Nacre (WD, ACiAR)

## Nacre

**Nacre** is a major antagonist in A Course in Advanced Rebellion, working for the Diamonds to weed out the remaining rebellion holding out on planet Earth.

## Appearance

Nacre is a short Gem with wide hips and medium bust, with light blue skin, dark blue hair transitioning to green-white at the ends, and solid yellow eyes without irises or pupils. She only gains "pupils", usually searing white in color, if emotionally distressed or on the brink of death.
Her face is long and rounded, with low but prominent "apple" cheekbones, large drooping eyes, cupid's bow lips with large lower lip, and a fleshy "hair band" around her hairline, with pearlescent blobs where ears would be. Her hair sweeps up as if underwater. Her eyebrows are thick and coarse.

Her gemstone rests on her cleavage, only connected to her body through soft "tissue", vulnerable to being pulled out. It may sometimes sink deeper into the body for additional protection, but her smaller breasts make it impossible to hide it completely.
Her arms are thinly muscled, with notable bulk in the forearms; at their ends are webbed hands with long, iridescent nails like rainbow patterns in oil and water.
Her legs are firmly rubbery, not bending at "knees" but instead curving like a leaf spring, able to store up kinetic energy to release as deadly kicks. On her thighs are ventral fins which aid in swimming. Her legs can also come together to form a fish-like forked tail, with her feet projecting temporary "flippers" from simple light beams to aid in pushing against currents.

## Personality

Nacre has a tendency towards coldness and cruelty, especially towards organic life, even mollusks like those that formed her shell fragment. However, she can also act with surprising warmth towards her "children": Pearls of her making, born from dirt and other irritants coated in her own calcium carbonate.
Because of the labor-intensive process involving birthing Pearls, she treats every one of them with care and respect, and they return the favor by remaining ever-loyal to her.
Ever dutiful to the Blue Diamond Twins, Nacre has no time to develop other personality traits besides her cruelty and Pearl devotion.

## Abilities

Nacre possesses standard Gem abilities, including super strength and durability, shapeshifting, agelessness, regeneration, fusion, and bubbling.

### Skillset

* **Trident:** Nacre's trident, or dangpa, can pierce straight through solid steel several inches thick, and can shoot beams of energy capable of dissipating small Gems and setting organic life ablaze.
* **Enhanced swimming:** A first-generation aquatic Gem, Nacre excels at underwater travel, often preferring it to land travel.
	+ **Mermaid tail:** To increase her swimming speed and hydrodynamics, Nacre can hold her legs together and bend them to form a fish-like tail, often projecting forked "flippers" of light from her feet to aid in propulsion. She can move these legs either side-to-side, or up-and-down, this flexibility of movement allowing her to navigate in water much more adeptly than any organic aquatic lifeform.
	+ **Fin projection:** Besides her permanent ventral fins and webbed hands, and her temporary tail-fin feet, Nacre can project other forms of fins for a variety of purposes, from larger or differently shaped fins to aid in navigation and propulsion, to sharpened fins capable of cutting through rock.
* **Pearl generation:** Though devoid of organic tissue that would normally process and secrete calcium carbonate, Nacre can use her normal gemstone self-preservation powers to emulate pearl generation, though this process is far slower than in organisms, averaging 200 Earth years for one batch of Pearls. Once fully formed around suitable specks of dirt, she embues them with her own surplus energy to "give birth" to them, making her a one-Gem Kindergarten. Because of the circumstances of birth, Nacre is at her weakest immediately after releasing her Pearls, requiring absorption of calcium carbonate and constant protection by her new brood.
* **Enhanced Gem sight:** Her eyes are adapted to scoping out Gems by their light signature, visible to her even in dark surroundings. She cannot see non-Gems in this manner, allowing them to ambush her in darkness.