conduit

Name: Porter James Allen

Date of Birth: November 14th, 1991

Age: 16

Sex: Male

Appearance:

Fairly unremarkable for someone of his age, Porter's a slim young man with short, easily maintained brown hair and strikingly blue eyes. he's cursed with a youthful complexion that makes him look younger than he actually is, and hasn't reached the point yet where shaving is a daily, or even weekly necessity. He's pale and sunburns easily, freckled along the arms with long, thin fingers that bear a few calluses as the result of his artwork. Porter is rarely dressed in a shirt that doesn't have some superhero logo or comic art on it, matching it up with whatever jeans or slacks are clean and comfortable. He likes to layer his clothes, tugging on sweatshirts over shirts, and coats over them both.

Special Abilities:

Porter is a skilled artist, both naturally and as a result of private lessons. He's not remarkably athletic, but has developed good stamina as far as distance and marathon running are concerned. He's not quite a computers whiz, but knows a good chunk of HTML and Java for building websites, and keeps himself up to date on digital art techniques and programs.

Supernatural Affinity (Species/Group): Human/Psychic Vampire

Supernatural Affinity (Powers):

Life force drain via chakra points, energy projection

Personality:

Porter doesn't seem to have a hostile or confrontational bone in his body. He's a quiet, soft-spoken young man who smiles easily but never hugely and tends to keep to himself unless spoken to. He's not quite antisocial, just not the sort to make the first move or strike up a conversation on his own. The biggest impression he gives is that of someone who's perfectly content within the confines of their own head, daydreaming about things he doesn't easily volunteer. Porter is enamored with the world of comicbook superheroes, and likes to imagine the real world in such stark ideals; noble heroes, dangerous villains, difficult choices that only they can make and consequences only they can shoulder. But he also accepts that most people in the world don't fall into either category, which gives him a somewhat dismissive attitude to daily life. Porter's an avid videogamer and nethead, so while he may not say much? He's good at paying attention to several things at once.

History:

Porter's birth was a complicated and unexpected affair. His parents, Barry and Iris Allen, had only ever planned on having one child, their first son Thurston. Porter himself was a surprise who came into being when Thurston was already five, and the entire pregnancy was riddled with problems. His mother was hospital-bound for the last two months of her term, with the doctors expecting to have to induce labor early and not promising that the child would survive if they did. But Porter -did- survive, and was born a frail and sickly child in the city of Baltimore. His first years of life were difficult ones, his parents confined him to the house due to his weak immune system, and his earliest memories were of his father taking his brother to do everything he wasn't allowed to; build a snow man, play soccer and baseball, and go for bike rides. His mother resented him in some capacity, she was as much a prisoner of the house as he was, and though she did everything necessary to keep him healthy and occupied, he could feel the resentment.

His gift for art showed itself at an early age, and his parents were all too happy to fund its refinement. Porter began art lessons at the age of nine, studying at an after-school art program to develop his natural gift and giving his parents a much-needed break from his dependency. He fell into the world of costumed superheroes during that time, finding the art to be both an exquisite draw and a perfect point of comparison to shape his drawing. The stories were just as enthralling, thrilling and pivotal tales, a modern-day mythology that implanted as much of a sense of right and wrong in the young man as anything else up to that point. At eleven, he was among the students to be featured in the program's seasonal art show, and Porter begged his parents to come, to see just how good he'd gotten. His mother agreed, but his father had already promised to take his brother out to a hockey game that night. It was the last time Porter would ever see either of them again, both dying in a collision with a drunk driver on their way back from the game. And though his mother never said as much, Porter always felt that she blamed him for it, for keeping her from being there and possibly changing that night. In Porter's mind, he'd saved her life.

As he grew older, his frailty seemed to grow worse. Days would come where Porter was too weak to leave the house, sometimes to even get out of bed. His mother couldn't force him to do what he was simply too weak to do, so she began to pay for home-schooling to continue his education. And in time? His tutor became first a surrogate father, then an actual step-father as his mother became enamored with the man. She remarried when Porter was thirteen, and by that point he had become internally weak enough that he sometimes slept for days, and so lacked the strength to even begin to protest. Christmas that year saw the gift that most boys would've adored, a puppy meant to be Porter's new best friend. He was no different in that sense than any other child, after all, what other friends could he have? Sadly, the friendship was short-lived. Not two weeks passed beyond the holiday before the first dreams came.

Porter dreamt of a version of him that was healthy, strong, able to run and climb like any other child... but he wasn't the only person in the dream. His brother Thurston, now dead two years, was with him. Thurston told Porter that he was weak, but that he was going to help his brother become strong like he'd been. When Porter woke up, the dream was gone from his memory, but he felt better than he could ever remember.. until he noticed the dead dog in his bed. The vet told his mother that the poor creature's heart had simply given out during the night, and the doctor told her that her son seemed to have surpassed whatever barrier had kept him bedridden for so long. And as much as he was saddened by his dog's death? He couldn't dwell on it.

He lived more in the four days that followed than he could ever remember, going with his parents to see movies, to the park, to the zoo, it was a wonderland for a child who'd only been able to live through what he saw on TV or read in books. But slowly he began to weaken again, and simply couldn't understand why. The doctors were baffled, there had never been a direct sign of why he was so frail, and that hadn't changed. He was simply fading again. Determined to fight his own flaws, to be like the heroes he adored in spirit if nothing else, Porter went back to the zoo with his parents. He felt tired, barely on his feet, but still insisted on visiting the petting zoo. Playing with a swarm of baby chicks, Porter couldn't figure out why the one he'd picked up simply -died- in his grip, nor why he suddenly felt the smallest imaginable burst of energy. But when another child saw and started to cry, he felt something dark well up inside him, something that pushed right past his weak self-control and made him grab the smaller boy by the throat.

