"Shenanigans? Whatever do you mean?" Fake Mia asked, a little too innocently as she swiped her Scroll across the scanner. Unfortunately for her, she had no idea that the register would display her identity, otherwise she probably would have covered up the display with an illusion. She hummed quietly to herself as she tried to think of what she could do next with this little joke, twirling her fake illusion hair with her real fingers. It was a fun little focus exercise for her.

Anastasia had to force herself not to laugh at Mia's reaction to her appearance. It was too good. Well worth coming for. But she had to stay serious and keep going with the joke.

Looking at the dust displays... She was honestly confused. In the past, restocking on dust had been a simple matter of, submit a request. Go to pick it up later. Done. But this store had all sorts of fancy dispensers and types of dust. Which was ice? Blue? Light blue? She had no idea. Maybe she was blind. Still... It gave her a good excuse to mess with the shopkeeper some more.

She approached the counter, keeping her face perfectly neutral, "Excuse me, where is the ice dust? And how do I use these dispensers? I'm sorry, I'm very new to all of this." She said, doing her best to imitate Mia's voice. It still wasn't perfect, but she thought it was decent enough.

CHARACTER

Name: Melissa Eris

Age: 18

Species and Gender: Human, Female

Occupation: First year Beacon student, Priestess

Appearance:
Melissa is has quite a slim build and is shorter than average for someone of her age. While her expression is usually cheerful, you can always see a sort of mischievous underlay beneath it. It is easy to be fooled by her pretty face into not noticing the mischievous undertones to her facial expressions.

She has long, blond hair, usually left mostly hanging behind her, sometimes with a little bit tied up to the side, depending on whether or not she felt like tying it up in the morning.

Melissa's choice of clothing (Both in regards to styles and colours) change very often and on a whim, but she will usually stick to clothing that is comfortable and easy to move around in - shorts, skirts, simple shirts and the like.

History: Stumbling through the darkness of the mysterious and entirely unmapped labyrinth underneath her hometown, Melissa was forced to trust the voice in her head giving her directions - she could see nothing herself. Unfortunately, the voice seemed to find delight in messing around with her.

"Take a left here. Oops, did I say left?" the distinctly feminine voice would say as the path it instructed her to take lead her to trip on an object lying on the ground, almost causing her to fall flat on her face, "I meant to say right!" the voice would then say to correct itself, sending her on what seemed to be the 'correct' path until it decided to mess with her some more. At one point it had given her fake instructions for half an hour before laughing and telling her she was going the wrong way and that she would have to backtrack for a while to get back on the right path.

She had no choice but to obey the voice, however - she was sort of her boss. Kind of. It was complicated being the High Priestess of a Goddess. She was essentially her boss, but she was also meant to be her partner of sorts. Or at least the Goddess was meant to work through her to bring chaos to the world or something. Melissa hadn't really been listening too carefully. She wasn’t even really sure if the voice was real, but better to listen to it just in case it was, right?

Her descent into the dark, twisted tunnels below the City (which most regarded to be suicidal to explore, at least without sufficient preparation) had started with her coming of age. Her people had always taken great pride in the day that their children came of age - 13. Or rather, the day of the yearly coming of age ceremony.

They would be taken to the Oracle, who would use a particular artifact to determine their occupation, the place they would hold in society, (supposedly) granted to them by the word of the gods themselves. Some would become warriors, some would become farmers or bakers. The luckiest ones would be appointed priests or priestesses of certain gods. While the role of priestess was usually a desired role, mostly due to the luxurious treatment the followers of the Goddesses of the Sun and Moon would be given in their temples, the unlucky lucky ones would be priestesses for unknown or disliked gods. Sometimes the God would be one that no longer had any followers or temples. Their society had a lot of various Gods and Goddess.

This was exactly what happened in Melissa's case, as the great Oracle declared her role to be High Priestess to Eris, goddess of chaos. Eris was not exactly a well liked goddess in their society. In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that she was the most hated Goddess. She represented disorder, while their society strove to be very structured and ordered. She had no known temple, and no other priestesses. Melissa was shooed away from the ceremony with almost hostile looks, and she left dejected - an assignment to High Priestess removed one from their family. She was to take the family name of her Goddess, and forget all those she had known in her previous existence.

