There was something distinctively wrong in the Engineering class Juno found himself in.

There was nothing particularly wrong with the day - if anything, the weather was quite nice outside. Clear skies, a nice breeze to offset the light but pleasant heat, and enough sun Samantha would complain upon going outside; a fairly stereotypically good day. It wasn't the content or presence of the class, either. Normal schedule and following the lesson plan so far, talking about the particularities of a new type of mecha-shift. Might not be for everyone, but the fox-eared teammate of Juno's was usually a big fan of this class in general, let alone an applicable topic - and it was one she actually focused on, so Juno could relax a little more in it without having to worry about a bored Samantha.

Always a dangerous thing, a bored huntress with a demolitions speciality, a love of tinkering and a fervour for all things dust.

The day had been fairly normal so far. VCVS had gone through their usual routines with varying degrees of enthusiasm, meals had been eaten, drinks had been drunk (as usual, including a large amount of coffee) and they'd all made their way to classes.

No, what was odd about the day was the fact Samantha had managed all of five minutes in her favourite class in the seat next to Juno, ears drooping, before her entire head had followed suite and smacked against the table with an audible thud and miniature glow of aura. What was more strange was the fact that didn't wake her up. And what really pointed to something being off? The fact the huge thermos of coffee she carried around was instead filled with Atlasian Black.

She hated the stuff with a passion. It was cheap, bland, and only medium-high in caffeine, and yet she had managed to drink three quarters of the overly sized container before passing out on her desk, chains occasionally making light clunks as they twitched in her sleep. Whether it was from dreams or from the malfunctions she'd been facing recently wasn't quite clear, but what was, was that the fox faunus was rather out of it.

Really, there'd been more than a few things pointing to the normally strange girl acting even more so than usual. She'd actually been going to solo combat training on a regular basis with a fervour and anger that was very rarely seen from the normally rather chilled out faunus. There had been late night outings before, but practically twice a week now Samantha was disappearing in the dead of night and coming back mumbling and typing things in her scroll. She'd done less and less music practise, or even her tinkering outings, instead spending it in the library or staring at an electronic's screen, researching one of the linked organisations to the White Fang they'd seen offhandedly in that fateful mission. Speaking of missions, she ended up in her hyperfocused, combative state again - for the most part, they only happened right in the midst of battle, but she occasionally struggled with some aspect of her personality and just started acting on instinct. Considering her calculative usual style, it was quite the stark contrast, and a slightly scary one, all things considered.

Yet still, out of all that, it was the fact she was drinking such a horrible blend of coffee that really would send the signal that something was off with her. Samantha was a bit odd, and the signs that showed her being off the most were similarly odd, but likely familiar to her team leader by this point. Still, outright passing out was also a new one.

She did look tired, though. Very tired.

Inside one of the many training rooms at Beacon, odd clinking sounds met the noise of hits against a training dummy. Standing straight, a hooded woman stood a few meters away from the sturdy target – and oddly enough, with four chains extending out of her back taking turns to try and weave their way forward to impact it.

The figure was wearing headphones, the edge of them peeking out beneath the hood, but the rest of her features were somewhat obscured in her combat gear; somewhat reinforced jeans and a similar hoodie covered in little chains on their side. The clothing seemed a little damp; she appeared to have been working for a while, at any rate.

She would go through a pattern; the chains would start slowly hitting the dummy in sequence, then the process would repeat, sped up. This kept going until suddenly, one would veer off oddly, tie itself in the others, or even swing back around near the huntress-in-training to the point she had to block it. There was a quiet curse mumbled each time, and visible agitation in the now-hunched figure of Samantha Quartz as she attempted to get a handle of her chains again after her injury.

The damage done to her own body had been annoying, but she’d dealt with worse. What was grating on her nerves was the damage done to her implant. Unlike the rest of her body, the doctors didn’t exactly know what to do with it – even she’d had to figure it out through reverse engineering, but the large gash near the centre of the four circles had resulted in her not having perfect control of her chains anymore. It was like your arm randomly deciding to punch yourself one out of every ten punches; infuriating and possibly dangerous. It did only happen during fast-paced movements, but it was a very much ‘for now’ outlook in Samantha’s head; a tire will continue to deflate once its punctured, after all.

Another few misses and a sudden chain whacking her in her side brought out a slight yelp of surprise from the fox faunus, distracted in her own thoughts for the moment. The jolt back to reality brought along a frustrated growl from Samantha, before the four chains suddenly snapped forward to bind around the dummy, her semblance charging in their collective forms through the sound of their rattling before the dummy was constricted and torn apart with a screeching noise of her semblance release.

A few more moments passed, before Samantha let her fists unclench, one going to rub against her forehead.
 
“Shouldn’t lose control like that. In either sense…” She murmured to herself, tone slipping back to its usual neutral point as deep breaths brought her back to her senses, the chains continuing to rattle for a few more seconds before the rest of the stored energy dissipated. Letting them slowly coil back up around her body, she drew Staccato and Encore out of their sheathes, instead deciding to practise something she could control.

A little jolt of pain chaining up the metallic portion of her arm reminded her that might not be true too much longer. Gritting her teeth, she started up the motions nonetheless, determined to at least get something done during one of the rare times she had enough motivation to actually work on training.

