Contact:
Player: Frank
Journal: supercilious
Plurk: firemansam
AIM: AvoidedDrowning
Email: simmichan [at] gmail [dot] com

Heads up, this history section is 2769 words, and you will get sick of seeing the phrase "Ray Sphere" very quickly.

Cole was, like so many people, just an average person. He grew up in Texas, eldest of two sons in a middle class family with parents who bailed him out when he got in trouble with the police during his Rebellious Phase and paid for him to go to college. His rebellious phase didn't exactly end with robberies though. He dropped out of college largely to piss off his parents and went off to travel the States a bit with his best friend. Cole got into parkour and urban exploration during their time moving about, which didn't endear him any to local law enforcement but it did give him a skillset that would prove valuable later.

After about four years of pissing about, he and Zeke settled in Empire City - a city comprised of three islands that kind of wished it could be a major city, but wasn't. They stayed largely thanks to a combination of needing a steady income, and the fact that New York is pretty fucking far from Texas. It's as close to a new start as someone can get whilst still being in (strained) contact with their family. He got a job as a bike courier, which he loved because it let him get around easily and made him nondescript and unimportant. He met a woman he loved who his parents also really liked. He was living with his best friend in a pretty cool city. Everything was decidedly adequate and he liked it that way.

Of course, in an "everyman becomes a hero" story, being 'decidedly adequate' is pretty much like existing within Zeus' sphere of knowledge in terms of how likely you are to get fucked. And boy did Cole's life get flipped, turned upside down.

One day, doing his job, delivering packages, he gets a phonecall. The guy on the other end of the line is trying so hard to convince Cole to open the package he's delivering, that he offers him $500 to do it. Which Cole agrees to because he's not exactly well to do or the most scrupulous of people.

Turns out the package was a bomb.

Well, it wasn't exactly a bomb. It was a device called a Ray Sphere, which takes a bit of background to explain. We'll get to it later, I promise. The important part is that it gave Cole electricity-based superpowers. Because of Science. The resulting blast, however, was huge, leaving a half-mile crater, seriously wrecking the surrounding area, and killing upwards of about a thousand people.

Waking up in the centre of ground zero, he struggled to get home and find out what happened and promptly collapsed, waking up two weeks later after being taken care of by his girlfriend and bestie to find the city under quarantine for ambiguous reasons. Initially he was pretty much content to use his new powers to capitalise on the lack of electricity in the city - charging up car batteries and generators for Zeke to sell. And trying to avoid being blamed for the blast - what with being the only person in the blast zone who survived.

Eventually, he was contacted by a woman claiming to be an FBI agent who was trying to find her husband/complete his work. An undercover agent himself, who was trying to infiltrate an organisation by the name of The First Sons and find out exactly what they were doing with this 'Ray Sphere' business. The combination of the promise of an extraction if he followed suit and being told that Empire City would be levelled if she couldn't keep the situation under control made him agree to go along with it.

And so he spent quite a while following the trail left by this missing undercover dude - clearing up the city by ousting the gangs that had formed around less powerful conduits whose powers were also activated in the blast. And a handful of powerhouses who'd settled themselves in Empire City and also had some kind of connection to a mysterious man by the name of 'Kessler'. Restoring energy by closing up the circuits in the city's underground generators. Trying to help his now ex deal with a weird plague that was sweeping the streets. Becoming a local hero thanks to his hard work and kind of coming to love it not just the adulation, but the ability to inspire hope in people who'd had it pretty much beaten out of them. All of that.

Eventually, he tracked down the Ray Sphere and set to retrieve it from the man who had it - only to be betrayed in the final hour by his friend. He'd been openly jealous of Cole's powers and held the key to his own new powers in his hands. Despite knowing that the sphere would suck the life out of potentially thousands of people in order to power itself, he made the choice to activate it. Thankfully, it didn't work, but Cole was slow off the mark to realise it hadn't worked and was beaten to the punch by a recently arrived Kessler. Kessler who claimed to know why it didn't work, offered Zeke his hand and told him he could fix it. And Zeke took it.

Which put Cole back to square one re: getting the Ray Sphere and getting the hell out of Empire City.

