Ashton Grey (Epsilon)

### Aliases

The Human Battery, Electro, Shockwave, Electrocutioner, Zap, Zappy, Electric Kid, Sparky, Ashy, High Voltage

### Affiliations

Zane Hamilton University (student), Telltale Heart

## Biographical Information

### Relatives

Patrick Grey (father, deceased)
Katherine Grey (mother, deceased)
Naomi Hathaway (step-mother)

### Occupation

Adventurer, vigilante, college student, bassist, various part-time jobs

## History

### Early Life

Ash Grey was born to Patrick and Katherine Grey, having been born on a plane during a flight. He was more attached to his mother than his father, with her being the person who installed most of the worldviews he holds to this day. Because of this, it took a massive toll on him when his mother was diagnosed with a severe case of anemia, which caused her to be in and out of the hospital for a good few years of Ash's childhood, during which he seemed to not be fully aware of the full extent of his mother's condition. After managing to get a particularly high grade on a middle school test, Ash wanted to show it off to his mother but upon returning home found out that she had died while he was in school. The next few years, Ash was filled with immense sadness that often manifested itself as violent outbursts at school. His father did his best to aid his son during this time, including sending him to counseling, but Ash seemed unwilling to accept any form of help, making matters worse was his father beginning to date a lawyer named Naomi Hathaway, who he invited to move in with him and Ash. Seeing Naomi as an attempt at replacing his mother, Ash began acting up more and during high school befriended another rebellious teen named Kenny Keen, who encouraged Ash's rowdiness and even praised him for it. After befriending Kenny, Ash began skipping school to spend time with him and do various activities, the nature of which became more and more sinister.

Naomi and Patrick worked together to try and put Ash back on the right track, but it seemed as though the more effort they put in, the more he would drift away. One day, Kenny announced to Ash and their small group of friends that he planned on robbing a chemical plant in the area. The thought of committing such a large-scale crime intimidated Ash, who asked Kenny for time to think about whether or not he'd go through with it, Kenny giving him a week in response. It seemed as though Ash had finally snapped out of it, but during this week, Patrick was in a car accident that claimed his life, which left Ash in the custody of Naomi. Almost instantly afterwards, Ash agreed to rob the plant with Kenny, who he met up with the next night. The small gang broke into the plant, but after getting away with the money and chemicals inside, Kenny accidentally triggered an invisible alarm. During the rush out, Ash was accidentally pinned beneath a pile of metal containers and Kenny chose to leave him behind, with Ash being arrested.

Over the course of the next week, Naomi did her best to help Ash, but the various crimes he had committed slowly piled up on top of him, ending with his sentencing of two years in a juvenile correction facility. Ash described juvie as some of the worst years of his life, with not even the frequent visits from Naomi helping as they only served to remind him of his actions and make him realize how unfairly horrible he had treated her. When the two years were up, Ash was released into the custody of Naomi, who he embraced with open arms. Deciding to finally turn his life around, he began helping around the house and took up various part-time jobs to help himself and his step-mother out. Though he had missed his own high school graduation, he managed to get into Zane Hamilton University, where he met new and less toxic friends, such as his best friend Triss Kuyani, his frenemy Mike Brady, and his eventual girlfriend Rebecca Barker, with all of them having a band together called Telltale Heart.

### Initial Hero Career

At first, Telltale Heart practiced in Triss and Rebecca's dormitory but they were forced to change locations due to constant noise complaints. While looking for a new area, Ash found an abandoned warehouse not long away and the band agreed to practice there from now on. Things seemed like smooth sailing, but when Ash showed up early for practice, he discovered that they had been sharing the warehouse with a group of criminals who were trading and selling various illegal goods. Specifically, they were attempting to sell a strange looking bomb that was later identified as the Magnifica. While attempting to call the police, Ash was discovered by the criminals, resulting in a chase that ended in the accidental detonation of the Magnifica. The blast launched Ash into an electrical generator and the force carried through a large chunk of the city. Unbeknownst to anyone, this event would have major repercussions going forward and come to be known as the Los Angeles Incident. Ash was put in a coma for the next week, during which his genes were slowly being altered and mutated. When he woke up, he tried to buzz in a nurse, but the button short circuited in his hand, which was generating electricity between its fingers.

