Avabella Hawthorne

✦ Appearance

The left side of Avabella's face is covered in wounds which can never be healed. They have to be cleaned every day. They still burn. They trail down the left side of her neck, parts of her left shoulder, and a small area on the left side of her chest.
She wears a white halfmask and neck covering to hide the bandages.

✦ Info

Personality:
Avabella has grown quieter over the years, the brashness of youth having gave way to shrewdness, transformed by the weathering sands of time. Yet she's still not very patient. Yet she's still loud. Yet her spirit still burns fiercely, unquenchable; Yet, she is wounded.
Avabella likes to keep people at arm's length; more than this though, what she wants most is to prevent that which happened to her from happening to others.
Likes/Dislikes:
Nowadays she can be alone without being uncomfortable, sometimes she prefers privacy to company, if not all the time. Nowadays her social battery is just smaller. Once upon a time she wanted to have company 24/7, but not anymore. She hates clingy people and being rushed. She can't stand people pleasers.

¶ Backstory

Her twin brother Logan was the only Hawthorne kid of their generation that matched her in intellect; prodigal twins, of equal level. Each displayed an affinity for magic early on, Ava to fire and Logan to electricity.
The proficiency for fire she displayed was uncanny. When she was five there was a period where she could only be handled by an older cousin of hers, another fire mage, because she burst into flames upwards of thirty times a day.
She was properly evaluated at the age of 9 and the Hawthornes, collectively, decided such an intense elemental affinity hadn't shown itself within the family for several generations.

Also at the age of 9, she began expressing interest in Arcana Augere. Interest became dedication. Next year the incident with Simon, one of her cousins whom she and Logan were particularly close with, happened. Dedication became obsession.
Her study of the theory behind Arcana Augere became fervent.
At the age of 14, she became the youngest ever recorded to safely and stably maintain the technique out of combat.

She enrolled at DFMA when she was 17, in the same year as her brother. Unlike her brother, she pursued a double major in the Combat Prowess Program and Somatic Arcane Theory. She graduated with a Master's in both in AE682, two years before Logan, at 22. After Ava's graduation in AE692, the ATDF recruited her immediately, where she would stay in a Dragonfall-centric diagonal unlike Logan; he left for specialized training abroad and would only return eight years later. It was like she had (temporarily) lost her other half.
That was rough.

Not too much of note happened while he was away, being honest. Things, got, boring. Yeah, she got stronger, got better and stuff. She was put to work by the ATDF. But it wasn't as fulfilling without him, so she thought at the time. It never really came up, but she kind of resented him a little bit for it... But that was then. That was before their relationship got much, much worse.
Fast forward almost seventeen years. You aren't missing much. It's Winter of AE710. Logan has long since returned, Ignis' attack on Dragonfall happened last year and Logan has succeeded Alessia as a Rook.

Avabella is now a Bishop of his diagonal. He always was better at strategy, she at tactics, and she was fine with that. She was fine with that at the time, anyway. She's getting ahead of herself. It's December 15th, the coldest day Dragonfall had seen that year.
For the past two months, the city had been plagued by the plot of some demonic cult. At the time, they estimated it had anywhere between ten and thirty members. Disappearances, ritualistic murders, among other gruesome crimes. The bodies could best be described as corrupted and defiled. It was not a sight for anyone with a weak stomach. Hazmat teams were the only ones cleared to go within six feet of a discovered case; it didn't seem to spread, but that wasn't a chance anyone wanted to take least of all Logan, who was still quite a recently appointed Rook. The cult's capabilities still weren't truly known.

They had narrowed down the cult's base of operations to four possible locations. Surveillance began. Then, they had narrowed it down to one. It's still not known how, but the cult caught on. Somehow, the cult knew they were watching. At 4 in the morning, some 30 people entered the base; this was more than enough to raise alarms. Even an hour later, nobody had come out of the building.
So, at 6 in the morning, Logan and his diagonal struck.

The operation started out fine. A lot of the cultists weren't magi, wielding (presumably) enchanted weapons that still couldn't penetrate their armor. Those that were, were C or D rank. Nothing unexpected; threats like these always folded when they met direct opposition. Logan believed, justifiably so, this would be the limit of the threat. They proceeded under this supposition.
As for the base, it was nothing unprecedented. Stereotypical, really, until they got deeper in.
They had dug beneath the foundation of the building. Beneath it, Logan said he couldn't sense anything: it was a complete null zone. There wasn't time to neutralize it, he said. After all, they were clearly up to something. It would be safer to stop it sooner rather than later, he said.
However, without his sensory abilities, Logan decided it would be best if he didn't take point going into the null zone, and Ava should take point instead.

That was their first mistake, and it's on both of them really. He was shaken by it, being blind, not able to be three steps ahead like he always was. Even if she didn't recognize it back then, seeing him like that unsettled her too. It wasn't really the time or place to question him either; that was her thinking at the time.
It was a disaster.

A spiraling stairwell carved down through the foundation and the earth, barely large enough at any point for one person, for fifty feet maybe. At the bottom, it opened into a large chamber.
Contained therein; surrounded by the cult, and half of them dead; was a demon.

There was no way they could have known what lied in wait for them.
There in the center of the chamber, was an incomplete but unbound manifestation of the greater demon Flauros.

It took a form like a humanoid leopard, made of flames the color of malachite. Its limbs were long and and thin. Its claws — and the eyes likewise — burned white, iridescent like an oily film, hissing and bubbling with alchemical fire. With its wings like the brittle leaves of a dead tree it covered its narrow and starved abdomen.

It looked to her. It spoke to her.

The demons voice was like the wind, not quite sound, whispering across barren salted soil.
And the word of the demon was desolation.
She fell to her knees. What it said to her, she would not ever be able to recall.

