At a young age, Matthew's parents eloped and ran away to join the travelling circus. Naturally gifted in acrobatics, the Graysons became The Flying Graysons, a Trapeze Act that will Dazzle Your Eyes. Within a year of joining, the Graysons were the most popular show in the circus and soon little Matthew was born!

Ten years later, having joined his parents in their trapeze act, Matthew's agility and natural talent made him a quick learner.

One-night Matthew's parents were told by the Circus Owner that they needed to really wow the audience, so he wanted them to do their act without a net that night. He also told them that to really add some danger, they were to do the solto mortale, "The Deadly Leap."

Both adult Graysons refused but when the owner threatened to throw them out of the circus and make sure they never work in one again, they felt they had no choice. It was the only life they knew.

That night, the tent was packed with spectators. As the Graysons climbed to their perches, they watched as the Ringmaster and some clowns pushed a large vat of liquid under the net. Then, in a booming voice, the Ringmaster announced that tonight's performance would not only be death-defying with "The Deadly Leap." but would also be over a large vat of acid...and without a net!

The net was instantly taken down and the Graysons could only look down in shock as the crowd cheered. Matthew's parents looked at each and nodded. Each knew what they were to do.

And then they began to swing.

Faster and farther they swung out and Matthew watched as his parents prepared for "The Deadly Leap." Just as they were about to attempt the most daring feat in their lives, Matthew's mom suddenly turned on her swing and began to reach out for the perch, having changed her mind and not wanting to risk their lives for spectacle.

She was about to step out from the swing onto the perch when a shot rang out from below. Matthew watched as shock leapt across his mother's face and she started to crumble backwards. Matthew reached to grab her, but he wasn't strong enough and together they fell, plunging into the vat of watered-down acid.

It was at this exact moment, encased in a light acid bath, that The Great Burn occurred, sweeping around the world at ground level, changing the world permanently.

The energy wave of The Great Burn phased right through the vat of watery acid just as Matthew opened his eyes, searching for the body of his mother.

Instantly his eyes began to burn and his whole body began to convulse. Thrashing in the vat, Matthew kicked the sides causing the wooden slats to snap and shatter, pouring Matthew and his mother out onto the tent floor.

Amid the yells and screams of a hysterical crowd trying to escape, Matthew's father, having rushed down the ladder to the ground, gathered his son in his arms, turned and ran out of the tent through the performers entrance.

Days later Matthew (after the effects of The Quake had settled) realized that he wasn't totally blind. His father, Jonathon "Stick" Grayson, helped his son realize his new potential and powers and they began training together in fighting and defense.

Ten years later, "Stick" Grayson was approached with another life-changing dilemma. The Nationals are days away and the wealthy Mafia family of a competing gymnast wants "Stick's" protege to take a dive during the competition. "Stick" refused and paid the price for his defiance with his life.

Twenty-year old Matthew is told of his father's death later that evening by the police. Heartbroken, Matthew vows to avenge both of his parents by bringing justice to those who took them away. Using his inheritance and insurance money, Matthew got himself through college where he got a degree in medicine. Though he couldn't see computer screens, his abilities did allow him to read transcriptions. Though no one would hire a blind doctor, Matthew got a job as an at-home Medical Transcriptionist while he pursued his studies in medicine.

Now, at the age of 25, Matthew, who spent all his free time training and studying, knows as much about medicine as a fully credentialed medical doctor.

Today, Matthew spends his life playing two roles. By day he is a medical transcriptionist who also operates and fixes up those criminals that cannot take a chance at a hospital. At night, Matthew becomes Hellion and uses the information he gathers from his patients to exact justice throughout the city.

All the while, he searches for any hint as to the location of the men who killed his family.

Back To Top

Superhuman Sensory System:

Hellion's meta-mutant powers all center around augmenting his sensory system to superhuman levels. Though only he know to what extent, the following is all that has been divulged:

Blindsight: This power allows Hellion to act, fight, and navigate while blind, in darkness, or otherwise sightless.

