Cole Cash

## Background

### 1969 - 1991: Cole Cash

Cole was born in downtown Los Angeles to Sylvia Cash, a nurse & Jason Winston Cash. Life was pretty simple as Cole doesn't remember any major events happening. The first real memory he would recall was his father dying right before Christmas when he was five.

Sylvia would go on to have another son named Max & later marry mobster Sam Del Gracci, giving him two step-siblings. Cole hated his stepfather so much & they constantly would be in arguments. Things took a turn for the worse when Sylvia was killed during a botched hit for Gracci in when he was sixteen. Cole & Max then moved with their grandmother in National City (allowing them to survive the bombing that destroyed the city years later).

Losing both his parents led to Cole turning to a life of crime as a means to help his family. He was eventually arrested at eighteen but was offered a second chance after stopping is friend from shooting an officer. Cole enlisted in the army shortly after. His first two years went so well that he saw a transition to Delta Force. He remained there for another two years before he was recruited into International Operations.

### 1991 - 2006: Deadeye

Cole served as an agent for IO for years to come. Eventually, his natural ability for combat & eye for a target led to him becoming part of a black ops team, Team 7. The team consisted of soldiers with the codenames of Arclight, Deathblow, Backlash, Topkick, Wraparound & Slaphammer. To fit it with the team, Cole took on the name Deadeye due to his elite marksmanship.

During the team's last mission, they were all exposed to GEN Factor Formula, an experimental chemical, under the orders of their handler, Miles Craven. The chemical was to activate powers within the team or give them superpowers. Though successful, many members had psychotic breaks. Following the reveal that their handler was behind the bomb, the group disbanded. Disgusted with the military & their secret agendas, Cole & Backlash decided to embark on a new journey on their own.

After returning stateside following the mission, most of the team went into hiding while a fewstayed with I.O. Cole & Marc began living in a nomadic but thrill seeking nature becoming adventurers in their own right. They met various people along the way but one stuck with them throughout, Maritza Blackbird. Though the three had their share of fun, the constant traveling & drinking began to eventually slow down. They all picked up jobs in the security field but realized that a normal life wasn't what they wanted either. While Marc & Maritza joined Stormwatch at the asking of former Team 7 member, Michael Cray, Cole preferred to stay away from the government.

### 2006 - 2015: Grifter

For the next three years, Cole worked solo dealing with conflicts wher ehe could but the use of his powers threatened his sanity so he took some time away. While out on the west coast, he encountered the ancient Kherubim warrior named Zealot. She introduced him to the WildCATs, a Daemonite hunting team run by Lord Emp. The two quickly started a relationship, with Cole falling for the woman fast. She took the unprecedented measure of teaching him, a male, the ways of the Coda Sisterhood. Her Coda teachings stabilized Cole's sanity & locked away what remained of his psionic powers.

A year later, the two broke up. While Zealot viewed it as just another relationship, Cole had become devoted to her & eternally grateful for restoring his sanity. They remained on good terms, even continuing some form of intimacy on & off until Cole met the heroine Godiva after the WildCATs & Justice League crossed paths. That relationship was short lived after he cheating & had a drunken one night stand. Grifter soon sank into a depression. He began drinking & having casual sex with women who reminded him of Godiva & Zealot (as well as Zealot herself). After witnessing some sloppy work in the field that almost got him killed, Zealot told him that he had betrayed her teachings & she would wipe him out if he stepped out of lineb again. After the meeting, Grifter straightened out his life & joined Halo Corporation as a security consultant.

## Romantic Relationships

* Lana Lang: Fling (1996)
* Charis: Brief Lover (2011)
* Zannah: Girlfriend (2009 - 2010); On & Off (2010 - 2012); One Night Stand (2014)
* Dominique Thiebaut: Lover (2015)
* Dora Leigh: Girlfriend (2012 - 2013), (2017 - )

