Kate Five
In Reality Z-25 31-H, Kate Five, born Katherine Jones, was a British woman. She enjoyed a simple career as a superhero within Section P before her life took a turn for the morally-compromised when she accidentally bonded with a villainous shape-shifting symbiote known as Ghede.
Description
Physical appearance
Kate Five was a tall, muscular woman with pale skin and long black hair. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1, Symbiote Surprise, etc.) She was 6'2 and had crystal-blue eyes. (PROSE: Kate Five Bio) Her hair was actually naturally brown, but she began dying it after growing up. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 2)
Her pre-symbiote crime-fighting outfit was a form-fitting jumpsuit, black and fuchsia, with gauntlets adorned with three purple crystals each. She kept her hair in a ponytail. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
After bonding with the Symbiote, she took to letting her hair down completely. She often used the symbiote itself as a costume, with it taking the form of a rubbery-looking all-black outfit, plus a pair of black earrings — with the only “real” item of clothing she wore being a pair of black boots. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise) However, she could shift the degree to which the Symbiote's true nature was visible, from making her eyes turn all-black to letting the symbiote fully “hulk out” her body into a monstrous, muscular form with long claws, a large, toothy mouth, and pupil-less white eyes. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
Personality
When in control of herself, Kate was a benevolent individual with a fun-loving, party-going attitude and a quick wit. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise) However, she evidenced a lack of deeper understanding of her friends. According to the Symbiote, even before it came along, her “good girl” persona was an act she put on, and she also concealed darker desires and impulses within her mind. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) She was “extremely eager to please”, betraying her need to be validated not only by her peers but by anyone she saw, subconsciously, as a parental figure. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio)
She liked to think of herself as a “girly girl” despite some evidence to the contrary. One account listed her likes as “shopping, reality television, tea, walks on the beach, romance novels”, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch”, and her dislikes as coffee, the movie The Notebook, “loud and obnoxious people”, and shaving her legs.
She was deeply loyal to her friends, and terrified of losing control and hurting them, as would eventually occur; as a child, she tended to use her physical strength to stick up for other victims of bullying. (PROSE: Kate Five Bio) For all her intelligence and book-smarts, she was somewhat naïve, and could be manipulated easily by a strong personality. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio) In her natural state, she was “mild-mannered”, (PROSE: Kate Five Bio) though her behaviour would become much more uninhibited under the Symbiote's influence. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise, etc.) She liked to think of herself as a world-wide, realistic pessimist, but this was largely an act and she actually preferred to see the good in all situations, tending t be bitterly disappointed when things didn't pan out. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio)
Prior to her possession by Ghede, she insisted on telling herself that she was straight, despite experimenting with lesbian sexuality with at least one college friends and experiencing attraction to her Section P teammates Nexus Girl and Battle Angel. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio) Upon first being possessed, Ghede unleashed her buried desires for the latter, (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) and when she regained her freedom, she remained comfortable expressing romantic and sexual attraction for Centennia. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise)
Powers & abilities
Kate Five was a competent fighter with superhuman strength even before she met the Symbiote, (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) thanks to the powers granted to her by Project Five. These included general superstrength and durability, though she was still vulnerable to psionic, electric and poison-based attacks. She had a pair of gloves inset with power crystals through which she could channel the whole of her power in a single punch. She was not formally trained as a physical fighter besides some notions of karate, tending towards more instinctive forms of physical fighting. (PROSE: Kate Five Bio)
After bonding with the Symbiote, Kate's superhuman strength and resilience allowed her to go toe-to-toe with Centennia, (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise) and the fangs and claws she could grow were sufficient to maul even an experienced superhero to death if caught by surprise. However, she could still be hurt by sufficiently strong, skillful blows. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) She could block magical blasts, but was not immune to other, more subtle forms of magical combat. Additionally, the Symbiote was weak to electricity. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 2)
In addition to all this, Kate was naturally quite intelligent, having joined MENSA at the age of 12. Her strongest subjects at school were Chemistry, Mathematics and English Literature. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio)
Biography
Early life
Katherine Jones, named for her paternal grandmother Katherine Evans, was born on April 1st, 1992 at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Cardiff, alongside a twin sister called Kimberly. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio) She grew up as a normal, if unusually athletic girl in a lower-class milieu. (PROSE: Kate Five Bio) Although by no means abusive, the Jones parents were fairly emotionally distant from their daughters, with Kate and Kim mostly relying on each other for emotional support, making them extremely close to one another. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio)
In school, she had trouble fitting in with either the “smart girls” or the “sports girls”, due to excelling both academically and athletically, (PROSE: Kate Five Bio) and also being self-conscious and being taller, and having experienced an earlier puberty, than other girls in her age range. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio) However, she used her strength to protect other bullying victims, an early show of moral character. After finishing high school, she went to university, unlike most of the other girls in her school, (PROSE: Kate Five Bio) starting at the age of 18. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio)
At Cardiff University
While she went to Cardiff University to study chemistry, Kimberly moved to Washington D.C. to study “Advanced Robotics & Cybernetics”. Kate didn't take the separation well, especially as Kimberly did a bad job of staying in touch. However, she otherwise enjoyed her three years spent at university, continuing to excel academically and successfully forging connections with her fellow university students. She had two boyfriends, though they were mere flings with no deep romantic connections.
