Nova Starlight

Nova is a former Huntress, and currently works for Xerxes Security Co. as a mercenary.

Appearance
Nova is an athletic, tall, and voluptuous woman with orange hair and matching eyes. Her default outfit shows quite a bit of skin, consisting of short boots, short shorts, cropped tops, and cropped jackets. She prefers to wear sleeveless tops, jackets, and vests when possible to facilitate greater use of her Semblance.

Completing her outfits are multiple belts to store her ammo, several straps on her arms and legs for ammo and to mount her brightly-colored weaponized gauntlets and retractable armor.

Personality
A Social Darwinist at her very core, Nova believes that the strong should lead the weak. Her definition of strong is not as narrow as having physical or intellectual superiority, but rather having the determination and willpower to push on ahead beyond any limits and not make excuses.

Deep inside, the root cause for her beliefs come from a desire to constantly improve. As a self-loathing individual, she compensates for her failures by pushing herself even harder than before.

Background
As a child, she swore to get stronger to avenge the losses she suffered, and that she would never be weak again. As fate would have it, after training hard, she discovered a valuable asset in the form of her Semblance. Through her sheer determination and her abilities, she gained success once she began her career as a Huntsman-In Training.

However, after her graduation, something about her changed.

Once she met Ares Yu however, she became completely vindicated thanks to her beliefs being shared by someone else, and being implemented into a long-term plan, no less. Thus, she became one of his most loyal supporters and is one of the few that he trusts to keep the plan a secret.

Combat
Make no mistake, Nova is a terrifyingly fast, tough, and physically strong combatant, with her athletic prowess in the upper tiers of the average Huntsman. She is particularly skilled (but not a master) in many forms of martial arts, including, but not limited to - Taekwondo, Boxing, Muay Thai, Savate, Capoeira, Karate, Silat, Choy Le Fut, Kali, and several Kung Fu disciplines (Bajiquan, Jeet Kune Do, Wing Chun, Shaolin King Fu, Hung Gar, several other animal-based styles, Nanquan and Piquaquan). Her immense aggression, reaction time, natural instincts, savvy knack of tactics, flexible use of improvisation and a creative use of her acrobatic agility combined with her Semblance is also what defines her as a formidable opponent. She also knows some grappling techniques, like Wrestling, Judo, and Aikido, but seldom uses them when pressed - she prefers to beat foes quickly using the simple and straightforward blows whenever possible.

She is also particularly skilled with firearms and ranged attacks, and while she is by no means a novice, she still has some trouble from time to time thanks to her more aggressive parts of her personality getting in the way of focusing some of her attacks with precision and accuracy.

Her (orange-colored) Aura and stamina levels are tremendously high for a Huntress-level opponent.

Weapon
Her primary weapon takes the form of retractable gauntlets. Each piece of the gauntlet slide to retract into a storage mode, and extends to activate them.

It should be noted that activating her gauntlets hinders her ability to use Method 3 of her Semblance, as it requires her to detonate her sweat as nitroglycerin in order to generate explosions on the surface of her skin.

Miscellaneous Equipment
Nova also carries pieces of retractable armor with sliding pieces to match her gauntlets. She also wears a visor equipped with a HUD to try and feed information about her enemies and her environment.

Semblance
Her Semblance is the ability to generate explosions. She has three main methods of doing so:

Method 1 - Internal - External Blast: She can generate her explosions as a means of focusing her Semblance as an internal power and directing it in an outward blast. Because of this outward direction (and not involving skin contact to generate the explosion, unlike Method 3), she only has to deal with recoil.

This technique is her default, go-to technique. While it has fewer requirements to activate and use (namely, no Aura penalty for each use, no environmental prerequisites, no cooldowns and charge time for regular shots, negligible post-recoil pain, especially after her superior physical ability), it also has a lower threshold for maximum range and damage output (cannot be used as long range, and has lower max damage potential), as a tradeoff for convenience and ease of use. This makes it a very versatile technique and the most balanced of the three.

Method 2 - Superheated Combustion: By superheating the air around her, she can send a focused blast at her foes. This requires a good amount of focus, a few seconds (one for normal combustion, at least three for charged shots) to prepare the attack, and a few seconds of cooldown (four between charged shots, two for normal combustion) between blasts.

