Wildcat

Wildcat (Scenesys ID: 8304)
Quote
"Fists are Nature's problem solvers." "If we met before I'm sure I would remember. There's not enough alcohol or Alzheimer's to make you a hazy memory. "
Profile
Full Name:	Theodore "Ted" Grant
Gender:	Male
Species:	Human
Theme:	DC (FC)
Occupation:	Adventurer & Curmudgeon, Former Heavy Weight Champion
Citizenship:	American
Residence:	Gotham
Education:	Bachelors
Status:	Dropped
Groups:	Justice Society
Other Information
Apparent Age:	107	Actual Age:
Date of Birth	23 August 1923	Actor:
Height:	1.96 m (6'5")	Weight:	113 kg (250 lb)
Hair Color:	Black w/Gray	Eye Color:	Blue
Theme Song:	"Back in Black" by AC/DC

Profile

One of the Old Guard of the vigilante world, Wildcat is a living legend. Cursed with "9 Lives", the ageless sentinel of justice remains, though with a far lower profile than he had when he was younger. Once a part of one of the original vigilante groups, Wildcat is now mostly a teacher, passing along parcels of his vast martial arts knowledge to students who impress him. Some make him proud. Many break his heart. A couple are like family to him. Ted Grant is a fighter, but not because he is a brute or a palooka. He is a fighter because sometimes people have to fight for what is right. Not everyone has the ability to do it, so Ted does it for them. Perhaps a little old-fashioned, and at times chauvinistic, Ted's heart is in the right place and he continues to walk the earth, teaching students and fighting the good fight. Ted is one to be too diplomatic about things and can state things poorly at times, but Ted wanted everyone to have the opportunity to live their best life and has dedicated his long life to that end.

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Description

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Description:

A steam engine in trousers. Ted Grant is about two full meters in height and is a slab of muscle despite his age. His hair is a shock of black with gray streaks forming gull wings on his temples that continue back toward the back. It lends a bit of a distinguished presence to the behemoth of a man. Ted keeps his hair short and neat, with the top longer than the more shortly shorn gull wings, only accentuating the look. Ted's brows are dark and settled over bright blue eyes. His face is not exactly youthful, but is not ancient either. He hovers somewhere between his mid forties and early fifties. His forehead has a few faint easy-to-materialize furrows. Laugh and smile lines are faint at the corners of Ted's eyes. His jaw is square and the stubble on the jaw is thick, short, and mostly dark gray in color. Ted is undeniably masculine, and when he speaks his voice is deep.

A man of Ted's age has no business being as muscular and fit as Ted Grant is. There is not an inch of spare flesh on his form. Ted's shoulders are broad and his muscles are well-developed. He is bulky and powerful without losing any speed. It is a hard balance to walk, but Ted has the body of a professional athlete in his prime. His arms are long and powerful. Ted's torso is shaped like a 'V', with narrow hips. His physique is built in such a way that it is clear that Ted Grant has never skipped a leg day in his life.

Ted is wearing casual clothes; a tight fitted t-shirt with the logo 'Grant's Gym' on the front. Blue sleeves and a gray torso comprise the shirt. It is tucked into a fitted pair of khaki 5.11 tactical pants held up by a broad black leather belt with a plain silver buckle. A steel wristwatch on his left wrist and a pair of big black boots. Ted moves with a confident grace and restrained power that belies his apparent age.

History

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History1:
Ted Grant was born after the first world war, but before the second. Ted's mother passed away before he could remember her. He was raised in Gotham by his dad, Henry. Henry was a boxer and made a good living as it. As good as anyone did during the Great Depression. Ted lost his first fight at six. He was sweet on this girl Sherri, and a bigger kid was too. Ted lost his front teeth to that fight, luckily they were his baby teeth. It taught him a lesson, and it was the last fight he would lose for a very long time.