The feeling was indescribable, so brief that it was over before he realized it was happening, and the child fell unconscious. His family opted not to press charges, after all there were no direct witnesses, the boy's coma was short-lived and easily pinned on hitting his head when he'd fallen, but Porter was beginning to understand. He snuck out of the house for the first time ever a few days after the incident at the zoo, feeling his way clumsily through his first conscious feeding, the neighborhood cats that belonged to Mrs. Carter, their neighbor. Their life force was small, but it was enough to sustain him for the few days he needed to convince his mother that he wanted a new pet; a snake. And of course, plenty of mice to feed it, and himself. Porter began a delicate balance of sustaining himself, moving between the mice that were supposed to be for his pets and neighborhood animals, but it was enough for him to get into public schools.

He didn't adjust well at first, sinking deeper into the mythos of comic books and make-believe, plotting out a world where someone like him could be more than a parasite. A hero. When he was fourteen, Porter launched a website about that world and hero, starting his own webcomic that he dubbed 'Beware The Conduit'. It was a simple story, a hero called The Conduit with powers like his who fed himself on evildoers, always in pursuit of another being who he only called The Thirst, a villain who fed on anyone he could. The comic evolved with Porter's own life, documenting his gradual exploration of his strange powers in its' pages, even feeding in details of the dreams of his brother, Thurston, without Porter being consciously aware of it. The comic was a hit, and with every donation to the website Porter began to cement himself into making it a career. He bought his own laptop, an art tablet, set up shirts and art prints through other websites, and kept his own identity as hidden as he could. Out on the web he found more, too; details from other cultures, called the chakras. They didn't make much sense to Porter, but they seemed to overlap with the focal points he could hesitantly tap in animals when he fed. Or, he tried not to realize, in the boy he'd attacked years earlier.

He was fifteen when he lost the balance that had sustained him. The neighborhood pets were dead, his snake's mice were too few to keep him going until he could get to the pet store, and the dreams came again. Thurston, unchanged in memory, promised his little brother that he would get him strength. Porter's split personality manifested that night, taking the reins of consciousness from him and steering him into the city. The next morning the paper had the story; a cabbie walking back to his car found dead on the streets of heart failure and partial strangulation, with no match on the prints. It was so innocuous that even Porter didn't think he could be responsible. But the energy! It kept him strong for a month, if not more; strong enough to join the track team, to go on his first date, and to sign up for driving classes. He regained the balance, this time learning to plan ahead to avoid even becoming weakened, and time passed. And just when it seemed like life was leveling out? The news that every teenager dreaded came. His step-father had been offered a teaching position at a university far from Baltimore, housing was already picked out, his mother was preparing her resume. He was leaving behind the fragile ecosystem that had been sustaining him, and his only chance there was what the web told him: Marquette had plenty of wildlife.

Weaknesses:

Split personality - Porter is still unaware that his mind is home to another, separate personality. It expresses itself in his dreams as his dead brother, Thurston, and works to manipulate him as he sleeps. In the real world, Porter expresses its existence on a subconscious level through his comic, calling it The Thirst. The personality sometimes gives him suggestions he would otherwise never have, ideas about how to treat others, how to feed himself. If Porter is low on energy from a lack of feeding, he becomes susceptible to a loss of control, and his other side takes over. In moments of high stress, its' thoughts and desires may even become strong enough for Porter to speak them out loud.

Faulty understanding - Porter has had no one to learn from but himself, and as a result has a poor grasp of his own abilities. He knows the chakra points exist, but is awkward in their manipulation since his only conscious practice comes from animals. On a human, Porter runs dual risks; awakening his split side and possibly feeding too fast, draining a subject deeper than he might wish, or losing control of the energy he draws and projecting a portion of it at his prey. Also, he is unable to project energy without some rather superhero-esque hand gestures.

Babyface - He looks young, at least two years younger than he actually is to most people. As a result, plenty of people treat Porter like a child, and in social situations it's hard for anyone to take him seriously.

Inadequacy - Part of Porter's social shyness stems from the very core of who he is. A freak. A mutant without an Xavier Institute. The only one of his kind in the world, that he knows of. And if he wasn't a freak? Maybe his brother wouldn't be dead, since he wouldn't have clung to art so desperately. Maybe he could be like normal kids his age. He's convinced himself that his art and writing are the closest he'll ever get to being a -real- hero, that The Conduit is a dream forever beyond his reach.

Hunted - There's no reason to tie him to the murder back in Baltimore, but Porter's fingerprints were found on the corpse he left behind. One mistake, one slip-up with the authorities, and he'll find himself in hot water VERY fast.

Strengths:

Eidetic memory - Maybe it's a spillover from the artist's eye that's always trying to find a good scene to create, but Porter notices the details. It's a vital talent to have when he wants to express something just right in his artwork.

Suspicious - He got into public school late, and had to suffer all the pranks and torments that other kids got over years in a few short months. As a result of that, Porter is hard to dupe. He's slow to trust others, since he knows that with secrets like his he can only truly trust himself.

PB: Cameron Bright

Other Information:

Family:

Carter Hall - stepfather
Iris Allen - mother
Dead Man Wade - pet boa constrictor