Ray Freedom

### Place of birth

Massachusetts, The All-Mighty and Great United States of America (In Ray's Opinion)

## Physical description

### Eye color

*Unknown*

> **"I suck goose eggs. No matter the cost."** - Ray Freedom, at some point.
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**Ray Freedom** is one of the young Centurions. A Massachusetts Yankee from an old money family with an immature interest in tinkering, he was once mailed a raygun meant for someone named Nikola Tesla by mistake and nearly killed the Vice President with it while experimenting. Soon identified as a Centurion on account of freakish luck and uncannily high menace factor, he was taken under the somewhat flabby wing of Herschel Babbage and trained in the ways of science and engineering. The boy dubbed his iconic raygun the Freedom Ray and sought to master and replicate this amazing technology. A true American patriot, Ray no doubt looked forward to the opportunity to show the rest of the world what-for as a Centurion. His first outing in 1914 Britain did not turn out as planned in this regard.

## Appearance

A bespectacled blond teenager that never even bothered to make a description of his character's appearance besides using an image.

## Background

His troubles began when his mentor's workshop/laboratory came under the attack of Madam Czarna and her minions. Although unathletic Ray was narrowly able to escape and make it to the Wapping safehouse, it was not before he was beaten nearly to a pulp by a big Pole and retaliated by biting and burning him to death. In retrospect the latter may have been worse than the former for Ray, because, unbeknownst to him, the Pole was related to Madam Czarna (according to Juan Juarez, as her great grandson). The need to avenge him may have been part of why, alone among the Shadow Federation bigwigs, Czarna insisted on being personally present in the group's Wapping base during the siege of the Century Club safehouse. While the siege had failed, Czarna got her revenge. Ray, partly recovered thanks to the help of Dr. Winston Hughes, insisted on joining the raid on the Shadow Federation's warehouse base. He created primitive gas masks of limited effectiveness against Czarna's fear mist and went with Lin Tsao and Viktor Vaughn to attack the base through its back door. Before long the trio was cornered by anarchists and walking corpses, and while his comrades performed exceptionally, Ray, despite his best efforts, was soon overran. Weakened by Dr. Mostro's dead men and dazed by the fear mist, he was easily enough captured by Madam Czarna, especially as Lin had ran on ahead by then and VV was in no way able to impede her.

While for the other young Centurions (but mostly just VV) freeing Ray became one of their main objectives during the events that followed, Ray himself was put through unceasing torture at Czarna's hands in her part of the Saint Haven Citadel, plagued by nightmare after nightmare and possessed by spirits that made his body thrash around in painful and unnatural ways. It was no miracle that he survived, as Czarna was unwilling to give him any chance of escape. Nor was he saved by the growing bickering between Czarna and Masque, the latter objecting to this treatment and wishing to use the boy as leverage against Herschel, but finding himself unprepared for a proper showdown with his independent-minded ally.

In the end, it was Juan Juarez (possibly with some help from Jacob, but even then not without a personal cost as well) who rescued Ray - and his raygun, which the wily Mexican passed on to Else Rommel, who in turn handed it over to "Saint Haven". Eventually the raygun made it back to Ray's hands after the Battle of Saint Haven was over. Ray, meanwhile, remained mercifully unconscious for most of it, having been stored at the abandoned top floor of the Citadel and subsequently retrieved by Else and brought to Masque's inner sanctum in time to be thrown by Oromassi during that creature's fight with Else. After the battle Ray was left to recuperate, along with his mentor. Presumably after that he came back to America, but nothing else can be said with any amount of certainty.