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Shale originated in a another dimension. His home world was small, probably what our scientists would describe as a "Pocket-Dimension." Perhaps the size of a single continent, with a population of less than a few million, it existed in relative isolation, with a relatively primitive level of technology equal to perhaps our late middle ages or the early Renaissance. Around 20 years ago, portals began to open, and strange alien creatures poured in. The creatures were widely varied, some massive, while others were more human sized, though none were recognizable as anything akin to the human-like native peoples. The people were killed, captured, and herded into strange machines, never to be seen again, while the creatures built more of the machines around the world's edge. The machines seemed to drain the world of life and vitality, and even colour; as time went on, the earth and everything near the great engines faded to shades of gray. At the same time, the machines began to cause the world, or rather the boundaries of the dimension, to collapse in upon themselves. The native peoples mounted defenses, resistance. They were forced to rapidly improve their technologies, and accelerated the development of both technological and mystical methods for conducting war and fighting back.

As they developed, they noticed strange things happening to their world. As the boundaries of the world collapsed and grew smaller, all the remaining matter in the world shifted in properties. Items became stronger, denser at disparate rates, and even the basic laws of chemistry and alchemy seemed to change as the properties of matter changed around them. As the life drained away from their world, even the colour seemed to leach away, leaving everything muted with shades of grey. Living things were affected the most strongly, in a manner far disproportionate to objects, and to the point where it became common to see common peasants clearing fields, ripping trees out of the ground bare handed, or lifting quarry stones, sometimes as large as a cart. It was as though all the energy that made up their world was being concentrated within every bit of native matter that remained.

The enemy creatures seemed to anticipate this, as though they had seen the same thing happen in other worlds they'd harvested, and constantly sending increasingly large and ferocious creatures against them.

Toward the end days of the resistance, only a few small cities remained; focal points of the resistance against the nameless enemy they fought to defeat. They called them the Skol, though if they had a name for themselves it was never communicated. In these last days, powers started to emerge among the few that remained, as though the energy that concentrated within them had reached some sort of threshold that boiled over the limits of humanoid physiology, and had to expand into metaphysical ranges instead, or have nowhere else to go.

Shale was one of these. At some point during his transformation, he gained access to the Speed Force; like it was always there, just out of reach, and what had happened to his world had merely given him the boost he needed to reach it. He took his name from the fields of shale that surrounded the mountain footsteps of his city. The shale would never sit still as the ground trembled; rather it slid and collapsed in constant small slides. Shale could leap from the very walls of the city when rushing to defend against the Skol, and the sight of him landing on the flowing slopes, setting off perpetual slides as he moved, became both an effective tactic against the increasingly gargantuan attackers, and a symbol of hope to the remaining population of the resistance.

However, at every point in the conflict, it seemed to be a losing battle. Their tiny world was being consumed, a few yards a day, but upon the entire circumstance of the world. As the world grew smaller, their became less and less of the world to defend.

Due to his speed, Shale was sent out on a risky mission to try and attack the alien’s machines, well behind the enemy’s backs. While he was away, the enemy sent out their largest and most brutal creature yet. In short order, it breached the city’s walls, and slaughter was the order of the day. Learning too late of the creature’s attack, Shale was unable to return in time to prevent the attack. In a desperate attempt to save some of the fleeing peoples, like others had tried, he attempted to push his powers beyond anything he had done yet up to that point. He reached out to the Speed Force to pull its power to him… and was pulled out of his world, into the Speed Force instead.

Somewhere outside his own dimension, but not within any other either, he was trapped, able to see the final downfall of his world, but unable to do anything about it. He was forced to watch as the last of his people were killed or harvested, and the aliens began to wrap up their operation in his world. He saw them looking at devices, telling them something was missing from the world - that some piece of the massive energy that had been tied up into each living thing had somehow left and was unaccounted for. He could not understand their language, but he could see their frustration as they looked for him, somehow unable to detect him, so close to home, and yet so far away. He gathered that somehow his leaving was problematic for them. It was not just a matter of the energy he had taken with him; but rather that the world’s energy had to be complete for them to access it. By being missing, he had robbed them of the ability to digest his world’s essence. It was useless to them.

