CHARACTER
Name: Prism Skylark
Age: 17, born 1st of Hua, 62 AC
Species and Gender: Female Hummingbird Faunus
Symbol: Hummingbird's feather, superimposed over a triangle.
Occupation: 1st Year Beacon Student, Seamstress by commission
Themes: Let it All Out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyslEKSijV8) - Personal Theme
The Phoenix - Fallout Boy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JqY-6q-RNA) - Combat Theme
Appearance: Prism Skylark is a young, lean-bodied woman that stands at the towering height of 4’11” and 124lbs. True to her name, Prism’s hair is a deep sky blue in a choppy windswept bob that ends at her chin, complimented by wide grey eyes and clear, pale skin. A straight noise and thin lips add to the look, and her face is angular, making her appear older and mature than she actually is. Despite her height, Prism stands tall with good posture - preferring to make up for the lack of height with constant heels with a 3-inch minimum, walking and running in them as well as anybody does in boots or sneakers. She has wide shoulders for her height and good muscle definition, especially in her arms and shoulders thanks to a lifetime of parkour and flying.
The most peculiar attribute Prism possess is the pair of blue-green hummingbird wings she prefers to keep tucked close to her back. When extended, she has a wingspan of approximately 12 feet, and is able to beat them at the rate of approximately 10 beats per second. In the sunlight, they shimmer with minor iridescence along the tips of the wings. Alongside her wings, Prism will grow small feathers along certain parts of her body (her neck, wrists and forearms, along her upper arms and waist) that possess the same iridescence as her wings do, but she prefers to pluck these to pass as human.
Day-to-day, Prism wears primarily backless clothing to accommodate for her wings, and has personally edited her school uniform to allow room for her wings. In combat, she focuses primarily on tight clothing with little to no armor in order to retain her agility. Her normal outfit consists of a sleeveless suit jacket in dark blue over a women's sleeveless dress shirt, usually paired with a white ascot. In the back of both the dress shirt and suit jacket are two large zippers that lead to large holes near the top of the shirt, which Prism unzips and slides her wings through before combat. She wears an ammunition belt for the sake of easy reloading with Hawk's Eye's normal cartridges, alongside individual sniper ammunition, on it, alongside backups in her pockets. The one amenity she allows herself in battle is the high-heeled wedge boots she constantly wears, bringing her height up by 3 or 4 inches. The final addition to her combat outfit is a pair of flight goggles, which she uses to keep the wind out of her eyes when flying.
History: Prism Skylark grew up in a nameless village a ways outside the borders of Vale, where she lived with her father Blanc Skylark, her mother Rose and two sisters Aiden and Clarissa. Despite being triplets, Prism was the smallest of the three, inheriting her mother’s hummingbird wings instead of a hawk’s like her two sisters from her father’s side. Her father worked as a custom weaponsmith for hunters who commissioned him, and her mother as a specialty seamstress altering human clothing to work with faunus characteristics - together this earned them enough for a modest lifestyle deep in the woods of this little village.
Prism was homeschooled alongside her sisters by their mother, who taught them until age 12. Their mother taught all three to sew to help assist her with her work; while their father contributed to their education by teaching them self-defense and how to fight. Blanc knew the dangers of having his family live in such a remote location, and taught his daughters fight against both human and Grimm with any weapon they could get ahold of, placing an emphasis on using their wings for advantage in battle. He constantly pitted the three sisters against each other, and to avoid getting bowled over by her largest siblings, Prism learned to take advantage of her size through speed and agility. When not at home, the three siblings would explore the thick surrounding forests, taking advantage of their wings and father’s training scale trees and cliffs, further honing their agility and mobility. Being the smallest of the three, Prism would struggle to keep up with her faster sisters, and was often left in the dust as a result. Instead of pouting about it however, she would spend her time observing the forest around her, learning to move quietly and stealthily so she could continue her observations without scaring away the creatures she watched. Despite her wings, Prism was obviously the daughter who inherited a hawk’s eyes - and this was rewarded by her father after learning of her gift at the dinner table, in the form of custom slingshot. With this, Prism slowly taught herself to aim, and was the first of her siblings to ever bring home any of the creatures they chased. When she wasn't helping her mother or exploring with her sisters, she'd spend time in her father's workshop alongside him. While she didn't have the eye for engineering her father did, it at least allowed her to familiarize herself with most types of weapons and guns, and give her a vague idea of how to shoot most of them.