Over in Vale, Shard Inc has announced an exhibition for their recent technological develops. A smattering of mecha-shift technology, some weapon developments, neurological controls and - the focus of the company - their latest advances in prosthetics; advanced mechanics in existing replacements to allow for greater functionality in all aspects of life - civilian, military and hunting - and a recent announcement, additional limbs.

After hinting at it for several years, the company has finally decided to unveil their latest range of prosthetics; while not available publicly at this time, there will be several people with such prosthetics present to show the proof of concept and their uses. Namely, there are several examples of civilian uses, but - more critically for Shard Inc's target audience for the convention, being so near to Beacon with the convention - showing how these could aid hunters and huntresses, even with a Q&A desk to ask how one particular style of combat or semblance could be enhanced with one of such implants.

Furthermore, the convention hopes to prove their safety and effectiveness - offering individuals the chance to signup to face a fully fledged Huntress with one of these implants, recovered from a career-threatening injury and made more threatening than ever.

(Slots non-specific; based on character appropriateness, previous participation and discussions. Otherwise generally first-come-first. Slots open till thread starts or too many people, though no specific number on that. Add in if your character would want to participate in the exhibition match; entered into a raffle.)

Each of the accepted participants received a replying message.

'To whom it may concern,

Thank you for your offer in protecting the shipment taking place three days from now. After careful consideration, you were selected to assist in the transport of the supplies to Treehollow, a town outside of the main city walls with several day's travel to the location. The preferred deadline for the shipment is three days, but as long as it arrives at its destination payment will still be granted.

You will be working with a group of Shard Incorporated-employed guards, five in number, who will be manning an armoured jeep in front of the truck, which will be driven by two direct employees of the company's Vale Division. Please attempt to avoid any confrontation if possible.

The transport will stop every night for several hours, allowing for four to six hours sleep. Return transport will be provided the day after arrival at Treehollow.

You will be paid double average wage for each day of travel, with a bonus offered of several hundred lien if the transport arrives on time; we hope this will encourage further cooperation with the company as we extend our hands out to up-and-coming hunters and huntresses to form a long-lasting working relationship.

Your team is made up as follows:
- Michael Vaktar, first year.
- Juno Vert, first year.
- Revya Vermillion, second year.
- Running Brook Sienna, fourth year.

As such, Running Brook Sienna is given operational command. The convoy will be starting from a warehouse just within the walls of Vale, coordinates enclosed within this message.

Our thanks,

Shard Incorporated.'

1 attachment: warehouse24.cor

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The warehouse was located in a somewhat run-down area; while at first consideration this may have appeared odd, it provided the company with an inconspicuous area to temporarily store outgoing shipments before their convoys began. While traffic was relatively thick in the area, there was far fewer pedestrians; after all, it was a rather industrial location, with row after row of offices and storage areas. Access to the building, rather than entry through the main entrance, was provided by a staircase leading up to a side-door that allowed for pedestrian access.

Inside the building itself was a vaguely comfortable lounge area, consisting of two beaten-down sofas and a small TV currently being flipped from a rewatch of the Vytal Festival to a cooking show as two of the employed soldiers fought over their preferred channels. the other two looked on in amusement, in between teasing the more timid employee of the company.

Their leader, a surprisingly thin man wearing what could only be described as a cowboy hat and a clean-shaven face, was leaning against a wall at the corner of the room, talking in hushed tones to the company's representative as they waited for the hunters and huntresses to arrive. Said representative was wearing the company's staple uniform, consisting of a cut-off lab coat, underneath a lightly armoured coat to provide some semblance of protection from any threats, with his physical features not visible from the door itself. The men were generally all rather plain looking, main differences being in their facial structure rather than their uniforms or their size.

The door, left unlocked, awaited any of the students to enter.

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(OOC: Thank you all for joining the thread! Most of the details can probably be gained from the passages above, but feel free to introduce your characters to each other as you meet up and head into the warehouse itself. Post order will be decided simply by whoever posts first, going up to all 4 people then followed by a response message from myself. If you wish for any other details, simply put it ooc in your posts or PM me if you need it to decide on a course of action! Have fun, and happy hunting!)

Name: Lynn Aubin

Age: 32

Species and Gender: Female wolf faunus

Symbol:

Occupation: Ex-huntress / Module-003 of Shard Incorporated

Appearance: Lynn stands at 5'8 and is on the thinner side, mainly due to lost weight from her recent operation and recovery.  Her hair is a light black shade and her faunus traits, namely her wolf ears follow this theme, although featuring small tufts of white fur. She currently has somewhat pale skin, mostly due to her recovery efforts from her recent implantation operation; it is usually closer to average rather than its current shade. Her eyes are not visible beneath the black and blue-lined faceplate that replaces them for her vision, keeping if not bolstering her faunus eyesight and allowing her to see through her semblance's flames. She has a rather frail frame due to several years of inactivity coupled with the invasive implantation operation, although she is actively working to try and rebuild her previous image so she can fight more effectively.  ((OOC: The only images I could find for her general appearance do not feature her faceplate, which replaces her eyes; it's visible in her combat uniform)).

