Rhea La Roja

> Don't worry, I got your back. I never miss my shots anyways.
>
> Rhea La Roja

* Mistral
* Illyria

Rhea La Roja is a main character in Team OPRA's story. She is a student at Haven Academy, a member of Team OPRA and secretly a member of The Rose Pirates of Vacuo. Her weapons of choice are the sniper rifle Anne and later the Revolving Slug Shotgun Mary.

## Appearance

### Physical

Rhea stands at 5'9 and has a well built slim frame with dark brown skin, green eyes, a circular head shape and light read hair that is curly, shaved on one side, and then tied into a braid that drapes across her shoulder. She has 5 piercings: two lobes, one double industrial and two over her left eyebrow. As a member of The Rose Pirates, Rhea has a red and black tattoo of a collection of roses and throny vines on her right upper arm.

### Attire

Rhea's original attire consisted of a cream-white tunic tucked into a pair of brown leather pants which are then tucked into a pair of knee high brown and gold lace up combat boots. Over her top half Rhea also wears a red and gold pirate-style long coat with full-length lapels that feature five gold buttons on both sides. She also wears black gloves on her hands.

### Haven Academy Uniform

During her time at Haven Academy, Rhea wore a slightly modified version of the standard women's uniform. Haven's school uniform consists of a black jacket with a light gray outline around the edges, a white undershirt and a white band around the student's left arm. The female outfit consists of a gray and black checkered skirt. Rhea opted to swap out the jacket for a black vest with a grey trim and the academy's emblem emblazoned on the front. Over that, Rhea wore a red and gold long sleeved jacket. She then wore the standard white socks and brown loafers.

### Alternate Attire - Corsair

During their investigation into the Vedova Syndicate in Vale, Rhea wears a new outfit nicknamed 'Corsair.' This attire has Rhea wear a ruffled white sleeveless button up shirt with a red, gold and brown vest. On her legs she wears blue jeans with brown and red heeled, lace up ankle boots.

### Post Time Skip Attire - Captain

After the fall of Beacon and their subsequent relocation to Illyria, Rhea wears a new outfit given to her by the Illyrian Army. This outfit has Rhea wear another sleeveless white button down shirt with a brown and red leather stomach corset tied around her waist. On her feet she wears the same brown and gold boots. Over her top, Rhea wears a red coat with a collar and dark grey lapels with three gold buttons on both. On her left shoulder she wears a layered shoulder pauldron made from black leather with etchings into it. Around her waist she wears a belt with a brown leather side piece and dark grey drape over her left thigh with her emblem embroidered into it.

Rhea also shaves her hair into a crew cut and dreads her remaining hair on top.

## Personality

Rhea is shown to be a confident, charismatic, but rather arrogant young woman at the start of the story. Because of her position as a sniper she has incredible amounts of patience and observational skills. She is a friendly individual around people and is able to befriend people quickly. Rhea is also shown to have sisterly-like qualities to her, evident in her relationship with Ophelia.

During her time studying to be a huntress, Rhea has shown to be an incredibly skilled strategist and has been delegated as such by Ophelia. She has a great deal of faith in the abilities of her own team. Rhea is also the type of person who takes alternative means to reach her goal and finds selective interests in things, evident in how she climbs the labyrinth wall during the Haven initiation and how she choses a piece of non fiction for her book report.

Despite her friendly and cheery disposition, Rhea is someone who keeps her personal life and past history as a member of The Rose Pirates under wraps for fear of being arrested. She also is willing to overlook the sins of a person's past, as shown when she quickly forgives Pierre for killing Noir Hyacinth.

After the Fall of Beacon, Rhea is shown to voice her frustration with the current predicament she is placed in as a member of the Illyria military. As Ophelia begins to become torn between being a huntress and a performer, Rhea becomes the most frustrated with her indecisiveness. Rhea is also shown to fight back against authoritative figures like Delia Lear. Even if she and Ophelia have forgiven each other for what had happened, Rhea still believes that she needs to be held accountable.

## Background

Born in the port-sides of western Vacuo, Rhea was an orphan from birth. Rhea was alone from the start while moving from orphanage to orphanage, having no last name to hold onto. Despite not having anyone to look after her, Rhea was able to easily take care of herself as soon as she left the adoption system she was born into. Guttersnipe children were a common sight in Vacuo, those who fall between the cracks of the adoption care. Because of this Rhea found a means to survive among these children, narrowly escaping the protective services that each time tried to put these children back into foster care.

But eventually Rhea at the age of 10 wanted to escape the life she lived. She wandered the sandy and hot docks of Vacuo's port sides before she begins hearing the rumours of a fearsome group of pirates known only as *The Rose* *Pirates.* Rhea would listen to the merchants and sailors tell tales of how they would enter the city at the dead of night and leave just before the break of dawn. Invested in these rumours, Rhea immediately went to the docks at night and waited ever so patiently for the pirates to arrive.