Paranoid that he would be taken away for government testing, Ash refused to allow any blood tests or full body scans and was eventually let go back home, where he tested out his abilities for the next few days. Initially, Ash used his newfound powers for mundane purposes, such as getting infinite charge on his phone or repairing electrical equipment to show off, but things changed when Triss brought it to his attention that many gangs and criminals were using the confusion and chaos of the post-blast city to their advantage. Feeling responsible due to having been the one to detonate the Magnifica, Ash decided to do something about it, though not liking the idea of becoming media famous he created a make-shift superhero costume for himself. His various take-downs of criminals would eventually get the attention of one of these gangs's boss, the supervillain Shrapnel, who Ash recognized as one of the men who was originally attempting to buy the bomb. The two's battle was Ash's claim to fame, having defeated a criminal that even the best of police had failed to apprehend. After this, the media took to calling Ash's hero persona "Voltage" due to his electrokinetic abilities, with Ash adopting the name as his own.

During this part of his hero career, he encountered many of his most famous enemies, such as Oceanic, The Gunslinger, Hex Master, Custacean, Deer Hunter, Dandelion, Hornet, and Deathless Donny. However, he was also not very good at balancing both sides of his identity at the beginning, which often caused him to show up late to or fall asleep during band practice, which they were given permission to move back to the college though only late at night and in the gymnasium. One particularly bad example of Ash's poor balancing was when Triss attempted to set him up on a date with Rebecca, who had realized she had a crush on Ash during his coma, at a dance that was being hosted nearby. Ash both missed it due to hero duties and didn't even realize it was meant to be a date in the first place. After being chewed out by Triss about this, he would later make it up to Rebecca by promising to do anything she wanted, no matter how humiliating. However, all Rebecca wanted was to dance with Ash in her dorm, which was the start of the two's relationship, and he'd make an active effort to balance his life out afterwards to make sure a similar event could never happen.

Kenny would also reenter Ash's life around this time, having been recently released from prison. Ash was hoping that prison time had changed Kenny just like it had changed him, but Ash's friends realized that Kenny had both not changed and was seemingly trying to drag Ash down with him, which Ash refused to see due to projecting too much of himself on to Kenny. This eventually culminated in Kenny revealing stolen energy absorbing gauntlets that he was planning on using to rob the same chemical plant they had stolen from as teens in an attempt to get into a gang. Kenny tried to use manipulation and guilt tripping to make Ash come with him, which seemed to be working until Mike (quite literally) knocked some sense into Ash. Believing he himself had to be the one to take Kenny down, he suited up as Voltage and fought Kenny outside of the plant. Ash won the fight, but Kenny had managed to discover his secret identity during it and got away empty handed. This was the beginning of a long-standing rivalry between the now former friends. The two had mirroring outcomes after the fight, as Ash was forgiven by his friends while Kenny was accepted into the gang he was trying to impress.

During all of this, Ash was also doing heavy research into the Los Angeles Incident, attempting to find out who was selling the bomb, what the bomb was, and so on. This led to his first ever superhero team-up with Paragon, who had been sent by Ouroboros to also investigate the Incident. Unfortunately, the team-up was short lived, as Ouroboros was uncomfortable allowing an unlicensed vigilante in on the mission and Paragon was forced to kick Voltage off of the case. Ash continued investigating in secret despite this, but he was discovered at the initial blast's Ground Zero by Paragon. Ash disobeying direct government issued orders and the discovery that Ouroboros had somehow discovered he was the one that set off the Magnifica in the first place temporarily made Voltage an enemy of Paragon, who was blinded by anger at Voltage's incompetence. In spite of this, Ash still tried to look for information, eventually leading to him breaking into an Ouroboros base and using his powers to hack into their computers, searching for files related to the Magnifica case. Instead, he discovered the truth that the Magnifica was actually created by the American government and a handful of them had actually gone missing. After telling Paragon about this, the two confronted Ouroboros director Lucas Chang, who was begrudgingly forced to allow Voltage to continue his investigation in exchange for his silence.

