Post by Elena Thorne on Mar 21, 2019 14:56:28 GMT -5
Elena Thorne
"The only real battle in life is between hanging on and letting go."
 | Age 19 Gender Female Faction Haven Academy Tier Beginner Face Claim Fiore Forvedge Yggdmillennia OOC Name Wolfe |
Character Traits
Date of Birth: March 13th, 6AV
Species: Human
Hometown: Village of Gwen in Vacuo
Romantic Orientation: Demisexual
Hair Color/Style: Brown with the hair falling to her waist.
Eye Color: Blue
Aura Color: Brown
Height: 162cm
Weight: 47kg
Appearance: Elena is a tall and thin girl that doesn't exactly stand out in a crowd. She doesn't carry herself with any particular authority, and tends to avert her gaze rather than match that of others. Despite her upbringing and social status, her wardrobe is of middling quality at worst and all designed to look good to not stick out at social gatherings. She doesn't like to draw attention to herself, because she doesn't want to be known as the pity case that she is.
Personality: Stubborn.
That would be the word to describe Elena. It was her defining trait and greatest strength, much to her chagrin. She was never particularly smart, though it was not from lack of trying and largely due to her lack of a formal education. She was never particularly brave or skilled like most trainees, and indeed usually it was quite the opposite. Even after months and months of training, she still stumbles over her own feet occasionally and panics when things get down to the nitty gritty. She’s not a natural fighter by any stretch and is definitely a slow learner in that category.
What defines her more than her stubbornness, however, is her defiance. She is pursuing the goal of being a huntress so heavily in large part because everyone in her life has always told her that it was impossible for someone like her. Unattainable for someone with an unreliable semblance like hers, and not realistic for someone with her complete lack of talent. She has willed her way across the world with nothing except the clothes on her back to start with and is more than ready to will her way through this next challenge as well. While she may not fit in with a crowd that skews younger and more educated, it wasn’t like she hasn’t been the outsider for her entire life. It wasn’t as if that every situation she had ever been in wasn’t one that started out with her at a disadvantage. She made it this far anyway, and she was going to see this through to the end no matter what it took.
Fuck destiny, fuck natural selection and fuck the powers that be that ensured that she would always have the hard way. Every time she felt she was close to climbing that mountain, another mountain was placed on top of the previous mountain. She had spent her entire life on that climb through adversity, and she was not about to get scared and quit now. Elena had bet her entire life on herself becoming that improbable success story, and it would all be a waste if she ran off now to do anything other than get that Huntress license.
So that’s what she was going to do. Succeed, or die trying. There were no other alternatives, because death was the only thing that could possibly stop her at this point and she has made peace with that fact.
Species: Human
Hometown: Village of Gwen in Vacuo
Romantic Orientation: Demisexual
Hair Color/Style: Brown with the hair falling to her waist.
Eye Color: Blue
Aura Color: Brown
Height: 162cm
Weight: 47kg
Appearance: Elena is a tall and thin girl that doesn't exactly stand out in a crowd. She doesn't carry herself with any particular authority, and tends to avert her gaze rather than match that of others. Despite her upbringing and social status, her wardrobe is of middling quality at worst and all designed to look good to not stick out at social gatherings. She doesn't like to draw attention to herself, because she doesn't want to be known as the pity case that she is.
Personality: Stubborn.
That would be the word to describe Elena. It was her defining trait and greatest strength, much to her chagrin. She was never particularly smart, though it was not from lack of trying and largely due to her lack of a formal education. She was never particularly brave or skilled like most trainees, and indeed usually it was quite the opposite. Even after months and months of training, she still stumbles over her own feet occasionally and panics when things get down to the nitty gritty. She’s not a natural fighter by any stretch and is definitely a slow learner in that category.
What defines her more than her stubbornness, however, is her defiance. She is pursuing the goal of being a huntress so heavily in large part because everyone in her life has always told her that it was impossible for someone like her. Unattainable for someone with an unreliable semblance like hers, and not realistic for someone with her complete lack of talent. She has willed her way across the world with nothing except the clothes on her back to start with and is more than ready to will her way through this next challenge as well. While she may not fit in with a crowd that skews younger and more educated, it wasn’t like she hasn’t been the outsider for her entire life. It wasn’t as if that every situation she had ever been in wasn’t one that started out with her at a disadvantage. She made it this far anyway, and she was going to see this through to the end no matter what it took.