She also attended many raucous all-girl slumber parties where the girls would get drunk and play play “truth or dare” with various adult dares. Being very reluctant to admit truth to herself, she would always choose dare, which would often mean “kissing one of the other girls, licking whipped cream from their bodies, taking a selfie with a sharpie pen in her rear and bluetoothing it to a random number”, and other such sexual tomfoolery. On one occasion, she ended up actually “performing cunnilingus to completion” on her best friend, unreciprocated, and possibly of her own accord rather than as a dare. As she left university, however, she consigned these experimentations to embarrassing mishaps and continued to think of herself as straight, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio)
Becoming Kate Five
She was noticed by Project Five, a top-secret government project to pick up unusually talented students and give them superpowers. They imbued her with superstrength and durability, and gave her gloves inset with power crystals through which to channel her strength more effectively. It was then that the new and improved Katherine began to go by the code-name of “Kate Five” in reference to the Project. Although she assumed the Project had given similar gifts to four others, she never actually encountered them during her time at Project Five.
After Project Five went under due to funding cuts, (PROSE: Kate Five Bio) she was recruited as a superhero within Section P, the British Ministry of Defence's superhero outfit, (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1, PROSE: Kate Five Bio) and assigned to the primary South Wales branch. There, she quickly developed friendships with her fellow female teammembers Nexus Girl and Battle Angel (alias Taki). The three formed a Sunday Night Roleplay Club in which they played Dungeons & Dragons, among other games. (PROSE: Kate Five Extended Bio)
She even developed a crush on Taki, to which she never dared to give voice. She also failed to ask Taki about her past, something she would later regret. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) Taki herself had trouble socialising with the rest of the team, with her friendship with Kate being her closest relationship to any of them all the same. (PROSE: Battle Angel Yoshida Bio)
Meeting Centennia and the Odds
Kate Five first met the Odds when she attended a party attended by many superheroes, which they organised at the Fortress of Evening (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise) in the aftermath of their discovery of Captain Perfect's villainy. (COMIC: Meanwhile, On Earth) She crossed paths with Centennia, who'd just broken up with Perfect over the aforementioned incident, and developed a crush on her, attempting to flirt with her, though, at that time, the relationship did not go any further. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise)
Bonding with Ghede
One evening, while patrolling the streets of Cardiff, (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1) a 22-year-old Kate (PROSE: Kate Five Bio) was alerted to a “priority code 337” — that is, a dangerous situation involving a superhuman. She rushed to the scene and found a blond man bonded to an oily symbiotic entity on a rampage. She punched him, with her enhanced strength succeeding in dissociating the man from the alien. However, the alien then jumped to her and possessed her instead, entering her mind and strengthening her darker impulses to induce a blissful, malicious state. The possessed Kate reported that she'd dealt with the situation and everything was fine.
She then returned to Section P's HQ, where she sized up her fellow team-members as potential host for further symbiotes. She honed in on Taki, whom she followed into the showers. There, Kate revealed her monstrous hybrid form and attacker her friend. Although Taki was able to briefly injure her, Kate and the symbiote's powers combined allowed the possessed Kate to overpower Taki and assault her, planting the seed of a new alien within her. Growing within moments, the new, blue-coloured creature attempted to bond with Taki's body, but she managed to throw it off and it hid down the shower drain.