There also has to be a minimum safe engagement distance for her to use the technique effectively, where she needs a certain minimum range to safely use this method without accidentally harming herself.

The temperatures of the air in the surrounding environment also plays a key factor in effectiveness of the technique itself. By identifying the humidified air, and which air pockets in the vicinity are the most humid, she can aim and fire curved blasts at the enemy - in an attempt to attack them behind cover, though again, it is only limited by the dependence of optimal weather conditions.

This technique is a strictly ranged ability, trading rate of fire for increased raw damage (including baseline damage), penetration, and for increased range. It also requires good aim and focus, which can be best achieved by standing still to aim, charge, and then fire the blast. Even to this day, she is still attempting to fully master this technique, which involves patience, accuracy, focus, and time management, where her temperament prevents her from fully utilizing it to her full potential.

Method 3 - Nitroglycerine Ignition: Finally, she can convert her sweat into nitroglycerine and use it as fuel to ignite the explosions themselves. This way, she has to sweat in order to generate enough power for her explosions. Again, temperature and humidity in the surrounding area is important for the success of her technique, and the sweat has to be present on the points of contact that she attacks with.

This technique combines the range of Methods 2 and 1, having the potential for long range, charged attacks, but can also be used as a fast, close-ranged means of offense with higher maximum damage and a faster rate of fire, in exchange for a more niche usage due to the more stringent activation and usage requirements. These include a minimum 5 percent Aura penalty for increased power (especially for charged shots), the aforementioned environmental compatability, wear and tear (well, pain, really) on the skin, muscles, nerves and bones, and a higher recoil penalty than Method 1 (to the point that she will feel more momentary pain that lasts longer, especially from charged shots and constant use), even after taking into account her physical prowess.

Additionally, due to requiring a sufficient amount of sweat, she needs to not only require outfits that are more likely to generate sweat, she also needs to make sure that said outfits will allow sweat to be present on the points of contact (i.e. the hands, legs), meaning that sometimes, there might be some skin exposed, which is impractical and detrimental for Nova in certain combat scenarios.

Because there is a more limited amount of sweat that she tends to generate as a whole, she has to ration her power, and that's on top of the fact that creating explosions on multiple points of contact (i.e. both hands) at the same time automatically divides her power and damage output (unlike Method 1, where she can retain the same strong level of explosive power on both hands simultaneously) - equally dispersing the overall strength of her explosions between the areas, rerouting the power and energy to each point of contact, leading to individually weaker blasts.

Bear in mind, it has to be a conscious effort to generate all of her explosions, regardless of technique - meaning that she cannot automatically explode things on contact after the Semblance is activated and thus has to focus on generating explosions with every attack, which is harder to do in more heated battles, or against unexpected situations.

She has also developed a way to utilize her Semblance with her martial arts, meaning that in theory, with every blow that she lands, the blows will generate an explosion on contact. This makes her dangerous in close quarters, because she can deal serious, immense damage if they are too fragile or slow. If the opponent decides to stand their ground and tank the hits, she can simply keep up the pressure until they fall.

She can also use her Semblance defensively, either by parrying (but not outright blocking) blows with her explosions, or generating explosions to pre-detonate opposing projectiles, create debris to block them at certain angles, or use the blast wave to send opponents away from her person. The bright flash and the dark smoke of the explosion are also useful for blinding opponents, generating diversions, or momentarily escaping/relocating to another position in order to attack from another angle by obscuring the vision of opponents.

She can also use her Semblance (Methods 1 & 3) as a means of propulsion, using the blast impact, outward direction, and recoil to propel herself in a certain direction, with repeated blasts allowing her to achieve a pseudo form of flight - particularly if she spins around to generate more momentum. Additionally, she can utilize different methods of explosion from different parts of her body at the same time (i.e. Method 1 for left hand, Method 3 for right hand or Method 2 for mouth, and Method 1 or 3 for hands). However, they require an immense amount of focus and in some cases (e.g Methods 1 and 2 simultaneously), may even leave her vulnerable.

Having plenty of practice, she is able to generate explosions not only from her hands (backs and sides of hands, palms, fingers, knuckles), but also her arms (forearms, wrists, elbows), and her legs (shins, calves, backs of legs, knees, soles, and heels). Additional areas include the shoulders, along with her forehead and mouth (for the superheated air, of course), along with the torso and back.

