CHARACTERName: Samuel Quartz
Age: Seventeen
Species and Gender: Male Fox Faunus
Symbol: [spoiler]
Occupation: First year Beacon student and (on occasion) assistant at nearby Dust store.
Appearance:Samuel is reasonably tall, reaching to around 6'0''. He has pale blonde hair, reaching down slightly below his collar and occasionally going over his right eye. He is slightly thinner than average, but has little fat on him, most of it simply being athletic muscle. His skin is reasonably pale. His right eye is blue, surrounded by small metallic parts, while his left is grey, with a smudge of faint amber at the center. Around his right eye is a thin ring made of metal with a small line of wires and metal curving around the side of his head, with the ring retracting or placing a small layer of glass. Due to the somewhat freakish appearance of the eye, Samuel has learned to cover it up most of the time. He has two blonde fox ears on his head, but they are normally pressed down against his hair and practically just look like slight bumps or tufts of hair sticking up. Similarly, he has a tail, but it's small for his age and normally tucked down his trousers. His hands are rather smooth, but have small areas of dry skin from his stress. He is rather handsome, having a mixture of a wild but controlled look, but having his eye and arm always covered up tends to take away from that. He wears two chain bracelets around his wrists, with several small spots that hide small claws on his knuckles and on the side of his thumb. However, his right arm is scarred along its side, with several metal parts also located there. A majority of remaining exposed skin, especially when wearing just a t-shirt, is usually covered up with wraps of bandages. Finally, Samuel has four 'ports' on his back, metallic circles that appear to be the only complete implant. Commonly seen from those involved in Shard Designs, a high-ranking developmental science company, it allows for interface with a limited number of components; however, none have four ports on them or look quite like the one that Samuel has, which appears to be a prototype. These normally have either Ashen Howl or four chains connected to them; not having the attached objects on him makes him feel like he's missing a limb.
With mask:
Combat uniform:
Casual and sleep wears:
When with others, Samuel often wears lightweight fully sleeved shirts and jeans, mainly button-up shirts, along with trainers. He hates it being too hot, so even in the winter at best you'll find him wearing a hoodie, but also hates revealing his skin and so will continue wearing a long sleeved shirt in summer. When by himself, he likes to wear a t-shirt and occasionally shorts, but isn't comfortable in public with the outfit except around people he unconditionally trusts.
His sleepwear is similar, being a simple grey set of a long shirt and trousers, along with slippers of similar colour, although when by himself he just wears shorts.
History: Samuel's first eleven or so years were the most relaxed time of his life, in his opinion. He was born in a peaceful and almost retirement-like town on the outskirts of Vale as the firstborn son of a famous pairing of hunters - the Quartz duo - and he was pampered a lot by his parents. Many people had grand expectations for him, and he quickly proved himself capable of fulfilling them, getting excellent grades from his private tutors on various topics, academical and physical. After his younger siblings were born, a twin boy and girl, this pampering lessened slightly, as he learnt to become somewhat independent and protective over his new family members - but he continued to impress his parents and his tutors with constant high grades, as well as providing an amazing older brother figure to his younger siblings. In essence, he was the perfect child in his parent's eyes.
And as any perfect child would want to do, he quickly followed in their footsteps, managing to persuade them to let him start training to be a Hunter - although it didn't take much to convince them, considering his heritage. His father personally started training him with help from his parent's old teammate (whom looked after the children while the Quartz duo were both too busy), and Samuel proved himself to be skilled at tinkering and using a weapon - but was not nearly as good using it in actual combat, or using his aura. In fact, he had trouble unlocking his aura at all; it seemed to resist most efforts to awaken itself, leading him to get slightly annoyed at this development. However, with continued encouragement from his parents, he kept training in trying to use his aura and with his starting weapon, a simple longsword. With continual outstanding grades and rapid improvement in his weapon's forms, he was quickly on track to joining a hunting academy.