Though between world, he was somehow able to move. Through the Speed Force, he seemingly ran from his world; far from the aliens that had destroyed it, and seemingly far from where they might find him. He ran. Along his journey, he was able to pass by other worlds, some smaller than his own world, but most larger - and some far larger. He set out to get as far from his own world as he could manage, that his enemies would never find him, and would never be able to complete their destruction of his home.

Outside of time as well as space, he had no way to tell how long he ran, but he had the impression it was many years; centuries, eons, he had no way to tell. When he came to the last world he could reach, he entered it. There were others beyond this, but they stretched too far across the gulf for him to reach. Inside this new, massive world, he emerged upon what he would later learn was called a planet, as there was no such thing in his world, and that it served as one of the great nexus points for this dimension. Earth.

On his right hand, Shale wears an armoured gauntlet, designed to resemble medieval plate armour, but with a modern twist. The gauntlet is a device crafted from Star Metal, a hyper-dense alloy of metals and materials, severely compacted within the core of a collapsed star. As a result, it contains far more mass than any known element of the periodic table could account for. Designed by Shale, with the help of Dr. Ray Palmer, and constructed by the Doctor, it allows Shale to utilize the Speed Force in ways not available to the other Speedsters that have accessed it before. Essentially a particle accelerator, Shale can use the Speed Force to accelerate microscopic particles of the Star-Metal alloy to speeds approaching the speed of light. Those particles can then be either unleashed, as a potent hybrid projectile of matter and energy, or focused into a tight containment field, allowing the creation of a solid seeming sword.

Shale is a small, slim man by our world’s standards, though he was actually considered tall in his own. He is a sharp featured man who looks human by all accounts, other than his medium-grey coloured skin, and dark grey hair and eyes. Though only the clothes he originally brought with him were actually robbed of colour, he typically wears only variations of grey, white, and black, as tribute to his lost world.
Eyes: Dark Grey
Hair: Charcoal-Grey straight waist length
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 9840 lbs / 702 Stone / 87 hundredweight (Appears to be around 164 lbs)

Short Jacket, pants, black boots, tight t-shirt. NO TIGHTS!

Duty: Struggling with immense feelings of guilt over being unable to save his world, and being the only one to escape it, Shale will have an extremely hard time any time innocents are in danger, and would likely be unwilling to allow himself to abandon such bystanders at any time. They will always be his top priority.
Outsider: Hailing from another world, Shale will frequently have trouble understanding cultural references, mores, and customs.
Enemy: The Skol. The creatures that destroyed his world have a vested interest in locating and capturing Shale. This dimension is likely far too large for them to harvest, but capturing Shale would make their entire assault on his homeworld pay off.
Hatred: Pirates, invaders, and slavers, for obvious reasons.
Prejudice: Technically an alien, Shale is subject to the same prejudices that most offworlder’s suffer.
Responsibility: Super Hero.
Temper: See Hatred.

Shale has been on Earth for approximately a year. Unaccustomed to the world, the culture, and the politics, he swiftly attracted attention, and trouble. As a speedster he attracted the attention of local heroes. As a user of the Speed Force, he quickly attracted the attention of the current Flash. While a conflict erupted due to a lack of communication, Shale had never faced a speedster before, being the only one on his world, and was thus swiftly defeated by the Flash, who has had the likes of Reverse Flash and Professor Zoom to deal with.

Martian Manhunter was able to help establish communications, which eventually enabled Shale to learn the English Language. A highly capable warrior, Shale was kept under the supervision of the League, working as a hero with the auxiliary teams. Used to using lethal force against his enemies, and having an easily triggered rage-button when it came to certain war criminal types and human traffickers, Shale has suffered a significant adjustment period, getting used to League rules.

Shale finds out world bewilderingly massive at times, and its vast array of cultures and languages mind-boggling. Thus far, he has lived on the Watchtower, or at other Justice League safe houses, often interning with the Flash in Central City, and has not yet bothered to establish a human secret identity.

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