Grifter
Real Name Cole Cash

Prowess 7
Coordination 6
Strength 4
Intellect 5
Awareness 6
Willpower 5

Stamina 9

Powers
*Regenerative Healing 3 (Low-level healing factor from his latent Gen-Factor)
*Psionics (Telekinesis) 2 (Limited use of telekinesis to manipulate small objects or slightly enhance accuracy; rarely used)
*Pistols 6
*Knife 5
*Gadgets 5

Specialties
Athletics (Expert +2 bonus), Martial Arts (Expert +2 bonus), Military (Expert +2 bonus), Stealth (Expert +2 bonus), Weapons – Guns (Master +3 bonus), Weapons – Blades (Expert +2 bonus)

Qualities
*Constantly challenges authority
*Extremely loyal to his friends (especially Zealot)
*Major trust issues

Background

There are various accounts of Cole’s early youth: his father died while he was still young and Cole and his brother Max were raised by their mother and stepfather, with his mother dying when Cole was already an adult. However, his mother died while he was still young and he and his brother were raised by their father. It is certain though, that Cole left his family while still a teenager and turned to crime to survive. Despite being a criminal, Cole had his own code of honor and stopped one of his partners in crime from shooting at the police. Cole was arrested and offered a second chance. He was enlisted by International Operations and turned out to be a gifted marksman and an excellent soldier.

Cole Cash’s natural talent for combat landed him in black ops, taking the dirtiest jobs as part of a squad known as Team 7. Cash’s codename during these operations was Deadeye.

The group was deliberately exposed to an experimental chemical called the Gen Factor, which activated a variety of psi powers in them, but which also detrimentally affected their sense of morality and mental health. After the experiment the survivors were classified as Gen 12. Some of their teammates went mad or committed suicide. Cole suspected that in fact their own superiors, I.O., were behind the experiment, while their superiors claimed that it was an unknown chemical weapon. Cole grew more and more disgruntled with I.O.’s manipulations and secrecy and rebelled against team-leader John Lynch. Cash took charge and united the team’s mental powers against a nuclear weapon that I.O. team-leader Miles Craven fired at Team 7 as a test. Team 7 went into hiding, but was eventually forced to return to I.O.

When the powers of many of Team 7’s members started to wane, Craven became interested in their children, the Gen 13, who should have inherited their fathers’ powers. Most of the team went into hiding again, while others stayed with I.O. The team finally fell apart and Cole went to work as an assassin for I.O., but he soon became disenchanted with them too. He went freelance, and it was during this period of his life he encountered the ancient Kherubim warrior Zealot. They fell in love, and she took the unprecedented measure of teaching him, a male, the ways of the Coda, the warrior order she had once belonged to. Her Coda-teachings stabilized Cole’s sanity and locked away what remained of his psionic powers.

Some time later Cole and Zealot broke up; for Zealot it was just another relationship, but Cole had become devoted to her, being eternally grateful to her for restoring his sanity. However they remained on good terms, and both were recruited to become part of Lord Emp’s Daemonite hunting team, the WildC.A.T.s. Grifter would later quit the team when they had to ally with Hightower, a Daemonite who had killed Grifter’s friend Lonely. He rejoined when the team came back from Khera, even being the team’s leader for some time.