Casual Clothes:

Combat Uniform:

History: Lynn had a relatively normal childhood for someone living in one of the village outskirts of Vale; a quaint, if occasionally hectic existence. She and her family lived a somewhat nomadic existence, having to move around to avoid the creatures of Grimm, eventually settling down in a small town further into the kingdom. While the village would always be home to her, she never liked how they had to feel constantly afraid of the Grimm, and sought to learn how to become a huntress from one of the local hunters. She never had much luck wielding any of the common weapons, mainly sticking to somewhat shoddy use of swordsmanship with only basic strategy and overconfidence, until her mentor sought to break it out of her by sending her alone against Grimm for the first time. Obviously, finding herself far outmatched, she fought on the edge until she realized what it would mean to properly fight and learn, awakening her semblance during the combat. With the edge that this offered her, she eventually enrolled into Beacon academy as a first year after several further years of training.

Despite her advantages, she still found herself lacking behind the other students with their mixture of both useful weapons and semblances, so she experimented with the resource she never had access to before; dust. The cost of it was simply too high to buy in the quantities necessary for combat usage, but now she had a much larger fund for said dust. She spent much of her second year learning to use the substance effectively by itself as a caster, and mixing it with her semblance for greater effects, widening her area of expertise and slowly becoming much more well-rounded. Forging Winter's Grasp during the middle of her third year to aid in the ease of use of her techniques, she started to build up a reputation for herself, graduating and returning to her home to help protect it and take the place of her old mentor. Despite her skills and weapons, though, everyone makes mistakes; hers just happened to be attempting to fend off too large of a force at once due to a refusal to know when to rest and recharge or back down. Her previous mentor had helped to fight off a Grimm attack, but with the defenses of the town weakened it came under attack by a threat that Lynn was not experienced at handling; bandits. Fearing the abandonment of the town that had finally come to act like a permanent home for the huntress, and with the disgust at people taking advantage of the Grimm attacks for their own gain, she gave it everything she had to try and hold the location. While the bandits were eventually fought off, it wasn't without consequence, with her aura falling during the battle and resulting in her taking a large cut across her face. This resulted in the loss of her eyesight and as such her forced retirement, much to her displeasure.

This changed when she received an offer from Shard Incorporated, who were testing out a new range of prosthetics for hunters and huntresses. Of course, this greatly interested Lynn, who had always wanted to return to her original occupation, and she immediately accepted. The faceplate that now covers her eyes worked perfectly, and she took advantage of this to return to her huntress career, training her skills once again and learning to use Dust to its full potential with her semblance, becoming a caster. Several years later, when they offered to provide some... 'additions' to further enhance her combat capabilities, it seemed simply logical to accept with the benefits that the first implantation had given her. Of course, that was when she was told accepting the upgrades now required her to remain in the facility for an extended period of time for analysis and rehabilitation, and despite her rather firm objections there were certain features of the implants that made her more willing to accept this argument. She is currently located with the other members of the Module project under the Vale Main Facility.

Personality: Lynn's personality to strangers is professional; calling her cold would, ironically, not be quite correct. She simply puts on a bland expression and states simply what she wants from people or her orders, not outwardly reacting to events taking place around her strongly. That's not to say she's apathetic, but rather that she prefers to save her energy and get to the point where possible. She says what needs to be said, and then tends to stay quiet unless questioned about something. If she believes she has something she can contribute to a discussion, then she'll wait for a pause before saying anything; however, aspects of her more talkative previous persona do slip through occasionally, making small remarks or even things that approach being jokes or sarcasm - although it's not exactly easy to tell.

With people who know her better, she remains to the point, but also manages to hold conversations about different topics. Lynn can be expectant of people to lead conversations unless she has started it, preferring to remark rather than to begin, although she does tend to tease her friends on occasion. In addition, she is more expressive, her face going through a greater range of emotions than 'I'm bored' to 'I'm curious'. She can even approach being flirtatious with others on occasion. She can be witty, and she is intelligent in that she can quickly adapt to different situations or topics, but she often struggles picking up advanced concepts outside of her subject areas; these being mainly related to her previous occupation (such as tracking or survival) but also edging into literature and psychology. She isn't much of a scientist.

Lynn's pastimes include reading, mostly about different huntress magazines due to nostalgia or more serious fiction books (with her guilty pleasure being superhero comic books), experimenting with dust and her semblance (sometimes even for fun, making shapes or effects with a combination of the two), tending to or looking after different animals and swimming, the latter of which she hasn't had much of a chance to do recently with her rehabilitation efforts and development by Shard Incorporated.

Aura and Semblance: Lynn's aura has a faint appearance, not showing up very vividly. It is coloured a very light blue, with wisps coming out of it like breaths in cold weather.

