Dust



"I did not chase them down to fight. They were willing to talk. Perhaps we should be as well. "

- Sooraya Qadir

History
Sooraya was born in a small town near Zaranj, Afghanistan, located on the Western edge of the Country. This small desolate town had been under rule of the Taliban for many years. Women and children were treated with no decently, and men were killed if they didn’t follow the Taliban’s orders. Fear and injustice was what Sooraya had to grow up around. As a young girl she was inquisitive, always asking questions, and soon learned from her mother, Mirah, it was not the best idea to do so. She learned quickly how to behave in public, and how to react to the threats of the Taliban. In fact, Sooraya began wearing her veils before she even entered puberty, for her own safety. She had heard of the tragedy of one of her friends being beaten for not wearing a niqab, and her friend was only ten.

Unfortunately a resistance was building in the larger city of Zaranj not to far in the distance. This caused a small battle between the resistance force and the terrorist group. Houses were burned, innocent people were held captive as hostages, and many fled for their lives, only to be gunned down in the crossfire. Mirah’s had sacrificed her safety to make sure that Sooraya would make it. Telling her to run and not to look back. The Taliban captured her mother, and the two would never see each other again.

Sooraya ran like her mother had told her, being a smart girl, she avoided many dense populated places, and hid in the shadows. However, she was found, but by slave traders. While they kept her alive, and fed her, they also abused her. Made her cook and tend to them. If they were going to keep her alive, they were going to make her work. She was their pet, their slave, well until someone bought her for the right price. However, the price was never the right one, because Sooraya was intelligent and a strong girl.

After spending two years with these slave traders, roaming the country, they decided it was time she became more ‘useful’. In the middle of the night, while she was sleeping in a tent with other ‘slaves’, one of the bearded men lifted her abaya. The Muslim girl woke up, fear in her eyes as the men watched, laughing, at the crime being commited. Then he reached to reveal her face. She screamed loudly, and felt something strange, something alien underneath her skin. It was a tickling sensation, which begged to be let go. She succumbed to the feeling, and her body exploded into a massive sand cloud. The tent, along with the slave traders and a few innocent people were victim to her furry. Her sand form took over and in her mental pain she released all the hatred she had been storing up. When she exhausted herself, she woke up to the carcasses of those who’d been inside her tent. Flesh torn from their bones, nothing was left. She put on her clothes, and lucky for her she was found, a man riding on camel back offered her a canteen and a ride into town.

The thirteen year old was lucky enough to be given a place to sleep, and food to eat by the gentleman of the desert. He and his family were so kind to her, she felt that Allah truly had blessed her with such luck. It was only a few days later that the man asked her to help him to make a delivery to Mumbai India. She agreed, after all he had shown her so much kindness. When they finally arrived in Mumbai, some strange white people came to speak to her. She did not speak English at the time, but one of them telepathically communicated with her. Offered her a chance to hone her abilities and make a difference in the world. This was the same year that the X-Men were founded and attempting to put an end to Magneto’s mutant supremacist acts of terrorism.

Sooraya accepted, following the X-Men as a sign of fate. She was meant to meet the man on his expedition to Mumbai, so that she could meet these American Mutants. Unfortunately for Sooraya, the year she found herself in America was only a year before the Mutant Registration Act was passed. Sooraya was now legally registered not only as an American Citizen, but as a Mutant. In 2008, many lives were lost, and because of that the Government institutionalized yet another Act against mutants. They were relocated into a section of New York named District X, and all mutants were to be labeled with an M tattoo. Some tattoos are more noticeable than others, it depended on who tattooed you Dust supposed. Being a woman from another culture didn’t help her case, and they argued that because her niqab covered the majority of her face, and her abaya her body, that she had to be branded on her left eye.

Sooraya went through a lot of pain that day, and months after that. Having felt victimized as not only a mutant, but as a woman and as a Muslim. Because she was different she had to be marked, because of a few horrible people everyone like them had to be collected and shipped away? It wasn’t fair, and no good could come from it. How come everything had to be like this? When one group didn’t like another why did it have to be so extreme, whatever happened to negotiations?