Fuck destiny, fuck natural selection and fuck the powers that be that ensured that she would always have the hard way. Every time she felt she was close to climbing that mountain, another mountain was placed on top of the previous mountain. She had spent her entire life on that climb through adversity, and she was not about to get scared and quit now. Elena had bet her entire life on herself becoming that improbable success story, and it would all be a waste if she ran off now to do anything other than get that Huntress license.
So that’s what she was going to do. Succeed, or die trying. There were no other alternatives, because death was the only thing that could possibly stop her at this point and she has made peace with that fact.
Combat & Inventory
Shadow Construction
Rank of Semblance: D
Semblance Type: Manipulator
One Sentence Summary of Semblance: Shadow Construction is a semblance that allows the user to manipulate and solidify existing shadow into solid objects at range.
Description of Semblance: Shadow Construction enables Elena to solidify and shape existing shadow around her in a range approximately the same as the length of a semi truck (15-18 meters) by ‘ripping’ it and creating matter from the base of the shadow. The user of this ability does not have to be in physical contact with shadow, just to be aware of its presence and consciously reach out with this power to manipulate it. This normally means that Elena must see the shadow before manipulating it, but if allowed to survey the area beforehand it means she can take advantage of that preparation by reaching out and ‘ripping’ shadows she knows exist.
Once areas of shadows are ripped, the matter pulled from them originates at the exact location of the shadow and must be telepathically moved from there. Once a shadow is ripped, the matter will stay there unless Elena walks out of range, the original shadow is destroyed, or someone actively destroys the construct.
In mechanical terms, she uses already existing shadow to create solid constructs with the maximum hardness of soft metals at a maximum range of the length of a semi truck (15-18 meters), but she can manipulate the texture and hardness to be like goo just as easily as she can make an a flying brick. All constructs must originate from a shadow, and if that base shadow is ever destroyed than so is the construct. In order to use a shadow, it must be consciously 'ripped' in order to prime it for use which creates a slight delay in the ability to use Shadow Construction with rapidity.
Drawbacks of Semblance: Shadow construction does not allow Elena to create shadow, only to manipulate currently existing shadow. If the shadow that was used to create something is removed, even momentarily, so does the construct. Extended use leaves user fatigued and as well as lowers body temperature.
Elena must also be aware that shadow exists and where it is located for her to manipulate it, which generally means either visual contact or memorizing where the shadow is. If she cannot see any shadow to manipulate and is forced to rely on memory, it is possible for her to be distracted or simply misremember where the shadow was due to any number of factors including time passing and the sun changing directions, or a new light source being introduced to the environment.
Shadow construction is also a very focus-intensive semblance, since so much of it relies on direct concentration. Anything from a sneeze to an unexpected attack from behind can break concentration, which often has the power react in erratic ways such as dramatically reducing the accuracy or power or an attack or making the construct outright fizzle out in the case of severe distractions.
N/A
Rank of Weapon(s): N/A
Description of Weapons(s): Elena doesn't have a weapon.
Non-Combat Abilities
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Painting
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: F
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Elena is a painter on the level with a hobbyist, being able to do above average work that wouldn't be out of place in a lower tier art store. She specializes in spray painting, but can use brushes just as well in her work.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Drive
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: F
Description of Non-Combat Ability: One of Elena's enduring hobbies is street racing, and as such she has picked up some level of skill in the operation of motor vehicles. Due to her... eccentric work history she has learned to operate anything from motorcycles to cranes to smaller crop duster planes to small boats and is reliable behind the stick of any of them.
Combat Abilities
Name of Combat Ability: Enhanced Durability
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Description of Combat Ability: Elena's ability to block damage to her body with her aura is honed to be naturally very efficient to compensate for a below average aura supply. The aura that is used is used with less waste than the average, which results in her being able to absorb more hits than people without similar skills.
Name of Combat Ability: Enhanced Agility
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Description of Combat Ability: Elena's ability to predict and dodge away from attacks has increased dramatically since joining Shade Academy, and allows her to duck and dodge out of the way with much more proficiency than when she was at Haven.
