Captain Mako



'''"Get lost, little guppy, before you're lunch!"

- Capatin Mako; City of Villains '''

Gideon Ray, more commonly known as Captain Mako, is a head of Arachnos's stealth-solider section- the Bane-Spiders. Mako is Lord Recluse's personal hit-man. If Lord Recluse has a specific threat that earns his attention, Mako is sent to take care of the situation. Unlike the rest of Lord Recluse’s inner circle, however, Mako is called in for search and destroy missions. No capture, no interrogations, no spying; Mako is called in specifically when the desired target is to be killed with extreme prejudice.

Background
Gideon Ray was a mutant born in Paragon City. His mutation resulted in gills and shark-like teeth. Gideon's parents could not deal with his deformities, so they left him at an orphanage. As Gideon grew, his mutations got worse and he was taunted endlessly by the other children. Gideon disappeared after the violent deaths of several of the other orphans. The details of his time in hiding are unknown, but, when he reappeared, he was pursuing a life as a modern-day pirate. His fellow pirates were the first to devise the nickname “Mako”, after the mako-shark he now resembled in adulthood. Mako's vicious nature and submarine mutation quickly worked for him and he became first-mate. Following an “accident” that claimed the captain's life, Mako became the new captain of the crew. Mako started looting the criminal friendly Rogue Isles and became particularly fascinated with the island known as “Sharkhead Isle”, if only for the name and considered the area to be his territory. The frequent raids started to become an issue for Arachnos, who did much shipping from the area, enough so that Lord Recluse eventually put out a price on the pirates' heads. In the mean time, there was a rebellion going on on the isle of Sharkhead. Arachnos's semi-slave-labor force, the Scrapyarders, were revolting against the Cage Consortium, a private security force under contract from Arachnos to over-see local issues on Sharkhead. The Cage Consortium's C.E.O. stood to lose a lot of business from the revolt and hired Mako to keep the leader of the revolt, a super-hero named Scrapyard, from causing major property damage to Cage assets. Mako attacked Scrapyard on his protest march across the isle. Even after the initial strike by Mako, Scrapyard kept marching with resolve to set an example for his people. Mako would strike repeatedly against Scrapyard until he was completely dismembered by the sadistic mutant pirate. Mako's service averting a major upset to Arachnos's presence on Sharkhead and the shear level of ferocity involved in doing so lead Lord Recluse to make Mako an offer he couldn't refuse Lord Recluse would not only call off the bounty on Mako, he would make him his personal hit-man. Unlike the other members of Lord Recluse's inner circle, Mako has no sentimentality or depth. Mako is a blood-thirsty monster and fully aware of the fact. He is certainly not stupid, but not an intellectual either, as he goes out of his way not to over-think things. Mako is also known to literally bite the heads off underlings for no reason other than to occasionally reassert his dominance over the rest of his men. Mako considers Ghost Widow and Scirocco to be overly dramatic and they both consider him barbaric, Black Scorpion consider Mako a rival, a concept Mako finds insulting as he considers Black Scorpion to be an overgrown child. But Mako is not just on ill terms with his fellow patrons. He even has murderous intentions for Lord Recluse himself, intentions he has not acted on solely because he believes he would lose in a fight with Lord Recluse; a fact Lord Recluse is aware of and finds healthy for a patron of a super-villains organization.

Powers and Abilities The first power that Mako ever developed as a mutant was his ability to breath under-water; as a result, he has an affinity for swimming. Years spent swimming have payed off in combination with his later increasingly shark-like body and Mako can swim at great speeds that have been compared to military submarines. Mako also has a set of razor-sharp claws and teeth that can carve through tempered steel like a laser through tissue paper. Mako's outer skin is a natural body armor and can withstand a high level of blunt force and even a few bombshells. Mako is also almost completely immune to the elements, heat, cold and shock. Mako's main line of defense is speed. His nimble reflexes keep him out of reach of most foes, unable to lock in on him until he strikes. When Mako does strike, he puts all he has into the initial lunge, unleashing a more devastating bite than usual, which can take down even the strongest of foes in one hit; after this lung, however, Mako is left especially vulnerable to attack as it takes him a few seconds to regain his momentum. Because of Mako's attack style, he may be vulnerable to multiple targets of considerable power but, in one on one matches, Mako is almost always guaranteed victory.

The Coralax Mako over-sees Sharkhead Isle regularly making underwater rounds unseen by most. During patrol Mako has encountered the Coralax, a group of merpeople that live in the grottoes beneath Sharkhead. The Coralax are normal humans infected with living coral grown by The Shapers. The Shapers are leaders of the cult of Merulina, a primordial leviathan goddess of the ocean depths. Mako discovered a Coralax named Kelli Forston, who had not been fully taken over by the Shaper's psionic control. Though still herself, Kelli's body was permanently transformed and she had a case of slight amnesia. Mako brought the disoriented creature back to Arachnos with him to use for study of the Coralax and to keep her as his lieutenant. Kelli has taken up the name Barracuda and continues to follow Mako, hoping to learn more about her mysterious transformation.

As of yet, Mako seems intent on keeping her in the dark to make use of her continued service to him. The Coralax display an ability to produce sudden bursts of water from their maws, launch icy projectiles, breath underwater, grow-out large blades of coral and use powerful psychic blasts. The Shapers can control all lesser Coralax, bend the living coral to their wills and infect humans with it, making them Coralax themselves. It has been said that if Mako ever let Barracuda get too close to the Shapers, she would become their slave like the rest of the Coralax. Gallery



