Shale Ferrant

Shale Ferrant is a fan character created by Aracchi for the RWBY universe. He is to be a first year at Beacon Academy and currently has no team assignment.

Appearance
Shale is a moderately tall and svelte boy, low in muscle mass and with less broad shoulders, with lightly tanned skin. He has dark gray hair that reaches to a little past the bottom of his neck. It, with heavy assistance from hair gel, is combed from his left to the right, slightly swept out via combing. Short bangs hang in the front and are cut in a way that fit along the side of his face. Under these bangs he wears a taupe bandana, as he is obsessed with keeping his hair out of his eyes. (It’s mainly for combat, and partially just because it’s annoying outside of it.) He maintains this look at all times unless he is fresh out of a shower or just waking up, in which then his bangs are bobby pinned and his back hair hangs normally at the back of his neck. He has straight, thin, and blue-gray eyes.

His outfit itself is lightweight, but not in design. It primarily consists of:
 * A dark gray, turtle-necked tank top with brown fur bordering at the sleeves and hem, decorated with two pale yellow stripes that go all the way down the left side of his chest. There is space between the two stripes that can fit his emblem due to thinning them out, and when the stripes' thickness returns to normal, a small metal attachment holds the ends of five white feathers, creating a fan of them merely for show.
 * Dark gray, low crotch, and baggy pants that tighten to the point of formfitting as they reach the ankles, commonly known as "dance pants". There are two vertical stripes that go from the stitched lining of the outer pockets to the ankles, pale yellow in color as well. On his left pant leg, though, a horizontally diagonal stripe crosses over the first stripe at lower thigh area and has a similar metal holding piece that has two white feathers.
 * Black tights underneath the pants.
 * Simple, taupe-colored running shoes with thin soles and Velcro straps that also have pale yellow accents. The soles are white.
 * A taupe-colored bandanna as aforementioned across his forehead.

Personality
Shale leans more so towards a quiet and introspective disposition. However, he is perfectly capable of unhindered communication. His high intelligence and philosophical nature have allowed him to “learn” his social behavior as if it were a study of an art form and refine it. He truly isn’t afraid to say what he thinks and feels either, but only if it is necessary. He just dislikes to blurt out what he’s thinking and would rather focus to keep on moving instead of talking. He can even utilize a sense of humor, but just doesn’t naturally give himself the chance to do so easily. He is most certainly an art and aesthetics appreciator.

He is vigilant and careful, as well as thoughtful and perceptive. His mind runs as quickly as his body could, so he holds many ideas, some even highly creative in nature. He has an analytical eye that sees things critically, though, and he is more than willing to argue against an idea as much as he can if he feels there is error within it, perhaps even over-confidently so. He isn’t all that tactful when he’s like that, which could easily lead to hurt feelings.

He is good-natured, has good intent, and does show care and attention to those whom he is close to, but can be a bit lacking in the dedication to a team type, which may make him hard on teamwork as a whole. He is most comfortable with working at his own pace, and working in conjunction with another team member may make him antsy and unfocused. He has lots of focus and can lose himself in his own flow.

Weapons/Abilities
Shale is not meant to be a part of the front lines with his lack of defense, but can play a very helpful support role so long as his speed isn't hindered. He is agile and flexible, and even can make traps with his weapon described below. He is overall lacking in defense and offense areas, but because of his speed can leave many wounds.

Weapon
Shale’s primary weapon of choice is a set of Digitally Separated Grappling Claws (DSGC) dubbed Empyrean Vises. Each fingertip of the glove is clawed and therefore sharpened to a fine point that is good for melee attacking, and is stretched out to half a foot long. Each fingertip’s claw can act as an individual grappling “hook.” This can allow for long range shots of the sharp claws, provide a hook to grapple on, and because of the individualized style of the hooks (being able to utilize any pairs of fingers), the strong connective wire between the claw and the glove it originated from can be used to simultaneously create webs or wrap around enemies as traps. His primary method is mostly trapping and then bombarding with direct aerial attacks. Thanks to his semblance (see below), all of these methods and skills are easier to perform even if they are hefty.

