Vulturn

Vulturn Vortigern is a member of Team LEAV and a first-year Beacon Academy student from the same year as Team RWBY. He is the younger brother of Janitor 01, Zephyr, who had at the age of 22 disappeared off the face of Vytal, abandoning the then 7-year-old Vulturn and the Mimsy family. He is the son of Smith Vortigern and Claire Vortigern, as well as being the remaining older brother of his sister Caroll. Following his brother's footsteps, Vulturn performs exceptionally well among the Beacon first-years and is the strongest member of his team, being a chaser-type Hunter and uses the Black Water, Free-Flow. In reality, he is a member of the assasin Vortigern Clan and has sought refuge in Hunter training to avoid being trained into becoming an assassin, having ran away from his home in secret and asking Ozpin to help him out.

Appearance
Vulturn stands taller than most students, being only slightly shorter than Cardin Winchester. He possesses his family's light olive skin that can tan easily to a darker mocha and his black hair is short and swept-back, with a neat bunch of hair left that sticks out on his fringe and usually covers over one of his chestnut eyes, which are narrow in an Oriental look like Lie Ren. His thin lips usually keep silent on a frequently stone-cold face that has a diamond bone shape. His body structure is that of a gymnast, being slim and streamlined but with an athletic firmness in his muscles. He is, overall, not very handsome and may sometimes look outright devilish, though the devil image he exudes matches that of a sinister demon rather than that of a mischievious imp.

Vulturn wears the standard Beacon Academy uniform in class, though he has forgone the jacket and tied it around his waist due to the additional layer he is wearing inside. Other accessories include a neckchain that has his symbol of a black murky skull and a pouch that is attached to his upper left arm that keeps small vials of Free-Flow, enough to be used in emergency combat. At the same time, he is also wearing his combat uniform underneath the casual clothes, composing of two layers. The first layer is a black form-fitting skin-tight spandex suit, which acts as a final defense against any accidents with Free-Flow due to its corrosive nature, giving Vulturn time to remove it if he lost track of Free-Flow's movements and allowed it to fall on him. Vulturn is perfectly comfortable fighting with this basic layer alone. The second layer is interchangable but his preference is a gray-patterned winter vest with Vulturn's symbol on its back and white combat pants that have been specifically tailored to be able to stretch to allow Vulturn to utilize his flexibility. Both usually have pockets where Vulturn keeps secret tools and weapons during combat (usually more Free-Flow vials for a surprise attack).

Personality
Vulturn is as his clan has trained him to be: very professional, no-nonsense and an almost utter lack of any external emotions. All this culminates in him carrying himself as very stone-cold both physically and mentally, with a poker face that might as well be a portrait and a very tight and strict stance. His priorities are always the mission first, preparation second, training third and having fun as the last. This also has the result of him being prefectly brutal in his assessment of others, using cold logic to strip down their ideals and having not a single understanding of holding back or lying for the sake of others. However, he also does not hold back on the legitimate compliments and his logic slices through the emotional mess of others like a cold knife, pointing out where they are exaggerating their chances of failure or downfalls. He can be a crucial therapist for some of the more emotional students. When it comes to the rules of the institution itself, Vulturn has the same approach. If they are utterly illogical and ridiculous, Vulturn flagrantly ignores and criticises them.

As a result of the highly dangerous nature of his weapon, Vulturn is always putting his limb, life and future on the line in every fight. He is very aware of this, causing him to embrace the fear that dwells within him whenever he battles and utterly crushing those who trivialize such fear and joke about fighting as a game. Therefore, in every fight, even test duels, he is always serious, willing to go all out and intends to kill his opponent, to the point that before every test duel he has to be ordered to dispel such notions and keep himself in check. At the same time, Vulturn always questions his gut feeling and never listens to it, as he is absolutely terrified of the additional 'uncertainty' that following your gut feeling can bring about. With his team, Vulturn strives to be the best, always saying that they are unacceptable at the current moment and could do far better, leading to him butting heads with each and every one of his team, especially Elley, frequently on the point that while his logic makes him have legitimate claims, he is absolutely disregarding the feelings and efforts of his teammates, resulting in them feeling pushed too hard. He can be said, perhaps, to be arrogant, though the only reason why he might seem like this is because he never criticizes himself in public, only in private, as he sees no point in trying to 'show off his flaws'.