Henry died of an illness he contracted after a bad bout, leaving then 12 year old Ted to take care of himself. Ted did the best he could. School and messenger work. Most nights he slept in an alley and ate from a government chow line. He enlisted in the US Army Air Corp at 18. He was a big kid and athletic. The world was at war. Ted had no family. It was an easy decision. The army gave Ted purpose and taught him that sometimes the strong had to stand up for the weak. Ted flew P-51 Mustangs in Europe, and won every boxing match he was in during his time in the service. He served until the war was over and his points were cashed out, then it was back to Gotham with a small nest egg, the GI Bill, college and his beloved boxing.

Tedd attended classes, trained, studied, and fought. He won. He never lost. As he climbed the ranks, Ted never stopped his schooling. He became heavyweight champion at 23 and was admitted to medical school the same year. His gloves were doctored with poison and a man died. He was framed, but inspired by other mystery men, Wildcat was born. Wildcat cleared Ted's name. Ted never went back to medical school. He regrets that sometimes.

Ted did not go to Korea, and instead found himself fighting the good fight as Wildcat. He fought organized crime. He fought for civil rights. He fought for people who had no power. He wound up in an organization called the Justice Society, full off people like him who wanted to make a difference. Most of them had special abilities, but Wildcat had fists like Iron. They were enough then and they are enough now.

It was during this time the curse befell Ted. It was supposed to turn him into a cat. Metaphysically, perhaps it did. Ted was given many, many lives by the curse. It's truly worked its way into his being and changed him fundamentally. Originally thought to be nine lives, Ted used those up and still had lives. His team discovered they replenished cyclically, and apparently the cycle was faster than Ted was spending them.

Disaster struck. One of his foes, the Yellow Wasp, kidnapped his son Jack within days of the boy's birth. He and the girl of his dreams, didn't make it through the event. He hunted for Jack at least part time for many years. What Ted did to the Yellow wasp he doesn't say. All Ted has of Jack are copies of a worn photograph regrets, and might have beens.

Things end. Wildcat was left behind by the higher flyers of his era and he left. A few decades spent studying the martial arts and honing his abilities as he looked for Jack followed. Ted had time. His aging slowed and finally stopped, leaving him a perfect youthful specimen though giving him some distinguished gray. He trained with the best and when he came back he passed on what he knew, both to 'superheros' and to people. Cassius Clay broke Ted's heart when he didn't serve. He did a few exhibition boxing matches and opened his own gym.

Ted went in and out of retirement. He would spend a few years actively patrolling, then take a few off. Sometimes he would run with his old friends, or with some new friends he had met more recently. The Lances and Martinez's most prominent amongst those friends. Then there was an uptick in students. He trained one driven young man who one day up and vanished. Smart kid. A bit on the scary side though. Other students came and went. He traveled, picked up a few more skills. He met some others like him, students of the martial arts. They keep in touch even if Ted thinks they are a little full of themselves. Talk about spirituality all you want, at their core they are studying how best to hurt their fellow man in new and interesting ways. There doesn't seem to be much spiritual in that.

Ted has been sporadic for a little while. He woke up one morning and looked at the state of the world and just decided to get back into things. He felt old, even if everything was in perfect shape. He's never stopped training. Maybe it was time to do more than teach, or maybe the master was ready but he needed to actually find the student.

Personality

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Personality:

It is deceptive to think of Ted Grant as a palooka, although he talks like one. Ted is a fighter first and foremost, it is true. He learned a long time ago some things were worth fighting for. Freedom and equality being two big things. To be your own person and live your own life is a core belief. Not everyone needs to be like him, but he doesn't need to be like everyone else either. Tedd might not understand someone else, but if they are just trying to make it through the world, then Tedd is on their side even if he doesn't understand their decisions. As a rugged individualist, Ted will fight, bleed, and die so that other people can live free of fear and tyranny. He knows that not every problem can or should be solved with a fist, but he is pretty sure that more of them should be solved that way. Sometimes, someone getting their ass kicked might just set them straight.

