Emerald Sustrai

Emerald Sustrai (エメラルド・サストライ, Emerarudo Sazutorai), also referred as "Eme" (エメ, Eme), is both the fictional character and deuteragonist of the Project Blazblue's Tales of RWBY series created by Monty Oum and Yoshiharu Gotanda.

She was one of Cinder's associates and two right-hands alongside her former partner, Mercury. She originally started off as a thief who had dedicated herself to Cinder after being rescued by her, even if she serves someone as evil as Salem and Heldalf.

But following her defection after from Cinder's apparent disinterest in her, learning of Salem's true goals, and was nearly killed by Heldalf, she began a slow path to redemption, and decides to ally herself with Ruby's Group to put an end to their destructive conquest.

"I think you're wrong, by the way. I highly doubt you’re in the same place you started. I-I mean, yeah, y-you guys have been getting your asses kicked, some of that my fault, but like, you’re at war. You’re gonna take hits. Look, I’m just going to be super pissed if you all finally decided to give up the moment I switch sides."
 * —Emerald Sustrai, confessing her redemption to Ruby Rose and her friends.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Katie Newville (English), Marina Inoue (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

Appearance
Emerald is a young woman with medium-brown skin and dark-red eyes. Her hair is a light, mint-green with a straight fringe and bangs as well as two long locks on each side in the back.

In the Young Days
In "Beginning of the End", Emerald was younger, noticeably thinner, and had her hair tied into a ponytail.

Her previous attire was a short olive-colored crop top, and she wore her signature chaps which were torn and belt. Beneath her chaps, she wore dark green pants and plain dark brown flat shoes. She also wore white half-gloves.

Original (Volumes 1–3)
She wears two bronze-colored rings on her middle fingers as well as a pair of strappy high-heeled pumps. She is stated to be in the age range of a Huntsman Academy student.

Originally, her attire consisted of an intricate white top and an olive-colored crop top, on the back of which is her personal emblem. This emblem is in the shape of a cut gem, most likely referring to her name. This was intended to be accompanied by white shorts, decorated with what appears to be a gold coin-plated belt with four gold chains draping around her back from two of the coins and what seems to be a green loincloth.

She also wore a gold, three-ring armband on her left arm and a string of gold beads near the same wrist. As of Volume 2, her outfit has changed somewhat. Her top has thinned, her crop top is now shallow-cut, and her armband and beads no longer seem to be made from gold.

Haven Uniform
Later, she is also seen wearing the Haven Academy uniform, a more conservative dark gray outfit with a long-sleeved collared top and white armband.

Post-Timeskip (Volumes 4–Current)
After the time-skip following the Fall of Beacon, Emerald dons a new set of clothes. She now also wears a mint green crop top with off the shoulder pulled back sleeves beneath a cropped white quilted leather, double breasted biker jacket contrasted with black notch lapels with matching cuffs alongside her emblem on the back in black as well as a belt loop at the bottom of the jacket's hem.

Completing her ensemble are matching white, skinny jeans and brown chaps that end at her thighs, they appear flared with a small open section with straps on the lower calves. The tops and bottoms of the chaps have a mint green trimming to them as well. She also wears a overlong belt, twice-wrapped, to which her chap straps connect to. She keeps her weapon holsters attached the back of the belts.

She completes her outfit with a pair of brown ankle boots with metal toe plating. Her hair is also noticeably fuller and longer and her irises are wider. Emerald also wears a red gem pendant around her neck.


 * Hair Color: Mint Green
 * Skin Color: Medium-Brown
 * Eye Color: Red
 * Age: Not Known
 * Height: 5'8" (1.73 meters) in heels
 * Weight: Not Known

Personality
Emerald initially appears to be affable and disarmingly friendly. However, this belies a darker side of her character. On the whole, she seems to be genuinely outgoing and quick-witted, if a little short-fused. She can also act a little childish or petty, such as when she stuck her tongue out at Roman Torchwick after she stole his lighter to mock him.

In "Best Day Ever", when she talks to Tukson about books, she seems to be knowledgeable about books and enjoys reading, as she lists off several titles. She also likes Vale, complimenting the city for its "tall buildings and diverse culture".

Emerald has a tendency to maintain a pretense of friendliness around people in order to gain their trust. Putting on a friendly demeanor around Tukson before threatening and killing him. In the episode "Round One", she states that she dislikes Team RWBY for their cheery and positive attitude, regardless of her acting as their friend for the time being.

According to Emerald, her loyalty is exclusive to Cinder, rather than to Salem, and only complies to her plans and wishes due to owing Cinder "everything". Accordingly, she is willing to take the initiative to impress her, such as tracking down Tukson and killing him. When Cinder rebukes her for killing Tukson, she defers to Cinder's judgment, quickly apologizing.

Judging from the nonchalant way she talked about killing Tukson, she initially appeared to have no qualms about killing, even lightheartedly joking about it afterward with Mercury. However, later she seems to be overwhelmed and disheartened at the sheer scale of the destruction and violence being caused by Salem and her group. Nevertheless, Emerald continues to demonstrate loyalty to Cinder, such as in the "The Next Step" in which she speaks for Cinder, who has lost her voice.

