Ash Westwind

This OC belongs to JayHart!

=Ash Westwind=

"A son born to the father" "Of a family turned to ash" "Will scater it like the wind" "When their wills fin'ly clash"

Basic info

 * Name: Ash Westwind
 * Team/occupation: Team ACCA, student
 * Species: Human
 * Age: 18
 * Sex: Male
 * Handedness: Right
 * Aura/Effects: Silver. Wind gust effects when emotions are high. Glyphs appear in various forms upon activation of his semblance.
 * Symbol: Stylized silver zephyr on a red nimbus background, set on a navy blue patch. Can be found on the stock/grip of his rifle/staff, and also on the left shoulder of both of his jackets.
 * Physical traits: None notable
 * Misc traits: Variety of small scars on his hands
 * Nickname(s): Windy, Blackjay

Appearance

 * Height: 75 inches
 * Weight: 197 pounds
 * Eyes: Storm Grey
 * Face: Slightly gaunt and rough, square jaw.  Prone to 5-o'clock shadow.
 * Hair: Plain Brown, short length
 * Physique: Tall and lanky; wiry muscles. Better at cardio than heavy lifting.
 * Combat Outfit: Spec-ops style fatigue pants with knee-pads and boots, black tee-shirt and a dark-grey combat jacket with padded elbows, his personal emblem on the left shoulder.  Depending on the weather, sometimes accompanied by a hat.
 * Casual Outfit: Jeans or gym shorts with a tee-shirt, often bearing the logo of a band or other music group.  Alternately, a long-sleeved tee shirt with his own symbol on the chest.  Often accompanied by a leather flight jacket and sunglasses.  Accompanied either by his boots or by blue and grey converse.

Personality
Ash is very polite and often a bit distant, frequently spacing out. He prefers to open up in one-on-one encounters or small groups only, gathering a small group of friends around him rather than a large bunch, and grows uncomfortable quickly in large crowds or groups of people. Preferring not to be tied down, Ash has a rather mercenary outlook on things, being very willing to offer allegiance to a group or person only for as long as their purpose aligns - be it ideals, or for money. He excels at planning and strategizing beforehand, but becomes easily flustered if his plans go wrong. Luckily for him, they rarely do. He is almost as big a weapons fanatic as Ruby Rose, though far less noticeably enthusiastic about it.

While mildly prejudiced against the Faunus, Ash tries his best to overcome such negative bias. He is a bit history and archeology buff, being especially interested in antique weaponry and fighting styles. Ash enjoys reading, using his semblance to get up to places he shouldn’t be able to, eating oranges, and any combination therein. He also enjoys gardening, but plants with thorns were common on the grounds of his family’s estate, so his hands and arms accumulated a collection of small scars. He has developed a flare for the dramatic, though it may not be intentional. He has shown great insight, enough to match even Aurum, but only rarely.

Family Ties
Ash was born in Atlas as Jay Eastborn, son of Mavros and his wife Lefko (names derived from rough Greek for black and white). The Eastborn family is somewhat infamous for having been firmly on the losing side of the old war, and it is an ill-kept secret that many members of their family still harbor anti-expressionist sentiments and crave for a unified government over the Kingdoms. Jay spent his childhood having his fellow students at the combat school in Atlas avoid him, while Jay in turn shunned the few others in the school whose families followed his own family’s anti-expressionism values. As he grew up and learned more about the world, Jay realized more and more just how wrong his parents and their family were. Fed up with it all, Jay moved out at the age of 16 when he graduated his junior combat school. He followed up by filing the legal procedures required to be emancipated from his parent’s family, having his name changed to “Westwind,” and taking the first name Ash for himself to further distance himself from his family.

Prior to Beacon
For many years prior to his splitting from his family, Jay was always close to a girl named Aurora. They grew especially close during his time at their junior combat school, and dated for several years, during which his parents purchased the supplies and training for him to create Leonidus’ Cross from its base rifle form. They stayed close over the years until Jay started rebelling and arguing with his family about their ideals, actions which she did not support despite how many other things Jay and Aurora agreed on. When he officially changed his name, Aurora attacked him, driving him away from her and wounding his left leg in the process. He moved to vale shortly after, taking several months to recover emotionally and physically, and then the rest of a year working odd mercenary jobs to get re-established in Vale before applying to Beacon under his new name. The last he heard from Aurora, she had sworn to either bring him back “home” or kill him outright.