This changed a few months after his eleventh birthday. With fame comes infamy, and his parents had quite a few enemies - one of which was apparently not above using children as hostages. The house they lived in was rather large, and as such had a few guards while his parents were out, but they weren't prepared for a full-on assault from a criminal organization. They simply barged into the house after shooting the few guards, quickly finding Samuel and his siblings and took them away to a nearby warehouse converted into a research facility for the shadowy organization. While his siblings were simply left as hostages, the scientists there took a particular interest in Samuel due to his peculiar aura, desiring to experiment upon Samuel as the base for one of their other projects to gain valuable data.
Samuel doesn't really talk about what happened in that period, but it ended with a horrible scarring of his right arm, eye and back, with experimental devices placed there. When his parents finally arrived, they were petrified upon seeing their children and gave in to the organization, refusing to listen to Samuel begging them to listen to him. They tried to wait for the Police and hold for time, but it didn't fool the so-called leader, who quickly 'damaged' one of the hostages, thumping his younger sister in the head with a bat. He moved over to his brother, and Samuel's anger mounted and burst open. His aura finally unlocked and he brutally went after the leader, ignoring the distress of his own body and using his new limbs from his back implant. It ended up with him barely saving his brother from a similar fate. His parents finally acted upon seeing this, and easily took care of the remainders of the gang now their hostages were free.
Over the course of the next few months, Samuel learnt that his brother was now depressed and his sister was in a coma. His parents, according to him, were part of the cause of all of this - although not as much as the gang, which he still hunts for information about. All along, he was relentlessly hounded by the media, asking for more and more information and personal details about the tragic son of the Quartz Kidnappings. To top it all off, his newly activated semblance was making everything louder and more uncontrollable. He broke.
He locked himself away, knowing that taking his anger out on someone else wouldn't help anyone. He decided to put his anger for his parents to good use, and prove himself right by showing he was better than them. He had to get into the top school. Into Beacon. At his current school, he was practically a stranger after the event; he was frequently labeled as a freak due to his implants and badly bullied, so getting into Beacon served more than one purpose. It would get him away from the media, away from his parents and away from his schoolmates - but more importantly closer to finding the criminals that dared attacking his siblings. He spent his days ignoring his parents, visiting his sister and practicing relentlessly with his semblance and styles. He moved out to a friend's house, helping out in the downstairs dust store where he furthered his knowledge in crafting, finally gaining some of his ambition back, and crafted the most advanced weapon he could, using all the assets he had - including ones he didn't originally want. He just wanted to prove he could do better than his parents, and he would find who caused the kidnappings. And most importantly, he'd make sure no one else would get hurt in the same way he did. Finally passing the entrance test, he was able to prove to himself that he was capable enough, and he was accepted into Beacon. He acted a lot more calm when he finally got in, having achieved his goal - but also burning out a little from his efforts to even get in to the school. Now he seeks to make sure that the people around him remain safe, and that he can finally find out who started the attack on his siblings.
Personality: Samuel's personality is rather excitable once he's fully woken up and placed his half-mask-thing on. He likes to see other people happy, so he'll act happy himself to try and get others to feel a bit better. He can be a bit wild at times, even if he says everything he does is just a logical procedure. He often puts on a mock, red-faced anger when offended or pranked, but does lose a bit of control when acting like that, being a bit more feral - for him to get truly angry is a very rare experience, as it only really happens with personal issues which he doesn't normally share with others. However, he can snap at people in the morning or when irritated - with the sign of this normally being a series of twitches. Behind all this he's usually in control and relaxed, although still alert, trying to just make sure everything stays simple so he doesn't have to process more information. While he tries to get himself liked somewhat by everyone, he still has trouble making bonds in which he can rely on others - the issue being that he can never trust anyone enough to tell them his own thoughts and problems, although he can help with other people's problems quite well once he's told what they are. Samuel tends to act very lazy in lessons and work, preferring to get it done at his own pace - but his natural intellect allows him to still get high grades. Acting lazy and sleepy doesn't mean he's not alert, however - he's generally very aware of his surroundings. It's his practice with hiding his own thoughts that allow him to appear differently. Well, that and the fact that he really can't be bothered to do all the written work sometimes, so he just rushes it all at the end. He's not particularly social, and will choose hanging out with a couple close friends or just by himself over a big party, finding himself a bit socially awkward.
