Name: Natalie Elizabeth Marina
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Shifter Form: Valkyrie
Appearance:
Overall, Natalie possesses a relatively plain appearance. Usually one who wears modest clothing outside of the regular uniform that the school assigns, she is simply rather tall for her age and gender. Standing at just a hair shorter than Ikari, she has not quite filled out in the same way. Bearing a slender figure, softened blue eyes and hair of chestnut hue, she could be quite elegant if she chose to dress accordingly, but more often than not she chooses the humble path. While her fellow students may be out and about causing a ruckus between classes, she can be found accompanied by a musical instrument, with her preference being a Piano. Usually, the music halls of the Academy can be accompanied by the whimsical tune of her skilled fingertips playing whatever may be to her heart's content. Joy, sadness, or even perhaps misery are portrayed by that which she plays.
Shifter Appearance:
While Natalie's normal appearance may be tame, her Shifter's form is anything but that. With her transformation, she develops wings unseen by any other Valkyrie within the realm of Earth at least. Instead of the feathered textures that most are accustomed to, her wings consist of literal wisps of light that extend upward in a gracious curve from her shoulder blades and down just to the end of her ankles. That, and while her normal self may be musically inclined, her shifted form is one of utter silence. Behind the hood is a face no one has ever seen, and in one hand she carries an elegant looking longsword, for which the purposes are obvious. With armor of gilded gold and cloth of sanctimonious white, those who have seen her transformed state stop nothing short of calling it eerily beautiful.
Abilities:
Acrobatics - Simple, in order to first have a balanced mind, one must have a balanced body.
Swordsmanship - The practice and use of bladed weapons, Natalie is incredibly capable with one-handed type swords.
Musically Inclined - Outside of the combative state of the Academy, she possesses a loving penchant for music, and is often found at a Piano.
Powers:
Alongside the standard abilities of a Valkyrie, Natalie has learned these few abilities of her own:
Sacred Shield - Natalie grants herself and her allies a passive buffing effect that absorbs damage and impacts from incoming enemies. While not a true shield in itself, it heavily reduces the amount of magical and physical damage taken by all allies. Those imbued by this effect will possess an aura of softened white light, as it is designed by her to be more subtle than forceful.
Freya's Boon - Secondly, alongside her shield effect, Natalie gives her party a gradual healing effect to complement the shield itself. This aura of softened green light gradually restores and heals wounds, alongside acting as a continual antidote for poisonous effects and the like. With it, she can step into a literal miasma of toxic and noxious fumes, and walk out of it relatively unscathed.
Sanctified Wrath - This magical effect is a buffing ability that applies to Natalie, and Natalie alone as in this moment she hasn't quite figured out just how to apply it to her whole party. This magical effect imbues her blade with the devastating effects others have come to know as a "Holy Eruption." Each strike she delivers causes an outward wave of pressure from the point of attack that takes the form of a surge of crackling sapphire light. In addition to the one who she may be attacking, those who fall into the range of this sweeping motion, if she deems them her enemy, finds themselves assaulted by this plight.
Background:
It is not too much of a surprise to most once they discover this fact, but Natalie came from a family of illustrious musicians. With their craft in music bearing the true heart and soul of the classical methods of old, her mother and father, Hoenheim and Guinevere Marina became rather famous throughout the continental states of Europe. Not long after her came a duet of brothers in turn, and from a young age they were urged into the worlds of musical academia with due haste. In the hope that their children inherited their musical prowess, the two doting parents raised them in the comfort of a loving and disciplined home. There, they not only earnestly learned the art of bringing delight to the ears of nobility, Princes, and Kings alike, but also the skills to survive in other academic fields if they so chose to stray from the musician's path.
What was least expected however, was the sudden transition of their oldest daughter. The day that changed the course of what would have been a peaceful life for her began with the simplest knock on the door to her family's home. There, as she opened the door stood two imposing men whose grim expression belied the task that lay before them. A momentary pause hung upon the air then, as the befuddled girl looked up at both of them with little more than a perplexed expression before shaking her head and speaking.
"To which do we owe the honor of your company, sirs?" She softly inquired, only to step back as her father gently moved her away from the door to speak with the men in hushed tones.
