Cole Cash

"You know what a grifter is, flame face? A grifter. Ya know, where I get my name from. "A practitioner of confidence tricks", the dictionary says. A con man, to most folks. It's what I am. It's what I do. It's what I did to you."
Character Stat Sheet
==Public Information==
If you keep asking questions, you're probably not going to like the answers you find.
Grifter is your one-stop shop for murder and mayhem, boys and girls. He shows up from time to time, kills a bunch of folk, and disappears while mouthing off to those he leaves standing. Supposedly he's a hero, but how the hell do you figure?
Deadeye was a member of Team 7 was back in the day. He was a pretty good shot and a good soldier, even if he was one of those IO punks.
You're looking for a guy named Cole Cash? Last I heard, he was dead or something. Maybe dead drunk. At any rate, I haven't seen him around lately, and if you know what's good for you, you haven't either.
==History==
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===The Foundation===
Born in the early 1940s in Los Angeles CA, Cole's father died whilst Cash was still young. He and his brother, Max were raised by their mother, and her abusive second husband - although "raised" is not the most accurate word to describe the husband's treatment of the boys. He was frequently violent, but both Max and Cole learned very quickly how to fight back.
Cole stuck around until his mother passed away, when he was a young adult. It was not hard for him to turn to a life of crime, in order to survive - and despite the harsh treatment of his step-father, Cole still managed to maintain some semblance of a moral code, even while he was conning people out of their fortunes.
That is not to say he was a Robin Hood exactly - he kept what he took.
That's still giving it to the poor, isn't it?
In the mid-'60s, Cash was arrested for his wrong-doings, but given that he prevented his partner from shooting at police officers, he was shown a degree of leniency, and spared jail-time. Instead, Cash was drafted into the covert intelligence agency known as International Operations, or I.O. for short, to put his skills to more productive use in the service of his country.
He became a model soldier - a Delta Operator - eventually working with an elite black-ops unit under the leadership of John Lynch (A.K.A. "Topkick"), with Amanda Waller (A.K.A. "The Wall"), acting as the I.O.'s liaison. Cash did not particular like the people in charge, but like any good soldier he followed orders and proved highly efficient. He earned the respect of his team-mates, and they in turn earned his. They called themselves Team 7 - America's premier covert ops team - and given Cash's uncanny proficiency as a marksman, they dubbed him Deadeye.
Cash and Team 7 conducted top secret missions all over the world in the name of "the greater good of these United States"; their actions were bloody - very bloody - their success rate was high... but little did they know that I.O. had other plans for them...
----
===The Approach===
In 1968, Miles Craven, Director of I.O. ordered Team 7 deep into the heart of an unnamed African nation, to "clean out" a facility where scientists were conducting horrific experiments on other humans. Alas. The mission was a set-up from the beginning. As soon as Cole's team reached the laboratory, I.O. flooded the area with gas (an experimental, airborne agent called "Gen-Factor") - and carted them away for further testing.
Team 7 - a group of soldiers who already technically "didn't exist" - vanished.
It had been Craven's intention all along to betray his operatives. That was the purpose of "Project: Genesis" and the Gen-Factor serum: to make super-soldiers which were collectively dubbed Gen-12. Unfortunately... its success rate was not high. Several of Cole's teammates went insane. Some died. When powers began manifesting... the effects were often explosive, destructive, terrifying.
In Cole's case, the first ability to reveal itself was telepathy. He managed to see inside Craven's mind - even cause him intense pain - before another telepath, Gabriel Newman, blocked him out. Soon afterward, Cole was able to add telekinesis to his repertoire of powers - but being "super", however, did not make him happy... He saw himself and his teammates as monsters. Two of his friends had already destroyed themselves - and Cole had had to put down a third (Andrew Johnson), he also started showing signs of homicidal madness.
Later that same year, Craven and I.O. proved yet again just how willing they were to sacrifice Cash's team all in the name of "science". Sent into a desert somewhere in the heart of Africa - supposedly to neutralise a missile silo - Team 7 found only an ancient ruin, and some reclusive monks. Then Craven launched a nuke at their location, to either test them, or destroy them. 
After a destructive fight with Topkick, Cash managed to rally his squad and showed them how to survive. As one solid unit - mentally linked - they formed a bubble of pure psychic energy... and survived the initial devastation. Their healing abilities manifested then, healing each one despite the inferno raging around them. But they were done being government guinea pigs. Done with Craven. Done with I.O. They turned their backs on "duty" and went their separate ways.
