James Mayfield aka "Katz"
His power: He can heal from almost any injury, given time to rest. Critical wounds cause him to be knocked unconscious.
Jervis Bay, Convoy HX-84, somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, en route to Liverpool, England...
James had been a stow-away aboard the merchant convoy, hoping to bum a ride to Europe. He looked inconspicuous enough that no one was suspicious of him, but he knew if anyone ever found the M1 and the half a dozen grenades he had smuggled on board, he'd have to at least answer a few questions. That was something he didn't want to get into. Even if he told them who he really was, they wouldn't believe him.
As he was standing out on the deck, the quiet night air was suddenly rocked by a loud explosion. James whirled around and saw a battleship approaching the convoy; a German battleship from the looks of it. Rather than retreat, however, the Jervis Bay went on the offensive, heading straight for the battleship while the rest of the convoy tried to escape.
Oh, great, he thought. This is just what I didn't need right now. He quickly ran toward the nearest life preserver he could find, expecting to have to abandon ship. But just then, as he was picking it up, he noticed a long length of rope nearby, and an idea started to formulate in his head.
On second thought... this might be my lucky break.
James ran below deck to get his equipment from its hiding place. He slung the M1 over his back and put on his pack, full of grenades. In all the commotion, everyone either didn't notice him or didn't care.
As the ship got closer to the approaching German battleship, he ran out onto the deck with the large metal hook he'd found below deck. He grabbed the rope and tied a tight knot around it. Just then, the ship took a hit, and the whole deck shook violently. James grabbed desperately at the rail to avoid being tossed overboard. He quickly got back to his feet. Behind him, most of the ship was set ablaze, and was starting to sink.
Now or never... he thought, gripping the hook tightly. As the battleship passed by the wrecked Jervis Bay, James hurled the hook up at the passing ship with all his might. Seeing the rope might not be long enough to reach, he leapt into the air in the hopes that the hook would hit it's mark. For a long moment, he felt himself hanging in midair over the open ocean, and his mind was flooded with the overwhelming feeling that he'd just done something incredibly stupid. Then, a sudden jerk on the rope. The hook had landed up on the deck of the battleship and hooked onto the side. James tightened his grip on the rope, now with both hands, and braced himself. The rope kept pulling him forward, and he swung straight into the side of the battleship, smacking into the metal hull with a loud WHAM! James shook his head, his ears ringing so loud that he could no longer hear the waves below him.
Oh, God in heaven! I'm gonna feel that in the morning.
He shook his head again and looked up. It was a pretty long way up to the deck. He then looked back down at the waves below. He realized that this was a bad time to recall his fear of heights, as well as of being out on the open ocean.
Okay, no big deal. Come on, keep it together, Katz. You're not going to let a little thing like water scare you, are you? You can do this. Just climb...
Slowly, hand over hand, James, or "Katz" as he now preferred to think of himself, started the long climb up to the deck.
German battleship Admiral Scheer, somewhere in the mid-Atlantic...
After a hard climb, Katz pulled himself up onto the deck. Things were pretty quiet. No one seemed to have noticed him. For a second, he thought he might be able to stow away all the way to Germany with no problems. But then, as he heard someone yell something in German, he realized that was too much to hope for. He turned and saw several men with guns running toward him.
"Crap."
He pulled his own M1 and fired a few rounds at them, then took cover behind one of the enormous guns on the battleship. When they got closer, he made a run by them, firing several more rounds from his gun, then took cover again.
He tried to stay out of sight and pick them off one by one, but more of them were showing up, and he was quickly outnumbered. As he ran and took aim again, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his leg, then in his lower and upper back. He cried out in pain and fell flat on the deck. He wasn't sure how many times he'd been hit, but he knew he couldn't take many more bullets at this rate, and even if he could, they had him completely overwhelmed.
He kept his eyes closed, but heard the men gathering around him. They spoke for a minute, then picked him up and started carrying him. He couldn't see where they were going. He just hoped to God they weren't going to throw him overboard. In his current condition, swimming to safety wasn't an option. As they moved, though, Katz could feel one of his nine lives slipping away already. He'd be okay, but not before a little cat nap. Slowly, he became light-headed and started drifting off to sleep.
Katz slowly started to stir. He opened his eyes, not remembering where he was. He could hear voices, but didn't understand what they were saying. Without thinking, he sat straight up. He then realized where he was. He had been laid out on a table somewhere below deck on the German battleship, and standing right next to him were two very surprised German soldiers.
"Uh... Surprise!"
Both of the soldiers yelled in surprise, and one started to run, no doubt to alert the others. Katz jumped to his feet and pounced on him, grabbing him by the neck from behind, and threw him back into the metal table. His head cracked against the sharp edge of the table, and he collapsed to the floor. Katz wasn't sure if he was dead or unconscious, but it didn't matter. Without wasting a second, he ran toward the remaining soldier, who tried in vain to run away. Katz covered his mouth with one hand and kept and iron grip around his throat with the other.
"I don't know if you can understand me," Katz said, keeping his voice low. "But I don't want to kill you if you can be useful to me. Can you speak English?"
Katz uncovered the soldier's mouth. As soon as he did, the soldier started shouting something in German. Frustrated, Katz kneed him in the stomach.
"I'll take that as a no." In one swift motion, he grabbed the soldier by the head and twisted hard, snapping his neck.
As the body went limp in his hands, Katz looked around the room. All his equipment was gone, and it didn't seem to be in the room. There didn't seem to be any other weapons in the room, either. Not a good situation, considering someone probably heard all the commotion just now. Katz picked up the body and dumped it off in the far corner of the room out of sight, then went back and did the same with the other body.
Just then, Katz heard footsteps outside. He quickly ran to the door and hid himself behind it. A moment later, several more Germans barged into the room, looking around confusedly, but they'd walked right past Katz. By the time one of them turned around and saw him, he was already out the door and sprinting down the hall. They shouted and ran after him, but he easily outran them, and he was too far away for them to get a hit with their guns.
Down another hall, Katz saw a staircase leading up, most likely to the deck. He realized just then, since waking up, he hadn't felt seasick at all, which he most certainly had back when he was on the Jervis Bay.
We must be in port, he thought. Perfect. Time to do something completely idiotic.
Katz practically flew up the stairs, fueled by the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He ran out onto the deck, much to the surprise of several nearby soldiers. Without hesitating, Katz ran right up to the nearest soldier and punched him square in the nose. As he fell back, Katz snatched the gun out of his hands.
"Thanks, I was looking for one of these," he said to the fallen soldier, then sprinted to the edge of the deck and leapt off the side. As he sailed through the air, he looked down and realized he was a long way up. What was worse, he wasn't going to land in the water; he was going to land on the dock.
"Shit!" he exclaimed.
He plummeted like a stone and smashed into the ground. He could actually feel the individual bones in his body cracking on impact. He groaned in agony and coughed up a bit of blood.
"...shit," he said weakly. He tried to look around and get his bearings, but his vision was already getting fuzzy, and he got that familiar feeling of slipping away. Leaving his newly-acquired gun on the dock, he used the last of his energy to slowly crawl to the edge of the dock and roll off the side into the water. Thankfully, he was pretty buoyant. He drifted under the dock and out of sight.
Figuring they weren't likely to find him here, Katz gave a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes, and allowed himself to drift off to sleep, still floating around beneath the dock.
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