Sooraya Qadir

## Background

### 1992 - 2006: Sooraya Qadir

Sooraya Qadir was born in Afghanistan to Mirah Qadir and an unknown man. Her earliest memory if being kidnapped at the young age of eight. Upon discovering her powers, they made plans to sell her off as mutant slave.

For years, Sooraya was moved around to different places & sold off to higher bidders when they came around. It would take her some time but after five years, she finally learned how to properly use her powers. When her new owner attempted to remove her headdress, she lashed out at him & his guards, turned into her dust form & stripped flesh from their bodies.

Wolverine & Emma Frost had arrived shortly after having located her with Cerebro. Wolverine assisted in killing the remainder of her would-be captors and getting her to the safety of the X-Corporation headquarters in Mumbai. While he was sleeping & allowing himself to heal, she turned into her dust form, hiding all around the room. But Emma recognized telepathically that she was there & attempted to comfort her. Believing she could trust them, she announced her presence by speaking a single word: "Turaab."

### 2006 - 2008: Dust

After months at the X-Corporation, Sooraya was enrolled at the Xavier Institute in Westchester County, NY. Quiet & nervous, she experienced difficulty adapting to her new surroundings - particularly after being given the loud & rebellious Noriko Ashida (aka Surge) as a roommate. This turned out to be a disaster, as the two often came to disagreements over the traditional garb which Surge believed to be an snub to women's rights.

Though not good friends with her roommates, Sooraya later became good friends with Julian Keller, Alani Ryan & Joshua Guthrie. Josh even asked her to the school dance, but she declined since the idea of the dance made her uncomfortable, but he was not insulted.

During her third year at the institute, the school decided to implement seven X-Men Training Squads: Advocates, Chevaliers, Corsairs, Excelsiors, Exemplars, Hellions & Paladins. She was placed on the Hellions Training Squad under the mentorship of Emma Frost. She was mostly excited that her roommate was not on the same team as her. But problems continued to arise between her & Surge's different squads, further souring relations between the two. It got so bad that Wind Dancer, who was a member of the Exemplars like Surge, blew Sooraya in her granular to safety to prevent Surge from hurting her during a training session. This had the unfortunate effect of Sooraya ended up naked when she materialized back at her room. Seeing how badly she had humiliated her roommate, Noriko resolved to at least learn to tolerate her.

## Personality

Sooraya is described as a secular & much reserved woman. She regularly prays & makes many references to 'Allah.' Dust's belief system does not approve of showing the outline of her body. Instead of wearing a super hero costume, she only wears an abaya & a niqab veil. She is heavily devoted to her strong faith & morals, standing behind them at all times. Though she stands behind her belief, she does not like aggression or confrontation, rather remaining withdrawn from intense discussions.

## Powers & Abilities

* **Mutant Physiology:** Dust has the ability to convert herself into a destructive sand blast by simultaneously transforming the substance of her body into loose silicon particles and creating an explosive release at her center, expelling her sandy mass at high velocity in all directions, then cause her particles to reassemble themselves back into her human form. With apparent telepathic control, she can then move at high velocity resembling a sand storm. The sand storm effect is strong enough to destroy steel & rip the flesh from one's bones; this is helped by the microscopic edges of the sand particles acting as tiny blades.
	+ ***Telepathic Resistance*:** She's hard to telepathically detect or influence while in sand form, even for more powerful telepaths like Professor Xavier & Jean Grey.
	+ ***Enhanced Durability***
	+ ***Magical Resistance*:** She's hard to magically detect or influence while in sand form.
* **Hand to Hand Combat**
* **Multilingualism:** She can speak fluent Arabic & English.

### Weaknesses

* **Wind:** Extreme wind can make it difficult for Sooraya to take her dust form & for her to return to human form as it is hard for to concentrate.
* **Water:** While in her granular form, Sooraya can be weakened by water.
* **Heat:** In extreme heat, her sand form will crystallize into glass, paralyzing her.

### Ratings

* **Acumen:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Might:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Quickness:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Mysticism:** 1 - Nonexistent
* **Gadgets:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Projection:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Tactics:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Battle:** 4 - Trained / Learned
* **TOTAL:** 82 - Power Level 2 / Low Threat

## Trivia

* While in sand form, she can enter peoples lungs & scour them from the inside.
* She is a devout Sunni Muslim.
* She is sometimes able to covert her clothing into granular form.
* Like many transmorphs, she reverts to her human form if exhausted or knocked unconscious.
* She is roommates with Noriko Ashida. They don't get along very well.
* She is a member of The Forums social media network.
* "Turaab" is the translation of dust in Arabic.
* She is a member of the Hellions Squad, mentored by Emma Frost.

## Notes

* The original character of Dust belongs to the Marvel Universe.