Kessler eventually began to make direct contact with him though, which was something. Initially berating him for his newly developed sense of heroism, he eventually put together a zero-sum game of "hey I'm gonna fridge the woman you love for reasons I'm not going to explain," making Cole choose between saving six doctors and Trish. He chose to save the doctors, knowing that the medical expertise of six doctors far outweighed that of one in terms of benefiting the people, but he understandably wasn't happy about it. He rushed to try and save Trish too, tried to revive her, but only got a short moment before she died. Because this is that kind of story.

It's around this time that another interesting thing happened. I mean, aside from all of Cole's (justified, I suppose,) manpain. The famous John white got in contact with him - curious about the fact that Cole had been trying to track him/the work he'd been doing down. Moreover, it seems John never did work for the FBI (though he never did actually say who he was working for,) nor has he ever heard of anyone by the name of Moya. Being about 500% done with Moya's shit and 8000% intent on murdering the fuck out of Kessler, Cole switches allegiances. He's cagey and paranoid, (understandably,) but the fact that he was working directly with Kessler and the First Sons when he was undercover makes him a lot more useful. Not to mention the fact that his honesty and lack of any hidden agenda is a refreshing change of pace.

(Working together, John divulged a lot of information about who the First Sons actually are. Claiming to have been around since Medieval Europe, they're an organisation of powerful conduits and highly trained soldiers. Over the last hundred years or so, they believed that emerging technologies could help enhance their powers. This research was kicked into overdrive once Kessler joined their ranks, where he developed the Ray Sphere - a device that could immediately activate a conduit's powers, rather than relying on their powers to activate slowly over the course of their lives. It also, of course, powers itself by sucking the life out of every non-conduit in the blast radius, and causes a fuckoff huge explosion. Any conduit who's caught in the blast pretty much becomes a powerhouse straight off the bat, giving them a pretty huge head start since their powers can still continue to develop from their. Either naturally or with further use of the Ray Sphere itself.)

Thanks to the combination of John's knowledge of Kessler and Cole's ability to just fucking barrel through obstacles in his path, they eventually tracked down the Ray Sphere together. Meanwhile, Moya makes her move to make good on all those threats to level Empire City. With helicopters and ground troops and stuff - it's all very tense. Finding the Ray Sphere, Cole is faced with a bit of a conundrum. He could use it to boost his powers and take out Kessler, and probably use the ensuing chaos with... Whoever it is Moya works for to escape the City. It would kill a whole buttload of people, but Moya's gonna kill almost everyone anyway, so no big.

But he's a reluctant hero! He's really come to love protecting the city almost as much as he loves the idea of revenge. So he makes the right choice and destroys the Ray Sphere since it's kind of super dangerous. Of course slamming an unstable device full of some kind of radiation with a localised lightning storm is not the smartest course of action ever undertaken. The Ray Sphere ends up becoming pretty unstable, Cole runs from the oncoming blast while John is sucked in and the whole thing disintegrates. It's all very distressing but one must soldier on.

Kessler makes contact first, with a lot of cryptic bullshit about how he's been watching Cole "since the beginning" and it's "time." They agree on a place to meet - ground zero - and throw down. The fight is long, Kessler's a lot more powerful than Cole anticipated, but eventually Cole wears him down. With the last bit of energy in him, Kessler grabs Cole and imparts upon him a second vision of the future, this one with much more clarity and actual explanation.

Kessler comes from an alternate future, one where a threat known as "The Beast" is slowly working on destroying the entire world. When the Beast arose, Kessler could probably have beaten him, but he had a family. So he fled. By the time the Beast caught up to him, it was too strong and Kessler couldn't fight it off - instead he just barely survived and lost his family in the process. Using his newest power, he travelled back in time and joined the First Sons and sped up production on the Ray Sphere by several decades.

Why was Cole his target, you ask? Well. It turns out Kessler is Cole, and knowing Cole as only one can know themself, he used that knowledge to shape Cole into the hero he needed to be to defeat the Beast. Killing Trish and alienating him from Zeke in order to make sure he wouldn't be tied down by emotions. To make him ruthless so that Cole would be able to make the tough decisions he'd need to in the coming fight.

