Character Name: Cancer Alternate Identities: Player Name: NPC
APPEARANCE
Hair Color:	Brown
Eye Color:	Brown
Height:	6' 0"
Weight:	220 lbs
Description:
BACKGROUND
Lok-480K, Cancer of the Zodiac, space traveler and warrior lay on the table under the brilliant lights of the operating theatre. Heather McKenna, Pisces of Zodiac, hovered over him, her beautiful elfin face marred with grief. Behind her the towering bulk of Taurus stood as helpless as Heather. "It is my time," the tube at Lok-480K's throat rasp, his translator, the voice as mechanical and cold as always. Heather turned away and buried her face in the furry chest of the Minotaur, hot tears streaming down her cheeks. "You cannot save everyone, Heather," Taurus rumbled. "Even Gemini could not determine his age though he estimated several million years." Heather looked up into the mismatched eyes of the leader of Zodiac. "I know, it’s just I feel so . . .” There was a crack, the sound of rock scattering, and the theatre was filled with shards of stone. Instinctively Taurus, spin his body, sweeping Heather around into the protective shadow of his bulk. Several score fragments struck his back while several score more bounced off his bionic arm and legs. Ever with Taurus' effort, Heather's far more frail skin was slashed to the bone in three places. Deftly and with great tenderness, the huge bull-man caught the bleeding girl up and lumbered out of the devastated O.R. bellowing for a med kit. With infinite care he laid the bleeding girl on the floor and snatched the first aid kit from Scorpio’s hand. Ripping the metal box apart, he fumbled with the tourniquet as blood pumped from Heather femoral artery. Sagittarius knelt in the blood and took the tourniquet from the ham handed Minotaur and tightened it high up on Heather’s thigh. “This is bad, boss,” she whispered. “We don’t have anyone with the skills to save her.” “I know someone that does.” The Minotaur stood and activated his internal comm unit. “Ghost Archer, I need help for Heather.” There was almost no pause between Taurus’ message and the reply. “Where?” Even the bowman’s voice sounded tense. “We’ll beam you to us,” Taurus said. “Give me a homing beacon so I can target you.” He knew his choice of words might cause mild trepidation with Archer but he didn’t have time to allay fears. “Ready,” came the response from Ghost Archer. Taurus nodded to Scorpio and she vanished, appearing in the teleporter room an instant later. She stood poised to battle as Ghost Archer materialized only a few feet from her, unarmed. She knew that meant nothing in this man’s case. “Where is she?” The tone of the bowman’s voice made Scorpio relax. This man was genuinely concerned about her teammate. “This way,” Scorpio led him at a slow run back to Heather and, by now, the rest of the Zodiac. Archer ignored the surrounding ten members of the most powerful team of villains on Earth and dropped to his knee beside the stricken girl. With a delicate touch he examined the horrible wound and found a shard of stone. With a touch the stone vanished and the bowman placed his hand over the wound, heedless of the gout of blood. “What have you done to yourself, Heather?” he whispered as a green glow coalesced over her ragged flesh and the blood stopped. Scorpio’s eyes widened. To her it looked as it Heather’s heart had stopped beating and she made a move to attack the kneeling Archer but the powerful arm of the Minotaur held her back. “He would never hurt Heather, Annabel,” Taurus rumbled. “Let him work his magic.” Ghost Archer’s body melded with the girl’s, his cells flooding the wound and regenerating torn flesh. First the two ends of the artery met and fused, growing together in a split second and stopping the fountain of life’s blood. Flesh accelerated its healing and drew the sides of slashed muscles closed, the skin covering all and showing a soft pink. In a final show of power, Archer made the pool of blood vanish, leaving the girl and floor spotless. “Cufaen?” Heather’s eyes met the archer’s and he smiled. “Feeling better now?” he said. She nodded then grabbed him by the arm to pull herself up. He rose, assisting her to her feet. She hugged him tightly and he showed no hesitation in returning the warm embrace. He became aware of the ten pairs of eyes a moment later and released Heather, stepping back just enough to show separation but not enough for others to mistake it for a retreat. Heather scanned her teammates, seeing in more than one a desire to rid themselves of their most implacable foe, and