Grey Ghost

The Grey Ghost is a Polish robotic superhero and member of the Paragons.

## Biography

Europe has always had more supervillains than heroes, and with the ascendancy of groups like VIPER and ARGENT, the EU is desperate for some way to balance the scales. Dr. Felix Wozman, a revolutionary roboticist, proposed a radical solution: powerful military robots, capable of directly opposing supervillains, which would act as an international police force. Rather than being controlled by a traditional AI, these robots would be equipped with positronic brains so advanced that they could replicate an actual human mind. Dubbed Project Colossi, the plan was approved by the EU council, and with the aid of equipment and expertise provided by their allies in the machine city Zero-One, Dr. Wozman's team made rapid progress towards a working prototype.

Unfortunately, a VIPER spy had infiltrated the project and was reporting on its development. Not wanting to face a robotic army, VIPER launched an all-out preemptive strike on Wozman's lab. Despite the best efforts of the UNTIL-provided security force, the entire facility was overrun in minutes. Dr. Wozman, shot by the infiltrator and left for dead, crawled to the sub-lab where he'd been working on an experimental human-machine interface. Intended to help a robotic soldier learn to understand humanity on the deepest level, the interface now allowed Wozman to upload his consciousness from his dying body and escape into the network. He fled into the internet, taking as much of the project data as he could, mere moments before VIPER destroyed the entire database.

Wozman remained lost and adrift in cyberspace for months before he finally found his way to the inbox of a former UNTIL contact. Since he'd been away, UNTIL had been working to reconstruct the project in a new lab, and with Wozman's aid they were able to recreate his human-machine interface. Soon he downloaded himself to a synthetic brain in a robot body, becoming the first successful prototype of Project Colossi. The EU Council has shown some reticence in reviving the project's full scope, however, and for now Dr. Wozman has focused on proving the efficacy of his design. He took on the name 'Grey Ghost' and began infiltrating and dismantling every VIPER nest he could reach. After a string of high-profile arrests he quickly became Poland's most prominent superhero, and he leapt at the chance to join the Paragons in order to show the world once and for all the value of the research he gave his life to complete.

## Personality

The Grey Ghost isn't an AI. He has a fully formed human psyche with a complete range of emotions, which occasionally surprises people who expect him to act in a cold, logical robotic fashion. He enjoys a good joke and is remarkably quick on the uptake thanks to the processing speed of his artificial cerebellum. However, this same speed combined with his easy access to vast troves of information occasionally causes him to grow frustrated with his allies' limited organic minds. He is known to favor decisive action and has a bit of a temper that surfaces when the team gets bogged down in debate.

He is also a little paranoid, and tends to see convoluted supervillain plots even in random isolated criminal acts. This extends to his teammates as well, and in particular he does not trust Vagabond due to his background in espionage. Although he will follow Vagabond's orders, he treats his every word with quiet robotic suspicion.

## Powers

The Grey Ghost's body is constructed with thousands of micro-phase cells based on interdimensional portal technology. Each of these cells can phase in and out of reality independently, maintaining their connection to his body's network via quantum signaling. These cells give the Grey Ghost the power to turn desolid at will, and they can even render isolated portions of himself (or his weapons) insubstantial while the rest of him remains corporeal. This capability allows him to perform unpredictable maneuvers which he executes with robotic speed and precision to overwhelm his foes. Desolidification also makes the Grey Ghost extremely difficult to harm, as he can respond to an attack by phasing himself out of harm's way in a fraction of a second.

The Ghost also a martial artist of incredible skill, combining the creativity and unpredictability of a human mind with the tireless perfection of a robotic body. He didn't come by this skill honestly; instead, he copied a dozen martial styles just by observing masters in action and mapping their movements to his combat programs. He prefers to fight with a pair of short titanium katanas, but he is not averse to using his hands when appropriate.

The Grey Ghost can leap great distances and run up walls, and his stealth abilities are second to none, as he can phase his entire body out to become invisible as well as intangible. He also has a powerful sensor package that combines cameras, antennas, and telemetry detectors which taken together give him the ability to "see" through most walls and barriers. Finally, his robotic body is designed to be very resilient, with armor plates, redundant systems, and strategically placed crumple zones. This makes him extremely durable even when someone actually manages to hit him.

The Ghost has an encrypted military-grade wifi connection and enjoys quick access to nearly any information he needs, provided it can be found either publicly or in those UNTIL databases to which the Paragons have access.

## Weaknesses

As a human mind in a robot's body, the Grey Ghost is subject to both mental attacks and electronic countermeasures.

While desolid the Ghost gains a weakness to electricity, a relatively common attack type. He is well-insulated against electricity while fully solid, but entering a phased state robs him of this resistance.