Nickolas Steele

Nickolas Steele is a Huntsman who graduated from Beacon two years before its eponymous Battle. He is a member of Team ANGL.

Appearance
Nick has pale skin and naturally gray hair. His build is lean, with low-profile muscles. His eyes are the most striking part of his appearance; the irises are quite definitely white, though they are still easily visible.

Nick wears a snappy silver suit. Visible underneath are a white shirt and a dark gray tie. Nick’s suit is quite customized. There are gusset panels flawlessly sewn into the joints for increased mobility. Magnetic panels are hidden in the back of the jacket to mount his shotgun, Retribution. These panels can serve as light armor in a pinch. There are hidden pockets inside of the jacket, one of which holds Judgement II.

Nick’s “dress shoes” are quite well designed, and behave nothing like how they look. They are waterproof, they flex with his feet, and stay on quite tight in the roughest of tumbles. The shoes are black in color.

Personality
Nick has a quick wit, always coming up with a situational quip. He’s also slightly cocky, and used to walk into a fight at the front of the group. A mission gone awry in his second year at Beacon slapped some sense into him. After seeing the harm that being unprepared can cause, Nick now always waits for a plan to be in place before acting, provided there is time to form one.

He can get away with his cockiness thanks to his natural charm. Anything from calming madmen to negotiating for help is in his comfort zone. If things aren’t going right, or there’s tension in the room, Nick picks up on it and tries to restore harmony and stability to the group.

While flashy and arrogant in public, Nick doesn’t not care. He just has a hard time showing it. He won’t just up and abandon someone in trouble. Nor will he be sincerely rude to anyone who doesn’t deserve it. His uncle drilled a sense of honor and altruism into him until the day he left for Beacon, and it sticks with him in the toughest of times.

Backstory
Nickolas Steele is the latest addition to a long line of Huntsmen. The paternal lineage of the Steele family had been Grimm-killers since the founding of the four Kingdoms. The moment Aura manifested in a member of his family, they were to be trained in the ways of the blade, and, when it was invented, the gun.

Nick grew up in the upper-class section of Vale. Nobody would have suspected a son of a fashion designer and an absentee father to be a Huntsman-in-waiting, but such a job takes from many walks of life. From the age of twelve, when his Aura unlocked, he was trained by his uncle, who had recently retired from Huntsman duty. Being excellently prepared, Nick’s lack of transcripts from a combat school posed no threat to a high score on Beacon’s entrance exam.

Nick’s cocky attitude caught up with him in his second year at Beacon. Team ANGL was sent on a mission to clear Grimm from a village north of Vale. A small swarm of small Grimm was crowding a farmhouse, and Nick being the cocky tryhard he was at the time, he rushed in, thinking “I’ve got this”. He didn’t have it, however, because several Ursai were approaching from the other side of the house. They overran the team’s position, and Angela Valentine (the team’s leader) was critically wounded before backup arrived. After that day, Nick swore to never rush into a fight without knowing the variables first.

Nick participated in a team round in the 39th Vytal Festival Tournament, and Team ANGL graduated that same year.

Team ANGL fought in the city proper during the Battle of Beacon, and stayed afterwards to help fight off the Grimm swarms.

Weapons
At first glance, Retribution appears to be a normal, if fancy, magazine-fed pump-action shotgun. It has an all-metal construction, and is iron gray where it isn’t nickel-plated (to prevent tarnishing). Geometric engravings are present on the action and some of the pump handle. Retribution is capable of slam-fire, wherein if the trigger is held, a shot is fired each time the handle reaches full forward.

When the rear sight is pressed down-barrel, Retribution will transform into a half-spear. In this form, the weapon is much more linear in appearance, with a dagger-like blade protruding from where the stock was. Retribution can still fire in this form, though is obviously not shoulderable.

Nick had as a backup weapon a gold-damascened revolver named Judgement. It held exactly nine rounds, as Nick was fond of pointing out. Judgement did not transform, though the protrusive steel handle made an excellent bludgeoning tool. (IRL reference: LeMat Revolver, but double-action) Judgement was lost in the Battle of Beacon, after which Nick made another revolver, Judgement II. The latter pistol is identical in shape and performance to its predecessor. It is gold-plated instead of damascened.

Semblance: "Nudge"
With a pointed finger, Nick can increase the speed, but not the direction, of any airborne object that weighs less than 300 lb., such as bricks, people, or even small Nevermores. The maximum speed increase is 250% sustained, but can spike for an instant to 1000% (costing 5% Aura to do so, and done via a snap-to-point gesture). Sustained speed increase costs 2% Aura per 5 seconds of application, and a spiked object will retain its speed until wind resistance slows it.

With a raised palm, Nick can easily stop smallish objects up to about the size of a light motorcycle (said object doesn’t have to be airborne), and slow the speed of larger things, up to about the size of a Bullhead (same applies). Slowing costs 2% Aura/sec for smaller objects, and 3% for larger. Gravity can overrule this Semblance; larger objects cannot be accelerated upwards past 30o of incline, and their fall cannot be fully stopped if airborne. In addition, accelerated objects still curve downwards due to gravity, if moving at a non-vertical angle.

Other Abilities
If life were an RPG, Nick’s Speech skill would be quite high. He always seems to know exactly what to say. He’s got talking to people down to a science.

Nick has good knowledge of the tailor’s trade, his mother being a fashion designer, and he made his suit himself.

Nick knows multiple martial arts, and is the most capable of the team in unarmed combat.