Itβs a bird, itβs a plane, itβs CLEO CAZO/RATCATCHER 2, a VILLAIN from DC! SHE is 25 years old and looks an awful lot like DANIELA MELCHIOR. I hear they are employed as a EXOTIC VETERINARY ASSISTANT. Rumor has it they are AFFILIATED with THE SUICIDE SQUAD. I wonder what theyβll find with their new beginning!Β
Alright, here goes! Wassup, yβall? To learn more about Cleo and how to interract with her, you can find her full biography below. I have so many ideas for my rat-loving bean that I worked very hard for and canβt wait to show you. However, if you wish for a personalized starter call, hit the like button at the end of the post! For pre-established plotting, feel free to hit me up on Discord!
Trigger Warnings For:Β Overall homelessness, parental death/suicide, heroin overdose, child sex trafficking, mentions of STDs and intimate partner homicideΒ
CHAPTER I: STORY OF A GIRL
Born as Cleotilde Corina Cazo in the slums of Alfama, Lisbon, Portugal on March 17, 1996, Cleoβs family was broken from the start, with her mother, Eusebia Cazo (nΓ©e Figueroa) passing away by suicide after 21 months from suffering by postpartum depression when she was only over a year old. Her father, Simon Cazo, turned back to the life of crime as Ratcatcher, while abusing drugs to cope with the tragedy. However, he was still kind and doting towards Cleo and taught her that if rats β the lowliest and most despised creatures of all β had a purpose, they did too.Β
Throughout her early childhood, he taught her how to communicate with rats and use his gadgets to control them, using the rodents to bring them stolen trinkets for the purpose of selling them off and provide them warmth during the harshest of winter nights. Although getting by was difficult and often challenging, young Cleo was grateful for her father, the love they shared and the skills he passed down to her, not knowing how badly he was falling off the deep end with his heroin addiction. That ignorance would end when she found his dead body after he overdosed, leaving her all by her lonesome.Β
Left an orphan and unprepared for the harshness in the world, the following five years took a heavy toll on her, having been unequipped to get by in the streets of Portugal by her own. While she kept to herself out of fear of those surrounding her, there was a part of Cleoβs that sought to fill the hole that her parentsβ absence left behind, to find a hand she could grab and face the world with. As she later came to learn, humans are a cruel species, one which looked after itself before anyone else. People wouldnβt hesitate to fight her over a bread loaf or beat her to a pulp if she dared to steal their dollar bills.Β
As quickly as she was forced to grow up, Cleo still stayed kind and generous in the face of adversity, thanks to the values instilled into her by her late father. No matter how many times she was kicked down, she always stood back up, still believing that people are not inherently evil, but simply forced down that path. Little did she know that she would meet someone who would viciously disproveΒ that theory, and that person was an older boy named Joaquim Pereira, who the then fourteen year-old first ran into when he helped her rob soap bars from a pharmacy. They stuck together since then and Cleo quickly fell in love with him, not realizing he was grooming her for the purpose of sleeping with her.
CHAPTER II: HER INNOCENCE LOST
Still stuck in the honeymoon phase of the relationship, Cleo didnβt fully understand that it was sex what she was introduced to. Yes, she knew the bare minimum of what it entailed, but she had been taught that it was to only be reserved for the one you loved after marriage. She was so blinded by these newfound emotions that she didnβt realize he never intended to marry her or that he never returned those same feelings she harbored for him; she didnβt see that he only saw her as nothing, but a pawn to his chess board and someone to exploit until he started gambling the few money they had away. Before she knew it, she had been coerced into exchanging her body to sleazy old men for more cash and was trapped, no matter how many times she tried escaping.
With this, three long, arduous years of being enslaved for sex passed by and by that point, Cleo had genuinely given up all hope in not only quitting this life, but leaving Joaquim behind for good, spending time convincing herself that this was what love was; to make sacrifices for the person you loved. It wasnβt until after losing a baby she never knew she had that Cleo had been diagnosed with Stage 1 HIV that she came to terms with the truth and started undergoingΒ antiretroviral therapy behind his back, stealing his money and then, replacing it with what she earned from her clients. She was able to keep this up until after turning eighteen, unfortunately slipping up after she forgot to do so after a particularly long day.Β
To say Joaquim reacted poorly would be a big understatement. She had been mentally preparing herself for the day he found out what she had been doing, but Cleo had never expected him to physically attack her, let alone try to kill her. This time, however, she wasnβt afraid anymore and she fought back, using her fatherβs trusty communicator to summon an army of enraged rats to tear him apart limb by limb. Shocked at the grisly result, she promised herself to never beckon their call for murder unless she found herself in a true life or death situation, stole the remaining money and decided she couldnβt stay in Lisbon for the rest of her lifeΒ β she desperately needed a change.Β
Having nothing to lose, she took all of her belongings on got on the first boat to America she could find, in the hopes of straightening up her act and begin on a new leaf, which ended up being a lot easier said than done, since she soon discovered that most people wouldnβt hire a disheveled, scrawny girl with no resume or documents on her name to speak of. Cleo was devastated to learn she would have to turn back once again to a life of thievery to fend off for herself, but this time around, she decided to do things differently. Now that she finally understood her fatherβs motivations, she picked up what he started and took the mantle of Ratcatcher 2, using hisΒ paraphernalia for herself.
CHAPTER III: AMERICAN DREAM
From there onward, the thrill she got from performing these smaller heists caused her to go bigger β she would team up with other fellow thieves and rob banks, jewelry stores and rich peopleβs homes, selling off her findings to gain the money she needed to not only keep herself afloat, but afford the medication for her treatment. Not long after she moved to New York City, she met Maeve Holloway, a young girl who fled a conversion therapy camp in her home state of Nebraska. Although initially callous and distant towards Cleo, the girl slowly warmed up to her and became her best friend, that friendship soon blossoming into a romance a year and a half later.Β Β
A great contrast from how things were with Joaquim, Maeve was a sweet, considerate girlfriend, helping her come to terms with being queer and never pressuring her into doing anything she wasnβt ready for. It was through her that Cleo learned that sex was about mutual pleasure and not a weapon used to undermine others. Sadly, their relationship came to an unexpected end some time later, when the pair got desperate and arrogant in their decision to robΒ JPMorgan Chase & Co, the largest bank in the country. The heist went sideways quickly and in an attempt to not go down with her, Maeve betrayed Cleo to ensure she wouldnβt end up locked up behind bars.Β
Upon the state classifying the rats as a weapon, she was taken to Louisiana and thrown into the Belle Reve Correctional Facility, where she was not only mistreated and tortured, but deprived of her ART medication until she accidentally caused an outbreak within the prison walls. During one fateful afternoon at the cafeteria, Cleo met the rat she would later name Sebastian and become inseparable with, something that ARGUS director Amanda Waller used as leverage to get her to join her Task Force X operation, promising her to let her keep him as a pet if she successfully completed a mission for her.Β
By the time two years had passed, Cleo had fortunately completed twelve missions back to back, earning many trinkets and unforgettable companions throughout the way, but not without being exposed to the horrors of war. Corto Maltese was no different in that sense, but it was the mission that forever changed life as she knew it, exposing her to the dark side of the United States government and the brutal murder of her team commander at the hands of someone she thought was a friend, something that haunts her to this very day. After blackmailing for her freedom, returning to New York City and finding herself in the middle of a Superhero Civil War, Cleo isnβt sure what will be of her next, but if thereβs something she knows she must do, itβs to rebuild her life.Β