Disgusted, but resolute. Cole resolves to make sure he'll be ready when it comes.

And, oh my god! It turns out this last 1800 words of history was just exposition!

In the months following his fight with Kessler, Cole worked on honing his powers and getting rid of the remaining First Sons presence in Empire City until he was contacted by an agent by the name of Lucy Kuo. She apparently worked for the same people as John and was undercover with a different faction of the First Sons, (way down) in New Orleans. Following up on correspondence from John saying Cole was their guy to deal with the Beast, she made the move to initiate contact after the quarantine surrounding the city was lifted. Just like John had been working with Kessler, Lucy had been working with a scientist (yet another deep cover agent,) who helped develop the Ray Sphere and was looking into technology that may help them deal with this whole "mysterious evil" situation.

Good time for the Beast to make an entrance, right?

Heck yeah it is.

That asshole up and makes himself known as Cole and co. are prepping to head off on a boat. Long story short, Cole gives it what for, but ultimately he's only strong enough to blow off a chunk of its face before it kicks his ass into next week. Which, I mean. It's a 50ft tall monster of unprecedented power, blowing a hole in its face does little more than disorient it long enough for them to escape and watch Empire City get destroyed as they boat away at top boat speed.

In New Orleans, they meet this fancy scientist. He's not really around long enough to make some comments on how much Cole looks like Kessler and explain this tech he's been working on - the Ray Field Inhibitor, which essentially shuts down a conduit's powers. He dies at the hands of local First Sons militia before he can really explain how to use it or the full extent of what it does, though they find out enough to know that whoever uses it has to be a conduit whose powers are boosted by the absorption of a number of Blast Cores - essentially the power source of Ray Field related technologies.

Queue a several month long montage of Cole tracking down and using Blast Cores, Cole and Zeke trying to reaffirm their friendship after the huge rift that Zeke made between them, and lots of trying not to get killed by the FS militia. The fact that the Beast can seemingly disappear and reappear at will makes it hard to track its movements, but judging by occasional unexplained attacks in various places, they can kind of guess it's coming towards them.

Not that they have to speculate on it for long. Because one day it decides to make contact with Cole while he's out going about his business. What would you know! It's his old buddy, John White. He had to pull a Dr. Manhattan after being sucked into the Ray Sphere as it imploded, and put himself back together again. He apparently absorbed the entirety of the Ray Sphere's energy, which activated his conduit gene and turned him into essentially a walking Ray Sphere himself, bestowing upon him the power to activate the powers of other conduits.

They have, at this point, pinned down the cause of the mystery plague in Empire City to Ray Field radiation, and John makes a bunch of claims that it will spread and he can save as many people as possible before that point as conduits are immune.

(At no point does he mention that being a walking Ray Field generator himself, he may well be creating the issue he's purporting to solve.)

It's all a lot of food for thought, but after some deliberation everyone agrees that the best thing to do is to continue with the original plan - using the RFI to take out the Beast with the hopes that removing such a huge source of radiation will help nip the issue in the bud.

Of course, there are some bumps along the road. What our old, dead scientist buddy neglected to mention, is that just like the Ray Sphere taking the life energy of all non-conduits in the immediate area to power, the RFI uses up the power of all conduits nearby to power itself. Which is... a bit of a shock to everyone, honestly.

But he's resolute, and he draws the Beast out to as secluded an area as possible and wears it down long enough to use the RFI without getting murdered, sacrificing himself to take it down.

He's commemorated as a local hero for his sacrifice and his body is sent out to sea on an unmanned boat for reasons that only Zeke could explain. Cole's coffin is struck by lightning, which reanimates him because of junk comic book science.

Disoriented, but thankfully close to shore, Cole makes his way to land and takes some time to figure out what to do. He deliberates for quite some time on whether or not to get back in contact with Zeke, until it's been several months, by which point he'd assume Zeke had moved on with his life and dropping back in like nothing would be more distressing than anything.