The glove is a dark taupe in color with minor yellow accents along the wrist of the glove and just beneath the base that the retractable claws attach themselves to. The claws are a dull golden color and curve downwards from the fingertip. The wire that is used to shoot out for the claws is contained in cloth “disc” pockets with a single opening for the wire to come out from. These discs, as to prevent hurting Shale, are attached to two metal arm braces that are placed on his upper arm and forearm. The lower brace holds three discs, and the upper one two, for each finger on each hand.

Aura/Semblance
Shale’s semblance, Wall Crawling, is the ability to adhere to solid surfaces for short amounts of time so long as contact is made, be it direct or through another object (i.e. weapon, cloth). He primarily uses the palms of his hands, the soles of his feet, and his weapon's hook claws to channel the Aura required to perform this feat. Since Shale is fairly agile and actively moving in a battle, this can come in handy in which there are say large tree trunks and city buildings to scale. He can then quickly run up or propel himself from one to another nearby surface to stick to. This allows him to have either quick aerial strikes or quick evasions of attack.

However, some weaknesses to this semblance are that it can be unusable if there are no surfaces available in the terrain and he has to be very careful about his weight distribution. What the latter means is that the more weight he leaves loose to gravity, the more Aura is required to keep him up, much more needed than if he were to evenly channel it between both of his hands and maybe a foot. He cannot go infinitely up, sideways, or even hold with this ability alone, as the Aura required to do that would be costly. When overheated, he falls from wherever he was attached to and retains feelings of arm and leg soreness afterwards, possibly unable to move or occasionally be incapacitated.

History
Shale was born in Vacuo to a lower-class single mother. When he was about seven years of age, his mother had contracted an incurable and hereditary disease that she had hard times trying to pay for treatment because of. When he was at the age of nine, Shale's mother passed away because of the illness. Shale's deep attachment to his mother made him deny leaving Vacuo for his relatives in Vale, and so instead he stayed with very close family friends locally, a deer Faunus couple that were good friends with Shale's mother long before Shale was even born. They were studious people, some of the smartest Shale had ever thought he had known. Because he was so inspired by their wisdom, it left an impression on him to study and try become as intelligent as they were. Since they were Faunus, they went out less to avoid persecution, which made it all the more easy for Shale to just stay inside and absorb more information. It went on for a good three years, and he became much more reserved and quickly maturing than the couple thought he would have been.

The beginnings of his studying in the three years were of subjects such as traditional art, writing, music, and more. Though he wasn't good at any of it extensively, learning about it gave him a sense of accomplishment that kept him going, and he came to appreciate the arts in a way that would shape him forever. And soon enough, he started in history, mainly of the Faunus and understanding the struggle of prejudice they still face. This was the start to loving history and what it could teach about the people of the past and what could be applied now. Nothing seemed more applicable to him, though, than the idea of human and Faunus working together as Huntsmen and Huntresses and protecting the world around them from the Grimm. Sure, he loved history as a whole, but these Huntsmen were heroes that could not be ignored by him, and he admittedly was naively invested in becoming one in the future. This was only encouraged, too, when his adoptive parents had told him that his father was a Huntsmen.

By the time he had turned twelve, he was much more aware of what was naive and what was not, but the core of him that wanted to become a Huntsmen remained. What he had wanted slowly shifted. Instead of becoming a protector of the peace alone, he wanted more specific goals. Coming to understand that Huntsmen were wealthy and honored figures in society equated to him that if he were to become a Huntsmen and make it somewhere, he could fight for Faunus equality with a much stronger sphere of influence, for his parents and the rest of the Faunus he believed to be good.

Reluctantly, his adoptive parents allowed Shale to pursue his prospective career and attend a combat school. To avoid having his most "immediate family's" species equate who he is, he went outside of Vacuo, and instead to Vale's own Signal Academy. Even though he was surrounded by other students, his reserved behavior kept most at a distance and didn't earn himself any lifetime friends. With that said, he was quite the lonely kid when he applied to Beacon when he had graduated.

Trivia

 * ”Shale" refers to a sedimentary rock. Though it can have multiple colors such as red and brown contained within it, shale is commonly a gray to dark gray in color depending on its environment.
 * The character Shale's environment made the creator decide a darker gray would be more appropriate.
 * "Ferrant" is a primarily English surname coming from the word ferric, an adjective that means to relate to iron, which adds to his mineral theme.
 * A common mineral found in shale known as goethite is considered an iron-rich sedimentary rock, which works with the above.