Ted is also a little out of touch. He grew up during the Great Depression. He never knew his mother. Henry, his father, passed away when Ted was young. It has made him a hard, tough, honest man. Fighting in the Second World War gave him discipline, and the criminal element in boxing gave him passion. He is a product of his times, and sometimes he grouses about women acting like men. He can't quite figure out what the rules are for how he is allowed to behave. It isn't that everyone needs to act like him, it's that he just doesn't see anything wrong with being 'a man's man'. If he has a saving grace, it is that his Libertarian (not libertine) outlook makes him an ally to LGBTQ folks; people should be left alone to live their own lives.

Ted is more than just a fighter though. He is a teacher. He takes in students and gives them the tools they need to actualize their own potential and fight their own battles. Ted has the hope that each of his students will outshine him and make a larger impact than he has. A few have, and Ted draws intense satisfaction from them. Other students have taken what he taught them and made themselves something less than heroic. Those students have broken his heart, though Ted holds out hope for some of them.

Ted has lived a very long life and he is outside his own time. People his age are usually dead, or frail. He has the power of youth and the wisdom of heartbreak and time. He is educated, worldly, and still out of place. The world has changed so much and everyone is in a damn hurry all the time even if they have no idea where they are going. It can make Ted irascible and feisty, but his heart is always in the right place. If people need someone to stand up for them, or even better for someone to teach them how to do that for themselves, Ted Grant is there.

Abilities

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Agelessness:
There's no chance for us
It's all decided for us
This world has only one
Sweet moment set aside for us
Who wants to live forever?
Who wants to live forever?
-Brian May; "Who Wants to Live Forever"

The same curse that gave Ted Grant "Nine Lives" also essentially gave him a body that does not age nor suffer the ill effects of aging. He looks like a man in his mid-to-late 40s who is in perfect shape. Despite looking like the spokesperson for 'Touch of gray', Ted's body is eternally in its prime.

Furthermore, he has been training his body for more than 70 years. Ted Kord is supremely dextrous, nimble, agile, and surprisingly strong, essentially being the perfect specimen of a fighting man despite the salt and pepper in his stubble and the gray raven wing streaks in his hair.

Enhanced Vision:
I got nine lives
Cat's eyes
Abusin' every one of them and running wild
'Cause I'm back
Yes, I'm back
Well, I'm back
Yes, I'm back
Well, I'm back, back
Well, I'm back in black
Yes, I'm back in black

-Angus young, Bryan Johnson, & Malcolm Young, "Back In Black"

Ted can see in total darkness without any daylight sensitivity. He is utterly unaffected by lack of light, with the source of it apparently being the same magic that has otherwise impacted him.

Resurrection:

Old Mister Johnson had troubles of his own
He had a yellow cat that wouldn't leave its home;
He tried and he tried to give the cat away,
He gave it to a man goin' far, far away.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn't stay away.
Away, away, yea, yea, yea.
-Harry S. Miller, "The Cat Came Back"

Ted Grant can die. He has died. Painfully. He's been beaten to death, struck by lightning, and pounded into the dirt. He simply does not stay dead. Originally cursed with "9 Lives" it has become clear that Tedd is periodically cursed with more lives. In order to kill Tedd one must kill him nine times in rapid succession. The 'Cycle' at which these lives regenerate is unknown, but appears to be short. When coming back, Ted comes back whole and unharmed. He is usually only down for a matter of seconds, but extremely grisly deaths might take him down for a day; Tedd has woken up in the morgue before. Ted doesn't talk about anything 'on the other side' because he doesn't seem to travel there.

Skills

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Athletics:
Ted Grant is a martial artist and vigilante. He has all the skills one needs to be good at it. He is blessed (cursed?) with a powerful physique. He is essentially at the top end of nearly every human endeavor. If there are finger holds, he can climb sheer surfaces. He runs quickly and with great endurance. He is a powerful swimmer, even if he dislikes the water.

Ted even is a great dancer, but he stopped following modern dance during the disco era. He does enjoy when Swing Dancing comes back en vogue though; he can cut a mean rug.

