Aura:
The staple of all Huntsmen and Huntresses, Aura is known as "The light of the soul." Aura can be compared to a video game HP or shield bar: as long as it persists, all incoming damage to the user will be dramatically reduced. Once an individual runs out of Aura, however, their fragile body will begin to take damage normally. Aura levels can be monitored by medical equipment or personal smart devices such as Scrolls, although trained users will generally know their approximate level even without that aid.
Aura can also be used to enhance personal physical capabilities or attacks from held equipment, protect items in contact with the user, and interact with Dust or Semblances in a large variety of ways. Despite her hatred of the SDC's masters, Blake does have to admit the Schnee Semblance is a good example of the possible variety: Dust and Aura can allow an experienced Schnee to do everything from launch fireballs, to summon obedient copies of fallen foes, to manipulate time.
Blake is not at that level. The White Fang's access to Dust has been in too sporadic for her to do any significant training with Dust/Aura/Semblance mixtures.
Semblance:
Remnant's Aura-users are capable of unlocking a single Semblance, or a unique ability that supposedly reflects who they are. Blake's Semblance is Shadow. Shadow allows her to create a short-lived clone of herself that overlays her current position at the time of activation. Blake is then propelled in a direction of her choice while the clone retains the position Blake was in at the time of activation. Clones seldom last for even half a second — approximately a fifth of a second is more common — before they blur into nothingness. Clones have no autonomy of their own; they may be moved by gravity, attacks, or other physical phenomenon, but they will not move of their own accord. Some White Fang members nicknamed her Semblance "Afterimage" due to this lack of autonomy and the short lifespan of clones.
Blake generally uses Shadow to avoid attacks, rapidly reposition, change direction even mid-air, "multi-jump," and disorient foes. Despite their unlock requirements, Semblance usage generally pulls from physical and mental stamina instead of Aura. An individual's usage of their Semblance may change or even grant additional abilities with practice, frequent usage, and/or increases in proficiency. Blake fully expects that the lifespan of her clones will increase over time; she's hoping that she might also be able to make them move small amounts in order to effectively echo her attacks and further disorient foes.
White Fang Combat Training:
Blake is comparable to an entry-level student at an upper-level academy for future Huntsmen and Huntresses. As such, she is capable of maneuvering and attacking in three dimensions and at velocities better comparable to highway vehicles than to anyone without unlocked Aura. She is adept at maintaining a continuous stream of high-speed attacks from various angles, but consistently has trouble doing any appreciable damage against highly armored opponents. That was Adam's job.
Unlike most students entering upper-level academies, Blake has significant experience in life-or-death battles without an instructor present to help ensure her safety after an Aura break. She is also very, very good at disengaging in Remnant's urban environments.
High-grade, highly-armored autonomous units have proven to be one of Blake's major weaknesses. Lesser units often treat her clones as yet more combatants in the moment before those clones vanish, and people are often disoriented by her Semblance without experience fighting her. High-grade units can instead correctly flag her clones as decoys and seamlessly continue their attacks.
Blake is experienced with firearm and explosive safety, knows how to utilize both, and feels she's gotten fairly good at gauging minimum safe distance from an explosive act of sabotage—or from SDC Dust containers used as improvised explosives.
Mechashift Weapon Proficiency:
Blake's weapon of choice is Gambol Shroud, a Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe. As with many attempts to quantify and categorize the weapons of Huntsmen and Huntresses, this name is not particularly helpful for describing its capabilities.
Gambol Shroud's sheath can act as a large, square blade not dissimilar to a cleaver. Gambol Shroud's pistol-katana component can be separated from this sheath to allow for assymetrical dual wielding, and the katana's orientation can be changed on-the-fly so that the katana's blade is either:
Parallel to the hilt and perpendicular to the pistol barrel (katana form),
Or perpendicular to the hilt and parallel to the pistol barrel (sickle form).
A long (reinforced) ribbon attached to the katana's hilt lets her utilize Gambol Shroud as a kusarigama — or phrased more simply, as a sickle attached to a ribbon of varying length. This is the source of the "Ballistic Chain Scythe" portion of Gambol Shroud's name despite the inaccuracy therein.
Like many Huntsmen and Huntresses, Blake frequently takes advantage of recoil from the gun portion of her weapon. Hitting an enemy with pistol rounds is generally a consolation prize; a more frequent goal is simply to add more force to her attacks or to extract her katana's blade from an enemy.
Non-traditional education:
Despite not attending a formal school within the last several years, Blake has kept up with her peers academically (mostly via book-studying and sporadic tutoring), personally designed and assembled Gambol Shroud, and knows how to maintain her equipment and clothing using pre-fabricated components with consistent construction. Blake has experience hunting her own food, purifying water, and generally surviving in Remnant's wilderness — temporarily. She does not know what to do with any of the non-edible parts of an animal, such as their fur, and she's pretty sure that knowledge of furs would be essential for long-term wilderness survival.
Blake knows what infrastructure is essential in a modern urban environment and what recurring trends can be exploited to evade pursuit. She can generally navigate the social aspects of criminal enterprises without issue, and knows how to disguise herself in Atlas as a lower-class Faunus or middle-class human. These disguises may not hold up to experienced scrutiny; Blake is honestly amazed that hiding her ears beneath a head-bow has proved so effective thus far.
Thriller, drama, and mystery novels aren't exactly the traditional mechanisms for learning about trends in public opinion, but they seem to be working out pretty well for her thus far. Unfortunately, these aren't exactly viewed as respectable qualifications no matter how many times she accurately predicts the civilian response to a White Fang mission.
Dust Novice:
Dust is the primary (and almost exclusive) fuel source for the entirety of Remnant. It is used for effectively everything requiring energy input to function—vehicles, firearms, explosives, household heating, power plants, Grimm hunting, everything. Due to its volatility, extracting Dust from naturally occurring deposits is dangerous and has a high rate of injury. One poorly-placed spark can set off a chain reaction that destroys an entire mine.
Dust naturally manifests in a variety of elemental categories, including (but not limited to) Combustion, Lightning, Ice, Fire, Water, Plant, Rock, and Gravity Dust. Synthetic Dust subtypes can also be made by combining other types of Dust in various proportions, but the volatile nature of Dust makes this an expensive and destructive practice.
The White Fang did not have large enough stores of Dust for you to regularly practice with it; you have enough Dust to operate Gambol Shroud as a firearm, but not enough to utilize any sort of elemental attack. It's probably just as well. Elemental Dust tends to be significantly rougher on weaponry, and high-grade weapon components aren't cheap.
Dust comes in crystal and powder form.