In his free time, Vulturn is frequently alone and isolated from the rest of his team, training by himself or doing his assignments. He did have intentions of wanting to have his team train together with him because it would be far more efficient, but they absolutely refused to be arduously training during their free time especially because classes are already very tiring by themselves. However, at times, he is joined by Artagnan, during his times of insecurity over his poor performance, hence it is at these moments that these two bond. When he does decide to have a break from training, he 'plays' in the gym, i.e. training himself in his gymnastics rather than his combat training. It is between this and the very moment at which he is now too tired to continue combat training that mark the only point where you can drag him away from training and to other more fun activities.

It is up to the rest of Team LEAV and other characters to break Vulturn out of that diamond shell of logical words and facts, forcing him to finally admit his feelings of exhaustion over the system that he has forced upon himself and his envy of others to simply ignore the 'facts' and strive on their gut feelings, which he could not bring himself to do even when his gut feeling is right. It is also at this moment that it is revealed that he was never cut out to be a Hunter, being only able to do 'what is certain' and not able to do 'what is right', as he is afraid to be find 'his own shades of black and white in the gray of the real world', resulting in him being expelled from Beacon and returning to the shackles of the Vortigern Clan.

Weapon and Abilities
Vulturn uses the Black Water Free-Flow, which belongs to the special Coloured Water weapon type. Coloured Water are basically specially-treated water that are then filled with huge amounts of Dust, with the colour and special properties of the weapon created based on the type of Dust added. They then react to the user's Aura, bending to his will to form a shapeshifting weapon. An evolution of the assassination ice weapons that melt to hide evidence of their usage, the Coloured Water are also preferred by assassins, as they are incredibly rare, leave no trace of their usage and are barely known at all by the public. The sheer concentration of Dust in the water also makes them able to disrupt the structure of soft foreign objects such as their user's flesh, making them the most dangerous weapon type, while the wounds they create are large, bloody and mostly lethal to opponents. The only known direct protection against this is Aura.

Free-Flow, due to the Black Dust inside of it, has the special trait of being able to manipulate its density and solidity, meaning that it is the only Coloured Water that can form solid weapons used to deal with other weapons and take them on in blade-locks, as well as being the most detailed when replicating another weapon type, being near identical in capabilities to the original. Despite being able to form a solid state, the surface of Free-Flow is still corrosive to flesh and hence Vulturn must still slightly levitate it away from his skin, only giving the illusion that he is holding it. Free-Flow also has a ridiculous concentration of Dust beyond other Coloured Water, making it all the more dangerous to both opponents and Vulturn.

Vulturn himself has one of the greatest physical statistics among the first-year Beacon students and is hailed by the teachers as a prodigy. His strength, durability and Dust manipulation are at least slightly above average, but his agility and flexibility are incredible. His natural agility has him being extremely fast to the point that only the teachers could percieve him moving seriously. He is faster than even Ruby, whose Aura was specifically tailored to speed, and this is a point of contention and rivalry between the two. Furthermore they are equivalent in their ability to start and stop almost instantly, with Vulturn having the slight edge due to the weight of his weapon being not as great as Ruby's, while Ruby can exceed him when she takes advantage of Crescent Rose's recoil. Vulturn's flexibility is equivalent to that of a high-class gymast and he has shown himself time and again to be able to slip out of tight situations through numerous flips, handstands, slides and rolls. His most impressive feat is him slipping right over Ruby's scythe even at its propelled speed, before using a handstand right on top the blade to slam it down to the ground to trap it, while simultaneously getting one of his armblades under her neck and his legblade over her neck in a scissors-like maneuvre to end their test duel.

Vulturn usually has Free-Flow set in the specific shape of long arm-blades that consist of bracers attacked to large blades that are as tall as him, so that no-one know the true nature of his weapon while he takes advantage of its shape-shifting capabilities in secret. The most common change and the most confusing to his opponents would be the sudden change of the arm-blades to leg blades attacked to his shin. This goes well with Vulturn's flexibility as now every movement is potentially an attack.

Trivia

 * In direct contrast to his older brother, Vulturn is named after Vulturnus, the Roman god of the east wind, while Zephyr is the Greek god of the west wind.
 * Vulturn also uses the same Free-Flow that Zephyr uses, due to it being a traditional family weapon.