Warp

Born to Rick and Marcy Gibbs, two renowned particle physicists, Theodore was the couple's only child and inherited his parents brilliance. From early childhood, it was clear Theo was destined for great things as he excelled at every task set in front of him, far exceeding the expectations of his teachers and surpassing that of his peers. Following his parents into the field of science, he memorized the periodic table at the age of six, built a working rocketship at just eight years old, and by twelve had moved onto complex equations even his teachers couldn't solve.

Throughout his school years, Theo often found himself ostracized from his peers to the point where he very rarely had any friends. Due to his high intelligence, his classmates assumed him to be elitist and avoided him. Things changed for the better however when his parents received a life-changing job opportunity; heading up their own think-tank at Apex Dynamix, a multi-national science corporation. The family moved from their home in New York to Paragon City. Enrolled in a private institute, Theo found himself surrounded by kids like him and quickly made friends.

Meanwhile, his parents reconnected with August Blake, an old college friend of Rick's and Theo's "uncle". Having met in college, Rick and August were academic rivals but became fast friends after getting to know each other. They took him on as their consultant as they began their work; studying an unidentified form of energy, theorized to be "negative energy" from an alternate dimension. To do so, the group created a particle collider that when powered, would open a wormhole to this other dimension, which they would explore in the hopes of harnessing and converting the negative energy to provide unlimited power to the entire planet.

Work on the particle collider was slow-going. It took years and there were more than a few frustrated phone calls between Theo's parents and their superiors at Apex who demanded results. When he graduated high school, his parents brought Theo on as their research assistant. Eventually, after many months, the group succeeded. After several test firings, the collider was ready for initial activation. A gallery of their esteemed colleagues, potential investors, and Apex Dynamix executives gathered to observe what could be a revolutionary discovery. While August left to prepare for their excursion, an excited Theo was front row for the demonstration.

On activation, almost immediately, the collider's energy readings fluctuated out of control. Generators overloaded and exploded, rocking the building. While the audience scrambled to escape, Theo's parents hurried to shut down the collider. Theo rushed the stage to reach the control panel beside the collider's shielded chamber to help his parents but it was for naught. In a flash of blinding light the collider exploded, blasting apart its protective compartment, seemingly killing the entire family.

Theo awoke to find himself in a void. An empty, white space. No up, no down, no light or dark. No sound outside of his own voice. Just nothingness. He walked for hours but was still met with emptiness. He assumed he was in Hell.

With nothing to do, he ran the calculations in his head. Over and over, and over again. The collider shouldn't have malfunctioned. They ran over fifty test firings. All successful. He had no clue what had happened. Eventually, he resigned himself to his fate. And then he realized he was unable to sleep. There was literally nothing for Theo to do but think.

He spent two years in this void.

And then, out of nowhere, he was saved. An extradimensional explorer who called himself Pathway blinked into existence, having accidentally stepped into Theo's void-like dimension. He was finally brought home.

Traumatized by his solitude, it took a year of therapy for Theo to re-adjust to the world after his imprisonment in the empty space he called 'The White Room'. Theo discovered that along with his parents, several journalists and Apex board members had died in the explosion. Though widely seen by all as a freak accident, his parents reputation had been forever tarnished by the failed experiment. His uncle August however, continued their work, re-creating the collider and successfully demonstrating it for investors. Blake used the money to start up his own tech company, Zeniith Industries, which had quickly grown into a mega-corporation in the time Theo had been trapped in The White Room. August set the now twenty-one year old Theo up with his own apartment and entry-level position at Zeniith, promising to give him whatever he needed to get his life back on track. Theo was immensely grateful, but also suspicious.

And rightly so. In truth, August Blake had grown jealous of the happiness Rick and Marcy had managed to find with each other, unable to cultivate his own due to personality flaws he'd failed to accept. When his corporate investors pulled the funding for Blake's own think-tank years ago, he was left nearly penniless. He considered Rick's offering to hire him an insult, born in pity rather than an act of kindness. With his career floundering and stuck in the shadow of superior scientists, Blake sabotaged his partners particle collider, stealing their work and passing it off as his own in the aftermath.

Despondent at the turn his life had taken, Theo was shocked when he discovered he'd developed strange new abilities after his time in The White Room. One night, he awoke to find himself floating. While grocery shopping a week later he blinked and had somehow ended up in the woods outside town. He approached his uncle in the hopes that he could fix him. After Zeniith scientists examined him, they deduced that his body had become a conduit, a living portal to the dimension he'd been trapped in. The unique form of negative energy had become bonded with his physiology. In short, there would be no going back.

Initially, Theo had no intention of using his newfound abilities. But for some reason he continued to find himself in situations where he was forced to. He got held up at gunpoint one night and accidentally teleported his would-be mugger into the middle of a PPD precinct, gun in hand. When mercenaries took the Zeniith lab he worked in hostage, he pinned them to the floor by increasing gravity around them until the police arrived. Eventually, after (a lot of) prodding from his uncle, Theo decided to bite the bullet and dip his toe into the world of superheroics. Using a Zeniith lab as a testing facility, he practiced in the use of his abilities before creating a costume and becoming a superhero.

As a result of his extended exposure to negative energy, Theo's body acts as a conduit to The White Room; the void-like dimension he'd been trapped within.