## Powers & Abilities

* **Metahuman Physiology:** Exposure to the GEN Factor Formula had gifted as well as cursed him with supernatural abilities both mental & physical. These powers have fluctuated in potency over the course of his life. They eventually burned out over the years & went into dormancy thanks to his Coda training. While his psychic abilities are mostly diminished, he can utilize his psionics by consciously reordering part of his psyche to turn them on & off again.
	+ ***Accelerated Healing*:** He has an extremely unstable ability to heal & recover damaged bodily tissue structure at phenomenal rates. The effectiveness of which varies wildly between uses. He once healed from a broken neck almost instantly but waited weeks for healing his shattered leg. However, he recovers without so much as a scratch or any scar tissue afterward
	+ ***Longevity***: It has been nearly three decades since he was exposed to GEN Factor yet he still maintains the appearance from then as well as vitality of that time.
	+ ***Telepathy*:** Cole possesses the power to control & scan someone's mind.
	+ ***Telekinesis*:** He can create force fields & project varying waves of energy from his body
* **Peak Human Condition:** Cole possesses above average strength, speed, agility, stamina, coordination, reflexes, durability & balance.
	+ ***Hand to Hand Combat*:** He can take out a group of enemies single handed. He was already a formidable hand to hand combatant due to his military training & experience, but the Coda training he received has sharpened these abilities even further.
* **Deception:** At one point, he was a con-artist. His gift of gab & silver tongue allow him to get in and out of situations that would be dangerous for any man. He still uses these skills to this day.
* **Military Protocol:** Grifter is military trained & has been a part of black ops missions in the past.
* **Multilingualism:** He is fluent in English & Vietnamese.
* **Tactical Analysis:** Having many decades of combat experience under his belt, Cole Cash has a cunning strategic mind hidden beneath the layers of grit & reckless abandon. Combined with his master marksmanship, CQC Skills then years of black ops, military & extraterrestrial assassin training, it puts him in a planners category on par with the likes of Batman.
* **Weaponry:** He is adept with any firearm, knife, explosive, or throwing weapon on hand.
	+ ***Firearms*:** Grifter is a trained professional with firearms. Both from experience and training with the military, he has taken on not only armed men but aliens as well.
	+ ***Marksmanship*:** Cole is a phenomenal marksman, able to make impossible trick shots that can disable or rebound flash grenades & jam enemy artillery with ease. He once shot a pair of grenades while they were in mid-air, sending them back to their point of origin.
* **Tunic**: Grifter's face wear was designed by Stormwatch tech specialists using their state of the art engineering. On top of being made of a Kevlar fiber linen, it's also doubles as a gas mask which filtrates airborne toxins.
* **Trench Coat**: Cole's trademark long jacket comprises of the same artillery resistant material as his face mask. Serving him well both in a fashionable & practical sense, beyond its natural application. It also withholds a great many pocket stores & holding straps with which to house a great many munitions on his person. Armaments such as explosive charges, throwing knives, stilettos, acupressure needles & small firearms.

### Weaknesses

* **Weak Healing Factor:** He recovers much slower if he receives serious damage.
* **The Rush**: The side effects of using this power are sometimes terrible. The team referred to it as The Rush due to the effect that the use of it is likened to a drug.
	+ ***Physical Strain***: Using the powers can put a terrible strain on him & trying to keep them under control would often cause blood vessels to rupture.
	+ ***Affect Mind***: Prolonged use would threaten his sanity & outside forces.

### Ratings

* **Intelligence:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Strength:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Speed:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Occult:** 1 - Nonexistent
* **Weapons:** 7 - Master / Elite
* **Range:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Strategy:** 7 - Master / Elite
* **Combat:** 6 - Expert / Advanced
* **TOTAL:** 190 - Threat Level 4 / Moderate Threat

## Trivia

#### General

* Though he would have just celebrated his 47th birthday, Cole is physically in his early 30s.
* Since 1992, Cole has aged at incredibly slow rate. It seems as is he ages a year for every three to five years that pass. However, this is an estimated guess.
* Colt is an exceptional thief but he doesn't need this skill anymore.
* He defines himself as agnostic.
* His mask is used to conceal his identity as well as filter out any gases he may come in contact with.

#### Relationships

* He considers Marc Slayton & Michael Cray to be his best friend. He looks to Maritza Blackbird as a sister.
* In the fall of 1996, he had a short fling with Lana Lang when she was a senior in college. She wanted to do something spontaneous.
* He previosuly had a short fling with Kherubim Charis. She had been falsely accused of killed Earth's Coda (except Zannah) but after she proved her innocnce, she teame dup with the WildCATs to go protect a child from the Bladesmen, During the time together, the two struck up a short romance. When Charis was about to be hit by scimitars (Brotherhood/Shaper hybrids), Grifter jumped in front of her & took the hit. The relationship ended shortly after with her declaration of love for Majestros & her departure for adventure.
* Cole previously had a sexual relationship with Victoria Ngengi.
* After years of one night engagements, a short relationship with a former assassin & many lives saved, Cole resumed his relationship with Dora. So far, their relationship has remained solid for the last three years.