Frostburn: Lynn's semblance allows her to generate vivid dark-blue flames. These flames don't spread infinitely, spreading a certain amount before dying out; there may be some lingering flames left behind for a short period, however. The spread and temperature of the flames are dependent on energy and oxygen; colder temperatures require more energy input (be it raw materials or forced through usage of stamina) to fuel, and the oxygen requirement can be replaced with aura usage in a pinch. The main feature of this semblance is that these flames, rather than being exothermic, is instead endothermic; they absorb energy (this mostly being in the form of aura, but dust or more explosive sources still working) and use it to spread and rapidly lower the surrounding temperature.  Just as a touch from a real flame without protection would cause burns, these blue flames quickly inflict cold burn, otherwise known as frostbite. Lynn can generate these in large amounts at the cost of a loss in physical energy, tiring over time - due to her training with the semblance for many years, however, she is adept at using them and takes a long time to tire from raw manipulation. Creation takes more energy, but can be aided through the use of dust. Fire dust causes a greater amount of flames to be generated, at the cost of a slight increase in temperature, causing frost to appear on surfaces and frostnip, while ice dust causes flames created to be much more frigid but also created in less quantity, with its coldest temperature causing hypothermia and gradual freezing. Other forms of dust allow for more specific attacks to be created, such as lightning dust creating a brief beam of said flames rapidly moving forwards, similar to a flamethrower, or earth dust causing the ground around Lynn to freeze over with slight lingering flames. Her flames generally are cold enough to leave frost where normal flames would leave cinders, but can be greatly focused down up to a blowtorch-like effect which can immediately freeze over what it touches. The former would cause frostnip and frostbite similar to flames causing different degree burns, while the latter can be used for effects such as freezing and then proceeding to shatter part of a Grimm - any kind of freezing cannot pierce through aura, however. While frostnip and hypothermia can be caused with prolonged exposure to Frostburn, the effects of the flames are mostly kinetic with residual aftereffects when it comes to fighting people with aura, as you'd expect from a jet of flame being sent towards someone. The max range she can create flames at is twenty feet, although it is more efficient in both power and efficiency to create them directly from her body, requiring cumulatively more energy the further away it is. Her semblance with constant active use can allow her to fight for around ten to fifteen minutes of constant combat at good efficiency.

Combat Behavior: The most obvious feature of Lynn's combat style is that it isn't particularly specific - even basic swings can leave jets of coldfire after them. With the large set of limbs on her back combined with her dust patterns, she can be a threat at nearly all ranges, although she specializes at medium to close range combat. At long ranges, she'll either use basic dust patterns (raw manipulation of dust) or use focused blasts of her semblance, although both suffer from slower speeds. At medium range, her preference in combat, she will send out large swaths of her semblance using various dusts to bolster its effect, weaving in different attacks while trying to overwhelm her opponents through area denial techniques. Lynn is still getting used to subtle manipulation of her large limbs, and as such can't perform precise maneuvers with them quite yet; however, with the force behind them she doesn't particularly need to, able to simply claw forwards with fast speeds or use them as a shield, while using Winter's Grasp as an aid to her hand-to-hand combat. If needed, she can send out a small burst of dust from her gauntlets and use it for a close-range explosion to get some distance, and she has an emergency stock of dust in each for a widespread, if weak blast of her semblance as a last resort. Her large limbs, once coated with her semblance (a process that only takes a matter of seconds and some focus) can be used as additional points to cast spells or use her semblance from, being directly linked to her body. Her main weaknesses, however, are that the Reaper Module starts to wear her down from her own semblance over time, her relative inexperience in the use of the larger limbs (that's not to say they aren't a threat, but rather that if she does use them they'll be predictable if the opponent can actually manage to dodge the blows, since they only head in a straight line) and that she struggles with maneuverability, due to the large space and weight of the limbs. Since her old combat style was based on dodging, she occasionally missteps in combat as she tries to move out of the way of blows, although she is starting to get used to using the bulky claws for blocking - in high-stress situations, however, old habits die hard. This is more important of a weakness than it would otherwise be for most people trained in aura, as hers is often stretched thin over many different constant usages, meaning that if a hit does actually get through her defenses it hurts her quite badly; not particularly draining more aura than usual, but simply more of the impact going through it. In more temporary weaknesses, she is still recovering medically from the implantation process and has low stamina - she prefers to make small movements that don't require her to exert lots of energy, as she already has enough strain on her aura from use of the Reaper Module without needing to expend it to make up for her lake of stamina. This means that, while her hand-to-hand combat is still very effective, she cannot maintain it for extended periods of time, preferring to fend opponents off with her semblance, dust spells or her prosthetics.

Additional Notes: Linked to the Shard Incorporated worldbuild.


WEAPON

Name: Winter's Grasp

Primary Form: Two gauntlets, black in colour and with several small extensions leading out of the wrist and behind the elbow respectively. In terms of physical attacks, they can slightly aid in hand-to-hand combat, as you'd imagine a solid piece of metal would do. However, their main purpose is to store various levels of powdered dust within for use in two main purposes; she can cover the gauntlets in a brief coating of the respective element, or she can use the dust  to enhance her semblance, as detailed earlier. Dust is loaded into the fingertips and palm of the gauntlets through subtle but specific hand gestures, making it hard to use when precise movements are restricted, but allows for rapid changes and distribution in selected dust types. Each gauntlet can store three types of dust in reasonable quantities, with a one-use stock of fire dust that can be activated with a flick of the gauntlet for emergency measures.