She waited... And waited... And waited... When they didn’t come one night, Rhea would wait the next until she started to believe it was pointless. At the age of 11, Rhea was ready to give up, before one night, she saw the ship she had dreamed of boarding. Sneaking onto the ship of brown oak and fearsome red sails was a little *too* easy but Rhea didn’t care, she was finally able to escape. Once the ship had left, Rhea, being the excited child she was, made her appearance known bombastically to the pirates.

Only for them to immediately snatch her and tie her up. At first, Rhea thought that her young life was going to end, but the appearance of the captain of The Rose Pirates himself, the fearsome criminal known as Nicholas Blackbeard, saved her from death. Rhea didn’t exactly know why Nicholas took her in, gave her a roof under her head and food to eat but she was too invested in being *free* to ever wonder why. During her time with the pirates, Rhea was given the last name *La Roja,* meaning 'The Red', a name that she owned with pride.

The next following years, Rhea would freely live the way she wanted to away from the streets and poverty of Vacuo and on the beautiful blue ocean fighting other pirates and searching for treasure. Now Nicholas Blackbeard’s first mate, Rhea was trained under his wing. The sinking of a Vacuoan bandit ship provided Rhea with her weapon, which she lovingly named Anne. With enough practice and effort taken into honing her skills throughout her life, Rhea proved herself as a capable sharpshooter and markswoman, able to pinpoint shots with *frightening* accuracy. Rhea’s time with the pirates also allowed for her aura and semblance to develop which has saved Blackbeard’s ass in multiple fights.

Deep down however sailing on the high blue seas didn't satisfy Rhea enough. There had to be something more that could put her on the path of adventure and to be more like Blackbeard. Upon seeing a flyer for studies at Haven Academy, Rhea had an epiphany: to join the academy and hone her skills to use in her pirate career. Mistral itself could be perfect stomping grounds for her. Despite Blackbeard’s objections, Rhea finally managed to convince him to let her join, explaining that if she doesn’t reveal her true status as a member of the Rose Pirates, then her stay at Haven Academy would remain undisturbed. Rhea had the skills to prove herself as a formidable fighter and with the forging of a fake identity, Rhea La Roja, she would pass both exams to get into Haven.

Setting off to Haven would be a difficult journey, but the arrival to the docks of Anima was a success partly thanks to the connections with Mistral's criminal underworld. Rhea was now ready and willing to do what it takes to become stronger and set off for Haven Academy, hoping that the academy will be ready for her.

## Abilities and Powers

Rhea fights in long ranged combat using her rifle. She is shown to be incredibly skilled at taking out enemies from long ranges and supporting her team mates from the backlines in battle. Thanks to her semblance, Rhea can easily highlight targets that have aura and follow them, leading to her removing the use of a scope in combat. Thanks to her keen observational skills and intelligence, Rhea has been delegated the strategist of Team OPRA and have proven to be incredibly adept at the job, evident in how she makes a strategy to defeat the minotaur grimm on the fly in the Haven Initiation.

### Weakness

Rhea's biggest weakness is shown in her struggles with short ranged combat. Despite having some ability to fend off enemies at close quarters, she is not aptly trained enough and can be overwhelmed when someone is more experienced than her. This is eventually remedied during her time in Illyria, where she receives the slug-shotgun revolver Mary and becomes adept enough in close range combat to fight off opponents.

### Weapon(s)

Rhea's weapons are called *Anne* and *Mary.* Anne is the *Scopeless Combat Sniper Rifle (SCSR)* and Mary is the *Revolver Slug Shotgun Sabre (RSSS).* Anne is a bolt action rifle with no scope that Rhea uses to cover long distances in her sniping. It is a wooden rifle with black details and fits 12 rounds of ammunition per magazine. After the fall of Beacon, Rhea discovers she can enhance the ability of her semblance through a scope, therefore adding one to Anne. Because of this Anne is recategorised as the *Detachable Scoped Sniper Rifle (DSSR).*

After the fall, Rhea would become employed under the Illyrian army and obtain a new weapon, a shotgun she names *Mary.* Mary is a revolver-style shotgun that can also turn into a sabre. Mary can fire up to six shots of slug shotgun ammunition and also supports dust slugs. Rhea can also use the propulsion of these shots to launch herself away or towards where she wants to be.

### Semblance

Rhea’s semblance is called *Deadeye*. Deadeye allows Rhea to view the aura of people as an outline. This allows for Rhea to keep clear sight on targets when she is in a position to snipe her opponents. The downsides to Deadeye is that 1) using it will drain Rhea’s aura until she stops using it and 2) her eyes will emit a faint red twinkle, which can sometimes give away her position to her targets. Deadeye is also ineffective against grimm because of their lack of aura.