It lunged. Ensnared by the demon as they were, nobody moved to help her, not even Logan. Not even Logan, the only one of them she was supposed to be able to rely on in that moment. When everyone else was frozen, he should've been able to do something. But he didn't.
The only person who saved her, was herself. She barely moved in time to save her life, but every day she still feels where Flauros' claws ran through her face. Every day, she still must tend to and clean the wounds which refuse to heal.
She doesn't remember much more of that day.

Ava spent a year in the hospital. She refused to see Logan. Every healing attempt failed. Immediately upon leaving the hospital, she resigned from the ATDF. She hasn't spoken to Logan since then.
Not very long after, she started seeking to become a Professor at DFMA.

✦ Magic Name: White Phoenix

Overall place in type triad: Offense
Elemental Properties: Fire

¶ Description

Avabella Hawthorne is regarded as the current master, or the only living person close to being considered such, of the Hawthorne wyrgcræft (literally "cursed skill", though it is also translated as "hidden skill",) Arcana Augere.
The focus of this technique is to remove a psychosomatic limiter on the heart, or the Anahata chakra, which of course acts as the center of a human magi's arcane system. Once this is removed, the magi can take full control. Summarized, this allows them to pressurize their system such that mana erupts from their body and forms an aura around them.
Manipulating and using this aura is the foundation of Augere magic. While learning the technique, several principles are learned which help to build this foundation. They are listed here, in the order in which they're learned.

Spells now both require and use a certain amount of "arcane Pressure" of which Avabella can handle twelve "levels". Spells will require a minimum pressure to initiate. Then, after or during casting, they will consume a certain number of levels.
This pressure gets generated by the heart every turn according to the "Gear" it is in. Avabella has four of these, listed here. She can change Gear once every turn.

While above Gear 1, Avabella will generate a certain amount of Heat. This is an indicator of how much stress her body is under. Each turn, every level beyond 2 will drain her stamina further, and every level beyond 6 will deal increasing damage to her body. The highest Heat level she can withstand is 9; at level 10, Arcana Augere will immediately end. She will not be able to use it again until she fully recovers.

¶ Techniques

» Blazing Aura (Defense, Passive | Fire)

Occupies three mainline slots.
Blazing aura is an adaptation of Arcana Augere developed by Avabella. The aura is transmuted into fire. This acts as a passive layer of defense of course, but improves the efficiency of her spells by allowing her to use the aura as a fire source. By adding this onto her excellent Regulation, she has made the passive mana loss of Augere irrelevant. In this aspect, she has perfected Augere magic.
As arcane Pressure increases, her aura will increase in intensity until it burns white at level 12. Extends .3m around her body passively.

µ Kickstart (Self | Fire)

This can only be used when she first activates Arcana Augere. Upon activating Augere, she can choose whether or not to use Kickstart. This allows her to begin with level 4 Pressure instantly, at the cost of instantly creating 5 levels of Heat.

µ Envelopment (Support | Fire)

Requires level 4 Pressure to activate, consumes 2 per turn. Can be activated for as much time as Ava desires, including being pulsed. No matter how briefly, it will always consume 2 levels on activation.
Forgoes the passive defense and offensive-efficiency utility her aura normally provides to, instead, spread it into a 6m diameter sphere around her. Being spread so thin, it can't burn anything. Instead, Ava can sense any magical thing within the bounds of the sphere so long as Envelopment is active.

µ Feohte wiþ þone Dracan (Offense, Passive | Fire) (or "Fight with the Dragon")

Requires level 8 Pressure to activate, consumes 1 per turn. Generates extra level of heat every other turn. Is disabled for three turns after being deactivated, but can be activated instantly.
Based off of Enhancement, Ava's aura increases in size and intensity, and now passively extends 1m from her body. Her aura control grows considerably; mana efficiency rises further. The range in which she can control the aura is now 3m; its power in cqc skyrockets. She can now use it to extend the reach of her hits and shape it into additional limbs, for multiple purposes.

µ Fire Soul (Offense | Fire)

Single target, must be charged for 2 turns during which she must keep the target in line of sight. Requires 6 levels of Pressure, consumes 4. Ava cannot use other spells while charging.
Creates a spiraling beam of fire 1m in diameter, which pursues the target relentlessly until it either hits or is destroyed.

µ Phoenix Flower Burst (Offense | Fire)

Requires level 4 Pressure, consumes 4.
Using her aura as the source she creates 4 fireballs, each the size of a basketball. They'll spin around her idly, where she can fire them at will. Upon coming within 1m of an enemy target or hitting a surface, they'll explode with a radius of 2m. Only four may exist at a time.

µ Phoenix Song (Offense | Fire)

Requires level 2 Pressure, consumes 2.
Combining Suppression and Enhancement, Ava concentrates her aura into her lungs. The aura will disappear externally, as all of it is instead forced into her lungs. Her chest will visibly expand, before she unleashes a fire breath attack. She can focus it as she wills, either attacking a large area (6m long, 6m wide cone) or creating a highly pressurized stream of fire (10m long, 1m wide cone.)
This attack can be used multiple times in rapid succession, but will be disabled for 3 turns after she stops concentrating her aura into her lungs.

µ Phoenix Power: Deflect (Defense | Fire)

Requires level 6 Pressure, consumes 2. Creates an extra level of Heat on use. Disabled for 4 turns after use.
Combining Suppression and Enhancement, Ava seals her aura within before releasing it from one of her limbs, creating an explosion. She can use this to deflect most attacks, regardless of type or element; though element will still be a factor generally, because of the sheer concussive force produced, it plays less of a role. It should be noted, Deflect has strict timing requirements on its use. If timed even slightly wrong it has the chance to fail.