Her mother then interfered with her curiosity, as tension seemed to hang upon the air behind the muffled doors and she was sent to her room. In silence, she waited with her siblings, gently tapping one finely tuned key of her family's piano while her two brothers sat and discussed just what might be occurring. Deciding it was not wise to partake in their musing as Adam and Michael simply continued babbling in wild guesses as to what their parents might be discussing, the girl began to play a quiet tune. Improvised, it may have been, but it certainly displayed the heaviness of her heart. For the tune of the voices beneath them held a grave tone about them, whatever matter that her mother and father were discussing below was neither pleasant nor kind.
As she played the final notes on her dreary sounding song, the door to the room opened and her mother, whose cheeks were stained by tears, beckoned for her only daughter. Standing up and sliding the bench back into the place where it belonged, the girl walked out through the doorway to the company of the two other men. "Natalie dear," Her mother quietly began as she stood behind her daughter and gently placed her hands on her shoulders while she looked up at the two men distrustfully. "These two are here to take you to the academy, they've discovered somehow that you're compatible with a certain type of Magic, one that we all direly need."
Immediately, the girl spun about to her mother with an expression that was no longer calm and reserved, but panicked and terrified. "You...you must be in jest mother, no! I don't want to go! Vehemently shaking her head in defiance, her mother covered her face while her father came to comfort his wife with a strained expression. Watching her two parents break apart before her, Natalie dug her toes into the ground and instead of fleeing, she straightened her stance and regained her confidence.
As they wept, and one of the men took hold of her arm in the belief that she might be a flight risk, Natalie looked steadfast into the eyes of her family. "I'll come home, I promise."
Hauled from her home, from her comfort, and from the ones she loved, she was thrown into a world she had never known. Undergoing the process to become a Shifter was excruciating for her. For in the cold, hardened silence of the fitting room, she was told to strip down to nothing more than a surgical gown, and her head was to be shaved. In miserable silence accompanied by the incessant buzz of a hair trimmer, the long brown chestnut locks of warmth she had known fell to the floor and before long she was left alone once again. Cold, miserable, and trembling in fear from what may come. She had heard rumors, stories, and even the horrors of the pain that those who underwent the procedure often endured; and she was all but helpless to believe them.
With a deft snap, the door slid open to a long and eerily empty hallway.
Standing up and taking the first step forward across the cold metal floor, her breadth steadied, her fingertips no longer shook, and instead clenched into tensed fists. Even as salt still stained her cheeks, she would not weep for the cameras that now watched her every move. With nothing more than the sound of her bare feet lightly impacting the floor, her eyes came upon a table with a handful of doctors in simple coats of white.
"Lie down on the bed, please." One of them voiced, his latex covered hand gesturing to the steely looking bed.
Swallowing her courage, Natalie climbed onto the table and laid across it. Before she even had a chance to brace for it, a sharp prick upon her shoulder made the world swiftly shift to black. All the while, the last thing she heard was the clicking of a tongue in disapproval. "Children..." one doctor whispered. "These are barely even adults...all harnessed for the survival of humanity. What a pity."
Relentlessly they worked, with the sweat pouring off one brow, until the final injection was about to be made. Though the procedure itself did not go completely as planned. With the final incision, the girl's eyes shot open, with a brilliant light pouring from them. Wings erupted from her shoulder blades as she was lofted upward by not her literal will, but her subconscious. Doctors and Nurses were flung back and away by the sheer amount of force, and were forced to retreat at first. Trembling hands lofted themselves to her eyes as crackling what magic seemed to be tearing her apart, and there was no scream, there was no terror in comparison to those who had suffered similar fates.
There was only sadness.
Her figure then collapsed once again as one brave doctor managed to stick her with a anesthetic once again, and her world finally went dark at last.
Personality:
After becoming used to her current state of existence, Natalie actually bears a relatively amicable personality. Not necessarily one who is outgoing, but not introverted all the same. She will speak if spoken to, but outside of that, she is known above all for her relentlessness and courage on the field of conflict. If there is ever anyone who is first into the fray, it is usually her at the head of the charge. Valiance is the name she was given for her sword, and for good reason. Outside of battle however, she can be quite kind, even warm and generous to those who need it; after all, humanity is a fragile state...it is only right that they protect it.
Other:
Nothing? I think? Maybe? She does like to fence as well as play music.
