Name: Elijah Booker
Alias: Rat-Catcher, though the use of the ”Rat” part seems to have lessened over the years.
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Personality: Elijah is a calm man, and the kind who seems to seek comfort instead of adventure and new sights. It's almost as if the idea of changing environments scares him, preferring to stay safe at home instead. Elijah isn't the most subtle if he finds someone even a tiny bit aggravating, preferring brutal honesty to get his opinion across. He hopes for as much honesty from others, though as he's grown up, he has realized that expecting it is asking too much from most. Slow to trust, Elijah generally assumes the worst from people until they prove him wrong.
A neat freak, Elijah generally avoids less than clean environments and is almost obsessive about keeping his house and his body clean. Especially animals seem to disgust the man, and for the most part, animals don't seem to like him much either. That is to say, with the exception of rats.
Persona: Rat-Catcher is a twitchy son of a bitch. His head doesn't seem to stop moving, nearly constantly looking out for danger, a far cry from his much calmer civilian counterpart. The bluntness is still there, but it's either softened by kind words or made harsher by sharp, doubtful questions. This all seems to depends completely on the mood of the rats he's connected to.
Catcher is also unwilling to touch people. What's the point of saving someone's life if you're going to infect them straight after?
Appearance: 6'4'' and in good physical condition, Elijah doesn't really seem like the kind of guy who spends a lot of his time sitting inside. The dark circles around his brown eyes tell of long, restless nights. His curly hair is about as dark as hair can get, and is generally kept short. In general, prefers comfort over style, and he's stingy about using his money, leading to most of his clothing being bought from the flea market. Well hidden under his long sleeves are scarred bites and scratch marks from the early days, together with a few battle scars. He is of mixed race, his father African American and his mother of Finnish descent.
Costume: Elijah skipped on the fancy outfits, mostly out of practicality. He doesn't need much more than a dark hoodie, a pair of loose jeans and thick, durable pair of boots. A warm, comfortable jacket's added into the outfit during colder days of the year. All these are easy to replace if necessary. His hands are covered by thick, bite resistant gloves. All these are often burned after a few months use. As such his outfit isn't as consistent compared to some of his fellow heroes. The only truly consistent thing in his outfit is his gas mask, which works as a way to create paranoia and fear in his opposition and at the same time keeps his face protected from any possible nasty germs he might come across.
His weapons selection is limited to an army knife as he usually finds that he doesn't truly need them. A few quick strikes to all the wrong places take most people down easily. If not, a horde of rats surely will.
Powers/Skills and how they came to be: Part of a private special operations team, Elijah was ”offered” the chance to join into a program that were testing the ability to control animals in order to gain an advantage during field operations. His memories of the time vague and utterly terrifying.
What Elijah knows for sure is that he is undeniably connected to rats. It isn't anywhere near as bad as it sounds. Not only is he able to control rats, he's able to see, smell and hear what they do, making them a great help when looking for people in need and keeping himself safe. He is also able to sense their thoughts, though most of these are just a jumble of instinctual, raw feelings and nothing more. Elijah has noticed taming rats seems to lead to a bond that lasts longer and is more stable, and he can perceive their senses from further away. Elijah hasn't been able to create many such bonds with rats, as he views owning rats to be an easy way to be linked to his alter-ego. Therefore he usually finds himself using wild rats, which gets difficult when controlling a larger mischief. The larger and wilder the pack, the more energy and concentration controlling the rats takes.
While he can hold his own in a fight, Elijah prefers surprise attacks and quick take-downs to long, tiring fights. Thanks to the many eyes guarding his back, the man is rarely surprised and almost always ready for what's coming.
Rise to Fame: Elijah's rise to fame didn't come with the fall of the corporation. Instead, it came afterwards, when he was forced to fight one of the other test subjects involved in the program. He was the witness to his captains and closest friends seemingly sudden mental breakdown, the man suddenly considering humanity the lowest of all creatures. Elijah had always believed Cole to be a good man, and tried to reason with him, but ultimately he was forced to take his friend down, leading to a famously nasty fight in one of the city malls.
This was just the start, more of a quick push that got his hero-name out and helped him find a new passion in a new occupation. The Pied Piper that saved the mall turned into Rat-Catcher, which over the years transformed into the hero Elijah knows as himself.
Arch Nemesis: Elijah may have won the battle, but Cole, now known as the Tarantula, has become a well known villain in his own right. As the name tells, Cole controls spiders, and has honed his body to perfection thanks to continuous physical training.
Personal Arc: The public image of the company he worked for might have been destroyed, but the experiments are still running. The mind-control program that started with animal control has evolved further, now testing out the possibility of controlling more complex organisms than bugs and rats. It won't take long till they get to humans.
_
There we go. Uh, couldn't come up with a name for the evil corporation of evil, but it'll come to me after a good nights sleep. Every superhero story needs an evil corporation of evil? Anyway, there's a lot of great friggin' competition here, so I'm not sure if I can get in, but it was fun writing this no matter what the case is. I'm also very sorry for any possible typos. It really is just silly late in here and I might have missed a lot of things. Will fix 'em in the morning though, if necessary.