Sahara Zerda

WORK IN PROGRESS

Sahara Zerda is an original character by Kyran Kandosa for his Silver Moon Chronicles fanon. Sahara is the partner of Roderick Martin, and is a member of Team CRES

Appearance:
Sahara is a short, but stocky, girl, standing at 4' 9" without her Fennec Fox ears and 5' 3" with them. She had an Arabic skin tone, with amber eyes and fluffy, sand-gold hair that hangs just below her shoulders. She has two main outfits.

Vacuo: Sahara's Vacuo outfit is geared towards hot environments. It is composed of high-top combat boots, socks, shin guards, belted pants, t-shirt, cargo vest, thigh pouches, elbow-length demi-gaunlets with tactical grip gloves, visor, and a bandanna worn around her neck to serve as a handy mask against wind-blown sand. The t-shirt, socks, belt, and bandanna are yellow. The guards, boots, vest, gloves, and cargo pants are all tan. Her visor has a tan body with a gold vision plate. The boots are made with velcro straps, so they can be sealed against sand. The cargo vest has expandable pockets. The pants also have detachable lower legs, so they can be made into shorts. The vest is worn open. She stopped wearing this outfit in Vale after becoming friends with the Silver Moon Clan.

Vale: Soon after passing her initiation into Beacon, Sahara changed her combat outfit to the informal uniform of the Silver Moon Clan. For civilian wear, she dons tan pants, knee-length armored boots, an yellow belt, and an yellow longsleeve shirt, as well as her visor. For her combat attire, she dons chuisses, elbow-length demi-gauntlets, and an tactical ballistics jacket with mid-length sleeves. Sahara also includes a backpack and several pouches attached to her jacket and strapped to her thighs. Her jacket is tan, and her armor silver with tan details and gold edging.

Weapons:
Mirage: Sandstorm:
 * Weapon: Multi-Role Precision Rifle
 * Type: Ranged
 * Weapon Derivation: M14 battle rifle
 * Description: Sahara's primary weapon is an very flexible bullpup precision rifle, with magazines loaded with 21 7.62 x 51mm rounds. The 45-inch weapon has an internally suppressed 27-inch barrel. It has an S/1/3/A select fire, allowing Sahara to use Mirage up close as easily as she can from a distance. Sahara typically outfits Mirage with an scope, sling, and underslung 40mm grenade launcher. The sling is an customizable bandolier, typically configured to carry 6 rifle magazines. The grenade launcher uses an side-opening break action. Sahara usually keeps 2 smoke grenades on hand. She will also swap her grenades for oversized shotgun shells for when she anticipates the need for extra firepower in an situation where grenades are impractical.
 * Weapon: Multi-Action Dust Katars
 * Type: Melee, Ranged, Dust
 * Weapon Derivation: Katar push daggers
 * Description: Sahara's back-up weapon, Sandstorm is an pair of Multi-Action Dust Katars. They use an basket hilt, with the Dust mechanism being fed from an rotary magazine located on the wrist. The rotary magazine is loaded with six-chambered ammunition belts, which Sahara typically loads with Fire, Lightning, Water, Ice, Impact, and Stone Dust. She prefers to use them to engage in ranged and AOE attacks instead of melee when possible. Sahara holsters them in sheaths strapped to her sides.

Notable Equipment:
Visor: Sahara's visor is built like the one used by her teacher and adopted uncle, Merle Toombs. It covers both the ears and eyes. The earpieces function to filter and enhance sound, protecting her ears while also compensating for any loss of hearing due to overusing her Semblance. The HUD-enabled visor is gold when polarized, and can link to other electronics, bluetooth-like.

Thigh pouches: Sahara uses these to carry Sandstorm's ammunition belts.

Cargo vest: Sahara uses her cargo vest to carry 8 additional rounds for Mirage's grenade launcher, as well as other supplies in the remaining pockets. She later replaces it with her SMC tactical ballistics jacket.

Semblance:
Sahara's Semblance is Echolocation. She can generate ultrasonic sound with her vocal cords, and then read the resulting echoes to create a mental picture of her surroundings. The range of her echolocation is dictated by the volume she produces. Prolonged use of her Semblance stresses her vocal cords and ears, temporarily degrading her ability to speak and hear according to the volume generated and duration of it's use, up to being rendered completely mute and deaf. Sahara must also be mindful of the lag involved in using her Semblance at longer ranges, as her ultrasound takes longer to return the longer it has to travel. Impeding her ability to speak, breathe, and hear, such as with gags and earplugs, will interfere with her ability to use her Semblance and can even stop it entirely, as can sufficient soundproofing and noise-cancelling methods.

Battle Style:
Sahara prefers to engage enemies from a distance, laying down precision fire from Mirage. She switches Mirage to burst and automatic fire as her opponents get closer, and is usually very conservative with her grenades. When her enemies get her in close quarters, Sahara switches to Sandstorm, typically using it's Dust functions to avoid melee combat wherever possible. If this can't be prevented, she uses a fighting style relying on fast punches to make full use of Sandstorm's blades. Sahara principally uses her Semblance when scouting, and to see around obstacles, particularly in urban combat. She relies on brief pulses of echolocation to scan the environment instead of constant use.

Abilities:

 * Faunus Night vision
 * Echolocation: Sahara is able to use a much more limited form of echolocation without relying on her Semblance. She has mastered it to the point of being able to ride a bicycle in traffic, as well as distinguish the shape, distance, and materials of an object purely from the acoustic properties of her echoes. Practicing this skill helps her make full use of her Semblance.
 * Music: To further hone her ability to utilize her Semblance, Sahara has learned to play instruments and sing. This helps to finetune her dexterity and hearing, as well as vocal and breath control. Her favorite instrument is the Celtic harp, for the complex and varied sound produced by it's numerous strings.
 * Martial arts: Sahara's small stature makes engaging in hand to hand combat difficult, as she lacks physical power and the ability to take hits. Hence, she relies on mobility and speed when forced to fight up close. Her fighting style is based principally on boxing.


 * Multi-tasking: Learning to pay attention to numerous details at once, a skill necessary to make proper use of her Semblance in combat, has left Sahara an excellent multi-tasker.