Character Name: Harley Rathaway Faceclaim: Lucas Till Occupation: Vigilante/Busker Age: 24 Years Old Species: Human
Hartley Rathaway was born deaf, only being able to hear through the use of advanced hearing aids commissioned by his father, Osgood Rathaway, when he reached preschool, costing mere pocket change in the man’s wealthy eyes. Though his parents were generally loving and his upbringing wasn’t the worst ever, he wanted more from life. Or rather less. He would rarely spend his allowance on himself, either giving it away to the few impoverished families he knew of around Keystone, or using it to feed the homeless. His parents, of course, tried to put a stop to it upon finding out, but their attempts were made in vain. Eventually, they just stopped giving him allowances, though this did little to stop his charity.
They kicked Hartley out at 18, citing finding him in bed with another male as their reasoning, but Hartley knew this was crap. They just didn’t like that their money was being put to uses better than funding dodgy pipelines or building yet another extension onto their already gigantic house. From that day on, Hartley made his own way in the world, making his money through summer jobs and busking on weekends. He kept little for himself, just enough to afford meals and rent a livable apartment in downtown Central City.
Hartley had a fascination with sound and music, particularly how it could be used to sway people, as well as their minds. Shortly after becoming self-sufficient, he developed a way to employ sound waves as a means to hypnotize, specifically through the use of a flute. To prevent himself from getting hypnotized as well, he switches off his hearing aids and uses a pair of goggles that allow him to ‘see’ sound waves as a means of ‘hearing’. He’d eventually start using this technique to convince one-per-centers to donate large sums of money to the less fortunate in the community, and in some cases, used it to aid in theft so he could donate for himself in the event someone proved resilient to his charms. The papers blamed these occurrences on a mysterious “Pied Piper”, a name Hartley eventually adopted for himself.
A few days after his twenty-fourth birthday, he was visited by a pair of officers from Keystone City Police Department, who had a warrant for his arrest issued for murder. His parents’ murder. Of course, he loathed his parents’ money and the kind of people they were, but at the end of the day he loved them. He could never murder them in cold blood. In a split second decision made in desperation, he grabbed his flute, hypnotizing the officers into driving around the block several times while he gathered his belongings and left. He managed to make his way onto a bus heading out of the Gem Cities, not paying any mind to where he was actually going.
After three days, he arrived in National City with only a duffel bag stuffed with clothes, his flute, and a green cloak made for him years before.
It was at this time he embraced, so to speak, the City’s vigilante complex, spending his days busking in the City Centre and his nights thieving in the more upper class sections. He has been largely successful, the general population and the disadvantaged often wooing the Pied Piper, but who is to say that will last?
Personality:
Hartley is a fairly chilled out guy, with a very chaotic good approach to situations. He believes in the ends justifying the means, and is not above breaking the law if it benefits the greater good (save for murder, as he believes ending another’s life is the epitome of cowardice). He has zero tolerance for intolerance, switching off his hearing aids whenever someone tries to ‘spout their privilege’ at him. Though he has no close friends in National City, the closest to him being the number of contacts he has made as Pied Piper, he is fiercely protective of anyone he considers a friend, even if that “friend” only provides him intel and floor plans.
Though he is charitable by nature, he is prone to snap judgements, deciding his feelings toward people after one meeting, or by what he has heard of them. He is not quick to trust, though in his line of work, trust is a rare commodity. He feels a sense of kinship with people of similar circumstances or intelligence, however, and is able to form deep conversations about the finer points of society and technology.
Skills/Abilities:
Enhanced Hearing (with hearing aids)
Musical Hypnotism (with flute)
Ability to See Soundwaves (with goggles)
Sound Manipulation
Genius-Level Intellect
Multilingual (English, ASL, French and Spanish)
Weaknesses:
Average Human Vulnerabilities
Limited Combat Skills
Susceptible to his own Hypnotism Technique
Total Deafness (without hearing aids)