Enhanced Endurance: Hellion has an extremely high tolerance to pain. He has survived being knocked around by Blockbuster, survived after slowing himself down during a multi-story fall and being hit by a car. He kept fighting after being immolated by Toxicant while the same attack severely hurt El Fuego, who has Superhuman Durability. On one occasion, he was able to continue functioning for five days without any sleep, and on another he continued to function despite having suffered a gunshot through both his hands that also grazed his head. Hellion landed on the hood of a taxi uninjured following a controlled fall and was able to kick the windshield hard enough to penetrate it and strike the driver. After laying outside with no medical assistance, Hellion passed away only to utilize his chi to supercharge his bodily healing with the help of REDACTED, regulating his heart and respiration to revive himself, sealing cuts, setting the bone in his right leg and healing other unspecified bone injuries. After being found and hospitalized, under demonic attack once more, he was strong enough to fend off the assault and actually run from his room to join the fight against demons invading New York City yet again. In this state, he was able to take on a demon that had formed from the structure of a subway train, walk against its blast of soul-attacking "hellfire," then spear it with rebar, hurting and frightening the demon enough to force it to flee from him, before collapsing from exhaustion.

Enhanced Sense of Smell: Hellion's sense of smell is so acute that he can distinguish between identical twins at twenty feet by minute differences in smell. He can detect odors of an atmospheric concentration of thirty parts per million. Furthermore, his ability to remember smells enables him to identify any person he has spent at least five minutes with by smell alone, no matter how he or she might try to camouflage his or her natural body odor. His powers of concentration are such that he can focus upon a single person's smell and follow it through a crowd of people at a distance of fifty feet.

Enhanced Stamina: Hellion's stamina is similarly enhanced, since he was able to hold his breath underwater for longer periods of time. At peak capacity, he can physically exert himself for several hours before showing any signs of fatigue.

Enhanced Tracking: Hellion can track others down easily via various means, ranging from scents to footprints. With enough experience, he can follow tracks that are days or even weeks old. He may hypothetically be able to reconstruct a prior event by sniffing around the area.

Illusion Awareness: Due to most illusions affecting mainly eyesight, other senses such as hearing and/or smell have a difficult time not succumbing to the illusion. It is also made worse by ignoring use of their other senses. Hellion's superhuman senses enable him to remain aware at all times of the true reality around him, potentially seeing through any optical and/or mental illusions that others attempt to deceive him with.

Lie Detection: By listening, feeling, and smelling, Hellion can tell whether a person is lying by sweat, changes in body temperature, and heartbeats (though he can be fooled by a pacemaker and those able to keep calm under pressure).

Peak Human Speed: Similar to his strength, Hellion can increase his speed to peak human level. He is capable of sprinting two city blocks in seconds, disappearing, hitting a sniper with his billy club, and crossing a large distance while getting into costume in seconds. Hellion's running speed is also above an Olympic-level athlete's speed, such as a track and field sprinter/decathlete.

Peak Human Strength: Thanks to his control over his central nervous system due to his many years of martial arts training, Hellion can increase his strength to peak human level. He is strong enough to tip over a limo without straining, causally pick a man up and throw him, easily break a man's leg and rupture skin with a single kick, and lift weights up easily with one hand. He has also shown the strength to use a mailbox as a weapon and throw his baton with enough force to break concrete. Hellion has demonstrated that he is capable of easily curling and utilizing a four-hundred pound barbell as a staff weapon, wielding it quickly and easily enough to strike two heavily mesomorphic opponents hard enough to render them unconscious, and fast enough to prevent them from being able to defend themselves.

Person Identification: All of Hellion's senses help him identify people by the specific patterns of their heartbeat, smell, touch, sound, and even radar appearance, as it allows to "see" through objects, specifically clothes (though albeit obscure).

Proximity Sense: An offshoot to radar sense, this ability is the combination of all other senses (excluding radar sense) and can allow Hellion to reconstruct his surroundings.

Radar Sense: A form of echolocation via low radio wave projection, according to one theory; an energy wave within certain portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The signal emanates radio waves from regions of his brain, after which it travels outward, bounces off objects around him, and returns to receiving regions of his brain. With this ability, Hellion can synthesize a very close analogue of three-dimensional, 360° human sight.

Sonar Sense: Very much like his radar sense, Hellion can emit sonar waves, that are actually "echoes" that bounce off objects in his surrounding environment, and listen to the echoes that return from various objects near him, and use these echoes to locate and identify the objects. Alternately, he can use ambient sounds to do the same. Since this ability isn't based on sight/light, invisibility is useless against him, as are most forms of camouflage.