And just like that, Team 7 was no more.
----
===The Build-Up===
The days "post-Team 7" were a dark, lonely time for Grifter. I.O. tried several times to recapture and recruit him all over again - occasionally succeeding, although Cash always managed to disappear on them again. Amongst those responsible for finding him were former comrades John Lynch, and Michael Cray - although Cray turned on I.O. as well, and both escaped. Lynch remained with the organisation. Cash's brother, Max - who was also an I.O. agent, but not a member of Team 7 - was assigned to the chase more than once, which only added to the rivalry between the two of them. 
Cash spent most of those days (in the late '60s, to the early '70s) on his own, and to survive he returned to "what he knew" - that is to say, grifting. In 1969, The Comet passed by Earth and super-powered-beings (SPBs for short), began "activating" all over the U.S. (the world, in fact). Some of them proved to be more than a little dangerous. Cole saw the opportunity this presented and started to supplement his "income" (from con-artistry) by collecting bounties on troublesome SPBs. The technical term for SPBs activated by The Comet was "Seedlings".
This soon put him at odds with the United Nations' super-hero response team known as Stormwatch.
Cash put his black-ops skills to fine use, tracking down anyone with a price on their head - at least those ones he felt "deserved it" - but Stormwatch had taken a special interest in these Seedlings (and other SPBs) and seemed extraordinarily proficient at tracking them down. Frequently Cash ended up either dodging yet another government-sanctioned agency, or exchanging blows with them - and not always coming away the victor. There were times he was just glad to have survived - and survive he did. 
He made a name for himself. A reputation. 
And people took notice. 
Unfortunately for Cash, being a lone bounty hunter/mercenary-for-hire in a world with more than one covert agency chasing him down was not the worst of his problems... The ugly side-effects of the Gen-Factor serum had begun to show themselves. Cash could feel the potency of his powers fading - it had taken longer with him, than some of his other comrades - but even so, when he used them, they would fluctuate like the death-throes of a terrible beast as its life slowly drained.
Telekinetic bursts would flare suddenly out of control - oft causing unnecessary collateral damage. Attempts at mind-reading sometimes did irreparable harm - and not just to "the bad guy". There were casualties. Too many casualties. Cash's willpower was strong; it had set him apart from many of his former squad-mates... but it wasn't enough. He might have put himself down (as he had, Johnson and so many other "animals" - people he deemed deserving), but... he didn't. Possibly couldn't.
In any case, by the early '70s, Cole Cash was a wanted man. On so many levels.
And then... an "angel" leapt into his life - bringing the hordes of Hell with her - and everything changed.
----
===The Convincer===
That "angel" turned out to be an alien - a fierce warrior-priestess, as beautiful as she was deadly - from a race of immortal beings known as Kherans or Kherubim. The "hordes" chasing her were also aliens: the Kherans' arch-enemies - monsters, parasites as horrifying as they were evil - called Daemonites.
The woman's name... was Zannah.
Cash never stood a chance.
Cole's and Zannah's relationship began as any epic love-affair might - in battle. Initially... with each other (a habit that would become a recurring theme over the decades). Both found themselves hunting the same target: for Cole it was a human businessman with a bounty on his head. For Zannah, it was a Daemonite masquerading as a human businessman with a bounty on his head.
What were the odds they would turn out to be the same person?
Like two wild animals fighting over the same prey, Kherubim and Super-Powered Human clashed together, nearly allowing the Daemonite to escape - but while Cole's powers had typically made him a formidable (and unpredictable) opponent, they also made him erratic, unfocused... manic. Zannah overpowered him easily, but refrained from killing him - even though at one particularly low point, he begged her to.
Was he not mad? Had he not said he was a monster?
But Cole's distress came from a genuine threat, not madness. His telepathy spiked erratically, revealing the thoughts of his quarry - and its true identity as an alien. A Daemonite. A monster. It's name? B'lial. And like that, Human and Kherubim joined forces. The battle ended soon afterward with B'lial suffering some dismemberment (courtesy of Zannah's clef-blade) and a massive telekinetic blast from Cole - which threw the alien tens of meters away. 
Dead.