Name of Combat Ability: Frostbite (Dust Enhancement)
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Description of Combat Ability: Twice a thread, Elena is able to imbue her semblance with ice dust to quickly freeze over her semblance and both expand and make her semblance cold enough to cause frostbite to unprotected flesh. The damage takes places over two turns, and uses the semblance accuracy for determining whether it hits or not.
Name of Combat Ability: Enhanced Stamina
Rank of Combat Ability: F
Description of Combat Ability: Years of long runs and going the extra mile both figuratively and literally have given Elena more of a gas tank than normal when it comes to physical activity. She could run a 5 kilometer race without slowing down at this stage, which is a solid foundation.
Rank of Semblance: D
Semblance Type: Manipulator
One Sentence Summary of Semblance: Shadow Construction is a semblance that allows the user to manipulate and solidify existing shadow into solid objects at range.
Description of Semblance: Shadow Construction enables Elena to solidify and shape existing shadow around her in a range approximately the same as the length of a semi truck (15-18 meters) by ‘ripping’ it and creating matter from the base of the shadow. The user of this ability does not have to be in physical contact with shadow, just to be aware of its presence and consciously reach out with this power to manipulate it. This normally means that Elena must see the shadow before manipulating it, but if allowed to survey the area beforehand it means she can take advantage of that preparation by reaching out and ‘ripping’ shadows she knows exist.
Once areas of shadows are ripped, the matter pulled from them originates at the exact location of the shadow and must be telepathically moved from there. Once a shadow is ripped, the matter will stay there unless Elena walks out of range, the original shadow is destroyed, or someone actively destroys the construct.
In mechanical terms, she uses already existing shadow to create solid constructs with the maximum hardness of soft metals at a maximum range of the length of a semi truck (15-18 meters), but she can manipulate the texture and hardness to be like goo just as easily as she can make an a flying brick. All constructs must originate from a shadow, and if that base shadow is ever destroyed than so is the construct. In order to use a shadow, it must be consciously 'ripped' in order to prime it for use which creates a slight delay in the ability to use Shadow Construction with rapidity.
Drawbacks of Semblance: Shadow construction does not allow Elena to create shadow, only to manipulate currently existing shadow. If the shadow that was used to create something is removed, even momentarily, so does the construct. Extended use leaves user fatigued and as well as lowers body temperature.
Elena must also be aware that shadow exists and where it is located for her to manipulate it, which generally means either visual contact or memorizing where the shadow is. If she cannot see any shadow to manipulate and is forced to rely on memory, it is possible for her to be distracted or simply misremember where the shadow was due to any number of factors including time passing and the sun changing directions, or a new light source being introduced to the environment.
Shadow construction is also a very focus-intensive semblance, since so much of it relies on direct concentration. Anything from a sneeze to an unexpected attack from behind can break concentration, which often has the power react in erratic ways such as dramatically reducing the accuracy or power or an attack or making the construct outright fizzle out in the case of severe distractions.
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N/A
Rank of Weapon(s): N/A
Description of Weapons(s): Elena doesn't have a weapon.
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Non-Combat Abilities
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Painting
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: F
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Elena is a painter on the level with a hobbyist, being able to do above average work that wouldn't be out of place in a lower tier art store. She specializes in spray painting, but can use brushes just as well in her work.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Drive
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: F
Description of Non-Combat Ability: One of Elena's enduring hobbies is street racing, and as such she has picked up some level of skill in the operation of motor vehicles. Due to her... eccentric work history she has learned to operate anything from motorcycles to cranes to smaller crop duster planes to small boats and is reliable behind the stick of any of them.
--------------------------------------------------------
Combat Abilities
Name of Combat Ability: Enhanced Durability
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Description of Combat Ability: Elena's ability to block damage to her body with her aura is honed to be naturally very efficient to compensate for a below average aura supply. The aura that is used is used with less waste than the average, which results in her being able to absorb more hits than people without similar skills.
Name of Combat Ability: Enhanced Agility
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Description of Combat Ability: Elena's ability to predict and dodge away from attacks has increased dramatically since joining Shade Academy, and allows her to duck and dodge out of the way with much more proficiency than when she was at Haven.