Dust Functions: See above. The whole weapon is essentially designed for enhancing dust usage with the helpful side effect of providing a mean left hook, rather than the other way around.

History: Winter's Grasp has gone through several upgrades through it's lifespan; the first version only had one dust loaded at once, the next could contain three and the final upgrade both linked it to her other weapon for dust enhancement of the Reaper Module and gave it the emergency supply for tense situations.


Name: Module-003 'Doorknocker'

Primary Form: A set of imposing interlocking rings connected to her back and shoulders, and a matching pair of large, hollow, claw-like prosthetics. Using similar theory in how aura anchors can store aura, the Reaper Module allows for a person's semblance to 'stick' to their aura instead of immediately dissipating. This would likely not prove useful to semblances outside of those that directly generate substances of some kind, such as aura constructs or elemental attacks; however, for those that do (such as Lynn's Frostburn semblance), it offers both a defensive and offensive boost by being able to coat the user in their semblance without having to constantly generate additional material. The claw-like gauntlets can be filled with the semblance, and can expel it from the hollow tubes when a ranged attack is required. However, these benefits come at a price; without even mentioning the usual medical disabilities caused by the extensive implantation process iconic to the module series, M-003 also causes the user to slowly take damage from their own semblance if they overuse the cybernetics as the user's aura being used to hold the semblance reduces the shielding of the user from their attacks. Lynn feels this downside through gradual lowering of body temperature, eventually resulting in a lack of ability to fight due to extensive cooling of the body. The limbs themselves are very unwieldy, limiting mobility due to the change in balance created until Lynn adapts to having them out again. Despite the size of the gauntlets, their strength without conscious application of aura and only using the passive amount required for movement (a negligible amount without constant activity) is only slightly stronger than a normal aura-enhanced punch from a non-martial-arts specialist - packing somewhat of a punch, but nothing in comparison to those focused on the subject. However, with direct application of aura at a rate of 3 to 5% per movement, depending on the weight, their strength can be briefly multiplied by up to five times; however, this is in terms of raw strength only, and their speed remains the same - so useful for carrying/throwing or for a close-range attack.

Modules do not base themselves off physical strength, using majorly mechanical components coupled with aura to create their movement. However, it relies on muscle movements in the connected location; as such, if exhausted of either physical energy or aura, then a person will be far more sluggish to not being able to move any implants. Due to the hollow nature, they aren't massively weighty, as that would limit the speed of the person too much: however, they are certainly at least a good two to three times as heavy as her normal arms.

Secondary Form: Due to the extensive process, Module-003 is unattachable at any point; however, the limbs can compress into a much thinner coating of her shoulders and arms respectively, appearing as claw-like coverings of said body parts.

Dust Functions: By using her gloves as a focal point, Lynn can briefly manipulate the attached flames using any dust released. Fire dust allows her to send weak waves of flame through wide movements of the gauntlets, Ice dust causes flames to wrap tightly around the metal of the gauntlets and decrease the temperature and Lightning dust allows her to focus flames from the 'hands' of the gauntlets to send them forwards.

History: Known more technically as the M-003 Reaper Module, it was one of the first modules created, and one of the most ambitious. It required a very heavy implantation process that as of yet hasn't been repeated due to the costs and delicate procedures required, but it mostly succeeded in it's purpose of greatly boosting combat capabilities for a hunter or huntress. She has spent the last five years working with the limbs to make them an efficient part of her combat behavior.

Hayo. Feel free to ask any questions to me personally, or my characters / worldbuilds.

CHARACTER

Name: Samantha Quartz

Age: Eighteen

Species and Gender: Female Fox Faunus

Symbol:



Occupation: First year Beacon student and part-time assistant at nearby Dust store.

Appearance:



Sam is around average height, standing at 5'4. She has pale blonde hair, reaching down just below her collar and hanging over her right eye. She is a little thinner than average, and most of her weight is athletic muscle. Her skin is a pale white shade, and surprisingly smooth considering her occupation. Her right eye is cybernetic, glowing blue, while her left is grey - a smudge of faint amber at the centre. Around her right eye is a thin ring made of metal with a small line of wires and metal curving around the side of her head. Due to the off-putting appearance of the eye, Sam covers it up most of the time. She has two blonde fox ears on her head, but she flattens them against her hair to hide them in public. Similarly, she has a fairly bushy fox tail that she tucks into her trousers; a little bit harder to do than the ears, but it helps her get around in public easier. Behind everything, she can be attractive; she's got a slightly rough feminine look and is fairly well endowed, but she tends to cover up and wear baggy clothing to the point her gender can be hard to discern from first glance. She wears two chain bracelets around her wrists, with several spots that hide small claws on her knuckles and on the side of her thumb. Her right arm is heavily scarred along its side, with several artifical parts overlayed. A majority of remaining exposed skin, especially when wearing just a t-shirt, is usually covered up with wraps of bandages. Finally, Sam has four 'ports' on her back, metallic circles that appear to be the only complete implant. Commonly seen from those involved in Shard Incorporated, a high-ranking developmental science company, it allows for interface with a limited number of components; however, none look quite like the one that Sam has, which appears to be a prototype. These normally have four chains connected to them; not having the attached objects on her makes her feel like she's missing a limb.