Zannah stayed with Grifter to help him with his injuries (most of which she had inflicted), and his anguish at having to use his powers - something she seemed to understand. In that moment something sparked between them, and whatever that spark was, it gave life to... something new: a story. A story of two lonely warriors, drawn by battle, bound by fate, who would both complement and clash with one another like fire and ice from that day forward:
The story of Grifter and Zealot - (A.K.A. Cole Cash and Zannah).
Not a single day in the lives of these two warriors was ever simple. In the decade that followed their serendipitous meeting, they travelled the world as mercenaries, in much the same way a Cash had on his own - only this time there were two of them... and they had "demons" dogging their every step. Zannah explained the grim nature of the Daemonite threat, and her lover was only too happy to add "more monsters" to his hitlist. She also took it upon herself to help rid Cash of his "curse" - the Gen-Factor madness. Breaking millennia of tradition (traced back to her homeworld, Khera), she taught Cash the ways of the warrior-priestesses known as the Coda Sisterhood.
Cole Cash became the first male Coda in the history of Earth - and Khera.
While their relationship sparked and flared greatly - burning both of them at various times - the pair of them made a truly formidable team. And as a Coda, Cash discovered he no longer needed his super-powers in order to keep up with Zannah (a warrior of over five-thousand years experience), and together they hunted villains, madmen, dictators, drug lords, corrupt businessmen - and "demons" - all across the world. As the 1980s drew nearer, Cash found himself ready and able to leave his old life (his old self) behind, and even went so far as to fake his death - the death of "Cole Cash". He took to wearing a mask - a mask that became his "face" from then on, and from then on called himself:
Grifter.
Grifter and Zealot - Two vs. Hell. Soon afterward, the threads of fate began to weave a new pattern for the intrepid duo - they were not to be alone in their fight.
----
===The Hurrah===
In the year 1980, a leader among the Kherubim, going by the name Jacob Marlowe, located and contacted Grifter and Zealot with an offer: to join other gifted heroes (most of them Kherubim or Kherubim/human half-breeds) to battle the threat of the Daemonites - in particular their diabolical leader, Helspont. The team went by the name WildC.A.T.S, which was short for: Wild Covert Action Teams. Grifter and Zealot had already run afoul of Helspont and his vile machinations, but with...debatable success - and they knew all too well just how great a danger the body-snatching Daemonites posed to humanity... Still. They did not exactly jump at the chance. Not right away.
It had something to do with bad blood between Zealot, and another Kherubim - another Sister going by "Nemesis". There was also mention of a Raven. Zealot initially refused to tell Grifter (who by now had sort of "broken up" with her - despite the fact that they still slept together whenever they felt like it), which annoyed him to no end. In time, however, bits and pieces of the story fell into place, but by then... Grifter no longer cared - his ex had a 5,000-year-old grudge against someone... 
...and - given the dubious effect of his "powers" on his own lifespan - he just might live long enough to understand what a "millennia-long grudge" feels like. Ouch.
A long story short: they joined the WildC.A.T.S.
It proved a good thing, too - for Grifter in particular: in 1982, his old comrade (and something of a nemesis), John Lynch assumed leadership of I.O., with Amanda Waller as his deputy. Max Cash, Grifter's brother, had also moved up in the ranks of I.O., and none of them had entirely given up on bringing Grifter back into the fold. To fix the matter, Jacob Marlowe (whose real name was "Lord Emp" - although Grifter repeatedly referred to the dwarfish-looking man as "Little Buddy"), pulled some strings and had "Cole Cash" practically deleted from every government database in the world. Only "Grifter" remained.
At last: no more I.O. Delta Operators dogging Cash's steps... perhaps.
Grifter. On a team once again. "And for the record, the first one that yells "Go Wildcats!" gets a boot up the butt!" - such was Grifter's take on embracing that old "team spirit". Still, they were a highly effective force for good - fighting a war against an enemy so ambitious, so cruel - so old - that it (the Daemonites) could have been considered the Earth's deadliest threat...
...and only the WildC.A.T.S (and a few others) seemed to know about it. Furthermore, His Royal Devilness - Helspont - seemed to be preparing for something immense, something that would shake the world to its molten core... and in 1997 he showed them the scope of his plans: 
in the form of a full-scale Daemonite invasion.