Name of Combat Ability: Frostbite (Dust Enhancement)
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Description of Combat Ability: Twice a thread, Elena is able to imbue her semblance with ice dust to quickly freeze over her semblance and both expand and make her semblance cold enough to cause frostbite to unprotected flesh. The damage takes places over two turns, and uses the semblance accuracy for determining whether it hits or not.
Name of Combat Ability: Enhanced Stamina
Rank of Combat Ability: F
Description of Combat Ability: Years of long runs and going the extra mile both figuratively and literally have given Elena more of a gas tank than normal when it comes to physical activity. She could run a 5 kilometer race without slowing down at this stage, which is a solid foundation.
Biography
History
It would probably be a fair statement to say that Elena came from nothing. The only child of a mediocre security guard father and a mother barely scraping by at a textile mill, she came from a small settlement on the outskirts of the capital where her mother would commute to work for sometimes days at a time before returning home. It wasn’t that they were bad parents or didn’t try hard, just that times were tough for the citizens of Vacuo after the Great War. Their land had been devastated, and their infrastructure ruined from the years of foreign occupation. There weren’t really any winners from the conflict, but there was a clear loser and that was unfortunately Vacuo.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given her background, her development as a child was anything but normal. School was inconsistent at best, though she hoarded books like they were treasure and absorbed everything from instruction manuals to old newspapers like they were the divine gift to humanity. Her social group was the local street urchin community, those like her with no supervision and no conception of things like rules or social boundaries. She would slip away for at times days at a time without either parent noticing due to her mother’s frequent absences and her father’s inattentiveness and general exhaustion from his job.
The gang of street urchins she ran with was generally speaking pretty successful insofar as nobody died from hunger and none of them died in any of the small-time thefts that they did. People would leave pretty frequently though, sometimes to bigger and more hardcore gangs closer to the capital where the risk and pay was much higher. Some would get unlucky and get whacked when they got greedy or careless alone and die from the retaliation of a victim that they couldn’t run away from. Some would age a bit and get a legitimate job at a mine or some other form of income, so they were able to get out of the streets.
Elena joined not because she needed the lien, not that her family was exactly swimming in it to begin with but because her semblance had manifested at a young age and it allowed her to prevent others from starving because of its immense potential in theft. Between the ages of eight and fourteen, she was the glue that held that ragtag bunch of misfits together not with any form of leadership… but with successes due entirely to her semblance.
When she was fourteen, some Shade Academy trainees stopped by for some public relations stunt… but it awakened an idea in the young girl’s mind that hadn’t existed before. Of a way to rise up above the situation she was placed in and to actually make use of her power on a grander scale than simply stealing apples here and there. The other urchins were enamored with the idea as well, with a better life being around the corner if they could just pass the entrance exam and the focus shifted to fighting.
There was something that Elena had to confront very early on in this training, and that thing was that she just wasn’t very coordinated physically. She would trip over herself and flinch instead of blocking when attacked, and on top of that under duress her semblance had a tendency to just sort of fizzle out. It was either a shitty semblance, or she was shitty at using it and she was never really sure which it was. Nobody in that group was very talented, but people around the community started noticing what was going on and started offering the group some low paying jobs guarding caravans and other such grunt work. It was easy money, and Elena’s parents were supportive of the extra income she was able to bring in with it. She spent two years training and taking these odd jobs guarding caravans, shipments, and other small groups throughout the desert for meagre pay before going with the entire group to Shade Academy for their first attempt at the entrance exam – you had to be sixteen to even sign up, and she was there on her birthday.
Every single one of them failed, miserably. Even the lower tier first years absolutely demolished each and every single person in the group, and it wasn’t even close. Elena didn’t manage to land one hit, and they were summarily dismissed an hour in to a scheduled three-hour tryout. You could take the test every month when they offered it, and the girl kept trying. One by one, those who came with her to the first dropped out and pursued other goals because they were so far out of their league. By the fourth attempt, she was the only original member to still stubbornly show up and fail spectacularly each time. After the sixth time, Shade Academy outright banned her from coming back because she was deemed a waste of time and resources. Her applicant file noted that her hand to hand skills were nonexistent, and her semblance was unreliable and mediocre even at the best of times due to a lack of fine control. An individual could get far through stubbornness, but not into Shade Academy without an ounce of natural talent.