Combat info

 * Position/Class: Support Mage/Sniper; Weapons Expert.
 * Landing strategy: Uses his semblance to glide down to the ground. Alternately, doesn’t land.

Weaponry
Leonidus’ Cross
 * Wielder: “Ash” Jay Westwind
 * Maker/Smith: Ash Westwind; parts purchased from Atlas Weaponry Co. and Remington.
 * Type: Semi-Automatic Marksman Staff (SAMS)
 * Weapon Derivation: Crescent Rose; Ash’s original staff from his first appearance in my writings (back when he was just Jay).
 * Form 1: Modified Atlas-25 gas-operated semi-automatic Sniper rifle with deployable bipod.  Also accompanied with a 20-inch variable scope with glare-guard.  Uses 20-round .308 magazines.  Transforms with the application of pressure to two buttons on the stock and receiver.
 * Form 2: Uses folding-frame technology to fold into a long metal staff.  The scope slides forward and down into the body, while the stock unfolds into a straight piece.  The receiver and trigger assembly stay in place.
 * Form 3: The sniper form uses folding-frame tech to achieve a shorter barrel and stock for easier transport or use in tight areas, effectively making it a Special Purpose Carbine (shorter variant of a SPR).  Pop-up iron sights can also be deployed for close use.
 * Holstered/Sheathed Appearance: Normally slung across the back in its shorter form, but it can be further collapsed into a travel-friendly form if the stock and scope are removed.
 * Features/Capabilities: Leonidus’ Cross is capable of being fired in staff mode (though Ash normally avoids doing this as the magazine can throw off his movements, and he is unaccustomed to recoil in that form).  The weapon can easily handle most types of Dust rounds.  While it fires faster, the weapon packs less of a punch than its higher caliber cousins, requiring greater accuracy to take down targets.
 * Usage: Ash prefers to use his semblance to get to a high place and snipe, as he focuses more on defense and crowd-control with the staff form.  He will sometimes use Dust-augmented rounds for greater impact or faster bullet travel speed, or use his semblance on the rounds to negate wind or bullet drop.  In tighter areas, he might be seen using Form 3 to lay down supporting fire for his team.
 * Planned/Possible Upgrades: Possibility for raising the useable caliber of bullets, though this may cause problems for the staff form.  Able to be fitted with a silencer, though this can also cause issues with the folding-frame tech.
 * Notes: The original weapon idea was of a long staff with a small cross-shape weight at either end, made of segmented metal pieces fused together.  The parts were able to be manipulated by the wielder and altered in form.  The weapon was quickly deemed to be too powerful, so the idea was nixed - the name stuck, though.  Named after good ol’ King Leonidas with an intentionally misspelled name.

Semblance
Wind Glyphs
 * User(s): “Ash” Jay Westwind
 * Type: Elemental
 * Visual effect: A silver glyph with swirling designs appears upon activation.
 * Starter ability: Grants the user the ability to summon powerful gusts of wind through the use of glyphs.
 * Passive ability: Sometimes causes the wind to stir around the user in moments of heightened emotion. Also grants increased awareness of airflow.
 * Active ability: Allows limited wind control, similar to that allowed by Wind Dust. The glyphs can be used for limited flight, AOE knockback effects, and “Force” style moves.  Advanced skill allows the user to apply wind effects to projectiles to vastly reduce gravity drop and wind resistance, and to use wind as a lightweight defensive shield.  Mastery grants wide area of effect attacks and near-uninterrupted flight abilities while not distracted by combat.
 * General limitations: Aura drain proportionate to use; vulnerable to weather-based interference.

Fighting Style
Ash much prefers to use his semblance to access higher ground, and lay down rifle fire for his team from there. He is not incapable of melee combat, but his close-range attacks focus on controlling the crowds and keeping enemies off-balance rather than actually dealing damage. Vulnerable to being caught off-guard while scoped in.

Trivia

 * Relationships: Team partner with Aurum Segen. Heterosexual. Actively avoiding romantic relationships.
 * Notes: Good free-runner. Likes music and is good with numbers and statistics as well as diagrams.