Red Spider is a Millenium City superheroine.
Formerly known as the sword-wielding Slash, Red Spider possibly became more famous for avoiding the spotlight after clips began to appear on YouTube of her crime fighting.
She once worked exclusively alone, but has emerged as the leader of the Adventurers super team. Little else is known of this young hero because she guards her secret identity carefully. It is commonly believed that she may have no actual super powers.
Secret Identity
Red Spider is actually Cassandra Olsen of Millennium City. This fact is known only to a few family members and trusted allies.
Formative Years
A privileged life was always Cassandra's destiny from birth. Her father had made his fortune investing in companies which manufactured construction implements and materials in the wake of the destruction of Detroit. But Bill and his wife Marie had their first and only child several years after their peers, and learned that a privileged life, without proper guidance, can lead to spoiled, entitled, selfish children. Bill brought up his daughter to recognize that her status gave her a responsibility to the community.
From the age of 3, Cassandra trained in dance. Her parents worried that they were putting too many demands upon her when she begged to also be allowed to take part in gymnastics, but gave in because she showed undeniable talent.
While other children at her private school and her church might be sent abroad for mission trips, Bill Olsen impressed upon his daughter that there was enough people in need of help close to home in their recovering city, which too many were too willing to overlook.
Cassandra volunteered at homeless shelters, city clean-ups, and other local relief projects.
First Adventure
Cassandra completed grades 1 through 8 in a private school. Cassandra asked to be sent to public school at Millennium City High School. Her time spent helping in the more needy areas of Westside made her feel more at home in the school.
Where early on some students detected the whiff of her wealthy upbringing and tried to intimidate her, she managed to hold her own and impress many with her resolve. While she tended to hang out with the athletics crowd, she had acquaintances across many cliques.
In senior year two of Cassandra's friends seemed to be falling in with a gang. She sought her father's advice, but he suggested she stay out of it, for fear that she might get hurt. Inspired by colorful costumed crime fighters in Millennium City, Cassandra made a simple costume and used all of the money she had to buy a Japanese sword. Her idea: scare the gang, and give her friends pause to think twice about joining. The scheme worked, although foreshadowing her future career, Cassandra was nearly in over her head.
Cassandra learned to carefully surveil crooks rather than confront.
A Costumed Crime Fighter
Buoyed by success Cassandra kept trying to fight crime in Westside. Her weekend volunteering in shelters and free clinics let her learn about some of the crooks hurting people in that part of town, and as the costumed crime fighter Slash she was able to intimidate the bad guys back.
Being shot at, or being unmasked on one occasion, didn't deter Slash. She took care to practice her skills, and focus on sneaking and gathering evidence, rather than confrontation. She also stopped using the sword, because it had a way of slowing her down, and she had no desire to wound people very deeply with it - a fact her enemies had come to realize and exploit.
Once she started using a cable grappler, she changed her costumed identity to Red Spider. It made sense since she was ostensibly travelling on threads, and one of her friends remarked that when hitting a punching bag during a workout, that she seemed to have eight arms.
The Red Spider
Red Spider did her best not to draw attention to herself. She had three main tactics:
- - Surveil criminals and gather evidence
- - Call in the cops when it was time, let them take credit
- - Size up opponents carefully, and only join fights she could win
In this way Red Spider managed to stay under the radar, relatively unknown to the criminal underworld of her home city, and to the public in general.
Red Spider vs. Dr. Killowatt
When she began to investigate a weapon smuggling plot involving some high-tech lightning guns, Red Spider was nearly killed twice before she realized that it was a plot too big for her to unravel on her own. She assembled a loose group of her allies from the costumed crime-fighting crowd in Millennium City to form the Adventurers super group. Most of the team had little in the way of actual powers, but were experienced at handling the criminal element. With Red Spider heading the team, the Adventurers thwarted the efforts of Dr. Killowatt and ended the trade of his lightning guns to local gangs.
In this investigation, Red Spider first learned about the mysterious Chairman who seemed to be provide logistical support for crime. Dr. Killowatt was apparently receiving support, but her first close connection to the Chairman was a hired goon named Kingsnake.
Red Spider Becomes a "Super" Hero
A criminal organization called the Syndicate captured Red Spider and injected her with an engineered alien retrovirus in revenge for her team apprehending Syndicate member Bedlam. Red Spider mutated into a horrible, feral alien-spider-human hybrid monster. The Syndicate set her loose, most likely in the hopes that she would tear apart her allies, or they would be forced to destroy her - either outcome suiting their purposes.
When mutated Red Spider escaped confinement by the Adventurers, she spent several days drinking the blood of some random passers-by she abducted. With help from the Adventurers, she was saved and cured - with an added bonus: the muscle enhancement from the viral mutation remained a part of her, granting her above-human physical capabilities.