She never had a good relationship with her parents, but the night after she was essentially barred from Shade Academy she ended up just snapping. Her father was always seemingly jealous of the idea that she even had a chance and told her to aim lower and more realistically like the rest of her friends. Her mother offered sincerely to get Elena a job at the mill, which was honest work and much more sustainable and safer than the caravan work that her friends were doing. It would all go sideways one day, she said, because the truth was none of her group was well equipped or had any real training – just playing pretend in the backyard as she called it.
Playing pretend in the backyard.
She packed her things that night and left. Her old group all thought she was insane already for spending the past six months trying and failing on the impossibility of getting accepted into Shade and were all out on assignment guarding some caravan in the middle of the desert anyway. She set off with a basic map and no plan other than a vague inclination to go east towards Vale. She would figure it out on the way, she figured, or she would die in the attempt to make something of herself. Elena stole away from home without a goodbye to her parents and set off to prove them, prove Shade, and prove her childhood companions wrong.
For the next two and a half years, she wandered around Remnant. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a group that she met along the way. Elena did many odd jobs along the way ranging from firefighter to bartender to deep sea fisherwoman to construction to brick layer to gardener to longshorewoman to janitor. She didn’t have a concrete plan, and just kind of rolled with life as it came. When an opportunity came up, she jumped on because she felt that making an honest living was better than going back to petty theft for any reason. No job was too menial or mundane if she could get a roof over her head and some food at the end of the day.
She did make it to Vale by the end of the first year but failed the entrance examination to Beacon Academy just as spectacularly as she did in her attempt at Shade. She caught on with a local martial arts group by getting a janitor job at the facility and got some basic training from there for a few months before taking the entrance examination again six months later, the very next testing cycle. This time she made it to the second stage of the exam, but her semblance fizzled out and she had to be rescued from the Grimm present in the scenario area. Needless to say, she failed and was told not to apply again due to being a security risk. Nobody wanted a fatality on their hands in a testing group, and she was considered a liability to be just that.
Six more months of training in that martial arts gym and paying her rent by being the janitor, and she was made aware of a new opportunity in Mistral. Apparently, their entire student body went under in an airship crash and they were desperately looking for warm bodies. They were looking for candidates to participate in the Mistral Regional Tournament, they said… this was Elena’s big break. This was the opportunity she had been waiting her entire life for, and she managed to worm her way onto a boat that was heading to Argus by parlaying her experience into… another custodial job on the ship.
Her performance at the tournament was bang average, which was an enormous improvement over her previous showings. She won a slugfest in her first round with a Forge Academy graduate and got outmaneuvered in the second round by a Sanctum one. She got a tryout largely because she pestered the Haven Academy scouts until they gave her a shot, and perhaps the first time in her life she stepped up to the occasion. In a testing room with a few dozen other candidates, Elena simply refused to quit. The instructions were different from before, because there were as many attempts as needed as different people filtered in over the course of the day. She didn’t exactly do well, but for once her main trait in her tenacity was able to shine through as she made progress each and every attempt and never left the training area except very briefly when her aura was recharging in between rounds. She wasn't asked to stay, but she wasn't asked to leave either. So she stayed and continued trying until the scout called off the training for everyone.
For twelve hours on and off she fought, clawed, and willed her way into an acceptance simply by telling herself that this was her last chance to make her dream come true. It took her three hours to become competitive with her peers, and it took her five before she got her first win. For the rest of the day, she slowly racked them up and towards the end where everyone else was dog tired she just started piling them up because she was just mentally stronger than them. She was able to continue going when they failed, and she had an undefeated run of ten to cap off the day. Not because she really got any better, but because she didn’t get any worse.
For some people, getting entrance to one of the Big Four academies was something that they simply expected. For Elena, it was the culmination of five years of blood, sweat, tears, and failure. This was her opportunity and chance to prove everyone who said she couldn’t cut it and that being a Huntress was a pipe dream wrong – and she was willing to work as hard as she had to in order to make that happen. She may not have the years of sophisticated training that every primary combat school graduate had, but what she did have was the will to make something work and the mental fortitude to stare failure and defeat in the face only to get up and try again because this was the life she had chosen for herself – not the one that she was destined to lead.
