Name: Connor James Henderson
Nickname: CJ, though he hasn't been called that since Highschool.
Age: 28
Faceclaim: Cody Carson


Abilities:
Illusions: Connor is able to conjure objects out of thin air and change his appearance at will. Or at least he can make it look like he can. Limited only by his imagination Connor can project almost any image into the mind of those around him, giving it lifelike qualities of realism. From mundane objects to complex disguises, mimicked voices to perceived alterations in the terrain so long as it's something he can conjure in his own mind he can conjure it in the mind of others, though the more intricate the illusion becomes the more focus it requires.
Metacreativity: Not only do his illusions look real, they feel real. To a point. If, for example, Connor were to conjure the image of fire consuming a person, they would feel the burning sensation and their minds would experience pain though they would suffer no real burns. He could make it feel like a person has taken a solid punch but no damage would actually be taken. He can replicate numerous noises and even voices. He's focused on and has been steadily getting better at imitating the feeling and textures of different materials along with ambient temperature. He hopes with enough practice he will only get better.

Weakness:
Behind the Curtain: No Illusion is perfect. It can't be. Otherwise it wouldn't be illusion. First, as the images need to be projected into a person's mind, cameras and mirrors see right through them, mirrors especially as Connor is unable to split his attention enough to replicate the images in reflective surfaces. Also while he is able to replicate certain sensations like touch or taste the illusion take up no physical space. If someone were to try and grasp at at object their hands would pass right through. If someone were to try and sit in a chair he had created they would fall right through.
Once You Know: Once a person is aware of the fact that what they are seeing is not real it becomes harder to fool the mind again. Along that same vein the effectiveness of his Metacreative skills exponentially diminish and are easier to ignore if the things they are feeling are identifiable as not real. It is also worth mentioning that Connor needs to be aware of your presence for an illusion to work. If he does not know you are there, all you will see is what is actually presently happening in the space.
Strain and Exhaustion: The more realistic his illusions get, the more they require Connor's full attention. And the more attention and focus he has to give, the more quickly it pulls at him. Minor images are easy to conjure if he is not actually trying to fool anyone and if the person who is on the receiving end of his powers is willing and nonresistant then he finds it considerably easier. But the more he has to force a mind into believing something untrue the more strain it causes him. This can leave him exhausted to the point of passing out and when he falls unconscious his illusions immediately vanish. It is very common after heavy uses of his abilities for him to need to rest for several hours in order to regain his stamina.

Other Special Abilities:
Connor's life growing up was far removed from sunshine and rainbows. He's had to learn from a young age how to defend himself which was preceded by numerous encounters of him getting the ever living hell kicked out of him. He has no official training by any means so he has no easily described fighting style outside of simply calling it street fighting.

Since gaining his abilities however his methods for defending himself when needed has adapted accordingly. He's learned to incorporate his illusions into a few techniques and since coming under the tutelage of the Campbell Compound has gotten better at this, using his abilities to throw off the perceived timings of his strikes or even bombarding opponents with a cacophony of visuals and sounds.

He also prides himself as at least a more than decent cook and he'd thank you to remember that.

Is your character a League member or a recruit? League
How much time with The League: 6 months
Occupation on the Campbell Compound: Kitchen Staff

Theme song: Perfect Son, Popular Monster
Physical Description: Connor stands at a rather modest 5'7" and is of average build. There isn't much fat on him to be found though that likely has less to do with him constantly working out and more to do with limitations when it came to the availability of food as he traveled across the formerly United States. He normally keeps his light brown hair short, often with an undercut on both sides of his head, leaving the hair on top to fall loosely to one side or the other. His brown eyes seem inquisitive as they study his surroundings and the people around him constantly, seemingly trying to remain aware of those that might be around him at all times.

Distinguishing Features: The first thing people tend to notice right away about Connor are his piercings, either the gauges in his ears or the small silver ring around the left side of his lower lip. Along with that when he talks you might occasionally catch a glimpse of an additional piercing through his tongue. If one looks closely they might notice other piercings in the cartilage of his upper ears and his eyebrows that have since closed, relics from a more rebellious time in his life that he has decided to leave behind.