Nexus Girl then arrived on the scene, attempting to figure out what was happening between Kate and Taki, only to be taken by surprise by the new symbiote and bond with it. Kate and the black symbiote were unable to persuade the symbiotic hybrid of Nexus Girl and the blue alien to listen to them, however, with the bonded Nexi instead electing to protect Taki, whom they saw as their mother. Blasted into the next room, the symbiote-bonded Kate killed veteran Section P member Aqua Marine as she made her escape. After her disappearance, Nexus Girl and her new symbiote bond-partner pledged to remain loyal to Nexi's friends and to help them track down Kate Five and separate her from the villainous symbiote. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 1)
Against the Odds
Still possessed, Kate travelled to America, stowing away on a cargo ship. During this time, Kate tested the full extent of the powers she and the Symbiote possessed in combination. In her loneliness, she also began to think back to her past, notably giving more thought to her twin sister than she had in ages. However, the Symbiote tried to discourage her from such lines of thought, which he deemed “weak”. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 2)
She travelled to New York once again, intent on taking out the Odds. At the Fortress of Evening, Armstrong Fatbuckle let her in and she quickly despatched him before heading to the roof, where the rest of the Odds were partying. She suggested a drinking game, using a bottle of wine which she'd secretly drugged. Due to Centennia being the best poker player, she was the last Odd standing, and eventually realised Kate was not in her normal state of mind. The two fought, with Kate nearly choking the life out of the partially-drugged Centennia until Armstrong Fatbuckle's disembodied arm intervened, providing enough of a distraction for Centennia to land a punch on Kate and send her careening into the bell of the Fortress's belltower. The vibrations forced the Symbiote to let go of her body, and it fled while Kate herself lost consciousness.
After she came to, once more herself, the Odds reassured her that they didn't blame her for the things she'd done under the symbiote's influence, and Kate and Centennia finally shared a kiss. Since Kate had previously been using the symbiote as an outfit, the Blue Knight even went clothes-shopping for her, buying her clothes to wear on her way back to the U.K.. However, after saying her goodbyes to the Odds and leaving the Fortress, Kate was immediately ambushed by the symbiote, which forcibly bonded with her once again. (COMIC: Symbiote Surprise)
In Angel Falls
The Symbiote drew Kate to the city of Angel Falls, where she arrived six months after her initial possession. On her first day in the city, she atypically used her powers for “good”, interrupting and killing a man assaulting a woman in an alley. The following night, Kate found herself drawn to the Bleeding Rose, a night club in the Old Harbor District, as a hunting ground for a new victim. Before she could try to kill anyone, however, she was pulled aside by Marcus, the owner, and a vampire. He informed her that he keeps a strict no-killing policy in the club and doesn't want “her parasite” causing trouble. He was surprised and disturbed when Kate's reply was voiced in terms of “we”, not having realised that there existed a mind-meld between her and the Symbiote. He cryptically informed her that the Symbiote was slowly killing her before drawing a glowing, red, magical seal in the air, intended to banish Kate out of the club. Revealing her symbiotic powers in full, Kate was able to block the beam of magical energy. However, Marcus, moving impossibly fast, dodged her retaliatory blow and mads her vanish with a touch and a “Begone”, teleporting her to the boardwalk. Marcus then phoned City Hall, telling them to inform the Guardians of Kate's location.
PhyreFrost transmitted the information to a patrolling Ms. Blitzen, Angel Falls's Atlantean-born protector, who had been informed of Kate's presence in Angel Falls by Sir James Carey. Locating her, Blitzen tackled Kate from the air. A fight began; during the initial, bare-handed wrestling phase, Kate had the upper hand, but she was caught by surprise when Blitzen used her magnetic powers to electrify a metal pipe and hit her with it. This weakened Kate, who began to fight more desperately, drawing on all of her bio-energy and progressively exhausting her super-strength, until finally, Blitzen concentrated and created a huge pulse of electricity that burned the better part of the Symbiote off of her body. Briefly in her own mind again, Kate tried to appeal to Blitzen to explain that her actions weren't her own and she's good again, but Blitzen refused to believe her and shocked Kate again, weakening her already-staggered will and allowing the remnant of the Symbiote to regain control over her.
Dodging another blast of electricity, the possessed Kate managed to fatally stab Blitzen through the stomach, and mockingly kissed her, (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 2) with Blitzen later recalling that it felt as though Kate was about to suck out her soul. However, she was prevented by the arrival of PhyreFrost herself, who forced Kate to leave Blitzen alone and engaged her in another superpowered fight from which Kate ultimately had to flee, unable to effectively resist PhyreFrost's fire- and ice-based attacks at the same time. (COMIC: Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 3) The following night, Blitzen's friend Hailey Storm, her bonded elemental Ozarion, her lover Matthias, and his Neo-Atlantean brother-in-law Rhomerho Kel Llurian banded together to track down the “alien parasite” who had hurt Blitzen, starting from the street where the fight had begun. (PROSE: Angel Falls: Vengeance Sought)
Behind the scenes
Kate Five is the main character of the Kate Five series by James Bridger.