By himself, however, he is a lot quieter, and while still keeping his relaxed gait can also get a little bit more unpredictable at times. He can also act slightly depressed when he thinks of what else he could be doing or what he should have done in the past, leaving the problems for himself to deal with as he has trouble expressing himself to others - part of the reason he likes making music so much, as it is one of the only ways he can try and show others how he feels or trap himself in his own world. He has a lot more issues than he commonly lets on, but Samuel tries to hide most of this from others so they don't have to bother with him. However, he's normally happy just to play a computer game or listen to some music, and occasionally seen reading with headphones on - in fact, he's nearly always seen with sunglasses and headphones on to lower the amount of information he gets. He has a few types of medication he takes to help dull his touch hypersensitivity, as well as aiding his stability. He doesn't value himself much as a person, however - he tends to put himself down and act dangerously to try and make sure other people will stay healthy. Overall, he's a reasonably nice person, if a little strange and misguided.
As a side note, he is most definitely not a morning person, especially with his sleeping issues that make him want to stay up for a majority of the night, and as such drinks a lot of coffee - usually with a tonne of sugar and hot chocolate added to it. Sometimes this can lead to him always playing with something in his hands or just constantly doing some small action. He also has a phobia of wasps and hornets, with bees and flies also somewhat scaring him as well.
His hobbies are playing and creating music, tinkering with his weapon and various other devices and with other people's if he can get his hand on them, reading, computing - including coding, and he occasionally sings, although he doesn't think he's very good at it and gets really embarrassed when others hear him, containing himself to humming when around others. He's quite friendly around animals, especially cats and foxes.
Aura and Semblance: Samuel's aura is very large. However, it is also rather uncontrolled, limiting the possible finesse that Samuel can control it with, although he is slowly improving on that front. It has a deep grey appearance, coloured slightly blue and amber in small swirls, and has a 'pulsing' musical appearance that matches up with any song he is listening to, and pulses differently depending on his mood.
Samuel's semblance is called Resonant Echoes. In essence, it is the control of sound, with the ability to 'resonate' objects or people with each other, forming an invisible connection between them that boosts their functions when used together.
Whisper and Shout
- Samuel can use his semblance to either amplify or smother sounds.
- A sound, if 'amplified' enough, can be used to create a shockwave by dispersing it, although it has little force unless a lot of Samuel's aura is pumped into it at once. The shockwave is reasonably long and narrow, but disperses in potency from the origin point. Up to about seven to ten feet away, its enough to cause physical damage, but beyond that is simply pushing opponents away, and damages Samuel's throat when used beyond this. The maximum range is about twenty feet, with it simply being a weak push at the edge, and it is about five feet in width.
- Smothering a sound has a higher cost depending on the strength of the muffle and the area in which it is targeted.
- For these to be focused on a particular object or person requires more aura than is really practical unless in direct contact with the target.
- Creating a shockwave requires about ten percent of his aura, while simply amplifying or smothering a sound depends on its original volume and the target one, but usually a reasonably small amount for something like footsteps.
Echo, Echo
- Samuel is very sensitive to soundwaves when channeling his semblance, and as such can create a rudimentary echolocation.
- Doing this with his eyes open makes him get two kinds of visual information at once, confusing him, and as such he cannot use his normal vision while focusing on his echolocation.
- Using enough of his semblance's other abilities at once causes his echolocation to activate without Samuel's consent, which can cause him to loose focus of what he's doing at the time.
- Enough contact with one person can allow him to learn the 'sound' of that person; usually some kind of song, it is a representation of their aura.
- Generally, his sensory ability takes up reasonably little aura, since it is more of a by-product of his normal abilities. In fact, he normally gets a weak version of it near constantly, but to actively focus on the input requires aura that, if he focused on just that and nothing else, could drain him in about an hour - it doesn't cost much, with the bigger issue being the mental toll of the information overload.
- He can sense weak pulses from about twenty-five meters away (but not their origin), see origin points from about fifteen, and near-exact shapes about five meters away all passively - but he won't be noticing all this information, like you don't always pay attention to things in the corner of your eyes. Releasing his own pulse (i.e focusing on it) allows him to extend these by about ten more meters, and actively sense the sounds.
