Synapse

History

Steven Berry used to be a normal man: an accountant who worked at Crey Industries. His life was run of the mill for the most part, every day filing reports and measuring funds. one day while at work he realized that Crey was funding too much money into the ‘Disaster Relief Suit’ project, which was part of his friend Dr Ray Keyes project, however they were not reporting all the money used in the project to the government for taxes. As an accountant, he reported it to his superiors, but they assured him it was a mistake and would be looked into. Not content with his superiors’ attitudes, Steve enlisted the help of a computer tech friend named Diego and together they hacked into Creys files and checked up on the matter, armed with evidence on a disc, he marched back to his superiors with evidence on the lost money. Again thanking him for his help, they also told him to ‘thank Diego too’, which was odd to Steve since he had not told them of Diego’s involvement.

That night, both of them were abducted and taken back to the Crey research lab. Dr. Bein explained to them there that money was no problem to Crey: what they needed were research subjects and not many people were willing to sign up for DNA alteration or more harmful experimentation. Not that that was what he fully had in mind here: he simply killed Diego on the spot with a needle to the neck of toxin. What he had in mind for Steven was far less merciful.

All he recalls was that he was strapped to a table and pumped with high amounts of electricity for days while they monitored his bodies reactions to various voltages, that is all Steven remembered: he is not even sure if they pumped him full of chemicals or what: but he underwent a change there that gave him his powers of speed and electricity control. He was also interrogated about his friend Dr Ray Keyes. His ulterior motive was jealousy. Bein was extremely envious of Keyes success within the company, and felt he could not measure up to him: what he wanted was for his best friend Steven to spill some dirt on Keyes that he could use against him. The torture was unbearable for Steven, right when he was at his breaking point his powers manifested and he unleashed a huge wave of electricity across the room at Bein, which shorted out all the lab equipment, enabling him to escape. He fled to the only place he could think of: his friend Keyes lab and collapsed. When Bein and his thugs pursued him to Keyes lab, Keyes jumped into his power suit and fought them off to rescue his friend.

Keyes watched over his friend as he healed and his powers settled, enabling him control over electricity. The power coursing through his system giving him lightning fast senses and reflexes, the ability to move at super speed and the ability to fire lightning from his hands. He eventually decided to use his powers to safeguard other innocent people from the likes of Crey, becoming the hero Synapse.

After the Rikti war

As a veteran Hero, Synapse eventually encountered another Crey victim like himself, a young girl who appeared as a humanoid cat. This girl called herself Mynx, and was at the time a petty thief with little control over her emotions and instincts. Eventually Synapse was able to get her story out of her, and he took her under his wing out of sympathy because he saw himself in her: a fellow victim of the evil Crey Corporation.

Trivia

Synapse is one of the surviving Eight, the eight heroes who survived the first Rikti invasion. They would eventually unite as the Freedom Phalanx to train the new generation of heroes and safeguard the city.