Opponents have to make sure that they do not come into contact with her attacks, which means staying out of her range against her melee fights. Staying out of her line of sight and finding some cover is a must in order to avoid her long-range attacks. Having the ability to constantly avoid, counter, and redirect her attacks is necessary, and having the ability to absorb the energy and kinetic impacts of her blows will be a boon.

Attacking her and intercepting her moves while she is charging her attacks or before the moment she fires her blasts (especially from Method 3, given that the explosions detonate on the surface of her skin) will cause her to take serious damage to her Aura from the buildup and blast impact of the explosion, should she prove unable to react in time and dissipate the attack. Interrupting the flow of her attacks near the points of contact will achieve the same effect. The key to all beating her is having the proper timing to react to, dodge and counter her blows, along with outright attacking her.

She also does her best not to get any form of shrapnel (of all materials) on her person. And it's obviously not ideal for stealth.

Using her explosions in order to ignite flammable/explosive materials is a good method of using the Semblance, so long as she does not get caught in the explosion - fortunately for her opponents, she does not absorb the energy of an explosion.

It is also not recommended to fight her in bodies of water, as she can use the volume of the water to her advantage once she makes contact.

With her ability, Semblance, and her tactical savvy, she is a versatile fighter that can use her Semblance in a variety of scenarios.

Strategy
When it comes to strategy, quite a few opponents has mistaken her penchant for aggression as her being a strong, dumb brute. Unfortunately they were dead wrong, as underestimating her proved to be the last mistake they ever made.

While it is true that she is aggressive, it is important to note that she is also smart. She has had plenty of training and martial arts experience and knows how to utilize many techniques. She is also aware of how all three methods of her Semblance works, and not only knows the strengths of using them, but also their weaknesses. And having plenty of experience fighting has allowed her to dissect several strategies from her opponents, along with a habit of observing them and the surrounding environment. She possesses not only strong combat instincts to react in a situation, but also tactical ingenuity, and proccesses information very quickly. And in terms of CQC, she's quite sturdy in the sense that she can tank a few hits, and her fighting style allows for melee defense.

She begins a fight by observing for a certain period of time, only to rush in afterwards. She will deliver simple blows to see how the enemy reacts and fights. Once she has a good idea of how the enemy fights, she will adjust her strategy accordingly and attempt to counter their fighting styles. Should opponents begin to get the upper hand, she will resort to mixups, reversals, and feints to throw them off guard. She will also not hesitate to dodge in the face of enemy barrages, or use her Semblance to generate diversions if need be in order to hide or attack from another direction. And as stated before, she will simply try harder and keep up the pressure with her explosions if her foes try to tank her hits with good defense. Though if circumstances are more favorable, she will go for the simple, straightforward and practical method. If the situation is optimal, she will utilize traps by using the environment to her advantage.

If the enemy is hiding behind cover, she will try and flush them out with Method 2.

Besides observing the characteristics of her Semblance and fighting style, watching for her aggressive nature is key - she struggles from time to time to keep it in check. This may reveal crucial information about potential opportunities and give foes an advantage. Additionally, her combat build and loadout mainly focuses on aggressive, mobile close quarters combat, and has few passive defense options, in terms of having enough surface area to block attacks. Suppressing fire will force her to either destroy the projectiles, or force her mobile or even behind cover.

Trivia

 * Nova refers to the bright colors (i.e. white, yellow, orange, red, light blue) of a starry supernova explosion in space.
 * Her Explosive Semblance is based off several characters.
 * First, Method 1 is based off of the Firebending ability in Avatar: The Last Airbender, along with Gari's Explosion Style Taijutsu from Naruto.
 * Method 2 is based off of Combustion Bending from Combustion Man and P'Li from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Avatar: The Legend of Korra respectively.
 * Method 3 is based off of Katsuki Bakugo's Explosion Quirk from My Hero Academia - who also served as an inspiration for Nova in many other ways.
 * Her fantasy cast VA will be Nicole Endicott, known for playing Lucifer in the anime Seven Mortal Sins.
 * Nova's design is inspired by Bullet from Blazblue, and Blazing Heart from Elsword.