e i g h t e e n years old
looks like s o f i a c a r s o n
e a t y o u r c a n c e r w h e n y o u t u r n b l a c k No one had meant for it to happen. When he was still a teenager, Diego Martínez was lying in a sterile white room, dying in Gotham General Hospital. The staff – under the influence of one Dr. Hugo Strange, barely out of medical school himself – decided to try a new treatment. Something highly experimental, developed by Strange himself and backed by some wealthy and mysterious entity. Something went wrong, though, and the cancer cells fused to the healthy cells in Diego’s body. He was seemingly cured. Nothing seemed different for a long time. And then something changed.
d i a g n o s i s m u r d e r m y s t e r y He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Just trying to cash his paycheck. He was talking to the teller as he watched the poor girl’s eyes go wide. He turned around, and suddenly the world felt like it was going in slow motion. The Red Hood Gang burst through the big glass doors of the bank, guns drawn and toting big black duffel bags. All of the patrons and employees of First Gotham National Bank dropped to the floor, hands over their heads. Diego was terrified, convinced he had already escaped death once and it was coming back for him. And then something happened. Diego could hardly hear one of the robbers yelling over his own heart pounding in his ears… and then the demands stopped, replaced by awful, hacking coughs. Blood began spilling from the other man’s mouth, staining the marble beneath his feet crimson. But it was an accident, right? It had to be. Fast forward a week. The robbery was unsuccessful, as everyone in the bank suddenly fell violently ill. It was declared a biochemical attack, but none of the victims seemed to be improving. Diego wondered if maybe, just maybe, this had to do with him. So he kept trying, trying to focus the energy he now felt brewing inside of him. First with plants, then animals, and finally people. He decided he was indestructible and so he turned to a life of crime, convinced he would never have consequences to face.
t o x i c l o v e Diego eventually found love, got married, and had a daughter. In the middle of his new life, he was apprehended out on the streets of Gotham. Cherry was only six months old when her father was near-fatally shot in the middle of a robbery attempt and moved to Blackgate Prison. From there, the same doctor who gave Diego the powers that turned him to crime had him declared criminally insane and moved to Arkham Asylum.
p o i s o n e d y o u t h With her powers lying dormant for so long, Cherry was able to successfully live the first seventeen years of her life in peace. Her mother had moved her away from her father and Gotham City, and it seemed like they would be able to live the rest of their lives in peace. When it did happen, Cherry’s accident wasn’t even triggered by something as awful and spectacular as what had happened to her father. Even worse, she hadn’t meant to actually hurt anyone. She had only wanted to get out of climbing the rope in gym. With a fresh manicure and absolutely no upper arm strength to speak of, she had meant to fake sick. It wouldn’t be hard, considering the various diseases she had been riddled with since birth. Cherry had always known something was wrong with her body, that it hated itself, hated her. She had grown well-acquainted with the metallic, sterile smell of hospitals and the sudden nauseating pressure of a needle under her skin. Which is exactly why she, unlike her father, would never in a million years wish an illness of her nature on anyone else, much less anything worse. But that day, standing facing the grimy, splintered, bacteria-ridden climbing rope, Cherry stood chewing her lip, trying to figure out what she could do to escape her turn. She began pulling memories from the week before last’s hospital visit, remembering how awful she felt and where, bad enough to land her in the ER and certainly bad enough to get out of gym. And then, just as she was about to raise her hand and ask to see the nurse, a boy behind her threw up. The girl nearly at the top of the climbing rope turned ghastly pale and fell, landing with a sickening thud on the mat below. One by one, everyone in her gym class took ill. As she ran from the school, everyone left in her wake was struck with some inexplicable sickness. They never recovered.
p l a g u e o f a g i r l The news caught wind of the story and, despite her mother’s best efforts, one news anchor managed to get a rushed interview with the sole survivor of the biochemical attack that had ravaged her school. Flustered and wishing very much for this invasive woman to go away, the reporter and cameraman took ill as well. In this world of mutants and superpowers, it was obvious to the entire population of Star City that this girl was the reason everyone was sick. Her real name thankfully forgotten in the media rush, Cherry was dubbed Plague and every news station was urging Green Arrow and friends, or else the police force, to apprehend this dangerous criminal before anyone else got hurt. A tearful Cherry one day got so scared and exhausted that she ran away from home, leaving her mother a note apologizing for all the trouble she caused and begging her not to follow. She dyed her once bright blonde hair pitch black and moved to Gotham City in search of a father she prayed had answers for her.
MAJOR C O N N E C T I O N S
d i e g o M A R T Í N E Z As much as she hates him, Cherry also knows he’s the only person who can give her answers. She thoroughly doubts he’ll help her given his criminal history and numerous breakout attempts from Arkham, but he’s the one who gave her this awful ability and she thinks he should be the one to help her deal with it. Part of her is looking forward to seeing him. He is her father, after all, and she’s never met him, only heard things about him that are equal parts lovely and horrible. She keeps an old picture of him tucked away close to her at all times, all wrinkled and dented and torn as it is. It was her mother’s favorite picture of him, so it’s the strongest mental image of her father that Cherry has ever had, the picture of his face she keeps in place of memories.
h u g o S T R A N G E She’s absolutely terrified that, from her mother’s tales of a strange and disturbed doctor who grew obsessed with Diego and his abilities, this same man will come for her, lock her up and run endless tests on her. She’s had almost enough of that to last her a lifetime already, she doesn’t need some creep with a weird beard to add to her distaste for hospitals and their staff.
o l i v e r Q U E E N While Green Arrow never actively pursued her to the extent of her knowledge, imagine her shock and horror when she moved to Gotham to escape his little gang of heroes only to find they’d moved along with her. While she knows rationally they’re not in Gotham because of her, she’s still absolutely terrified of the entire group, but Green Arrow especially.
K I T T E N After staying in a motel in Park Row for a few months, Cherry found a villains only part of the dark web and, while she really wasn’t interested in rooming with someone who was truly a bad person, she also decided that the only type of person who would be understanding of her condition or media-given alter ego would be a self-declared villain. Eventually, she started talking with Kitten and they surprisingly hit it off well, prompting Kitten to move to Gotham City where she now shares a nice permanent room with Cherry in the Gotham Royal Hotel.
