CHARACTERName: Zabar Aga
Age: 18 - Born Saule 10th, 62 AC
Species and Gender: Human male
Symbol:Occupation: First year student at Shade Academy
Appearance: 5’10” 162 lbs. Zabar was born with dark brown hair but the sun of the desert has since bleached it into the dirty blond scraggly mess that it is now, he has orange eyes, and has a muscular build, born from the months of labor he’s been through. His family was one of the original tribe members of ancient Vacuo and as such, he has a dark tanned skin. He has some unshaven hair along his chin and upper lip, but not enough to be a full beard or mustache. He commonly wears a large brimmed cowboy hat to protect his head from the beating Sun. During his time at Oasis Academy, Zabar was given a chance to design his own armor and weapon, he chose to design an outfit that would provide protection from the harsh heat of the desert and decent protection against attacks from enemies.
After spending several months scavenging for parts, Zabar had finally found enough parts to work with to make his armor. He had designed a hybrid of knight armor and cowboy apparel along with a cooling system throughout the outfit. He wears a normal everyday long sleeved shirt underneath everything to be more comfortable and because he has no arm protection aside from his weapons, but over that he wears a chestpiece of a discarded piece of Scav armor. This armor allowed for a rigged cooling system to pump cool air throughout his body. Over that, he wore a dusty orange and brown buttoned shirt and a brown leather belt with a bronze buckle. He also wears a pair of dark brown combat pants and black boots with steel heels and tips, though they can be removed if need be. Over top of his shirt, he wears a large orange and gold poncho that sweeps around his back and right arm and shoulder. The poncho can be removed quickly and easily if need be.
In preparation for a trip to Vale by his history class, Zabar purchased a heavy winter coat to wear for the colder weather of eastern Vytal. It is light grey in color and has a fur lining inside. A belt hangs around the waist to be used if need be. The coat itself is extra padded and is able to protect Zabar from much colder weathers than the Valish winter, even going as far as to be useful during the icy Atlesian winters. Zabar later had his symbol stitched into the back of the coat. If Zabar needs to fight while in his coat, the gauntlets will extend over it, protecting the arms of the coat from damage.
History: Zabar was born the fifth child to one of the old families of Vacuo on the 10th of Saule. His mother and father were both ex-hunters who had settled down into the teaching profession at Oasis. His grandfather, Uli, sat on the council of Vacuo. His two of his brothers and one of his two sisters had all gone out and started training to become hunters and huntresses, either already graduated or nearing graduation by the time he was born, while his remaining sister trained to become a professional scavenger. Because of all of this, Zabar had always dreamed of becoming a hunter or scavenger and hunting through the wastes and ruins of the Sunkissed Sands, fighting Grimm and discovering buried treasure. Unfortunately, he was an unruly and impatient child when he was young and went out into the wastes several times with his friends, none of whom had any way to protect the group. Zabar knew of a rarely guarded section of the wall near the northern edge of the city and led his friends out several times to visit the waste’s beach, which had a few ruins, cleared out long ago by scavengers.
One day, while one of his friends was climbing to the top of one of the ruined towers, he spotted it across the wastes; the border between the desert and the jungles and forests to the north. They had all heard the stories of the north, dense jungles and forests jam packed with Grimm… but they had also heard of the bundles of fruits and vegetables and beautiful flora that the green woods held. They all knew their parents would never let them try to cross the wastes, they wouldn’t even allow them to be just outside of the wall, in the ruins. In spite of this, they all knew they wanted to go there, the chance to see something other than the orange sands and beating sun was too great to pass up, so they made a plan. They’d leave in two days time, after getting some water to bring with them, and they’d cross the wastes.