Which left her with no idea to do as the priestess of a hated Goddess. Would she end up walking the streets alone, everyone around her staying away from the lone follower of a hated Goddess? Well, that might've been better (and most definitely safer) than her current stumbling through the darkness.

"Oh, stop whining. You're almost there. Your predecessor was much less whiny." Eris voiced again, apparently bothered by Melissa's mental complaints. Normally she wasn't much of a whiner, but hours upon hours of trekking through pitch black darkness left her feeling a little annoyed, tired and hungry. She had wondered more than once whether she was simply being lead to her eventual, slow death by some crazy, imaginary voice in her head. From where she was now, she was certain she would not be able to find a way back to the surface alone. She would just have to trust the Goddess in her head.

Her trust, thankfully, paid off as she burst onto the lighted steps of what looked to be a fairly substantial, if a little derelict, temple. She was blinded for more than a short while, but when her eyes adjusted she was greeted with the sight of a grand temple.

"Welcome, to my favourite temple! I do apologize for having to bring you all the way down here, but unfortunately it seems people don't seem to care too much for me in this age. Hmph. Back in my day, I was a lot more appreciated. Sure, I wasn't the most important Goddess, but people loved me just the same. And back then, no one cared about those Goddesses of the sun and moon, I have no idea how they're the two most prominent goddesses of your time. Times have changed, I suppose." the Goddess explained, sounding a little wistful.

"Well, now that we're in one of my places of power, I shall officially welcome you into the office of my High Priestess! You should be honored!"

Melissa was anything but honored, having been ripped out of her previous life and thrown into this dark, lonely place by a mean, somewhat narcissistic goddess who had invaded her mind shortly after her 'appointment' and began giving her orders. Apparently, the gods were able to speak through their high priestess, quite literally, but they seldom did, seeing little need or interest in interfering in the affairs of mortals. Her goddess, however, seemed to have no such aversion, and would simply not shut up.

It was then, however, that her semblance was unlocked - or rather, her Goddess granted her her aura powers, and it was then, that Melissa's mind began growing different, her semblance beginning to affect her thought processes. She no longer whined about Eris' jokes, instead laughing along with them. She happily obeyed her Goddess, beginning with slight things to make her domain more liveable. Opening up the temple's passage back to the surface was a definite good start, and setting up living quarters for herself was a second.

Of course, she didn't have any acolytes or fellow priestesses to live with, but Eris promised she would appoint some more below her. Eventually. For the time being, her concern was with learning to fight. The priests and priestesses of the various temples of the City were its most adept users of Aura, having been granted knowledge and techniques of the gods, and having the resources and time to practice. Eris simply gave a mental sort of shrug when Melissa asked, saying that she didn't have the ability to instruct her just yet. And without anyone else to learn from, she was at a bit of a loss. It was unheard of for a priestess to not know how to fight and use their aura competently. But she was too young regardless - there would be plenty of time to learn.

For the next few years, Melissa followed Eris' orders, though at times they were few and far between, leaving her unsure of how to proceed at times. Sure, it was all well to tell her to, 'Make the people of the City like Eris more', but Melissa had no idea how to go about such a thing. Everyone seemed quite content in their dislike of Eris. At least when Eris was 'there' she lead her to fun, pranking people around the City and causing general chaos. If she was ever caught, all she had to do was shrug and say she was under orders of her Goddess, and the guards would hurriedly let her go, lest their draw the ire of a goddess. None of this helped with making the people like her more, though.

At the very least, her position allowed her a place at the city’s most prestigious combat school, although it was obvious that she was not welcome there. Despite the less than friendly attitudes of her teachers and fellow students, she did manage to learn a lot, and eventually graduate from the school. From there, she figured she would be going to a more advanced school, but that was when Eris interjected for the first time in many months, telling her to leave the City and seek out Beacon Academy for further learning. The order was short and simple, with no explanation given, leaving Melissa a little surprised. Normally the goddess would at least brighten things up with a joke or two, but she was all business today.

After drawing some information from the somewhat suspicious Elders, she was given directions and provisions to make the journey to Beacon (Or rather, to make the journey to the nearest city with a proper transport hub). Surprisingly, it seemed several others had left for that exact school in recent years. Maybe there really was a reason for her being sent there. There was no real way to know with Eris.