Connor tends to wear loose fitting clothing, usually with a long sleeve shirt or jacket, favoring comfort and mobility above all else. Another reason he wears such clothing though is to hide a circular scar in his forearm just above his wrist that looks horrible jagged and uneven like someone or something had clumsily dug into it. Most times he covers it but on occasion it can be seen peaking out from under his cuff.

Personality Description: There's no hiding the fact that Connor can be easily perceived as a bit of an asshole, quick to jump on a sarcastic or rude comment. When you get to know him better though you find that he is, well, still an asshole but not just that. He has a tendency to speak sharply to those he doesn't know well or trust yet, keeping people at a distance mostly out of habit. Once comfortable with the people he is with he starts to loosen up, still mostly leaning on sarcasm in most instances though his attitude can become more playful. One new caveat to that is now that he is surrounded by people he doesn't need to be actively hiding his abilities from he's found it can be fun to mess with people, though never in an overly destructive way. More in a 'turn the fork they were about reach for into a spider' kind of way. He likes to mess with people, tease them when he thinks he can get away with it. He can be a little hard to be around at first but once the protective, abrasive shell he wears comes down he is loyal to his core. He doesn't let many people in but once that trust is gained he holds tight to it, willing to do whatever he needs to do in order to keep his friends safe, even if he has a tendency to give them a hard time while doing so.
History: At a young age Connor never really knew much about his father apart from the fact that their last names weren't the same. His earliest memory of Steven Kelly was not a pleasant one, mainly of a rage filled man being dragged away by people surrounded by red and blue lights and sitting in a hospital waiting room with his aunt, holding his little sister's hand. His mother, who not long after this incident legally changed her name back from Lauren Kelly to Lauren Henderson, had been badly hurt by his father and when she recovered she quickly filed a restraining order against the man while he was in prison. When he did eventually get out he broke that order several times, claiming he was a changed man and proving that wrong during his last attempt to see his kids where he extremely aggressively showed that he was not fit to be around his ex-wife and children. The last time Connor ever saw his father was in a court hearing where he cussed and screamed, calling his mother horrible, disgusting things before he was put back behind bars. Back where he belonged and where he could stay as far as Connor cared.

Unfortunately for him and his younger sister Sarah their mother wasn't exactly the prime example of a perfect parent either. She tried the best she could but the pain meds she was on took a lot out of her, meaning that on most occasions Connor and Sarah were on their own. To put it simply, Connor struggled with the hand life had dealt him and troubles at home quickly translated to a lot of anger at the world around him. He would pick fights and get into trouble constantly, throwing a punch without thinking at the slightest provocation, especially any jabs or insults when it came to his family. Protective of his family as he was he didn't exactly have the best way of showing it as he got into his teens, lashing out at those closest to him. Most nights he just wouldn't come home, hurling insults at his sister and mother whenever he was, hating Sarah for how weak she thought she was and how she was never able to fend for herself or hating Lauren for being either drunk or high or both.

Things came to a head during the summer before his Junior Year of High school when he and his buddies got the smart idea of trying to rob a house that they thought would be empty while the family was away for summer vacation. They had become emboldened after one of their friends had figured out a trick that let them get cash out of ATMs which they had used to do extremely stupid things with, including going to shadier places and making regrettably permanent decisions like body piercings. Getting away with that they felt invincible as they snuck into the lavish home, not knowing about the man that they were paying to house-sit while they were away. His so-called-friends had gotten away but Connor wasn't so lucky. By the time the cops arrived Connor had been harshly taught the errors of his ways.

While on the one hand that night had been one of the worst of his life it signaled a turning point for his family. Seeing what had happened with her son Lauren started putting the family through counseling and started working on herself as well, trying to fix her own toxic behavior. Connor resisted the idea at first but over time, with work, things started getting better. His relationship with his mother started to mend and the familial bond with his sister he had spent years trying to tear to pieces started to heal. But in a weird, unexplainable way Connor still felt stuck, still felt trapped.

When he presented the idea of going to a college in a state far removed from his Michigan home he was met with resistance. Things had just started getting better and suddenly Connor wanted to leave. But he couldn't help the feeling of just wanting to get away. Find a place far removed from his past and his problems. He hoped that time away would give him space to think. To figure out who he wanted to be without the burden of the less than savory reputation he'd gotten. It took some convincing but eventually he was able to get himself accepted into a college in Seattle.