The problem with being a faunus weaponssmith in a competative field is Blanc often dealt with harsh competition. Despite his remote location and faunus heritage Blanc often netted high-paying customers and famous hunters as commissioners due to the quality of his work; and as a result would receive threats telling him to quit his business or face physical violence from other weaponsmiths, who accused him of stealing their customers. The police were of no help as they viewed them as “empty threats”, so Blanc was left to deal on his own, and as the threats escalated so did the promise of violence. Blanc became stretched thin between worrying about the safety of his family and his stability of his business, and this stress eventually manifested in first emotional, then eventually physical abuse of his wife. With her family life falling apart, Prism began spending more time outside her house in the forest by herself, sometimes spending the night in one-person shelters. This quickly taught Prism a level of independence that her other siblings didn’t have - who preferred to stick it out in their bedroom, ready to side with their mother in the case of their father’s wrath. Despite learning to care for herself as a result, Prism hated herself for always running away when things got tough - always promising herself she’d go back someday, and stand with her sisters. However, this promise never came to be as eventually the constant negative air of the household attracted Grimm. She returned from a night in the woods early one morning to the sight of her house on fire, a Nevermore perched on the roof, blood and multicolored feathers on it’s beak - all the colors of her sisters and mother’s. She’d made it to the treeline, high in the branches above her own backyard just in time to watch her father get plucked out of the air, dropping the odd rifle he’d been trying to defend himself with. She’d dove for it, thinking she might’ve been able to save him, but when she’d looked up again all he did was mouth “run” before being swallowed. The sight of her father’s death was enough to kick her semblance into gear, creating gale-force winds. However, this harshly backfired as the gusts caught her wings, and resulted in her being thrown far back into the forest - the only reason she survived the confrontation with the Nevermore.
The ruins of the village were happened upon by a passing patrol the next day. They’d only located one survivor, a 12 year-old faunus, huddled high in a tree nearly a mile from the wreckage clutching a fancy-looking rifle and a slingshot.
Prism was enrolled in Vale’s fostercare system, hopping from house to house. While initially grief-stricken and enraged, she found herself seeking purpose. She didn’t know what to do without her family. All she wanted was a chance at revenge, to assure that her family didn’t die without consequence, and made the decision she’d someday kill the Nevermore that killed her family - by becoming a huntress. Though she was of age to attend Signal, she found herself unable to - her father's bank account is inaccessible until any of their children became adults.
Prism found herself all on her own and at the mercy of the state, so it was up to her to make her dream of becoming a huntress come true. Luck eventually struck out on her when she moved in with an old seamstress by the name of Madame Bernard at age 13. Madame Bernard was far from motherly, but once she discovered Prism's talents with a needle and thread, begin to pay her a part-time wage to assist in her shop. Alongside this work, Prism took commisions for any clothing that faunus needed altered in order to fit their animistic characteristics, alongside a second official part-time job at a local food joint. By saving up, she managed to earn enough money to start attending Signal Academy's night classes in order to learn how to properly wield her weapon and learn how to shoot. Being an orphan with nothing but a gun to her name, ammunition was expensive, so she quickly learned to never waste a bullet and make every shot count. She threw herself into her academic and extracurricular activities in order to achieve a shining reputation, joining clubs such as faunus rights, martial-arts, volleyball, and actively participating in school council. Every opportunity available was taken and extorted in order to get every advantage possible, cementing Prism with a lifelong iron will - the one obvious result of all her years of labor. Eventually by her 17th birthday, she was confident enough to apply for Beacon’s Entry Exam, and passed with literal flying colors. Her shining academic reputation high marks on the academic portion of the test helped her net several scholarships from outside sources, setting her up so she could actually afford to go to the elite school with a lack of debt in case anything goes wrong. Coming into Beacon, Prism dead-set on someday avenging her family, and assuring nobody else has to go through the tragedy she did.
Personality: When first encountering Prism Skylark, your immediate impression of her is frugal professionalism. Her good posture and confident carry give feel of discipline and authority, and she speaks in a tactical and delegated way, preferring not to waste precious time or resources - she’s too goal-oriented. While this behavior goes over wonderfully with teachers and figures of authority, it has the tendency to isolate her from peers her age, instead preferring to focus on her studying and combat skills. If you spend enough time around Prism however, and prove to be friendly enough, her actual personality will slowly open up. Prism is surprisingly friendly and charismatic is a joking way, carrying a quick wit that’s always happy to throw out a joke or bad pun. Prism is always happy to help a friend and will go out of her way to do so, and is endlessly patient in the right scenarios when someone is truly struggling due to reasons outside their control, having done the same in the process of teaching herself to shoot and fight. However, if it seems someone is manipulating her for her better nature then she’s not afraid to cut her losses. Thanks to years of struggling to achieve her goals, Prism lives by the principle of do no harm, but take no bullshit: don’t purposefully create strife with others, but have no tolerance when it comes to people disrespecting her. After the loss of her family however, Prism's come to take all life as a precious gift - hating seeing people die, and will do most anything to prevent unnecessary causalities. If you're considered a good friend, she'll be loyal to a fault. Being partly hummingbird, Prism’s inherited several traits from her avian cousins, including a heavy preference for granola and fruit (similar to birdseed and nectar from flowers, in her opinions) and the tendency to endlessly prattle on about nothing, like the buzzing of a hummingbird’s wings. She also has a metabolism for nearly someone twice her size, due to being part-hummingbird.