At first, everything went fine. They got through the wall easily enough, and they’d gone past the ruins, the furthest they’d been before. But, of course, they were children, there was no way they could have made it across the desert, even a “short” trip from the north of Vacuo to the jungles above. They weren’t far past the ruins that they heard and felt the rumbling. At first, they assumed it was just the shifting of the sand under them and maybe the wind picking up. They were quickly disproved, however, as a Landshark, a large worm-like Grimm with many rows of teeth, shot out of the ground and started moving toward them. The children screamed, and ran, as children would be expected to do, and started to run back to the ruins for protection. As they ran, one of Zabar’s friends tripped and fell to the sands before quickly scrambling back up and dropping the water that was on his back.
Just as they were at they made it to the ruins, the Landshark swung around in front of them and blocked their path. It reared it’s jagged toothed mouth up to strike and shot downward toward Zabar and his friends, but before it could reach them, they heard a gun go off, and the Landshark fell to one side before shooting off toward where gun had been fired from, one of the ruined towers. Just then a hunter appeared next to them and told them to run back to the wall. They did. They ran faster than any of them had run before as the hunters behind them fought and killed the Grimm.
Back at the wall, a group of city police and two more hunters were waiting for them. They were all in a very large amount of trouble but were alive, and that’s all their parents cared about. However, while he didn’t know how his friends felt, Zabar had never felt so alive. From that moment on, he knew he had to make his dream of exploring the wastes and going to other lands a reality.
Once he got into Oasis Academy, he knew he was one step closer to achieving his dreams. Every day, he studied what the desert was like. He learned it’s history, it’s Grimm, it’s dangers, he learned first hand what one of the infamous elemental storms were like when one blew through the city, though thankfully his family could afford a retractable house and they were safe from the storm’s wrath. He learned out to perform combat in the desert, how to use it to his advantage. Every day, he dreamed of leaving the city and exploring the wastes, and he knew exactly how to achieve this. Oasis. They trained hunters and scavengers there, he knew they got to go out on missions to the wastes from his siblings, and at the end of his final year at Oasis, he was accepted into the Academy.
Personality: Zabar is, foremost, a determined young man, though you would never know that. While he is determined, he’s also exceedingly lazy, opting to avoid issues rather than deal with them if they aren’t important enough. His family is one of the most wealthy in the Kingdom, but he never let that affect him, he stayed humble and grounded. It is very rare to see him angry, at least visually. He is extremely adamant about becoming a hunter or a scavenger so he can leave the city, though part of him desperately wants to stay within its walls.. He’s pragmatic, he isn’t afraid of asking others for help in his quest and is actually happy to work with others. He is excellent with dealing with situations under pressure and will be one of the last to lose their focus on the task at hand, assuming it is important enough to Zabar. While he’s happy to accept challenges, he doesn’t get angry or upset if he’s scrutinized. If it’s something he believes he deserves to be scrutinized for, he’ll listen and usually agree. If it’s someone trying to talk down to Zabar for no reason, he’ll just try to casually deflect the remarks.
Aura and Semblance: Reversal ShieldZabar’s aura comes out a bronze color. It was unlocked in Oasis Academy along with his semblance.
Zabar has the ability to form a shield of his aura in front of his hands. These shields are visualized by the air in front of his hands shimmering and wavering.The shields are able to stop projectiles shot at him and have the ability to, once the shield is released, fire the projectiles back to where he is aiming his hands. He can stop anti-personnel and handheld weapons. He cannot, however, stop large weaponry fired from things such as military vehicles with only one hand. He can have, at most, two of the shields up at once, one for each hand, and can move them while he has his active. He also has the option to bring the shield together to double the stopping power and range. The less projectiles he has “stored up” in his shield, the further he can fire the projectiles. The projectiles fired use the semblances own propulsion, and not the propulsion of the projectile fired. That is, if an assault rifle was fired into the shield and a sniper round was fired into the shield, the sniper round would be fired the same distance as the bullets, not a separate distance. Inversely, if only a sniper round is fired into the shield, Zabar can concentrate his aura and fire it a much further distance. The more projectiles in the shield, the lower the accuracy as well. If many projectiles are in the shield, it will come out as a scatter shot with a specified target, but it would be like firing a shotgun at someone. With only a few projectiles in the shield, he can accurately fire at a target with the projectiles being extremely accurate with their aim. At its longest, the shield can last a full 40 seconds before being automatically released, firing the projectiles back. However, Zabar can cancel the shield at any time and fire manually. He can also choose to disable the propulsion and just let the projectiles drop to the ground, if he wants to. While in the shield, projectiles with a "front" such as a bullet or spear, will turn around to face where he is pointing. The shield does not affect actual melee attacks but can affect thrown weapons. It can stop pure dust based attacks, though it causes things to grow more complicated. If the attack is something like fire, the shield will suck it up into a ball and when fired back it will explode on impact, the same is true for pure lightning attacks though the explosion is electrical based. If the attack consists of solid dust attacks, such as ice spikes, they will act as thrown or shot projectiles and fired back accordingly. Any pure Dust attack puts an extra tax on Zabar, though more often than not it’s not enough to break the shield.