Superhuman Balance: It is a common misconception that balance is not a sense, but Hellion's balance centers give him equilibrium nearly on par with Muraña's.

Superhuman Hearing: Hellion's sense of hearing enables him to detect an acoustic pressure change of one decibel at a pressure level of seven decibels (whereas the lowest threshold for average human hearing is twenty decibels). He can hear a person's heartbeat at a distance of over twenty feet, or people whispering on the other side of a standard soundproof wall. Through practice, Hellion is able to control his hearing acuity, mentally blocking out specific sounds like his own breathing and heartbeat, all ambient sounds to a normal human level of perception, or all sounds but a particular sound he is concentrating upon. Hellion also utilizes his superhuman sense of hearing as an aid in processing, filtering, and interpreting the feedback of his radar/sonar sense to actually give him a three-dimensional picture of his surroundings. Additionally, Hellion's combined use of his super hearing and radar sense can also give him tactical advantages, such as awareness of people hiding around the corners of rooms, walls, buildings, and furniture and makes it virtually impossible to literally blindside Hellion.

Superhuman Reflexes

Superhuman Taste: Hellion's sense of taste enables him to detect the number of grains of salt on a pretzel. His ability to remember tastes enables him to determine every ingredient of a food or drink he tastes, as long as there are at least twenty milligrams of that substance present.

Superhuman Touch: Hellion's sense of touch is so acute that his finger can feel the faint impressions of ink on a printed page, allowing him to read by touch, though laminated pages prevent him from touching and thus reading the ink impressions at a much faster pace than a normal person would be able to read. The rest of his skin is equally sensitive, enabling him by concentration to feel minute temperature and pressure changes in the atmosphere around him. Even with his senses of smell and hearing blocked, he can feel the presence of a person standing five feet away from him simply by his or her body heat and disturbance of air. A side effect of his sense of touch is Hellion's ability to manipulate his muscles and internal organs. The sense of touch is not just external, but internal too (central nervous system), thereby giving him the ability to have total body control, increasing his strength and speed to peak human levels, his agility and reflexes to superhuman levels, and also giving him the ability to numb himself to pain.

Telepathy:

Hellion posesses low-level telepathy which allows him to sense the intent of a person within an undefined distance from him. While he cannot read minds or broadcast his own thoughts and feelings, it does grant him one other ability:

Telepathy Immunity: He is skilled in being able to resist psychic intrusions, preventing his mind from being read.

Back To Top

Acrobatics - Aikido - Aviation

Paramedic: Hellion is a highly skilled and accomplished medical practitioner, specializing in patching up gunshots and stab wounds. His medical practice is considered the single greatest source of his successful war on crime. Hellion's mini-hospital has been given the nickname, by the criminals who frequent it, Thompkins Station, as it is located across from Thompkins Park. Hellion will treat any who come to him seeking medical attention, but he maintains connections to some of the most powerful crime families in order to bill them for repairing their operatives. Being upfront and no-nonsense has gained him respect from these families and all of them have put him on their "Do Not Harm" lists.

Boxing

Capoeira - Criminology

Detective: He has shown to be an expert self-taught detective, using his intellect to figure out complex problems and hyper-senses to find clues and evidence to crime scenes.

Devout Catholic: As a devout Roman Catholic, Hellion has the mixed benefits and access to certain resources and contacts/allies through the Catholic parishes of Hell's Haven. As a underground medical practitioner, Hellion can also access additional assets in the form of safe-houses and sanctuary of the Church for his clients. Hellion can also make use of contacts in the form of the Catholic clergy giving him vital information regarding the movements of street gangs, the various mafia of the NYC area, pimps, and other elements of the criminal underworld in order to allow Hellion to be more successful in battling the criminals of Hell's Haven.

Escapologist - Eskrima - Espionage

Firearms - Forensic Science

Genius-Level Intellect

Hapkido

Indomitable Will - Intimidation - Investigation

Interrogator: Hellion uses many different interrogation methods to extract information from criminals. His knowledge of criminology and torture is unerring and often overwhelming. At the same time he has perfected the softer side of it in order to gently pry information from his patients without letting them realize what he is doing.