Cole spends some months more travelling, getting by on charity and doling out some vigilante justice when he sees people needing help, until eventually he's contacted by Alpha Force. Looking for new heroes to fill their ranks, they said. Being that heroism is really the only thing he's got going for him anymore, Cole agrees to at the very least go and talk it out so they can decide if he's really the kind of dude they're looking for.

Cole is... Well, he started off as a bit of a deadbeat, so some of his strongest personality traits can come as a surprise. Especially to people who know him outside the whole "Hero of Empire City" thing.

He's driven, and determined. Mostly it started as a "needing to get shit done so people will give him what he wants," kind of thing, but over time it's a trait that's developed into something in its own right. The kind of thing that makes him a formidable force, even when one considers the fact that Cole has all the finesse of a battering ram trying to do ballet in a pair of Doc Martens that are too big. When he sets his sights on something that needs to be done, there is extremely little that can dissuade him. He set himself the task of clearing out the gangs in Empire City and helping the people get access to food and medical aid during the quarantine, and refused to back down from the task of facing the Beast. In fact he was about 300% more determined to take it down after it kicked his ass. Largely because there was no one else who could, but also out of an incredible sense of duty. He shoulders a lot of responsibility that he doesn't have to because he knows he can do things that very few other people in the world can. He's seen the way other people with powers abuse them, and the way they abuse and subjugate the people around them, and it's not right. And while he probably wouldn't begrudge other super folks the decision to stay out of it - because he'd still be doing everything in his power not to get involved if his hand hadn't been forced - he feels that he has a responsibility to help people who wouldn't stand a chance without it.

The flip side of his noble intent, of course, is it means he internalises a lot of guilt about the things he can't do or the people he can't save. Despite the plethora of people who've told him the Ray Sphere blast wasn't his fault, (well, three people told him that, but he doesn't have many friends and that's almost all of them,) it's incredibly unlikely he'll ever stop blaming himself for it. He can't have known what would happen, it's true, but it was irresponsible of him to open the package in the first place. He similarly blames himself for Trish's death for any number of reasons; he should have been faster, if he'd never opened the package that situation wouldn't have come to pass. Maybe he should've saved her instead of the doctors. It's what drives him to be better and to be all he can be - he has unknowingly be the cause of death and despair for a lot of people, he doesn't have it in him to stand idly by knowing he can prevent these kinds of tragedies in the future.

The fact that he can hold on to all this guilt doesn't make him blind, however. He's not a fool, and he can see clearly when the evidence stacks up. He shoulders a lot of that guilt and shame, yes, but he also knows he's not entirely to blame and he'll never claim otherwise. In fact Cole can hold on to a grudge for a wicked long time - though they do reconcile after some time, he never does completely stop blaming Zeke for taking the Ray Sphere and leaving with Kessler. Nor is he ever quite able to stop seeing Zeke as having a hand in Trish's death. Similarly, he never has gotten completely past being used and manipulated by Moya - it's just that he's had much more pressing issues on his hands.

From a distance, he can seem quite noble. And that's not without any truth, but he's also a man prone to fury. He doesn't kill lightly, and actually he has honed his powers to be as non-lethal as possible with little chance for peripheral damage, but he will if he feels pushed to it and very rarely regrets it. Even, in the case of people like Kessler, coming to relish the chance. And though he views the events around actually getting his powers with deep remorse and shame, that's not to say he doesn't love having them. He's the type of person who's always enjoyed being able to throw down, and that's kind of increased tenfold since he got his powers. Getting to unleash the Falcon his powers is always a good time. Especially when he feels like he's letting forth with Righteous Justice when he does it.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THE BIG STUFF. WHAT ABOUT HIS ACTUAL PERSONALITY TRAITS.

Well okay, dear app reader, here's the low down ditty.

In his day-to-day life, Cole MacGrath is an easygoing dude. He enjoys kicking back, relaxing all cool. Shooting some b-ball, maybe. If he likes the other people involved. But not outside of the school because he is a grown ass man and that is weird. He's withdrawn a lot since he got his powers, for a myriad of reasons. Like how the local news was calling him a terrorist and that sort of made him a target. Or the betrayal of his best friend. Being forced to shoulder the responsibility of making sure a city that hates you doesn't get obliterated.