Resonance Cascade:
- Samuel can take a simple noise, and build up sound energy from its reflections against other objects over and over again, while sustaining the original sound, allowing him to build up a stronger sonic attack.
- Each time a sound is 'echoed', it costs more aura to contain it and increase the sound further, starting at a practically negligible amount but quickly ramping up to costing more and more of his aura; the maximum time he could hold it for would be about ten seconds, from a simple click (above this starts taking huge parts of his aura at once, as more and more echoes bounce off - and also starts breaking through his aura and damaging his body).
- It's reasonably obvious when Samuel is using this technique: while invisible at first, a visible distortion of the air starts appearing as the ability increases in power.
- At full potential, the ability could make a shock wave like Whisper and Shout, but with the damaging effect constant along it; slightly more focused and slightly more powerful.
Combat Behavior: Full Description:
Samuel is a very varied fighter. Even as a blank slate, he has multiple weapons and options of attack, ranging from casting to his semblance to the variable functions of his tools, with his possibilities further enhanced by the variance between his combat styles when effected by both his mood, mindset and the music he is listening to. One thing that stays constant, however, is that Samuel is a 'musical' fighter - he tends to fix a beat of some kind into his head, or a song he knows, and fight to that rhythm, creating the basis for his attack strategies to revolve around. While he doesn't exactly have to stay beat-for-beat on time, he does tend to base the aggressiveness and style of his assault on the song he is listening to; a relaxed song might lend to a more conservative approach, testing the waters and finding weaknesses while a rock song may cause him to go in more forcefully, trying to overwhelm his opponent. An opponent who can hear or understand his method of attack can easily gain an advantage by being able to predict his next moves, as more chaotic songs are far harder to fight to so Samuel normally remains on basic pieces.
Normally, Samuel will use his twin swords as his main method of attack, coupled with Ashen Howl's limbs. While lacking an effective long-range weapon, he can still shield himself from projectiles using his chains, but has far more options at medium to close range. At medium, he can use his sonic waves, or throw his swords using the middle chain to try and hit, or drag himself into close combat using Ashen Howl. This style is especially strong at close range, as he can be attacking from many angles at once using all of his weapons at once. However, this strategy requires Samuel to be overwhelming the opponent; if there is a far more skilled fighter or one who has an effective counter to the multiple, weaker blows, then they can easily defend themselves and quickly break down Samuel's own, somewhat lacking defense, as none of the blows available are actually very damaging, instead quickly wearing the opponent down with multiple attacks. If worst comes to worse, Samuel may try using Ashen Howl's Roar mode, leaning downwards to dodge an attack and firing a quick sonic shell back at them, but the lack of charging time normally leads to simply pushing the opponent away with minor concussive force rather than any severe damage. He normally uses this style for general combat, or when dueling an opponent without wanting to reveal anything.
Samuel can also use the Crescendo form of Prismatic Performance. This style is a lot more wild than his first one, with very powerful blows that will keep grinding down against armor. The style relies heavily on momentum; with the attacks coming in fast only whilst Samuel can keep bouncing his attacks or whirling the blade around him in a somewhat haphazard fashion. Similar to his two-blades style, it requires him to overwhelm his opponent with strong blows; however, unlike his first one he is free to use his chains for both attack and defense, as the blade alone usually provides enough cover for him to guard himself. In addition, he has to keep Ashen Howl away from it, as the chainsword could easily saw through the limbs of it if they clashed, usually preventing him from launching direct attacks using them. In addition, if he looses momentum or finds an object that resists his blade, then he can quickly be pushed back and all his offensive advantage drained away, leaving him just to defense - which the clunky weapon is poor at providing apart from simply pushing the opponent away. It also has less medium-range options than his first style; using the, albeit slightly more powerful sonic wave, results in a great loss of offensive capabilities for the weapon for some time. Finally, at extremely close quarters the weapon is maybe even less effective than at long; it holds more danger for himself than his opponent through rebounds and being easily reflected from the hilt, as well as a lack of maneuverability. This is the strategy he normally uses when either showing off or filled with hot anger; when angry, this style is even more wild than usual, with many gaps in defense, but has very powerful blows.