Jeet Kune Do - Judo - Jujitsu

Karate - Kung Fu

Leadership - Lock Picking

Martial Artist - Master of Disguise - Meditation - Multilingual

Ninjitsu

Peak Human Condition - Physics

Sambo - Savate - Seduction - Stealth - Stick Fighting - Swordsmanship

Tactical Analysis - Taekwondo - Throwing - Tracking

The Friend of Hell: It is untrue that Hellion has never been afraid but through the years of training and experience, Hellion currently shows a detached ability to fear and emotions bordering on sociopathic. This ability extends to immunity from "fear toxins" and spells, and makes it appear he is on speaking terms with the Devil and is, therefore, "The Friend of Hell."

Weaponry

Back To Top

Suit: Hellion's current costume is made of a version of the Electr-O fire-resistant, triple-weave Kevlar-lined material. It is an excellent protection against damage, and it's also electrically insulated. For stealth, the suit is light sensitive, darkening when there is more light in the area. The current costume is a stylized red "devil" across his shoulders and extending to his hands, coloring his two middle fingers, over a black torso and legs. Hellion's costume is tailored specifically to his unique style of crime-fighting. As such, his costume has fewer body-armor inlays than Vigilante's, anticipating a decreased need for shock-absorption and an increased capacity for motion ("Move more, get hit less."). A caveat of this configuration can be exploited by capable fighters who are both fast and strong, such as Surprise!. Should Hellion need to engage an enemy who can exploit this weakness, he has supplemental body-armor overlays which he can attach to his gauntlets, his mask, his shoulders, and boots.

Cowl: The Cowl includes antennae that can pick up radio waves, allowing them to serve as a police scanner.

Gauntlets: Each Gauntlet's sections can contain a wide array of equipment, such as: sonic or smoke pellets, modified throwing stars, knockout gas capsules and throwing tracers. The right Gauntlet is also equipped with a: 100,000-volt stun gun.

Boots: Like the gauntlets, his Boots can carry vital elements like flares, a re-breather as protection against any airborne non-contact toxins and a audio-GPS. Other items are lock picks, a first aid kit, a mini-cellphone, flexi-cuffs, antitoxin assortment, signal flares, and a wireless listening device.

Back To Top

Cane: Hellion currently wields a multi-purpose Cane that has many different modes. Its initial form is two Billy-clubs held together by an extendable cable. It can shift from a nunchaku-like weapon to a manrikigusari (a long rope/chain weapon with two weights on its ends), dual Billy-clubs which can be wielded in an Escrima-like fashion, staff, or a cable with a grappling hook. The weapon can also be adjusted to combine both sticks into an Escrima stick. The weapon is held by a holster on the side of his left leg.

Back To Top

Blindness: Hellion is legally blind. While his superhuman senses help him overcome this, it becomes a problem for him to navigate and fight when his heightened senses are overwhelmed, scrambled, or otherwise cannot detect anything.

Immersed In Water: While being in a large body of water, his radar sense is rendered useless. He loses several senses while in the water and has a hard time telling which direction sound is coming from.

Non-Superhuman Physical Conditioning: As Hellion's powers do not give him any kind of superhuman physical ability, Hellion is as susceptible to physical injury and disease as any other normal human, often having to rely more on strategy than strength when up against a superhuman opponent.

Radar Sense Disruption: Hellion's superhuman senses render him extraordinarily vulnerable to excessive sound, odors, etc., which can temporarily weaken his Radar Sense or if he is bombarded by too much sound at once, Hellion can easily be immobilized which causes him great pain and leaves him disoriented. Like his other limitations, it makes it difficult for Hellion to be able to properly navigate and track his opponent with his heightened senses when they are scrambled which also diminishes Hellion's ability to be able to fight back when in the middle of a battle. Once the disruptive effects wear off, Hellion's Radar Sense can return to its normal calibration.

Radar Sense Limitations: Hellion is unable to discern pictures or video images, and he can only guess at colors based on the amount of heat they are absorbing or reflecting. If anyone or anything is not emitting anything that would trigger his heightened senses Hellion would not be able to detect it, such as The Query's hallucinogenic toxin was devoid of taste or smell, or that prior to his near-capture by the FBI, a sniper bullet fired outside the range of his sense of hearing was able to badly injure him.

Back To Top

Accent: Matthew has an Irish accent that he masks with an American one when in costume as Hellion.

Voice: If this becomes a cartoon, the voice of Hellion should be done by Charlie Cox.