## Relationships

### Team OPRA

* Ophelia Demoiselle: At first Ophelia appeared as overly sweet and too nice to be a huntress in Rhea's eyes. But Rhea is often proven wrong with how capable and strong Ophelia is. Because of this, Rhea has become a pseudo older-sister figure to Ophelia, often providing comfort and big-sister protection to her while also not afraid to make friendly jests and tease her. In battle, Rhea is more than happy to be trusted with team strategy and battle planning. But Rhea feels that eventually Ophelia will need to eventually realise that the world isn't the fairy tale that she thinks it is before it shows her in the worst way possible. Because of Ophelia, Rhea often wonders what's gonna happen to Team OPRA when they graduate Beacon.
* Pierre Navarro: Rhea enjoys Pierre as a person. What she needed was another street hardened fighter like herself to rip and tear through the battlefield. Rhea often admires Pierre's ambitions but feels as if he's hiding something. In combat, Rhea is usually tasked with keeping enemies off his or Albert's backs, and will leave the close quarters combat stuff to him.
* Albert Régalien: At first, Rhea had a strong dislike for Albert and his flirtatious attitude, but over time the two began to tolerate and eventually have a great respect for one another. Rhea is constantly bemused by Albert's upbeat and casual attitude on things, even admiring it a little bit. Since he is from a comfortable middle class life in Atlas, Rhea often wonders if Albert has ever had to struggle to adapt to a world like Remnant, or has he always been sheltered up in the so called 'utopia' that hides in the sky? Whatever the answer is, Albert is surely going to see what Remnant is like outside of his little bubble. In the battlefield Rhea always has Albert's back from the back lines, taking out anyone or anything that might give him trouble with her rifle.

### Team CRTN

* Edwin Cobalt: Edwin is someone that Rhea has taken a liking to as a friend. His sharpshooting skills with his revolver are remarkable, and Rhea isn't afraid to issue a challenge to him when she wants to see who can nail a soda can from the longest distance. Inherited wealth is something that can easily show through a person in Rhea's mind, but Edwin is one of those people she can trust to use his fortune for more noble causes.
* Rosi Aime: In Vacuo whether you were a Faunus or a Human wasn't something someone would pay attention to, rather that you could take care of yourself against the lawlessness of the region. But that doesn't mean Rhea should ignore the issues that Rosi has with the world, coming from the perspective of a faunus woman. Rhea shows solidarity with Rosi in a way. While not herself a faunus, Rhea stands by Rosi's ideals.
* Tanner Ackerman: Tanner is the first in the CRTN duo that Rhea doesn't show a liking towards. His perfectionist and militant attitude seriously irritates him. It also doesn't help that he's so admiring of such a power hungry and dictatorial complex like the Atlas military. She also isn't impressed by his desire to go and find Mai, somebody who not only betrayed everyone but also was the catalyst to Ophelia almost dying. Whatever Tanner is trying to achieve, Rhea wants no part of it.
* Conrad 'Birdie' Nigellus: The second of the duo, Rhea particularly doesn't like Birdie for the reason that he is overly confident, flirtatious and just plain annoying. She finds it amusing that he believes that Birdie can change such a corrupt world like Remnant with *music.* While she can acknowledge his persistence in his goals, there's only so far the idea of a song changing the world can do in her eyes.

### Others

* Nicholas Blackbeard: Ever since she starting hearing the tales of his grand adventures, Rhea had greatly respected Blackbeard. She desired to be like him since her childhood and it was a miracle that he would wind up taking her in under his wing. Rhea often wonders why Blackbeard took her in. Was it pity for her? Or maybe an opportunity to shape her into continuing his legacy? Whatever that reason might be, Rhea couldn't be more thankful to be accepted as a member of his crew.

## Trivia

### Allusion

* Rhea alludes to the character of Frederick, the Pirate's Apprentice from the Gilbert and Sullivan musical/light opera *The Pirates of Penzance.*
	+ Both are pirates and part of the crew of the 'Pirate King'.

### Colour Naming Rule

* Rhea is a greek name that translates to 'Easy Flow', possibly connecting her to the flow of a river. Rhea also shares a name with a well known river that runs through the country of Wales, further indicating the connection to water and the colour of blue.
* La Roja is the feminized Spanish translation of *'The Red'.*

### Miscellaneous

* Rhea’s weapons are named after famous female pirates *Anne Bonny and Mary Read.* Both woman were apart of the crew lead by Jack Rackham and were considered the greatest female pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy.
* Rhea's zodiac sign is Gemini.