Samuel is somewhat experienced in hand-to-hand combat, but he uses a more instinctive style than any refined method of attack. However, his blows are quite powerful and quick, it's just that there won't be many of them - while each carries a lot of momentum, he can't quickly follow through, instead relying on each blow to daze the opponent long enough for the next one to hit. While he can hit somewhat in succession with his arms, he sucks at kicking. Just straight up sucks.
On the other hand, he is reasonably practiced in Dust casting, finding it not only useful but, like a few other select things, interesting and actually entertaining to try. His spells are normally quite unrefined, but they get the job done. He is trying to advance in this area, and can produce Semblance Catalysts Foci, but prefers not to rely on his casting, instead mixing it into his combat style and still uses SCFs for ease of use while using Dust, as he finds it difficult to add that with all the multitasking he already has to do with Ashen Howl and his mind.
Samuel's strongest attack strategies are where he uses both forms of his weapon, along with his other skills - at heart, he is best when relying both on his instincts and his strategic mind. He probes at the opponent's defenses, occasionally mixing in a sudden, stronger attack to try and knock then off rhythm, while narrowing down his possibilities for attack until he finds ideal situations to wear them down, suddenly attacking in a rush of movement and attacks before backing off again, still weaving in the occasional form change for a stronger single attack or dust spell to try and confuse the opponent. He likes to stay in medium range while doing this, jumping into close range for his bursts of movement before moving back out, but is more capable at fighting with longer range using this strategy, as he will have enough information to know when he can charge his longer range attacks using the Roar mode of Ashen Howl or a stronger spell. When opponents attack, he usually tries to hang back, minimizing damage while maximizing information gained, before countering to move the opponent away and continue fighting on his terms, but if he finds an ideal chance he will try to make the most of a counter. However, while this strategy - unlike the other two - actually allows him to fight stronger opponents, it is incredibly tiring both physically and mentally; it constantly uses up his aura, the multitasking greatly taxes his mind, along with the strong sensory input quickly mounting to one hell of a headache, and he quickly tires himself out by pushing his speed to the limits to rush in for the quick assaults; it's not a good style for group combat, where he has to consider multiple opponents, unless he can quickly identify and take out each. Instead, it's strongest in single combat, where he can manage to draw it out for as long as possible without dropping and use his remaining energy for one final attack to try and win. If that fails, he's left incredibly drained and without much in terms of aura or concentration to defend himself or come up with further strategies.
Samuel acts in a mixture of excitement and focus when fighting casually; or rather, dueling friends or weaker opponents. He usually leaves his mask off, and likes to either draw out the fight for more fun or quickly finish it if he's bored. On the other hand, against much stronger opponents he acts far more serious, although a small bit of excitement; or rather, a lust for combat tends to leak through, and he usually wears his mask to properly focus him onto simply winning. While like this, he draws out combat as much as he needs to for his objectives to be completed, be it finding a weak point or stalling for time, before attempting to finish or disengage combat. He tends to be a bit twitchy when fighting like this, and allies making him jump may have to quickly dodge a misplaced attack.
Universally, Samuel's strengths are his strategic mind, his multiple angles of attack and his wide variety of ways to attack. On the other hand, his actual body isn't especially sturdy, and he isn't used to large wounds - taking serious hits can quickly start to make his blows much weaker, causing him to lose his advantage and narrow down his possible routes of assault. Furthermore, if he fights using his superior style he starts to weaken himself, giving him a time limit to finish a fight that can make him desperate and lose his cool coming to the deadline. He also doesn't have a particularly subtle way of fighting without practically blanketing an area in his semblance to quieten it; and with how much sound is created on purpose to enhance his style, this is simply inefficient. Finally, while his strong senses allow him to stay tracked onto an opponent and notice subtle ques of attack, he usually has to drug them, as his own combat style (using loud sounds and bright attacks) can cause pain in them.