Later upon Cinder being supposedly killed during their failed mission to destroy Haven and retrieve the Relic of Knowledge and narrowly escaping punishment from Salem, Emerald showcased more of her hesitance in her actions and involvement with Salem and her plans, especially since Cinder was no longer there to reassure her. This also further showed Emerald's more vulnerable side and emotional dependence and reassurance to Cinder, as seen where she showed immense anger at Mercury due to him revealing that Cinder never cared for her or him.

During this time, Emerald also showed increased frustration in her situation and the near impossibility of backing out of it, this is seen during her asking Mercury for his reasons for helping Salem and later getting into a fight with him over it and her later being intimidated by Tyrian Callows' threats if she ever tried to run away from them. These reactions also showed that deep down, what Emerald truly desired was for someone to care for her.

In "Witch", she and Hazel Rainart both decide to help Oscar Pine escape from Monstra after learning about Salem's true goal.

In "Ultimatum", Emerald is at first unapologetic and sarcastic toward Yang's team, making no effort to defend herself for her actions and saying that she would prefer to go on her own way than go with them, however she begins to have second thoughts after hearing that Oscar and Ren were willing to give her a second chance and upon hearing about Ozpin's actions for Oscar.

She later showed guilt and pity for the citizens of Atlas that were cowering in the subways, especially upon seeing children, indicating that she sincerely regrets her crimes and how she helped Cinder and Salem in attacking Atlas, and continued to walk with Yang, Oscar, Ren and Jaune even after Yang stopped holding her at gunpoint showing that she may sincerely wish to help them to make up for her actions.

As seen by the time of "Risk" and "Creation", Emerald has now made up her mind to make up for her past actions and is now actively trying to redeem herself and do the right thing. This is seen in her actions of now actively helping Ruby and her friends in their efforts to save both the people of Mantle and Atlas, and her beginning to put her past dislike for them behind her.

Friends/Allies

 * Hazel Rainart
 * Oscar Pine
 * Ozpin
 * Penny Polendina
 * Ruby's Group
 * Team RWBY
 * Ruby Rose
 * Weiss Schnee
 * Blake Belladonna
 * Yang Xiao Long
 * Team JNPR
 * Jaune Arc
 * Nora Valkyrie
 * Lie Ren

Neutral

 * Cinder's Faction
 * Cinder Fall
 * Mercury Black
 * Roman Torchwick

Enemies

 * Demon's Inner Circle
 * Salem
 * Georg Heldalf
 * Tyrian Callows
 * Arthur Watts
 * Neopolitan
 * James Ironwood

Abilities and Powers
Emerald seems to be quite adept with her weapons, demonstrating skilled swordsmanship and marksmanship, demonstrating the ability to ensnare opponents in her chains and reel them in, even from a great distance, even bringing down Ruby despite the latter using her scythe's recoil for extra speed.

Emerald is stated by Mercury to be a master thief, and she has proven that she is adept at pickpocketing, with one victim being Roman, stealing his lighter to show him that she was a capable thief after he mocked her. As seen in her fight with Coco Adel, her stealth abilities allow her to move silently and attack from an enemy's blind spot.

Though she hasn't engaged anyone on extended close-quarters combat, in "The More the Merrier" and "Vault of the Spring Maiden" it is shown that she's strong and skilled enough to hold Ruby at bay and even temporarily knocked her out at one point.

Semblance

 * Main article: Hallucinations

The Hallucinations, Emerald's Semblance, is individual mental hallucinations - the ability to modify the sensory information in a person's head while their brain is processing it.

Emerald's Semblance is also the main reason Cinder first scouted her, having witnessed Emerald use her power to trick a jewel merchant, in order to steal one of his rings - the merchant just smiled at her, as she took the ring right before his eyes.

Weapons

 * Main article: Thief's Respite

The Thief's Respite, Emerald's weapon of choice, are a pair of dual-wielded pistols, but they can also be converted into a pair of kama, the blades of which can detach and be swung from chains as kusarigama.

Theme songs

 * Lessons Learned: "I'm the One" - Jeff Williams.

Etymology

 * Emerald is a gemstone that is most often found in green colors.
 * Sustrai, capitalized, is the Basque word for "thief" while sustrai, not capitalized, means "roots" or "undercurrent".

Notes & Trivia

 * The 2019 horror film Doctor Sleep prominently features Emerald Sustrai through merchandising and allusions. Doctor Sleep is based on a book by Stephen King and is the sequel to the 1980 movie The Shining, which was also based on a book by Stephen King. Kyliegh Curran plays Abra, a girl with psychic powers. She has a room adorned with posters and action figures featuring characters from Tales of RWBY, with a specific focus on Emerald.
 * A figurine of Emerald is placed on her night stand.
 * A poster of Emerald is seen on her room, featuring art from Tales of RWBY: Combat Ready.
 * Three posters are hanging on the walls around the room.
 * During the final battle, Abra and Rose confront each other in a psychic plane, which can change shape depending on the individual. Throughout the sequence, Abra has adorned a green bob, an homage to Kyliegh Curran's favorite character in Tales of RWBY, Emerald.