Unity (Hero Application)

Name: Miles Clay
Alias: Unity
Costume: Unity's costume, like many heroes who discovered their powers in adulthood and found themselves wearing a costume from modern garb, is a combination of elements. He wears a red bowtie, much like he does in his day job. He feels that he should look professional, friendly and approachable. His shoes are slightly old (but far from scuffed) classic Air Jordans. He has not worn them in years, and felt that comfortable athletic shoes that he has had since adolescence would strike a good balance between anoynmity, style and functionality. He wears a cape both because he feels less like a superhero and more like a thug without one, and because the cape further helps to disguise his identity. His mask covers most of his eyes, face and ears; he allows his mouth to be shown because he wants to be able to speak clearly, and hates talking through a spandex sentai suit. He wears leather gloves that are strapped onto the costume so they cannot be easily removed: This is to prevent fingerprints. (Unity has yet to realize that his fingerprints are a mere accident of his nature, and could be removed easily). He wears a fedora to further conceal his head and hair, and for style. He initially used loose-fitting leotards, but has since managed to surreptitiously purchase tight-fitting clothing. He wears a groin cup and a bullet-proof vest underneath his costume. Sometimes, he wears sunglasses, nightvision goggles, or tinted swimming goggles to further conceal his eyes.
Powers:
*Flight. Unity is capable of flight. However, when speaking to other supers, Unity finds that his experience is different from others. He feels somewhat like he is standing still, or like he is climbing a rope very rapidly, except that the rope is inside of him. This makes flight a much more banal experience for him than other heroes.
*Super strength, endurance and durability. Miles is still unsure of the limits of his strength and durability. He isn't sure if he's invulnerable either. When he is struck by incredible physical attacks, he feels something like a crack within him. So far, he has yet to experience any extreme of heat or cold that can harm him. Energy effects also seem to do very little, and sometimes seem to energize him, but not consistently enough that he would call it energy absorption, only resistance. As far as his strength goes, Miles has come to believe that it is less super strength that he has than a kind of hyper-density or immovability. He thinks that he is a lever that cannot be overwhelmed or broken, so as long as he is uses his fulcrum force correctly (and as long as the object holds itself together), he can lift it.
However, unlike other supers, Miles does not have implicit tactical telekinesis. While there does seem to be a skin-tight force aura around Miles when he is truly exerting himself, Miles can far more easily break objects than other supers because of the objects collapsing on themselves. That having been said, Miles does not suffer from poor control of his strength per se. While he does constantly have to watch his strength and exertion, he does so with no less than other superheroes. Moreover, Miles has found that, no matter the weight he is lifting, he does not get shifted into the ground.
*Moderate super speed. Miles finds himself able to run in straight lines with bounds without doing too much damage to the ground. He is not the most graceful runner, and he cannot turn on a dime like true speedsters. For this reason, Miles has come to believe that he is merely using his strength. However, those who have dealt with Miles note that there is something odd about his speed, almost like he can just be on you in a moment...
*Incredible reaction time. Miles can respond very quickly. He isn't sure if this is a limited super-intelligence or something else, but Miles can respond far more rapidly than should be possible for any human being. He thinks that it's something like
*Extremely proficient hearing and sight. For Miles, his perception is like a lens, allowing him to see incredible distances with almost no loss of information. His hearing is like an incredibly honed and tuned acoustic detector, and Miles can easily sense motion around him. Miles' sense of smell and taste are totally human, not raised at all. His sense of touch is fine, allowing him to feel microscopic variations, but only when he absolutely focuses upon it. Miles has found that he can see beyond human spectrums as well, but finds the experience disconcerting and so avoids it when he can.
His incredible hearing and sense of pitch is what has made him a virtuoso concert player in his civilian life.
*Energy expulsion. Miles has yet to figure out exactly what form of energy it is. It is not exactly any kind of plasma, nor concussive force. It is not a laser or light, and while his blasts sometimes have heat effects they are not specifically fire or heat blasts. There is some radiation, but so far Miles has found that he can keep it from being harmful gamma radiation. So far, Miles has found that he can emit two kinds of blasts. One is like a fracture, which can be transmitted through the ground or through the air. Miles prefers to deliver this attack through the ground and solid surfaces, because he has found in his private training that the fracture can easily create a lethal vacuum or spread far further than he wants. The other seemed at first to be an eye or mouth blast, but Miles believes that he only emitted it from those locations because he thought he should. When he fires the blast, he feels like his whole body has become incandescent.
