Nabi Haluška

**Thank you so much to Doggiezaj for the drawing!**

### Allies

Locaster Helios, Ashton Khanh (Neutral), Shay Hanamura, Yuna Hanamura, Fēng Xu, Veena Lu, Damion Halloreen, Hikage Ishuko, Cherry Amana, Windflower Amana, Hideko Inazuma, Shizuka Ikami (Neutral), Kahori, Lyria Emerith, Shiah Bereng, Colbalt Majmua, Soul Kawasaki, Crimson O'Connel

### Enemies

Akuji Hasegawa, Crow Watanabe, Cassian Packard, Ashton Khanh (formerly), Shizuka Ikami (formerly), Caius Astrada, Shítǐ

## Portrayal

### Voice Claim

Futaba Sakura (Erica Lindbeck)

**Nabi Haluška** is a major supporting character in *Challenge of The Shadows*. She is affiliated with Locaster's group and is the wielder of the insect shard, and is the youngest shard user out of all of the other users, with Fēng, who is the second youngest shard user in Team Strelitzia. Because of her history as a medical officer, she was often out in dangerous areas and later on had to stay home in order to take care of her mother while her father worked many years later. Because of her mother getting sick and having to stay indoors for months to take care of her, she longed for adventure and joined Team Strelitzia in order to help reunite the Demon Gems and defeat the shard thief Crow Watanabe.

## History

Nabi is the daughter of an Elverian medical officer who often assisted him in the medical field, though before she was a florist when working with her mother. As she was trained to be a medical assistant, she was often away with her father, seeing the horrors of war and having to heal hundreds to thousands of soldiers per day with her father, thus making her have a fear of dead bodies. Because of her schedule, she spent less time with her mother, though the both of them still had a strong relationship and spent time together sharing their hobbies and sewing during her down time, but was often required to go with her father because of pressure of her wanting to educate her on medicine and more about the medical fields

However, as time started to pass, her mother had fallen ill, and it left her unable to function properly. Even having to wake up and function became difficult for her, resulting in an emergency letter being sent to the Elverian medical field.The Elverian doctors that were sent told her family that her illness needed consistent treatment in order for her to make a successful recovery, leaving Nabi and her father heart-broken to see her mother in a state of ache.

Her father was required to still work due to an on-going battle and had to treat many soldiers with deathly injuries, leaving the young Nabi to take care of her ailing mother with her limited skills. Her father, consumed with his work, ordered Nabi to take care of her mother while he worked. Though she was against it at first and attempted to resist, her father snapped, telling her it was her job to take care of her ailing family and it was her role to take on the healing and domestic responsibilities because of her being a "woman," despite being ten at the time.

Nabi was told to stay home by her father to assist her mother while learning how to take care of herself because of her mother's illness. As a result, a strain on her and her father's relationship grew as she started to question why he was unable to assist her in caring for her mother and she was left to do all of the work for him. Even though she still cherished and loved him, she started to feel hatred for being inside because of her adventurous personality, longing for adventure and to be outside once more. She was still advised to take care of her mother while her father still worked and sometimes questioned on why he could not take some days off and take care of him so she could live a normal life as a child. She began viewing herself as an adult, seeing herself as a grown person in a child's body due to the work she was having to do and often overworked herself caring for her mother.

As her mother's illness began to worsen, Nabi had missed many days of school school in order to take care of her mother while her father was away, knowing that she will grow worse without any care and remained alone in her house, still assisting and aiding her mother. Due to her father's job, he was busy to an extent where he would not see his family in months and took long amounts of time to return because of him being a medical officer in the Elverian army.

Her mother had remained bedridden after the illness had began to take over parts of her body, making it difficult for her to do basic tasks and as a result, Nabi managed to take care of her and made sure she was doing well. She was forced to take on the domestic sphere of her home and learned how to do day-to-day tasks. Because of this, she perceived herself as an adult stuck in a child's body and saw herself as an adult, regardless if people told her otherwise.

One day when her father came home, he had brought Nabi two purple gemstones back after he was away due to assisting soldiers in the medical tents. He had retrieved them from a nearby cave when going to fetch water, and gave them to Nabi as a token of appreciation, and apologized for not being there to help her. Because of her mother's sickness, he retired from his job and tended to his wife, with Nabi returning to school the following day.