scowled. “If one of you so much as breathes on him, you’ll have ME to deal with!” She snapped. Taurus rumbled his deep laugh and clapped the bowman on the shoulder, half hoping to rock him but disappointed. “Well met, old friend!” he chuckled. “We are in your debt.” “You know I will do anything to save Heather,” Archer said quietly. “And, come to it, nearly any of you.” The bowman leveled his gaze on the demonic Gemini. Several of the team exchanged looks. “Of course you will,” Heather said, insinuating her way under Archer’s arm. He looked down at her, hearing sorrow in her voice. Suspicion clouded his face and he noted the surrounding Zodiac. “Where’s Cancer?” He asked in a low voice. “That was part of him you pulled out of Heather’s thigh,” Taurus told Archer. “It seems that even the very rocks must die.” Archer nodded, offering no words of solace. “It is time for me to go then, since Heather is no longer in any danger.” “What if we don’t let you go?” The temperature of the room rose ten degrees as Leo sauntered up to Archer and clung to his free arm. Unperturbed Archer smiled at probably the most beautiful woman in the world and said “You really think you can stop me?” Leo licked her upper lip and almost purred, “Bet I could.” She pressed her body against him and came up on her tip toes to kiss the bowman but her lips only met air as Archer vanished. “One of these days, Archer,” Leo murmured. Taurus cleared his throat; a sound all knew meant it was time to pay attention. “We’ve lost Cancer,” he began. “It seems it was time for him to die, or whatever his kind did. He exploded and pretty much destroyed the O.R. so first priority is rebuilding that. Then we will have to turn our attention to a replacement. Everybody take a little time in your busy schedules to consider candidates. Heather, if you’re up to it, you need to start inventory on the med equipment and see what we need to replace. Aries, you and Sagittarius will be the gofer team for Heather. Scorpio, clean up that mess.” The team broke up and each turned to their task or returned to whatever they’d been doing before Archer’s arrival. The young man hit the ‘save’ followed by the ‘Start’ and logged out. The computer screen changed to the Log-in screen and he pushed back from the desk. At last, it was done. Carl C. Turner was twenty-eight, good-looking and a native of Richmond California. He’d grown up with a single mother, lived with his grandmother in one of the poorest areas in the Bay Area and yet managed to graduate at the top of his high school class. He was a graduate of UCLA, a full ride scholarship, specializing in mechanical engineering and robotics. For the last five years he’d worked his ass off for the government, starting out playing gofer for some upper level GS. He stayed late, came in early and finally got a chance to show what he could do. Turned out he was a genius at robotic design. It also turned out that the more he came up with, the more crap got dropped on him to resolve and the less recognition came his way. As with all projects, the higher up you were in the management, the more credit you took to yourself, even at the expense of those with actual talent. Carl hated that. He was so tired of watching those over him raking in the huge bonus checks while he chugged along on his base pay. Finally, he got tired of it. Working late and coming in early had its rewards, like being able snoop around until you found somebody else’s log-on and password. It worked out especially well when the idiot that wrote that information down is your supervisor. Carl worked quickly, writing little programs to activate in a given order, sending various components out for ‘contractor’ work and generally setting up those managers directly above him. From start to finish, his whole plan took only four days, a Friday through the following Monday. All of the shipments left the government base on Friday and arrived at an address his boss owned via FedX Saturday. That gave him Sunday to get it all moved and hidden. Monday the computer bombs he’d left behind went off ten minutes after his boss arrived. He joined in on the bitching as the computer system locked up and dumped everything onto the internet but secretly smiled, knowing only one copy of the data would be more than garbage. All of it pointed to his boss and in the ensuing uproar, Carl C. Turner joined in the office disbelief that the man they'd all been working for was a traitor.
POWERS/TACTICS
PERSONALITY/MOTIVATION

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