### Skull War

Having been allowed access to Ouroboros' files, Ash was able to find camera footage of the men who had originally stolen the Magnifica and printed out a picture of him, interrogating anyone he could until he got a name: The Skull. Word eventually made its way back to the Skull that Voltage was after him, which began a war between the two that would eventually turn Skull into one of Ash's greatest enemies. During the war, Ash only ever met the Skull face-to-face a handful of times, with the Skull preferring to operate through his various lieutenants. One of these lieutenants turned out to be none other than Kenny Keen, revealing the gang he was attempting to join during his and Ash's last encounter was the Skull's. Upon watching footage of the two's fight and hearing the way Kenny spoke about Voltage, the Skull figured out they somehow knew each other (though he wasn't aware how deep it went) and decided to make Kenny his second in command for the foreseeable future, which essentially turned Kenny into the face of the operation and forced frequent fights between Ash and him.

Ash toppled operation after operation despite Kenny's best efforts to stop him, which was putting pressure on his back. Some of the most notable battles between the two during this part of their lives was when Skull talked Kenny into assembling a group of Ash's enemies to run a gauntlet on him, or when Kenny discovered Ash was dating Rebecca and revealed this to the villain Hornet, Ash's stalker, who proceeded to attack Rebecca at college. Ash also teamed up with the hero The Word, who was currently operating in L.A. to directly oppose the Skull and led to one of the few direct encounters he ever had with The Skull during their battle and The Word also revealed a number of details about the Skull and his organization to Ash, though the Skull managed to get away regardless. The Word left not long after, believing the city was in good hands under Voltage's watch. After all of this, Kenny's rank within the organization was being threatened and he decided to cross the line by attacking Ash at his own house. The subsequent battle raged on for some time, ending in Ash accidentally using his powers while in his pool, rendering himself unconscious at the bottom of it.

Luckily, Kenny left not long after and Naomi fished Ash out, but was shocked to find him in his superhero costume. She nursed him back to health, but was furious at him when he woke up, disapproving of his dangerous double life and the fact he had kept this secret from her. This caused her to temporarily ban him from ever being Voltage again, but she would eventually come around on it after being reminded how many people he had saved. Ash explained everything to her and she came up with a plan to defeat The Skull once and for all. With Ouroboros' help, a fake news broadcast was sent across the city that Voltage had been killed after his fight with Kenny. Ash then took to the streets out of costume, feigning he had returned to his life of crime to gather up information. He eventually learned his plan had worked and The Skull had successfully been lulled into a false sense of security and that he was planning on holding an auction, hosting it in-person for the first time, for a second Magnifica. Ash arrived the night of the auction, spotting Kenny on-stage with Skull and trying his best not to be spotted as he called for back-up from Ouroboros. However, he was discovered by one of the auction-goers and was forced to very quickly suit-up and fight them by himself. The Skull fled and Kenny attempted to fight Ash, but Ash simply knocked the Magnifica on top of him and ran after Skull.

On the roof of the building, Ash and The Skull fought while Skull waited for a getaway helicopter to arrive. Unbeknownst to them, Kenny had accidentally detonated the Magnifica in the building below, with him using his energy absorbing gauntlets to absorb the blast, only for Kenny himself to detonate afterwards. This time around, the blast was only big enough to take out the building, launching Ash and The Skull. Skull attempted to crawl away, but Ash, being superhuman, was damaged much less and pinned him to the floor as he called in Ouroboros agents that quickly arrested Skull. Via bribes and blackmail, Skull managed to avoid jail time, but Ash was happy that Skull was now under constant surveillance from both the police and Ouroboros agents. However, things weren't over just yet, as Ash was informed that Triss had failed to show up to college that day and didn't tell anyone why. Worried, he went to her house to visit her, only to be attacked by Kenny, who was holding Triss hostage and whose body had been mutated due to the absorption of the Magnifica's blast, though he was hiding this fact with a body-covering suit. Picking his friend over his secret, Ash used his powers in front of Triss to fight Kenny, though Kenny was noticeably more powerful and nearly won the battle before seemingly losing his powers and fleeing. After this, Ash and Triss sat down and talked, with Ash confessing everything.

