Liath Azure

"Say one more thing about my teammate, princess, and they'll be cleaning up the scraps of your carcass for weeks."

- Liath Azure to Weiss Schnee during an argument.



Appearance
In appearance, Liath has short, spiky hair borwn in colour and his eyes are dark blue. Despite not being as strong as some of the other males, he is still in very good shape and stronger than most regular guys.

By ways of clothing, Liath doesn't own much, opting for simplicity and function over swathes of fine clothing. Conforming to this, he wears a sleeveless blue jacket with a simple black t-shirt underneath, along with light grey combat trousers and shin-high combat boots. The shins of the boots are reinforced with a thin metal plate for added protection, apart from this, Liath wears no armour.

Biography
"...In this regard, Mr. Azure is a prime candidate for Beacon. However, it should be noted that there are several reports of him 'loosing control' as it were. There have been no fatalities thus far, but in incidents that included the more...tyrannical members of the Signal student body, all parties included - barring Mr. Azure himself - have required varying degrees of medical attention..."

- Excerpt from a report sent to Professor Ozpin, author unkown

A Human father, a Faunus mother, and a Fox-tailed brother who was four years his senior. That was the family Liath was born into. A caring, nurturing environment that taught him to judge based on actions and not appearances. Almost a fairytale when compared to the lives of others.

So much like a fairytale, that it invited tragedy.

Liath and his Faunus step-brother, Bas, were orphaned when the airship that their parents were traveling on went missing, never to return. No evidence of a crash was ever found, nor was there any signs of a highjacking on the communication logs. In little more than the blink of an eye, Liath and Bas had their parents torn from their reach.

Having no other living relatives, the brothers were sent to one of the orphanages on Patch. The carers were nice enough to the pair, though the same could not be said about the other children. They had not had the luxury of being raised by biracial parents. Most of them only knew how to be afraid. Bas was cast out first, being the one of the few Faunus in a mainly human orphanage, and Liath wasn't far behind him for trying to defend his brother from some of the more violent children. Over the years, the two brothers became friends with the other Faunus at the orphanage, and eventually the other children too, but not before several fights between Bas, Liath and a group of older boys hellbent on making their lives a misery.

Bas turned thirteen and started at Signal Academy. Liath, who was nine, was fiercely proud of his brother, often bragging about him to his friends. Even going so far as to proclaim that Bas would make it to Beacon and become one of the best hunters ever to live. For four years the brothers lived a happy life once more. Moving out of the orphanage and into a small apartment, paid for with money from Liath’s job at a dust store. Bas grew older and more responsible in a sense, earning himself a girlfriend along the way - a cow Faunus named May. Liath studied and trained for Signal, determined to follow his brother.

<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Then one day, Liaths world came crumbling down once more.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.5;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Bas had been in his last semester at Signal, finishing his time there as one of the most promising students that had ever walked its halls. Liath was due to start their after the summer break, and - to them at least - their luck in general looked like it was going to hold out for the rest of their lives, but a late night voicemail served as a reminder that no-one stays on the good side of probability for too long.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.5;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Bas, for all his strong points, had one fatal flaw as it turned out: A habit for showing off, impressing others with his 'greatness'. A corrupting pridefulness that Liath and May never got to see. This pride of his lead him to take challenges from other students, both younger and older than him, and regardless of the opponent or the task, Bas would win. It took him to the stage that the only way to prove how 'great' he was was to fight against the most deadly beings known to man; the Grimm.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.5;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">A group of third year students wanted to see his widely known combat skills in practice, so they - somehow - got a Beowolf Alpha. The outcome was predictable, so predictable that it made many question just how sane Bas had been before the beast stole his life and fled.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.5;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">For three months Liath never left his room. He missed the first term at Signal and never spoke a word to anyone apart from May, and even then it was only to ask for food. The police came and tried to coax information from him. Liath just sat there with dead eyes, a look of total disinterest on his face.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.5;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Bas’s funeral came and went. Liath stood there, eyes dead, holding his brothers remaining clawed gauntlet; Klo. The other was probably somewhere inside a beowolfs stomach, slowly being corroded away to nothing.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.5;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The fourth month after his brothers death saw a radical change. The four students that were being held responsible for Bas's death were expelled from Signal, and later went missing. Their bodies were found later, torn to shreds, much like Bas had been. Liath was questioned and strikes using Klo were compared to the boys injuries, however there was no correlation between the wounds and Liath had an alibi for their suspected time of death. Finally, Liath stepped foot inside Signal, and it appeared that he had recovered. He acted like he always had before; laughing, smiling, a carefree attitude and a will to do his best. His friends didn't question it. They assumed he had healed, and by all means he had.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.5;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">He spent his four years at Signal well, as well as he could at least. His combat skills were good, not exemplary, but good none the less. He scored consistently well on all his tests. Simply put, he was a model student, the only problem being that he had a tendency to get into fights, specifically with bullies.