Business:
Over the years, Ted has learned how to actually make a little money on his Gym, despite the fact it really isn't open to the public. Ted's profits are invested, his taxes are paid, and manages and expands his very exclusive client list with some skill. In short, he does well for himself.

Combat:
Ted Grant is likely the greatest heavyweight boxer to have ever lived. In his era of boxing, Ted never lost a professional bout, despite the machinations of criminal elements seeking to fix fights. He is a living encyclopedia of the eras of boxing. He is fast, quick (those are different things), strong, and above all else skilled. He is unparalleled when it comes to the martial art of pugilism and the sport of boxing.

Ted has studied and mastered various martial arts through his long life. He has mastered Jeet Kune Do (with Master Lee), Wing Chun (Under master Ip Man), Capoeira, Krav Mahga, Tae Kwan Do, and Judo. He has studied a half dozen schools of Kung Fu and Karate as well as Punjat Kilat Silat- the art from which Eskrima was devised. He has proficiency with almost every hand to hand combat weapon known to man though he dislikes all of them, preferring to eskew them for the simpler pleasures of laying his hands on people.

When it comes to the martial arts world, Ted Grant is quietly one of the people who should be mentioned in the tier below Batman, Richard Dragon, Iron Fist, Lady Shiva, and others of that sort. Ted is great, but he is oddly a better teacher than he is a practitioner. He rarely is, as Ted's profile is far lower than it once was. He can identify fighting styles, read tells, and employ fighting strategies to counter and control an opponent.

Furthermore, Ted Grant was a pilot in the Second World war. He has a familiarity and some expertise in firearms. He also has some dated familiarity with military tactics. Ted never thought of himself as a soldier. He just did what was expected of him.

His personal fighting style as Wildcat is pugilism heavily influenced by Wing Chun. Wildcat controls the fight, relying on footwork and superior striking to occupy the foe's center line and employs Judo and Wing Chun blocks to defend himself from kicks. It appears simplistic compared to many of the more high flying martial artists but it is brutally effective and very difficult to counter. He improvises with other arts on a regular basis but he dominates the other fighter and controls the fight. Ted regularly engages in fights with up to ten armed opponents and is almost always the only one left standing at the end; and he's certainly the only one smiling at the end.

Mechanic:
Ted can fix almost anything mechanical. He is handy. He maintains his own vehicles, and can do most of the fabrication for his vehicles as well. Ted has a good eye for welding, and he can keep his own gear, what little he uses, in perfect working order on his own.

Medicine:
What many do not know is Ted Grant went to college on the GI Bill while boxing professionally and working as a mystery man. He graduated with a degree in biology and went on to qualify for medical school. He had to leave after the first year due to the strains of being a costumed vigilante and having to clear his name. Ted is about equal to a paramedic when it comes to the healing arts. He's also a good cut man to have in your corner if you need one. His wound stitching is famous in the vigilante community; it's very excellent with minimal scarring.

Pilot:
Lifetimes ago, Ted Grant was a decorated fighter pilot. He earned his 'Ace' over the skies of occupied France flying a P-51 Mustang for the 8th Air Force. There were many other more decorated fighter pilots in the war, but Ted served his country with both distinction and honor. It is an expensive hobby and proposition to keep a pilot's license and the instrumentation and technology has improved vastly. Thankfully, Ted has the money. He is no Lady Blackhawk, but Ted can fly anything with wings and do it with style, panache, and safely.

Polyglot:
Ted has spent time overseas and when one lives overseas for a while, one learns a language to get by. Ted speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese. He also speaks German, Spanish, and French. Spanish was most recently learned, and learned solely because he has a hispanic God daughter and he loves that kid. His Japanese is not great, but he knows enough to find help and be polite while doing so. His Korean is even worse, and just knows enough just tagalog to barely function.