Her credentials as a graduate of a school from her City were enough to get her through the application process and to the entrance exam, which she managed to pass without too much difficulty, leading to her current enrolment in Beacon. Without any guidance from her Goddess aside from a brief instruction to attend the academy, she is once more left alone.

Personality: Melissa has an overabundance of energy and an overwhelming desire to cause mischief. She loves to mess with people, but often does so in rather strange ways. Many times she will 'prank' someone in a way that she finds funny, but others do not. She also has no problem with messing with a complete stranger - many times she will actually prefer it.

Normally, however, when she can hold back her desire to cause random mischief, she is quite nice and cheerful. She is talkative, and tends to ramble on a little at times, often about completely inane topics. She enjoys helping people, but usually only because it gives her a chance to mess with them in some way. She will keep up this cheerful, friendly face in almost every situation - the times where she does not are very rare.

Melissa's most noticeable characteristic is her simply insane behaviour. She tends to do things that make no sense, seemingly for no reason. This is because she information that enters her mind tends to become jumbled, distorted or simply lost when going through her aura, and can be disrupted when being processed in her mind. This causes her to understand things completely wrong, to not notice some things or to do completely illogical things. Shorter information does tend to make it through the 'barriers' easier, but particularly long or complicated pieces of information do not have a massively difficult time either. Names, however, tend to get jumbled immediately, and thus she will often end up giving people she meets strange nicknames.

She also tends to be quite childish and to dislike rules and authority figures, often simply disrespecting them and doing her own thing. She is quite easy to entertain or distract, losing focus easily.

Deep down, she is extremely lonely and desperately seeks companionship. This can lead to her being clingy at times if she finds people that actually like her.

Aura and Semblance:
Null Entropy Barrier:
Melissa's Null Entropy Barrier is her ability to essentially clone her aura, making an exact copy of its effects, layered on top of her regular aura. Each layer grants her aura increased power, thus giving her great durability, as well as somewhat improved speed and strength. However, each layer messes with her mind, making it harder to process the information it receives.

Each layer acts as a sort of shield, protecting against damage until it breaks. The way the shield breaks, however, is flawed. Pieces and fragments remain behind indefinitely, which permanently worsens Melissa’s mental condition over time. She can manually shatter them, but it still leaves behind these fragments.

The more layers of aura currently in place, the greater the benefits she obtains from it. However, the amount of information disruption that takes place is also increased, causing her to have even more trouble processing and receiving information - her senses and thinking become more flawed and less effective. At her maximum useable amount of layers, her aura’s defense durability is increased by over five times and her strength and speed are boosted by around 50%, but her senses and general mental capacity is greatly scrambled.

Upkeeping layers does not drain her aura reserves, but creating layers does use a moderate amount.

The layers are also fairly unstable - if she pushes it too hard, they can completely shut off temporarily. In this situation, she does have clarity of mind, but at the same time is left completely vulnerable. When she is nearing this point, her aura visibly flickers.

Combat Behavior:  Melissa is quite aggressive in combat - her Semblance allows her to shrug off most damage, and gives her the strength and speed to be reckless. This also means she is easily lured into a trap, and can often rush in alone, to be surrounded and overwhelmed. She also burns through her stamina and aura reserves without a second thought. If her defenses are being hammered and she has to rapidly renew them, instead of backing off, she will usually just continue.

She also tends to be quite unpredictable in combat, changing up her strategies rapidly, as well as doing the unpredictable. The thruster on her weapon also allows her to make a strike more rapidly than her opponents expect, likely catching them off guard.

WEAPON

Name: Chaos of Heaven

Primary Form: Chaos of Heaven is a long, sleek Naginata. The entire thing is made of a strong, lightweight metal with the inside of the staff hollowed out to lower the weight and to allow storage and use of dust. On the end of it is a mini thruster engine. This uses fire dust stored inside to allow for short, powerful bursts of thrust to increase the force behind her attacks. The thruster can be fired left and right as well to boost slashes. Melissa has mostly learned to handle this in short bursts, but it is still easy to accidentally burn herself with it if she isn’t careful.

