Faust Zinnober

"Well, that lasted less than I expected."

- Faust, after fighting a group of grimm

Faust Zinnober is a member and leader of Team FENQ.

Appearance
Faust can be usually seen wearing a red leather coat that he never takes off, but other than that his clothes consist of a regular orange t-shirt and navy blue jeans. Pretty normal stuff, albeit a little worn out. He never wears shoes, socks, or gloves, due to his semblance’s nature. Under his clothes, his body is covered in scars, but it is unknown how he got most of them. However, when it comes to looks it's his face is what really stands out.

Faust has long, messy red hair that covers half of his face. He is quite tall, standing at 6', but also somewhat thin (145 lbs), with a beige coloured skin. His eyes are amber and a big scar that goes from his left eyebrow almost all the way to his right cheek is his most defining caracteristic.

Personality
Even if he denies it, Faust is a kind person. He just prefers not to show it and his behaviour helps him achieve this. He likes making bets with other people, and other than that, his personality can be divided into two polar opposites: Faust, the student, and Faust, the fighter.

His student side is what people usually see when they look at him. Calm, quiet and brilliant, he enjoys reading to find and learn any kind of new information. However this side of him is also quite inexpressive and rarely talks unless spoken to first. He refers to the lessons imparted at Beacon as "easy","boring" or "unable to teach him anything new" so he spends most of his time at the school library, attending only to the bare minimum of classes necessary to not get expelled.

When he attacks, Faust transforms into a completely different person. He doesn’t like to start fights, but when he does fight, he seems to enjoy violence. This doesn’t mean that he completely loses it though. In fact, he seems to retain most of his self-awareness while in this state, and even if he is unwilling to do so, he will take part in teamfights. This kind of violent behavior is seen as “very concerning” by Beacon staff, but despite the complaints Ozpin decided to keep him at Beacon to have his power under control.

Backstory
When the Faunus War was about to end, a fifteen year old woke up in a forest on the far south of Sanus. All he could remember was his own name and age, and the name of the weapon he carried. This young man was Faust Zinnober. After more than two days wandering, finding joy only when he fought, he reached a city, or wat was left of it. There, he found the world he would live in for two years. This ruined city was knowh as The Sewer, because all the filth that the war left alive ended up gathering there. There, he started his life as a thief. But even after several months of succesful assaults on other gangs’ dust reserves, Faust wasn’t happy. He couldn’t understand how, being one of the few people that managed to survive in that place and also make a profit selling the goods he stole, he couldn’t smile. And then he looked around him and saw. He saw the vagabonds, the sick men, and he decided to ease their burdens. Then, all of a sudden, generous donations, allways without a sender’s name to thank, started appearing in The Sewer. Most people used them to fuel their own desires and vices, but other chose to rebuild the city, and after a year, poorly constructed hospitals and orphanages started to appear.

In his last score before becoming a hunter, he was captured by a faunus who worked for one of the many gangs in the city. That faunus, Qilla Onca, would later become his partner. Fascinated by her abilities as a fighter, he managed to escape and offered her a choice: She could leave her work as a gang member and work with him instead, or he could let himself be captured by her again, regaining her status in the gang. She chose the first option, and together, Faust and Qilla captured the leader of the gang and handed him over to the authorities.

Soon, a story started to spread across the whole kingdom. Two kids who lived in The Sewer managed to capture a wanted criminal. The headmaster of Beacon decided that his academy could turn them into excellent fighters, and after finding them, he asked the two kids if they would like to become huntsmen. Faust agreed, as long as Beacon provided proper security for the city, and Qilla followed him even if she knew that most people would’t greet her with a smile.

Weapon
Faust’s weapon is Blutplatzen, a sword composed of a 60-cm long serrated blade with a 15cm handle. Its shape is similar to a standard sword, but doesn’t have a crossguard. Also, the sword knob has a large red dust cristal attached, that the weapon uses as an energy source that faust can recharge using his own aura. How he does this is unclear, since dust is suposed to fuel a hunter’s attacks and not the other way around.

By pressing a button on the sword’s handle it transforms into a semi-automatic shotgun, that also uses the energy of the dust cristal to shoot. Lastly, all the weapon is covered in a circuitry-like pattern that heats up the blade and allows it to produce flames when Faust gives a part of his aura to his weapon.

Semblance: Warmth
Faust’s semblance is pretty simple: He can increase the temperature of anything he touches, and can channel his aura to his hands or feet to create flames and explosions. Given enough time, he can use his semblance to even melt metal, but this costs him a great amount of aura.

Other than this, his semblance makes him immune to temperature changes and keeps his body at a constant 37ºC (98,6 ºF), making him able to keep a steady pace in the most extreme climates.

Fighting Style
When he fights, Faust is best described as a berserker. Whenever he sees an opportunity to do so, he rushes into battle, destroying his enemy as quickly (and brutally) as posible, but he is able to (more or less) hold back when fighting other people.

He is extremely quick, and uses Blutplatzen to cut, stab, burn, or shoot his opponents. combining this with a series of (literally) explosive punches and kicks and leaving nothing but a charred field when he is done.

His main weakness is his poor aura management. He tends to use way too much aura way too quickly, leaving him fatigued after just a few minutes of fighting. His violent nature also makes him disregard his own defense, and it’s rare to see him leave a fight unscathed.

Trivia
Faust’s personality, name and powers were inspired by Goethe’s Faust, taking his intellingent side and name from the main character, Heinrich Faust, and his fire related powers, violent nature and tendency to make bets from the demon Mephistopheles.

His weapon’s name is German for “blood burst”.

His last name is German for “vermilion”.