Character Name:  Slater Monroe Alternate Identities: Psiblade Player Name: Harle
APPEARANCE
Hair Color:	Light Brown
Eye Color:	Grey
Height:	6' 1"
Weight:	220 lbs
Description:
BACKGROUND
“It is the only way to beat them,” the man in the lab coat said. The man in scarlet pondered for a moment then asked “He will be totally normal human?” “One hundred percent,” the other assured him. “Do it!” The boy moved with grace and precision, almost inhuman grace and precision. The man in red watched through the one way mirror. “Have you sequenced his DNA?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” assured the man in the lab coat. “It is exactly the same as the day he was born.” “Excellent,” the man in red nodded. The whisper of an opening door made both turn. Each man reacted differently to the newcomer, one with fear, the other with lust. The woman was maybe 5’ 10” with an unbelievable body sheathed in red leather that lefts arms, shoulders and legs exposed revealing silver trails of metal flowing over her skin like mercury. Her beautiful face was framed in a halo of rich walnut colored hair though her black eyes where as hard and cold as obsidian. Both men covered their heart with a hand and bowed, the lab coat bowing considerably deeper. Stepping to the glass she watched the boy, ignoring the two men. After a moment she spoke. “Increase the dosage.” Her voice would have been lovely except for the cold mechanical tone. “Yes, my Queen,” the lab coat saluted and bowed then hastened away to do as he had been bidden. The man in red stood silently beside her, watching the boy go though his kata. “Perhaps it is too soon, my Queen,” he suggested. The Red Queen of Genocide turned to give him a cold stare. “If it is, then you have created a flawed product and it will destroy itself.” The man bowed his head “As you command.” When the giant robot landed, Slater stared up at it in awe. He had never seen anything so huge. When it struck at him, his body reacted without conscious effort and he was no longer there when the blow landed. Again the thing moved and as he out maneuvered one questing hand, the second caught him from behind and lifted him from the ground. Trapped in the enclosing fingers, Slater struggled to free himself but very quickly realized he was totally helpless against this metal monster. As if it were a cat with a mouse the robot dropped Slater nearly thirty feet and watched him land heavily. At first, Slater thought it was over, then the monster again reached for him and he dodged out of the way, his ankle screaming at him with each step. Again the robot caught him, held him for a moment then dropped him from ten meters. Over the next hour, the thing chased him around the training area, catching him over and over only to drop him and allow him to scurry way. Finally exhausted, Slater fell the last time and lay still unable to evade the monster’s next grab. Slater moved slowly through the training ground, ears pricked, eyes scanning the dark. One of THEM was out there, hunting him, intent on killing him. He froze as the snap of a twig was carried to him on the wind. Unmoving, almost not breathing, he waited for some sign IT had moved again. Moonlight reflected for a second off something black but shiny. Slater moved fast, silently approaching the spot. As he peered between the last two trees, his breath caught at the vision staked out before him like an offering. He had not been told what to expect nor had he been told the true test being put to him. On her knees, arms chained to rings in a concrete slab, was a girl. She was quite a bit older than Slater, maybe ten years or so. She was also totally naked. The boy’s eyes lingered on her body, taking in the moonlit swell of her breast and supple curves of her hips. She did not move though the position in which she was held, had to be hard on her knees. Something moved above her head and Slater almost gasp aloud as black insect wings that grew from between her shoulder blades blurred. She was one of THEM! A mutant. At last he was confronted by the horror he had been warned against all of his life. This was what humanity would become if THEY were allowed to live and breed. What strange creature had this ‘girl’s’ mother lain with? Or was the mother the monster? As he contemplated the thing before him his eyes widened. Faint tracks of reflected moonlit streaked her cheeks. Silently, she was crying. Though the wings were monstrous, the innocence of her face and the sincerity of her tears made him pause. A sudden, deep vibration made Slater jump as a trio of huge metal trapdoors slowly lifted open and locked in position. The rumble in the earth increased and three of the hated robots lifted slowly into the night sky. Slater flattened his body to the ground, arms over his head. In the dark Slater caught the sounds of men moving through the undergrowth, one distinctly called his name. As he rose to answer he saw two of the men had reached the girl and had trained their weapons on her. One man said to the other “What say we have a little fun before we kill her?” His partner leered at