Stealth:
Ted is quiet, with a near silent footstep and a degree of coordination that rivals the superhuman, Ted is a quiet man when he wants to be. He is quite good at stalking and surprising his prey from cover or concealment. Batman or Nightwing are certainly more stealthy than Ted, but Ted is still hard to spot and harder to hear than most.

Streetwise:
Ted Grant is no student of Bruce Wayne, but after about a century of living, Ted knows what is what. Back in the day, crime families were known, and when you know family names and generations of hooligans, wise guys, and thugs you can pick them out. Ted can usually identify a hustle when he sees it. He has the street instincts of an alley cat and gets by just fine. Sometimes he is not up to date on the newest slang, but he gets with the program.

Teaching:

Ted's truest legacy is not his heroics. It is his students. Ted's students are well trained largely because Ted gets to know them. He learns what they want, and he has the experience and expertise to quickly discover a student's talents and accentuate those. While he cannot always eliminate flaws, he can diminish them. Ted does not build flaws into his training, he teaches as much as the student is willing to learn.

Resources

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Cat-O-Cycle:
Wildcat's ride is the Cat-O-Cycle, which was a badass name in the 1940s and Ted is not going to change it now. It is a heavy Indian Stunt cycle with some custom tuning on the engine. Over time there have been refinements made. The bike has run-flat tires. The custom cat-themed fairing was originally just sheet metal but is now bullet-absorbant to prevent ricochets while still providing firearm protection. It can hit speeds of 140 miles per hour and has a range of 200 miles before needing fueled.

Contacts:
Ted Grant is a legend. He has numerous students who respect him; they may not like him. They generally pick up the phone. If Ted were to ever ask for help, it would be surprising to many just who might show up. He has taught several heroes and more than a few villains in his time. The villains are universally disappointments who broke the old man's heart. Still, Ted Grant's contact list is a veritable who's who of the adventuring set.

Professional fighters of all stripes have trained at Grant's gym. Ted has attended a wide variety of bouts and hobnobbed with a wide variety of people, many of them rich and famous.

If he didn't train them, he has likely met them or fought them at some point. Ted knows people.

Grant's Gym:
Quietly, Grant's gym is one of the sought after training grounds of professional boxing and mixed martial arts. Grant's is the gym where professionals pay to train and be trained. It is discreet, secure, private, and keeps business hours. It is not a place where people go for Hot Yoga and to ride a spinner bike. It is where professional fighters go to train.

There are some exceptions, and those exceptions are the legendary part of the humble gym's reputation. Vigilantes and heroes also train at the gym. Ted's students are allowed to train there,even if they broke his heart. Very quietly, the Gym has built a reputation amongst the vigilante community as the place to go for discrete training. No one is there to scope out or hunt down secret identities. Grant's Gym is essentially neutral territory.

Ted has cultivated this mystique and after hours on a few occasions there has been a 'clearing of the air' where the bruised egos and bad blood that can build up in the heroic community can be eliminated via a safe and monitored duel in the gym.

Beneath the gym and behind some storage is the other gym. The one where more than a few heroes cut their teeth and learned to fight under Ted Grant's personal supervision.

Above the gym is Ted's apartment. It is large and has a couple of spare bedrooms where students can stay during their apprenticeship with him.

Nest Egg:
The prizes were smaller back in the day. Ted has been sorely tempted to do a short stint in the squared circle or the octagon to make a few million to better pad his nest age. Still, Tedd is a child of the Great Depression and is no spend-thrift. He has always been a saver and the magic of compounding interest has done wonders on some of those old prizes. He pays some very smart people to be very smart with his money and Tedd can live very comfortably on some investments made long ago. Despite his quiet comfort, Ted lives a rather low key life in order to keep those accounts growing; he might have a very long time to stretch that money.

Silver Mine:

       Since 1947, Ted Grant has owned a silver mine. Some of his very first boxing winnings went into it. It quietly has paid for itself many times over. It is still producing. It is a large reason why Ted really doesn't worry about money. It is a small, but safe and clean operation that continues to funnel money into Ted's coffers.