Combat uniform:



Casual and sleep wears:




History:Sam was born in a fairly peaceful retirement town on the outskirts of Vale as the firstborn daughter of a famous pairing of hunters - the ‘Quartz Duo’ - and was, admittedly, pampered a fair bit by her parents. Many people had high expectations for her, and she quickly proved herself capable, getting excellent grades from her private tutors on various topics in academical areas. After her younger siblings were born, a twin boy and girl, her pampering decreased a little as would be expected with two other children in the house, but this gave her an opportunity to pursue some of her own interests - giving her a few hobbies and letting her gain some independence from her parents.

As a child who looks up heavily to their parents would do, she quickly started following in their footsteps, managing to persuade them to let her start training to be a Huntress. This didn't take much, considering her heritage – while a bit spoilt, she certainly wasn’t coddled when it came to hunting. Her father personally started training her with help from her parent's old teammate and Sam's godfather. Sam's hobby of tinkering was borne at this stage, and she started to prove herself capable with weapon construction and a natural at strategy, though her actual physique struggled to keep up at a young age and had trouble unlocking her aura; nothing she did got it to awaken, and for an admittedly spoilt child was a major source of frustration - something that no one could give her but she wanted. All the combat training did lead her to become a bit of a tomboy even at her young age. However, with continued encouragement from her parents, she instead took up usage of Dust to make up for this fault, learning to create semblance catalyst focis and practising the theory of using Dust patterns for ranged attacks. As time went by, she formed the base of her combat style with her starting weapon; a simple pair of swords that clipped together into a longer one. With her continual development and practise both watched by her parents and tutors, and of her own volition, she was on track to being admitted into one of the better hunting academies. She was popular, if a little overbearing sometimes at her school – challenging people to spars and performing well in class.

This changed a few months after her eleventh birthday. With fame comes infamy, and her parents had some enemies of their own - one of which was apparently not above using children as hostages. The house they lived in was fairly large (and more importantly, expensive) and as such had a few hired guards while her parents were out - but they weren't prepared for an actual targeted attack from a criminal organisation. They barged into the house and quickly took out the guards, quickly finding Sam and her siblings and took them away to a nearby warehouse converted into a holding cell and a research area for the organisation. While her siblings were simply left as hostages, the scientists there wished for a test subject, and Sam - being the oldest - had the most chance of surviving the procedure. As such, they decided to test a prototype on her, using it to gain valuable information about a large-scale implantation for future projects.

Sam doesn't like to talk about what occurs during this time, with her own memories of the event fragmented at best, but it ended up with the extensive scarring and an incomplete implant being placed in her body. When her parents finally arrived, they were petrified upon seeing their children captured and as hostages, unable to make any solid actions. They tried to persuade the members to stop what they were doing with their words, as any actions could set them off, and to try to stall for time for law enforcement to arrive. However, as the leader of the group got impatient, he set about making an example; hitting Sam's sister on the head and threatening for more unless they agreed to her demands. Not seeing her sister get back up, something inside of the faunus snapped, her aura and semblance finally unlocking as she used the implant given to her against the same people who had provided it. With the group distracted by the death of the leader and several other members, her parents finally moved into action, dispatching the rest of the group and allowing law enforcement to fully contain the situation.

With such a monumental change in pace of her life, Sam did the only thing she felt she could; she focused solely on the goal she had given herself. Trying to separate herself from the event as much as she could, she only ever properly talked to her brother during this period; her sister was in a coma, and despite knowing that they couldn't do anything she still held resentment towards her parents for their inaction. At some points, her parents did attempt to try and get her proper medical removal of the implants due to a recommendation from Sam's therapist, but she refused - despite the trauma that had come with obtaining them, they were also the things that eventually saved Samantha and her siblings from the group, and she was determined to use them for herself as one last spit on the face of the gang. As such, she received only the medical attention necessary for the implantations. She threw herself into her studies and training, despite being frequently hounded by political figures looking to garner sympathy, the media wanting a 'more personal' insight into the event and into various legal obligations with imprisoning the survivors of the event. People she had come to know as friends no longer knew her properly, coddling her and throwing her pitying looks that she couldn't even escape on the streets; the event was significant enough to have been publicised heavily on the news, being such a precise attack on an area considered to be safe.

In an attempt to try and get some peace of mind for just a short while in-between her work and to get away from her family, she moved in with the same godfather who had taught her originally. She finished crafting her first weapon, Prismatic Performance, wanting something unique to her outside of the implants that she'd built. During this time, her semblance had been developing into a far more prominent state; with her hypersensitivity combined with this, as well as the constant noise and action her life had been pushed into, she felt all the stress and tiredness start to catch up to her. She just threw herself into her tinkering, and to a lesser extent her combat style.

She passed the entrance exam of Beacon a year early, but her mental state was deemed too unstable at the time to join, and he had to go through a year of rehabilitation. The exhaustion of it all, all the anger she had built up at herself, her family and the general public, it all pushed down on her at that point. She'd gotten what she wanted, and now she didn't really know what else she was meant to do. In the end, she burnt out a little, just lazing about a majority of the time in a semi-dissociated state until the following year, picking up coding during this time. With a significant lack of social skills matched only by her now-laziness and a newfound love of large quantities of coffee, she was assigned to team VCVS.