Secondary Form: Chaos of Heaven can be folded into a flamethrower with the press of a button - the thruster on the end flips to the front and is adjusted to spit flames out a fair distance. Not much dust can be stored in the weapon, however, so the flames cannot be sustained for very long.

History: A weapon from the mysterious Heaven's Armoury, it's design and make are unknown. The only thing that is known about it is that it is a relic of the past, yet was made well enough that it is still extremely effective, even long after all have forgotten its origins. The goddess of chaos led Melissa to the weapon in her temple, navigating her through a massive labyrinth of tunnels to do so.

Loaded for Bear was (unsurprisingly) rather famous around Beacon. Not only was it the most convenient dust store for students, it also had a bear. A bear. Having a pet bear tends to make one stick out a bit. As a result, Mia was rather well known around Beacon. Even if some only knew her as the "Bear woman". To the point where even Anastasia, despite not having been at Beacon for particularly long, was aware of her existence. And her bear, of course.

Normally, Anastasia very rarely needed to purchase dust - she didn't really have much use for it. She didn't really have any need to purchase any more for a few months at least. But hearing about Mia and her bear had given her an idea. An idea to execute when she wasn't meant to be working and providing security for Beacon of course, because she was a good employee. Well, that's what she would say if anyone asked, anyway. In truth, she had spent a few minutes trying to actually do her job before getting bored and wandering off to find something interesting to do.

And in this case, that something interesting was visiting Loaded for Bear. Nothing wrong with doing some dust shopping a few months early, right? She wanted to play with the bear, of course. But things could be more interesting still!

She was close enough to the store now. She could see the bear, even! She had, ahem, 'discreetly followed' (Anastasia was not a fan of the term stalking. Too many negative connotations, her stalking was perfectly innocent and harmless!) Mia around the Academy for a bit, so she had a good image to build an illusion off of. Slipping into cover nearby, she swapped her illusion out to an exact copy of Mia's appearance, and approached the bear. She was quite good at copying voices as well. Not perfect, of course, but hopefully well enough to fool a bear!

"Hello... Umm.... Hello, bear!" She said, standing a meter or so away from the bear. She had forgotten the bear's name. She had heard the name before, right? Pancake or something? No, that didn't sound right...

Anastasia shrugged, "Just remember, you're a student, not a hero. Not a huntsman. Just a student. Students only need to bother with taking care of themselves and their teammates. Just enjoy yourself! You only get to be a student once!" She said with an encouraging smile.

The conversation was getting a little dull - although she had not actually expected it to be a conversation. She had initially been hoping to just find out what was wrong and find someone more qualified to help. She wasn't a teacher, after all. Helping students was meant to be the teacher's job. Maybe she could still mess around with some illusion mischief like she initially wanted to... But it still didn't see like an appropriate time to do that.

'Any complaints'? What? Either Ismael was conducting a survey for the Beacon/Vale board of tourism in his free time, or he was trying really hard to keep the conversation focusdd on her for some reason.

"...I can't complain, I guess? This is quite a safe and peaceful country. You should be thankful." She said, thinking back to all the 'excitement' she had back in Atlas. Vale was definitely a nicer place to retire to. Sometimes Beacon felt almost tranquil. Well, as long as you stayed away from the students.

Oops. It seems not only had Anastasia startled the student (She probably shouldn't have been surprised at that. It probably would've been a smarter idea to break her invisibility and approach from a distance instead.), but she had also been completely wrong. He was just crying at the view! A little strange, but the view was rather nice, and Beacon did tend to attract all sorts of strange people. Besides, it would probably make things a lot worse if she tried to doubt what he said if it was really true. Better to play it safe after already messing up once.

"Ahahah... I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have just assumed. I hope I didn't offend you, there's nothing wrong with crying! It's umm, definitely a very nice view, nothing wrong with crying over a view like this." She said with a nervous laugh. She really shouldn't have interfered - what would she had done if he had actually not been okay?! She was definitely not skilled enough in social matters to do anything other than embarrass herself. Not that she hadn't embarrassed herself anyway.

At least no one could see the slight blush on her face. The benefits of having her appearance be a constant illusion.

Semblance section edited!