the girl’s nude body and grinned. “Why not, we got the time,” he agreed. Slater was stunned. They were going to rape this girl then kill her! Suddenly the wings didn’t matter. All he saw was red and when one pushed her down onto her back with the barrel of his rifle, something in Slater snapped. He felt a fire growing in his brain, not painful but a pressure that needed to be released. When Slater moved silently out of the bushes, the two men were so intent on the girl they never heard him coming. Blue-white fire lanced out from Slater’s fist and stabbed into the kneeling man’s skull. The shock to his system was some incredible that he fell forward onto the girl without a sound. Before the second could react, the same flame sank into his forehead and her fall atop his buddy. Grabbing the upper man by the collar, Slater rolled him into the bushes then did the same with the second. The girl took a huge breath and shivered. Slater knelt beside her and started to put a hand on her shoulder but she flinched away. It was only then he noted the red boils on her skin shaped like the hands of her attackers. “What did they do to you?” he whispered, pulling his hands back and holding them up and away from her. Anger welled in him again and without thinking he stretched out his mind and gripped the shackles around the girl’s wrists. With a thought the links snapped and she was free. “MUTANTS!” the word froze Slater just long enough for the blow that sent him into darkness to land. Slater awoke in what looked like a white coffin. His head pounded and his lips were dry. A face appeared in the glass panel of the coffin and gazed for a long minute at him. It was a beautiful golden haired woman. Over her shoulder he could see the wings vibrating so fast they were a blur. “He watches,” she said to someone else, then stepped back out of his line of sight. The top of the coffin popped softly and lifted, hinged at his feet. A tall, rugged man with shaggy black hair and green eyes smiled at him. “Welcome back,” he said, offering hand to help Slater sit up. “Who are you?” the boy stared around the hospital room but saw no nurses or doctors, only the man and the very naked bug girl. “After that thump on the head I expected something more along the lines of ‘who am i?’” “That I remember,” Slater said. “Who are you?” “You can call me Archer,” the man said, handing Slater a glass of ice water with a straw. The boy took it and sucked greedily only to find brain freeze and getting clobbered in the head did not mix. “Easy, kiddo,” Archer said. “You have been out nearly a week.” Slater gave the glass back to the man. “Where am I?” “You are in the hospital in my home.” Slater’s eyes widened. “You have a hospital in your house?” Archer sat the glass on a side table “Doesn’t everyone?” Slater looked at the girl, trying not to stare at her body. It was pretty hard not to. “Are you okay?” he asked her. “I am not in pain,” she replied. “What is your name?” “I was labeled Cephidae,” she said. “Labeled?” “It was on my incubator,” she explained. Archer cut in. “I haven’t ascertained the entire story but apparently she was the subject of an experiment in DNA combining. Cephidae is the Latin name for the sawfly.” “Sawfly?” Slater wasn’t sure if it was his head hurting or he just wasn’t putting the pieces. “I have take a blood sample from the young lady and determined her human DNA has been combined with that of a sawfly,” Archer explained. Slater blanched. “Then she was MADE that way? She’a NOT a mutant?” “No, she is like you, an experiment.” “I’m no experiment!” Slater snapped. Archer just looked at him and Slater hung his head. “Does that make me a mutant?” he asked quietly. “No, more precisely, you are a mutATE.” “What’s the difference?” Slater moaned. “One was planned, the other an accident,” Archer explained. “So either way, I am a monster?” A soft voice like a song spoke from the other side of the bed. “A monster must believe it’s self to BE a monster for it to be true.” Slater shifted to look at the girl that spoke. His mouth dropped open. She was tiny, maybe five feet tall, slender with small bones. Her face was oval with slanted green eyes and the most beautiful lips Slater had ever seen. Her black hair cascaded down the curves of her body nearly to her knees and for a split second, Slater though she was naked too. What little she wore was worse then if she’d BEEN naked. It hid but enhanced, teased and filled a man with the hope something would shift and show all. Coiled around her body where the tattoos of snakes or dragons that looked so real he expected them to move. “Oh my GOD!” he jumped off the bed and slammed into Archer. “That snake is alive!” “They are dragons,” the man behind him said. The girl with the black hair laughed musically. “So,” she said. “Am I a monster?” Slater glanced at Archer, puzzled. “Or am I?” he asked. The truth slowly dawned. “You are Ghost Archer!” Slater said with a sudden rush of fear. He backed away from the man, nearly coming up against the bug girl. He had heard of this ‘champion’ of the mutant world. “I am a mutATE as well,” the