Raphael Silver

**Raphael Silver** is a insurgent legacy villain, son of world renowned thief Raoul Silver. He is apart of the team The Silver Bandits.

## Appearance

Raphael Silver is a young African-American man in his mid twenties. He has a dark complexion, brown eyes, and black hair. His hair is styled with short dreads he parts to his right. He's a handsome man, his most notable facial feature being his sharp jawline.

Raphael has always had an affinity towards charismatic characters like James Bond or Danny Ocean, so he tries to carry himself in a classy way to appear astute and well-refined. For this reason he likes to dress nicely and wears his father's blazer around.

As a thief, Raphael dresses in his father's Silver Suit, this high-tech suit is silver with a hexagon pattern on the arms and center of the suit. The suit can change it's appearance to allow Raphael to camouflage himself in any environment, though some projections may be more convincing than others.

The suit also has a mask that can be pulled onto the head to cover Raphael's face. This is similarly styled to the suit with a pair of goggles inside the suit that have an interface Raphael can engage with to see in the dark, see a heat map of the scene, or provide him with varying information about his trajectory.

Raphael also wears an earpiece with a hexagon on it to keep in contact with his mission control, who is usually Gloria Singleton.

## History

### Origins

Before Raphael was born, his father Raoul Silver was the world's most talented thief, known as the Silver Bandit. Using the Silver Suit, a suit that allows its wearer to camouflage with any environment, Raoul was able to rob some of the wealthiest people in all the world. Shortly after Raphael's birth, Raoul began to plan his retirement to help raise his son, but what was planned to be his final job went wrong, leading to Raoul not only being arrested but paralyzed from the waist down.

Because of this, Raphael was raised alone by his mother, Virginia Silver, but was allowed to visit his father once a month, which both he and his father looked forward to. Growing up in poverty, Raphael grew up aspiring to be like his father (against his mother's wishes) and formed a plan to retrieve his father's famous Silver Suit from the American Syndicate of Heroes.

### Retrieving the Silver Suit

After moving out of his mom's house, Raphael began to form his plan to reclaim his father's title as the Silver Bandit. Taking the place of a random intern, Raphael infiltrated as "Ralph Filbert" and made his way onto the aircraft moving countless pieces of highly guarded cargo from the East Coast to the West Coast.

On this flight, Raphael is introduced to Engineer Tech Ember de la Cruz, who is working maintenance on the ship. After some mild flirtation, Ember gets called elsewhere, and Raphael heads to his quarters for the night.

While on his own, he begins to prepare for his robbery, but his plans are interrupted by Ember who shows up with a bottle of wine she stole from the captain's quarters. Unable to say no to her, the two stay and have a drink together and open up to one another about their families. Ember confesses she only became a tech because her father, who died when she was young, was one as well. Raphael admits he's doing the same (without revealing his father's actual occupation) and shares his own anxieties about filling that identity.

Ember comforts him, and the two end up kissing just as the ships alarms begin to blare, revealing that someone else has infiltrated the ship and is stealing the cargo. The two rush towards the cargo bay where multiple armed men are present. The two try to fight off the robbers, Raphael struggling just as Ember reveals she has super powers. She then confesses that she isn't just an Engineer Tech, but also the daughter of Blue Phoenix, the high-level syndicate hero.

Working together, the two work to reclaim the airship and retrieve the stolen cargo before the thieves escape the airship. Just as they think they've succeeded, the ring leader of the thieves escapes in a pod with the Silver Suit. The two realize they have to get it back, but before they leave, Ember confronts Raphael and asks if when he kissed her, he just wanted to hook up, or if he felt the same way. He claims he did feel the same and they kiss one last time. Raphael secretly pocketing a remote without Ember knowing.

They each head out into the sky, Ember flying via her powers, and Raphael in a spare pod. The pursue the ring leader, which Ember disarms, then retrieve the cargo. Raphael grabs the suit in his pod, and Ember calls him to come back to the airship, but he says he can't. He explains that when he spoke about following in his father's footsteps, this is what he meant.

Ember realizes who Raphael really is, and angrily demands he return the suit or she'll take it from him. Raphael in turn clicks the switch on the remote, which opened the doors of the aircraft, leading tons of boxes of cargo to come crashing into the town below. Ember is forced to return to the aircraft, catching or maneuvering the pieces of cargo away from the town below as Raphael gets away. He lands, abandons the pod, and escapes into the haze of the mid-west, returning to New York with the suit.

### Forming the Silver Bandits

Now with his father's suit, Raphael begins to plan his own crimes to reclaim his father's title as the world's greatest thief. His roommate, Spencer, is completely aware of his criminal plans but is completely passive towards the activity, claiming ignorance to whatever Raphael is doing. After his first heist is a miserable failure that he barely escapes from, he realizes that he needs a team to rely on rather than going at it alone.

The first person he enlists to be his "guy in the chair" is Gloria Singleton, a young and skilled hacker who lived in their building and just found herself unemployed. Raphael asks for her help, claiming it's just for one heist and wouldn't be a regular thing. After Gloria successfully guides Raphael through the heist, she convinces him to let her continue to work with him, saying they work well together and he can't do this without help. He reluctantly agrees and they team up.

Gloria next encourages Raphael to seek an acting coach. Who she finds for him is a failing improv actor, Leonardo Napier. The melodramatic, large and bulky man is a wannabe actor who gives Raphael acting classes, and ends up "inviting himself" into the heist Raphael is planning without even realizing they're committing a crime. In spite of not wanting him there, Leonardo proves himself quite useful in both distracting the guards as well as being "the muscle" when needed.

He gladly joins the group, as improv doesn't make much money, completing their team. Together they formed "The Silver Bandits", and quickly became well known thieves, earning a place on A.S.H.'s radar, as well as Ember's.

### Trivia

* Leonardo once brought up the fact that half of their team had Ninja Turtle Names, and began to decipher which Ninja Turtles each of the team members were. He claimed that:
	+ Raphael was much more of a Leonardo
	+ Gloria was more of a Donatello
	+ He was much more a Michelangelo
	+ Spencer was definitely Raphael