Family
Father: Shane Thorne (Alive)
Mother: Cerise Thorne (Alive)
Extra
Elena means 'bright, shining light' which evokes the colors white and gold. Thorne brings to mind thorns which bring to mind the color brown.
It would probably be a fair statement to say that Elena came from nothing. The only child of a mediocre security guard father and a mother barely scraping by at a textile mill, she came from a small settlement on the outskirts of the capital where her mother would commute to work for sometimes days at a time before returning home. It wasn’t that they were bad parents or didn’t try hard, just that times were tough for the citizens of Vacuo after the Great War. Their land had been devastated, and their infrastructure ruined from the years of foreign occupation. There weren’t really any winners from the conflict, but there was a clear loser and that was unfortunately Vacuo.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given her background, her development as a child was anything but normal. School was inconsistent at best, though she hoarded books like they were treasure and absorbed everything from instruction manuals to old newspapers like they were the divine gift to humanity. Her social group was the local street urchin community, those like her with no supervision and no conception of things like rules or social boundaries. She would slip away for at times days at a time without either parent noticing due to her mother’s frequent absences and her father’s inattentiveness and general exhaustion from his job.
The gang of street urchins she ran with was generally speaking pretty successful insofar as nobody died from hunger and none of them died in any of the small-time thefts that they did. People would leave pretty frequently though, sometimes to bigger and more hardcore gangs closer to the capital where the risk and pay was much higher. Some would get unlucky and get whacked when they got greedy or careless alone and die from the retaliation of a victim that they couldn’t run away from. Some would age a bit and get a legitimate job at a mine or some other form of income, so they were able to get out of the streets.
Elena joined not because she needed the lien, not that her family was exactly swimming in it to begin with but because her semblance had manifested at a young age and it allowed her to prevent others from starving because of its immense potential in theft. Between the ages of eight and fourteen, she was the glue that held that ragtag bunch of misfits together not with any form of leadership… but with successes due entirely to her semblance.
When she was fourteen, some Shade Academy trainees stopped by for some public relations stunt… but it awakened an idea in the young girl’s mind that hadn’t existed before. Of a way to rise up above the situation she was placed in and to actually make use of her power on a grander scale than simply stealing apples here and there. The other urchins were enamored with the idea as well, with a better life being around the corner if they could just pass the entrance exam and the focus shifted to fighting.
There was something that Elena had to confront very early on in this training, and that thing was that she just wasn’t very coordinated physically. She would trip over herself and flinch instead of blocking when attacked, and on top of that under duress her semblance had a tendency to just sort of fizzle out. It was either a shitty semblance, or she was shitty at using it and she was never really sure which it was. Nobody in that group was very talented, but people around the community started noticing what was going on and started offering the group some low paying jobs guarding caravans and other such grunt work. It was easy money, and Elena’s parents were supportive of the extra income she was able to bring in with it. She spent two years training and taking these odd jobs guarding caravans, shipments, and other small groups throughout the desert for meagre pay before going with the entire group to Shade Academy for their first attempt at the entrance exam – you had to be sixteen to even sign up, and she was there on her birthday.
Every single one of them failed, miserably. Even the lower tier first years absolutely demolished each and every single person in the group, and it wasn’t even close. Elena didn’t manage to land one hit, and they were summarily dismissed an hour in to a scheduled three-hour tryout. You could take the test every month when they offered it, and the girl kept trying. One by one, those who came with her to the first dropped out and pursued other goals because they were so far out of their league. By the fourth attempt, she was the only original member to still stubbornly show up and fail spectacularly each time. After the sixth time, Shade Academy outright banned her from coming back because she was deemed a waste of time and resources. Her applicant file noted that her hand to hand skills were nonexistent, and her semblance was unreliable and mediocre even at the best of times due to a lack of fine control. An individual could get far through stubbornness, but not into Shade Academy without an ounce of natural talent.