The early days of her membership in VCVS were about average – she got along fine outside of training fine with her teammates, admittedly partially because she wasn’t around much (hiding out somewhere or tinkering at the forge) but maintained a somewhat friendly relationship with them. In terms of training and classwork, however, she was a source of frustration for some of her team, especially their leader Juno; she didn’t apply herself to anything, sleeping half the time and waiting right until a coursework was due to suddenly do the bare minimum in one night, despite occasionally showing promise in areas when irritated or pushed to do something. Usually the two came together. She grew a little more sombre after Caja had to leave their team, occasionally paying a bit of attention, but hasn’t really been top of her game, focusing more on her hobbies – leading to the recent crafting of Ashen Howl. The recent, more dramatic events have slowly lead to her upping her game in terms of training and tinkering - fighting the White Fang and the Vytal Tournament as examples - and files gained over the course of the group’s interactions with the criminal underworld have started leading her to a possible origin of her implant – and a rare determination to find out more. She was injured during the Vytal Tournament by Camelia, damaging her implant to a point it wasn't perfectly repairable.


Personality: Sam tends to and aims to project a laid-back and somewhat lazy persona. She is a fairly relaxed person, taking things as they come and doing things as late as she can get away with. The fox faunus is more of a listener than a speaker, and coupled with this means she’s good at listening to people’s problems – though she does tend to ramble when she finally does get going herself. She’s a fairly apathetic person, in part due to her past experiences, and has troubles with her own emotions at times. She can occasionally get sparks of her former self back when she’s interested in a particular topic or objective, though; even if she doesn’t always realise it herself. Similarly, while it takes specific topics or outcomes to actually anger her, she can often find it hard to let go once it does happen – while she’ll often use an ‘outraged’ hot anger for when someone irritates her, she burns slow when she’s actually angry, rather than just annoyed.

Samantha gets by being lazy through the merit of being very intelligent. While not great at remembering lists of data or hundreds of facts, she can put things together at fast speeds and pick up new concepts quickly. This leads her to being great at bullshit for her classes, and being excellent at strategy – when she actually puts her mind to it, that is. A combination of her lack of enthusiasm and not great self worth leads her to not putting her ideas into action a majority of the time, however.

Her hobbies are fairly varied; she enjoys smithing and tinkering, changing things around with her weapons and coming up with gadgets or devices for combat or her own amusement. She likes coding, coupled with her tinkering for more advanced gadgets and maintenance of her implant. Finally, she enjoys music; she plays the guitar and sings, though this hobby she mostly keeps to herself as a more private thing. Sam also likes to ‘take breaks’ from the world around her, isolating herself for a time – whether this is simply playing games in her room, or using her chains to get somewhere up high where she won’t be bothered, despite Juno’s comments that she shouldn’t be jamming a hook through the window to use as a way to hoist herself up onto the roof with her chains. It’s a silly habit, really, but one she’s kept since she was younger and finds hard to let go.


Aura and Semblance: Sam's aura is very large. However, she has difficulty actually controlling it with anything resembling finesse, though she is slowly improving on that front – she tends to take the brute force approach still, though. It has a blue-grey colour and a 'pulsing' musical appearance.

Sam's semblance is called Resonant Echoes. It allows her to manipulate sound waves in several ways; hearing, modifying and storing them. The hearing portion has a light passive effect, simply boosting her hearing lightly - but by focusing on it she can form a rudimentary echolocation of her surroundings. She finds it somewhat difficult to keep her sight up while using it; having two sources of input are very confusing for her. She can sense weak pulses from around twenty-five metres, though not their origin, origin points at fifteen and clear shapes from five metres away.

The other part of her semblance allows her to 'store' vibrations into an object. Doing this slowly causes said object to start vibrating itself, eventually forming a semi-solid wave around it with its properties based on the object's shape - a sword's one would be a sharp covering, while on a spherical object would be more cushioning and like very thick air. This can be continuously held, or released to release the stored energy in a wave or blast, though getting enough energy for each function takes exponentially more time, sped slightly by the amount of vibrations being used to 'fuel' up the charge. The charge can be continuously increased over time, with the main limit being the object degrading from the vibrations (even with them being lesser than the actual force stored in the object) and her physical stamina and possible damage to her aura when containing a highly charged store. This charges faster if she's focusing on it, i.e. not moving, just concentrating on it. Using this, however, does come with a drawback; while active, it creates a vacuum of sound around the charging item – muffling sound so that while her echolocation cannot sense around it, it near-silences sounds around it. She can hold a charge once it's at a desired amount to allow her to regain the hearing.

Using dust with her semblance adds a secondary effect based on the dust onto the sound waves depending on how long she's charged it; fire dust going from simply a wave of heat to flames flickering along with the wave, lightning dust causing a static to almost EMP effect and etcetera.