Unlike with Naomi before her, Triss was thrilled at the revelation and revealed various schematics for inventions she had come up with to aid Voltage on his quest and even revealed doodles of a potential superhero costume for herself. However, Ash rejected Triss out-right, not wanting her to get hurt like she nearly was that day, and instead told her to call the police and report Kenny's attack. The following few days, Ash continued to fight various criminals, but the thought that Kenny was still out there haunted him. Eventually, he would learn Kenny's whereabouts when The Skull himself approached him and asked Ash to become his bodyguard, as Kenny (now going by "Siphon") had been trying to kill him. Reluctantly, Ash accepted, hoping that it would draw Kenny out. This seemed to have succeeded, as Kenny was spotted in Skull's headquarters, but upon confronting him, it was revealed it was actually just a man in Kenny's suit who he had threatened. Ash rushed back, only to arrive just in time to witness Kenny's true form, an energy creature, as he used his powers to slit The Skull's throat. The two began to fight, during which Kenny bragged about his new energy absorption abilities and revealed his plan to take over Skull's gang and become the new Skull.

Things went horribly wrong, as Kenny absorbed every attack Ash threw at him before once again detonating himself, blowing a hole in the side of the building. Ash was knocked unconscious and upon waking up witnessed Kenny attempting to fight off police helicopters his blast had attracted. Ash tried to strike from behind, only for Kenny to instead be hit by a different, new hero that Ash recognized as Triss. During the proceeding fight, Triss bounced theories off of Ash on how to defeat him, with them eventually coming up with the idea of overloading Kenny with power. The two threw blow after blow at him, with Kenny eventually building up so much energy that his body forced him to excrete it, firing a blast out of his body in all directions, destroying the building more and completely draining him. Kenny then passed out and was taken by police. Various journalists crowded around Voltage and Triss, the former still not liking media attention while the latter loudly proclaimed herself as "Echo" and claimed she was Voltage's new partner. Despite his previous reservations, Ash agreed with Triss's statement.

## Attributes

### Powers

* **Electricity Absorption:** Voltage can drain all forms of electricity from anything that contains it, which allows him to fire off the electricity from any part of his body (usually from his finger and hands). He can also absorb ionized particles in the air passively, which also adds to his total amount of electricity stored up. However, if he over exerts himself, he will run out of electricity, which renders him unable to create anything other than a simple static shock. When this happens, he must absorb more electricity to recharge.
	+ **Electrical Discharge:** Voltage can discharge stored up electricity as a weapon. More often than not, this takes the form of blasts, beams, and to a lesser extent, orbs. He can also discharge all of his electricity at once, creating a giant explosion of electricity as a last ditch effort.
	+ **Propulsion via Electromagnetism:** Voltage is able to fly in any area there is an electromagnetic field. While flying, his body is constantly discharging electricity from every part of his body.
	+ **Mild Metal Manipulation:** By charging an objects that can be magnetized with his powers, Voltage is able to pick it up and move it with his mind. The object in question becomes ionized, generating its own electricity while under his power. If the object is above a certain size, it begins taking a physical tole on him, leaving him exhausted.
	+ **Mechanokinesis:** Voltage can control machinery and technology, but he must be making physical contact with them in order to do so. While in command of the machine, Voltage has full understanding of the machinery and how it works, allowing him to use them however he likes. This works on all forms of technology, no matter how advanced or how good the firewalls are.
	+ **Situational Lightning Manipulation:** When there is already a storm, Voltage can call down and bend already striking lightning to his will.
	+ **Static Cling:** By creating low-level static electricity between his fingers and an object, Voltage can stick to it. However, he is unable to do this permanently and he will fall down if he isn't constantly moving while using his cling.