In a nutshell:
Strengths:
- Unpredictable
- Varied
- Can attack from multiple directions and distances
- Strategic fighter
- Fast
- Powerful blows
- Strong senses
- Can attack and defend at the same time
- 'Musical' fighter - tends to keep flowing and attacking even when furious, simply focusing on the beat
Weaknesses:
- Low tolerance for blows
- Relies on momentum
- Not particularly subtle using his stronger abilities
- Requires opponent to not be able to fend off all his attacks
- Lacks a consistent long-ranged attack (requires charging for any he has, and all of these are weaker at long distance)
- Weakens himself over time fighting (drains aura and concentration)
- Twitchy (may attack friend or foe if surprised)
- Not good at using his mind or technique against groups (resorts to straight-up combat)
- Has to weaken his own senses or be overwhelmed from them
- 'Musical' fighter - if someone works out his rhythm they can counter it much easier
WEAPONSName: Prismatic Performance
Primary Form: Staccato and Encore - Two swords made out of a partially see-through, crystalline material, with a grey chain attaching the two together from the sword hilts - one is black, with a design of criss-crossing grey chains painted on, while the other is white with a grey ripple. Each has a small ring inside, which sparks quietly with energy passing through it. Both swords can carry Samuel's semblance, allowing him to create a wave of - albeit weak - sonic energy to use as a distraction or force an enemy back by grinding the weapons together and slashing in a X-pattern, building up the sound over and over before releasing it along the blades. If he builds up momentum by swinging one of the blades around on the chain in a tight circle, then slide the blade across the other one more violently, he can force the wave to become much sharper for the attack coming right as he releases the blade.
Simple: Swords made from a crystal blade, linked with chain. Can attack using sonic waves by building up echoes between them, but only act as a pushing tool unless charged through rapid movement or use of Dust.
Secondary Form: Crescendo - Samuel places his two blades hilt-to-hilt, before flicking a switch on both. They connect, and bend inwards and towards each other, forming a sturdier hilt from the two previous ones as the crystal blade extends forwards. The chain is pulled into one of the blades, before being extended around the new, much larger crystal weapon, before it starts revving up and rotating rapidly around the weapon, creating a chain-longsword - or just a chainsword. Similar to its components, this form of Prismatic Performance can create sonic energy - however, in a different way to the previous ones. Due to the constant noise it creates (with its volume always quite high, but able to be spiked to create a rather harsh screeching noise), constant small but sharp waves of sound are forced around the weapon, enhancing its cutting capabilities. Finally, Crescendo can also fire a wave of sonic energy - however, while the wave is instantly focused (unlike its component weapons), it causes Crescendo to have to rebuild its 'charge' of sonic energy, which can take a variable amount of time from around ten to twenty seconds. Alternatively, the wave can be launches by waving the weapon's flat edge, forming a big wave of sound that pushes away and is simply damn loud. While the wave of energy likely appears imposing, it still only accounts for a heavy sword swing for both weapon forms, which - while cutting through a Grimm with not too much issue - isn't amazingly effective as a consistent ranged weapon, more used to simply pressure an opponent.
Simple: A sonic chainsword that can throw waves but needs to recharge completely afterwards.
Dust Functions: Staccato and Encore: By using Dust in the weapons, Samuel can create a stronger wave of energy carrying the general element of the Dust - fire might create a light heat wave, or ice frost over the area in front of him. Like the sonic waves, spinning the blades causes the next wave to build up to a sharper and more focused one, allowing for the Dust's effect to be more focused around a single area - such as Fire dust causing cauterization or melting upon hit, or frost freezing the area where it slices into.
Crescendo: Like Staccato and Encore, it can be loaded with Dust, creating a constant field of elemental effect on the sonic energy whilst the supply lasts. The effect carries over to the sonic wave, and similar to spinning Staccato and Encore holds a more concentrated effect.
History: Prismatic Performance is Samuel's more normal weapon, if you can call a chainsword normal. Based off his original training from his father, he decided to make a weapon similar to that, but - well, better, just like he strives to be (out of spite or not). Originally, the twin swords were simply storage parts for the longsword, to carry it around easier and slightly less obviously, but they were eventually turned into a full on weapon form when he discovered they still retained some of the properties of the full weapon through their individual parts.