In the months that followed, Red Spider took on increasingly more powerful foes. The terrifying Etherloch creature - a blob-like shape-shifter that imitated humanoid forms - absorbed some of her blood. From then on, something in her modified DNA became a part of Etherloch, and they could always sense one another when near, though Etherloch's perception seemed more refined. She also went head-to-head with Poison Lash, though their encounters were often more of a psychological challenge for her with Poison Lash being confined by UNTIL.
Red Spider kept trying to learn more about the Chairman. Following a lead, Red Spider tried to infiltrate the Black Skull Syndicate's legitimate hardware store front as Cassandra, pretending she needed to use the staff-only washroom in the back as a way to get a closer look and plant surveillance devices. But she was apprehended by gangsters while wandering, nearly outed as a superhero, and subjected by Black Skull himself to a mind-control gas that she only narrowly escaped. Nonetheless, during this meeting she got the first clues that the Chairman wasn't a man, but maybe a codename for a criminal cooperative.
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BEAM GRAPPLERS - Wrist-worn counter-gravitational beam projectors are a unique invention. They were crafted by Red Spider under the guidance of Doctor Silverback. Red Spider was already skilled at using a cable grappler to move quickly along rooftops, or make a quick escape, yet the act of using it often caused injury to the arm or shoulder when the line would go from slack to taut. The beam grappler's advantages are in both dramatically reducing strain on the user's shoulder and arms, as well as lessening damage to property by having no tangible impact on the structure being grappled upon. Red Spider has become skilled at using a beam swing to drive into enemies.
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RED SPANDEX COSTUME - The classic costume originated from Red Spider's secret identity life. A surplus sale at her university's theater costume shop led her to buy several red bodysuits at a time when she was transitioning from her former 'Slash' identity. She created a simple web pattern for the upper body, and made some special eye coverings that were large and would help conceal the shape of her face. The form-fitting costume didn't restrict her range of movement, and lacked accessories like a cape that she felt would only encumber her.
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BLACK NANOWEAVE COSTUME - This costume has nanoweave armor, environmental filters for airborn toxins, protection from temperature extremes, kinetic dispersal, and enhanced visual modes. The most recent version of this was assembled by fellow Adventurer Lady Justice. This suit addresses some of Red Spider's key vulnerabilities when she is fighting super-powered adversaries, while avoiding being encumbering.
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THE HOODED COSTUME - With the help of Lady Justice, Red Spider designed a costume that might assist her in stealthy missions. It departs from previous Red Spider costumes in several ways. First, the cape & hood which she had tried to avoid as an encumbrance in previous costume designs. Second, the claws. While the claws are meant for scaling walls, they can be used for combat as well. The suit has several built in tech features like her black nanoweave costume, but especially better protection against slashing or piercing weapons.
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HOLO ARMS - The most recent versions of Red Spider's nanoweave costume included a built in hard light projection system. Tapping a hidden button over the solar plexus adds four arms which are guided intuitively by reading Red Spider's nerve impulses. These arms have proven useful when Red Spider fights especially dangerous enemies, or when she needs to make contact with something (i.e. toxic, radioactive) that she would be better not to use her own limbs.
The holo arms, while formidable, have a limitation: they run on a network of nano power cells embedded in her costume that can only withstand approximately 30 minutes of sustained use. For this reason, Red Spider uses this feature sparingly.
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SPIDER MICS - Red Spider uses small microphones disguised as tiny spiders to perform surveillance on crooks. This suits her preferred style of gathering evidence and avoiding confrontation unless absolutely necessary.
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- Acrobatics - A mix of dance & gymnastic training, with physical enhancements; enables Red Spider to swing impressively on a beam grappler.
- Super Strength - Red Spider can lift a small car with ease.
- Movement master - She can observe/repeat movements of others with brilliant accuracy; she can also read muscle movements & anticipate next actions.
- Determined - Her willpower causes Red Spider to be dogged in pursuit of goals. Physical injury or emotional distress rarely keeps Red Spider down.
- Honest to a Fault - Red says what she means, and means what she says. She gives the benefit of the doubt; sometimes, this makes her too trusting.
- Compassionate - She has an abundance of empathy and compassion - but that won't stop her kicking a villain in the face.
- Introverted - Cassandra prefers to spend quality time with a small number of friends.
- Paranoid - Red Spider constantly fears the public discovery of her secret identity, and she goes to some lengths to preserve the integrity of it.
- Smirking Crime Fighter - Red Spider displays a sense of humor to allay her anxiety in dangerous situations.