Vehicle Collection:

Tedd drives in style. From vintage mustangs to some slick old Hudsons, Ted Grant has a collection of a couple of dozen old vehicles he maintains himself, mostly old american models from the golden age of cars, but more than a couple motorcycles. Ted has a weakness for big block engines and horsepower. Nothing he has in his garage has anything more modern than a fuel injector, save for one exception. Ted's daily driver is an electric. It has far more bells and whistles than he needs, but the sleek electric sportster is the responsible thing to drive. The collection is in the warehouse adjacent to the gym and has a fuel depot and all the tools needed. It is also where Ted hides Wildcat's ride.

Weaknesses

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Human:
Even if he is the absolute peak of human athleticism in every physical category, Ted is still merely human. A bullet is dangerous. A high fall can kill him. He cannot fly or hold his breath for hours. He is as vulnerable as any other person to hazards like bullets, knives, drowning, falls, asphyxiation any other number of horrible manners of death. He has experienced more than one or two of them.

Identity:
Ted Grant is unknown to the population at large. Unfortunately, he is not unknown to the government. He is a known quantity; he has nearly a hundred years of records and the like. Periodically, some nice folks from the government pop by requesting him to do them a favor in exchange for their continued assistance with his identity issues.

Master's Duty:
Tedd has some responsibility on some level to and for every student he has ever taught. Those that turn out bad, he has a duty to steer towards doing the right thing. He hates to bring them in, as they were not always bad. Ted would rather bring them back over to the side of righteousness and put them to work making amends. He did not invest time, effort, and energy into people just to toss them back into prison.

Regardless of the student, if one of Ted's students comes to him with a problem, Ted is going to ultimately come to their assistance. There is a bond between student and teacher. Ted will not down his part of that. They are his responsibility. Some students, admittedly, are more important to Ted than others.

Nine Lives:
Ted Grant has nine lives at any given point. While this is not something he announces, a witch or a wizard of significant ability can see it for themself. The curse is deeply embedded into Ted on a metaphysical level and there is little chance of anyone being able to remove it at this point.

That said, it is just nine lives. If Ted Grant could be killed nine times in rapid succession, maybe over the course of a long weekend, he would not return and would move on to whatever existence awaits him after death.

Old-Fashioned:
Ted is about one hundred years old. The world has changed a great deal in that century, and believe it or not so has he. Ted is finally used to women wearing pants. While Ted has come a long way, he is a product of another time. Some things just make him uncomfortable, as Libertarian as he might feel. He can grump about it too and inadvertently offend people. It does not help that by temperament, Ted really doesn't care too much if someone is offended

He means well, but he is about a 100 years old, and the world has changed a lot. When he was little a Model A was reliable transportation.

Stubborn:
Ted 'retires' now and then. Ted is around 100 years old and is still kicking, literally. Ted cannot quit this heroics business. It has killed him a time or two in the past. It will almost certainly kill him at least 9 more times in the future. There is no escape for Ted, so he might as well embrace the life he has chosen.

Ted is the sort to stick out a fight past the point he should have left. This isn't out of the sense that if he dies it doesn't matter; Tedd doesn't like to lose. He doesn't back down. He doesn't quit. He has limped away grinning from more fights than he can count.

Weird Cat Stuff:

Cat imagery shows up all over the place in Ted's life. He is a Leo, for example. Magic users and precognitives have seen various fates in store for Ted. In some he is all but fully feline himself. There is unusual foreshadowing when it comes to cats and some of it bodes ill for Ted Grant.

Just what has happened to Ted remains a mystery. Some of the most powerful magic users in the world are stymied by what happened to Ted. There is a great deal of uncertainty. Ted has learned to live with it, but there is something vaguely unsettling about what happened.

Out of character, This is an express reference to Kingdom come where Ted loses some of his humanity.

Logs

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Title	Date	Scene Summary
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world...	October 25th, 2020	A couple of pilots reconnect in a bar after the War.

Cutscenes

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Gallery

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