Name: Ashen Howl
Primary Form: Cry - Ashen Howl's usual form is a white cuboid, rectangular in shape and a few inches thick. It is directly attached to the 'ports' on Samuel's back, and has two connectors on each side at the corners, but facing left and right. Each input can have a fibrous-like object that fits clipped onto it, with chains being commonly used but extended to wires and cables, and through a mixture of the interface and aura they can be controlled like additional limbs. The actual container is rather difficult to get on or off, requiring a lengthy process to firstly shut down then to actually 'unplug', and the sensation is somewhat unpleasant. Objects can bypass the interface and be attached directly to the 'ports' on Samuel's back, with more ease but a lack of any Dust functions, additional length and ease of storage; Ashen Howl can wind up so more length of wire or chain can be used, and has an interior but removable Semblance Catalyst Foci taking the shape of a ring similar to the ones on his blades, allowing the attached 'limbs' to channel the dust along them in a weak amount, such as chains releasing light shocks or chilling chains. However, as Samuel gains some sensory input from the chains while his aura runs through them, the feelings that come along with using Dust tend to be somewhat unpleasant, and he avoids using them unless necessary. If using electronic wires, and connecting them to an electronic machine, Samuel can interface with the machine to an extent, being able to use its functions with twitches of the limb.
Simple: That one spiderman villain with the metal tentacles. Except chains. Most of the time. You know the one.
Secondary Form: Roar - The top of Ashen Howl can unfold, extending into a cannon-like shape. Roar allows for a large wave of compressed air to be launched, although it varies in intensity based on charge time. It can instantly fire a small pulse, which can briefly disorientate and push foes backwards; on the other hand, charging allows it to concentrate the pulse into a single 'shell' that creates a much more damaging hit by focusing the pulse onto one point, although its area of impact is reduced. Finally, charging for a long period of time allows for Ashen Howl to launch a wave of far more focused air, normally enhanced by Samuel's semblance, that acts like a brief wind tunnel. The charging time for the shell is about three seconds, while on the other hand a full charge requires about ten to twenty seconds, varying depending on whether Samuel is standing still or not (taking longer for the latter). The pulse could push the branches on a tree backwards temporarily: the shell could create a drill-like hole in it and the beam is about as strong as a Whisper and Shout pulse (i.e it could push the tree itself backwards and cut into it).
Simple: Mega Blastoise.
Dust Functions: Similar to Prismatic Performance's functions, Ashen Howl's Roar form can use Dust to enhance its wave of air to cause intense heat or cold along with the blast. It can use a single crystal once, or a vial around three to five times before needing a recharge using full-powered blasts (lower ones can last around three to five using a crystal and up to twenty times using a vial).
History: Ashen Howl is what came out of Samuel trying to make use of his implants on his back. The inputs basically act as an extension to his own body, allowing aura to flow near-freely through them, so Samuel created a capacitor for it, allowing him to make more precise use of it within the attached chains or wires. Furthermore, he added the function for the air cannon, as his semblance constantly affecting it allowed for a much greater effectiveness of the weapon than normally possible. Samuel wears this quite often, sometimes even in casual situations, not because it comforts him or anything - but because it's a huge pain to get detached and switch back to his chains directly onto the inputs, requiring equipment and sort of stinging. Stuff tends to do that when clipped onto your body, implants or not. He had a mixture of admiration over the design and disgust over the weapon itself at the beginning of its creation, but has slowly become apathetic to it, knowing that there's no real use in wasting an opportunity he wouldn't otherwise have. Ashen Howl has a resistor to prevent full electrical charges from entering Samuel's body, but it will still shock him. More importantly, it forms a closed circuit around the limbs, constantly electrifying them while the charge dissipates. This causes them to act erratically while still charged, and also give Samuel a weak but constant feeling like he's being electrocuted on each chain. However, they do zap people they touch while like this. Ashen Howl can be critically damaged, like any other weapon; however, the effect is relatively minor as long as the implants aren't damaged. If they are, it is like internal organ damage; it needs immediate and delicate care over them, which is why Samuel never leaves the implants exposed and always sockets in something to them.
[/spoiler]