Connor's second chance at life was short lived though as it was during his first year in Seattle that the first bits of news started to come out about the virus leaving a trail of death in its wake. He reached out to his mother and Sarah on a regular basis, checking in with them and making sure they were alright. His school stayed open for a time and when asked if they wanted him to come home for the summer it was decided he should stay where he was, get a job, get experience in the working world. Or at the very least he should stay safe as procuring a flight with all the safeguards that had been raised trying to combat the virus proved too costly. At least that was his mother's idea, Sarah had stayed quiet on the subject. Was he missing something? Was something wrong and they weren't telling him. From all accounts the virus acted quickly. They couldn't be sick, otherwise they'd find a way to get him home. What was going on?

Then one day his mother didn't answer the phone. He called and called and called and after a full day trying to reach somebody Sarah finally picked up. "You should have come home." That's all she said before hanging up. She refused to answer after that. What had happened? Had Mom gotten sick? Was Sarah sick? Why was nobody telling him what was going on?

Damn the quarantine. Damn the closed airports. Damn the blocked roads. He was going to get home.

That proved more difficult than he had expected. The fighting across the country had started and moving from one end of the continent to the other became extremely difficult for someone like Connor. He had no connections out here. He had nobody to lean on apart from people who would help him so long as they were headed the same direction who were there one day and gone the next.

It was during these travels that Connor realized he'd been infected by the virus as well, though it didn't effect him like it did the others. He sat on a fallen log in the middle of a ramshackle camp, surrounded by the bodies of people that he'd been traveling with that had fallen victim to the plague ravaging the earth, his knife sticking out of the skull of a woman that had turned psychotic and violent under the influence of this invisible death. He had managed to avoid it for two years but all of it had come to this. He was going to die here. He wanted to be home. He would give anything just to be home one last time.

And suddenly he was in his living room, sitting on the couch watching television, the delicious smell of the slice of pepperoni pizza coming from the plate sitting on the coffee table in front of him. It made no sense. He had to be hallucinating. None of it felt real. It couldn't be. As he got up and started to move into the kitchen he was harshly informed that it wasn't as he tripped and fell hard into the dirt ground of his camp. What had just happened?

Getting into a few scrapes on his way back east he started to learn more about what he could do and fought hard to hide it, using his powers to avoid patrols gathering up healthy civilians that hadn't made it behind the safety of the governments protective walls, determined not to be stopped. He would find out what happened to his family, even if learning the truth tore him apart.

Eventually he would make it back to Michigan, back to his hometown, where he found his home. Or what was left of it that hadn't turned into a massive pile of broken wood and sheetrock. Yet again the questions came up again. What had happened here? And what was he going to do now?

He wandered listlessly for a while until he finally did enter one of many protective Compounds designed to shield ordinary people from the wretched waste of a world that he had just been wandering for years. He was running mostly on automatic, often spending hours staring at a photo of his mother and sister, having no clue what he should do next. That is until the day someone recognized Sarah in the photo he carried. She had been in this same compound for a time and had just disappeared one day without any explanation. She could still be alive. It defied all odds but Sarah could still be alive somewhere. He had to go out and find her. But the guards wouldn't let just anyone out whenever they please. So he tried to sneak out. It was during this fail escape attempt that his powers were discovered and prepped for transport to the Adelphi Facility.

His last memory he has before waking up at Campbell Compound is of a secondary escape attempt as they were transporting him. He'd managed to use his powers to break away from those holding him for a time and had tried to get away but the odds were stacked too high against him. One moment he was running for his life, shouting in pain as something impacted his back and drove him to the ground, tranquilizing him to keep him from running again. The next he found himself rescued from that group in a new Compound, one filled with people like him.

He's been at Campbell Compound for a year now, helping where he could to repay the people there for helping him. Not long after Theodore recognized his drive and the versatility of his powers and offered him a position with the League which he accepted on one condition. He would do whatever the man asked him to do so long as Collins made good on his word and helped him track down Sarah.