*The ability to survive in a vacuum. Near as Miles can tell, he needs to eat, sleep and drink. But all of his abilities work in a vacuum, and he does not need to breathe, nor is he vulnerable (as far as he can tell) to the sun's radiation.
*Drilling strikes. In his rare interactions with supervillains and other heroes, Miles has found that his attacks seem to inflict shattering or crushing blows. His knife hands cut like a monomolecular diamond edge. If he strikes crystalline objects, they seem to shatter.
Personality: Far from being mild-mannered, Miles is self-assured, confident and well-spoken. He has a charm and fun-loving demeanor that makes others view him as both insufferable and as a joy to be around.
Miles is somewhat of a neat freak. He is notorious for insisting on things be done a particular way, and on being fastidious as regards detail and order. His psychiatrist has told him that he has a slight neurotic disorder, similar to OCD. Miles has no superstitions or beliefs about his behavior causing order and he does not have any compulsions to arrange objects, but he does have a very low tolerance for disorder.
Miles has a highly developed artistic side. He is a very good painter, able to do photo-realistic still-lifes and beautiful impressionist and modern art. He admires the classical painters. But it is in music where he is especially well-known. While he knows how to play the guitar, bass guitar, drums, digeridoo, and trumpet, he is most well-known for being the lead violinist for the Aurora City Modern Orchestra (ACMO). Miles enjoys all music, but he especially likes minimalist classical music and rap. He has come to like dubstep more than he expected.
Physical Description: 6'4", 190 lbs, athletic but not quite stocky, black male. His hair is somewhat curly, and in the past he wore cornrows, but today he has a somewhat short-cropped haircut for his civilian persona.
History: Unlike many other superheroes, Miles never had an adolescent moment where he discovered his powers. His abilities did not come in gradually throughout childhood. Miles was born to Melinda Clay (nee Wallace), Professor of Mathematics at Aurora University, and Charleston Cooper Clay, a famous blues musician and rock-and-roller. His parents were divorced when he was four. His mother had a lifelong battle with addiction and depression, frequently mixing alcohol, prescription medication and cocaine. Though doing incredibly complex work about multi-dimensional spaces and considered a candidate to solve a Millennium Problem, Melinda suffered from the madness many mathematicians battle. When she was sober and focused she was a world-class mother, and she always was wise enough to get a sitter when she was in one of her moods. Meanwhile, Charleston constantly was concerned about Melinda's drug problem. Though he himself was never known for excessive partying (though he did enjoy alcohol), his touring schedule left him incapable of taking care of Miles or his sisters, Valinda (his elder by two years) and Rachel (born a year after him). Charleston and Melinda would frequently hook back up only to separate again.
Even with his parents being middle-class and fairly affluent, Miles grew up in a traditionally African-American neighborhood. He watched as the people in his neighborhood fought to keep the place from becoming a ghetto. For this reason, Miles had friends of almost every ethnicity and social class, including a boy named Wally Wallace. Wally's parents were meth-heads, but Wally was a young physics prodigy who constructed his own telescope at age six. Wally practically became an adopted brother of Miles, Melinda doting on him even more than Miles. With a distant father and a mother who he sometimes felt gave more attention to his sisters and his friend, Miles drew further into the comforting world of music. He emulated his father, becoming charismatic, charming and rebellious, convinced that he had the answers and the world didn't.
While his Mom tried to teach him high-level mathematics and science, Miles wanted nothing to do with "Mama's bullshit". He learned through osmosis. His grades were above average but never exceptional, even though he unsurprisingly scored in the 90th percentile or higher in all the standardized tests he took. He managed to keep his musical skill a secret for some time, wanting it to be his own, but eventually he was discovered. He was moved suddenly from a strange mix of remedial, regular and advanced courses into a music charter. His mother began to pay more attention to her son . Wally and Miles made compositions, and even held their own laser orchestra at age seventeen, winning a full-ride scholarship and award for teaching science and music in an entertaining way.