Combat Behavior: Sam's a good all-around fighter; she has options, if conditional, for all different ranges, though with long range being weaker than mid and close. She's best as a reactive or ambush fighter, skirmishing and testing an opponent's skills before taking advantage of a weakness or trying to take them out in one forceful assault. Ideally, in team combat, she'd be distracting an opponent while seeing how each of their opponents fights, then relay information and possible plans around her own. She can, however, go for a forceful attack; her semblance and weapons favour an all-out burst of activity, but after this initial rush or an opponent working a way around some of her abilities she has to take a step back and start reacting instead. She is capable of helping to control the pace of a fight by constantly keeping up a low level of pressure, using her chains and dust to force an opponent to keep on their toes. She is not as good with a defensive fight style, however; she usually just backs off or quickly runs, more of a skirmisher than a wall to block an opponent, and as such sometimes struggles to defend teammates as her larger crowd-control attacks take time to recover each shot. She's working on how she can integrate into a team combat scenario fluidly, rather than doing her own thing and feeding information back to them.

Sam's fighting style is fairly rhythmically based. She uses music to allow her to focus less on the pacing of her attacks, just firing off to a beat instead; this gives her more leeway in calculating what her next move should be and how she should go about it, at the cost of slight predictability. Her counterattacks tend to be a sudden burst of activity before going back down to a normal level, with a small quiet before the attack each time as she prepares herself. Each of these bursts tends to involve activity each time, up until it reaches an endpoint where she's run out of resources or stamina and she's left stuck at this weaker base level, which can lead to opponents who can outlast her gaining an advantage. Furthermore, any opponent who can overpower her and break this rhythm completely can leave her flat-footed, giving them time to attack her while her defenses are down. Finally, there's the obvious point of them recognising either the timings of her attacks or the switch from probing defenses to sudden activity, but she's learnt a little about quickly changing up the exact timings on these to use it to her advantage, rather than a weakness; a sudden change from an expected pattern lets her occasionally get in some cheap shots. And she's not above using any kind of cheap shot.


WEAPONS

Name: Prismatic Performance

Primary Form: Staccato and Encore: A pair of linked shortswords, attached with a chain inbetween them. This chain can extend to allow for one sword to be thrown and drawn back, or even use both swords on the end of the chains. One is made of a black metal and the other a white one, cosmetically made to look like crystal.

Secondary Form: Crescendo: Formed by pressing the two swords together and activating the frameshift, a chainsword is formed; the crystal-edged material circling the primary blade. The weapon needs to have its momentum taken advantage of for repeated blows due to the control being limited by the sawblade, but in turn the loud noise generated allows for quicker build-up of her semblance. The shape itself means, along with the main sonic wave held around it, repeated small blades can cut.

Dust Functions:  None of the weapons have any innate dust functions, though using dust on her semblance's effects can affect the sonic waves the blades generate.

History: When Samantha first started crafting the pair of shortswords, she'd based them vaguely off each of her parent's own weapons in terms of colour and design. The chains, and subsequent chainsword function, were added after she got her implants - meant to differentiate her from her parents, but also to try and show she could take what they had and make it better than they ever had. Prismatic Performance is her weapon of choice, and her fighting style is based around it.


Name: Ashen Howl (Prototype)

Primary Form: A custom semi-automatic anti-material rifle. The gun has a bipod designed to attach onto the surface it's placed on tightly to provide a steady plain on uneven surfaces, and a variable scope. She can muffle the weapon's firing sound to some extent using her semblance, or use it to charge each round before firing.

Secondary Form: A storage form, where the gun bends in half then folds various components inwards to form a mismatched box shape.

Dust Functions: Ashen Howl can load dust rounds of a high calibre for a fair effect, and her semblance's effect causes these to have a weaker effect in a larger radius around the central impact.

History: Ashen Howl is a recent construction, and still not finalised in design. The weapon was made in her first year at Beacon; she realised that she could use a longer range option that worked with her destructive combat style, and that her team could use an expansion in their longer range stopping power. She's not quite a crack shot, but she's improving at its use, especially after the Vytal tournament.


Name: Unnamed

Primary Form: A group of four ports on Sam's back; the implants can connect to an object and control it with fair flexibility as long as the item itself has a range of movement, such as wires or the commonly used chains. The ports function through connection to a microcomputer planted in her spinal chord, interpreting her intentions into movements in combination with artificial nerves linked to her central nervous system. The objects used can be moved with about as much force as a normal limb, when taking into account the weight of the material couples with the lesser direct motion, though they tend to need a little bit of a windup for an impact instead of just being used to trip someone up. Anything that attaches to the implant requires a matching port to connect to it; new attachments can be created, but it takes time for both construction and learning to use them, along with the discomfort of essentially replacing a limb with an entirely different one. There's a weight limit to the attachable objects, with heavy chains being Sam's limit as of yet. The implant has been slightly on the fritz since her fight in the Vytal Tournament and the injury she received.

Dust Functions: While it's a bit difficult to apply dust to something inside her body, she can attach things to the chains if he wants to have some sort of effect or just coat the chains themselves, though it's not something she can do on the fly. However, she can use dust-coated tips on the chains, or use the chains themselves as a focal point for the casting usage of dust, though she's still practising this as it tends to result more in her blowing up than anything usable.