Those kinds of things.

Though he's never been an especially open person, he's friendly enough. He's a bit sarcastic and occasionally juvenile, but honestly he likes most people. Regards the way that large groups of people react to him with a bit of scorn, but individuals are pretty cool. And thanks to his unique situation, he values some people pretty highly. Close friends he can trust are hard to come by and he feels like there's a rift between him and those friends because of what he is - he's seen how it's put the people he cares about in danger, and how it could cause them to betray him. He deeply values loyalty, and he's more compassionate for it. He's also more forgiving of the transgressions of the people close to him than perhaps he should be, but hey. That's our Cole.

Not a whole lot, honestly! inFAMOUS is so comics already that there isn't a huge amount that needs to change.

The big difference is perhaps that Cole hasn't had to make the same tough choices he has in the game. In the game, the plague is spreading in EmpCit and New Marais at an alarming rate, and activated conduits are immune, so Cole knows for a fact that John's method of dealing with it will save at least some people. Whereas they're working on conjecture and the word of a dead scientist in their belief that the RFI will kill the Beast and stop the plague, not to mention the evidence suggests that it will kill every conduit in the world - activated or not. So whilst, in his CapH history, it boils down to sacrificing his own life, (which is a tough choice on its own,) in the game, he has to decide whether the lives of thousands - potentially millions of people - is worth the life of billions who might not even be saved when he's done. He's had the chance to affect the world, but not on such a grand scale as he has to in canon.

A lot of Cole's development also comes in the form of helping Kuo come to terms with what happened to her, (having her powers forcibly activated and then being subjected to agonizing procedures over the course of several days so that some folks could create "false conduits",) and learn to use her powers. Because of this, he's never really been around anyone else with powers. Obviously he knows they exist, and moreover in CapH he'll know there are other heroes, but for him it's been a cause of alienation, and barring someone wanting to app in who fills a similar role in his past, it's something he's never had a chance to connect with someone about. It's something that's caused a constant rift between him and the people he knows since he got them, and it's gonna continue to be a source on anxiety until he actually manages to make some trustworthy friends who are also supes.

On the other hand though, he doesn't have the same experience with anti-supe sentiment, or some dude using his friend to try and build a super-soldier army to show the world that conduits are evil and should be cleansed from the Earth. I mean, I'm sure he'll get plenty of that, but he's not had to try and function in a city practically owned by these kinds of people. It also means he doesn't have the same experience with juggling huge, world-changing events, as in CapH he'll have been able to devote his time solely to dealing with the Beast.

Cole's powers are, quite frankly, ludicrous. Having his powers activated so suddenly and violently has essentially changed his physiology to being more energy-based than meat-based, and he also comes from the "lightning can do anything" school of powers.

Cole is essentially a huge energy store, his body thrumming with electricity at all times, which can be... Dangerous. For instance he can't handle guns without accidentally cooking the gunpowder, nor can he be in a body of water taller than say, a few inches, without it starting to short him out. Being fully submerged long enough could absolutely kill him.

On the other hand though, he can feed huge amounts of current through his body, given that he can absorb and expel huge amounts of electricity from his body. In fact, even though he can eat and drink, other sources of electricity seem to be his primary "fuel" source. To the degree that being in an area where there isn't huge amounts of ambient electricity (compare a major city that has to power houses and cars and radio stations, etc. etc. to an acre of forest that maybe has a small generator for a radio,) makes him feel sluggish and "thirsty".

(Being an "energy being" also has fun benefits like "changes in body density" that means he's a lot lighter on his feet and can fall huge distances like it's nothing. Also fun, a slow-to-medium-burn healing factor, a lot of physical endurance and implied longevity of life! What a blast!)

Speaking of absorption, he can draw the electricity out of anything that has electricity in it, up to and including other people. Though he kind of doesn't do that because it, ah. Kills them. What he prefers to do is heal people! Obviously, you can't heal anything with electricity because life doesn't work like that, but he can act as a defibrillator and boost a person's own natural healing somewhat.