Unfortunately, Miles' friends were of a mix. Some of his friends became involved with gang life. Two brothers in particular, Taquan and Robert, founded the 18th Street Purples. This small gang tried to keep other gangs away, but was ultimately absorbed by a larger group, the North Side Jumpers. True to their name, this Hispanic, Viet and African-American gang engaged in muggings, low-level drug dealing (provided by Chinese syndicates), beatings, turf wars and gambling. Miles never banged per se, but he was uncomfortably close. When he was twelve, he was playing a basketball game for practice (as Miles was always athletic even though he only ended up playing on his high school's basketball team in his freshman and sophomore years because of his mothers' influence) when he heard an argument. Wanting to know what was going on, he snuck up closer. He ultimately saw the murder of a man, Taquan's uncle, who was threatening to report the head of the Jumpers, Ricardo. Unfortunately for Miles, a Jumper saw Miles. He got away from Ricardo, but he received a letter with a dead frog in the mail the next day. He was then beaten outside of school two days later, told in no uncertain terms not to snitch. Miles remained silent.
Wally and Miles both attended the same college. Their studies were intense, and even as roommates they found themselves drifting apart somewhat. In the freshman year of college, something clicked within Miles. It was so subtle that he didn't recognize it. Near the end of freshman year, Wally and Miles had moved out of their dorms with the money they were making from various enterprises and moved into a loft. It was a month after moving in that Taquan, who had finally gotten away from his brother's influence, confronted Miles.
Taquan had finally found out that Miles knew who had killed his uncle. He confronted him and called Miles a coward, someone who had forgotten his duties to his neighborhood. Miles was still afraid of that event years ago, and the argument turned heated enough that Miles tried to force Taquan out of his apartment. When he did so, he threw Taquan fifteen feet and into a wall.
Taquan had a broken wrist and multiple broken ribs. Miles visited him in the hospital out of sheer obligation. He found out that Taquan was refusing to press charges and insisted to the police that it was an accident. Taquan told him, "You so strong, bro. Why don't you do somethin' with it?"
Miles considered going to the police, but he knew that Ricardo would probably walk. It had been too long; forensics evidence was probably removed by cops on Ricardo's payroll. Ricardo had become a very dangerous gang leader, and was starting to go legitimate. Instead, Miles wrote a letter explaining everything. He went to confront Ricardo in a ski mask and gloves, expecting that he might die and make it right. In retrospect, Miles didn't have much of a plan. When he confronted Ricardo in a warehouse, Ricardo shot him. Miles had brought a bulletproof vest, but he expected that he would be harmed. Instead, when he emerged totally unharmed, he started defending himself.
Miles barely remembers the rest, but ten minutes later, the whole gang had been broken. The police managed to put together prosecutions. The combination of being punked by some unknown dude (Ricardo never admitted who beat him, despite his suspicions, because it would make him look even worse) and the fallout, plus Miles' ultimate testimony, took apart the Jumpers finally.
Unfortunately, the Jumpers were just replaced by another gang. Miles realized that he had to join the fight to protect his neighborhood. He knew that he had special gifts. But he was incredibly nervous. By this point, Miles was the lead violinist in a renowned orchestra. While he was far from a household name, he could be recognized. This led him to create his outfit, designed for maximum secrecy without having to wear a sentai suit. He felt that he had a duty to be an African-American hero who could be trusted.
It's been about a year since Miles has made his official debut as a hero; he is now graduated after three and a half years of college. Miles has mostly dealt with street-level crime: He feels that he can't try to save the universe if he can't fix his block. But he has engaged with some supers. Wally continues to try to figure out the exact nature of his friend's mysterious disappearance, as Wally figured out his roommate's secret identity within a month. As Unity, Miles has begun to feel that he has a broader duty...

Ohmigosh, I am so sorry it took me this long to notice someone had posted here. Um.

I don't really have any powers here, really, but I will okay your profile in the absence of anyone else to do so! Welcome aboard, if'n you still want to play!