After completing his time at Signal, he was accepted into Beacon with no issues, becoming a member of team Lexicon (LXCN) along with Cynthia Brunswick, Xanthe Feige and Naomi Mortuum.

Personality
<p style="text-align:center;">"Of course I think it'll work!...Okay, don't quote me on that..."

- Liath Azure to a concerned Cynthia Burnswitch shortly before testing an uprgrade on his gear.

Liath is a confident and smart guy. This being said, when it comes to testing out modifications he's made to his gear, he makes sure that he says nothing that could come back to bite him. He likes the company of his friends - who he is extremely loyal too, regadless of how long he's known them - over being alone, but prefers to be when he's working or studying. He's a calm individual, almost never loosing his temper with even the most challenging of people. The only people he has been seen to get angry with are bullies, with them also being the one group that he will start a fight with regardless of the situation and with very little warning too.

He's usually cheerful and kind, but every couple of months for a few days, he will go through a period of melancholy. During this time he speaks very little and prefers his own company to that of others, secluding himself to a rooftop or somewhere with the forests surrounding Beacon, and also visiting his brothers grave.

During combat, Liath has been seen to go slightly animalistic, cleaving through foe's with a feral snarl etched across his features.

Klo
Klo is one of a set of two gauntlets designed and built by Bas Azure. After his death, Liath held onto the claw like gauntlet and used it as his own alongside his own weapon.

Klo was little more than a modified steel gauntlet and was designed to act as a slashing weapon, the fingers tapered into sharp points in order to achieve this. However, over the years, Liath modified it further. In it's current iteration, the fingers - still sharp - can be locked in place to allow for a dead mans grip. Also, a socket for a cut dust crystal has been made in the back to make a few ranged attacks and a couple of defensive options available.

Dente
Dente is Liaths own weapon, and was designed to work somewhat in tandem with his brothers remaining gauntlet. It is little more that a wide bladed gladius and - while having no transformations - it is more than enough in his hands.

Combat
While Liath isn't the strongest, nor the best fighter, those who have underestimated him have soon come to regret it.

Liath is relentless, not skipping a beat between the stabs and slashes he aims towards his opponents. This - and the fact that he has a talent for switching targets and between ranged and close combat attacks - means that he is in his prime if fighting within a group of enemies, be them Grimm, Human, or Faunus. However, his tendancy to launch himself into the fray at the drop of a hat means that he works better acting independent from the rest of his team, which sometimes causes tensions to rise between him and his partner-come-leader, Cynthia.

On the defensive side of things, his weapons are not built for defense, nor does he wear any additional protective gear, meaning that - apart from his aura - he is very vulnerable to damage.

Specialisation
While having far from mastered either art, Liath is an avid learner when it comes to weapons, dust, and the use of both.

From about the age of nine, he worked at a dust shop owned by the husband of one of the carers. At first he was just there to help arrange stock and do any odd jobs that need doing, but when the owner took notice in Liath's interest in the "pretty rocks", he decided to teach him all about dust and how to use it.

Then, when he started at Signal, he was introduced to the art of weapons craft and maintenance. Despite fostering a like for the beauty of simplicity, Liath also designed a number of complex weapons and gadgets during his time at Signal. By the end of his time there, he was one of the best in his class at it.

Misc

 * Agile
 * Intelligent
 * Observant

Trivia

 * His nickname - 'Fifty' - was given to him after the other students at Signal found out about his mother. Despite not being half Faunus as they thought, and his insistance on not being half Faunus, it stuck.
 * He is in no way related to Della Azure