Basically, if you can spin it as electric, there is probably some way Cole can interact with it. Like sensing anything/anyone in about a two block radius with a significant amount of energy in it. Using static electricity as a way to bind unruly criminals, or warping it in the air around him to glide for long distances. Or perhaps using electromagnetism to create huge waves of force somehow. Travelling at high speeds on anything thin and electrified like he's grinding in a skateboarding videogame? He can also shoot it out of his hands with incredibly differing amounts of strength - ranging from small, precise blasts all the way up to explosive amounts that temporarily electrify every conductive surface in the immediate area.

With enough energy in him, he can even call down a localised lightning storm, but let's not go wild with that kind of power, eh?

It's kinda implied by Kessler's arsenal of abilities that Cole could theoretically continue developing new powers forever, but let's all be honest here unless it's really plot relevant he's probably not gonna do that in the game.

Outside of his powers, Cole is an experienced fighter. Though he tends more towards the pragmatic pub brawler end of the scale, rather than having any kind of actual finesse about him. The fact that he can take a hell of a lot more punches in the face without it being a problem than your average person also helps in this respect.

He's got some experience with managing large-scale issues, like how to manage 30-odd cops in a fight against superpowered gangbangers, or figuring out tactics on short notice. Again, no expert in these things, but he's a quick learner witha keen head for it.

Also, parkour. And he's great at memorising city layouts.

[There's a pause before Cole starts talking and a slight hesitation when he does begin to speak that shows loud and clear how awkward this all feels.]

So, uh. It's been about two months since I. Since I "woke up" on that boat. I don't know who I'm leaving these messages for... Thought I'd take a leaf from John's book - he left these things all over Empire City - but that was for his handlers. I'm just...

[A cough, clearing his throat of all these EMOTIONS.]

I'm not... It's strange. Two months ago I was dead and this morning some guy in spandex told me he saw what I did on the news. Clapped me on the shoulder and just... Flew away. Think I forgot this is how it is outside my little world. Having "superheroes" flyin' around, saving the day.

Back in Empire City it was just me and the gangs. Places like this though? I'm just another dick with powers. I'm not hot shit like I used to be.

[He laughs - a small, quiet one - and gives that some thought]

Dunno if I like it. Forgot what it's like, that's for sure.

Three days with no sleep, dead on his feet. Cole scaled the side of the building Zeke's roof-home-settlement-thing was on and immediately threw himself on the couch.

Three days he'd been out all over the city, chasing down any lead about where the blast cores were at, and all he'd gotten for it was shot at, shouted at, and one guy who apparently had no idea who Cole was, since he'd tried to mug him. All of that amounted to a whole lot of nothing except a fuckton of headaches and an ache in his lower back that was either from exhaustion or age.

(Fingers crossed for the latter.)

He stayed there for some time, arm draped over his eyes to avoid dealing with his current disagreement with the sun, but he hadn't managed to get to sleep. Too much nervous energy flying through him to do much except consider taking the route of punching everything until a solution presented itself.

What presented itself instead, was a beeping from his phone. He considered ignoring it, but he did. Because no one called him to shoot the shit anymore, it was all business. And sadly, business didn't seem to do well with being told 'not now.'

"Zeke," he didn't bother hiding the exhaustion in his voice. It was too late or early or... something for that. "Tell me you got good news, man."

"Good enough to rewrite a bible for," he paused, Cole assumed he was waiting for a laugh at the joke, but continued on quickly when it didn't come, "seen a pair of Militia looking types taking a blast core out to one of them shacks out south. I sent the location to your GPS."

He sighed, sitting up and stretching his arms out over his head. He knew the answer to this question, but he figured it couldn't hurt to ask regardless. "Can it wait?"

"No can do, brother. Looks like they're packing up a lot of boxes. Who knows when they're planning to move out?"

"I'm on my way," He sighed, again. Louder and more pointed this time, and clicked off the conversation. It wasn't too far by the looks of it, and really? It seemed like either way this could go in his favour. Either he'd get a blast core, get one step closer to using the RFI and potentially saving the world. Or one of those tough-looking assholes would knock him out and he'd get to sleep for a day.

Fantastic.

firemansam

Terrance Ward | traumatizing | AC link
Reno | idkmybffpyramid | AC link