It was the WildC.A.T.S who tasted victory. With the help of a "Kherubim High Lord" named Majestros, they defeated the invading forces - and yet somehow the entire conflict managed to remain secret to all but a few military leaders and officials from the U.N. The public never knew how close they had come to literally seeing Hell on Earth. 
1998, in the wake of the invasion, the WildC.A.T.S reformed with a new roster (including some new blood such as Ladytron and TAO) - and Grifter as its leader. Then the team went on the offensive. The world paid more attention to the superheroes now, even if they were eyed "with caution" - but given the team's effectiveness, the public could hardly complain. Grifter's stint at leader ended poorly (although not technically due to his fault - it would depend upon whom one asked) in 2001, when TAO betrayed his teammates and formed one of the largest crime syndicates in the world: Intergang. Given TAO's extreme power, Majestros had to return, and killed him. Grifter, after a heated - and public - falling out with the team, handed the mantle of leadership back to the Kherans (Zannah, Charis, Emp...), and returned to doing what he loved best: finding monsters (Daemonite or otherwise) and putting them down: on his own.
As one could imagine, this went over wonderfully with his ex-girlfriend.
Throughout the crises to follow - and there were many - Grifter found himself on the run once more. He fell in with various criminal organisations along the way, committing a string of crimes, and put himself on the radar of his former allies (like Stormwatch who tried to hunt him down as well). He was spotted in collusion with known enemies of the WildC.A.T.S - such as Intergang - and regarded an international criminal.
Even I.O. came after him. Again.
And his brother, Max - who very nearly killed Cole, and discovered his identity. Cole managed to disable Max's gun (with a truly awesome shot - a bullet in the loading mechanism), and escape. Max never knew who exactly he had just fought - only The Grifter.
----
===The In-And-In===
As the calendars world-wide clocked over to the new millennium, Grifter remained - for the most part - on his own. He resurfaced again in 2006 during the arrival (the invasion, rather) of alien despot, Darkseid - but as one of the "lieutenants" of Intergang. The enemies of his former friends.
Needless to say, Zealot tried to kill him.
So did Charis. Most of them, actually.
It had been Darkseid's plan to keep Stormwatch and the WildC.A.T.S "tied up" with Intergang - and thus out of the way while he saw to the execution of his invasion plans. However, Grifter secretly betrayed his "criminal cohorts", and gave his real friends the opportunity they needed to circumvent Darkseid's little "distraction" and deal with him directly.
The idea had been Lord Emp's all along. Grifter's role (as a double-agent) had also been kept small so that even after he helped his friends, he could still disappear and (hopefully) keep his "dubious moral status" intact. The con had been long in the planning... and it wasn't quite over. But at least the WildC.A.T.S (if nobody else) knew where Grifter's loyalties lay. 
Grifter's activities remained... suspicious and unpredictable (at best) for the next several years. He had a few run-ins with various covert (sanctioned and unsanctioned) agencies, and risked limited contact with Zealot. He had little choice there - she tracked him down in 2010 to demand why he did not help them against Sinestro and his "Injustice League". The answer? "Ask the Little Buddy." (Lord Emp).
The argument - as usual - ended with them in bed.
Everything seemed to come together (no, not talking about Grifter and Zealot) in 2012 - during the trans-dimensional meta-crisis that became known as "The Merge". A great deal of time spent on the "other side" of the law paid off for Grifter (and, to be fair, he was not the only person gathering intel on the enemies of the Earth; that is merely how he chooses to tell it), and he returned to the WildC.A.T.S with what he knew.
The invasion of Helspont and his Daemonites, all those years ago, seemed like a pebble hitting the waters of a pond compared to the sheer magnitude of what threatened the Earth now: two worlds - across parallel dimensions - were being forced together by an alliance of criminal masterminds (Helspont included) belonging to each "Earth". Neither world had ever seen cooperation between "dark side" forces like this before, and it called for a similar alliance between the forces of good. Members of the WildC.A.T.S split up to fulfil various missions of their own - each suited to the skill-set of the individual. Threats were everywhere... even within the ranks of the "good side".
One such threat became Grifter's problem (that is to say, he made it his problem). Part of the intel he had earlier collected had revealed certain details... about Helspont. The Daemonite "emperor" intended to infiltrate the second Earth with his own forces... led by an "old friend". B'lial. Grifter could not - would not - allow this to happen. He assembled a team of his own to go across one of the Stormwatch-controlled dimension bridges, to battle any Daemonites they found on the other side.