Combat Behavior: Zabar is heavily focused on hand to hand combat, and always tries to get close to his opponent. While he does have his weapons for mid-ranged attacks, he is also very skilled at brawling and simply duking it out with the opponent. He isn’t the fastest on his feet, but he is fast enough to react to most Grimm and people, though his only defense past his, reasonably strong, aura shield is his metal gauntlets that extend up to his shoulder. He uses his weapons both as a tool of destruction and also as a way to block attacks, and will go as far as to grab the opponent's weapon with the gauntlets metal hand in order to stop and attack. However, Zabar’s weaknesses come out when his opponents are faster than him, or purely long range. If his opponents are faster than him, he may not be able to keep up and wear himself out or he may not be able to block fast enough. With someone who is purely long range, he will be able to utilize his semblance to attack back, but only for so long and if he can’t get close to them, he won’t be able to do any serious damage. Inversely, if someone is purely close range, he will be in his element, but he won’t be able to utilize his semblance.
- Has a strong aura and can take a lot of punishment
- Heavy hitting
- Not good against purely long range
- Excellent at close quarters combat
- Able to grab enemy weapons with gauntlets
- Fast
- Skilled with his aura and semblance
WEAPONSNames: Ukum and Zu
Primary Forms: Ukum and Zu are identical, silver gauntlets that extend from Zabar’s hands, all the way up to his shoulders, protecting his both arms. The fingertips are all pointed into a sharp tip at the end, allowing Zabar to use them to scratch or cut others, but most often they’re used for punching in hand to hand combat. At the top of his right bicep, and extending up to the shoulder, Zabar had bronze implemented into it in the shape of his symbol, a hawk. Both the armor that extends up his arms and the sharp claws can be retracted at will, so that when normally walking around, he appears to simply have armored gloves. Due to their use with dust affects, the gauntlets have been insulated and reinforced to prevent Zabar from freezing, burning, or shocking himself.
Dust Functions: Along the arms of both Ukum and Zu, there are slots to insert dust canisters into. These canisters let the dust flow through the arm to the palm of the hand where there is an outlet, that lets it act as a short range dust-thrower reaching a few meters outward. The gauntlets currently have a maximum of four canisters in each arm
Fire Dust - The gauntlets act as a flamethrower.
Ice Dust - The gauntlets shoot out ice dust particles that activate after coming into contact with something, causing it to freeze over.
Lightning Dust - The gauntlets can shoot out bolts of electricity.
Kinetic Dust - The gauntlets can shoot out bursts of propulsion dust so that Zabar can dash to avoid and attack.
All of these functions can also be applied passively to the gauntlet and, by extension, the arm though Zabar only uses fire and electric Dust. That is, with fire Dust, the gauntlets become scalding hot and with electric Dust, they becoming electrified. He can also insert as many different types of Dust as he wants at once and cycle through them in combat.
Zabar also has the ability use his semblance and gauntlets in unison as a jury rigged Semblance Catalyst Focus. When using his semblance and collecting projectiles, he can use his gauntlets to coat the projectiles in the dust of his choice, causing them to have an element effect upon contact.
History: Ukum and Zu were both made at Oasis Academy in Vacuo.