#### High Voltage

By absorbing massive amounts of electricity, Ash is able to transform into his High Voltage form. In this form, his body is made out of and constantly generating electricity. High Voltage has full control over all forms of electricity and can bend the electromagnetic fields to his will. He can create thunder storms and call down lightning from them as well as control objects on a subatomic level, manipulating the electrical charge that holds atoms together. In this form, he was able to disintegrate buildings and on one occasion an entire fleet of alien ships by waving his hand and he was able to go catch a punch from the god Soliara, who is much larger and stronger than him. However, he doesn't enjoy using this form due to an encounter with an evil future self of his who was in the form 24/7 and had lost his humanity due to it.

### Abilities

* **Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced):** During his rebellious years, Ash was forced to learn how to handle himself in a fight. His fighting style mixes real moves from karate and boxing with fictional moves he sees on TV, such as those performed in wrestling matches. He has also been taught by both his fellow heroes The Word and Paragon, who taught him how to use his powers to compliment his style, such as generating electricity in his feet and legs while throwing kicks and punches, dealing extra damage.
* **Master Gymnast:** Credited as being a result of constantly having to run from police in hi early years, Voltage is incredibly gifted at all forms of gymnastics. He is able to parkour across rooftops with relative ease, takes hours to become properly exhausted, and once cartwheeled out of the way of oncoming bullets just to show off.
* **Expert Tactician/Strategist:** When he focuses up, Voltage has proven to have a gifted mind when it comes to combat. He is able to take almost everything on a battlefield into consideration and can adapt to sudden upsets or surprises. Most impressively, during a confrontation with his enemy Siphon, he was able to come up with an elaborate battle plan mid-way through the fight.
* **Indomitable Will:** Volatge's force of will is likely his greatest asset. He can power through intense, emotionally or physically straining situations, and has overcome situations that would leave normal people with severe PTSD with only mild trauma. He credits all of it to the fact he believes going through these grueling scenarios will more often than not help others and, even when it doesn't, he is at least happy it was him and not someone else. Helping with this is also his belief that "everything is temporary, even the bad things", meaning that even when he is severely injured or mentally traumatized that it won't hurt for long.

### Weaknesses

* **Aquaphobia:** Even before gaining his electrical abilities, Ash suffered from a severe and intense fear of water that causes him to feel discomfort when even taking a shower. He claims to be okay being around water in general but feeling it touching his skin makes him feel gross.
* **Water:** Despite repeated attempts to figure out a way to do so, Voltage can't conduct his powers in water. Doing so causes him to short out, letting all of his stored of electricity out at the same time and electrifying the water in the process. This usually results in him passing out afterwards.
* **Power Limitation:** Voltage can't generate electricity. He must absorbed it from an outside force, which then allows him to let the electricity out of his body. Because of this, when he runs out, he will be rendered almost powerless, only able to create a small static charge.

## Paraphernalia

### Equipment

* **Rubber-Cloth Coat:** Voltage's signature green coat with lightning patterns running down it. The coat is made entirely of rubber, which can't conduct electricity and thus is immune to Voltage's powers, but it flows in a similar way as cloth. Created after Voltage burned his original coat off by accident during a fight.
* **Ion Attraction Suit:** A creation of Voltage's friend Triss Kuyani, the suit is a black, plastic material with circuitry running through it. It consists of a chest plate and a pair of gauntlet-like gloves, and was built to actively attract ionized particles towards Voltage for him to absorb rather than him absorbing them passively. This means that his body will charge itself much faster and he won't have to constantly search for electrical devices to drain when he is running low anymore.
* **Customized Goggles:** Also created by Echo, the lenses of the goggles were created to protect Voltage's eyes from both anything in the air that might hit and blind him while flying and physical attacks from enemies. They were built after his previous goggles shattered and the glass nearly blinded him.

## Notes & Trivia

* Ash is ambidextrous.
* He refers to McDonald's as "Micky's".
* Voltage has a statue dedicated to him outside of St. Jude Public Library for saving its employees while it was burning.
* Despite his gymnastic talents, Ash has only ever won silver medals in sporting events.
* There's a giant scar running half-way across Ash's torso, which was inflicted by the villain Crustacean.
* Voltage and Echo refer to themselves collectively as "Thunder & Lightning".
* His favorite movie is called Freddy Pain, which is a fictional gangster film.