It should not come as a surprise that the Grifter's squad also involved a number of his old comrades... from Team 7. Hoo-rah!!
War raged on both sides of the various dimension-gates that had opened up between worlds. Grifter fought alongside teams of "mutants", using his own powers to point out Daemonites (those who had already taken hosts). The public of "Other New York" were terrified - of Grifter and his squad - since they appeared to be killing normal, regular human beings... (how could they know there were alien parasites inhabiting them?) Grifter killed B'lial personally - putting multiple pulse-rounds from his VAD pistols into the alien, then he telekinetically folded the Daemonite's face in upon itself, crushing it. 
The Daemonite had never looked better.
There were casualties. "Locals" had died - mutant or otherwise. Team 7 lost several men - good soldiers all of them, but the Daemonites lost much, much more. Deathblow died impaled upon a traffic light... he came back to life a few hours later. They had been outnumbered and outgunned against the Daemonite incursion, and even after the battle they had no way to be sure that none of the alien parasites had escaped. Regardless, Grifter and his squad returned to their home, victorious.
----
===The Next Con===
In the time since The Merge Grifter ran multiple operations (both solo and with the WildC.A.T.S) to root out remaining pockets of Daemonites and others that had been allied with them. His "on-again-off-again" relationship with Zannah continued, and he was able to square things with a few of those who had been fooled by his "long con" (being a villain), and maybe take a holiday from war and mayhem...
But it wasn't over.
It isn't over.
It's never over.
==Personality==
* The Grifter - "That, as they say, is more like it. When the odds are stacked against you... you don't fold, and you don't play the hand you're dealt. You play the player across from you... and take him out of the game." This is how Cole approaches any situation - but especially the really dangerous ones, where the stakes are high. Everything is, in some way or other, a game... and he always plays to win. Cole also doesn't believe in fate; he makes his own luck. He is a survivor.
* The Soldier - Cole is a man of action. There is a notable decisiveness about him, and a deep confidence in what he can do - as well as why he does it. When it comes to "the mission" (whatever that may be), he pays attention, follows orders, goes in... and gets the job done. I.O. tried to make him into a weapon, and they only partly succeeded. He doesn't always kill - but he is certainly not afraid to. There is a reason he had to fake his death (as "Cole Cash") and remove records of his existence - he has killed a lot of people, and that is not likely to stop any time soon.
* The Hero - "They're not 'powers'. That would imply they're a good thing." Being a "hero" was once very important to Grifter - but Project: Genesis took that away from him, and made him a monster (in his own eyes, at least). Since then he has settled for something "in between". He hopes. Most people never get to see the hero in Grifter; they see the con-man, the soldier (or the merc) - and some see only a murderer - but the hero is definitely there (if not all the time). He is not crazy (not if he can help it), and he is not cruel - but he will do what must be done. In a heartbeat. He is loyal to his friends (has to be - he doesn't have many), loyal to his team, and he cares about the greater good - but he is no "boyscout". Petty crimes certainly don't bother him at all.
* The Man - It might surprise people to learn that Grifter enjoys history, reading - he used the library in I.O. headquarters frequently. He is something of a sci-fi buff, and knows enough about pop culture (over the last fifty years or so) to make myriad references throughout any given day. Despite being considerably older than he looks, he at least acts with the exuberance of a young man - even if he might not feel it inside, at times. Whatever he likes, or hates, or does - whatever he is, stripped of his mask, of his "soldier-y-ness", of his powers (all of them) - beneath everything... he is still what he has always been from the very beginning: a survivor - a grifter engaged in a "long con" with Death, every other damn day of his life...
==Logs==
* 2015-02-15 - Tooth and Titans - The Titans run afoul of Daemonites at STAR Labs, and the Grifter makes an appearance to complicate things.
* 2014-06-02 - Reunion - Isn't it sweet when a pair of old lovers meet again, after three millenia of trying to kill each other?
* 2013-12-03 - Special Delivery - An old frienemy returns to the WildCATS, with news and a addition to the team.
==Soundtrack==
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Category:Wildstorm Features
Category:Elite Characters
Category:Altered Humans
Category:Special Characters
Category:Taken Characters
Category:Team 7
Category:WildCATS
Category:Arrested or Slowed Aging
Category:Iron Will
Category:Regenerative Healing
Category:Telekinesis
Category:Telepathy