The downside to Prism’s quick wit is the sharper tongue that accompanies it. When insulted or tricked, she will attempt retaliate with a no-holds barred string of insults, aimed to pick apart the person who insulted her. Being so seriously goal-oriented in her life has left her with warped priorities, as she’ll often forget to live in the moment. She’s usually instead too caught up in the future, as she’s willing to do almost anything to assure her dream of becoming a huntress - surviving on a dream for years has left her petrified of failure, causing her large amounts of anxiety and stress at any sign of not performing her absolute best. If Prism doesn’t make it to her senior year at Beacon, it’s because she’ll have undoubtedly worked herself to death. Finally, it isn’t inaccurate to say Prism’s temper while often controlled, is especially fierce. Years of being pushed around thanks to being small and scrawny have left her with an iron backbone with opinions like a concrete wall, unable to change unless especially convinced. No matter the size of person or the harm that will come to her, she’ll stand in their way - especially if it means putting herself between it and something or somebody she cares about.
As a result of seeing her father die at such a young age, Prism suffers heavily from PTSD. She typically doesn't sleep more than 2-4 hours a night before being woken up by nightmares, and therefore survives primarily on caffeine or sugar until she literally collapses from exhaustion for an extended period of time. She has difficulty talking about the events themselves without flashbacks, and mostly refers to her past "Being put into the Vale Fostercare system", refusing to elaborate on her childhood. She also shows signs of hyperarousal - constantly being on the lookout for danger, startled by loud noises/surprises, and constantly needing to have her back to the wall alongside near an exit. Flashbacks to the events of her father's death aren't uncommon, and are triggered by a variety of things, including the sight of carnage, fire, and most primarily Nevermores. To avoid the consequences of a panic attack, she'll often go out of her way to avoid anything that will likely trigger her flashbacks - to the point of purposefully excusing herself from classes like Grimm Studies to avoid any mention of Nevermores. Furthermore, her time as an orphan in Vale's fostercare system has left a significant mark on her psyche, with the habits of hoarding her own stash of food and being extremely protective over her belongings.
Since it's first manifestion, Prism's semblance has been especially tied into her emotions. When feeling anything especially intensely, it has the tendency to manifest without her meaning too, whether it's a pleasant breeze when she's excited to powerful gusts that threaten to topple her when especially mad. On occasion, it's even manifested in her sleep when waking up from a nightmare. However, it's at it's most dangerous when she deals with her flashbacks and the subsequent panic attacks she experiences, where it will violently ramp up to a full-on windstorm before draining itself completely, leaving Prism weakened and occasionally barely conscious.
Aura and Semblance: Prism’s aura is unusually large for someone her age, manifesting in bright white. When intensely channeling it, it will manifest as white "steam" that drifts off her form, caught in whatever breeze she creates. To help compensate for her lack of physical strength, she's learned to channel her aura to help pack a harder punch, manifesting in either aura-enhanced blows or flinging aura-enhanced crescents off her glaive with a large swing.
Prism’s semblance, nicknamed "Gust", allows her to create gusts of wind of varying sizes, which she uses to either to keep the distance between her and her target, or buoy herself up into the air. Smaller gusts used for mobility or quick bursts of flight are her specialty, and she’s learned to ration her aura to allow for as much mobility as possible. She's particularly skilled at using it to create updrafts and minor gusts of winds for long periods of time, which is what allows her to stay aloft in battle. She's furthermore capable of creating large gusts of wind, though only for a few seconds at a time. Sustaining heavy winds for longer than that is especially hard, and can make it difficult to stay aloft when carrying anything other than Hawk's Eye and her usual gear - in the case she needs to carry someone, Prism will need to maintain a strong updraft or risk being dragged down. The highest wind speed that Prism can currently voluntarily summon without being under extreme-stress conditions caps at approximately 80 mph. While she can create extremely powerful gusts of wind, she isn't experienced enough to create anything other than extremely large gusts of wind, or small dust devils (no taller than 4 meters, with an approximate diameter of 1 meter) with large amounts of concentration.
Combat Behavior: Prism’s a cutthroat sniper with a near-perfect aim, her own motto being to never waste a bullet. When in combat, she prefers to find a high place and set up a nest, waiting and scanning the battlefield for the perfect moment to strike. She uses her wings, semblance, and natural small size to assist in her mobility and agility, allowing her to reach unsuspecting perches and often surprise the enemy. She furthermore never stays in one place, knowing a stationary sniper is a dead one - using her semblance and parkour-like abilities to constantly keep opponents guessing. Thanks to extensive practice using her semblance, she's grown to understand her own limits well, and manages to budget her stamina well enough to stay in the air for extended periods of time.