Nabi had taken the shards and placed them on a helmet she crafted when she was younger, and decided to wear it because of how the color of the shards made it stand out. However, she soon began to notice that her shards would attract insects and other creatures like spiders. She also recalled having small spiderwebs grow on her hands before learning how to control her powers. Seeing that the shards on her helmet had such unique abilities, Nabi begun to practice with trying to maintain her abilities.

## Appearance

Nabi is a young girl with a slender build and tan complexion with mute red lips. She has light purple eyes with long, brown hair that extends to her upper back with purple highlights present internally.

Nabi wears a bird-like helmet that has two large insect shards attached on the side, aswell as a black cloak wrapped around her body. She also sported a black spiked necklace that had silver spikes around it. She wears light purple armor with various flower designs, mute purple military sweatpants and light purple boots with darker laces. She sometimes carries a medical box incase of emergency.

## Personality

Nabi has been described by her peers as energetic and lively, yet spunky and always looking for adventure and has an interest in medicine and machines. Being the daughter of a medical officer and florist, she has shown to excel in both the medical and floral field, being able to tend to Ashton's wounds after Cassian had punched him in the face when being thrown in Lyakon's main prison after his trial. She has a sharp mouth, usually saying things that are considered rather surprising considering her age and frequently teases members of the group in a playful manner. With her playfulness, Nabi is described to be a very kind and comedic girl, having the ability to keep the mood up with a few simple jokes. Because of her rather energetic nature, she is often seen as precocious and hyperactive, causing her to be naturally curious, despite her frequent traveling with her father.

Being the youngest shard user, Nabi has demonstrated to be responsible with using her powers, though she sometimes relies on them in battle because of her weak arms. She improves this by using her physical capabilities more than her magic, keeping them both at an equal balance and only uses her magic in case of severe emergencies. She is prone to falling ill if being separated from her shards for too long and often has to keep her helmet on at all times or having to keep one of her shards near her, something that Nabi has a strong dislike of doing. She can, at times, act stubborn, refusing to change sides or her mind for the sake of her friends and is persistent in doing so. Her not leaving Fēng to fight by herself despite nearly overusing her magic, demonstrates her stubbornness, even when Locaster tries convincing her to rest, she continued fighting with them without considering their words.

Despite being thirteen, Nabi has demonstrated to be an excellent fighter and acts rather brash and headstrong when in combat while also possessing incredible leadership skills when doing so. She can appear as both hot-blooded and rather abrasive, oftentimes losing her temper because of insults made at her or her friends and is quick to come to their defense at any moment, nearly screaming at Akuji for calling her a "little girl." Nabi has also proven to be an excellent coordinator, managing to plan out the battle between the group and Lyakonian soldiers when they attempted to deport Ashton back to Lyakon. She also has a disdain for being called a "little girl," as seen when she nearly swears at Akuji for calling her this because of how it reminded her of when she had to take care of her other intensively without break.

## Abilities

**Overall Abilities:** As the youngest shard user in the group, Nabi has shown to be an extremely talented and powerful fighter. Despite being the shortest member of the group and not having much strength, she manages to make up for it by using her insect-like abilities in order to assist her during battles. She was able to swiftly out-pace many of the Lyakonian soldiers and nearly went one on one with Akuji, but had quickly backed down due to him running after Ashton instead after he was sent to help Nabi with taking down more of the soldiers. With her previous knowledge as a medical officer, she has proven to be one of the best healers in the group, right beside Yuna and Cherry, and was able to aid in healing the remainder of Locaster's wound while imprisoned.

**Enhanced Speed & Reflexes:** Nabi is extremely fast, being able to vanish within a blink of an eye when running away from enemies or soldiers. She was able to out-pace Akuji and his fleet of soldiers effortlessly and quickly climbing on a tree in order to use her powers to get everyone away from the soldiers, and has the capability of attacking them before they can register what happened. Her rather superhuman-like speed caught the eyes of Ashton, witnessing her unleash dozen of strikes onto them and has been described to be the third fastest member in the group.

**Enhanced Strength:** Despite not being the strongest, Nabi has demonstrated to have incredible strength, as proven when she was able to pick up Fēng and carry her on her back when in the rain for a little while and managing to nearly punch Akuji, almost landing a hit but was thrown off of him after. She was able to take down many soldiers with a simple punch or kick and also dragging Crow by his arm after he returned, despite Crow being both taller and older than her.

