Darian Nightshade

Appearance
Darian is a young man with fair skin, black hair, and bright green eyes. He usually wears dark colors(blacks, blues, and dark greys) and long clothes. He usually wears baggy blue pants, black combat boots, and a dark grey turtle neck sweater with holes cut for his thumbs and a zipper down the neck, which he usually wears half closed. He also wears black knee pads, lightweight mechanic gloves, a hardened tac-scroll on his left wrist, and a long coat formed out of his semblance. He carries his weapon, a large sword called the Nocturne, using a magnetic backpack.

Physically Darian is a very memorable person with a large set of cat ears on the top of his head and a scar running over his mouth. In addition to the scar on his face he has several scars on his body; a large laceration scar on his right collar bone, an impalement scar on his lower right abdomen, a stitched laceration over his heart, and a large stitched laceration on his right side.

Personality
Darian is a rough around the edges sort of person, preferring solitude with Alice over interaction with other people. He generally keeps people at a distance and when he does interact with others he's straight forward and blunt wit them, often leading to them thinking of him as a jerk. However, despite his rough exterior and aggressive personality he truly cares for his allies and the students below him. Darian also tends to be quick to anger when he sees the people around him in serious trouble. This, combined with his strong desire to protect the people around him often combine into him rushing into battle to save someone and has resulted in two of the large scars on his torso.

Darian despises the White Fang, feeling that they do nothing but bring pain and suffering to the world around them. He's sworn a personal vow to do whatever he can to dismantle the organization.

Weapons and Abilities
Being a faunus, Darian has near perfect night vision as well as superb hearing and an above average sense of smell. He's also got a good amount of physical strength that he's developed over the years from swinging around his massive sword. His faunus heritage has also granted him a remarkable sense of balance and a knack for being light on his feet, allowing Darian to perform many acrobatic acts both in and out of combat.

Mentally Darian has a significantly above average IQ and a very analytical thought process. In daily life this allows him to be able to come to a beneficial decision quickly; in combat Darian uses his mental prowess to quickly analyze his opponents strengths and weaknesses and attempt to exploit them.

Darian has trained extensively in both swordsmanship and hand to hand combat allowing him to stand toe to toe with most everyone in close quarters combat. His sword skills are based around a combination of continuous circular strikes to whittle down an enemy's defenses and devastating strikes to break them. His hand to hand combative form is a combination of several styles Darian learned growing up, combining them into a lethal technique that focuses on rapidly disabling, crippling, and killing an enemy.

His skills with fire arms and other ranged weapons are limited but enough to allow him to be proficient with their use. His knowledge of dust is limited to it being used as a power supply or as an explosive.

Darian's weapon is a large sword known as the Nocturne. The blade measures 54 inches from tip to pommel and is roughly 5 inches wide with a 1 inch thick blade. The Nocturne's alternate form is that of a rail gun; the blade splits down the middle to open a gap, creating a four sided magnetic field to accelerate the .5 inch wide steel rods that are used as it's ammunition. When the blade opens up the shoulder guard slides back, bridging the gap in the area for the hilt and a hologram sight is deployed out of the side of the weapon. The rods are loaded in from the blunt edge of the weapon in a slot that is covered in sword form by the shoulder guard. The magnetic acceleration is powered by powdered lightning dust that is installed behind the slot for the steel rods.

Darian's semblance is known as the Shroud. The Shroud takes the outward appearance of a black long coat and can be summoned or dismissed at will so long as Darian has the energy to maintain it. The fabric that makes up the shroud can be extended and hardened and thickened to be used in combat or for movement.

Shroud Techniques:

-Grapnel- Darian forms a hardened claw around his hand and launches it forward to anchor into a wall or tree, allowing him to pull himself forward or upward. Range- 50 meters. Weight limit- Self+300 lbs

-Claws- Darian wraps the shroud around his hands and feet, hardening the soul-fabric around them into claws. Darian uses these claws primarily for movement but can use their sharpened tips for more effective hand to hand combat.

-Long Grab- Darian uses a large amount of the shroud to reach out and grab enemies, pulling them towards him or tossing them aside. Range- 15 meters. Weight limit- 300 lbs

-Glide- Darian forms the shroud into a pair of gliding wings with a 25 ft wing span allowing him to cover great distances from great heights or slow his fall rapidly to prevent injury from falling.

-Second Strike- Darian focuses the shroud into a blade for a momentary slashing attack, meant to bridge the gap between swings of the sword. It can also be used as a defensive move to intercept an attack.

Backstory
Darian Nightshade was born Charles Del la Sol to Elizabeth Del la Sol and Belial Del la Sol in a town that was populated exclusively by faunus; most of them being members of the White Fang. Darian's mother was an expert huntress and his father was a mid-level bureaucrat within the White Fang. Together they had planned to use their combined strengths to usher in a new era for faunus kind. However that changed when Darian was six. On their way back from a diplomatic meeting with human leaders the Del la Sol family was caught in a massive car crash that grievously injured Belial, killed Elizabeth, and forced Darian to awaken his semblance in order to protect his sister Angela.

This event was a major turning point in Darian's life. Belial used the assault on his family and the death of his wife in order to gain political favor and move up in the ranks of the White Fang, pushing for the organization to become more militaristic. As Darian's father become more wrapped up in the politics of the White Fang he drew away from his family more and more, leaving Darian to raise his sister. Belial's actions began to make Darian loath the White Fang, him believing at the time that the organization was corrupting his father. However that changed when he was twelve.

Six years after his mother's death a human group of assailants attacked their house. In the assault Darian's sister was killed, launching the boy into a fit of rage that managed to get him impaled on a spear and managed to get most of the would be assassins killed. It was while Darian was recovering from his injuries that he discovered that his father had been behind both assassinations in an attempt to garner him more support and political favor to send him farther up the political ladder of the White Fang.

So at the age of twelve Darian threw away his previous identity and chose his new name and took up his mothers maiden name for his surname as he began a new life. The boy spent two years on the streets learning to fight, steal, doing what it took to survive. It was during this time period that he decided he would become a hunter in order to protect the weak from the monsters of the world, both the creatures of Grimm and the people.

When Darian was fourteen he met a strange girl by the docks. She had dark skin, blonde hair, was dressed in rags and identified herself as "Subject Alpha-One-Charle-Three". When he asked what she was doing he the girl explained that she was from a foreign country and had stowed away on a ship to run away from men who had been conducting some sort of experiment on her for several years. The fact that someone had been experimenting on this girl greatly upset Draian and he swore to himself to protect her and invited her to join him in going to a combat academy. She agreed and he named her Alice after the identifying tattoo she had on her left arm.

After graduating their primary academy Darian and Alice were both accepted into Beacon Academy where they were teamed up with a hare faunus named Kane and a bear faunus named Roisin. The four have begrudgingly worked together on the team for the past two years, doing their best to stay out of each others way.