When forced into close combat, Prism can make efficient use of her rifle’s secondary form. The glaive’s staff keeps Prism from making direct contact with her opponents, and relies primarily on her wings and semblance to boost her agility to stay at least two steps ahead of the enemy. She can also uses the recoil from shooting her rifle in glaive form to give her added mobility and force. The various elemental crescents that Prism creates from her glaive's secondary form can furthermore be bolstered by her winds, giving her the ability to create almost "waves" of fire, ice, etc.
The disadvantage of focusing on long-range combat, agility, and her small stature leave Prism with especially noticeable weaknesses. Firstly is a lack of a familiarity with close-combat situations even if she does have a weapon for the situation, leaving her her at a natural disadvantage to anybody who specializes. There's also her small stature and a lack of physical strength, which makes it easy to throw her off-balance, especially with harder hits that send her staggering. If attacked head-on relentlessly, Prism doesn't have the option of playing defense: she either needs to put distance between her and her opponent, or easily succumb to the assault. While she does have mid-range capabilities, they're incredibly limited, and mostly dust-reliant or aura-reliant, and therefore aren't dependable. Finally, if facing absolutely ruthless opponents, there are specific triggers that will cause Prism to essentially become useless as she'd downed with flashbacks and a panic attack, assuring victory for her opponent - after dealing with the resulting windstorm, of course.
WEAPON
Name: Hawk’s Eye
Primary Form: Hawk’s Eye’s primary form is that of a semiautomatic sniper rifle with added scope that’s accurate up to 800 meters, the metal white with blue accents. Hawk’s Eye has a 5-round internal magazine that Prism can quickly change, but it also has the ability to load individual shots in the form of standard sniper ammunition to be chambered via a bolt-action lever. The barrel has a length of 24 inches, with the added body bringing it up to 44 inches. Hawk’s Eye has a internalized scope and bipod that allows it to stick to any surface for added balance, including uneven ones. The total weight of the rifle totals up to 16 lbs, allowing for Prism to carry it in flight. Prism carries two ammo belts at once, both slung around her hips; one devoted entirely to normal ammunition, while the other is has dust-tipped ammunition, usually carrying two cartridges of most types of dust. A separate pouch in the back holds the dust cartridges necessary for her rifle's secondary form.
Secondary Form: When close-quarters combat is necessary for Prism, Hawk’s Eye primary form can transform into that of a glaive by extending the barrel to become a handle up to 6 feet long, with the body of the rifle folding in to form a one-sided blade 20 inches long. The staff of the glaive stiff functions as a long-distance rifle in this form, as the space for the magazine does remain in the glave’s blade. The blade of the glaive can take on different applications of dust in this form, done by loading a dust-filled cartridge into the back side of the blade.
Fire: Lights blade on fire, can create sweeping crescent of flames that expands outwards when swung. Can be used to create 5 crescents or individual strikes.
Ice: Covers blade in ice, creates a freezing crescent when swung filled with small ice particles - useful to blind enemies. If stabbed into the ground, can create an ice-slicked surface expanding in a straight line from the point the blades strikes. Can be used to create 5 crescents or individual strikes.
Lighting: Electrocutes blade of the glaive and enemies on contact. Lightning can leap off the blade in this form, with an effective range of 100 meters, but it's only good for one charge.
Wind: Creates crescent-shaped gust of wind when glave is swung (not depleting aura). Good for 5 crescents or strikes, and can create minor whirlwinds if thrust forwards/upwards.
Earth: Creates a sandstorm when swung, used to blind enemies/provide cover.
Gravity/Kinetic: Increases the force of the glaive when swung, effectively doing 1.5x more damage, but only good for 3 strikes.
Tertiary Form: When not in combat, Hawk’s Eye is able to fold up its internal components to form a shoebox-sized steel box that Prism can carry at her waist on her back.
Dust Functions: Hawk’s Eye’s sniper form has none, accept when loaded with dust-tipped bullets, which then would carry the predicted effect (fire-type dust creating a flaming bullet, ice-typed bullet freezing a body part on impact, etc). In it’s secondary form, a dust cartridge can be loaded into a slot at the base of the blade of the glave, allowing the blade to take on the dust’s intended effects. This manifests in the blade being covered by the corresponding dust effect (fire dust lighting on the blade on fire, ice dust causing it to freeze, etc) and when slashed through the air, send out crescent-shaped waves that correspond with the dust’s intended effect, giving Prism a small range of secondary attacks.
History: Hawk’s Eye was a sniper rifle created by Prism’s father for an unknown client shortly before his death, and was used by Blanc to attempt to defend himself from the Nevermore that attacked his house and family. Prism managed to rescue the rifle but failed to save her father; and it’s now one of the last remaining pieces she has of her family, making her value it dearly.