man said. “I suppose you could call ME a mutant,” the tiny girl said, pushing back a mass of hair to reveal a pointed ear. “On my world I was very different from either my mother or my father.” “I do not want to be called a sawfly,” the bug girl said suddenly. “I wish another label that does not mean insect.” Slater stared at first Archer then the black haired girl and finally the bug girl. He was surrounded by mutants! “May I suggest something close,” the voice from everywhere startled Slater and the bug girl but the others took it in stride. “Xiphidae.” “What is the difference?” the girl asked. “Xiphidae is the family, swordfish,” Archer offered. “Spock, display a swordfish.” A three dimensional swordfish, complete with ocean and movement appeared in the center of the room. Slater reached out and actually felt the water suspended there. He pulled his hand back as if shocked. The girl stepped closer and watched the fish streak through the slanting rays of the suns, its blue skin flashing. “It is very beautiful,” she said. “Label me Xiphidae.” Slater stepped out of the tent, lifted his arms above his head and stretched. Coffee was on and he could smell bacon and biscuits. Scratching his belly under the tee shirt he started for the chuck wagon. A girl, pale blonde, in the barest gossamer tunic, hooked his arm and pulled him along. “I was just coming to get you,” she said, her body warm against his bare arm. “Archer must speak with you.” Slater slowly climbed the staircase that spiraled twice around the thick bole of the tree before reaching the first platform. He had only been with this Wild Hunt group for a few days and already his perception of mutants had altered radically. Here he was, on another planet, helping build a settlement for people that on Earth had been homeless derelicts. Below him, more than a dozen of these people moved about on their errands now healthy and happy and no longer human. Though he did not understand how it had been done, Raven, with Archer’s help, had cured them all of not only diseases but their various drug and alcohol addictions. Pausing to lean on the hand rail at the edge of the platform, Slater watched a group of new arrivals gape in wonder at the huge house built in the tree. With a smile Slater recalled his own reaction to so many things Archer and his family had shown him, including how mutants were no different from anyone else. In fact, these particular mutants were some very nice people. “My dad is waiting for you,” Jessy, Archer and Raven’s eldest daughter, leaned her elbows on the rail beside him, gazed out between the great trees to a pair of tents set apart from everything else. Slater started to say something but his mouth snapped shut as a tall blonde boy came out of one tent wearing only cutoffs. Jessy stared at the young giant as he reached for the sky in a huge stretch much the same as Slater himself had done only moments before. When the boy scratched on the other tent Jessy sighed and turned her attention to Slater. “Come on,” she said, tugging on Slater’s arm. Archer was on the balcony on the opposite side of the great tree nearly a hundred feet away. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back staring into the distance much as his daughter had. “I have to return you to Earth,” he said without turning. “You family has been looking for you and I can’t stall any longer.” Slater wasn’t too surprised. Only a few had taken seats in the classroom when he entered, all to the rear and seemingly all friends. He stopped for a moment scanning faces then locked eyes with the most incredible girl he’d ever seen. Her face, hands and shoulders sported henna tattoos and her body was pierced in various places including her face. When she dropped her gaze, blushing, he moved over to her and seat in the closest desk. Holding out his hand he said ““I’m Slater and you are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” She took his hand and their eyes met again but this time neither dropped their gaze. “A . . . a . . . Alicia.” She stammered. It was then a half familiar face caught his attention. It was the huge kid from that other planet. “I’m Nat, this is Wren,” the giant said then indicated the girl in the next desk. “I’m Slater and this is Alicia,” he returned. He felt Alicia’s hand tighten as he presumed to introduce her as if they had know each other for years. In that moment, Slater was sure they had but with great reluctance, he released her hand. “Shall we banter pleasantries at lunch,” the girl called Wren suggested. “Yeah, how ‘bout we walk over to the Dawg House?” the tall surfer suggested. “How about . . . “ Wren said automatically. Nat smiled “How about?” he repeated. Slater and Alicia came in hand in hand as always and Slater dropped into the huge old arm chair. He pulled Alicia down onto his lap where she seemed to mold to his body. Both gave their attention to Christiana. "My mother is a vampire . . . and I have to destroy her,” the blonde girl said in a flat tone.
POWERS/TACTICS
PERSONALITY/MOTIVATION

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