She never had a good relationship with her parents, but the night after she was essentially barred from Shade Academy she ended up just snapping. Her father was always seemingly jealous of the idea that she even had a chance and told her to aim lower and more realistically like the rest of her friends. Her mother offered sincerely to get Elena a job at the mill, which was honest work and much more sustainable and safer than the caravan work that her friends were doing. It would all go sideways one day, she said, because the truth was none of her group was well equipped or had any real training – just playing pretend in the backyard as she called it.
Playing pretend in the backyard.
She packed her things that night and left. Her old group all thought she was insane already for spending the past six months trying and failing on the impossibility of getting accepted into Shade and were all out on assignment guarding some caravan in the middle of the desert anyway. She set off with a basic map and no plan other than a vague inclination to go east towards Vale. She would figure it out on the way, she figured, or she would die in the attempt to make something of herself. Elena stole away from home without a goodbye to her parents and set off to prove them, prove Shade, and prove her childhood companions wrong.
For the next two and a half years, she wandered around Remnant. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a group that she met along the way. Elena did many odd jobs along the way ranging from firefighter to bartender to deep sea fisherwoman to construction to brick layer to gardener to longshorewoman to janitor. She didn’t have a concrete plan, and just kind of rolled with life as it came. When an opportunity came up, she jumped on because she felt that making an honest living was better than going back to petty theft for any reason. No job was too menial or mundane if she could get a roof over her head and some food at the end of the day.
She did make it to Vale by the end of the first year but failed the entrance examination to Beacon Academy just as spectacularly as she did in her attempt at Shade. She caught on with a local martial arts group by getting a janitor job at the facility and got some basic training from there for a few months before taking the entrance examination again six months later, the very next testing cycle. This time she made it to the second stage of the exam, but her semblance fizzled out and she had to be rescued from the Grimm present in the scenario area. Needless to say, she failed and was told not to apply again due to being a security risk. Nobody wanted a fatality on their hands in a testing group, and she was considered a liability to be just that.
Six more months of training in that martial arts gym and paying her rent by being the janitor, and she was made aware of a new opportunity in Mistral. Apparently, their entire student body went under in an airship crash and they were desperately looking for warm bodies. They were looking for candidates to participate in the Mistral Regional Tournament, they said… this was Elena’s big break. This was the opportunity she had been waiting her entire life for, and she managed to worm her way onto a boat that was heading to Argus by parlaying her experience into… another custodial job on the ship.
Her performance at the tournament was bang average, which was an enormous improvement over her previous showings. She won a slugfest in her first round with a Forge Academy graduate and got outmaneuvered in the second round by a Sanctum one. She got a tryout largely because she pestered the Haven Academy scouts until they gave her a shot, and perhaps the first time in her life she stepped up to the occasion. In a testing room with a few dozen other candidates, Elena simply refused to quit. The instructions were different from before, because there were as many attempts as needed as different people filtered in over the course of the day. She didn’t exactly do well, but for once her main trait in her tenacity was able to shine through as she made progress each and every attempt and never left the training area except very briefly when her aura was recharging in between rounds. She wasn't asked to stay, but she wasn't asked to leave either. So she stayed and continued trying until the scout called off the training for everyone.
For twelve hours on and off she fought, clawed, and willed her way into an acceptance simply by telling herself that this was her last chance to make her dream come true. It took her three hours to become competitive with her peers, and it took her five before she got her first win. For the rest of the day, she slowly racked them up and towards the end where everyone else was dog tired she just started piling them up because she was just mentally stronger than them. She was able to continue going when they failed, and she had an undefeated run of ten to cap off the day. Not because she really got any better, but because she didn’t get any worse.
For some people, getting entrance to one of the Big Four academies was something that they simply expected. For Elena, it was the culmination of five years of blood, sweat, tears, and failure. This was her opportunity and chance to prove everyone who said she couldn’t cut it and that being a Huntress was a pipe dream wrong – and she was willing to work as hard as she had to in order to make that happen. She may not have the years of sophisticated training that every primary combat school graduate had, but what she did have was the will to make something work and the mental fortitude to stare failure and defeat in the face only to get up and try again because this was the life she had chosen for herself – not the one that she was destined to lead.
Family
Father: Shane Thorne (Alive)
Mother: Cerise Thorne (Alive)
Extra
Elena means 'bright, shining light' which evokes the colors white and gold. Thorne brings to mind thorns which bring to mind the color brown.
