spends a significant amount of time sleeping in cemeteries, and he doubles-down on making an abandoned library his temporary base of operations after learning that a local priest had blessed the place. However the priest in question lied, and he points out that even if he hadn't lied his blessing wouldn't have been enough to satisfy the rules of the Game.

• Sinister Minister: The clergyman who gave Penance his first death and murdered his family certainly qualifies, as does Father Kenaz, who is secretly an aggressively combative immortal.

• So Proud of You: Uallas says this to Penance after Penance gets the upper hand on him after Uallas betrays him to Nicnevin, just before Penance kills him at his request.

• Sparing the Final Mook: The sole survivor of Penance's fight against Nicnevin's cultists at the top of the Aurelia Arms is a teen boy who tearfully begs Penance for his life. Said boy had already had his sternum broken and was nowhere near a threat to Penance, so he ignores him and continues on with his escape.

• Spirit Advisor: Around the second half of the story Penance starts being visited by other immortals that he's previously killed, all of whom generally provide helpful advice. Nicnevin appears to also have the same experiences, but her visitors only silently stare at her, and she's distressed by their appearance.

• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Black Hat towards Penance.
  • A more positive example would be Suzie, a Watcher from Penance's past who got too close to him for her organization's liking while observing the boy.

• Straight Edge Evil: Black Hat has given up drinking by the time of the present events of the story, also claiming to be celibate. The only addiction he seems to be sticking to is his torturing of Penance. He goes Off the Wagon pretty early on in the story, however.

• Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Black Hat and Penance come up with the same nickname for the amber-draped top floor of the Aurelia Arms, christening it the 'Sunset Lounge'.

• Street Urchin: Penance seems to spend a goodly portion of his life as one of these, which he notes gives him more freedom than living with a family. Played more straight with Whip, for whom the profession is a full-time job.

• Tampering with Food and Drink: Uallas does this to Penance's tea when he betrays the boy to Nicnevin. It doesn't fully work, as the poison berries he used were the same ones Penance had found tasty and been using to make his own recreational beverages, allowing the boy to metabolize the poison faster than intended and recover earlier than expected from his 'death'.

• That Man Is Dead: Penance's general attitude towards his original life, to the point that he won't tell anyone his birth name. Even in the chapter where he reminisces about his mortal life he refers to himself as 'The Boy', rather than using his real name.

• The '80s: Takes place in 1984.

• Themed Aliases: Penance has a habit of choosing aliases starting with the letters ‘Pen’ when he settles into a new identity. Admittedly it doesn’t make much sense for someone supposedly on the run from a stalker.

• Through His Stomach: The easiest way to get Penance to warm up to you is with a hot meal. Penance himself is well aware of this weakness, but most often his stomach wins out over his standoffishness.

• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: One of Penance’s preferred combat moves is to throw his knife at his attackers. Justified in that he’s had centuries to practice, and all with the same knife. By present day he’s gotten very good at it. His mentor, who forged said knife for him, greatly disapproved of the practice, however, and it bites him in the ass during his first fight with Nicnevin.

• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Penance’s affinity for cigarettes disturbs more than one character in the story. Mind you, they’re actually completely harmless to him. His heroin addiction, on the other hand, is treated as a more serious problem.

• Ultimate Blacksmith: Penance’s teacher Uallas claims to be the greatest blacksmith alive and many immortals seek out his services. He admits, however that Connor Macleod’s katana outclasses any of his works.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: In his mortal life Penance is shown to be a gentle bookworm aghast at the thought of even a rodent being killed in front of him. While he's still ultimately a good person in present day, he's a battle-hardened fighter who is absolutely ruthless against his opponents.

• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: Nicnevin finishes her first fight with Penance by spearing him through the heart with his own knife, throwing it with as much expertise as Penance himself shows.

• Walking the Earth: Penance spends most of his time doing this. As a child immortal he can't have the usual decades-long 'lifespan' an adult immortal might be able to pull off; he can go, at best, three to four years on average before having to move on.

• Wall of Weapons: The basement of the Aurelia Arms has an arsenal of firearms from tiny silenced pistols to anti-materiel rifles. None of them see any use, however.

• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Penance considers his immortality a curse, on the balance, and his particular situation of being forced to 'live' lives that can only last a few years, at most, before he has to move on has left him lonely, unstable, and suicidal.

• Would Hurt a Child: Most of the other immortals Penance comes across have no issue with trying to take his head, though being centuries old himself he does push the boundary for the definition of ‘child’.

• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Penance uncharacteristically spares a prepubescent immortal girl who was part of a team that was hunting him, and the sole survivor of his rampage on the top floor of the Aurelia Arms is a teenaged cultist who tearfully begs for his life.