**Enhanced Durability:** Being in the medical unit and working in harsh conditions, Nabi's body has proven to be incredibly durable: She exemplifies this when being able to work through her overuse of her shards magic and having her arm nearly cut off. She was able to keep fighting despite her injury.

**Enhanced Stamina & Endurance:** Nabi possesses enhanced stamina and endurance, almost never getting tired and being able to stay in the same shape when fighting. In their battle with Crow after he returns, she managed to continue fighting him despite all the injuries she had received and landed many injuries on him, leaving him surprised despite having the power of The Dark Entity. She managed to hold off Akuji for a brief amount of time before he switched targets.

**Insect Communication:** As an insect shard user, Nabi is able to communicate with the insects around her, allowing her to command them to do what she desires. She is seen communicating with a spider to quickly alert the others spiders to make a large web in order to trap some of the black vines in to prevent them from spreading further to the port. She has also proven to get along with insects well, regardless of how poisonous or dangerous they may seem.

**Keen Intellect:** Nabi possesses a vast amount on knowledge in medicine, insects and the demon gems. During the battle to escape Lyakon, she was able to calculate how many soldiers would have been coming at them and devised a plan to evacuate them from the castle. She has also proven to know where every kingdom is due to remembering their coordinates, leading the group to Misterin in order to claim asylum from Lyakon, who held them in custody.

## Magic Abilities

**Insect Manipulation:** Nabi is able to manipulate insects in any form she desires. She is able to summon many of them in the palm of her hand to call for them, along with being able to spawn insects inside of a person based on her internal emotions. She was able to summon a butterfly after sneaking in to Etherin to find a portal to get to the Northern Desolates and summon a multitude of spiders that charged at Crow.

**Insect Imitation:** Nabi is able to copy the abilities off of insects around her. She is able to mimic a spiders ability of producing webs and can control them extensively without stop. The threads she is able to produce contain high amounts of durability, as seen when she strings two Lyakonian soldiers up on spider web silk and ties them to a tree. Her ability to mimic insect-like features can range from spider silk to butterfly wings.

**Insect Transformation:** Nabi is able to transform into any insect she desires in order to blend in with her environment. Her main form is a purple butterfly she can alterate the size of depending on her situation, and her secondary forms are mainly smaller insects like grasshoppers and various spider specie.

## Weaknesses

**Overuse**: Nabi is prone to relying on and overusing her abilities. Her overuse side effects are unique, with her hair sometimes turning white and her skin becoming paler due to her age, as shard users under sixteen have slightly weaker bodies than older shard users because of the magic they possess being too strong for their bodies to handle.

**Shard Separation:** Because of her age, Nabi and her shards are required to stay with her at all costs. Her shards indicate her health, and if separated, Nabi has chances of falling ill, with symptoms being her hair turning white and her skin turning pale.

## Relationships

### Locaster Helios

Locaster and Nabi first interact after she surprised both him and Soul from a tree. She was curious about his recruitment of shard users and decided to join him with Hikage and Veena. Nabi was initially quite fond of Locaster and had curiosity about his and Soul's mission and trusted Locaster, though asked him about the shadow demon and spirit hybrid hunt going on in Leiden and Myria because of her father recently traveling to the joint kingdoms for work.

Locaster then explains to her that he did not murder the people there, and that his father was to blame. Nabi quickly understood and decided to follow him around, despite his attempts on trying to focus on their mission: After overhearing a conversation about the Demon Gems between Locaster and Soul, Nabi tells them she is an insect shard user. He eventually recruits her and begins to form a bond with her after introducing her to the other members of Team Strelitzia. Throughout the story, Nabi sees Locaster in a positive light and perceives her as a talented fighter; He does not underestimate her and sees her as his equal, and she does the same, seeing him as her superior and showing him respect, though later on calls him by more casual nicknames.

### Fēng Xu

Fēng is one of Nabi's close companions, meeting while Team Strelitzia were making their way to Etherin to scavenge more shards of the Demon Gems. There, she was stuck in a tree when attempting to face off a tuerana wolf that attempts to eat her. Being the one responsible for saving her, she attempted to communicate with Fēng and try to grow close to her, though due to her shy nature, she often rejected the advances from Nabi out of fear of being both abandoned and judged. Nabi gave her time to herself and made an effort to talk with her due to both being in the same age range. As she started talking to her frequently, Fēng appreciated her signs of affection and care and began talking to her back, becoming an inseparable pair.