Name: Sand Vespa
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Race: Human
Appearance: Sand stands at 5’9’’, her athletic frame devoid of excess fat and maintained through regular exercise and training. Her skin has a dark, bronze hue, contrasting heavily with her sandy white, dyed hair. She typically wears her hair pulled back into a small, messy pony tail, but when letting it down, Sand often parts it at the center, letting the wavy, neck length locks frame the sides of her face. Her narrow, coffee colored eyes give her a permanently tired, displeased expression.

Most of her clothing consists of dark hues, whites and yellows. When in huntress duties, she will usually wear a white, open collared vest over a dark, short sleeved shirt, along with a pair of dark blue tactical pants fastened by a thick leather belt and black combat boots. Her vest has a completely black, minimalist rendition of a hornet drawn on its back.

Personality: Calm and deliberate, Sand is a very logical minded person. Despite being brought up to believe in a rigorous set of moral standards, it is very difficult to elicit a strong emotional response in her. Though this might be due to her largely introspective manner of thinking rather than a lack of feeling, it tends to lend her an aloof, cynical air. Shunning crowds in favor of small groups or her own company, most people quickly classify Sand as a classical introvert.

Some people find her sense of humor to be odd, relishing irony and the occasional, absurd occurrence in her life. She is very confident in her strength and agility, and is proud of her abilities in close combat, enjoying sparring and physical training over academic work. She also has an interest in vehicles, and occasionally takes off and drives aimlessly to pass the time.

History: Sand was the single daughter of a family of Hunters with roots in Vacuo. Both her parents were born and trained in the desert kingdom, working as Hunters in the same team until Sand was conceived. Soon after learning about the incoming baby, the pair moved to Vale and retired from active duty to take care of their daughter. For a time, they enrolled in a nearby Combat School as instructors.

As can be expected, Sand’s recollections of that time are blurry at best, though to her combined amusement and bafflement, she recalls being infuriatingly fussy, stubborn and capricious when she was little.

When Sand was around 5 years old, her parents made the decision to return to their duties as Hunters, and would often leave Sand under the care of a friend of the family who worked as a car mechanic while they were gone. One year later, catastrophe struck. An accident befell a team of hunters out in the field. Sand’s parents were among the casualties. She remembers a lot of crying, and disbelief at the idea that her parents would not return to her.

It was later discovered that her parents, knowing the dangers of their profession, had drafted a will leaving all their possessions to her. Since neither her father nor mother had any family in Vale, the mechanic was nominated as her legal guardian.

The mechanic provided her with a home and, once Sand began to recover from the shock of her loss, a surrogate father figure. Soon enough, she began taking interest in the things he did, and the man was eager to show her some tricks of the trade. However, he was never married, and rarely brought women back to their home, meaning that he had to take on both the role of a mother and father in Sand’s eyes. Later in life, he told her that one of his worries while raising her was the fact that she only had grown men around her at home while growing up.

Once she was old enough, she asked the mechanic to enroll her in a combat school. Considering the profession that had brought her parents to an early grave, and her apparent interest in his trade, the sudden request came as a shock to him, but perhaps it was only natural for the girl to wish to tread her parents’ footsteps.

Eventually, Sand began her combat training.

The beginning was difficult, with Sand struggling to master the use of aura and discover her semblance, but once she got her feet under her, the rest came naturally. Soon enough, she had completed her preliminary training and been accepted into Beacon.

Weapon: Orc Fists: Sand’s main weapon consist of a heavy pair of black-coated, plated gauntlets that cover her arms up to the elbow. They are designed to protect her arms and lend extra weight to her blows.

A box like object is attached to the top of the forearm, reaching from the wrist to a bit below the elbow, with two slits facing forward in the same direction as her fist. Sharp, half-foot long blades can be shot out as projectiles from these openings, or brought out to act as claws. Sand prefers using the blades for ranged attacks, as she is more proficient at fist fighting, but she occasionally uses the claws as sword-breakers when fighting human opponents in order to surprise and disarm them.

Along with a supply of blades, these boxes hold space for electric dust canisters, cables and winches which can be attached to the blades before firing. This allows for extended range of movements in some environments, and allows her to shock unsuspecting enemies.

When not in use, the gauntlets retract and fold over the boxes, forming case-like objects that can be attached to her belt at the hips.

Semblance: Sand has the ability to generate attractive or repelling forces between a part of her body and another object in very close proximity. This allows her to climb sheer surfaces, stick to ceilings, and add force and range to her strikes. It can also be used to get an iron grip on someone or something, or, if she so wishes, to hover a few inches off the ground, though she lacks a method of propulsion once she does this. The ability can be used on her whole body as a barrier, but the energy and focus spent on this is rather pointless considering a Hunter’s aura passively protects them as it is.

When active, this semblance is active, her aura manifests as pale yellow particles floating around the affected objects. The quantity and movement speed of these particles depends on the energy put into the semblance. A sudden, powerful force may appear as a flash of sparks.