Hero- Ed

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**Summary**

"Ed" is a self-named humanoid lifeform. It is unclear if he even has a gender to his biological makeup, but his features and voice appear more in line with a human male than a human female, so he has chosen to identify himself as male. He began his conscious existence accumnulating knowledge and attempting to understand human behavior, and how he fit in with these similar but very different beings.

With an extremely efficient and fast-learning mind, Ed was able to master American English, and give himself a name he deemed appropriate. Because he hypothesized already he was not in fact of the planet Earth, as he matched the description of no recorded Earth species, he thought the term "Extra Terrestrial" or the shortened "ET" would suffice. However, to avoid confusion with his identity with the movie of the same name, and to adopt a more relatable "human" name, he chose instead to call himself "Ed".

**Beginnings**

Ed wandered the streets of New York City for a time, attempting to assimilate into human society. However, his application of comprehensive logic and intelligence to everything he saw actually caused him to "over think" much of human behavior. For example, seeing a shouting rioter throw a molotov cocktail into a store he was inside, Ed proceeded to leave the store, approach the baffled man, and mimic his shout and throwing one of the man's homemade grenades into the street. While the man was attempting to burn down the store Ed was inside, Ed assumed the man was in fact greeting him in some way, and thought it best to return the greeting himself and establish a dialog.

This wandering was interrupted by the sudden appearance of rapidly growing and expanding vines across the urban area. Ed was able to recall no mention of such plant life, and thus proceeded to track the strange vines to their source. It was there he came upon a group of individuals battling the villain "Green". Still not quite understanding what was going on or why, Ed questioned Green, ultimately unravelling Green's cause as one that would do greater damage to the Earth's ecosystem than the polluting influence of mankind he sought to eliminate. While this did not stop the mad, super-powered eco-terrorist, it did cause him to take a moment to try and reconcile Ed's points, giving the heroes valuable time to act.

Green was ultimately defeated, although Ed played no physical part in the conflict. He investigated the downed villains, taking one of their handguns, a long coat, and any distinguishing documents, such as driver's licenses and photos. He later offered the documents to the authorities, but not the coat or the gun. He was approached to sign up with Danny Desmond's effort to turn super powered vigilantes into a legitimate arm of the law, but saw no reason to at the time. He was merely seeking to learn, not to cause trouble or fight anyone.

**Master Exploder and Area 7**

In the effort to find Paul Gothart before another deadly explosion went off, Ed was enlisted in the effort to seek out the suspected terrorist bomber by the same heroes he encountered battling Green. He however at first was not interested, as it furthered none of his understanding. He later consented to offer his assistance however, expressing curiosity as to how Gothart survived his own explosions unharmed.

When Gothart struck again as predicted, Ed went with the heroes to ground zero of the explosion. There he remarkably treated civilians and saved several lives without access to any sort of medical tools, simply improvising with what he could find around him. He then managed to also fix up the lights in the subway station, allowing some visibility. When Arthur Glass mentioned knowledge of experiments that sounded similar to Gothart's predicament, Ed suggested investigating Atlas Corp.

While the heroes were focused on helping Gothart, Ed was intrigued by the experiments performed there and curious as to what end they hoped to achieve. In his investigations, he came upon a scientist who actually seemed to be familiar with him, insisting he needed to take him to "Area 7". After some attempt to gain more information, Ed was ambushed by several security guards who attempted to restrain him. While at first successful, Ed forced his way free of the three men and drew his gun on them to keep them from pursuing. He then used the same technique to extract a gunpoint interrogation from the scientist.

It was revealed that Ed was in fact an experiment at Atlas' "Area 7", a lab-born specimen built by combining human DNA with DNA recovered from an unknown alien race. It was also implied that there may be more beings like Ed kept in the facility. Before Ed could move to investigate Area 7 personally, alarms in the building went off, and the heroes were forced to vacate.

**A Career in Law Enforcement**

The heroes went directly from Atlas to report to Desmond at police headquarters, and Ed, this time, went along with them. After Desmond was apprised of Gothart's situation along with information Ed had learned from his interrogation about Atlas' activities, Desmond promised to being an investigation of the company. Ed was then again encouraged to join up with Desmond's crimfighting effort. Seeing Atlas would be seeking to recover him and that he may not be able to maintain his freedom by himself, Ed simply asked if his position in Demond's organization would legally forbid others from abducting him. When Desmond told him it would, Ed agreed to become a "law enforcement officer" for Desmond.

Despite his less than altruistic motives for joining, Ed appears to take his job very seriously. In his first act he assisted in bringing down the insane villain that called himself "Dark Magnet". However, when mysterious men in an unlicensed white van appeared on the scene to cart off the unconscious villain, Ed scrutinized the badges they flashed closely, recognizing iconography from Atlas Corp's logo. However, Ed's attempt to shoot out the van's tires failed, and it made a clean getaway.

**Recent Activities**

Ed is Currently involved in Danny Desmond's "Hero Brigade". While he presently upholds his responsibilities to the group, he maintains the objective of learning more about himself, and has a running obsession with discovering what has become of the Atlas Corporation and the project that created him.

**Power and Abilities**

Despite being able to express a myriad of strange superhuman abilities, Ed's one true and ever-present ability is to recover from death. So long as one living cell of Ed's remains, cellular necrosis in connecting cells will ultimately be reversed, or cells with be re-grown entirely. When Ed is resurrected, however, his physiology can change to an amazing degree, allowing the manifestation of entirely new abilities from those he previously possessed. His memories and personality remain, but his ability to recall those memories and express that personality may be radically different. It is yet unknown if this is a critical part of the alien DNA in his genetic structure, some sid eeffect of it mixing with human DNA, or some new trait Atlas has added, intentionally or unintentionally. As Ed cannot recall any prior deaths, he is not currently aware of this ability and thus has no inclination to investigate it. It is possible that Area 7's scientists may be aware of it, but Ed has yet to confront them and learn the extent of their knowledge of himself.

Ed's first incarnation seems to be one able to quickly learn and grow accustomed to his new surroundings. His mind operates with extraordinary speed and efficiency. For instance, Ed was able to quickly flip through the pages of an entire encyclopedia, and retain all information contained within it. He is also able to call upon the information he gathers and apply it very easily and without practice. However, his mind seems almost entirely geared for accumulation and processing of information. He seems to have little to no emotional response to anything or anyone he encounters. Even when told of his artificial origins, he seemed only curious to learn more. Physically, Ed's first form is on par with an extremely healthy and well-exercised human male. It is likely he could compete with and even defeat olympic athletes in various events. He also recovers from any injury at a speed much greater than a human.