Now the 17 year old girl finds herself back at Xavier’s, hoping that they can make a difference. Bring the world back to what it was before, or even better. Something of peace and understanding, not fear and hate.

Personality
Socially she is a bit shy at first, and never loud and obnoxious. She seems to be quite wise. Bearing wisdom beyond her age. A very intuitive and respectful young lady, and when it comes to others she passes no judgment. This girl always has an ear open, and is willing to listen. She isn't the social butterfly, but she still seems to make friends fairly easily and is very loyal to those friends. She makes it hard to get to know her, because she has a bit of a guard up. With struggles she had to deal with she just doesn't like to talk about her past.

A Sunni Muslim, Sooraya is a very religious girl from Afghanistan. She takes pride in her religion, and wears her Traditional abaya and niqab. Being in America, many people submit to not taking pride in the garments, but she isn't one of those. She likes the modesty that it gives her; attention is still drawn to her, but never for her body. Even though she is a firm believer in her religion, she will succumb to American culture for certain occasions.

She is a very put together girl, and doesn't suffer from high anxiety, however she does tend to pick at her nails often. In addition she rarely gets angry, and is hardly hostile toward others. One thing that really gets to her is an attack at her for her religion. Such an attack and she would get really flustered, seeing no reason for 'low-blows'. If she does get angry, she wouldn't yell but would probably say her peace and try to ignore the situation, being a 'bigger person'. Sooraya isn't very sensitive to stress because of her composure and most find her moods are actually rather steady. She does cry and she does get down in the dumps like everyone else, but not at a whim. Crying for Sooraya usually is a case when she is dealing with a lot of emotional pain that is trying to burst to the surface. She is self-aware, however sometimes she has trouble understanding feelings she's never experienced before. She's never had a boyfriend or a crush, so new feelings such as love will confuse her.

As for Sooraya's moral compass, it is always pointing north. She has a high understanding for what is right and wrong, and she also understands the grey areas in between. Having a strong sense of responsibility, chores are always done, homework is complete, and praying is done before any type of 'fun'. She reaches for the highest she can. As of right now she would love to become an Ambassador for the United Embassy. Delving into Mutant/Human relations and situations of Terrorism in the Middle East.

Sooraya isn't really that imaginative, and sometimes things that aren't concrete confuse her. This isn't to say she isn't an intelligent girl. On the contrary she is actually very smart. What makes sense to her are factual matters, such as 2+2 will always be 4. However, when it comes to artistic interpretation and trying to be expressive, she fails. She is an intellectual curious girl. When she came to America, she wanted to learn as much as possible. (Especially in the fields of math and science.)

Like said before, Sooraya is an intuitive girl. She has a very deep emotional awareness, being able to read body language, and expression in the eyes. This doesn't mean is always right, but she tries to understand how everyone is feeling. Especially in times of stress, she tries to understand.

When it comes to Experimenting, Sooraya doesn't really try anything new if she doesn't have too. Unless she is convinced she may give in to peer pressure, however only to try something. If she doesn't like it she isn't afraid to say so, and will stay clear of what ever it was.

Likes

 * Quiet
 * Flowers
 * Reading


 * Music (mostly classical or something heavy in strings)
 * Watching clouds
 * Singing
 * Laughter
 * Following the rules
 * Friends
 * Praying
 * Studying
 * Respect

Dislikes

 * Messes
 * Metal and Rock music
 * Rodents
 * Fire
 * Firearms
 * Ignorance
 * Stereotypes
 * Large bodies of water (She can’t swim)
 * Death
 * Disorganization
 * Being spoken about behind her back
 * Being considered weird because she is of a different culture

Skills

 * Singing
 * Calligraphy
 * Cooking
 * Speaks English, Arabic and Pashto
 * Has a good sense of direction
 * Applying eye make up (yes she wears eye make up)
 * Sewing

Powers
Sooraya Qadir also known as Dust, is an elemental transmorph, whose alternate form is a silicon substance extremely similar to sand. When transforming Dust’s body can do two things, she can either explode her body violently into a sand cloud, or disintegrate slowly into a pile of sand. Being able to transform her form into sand gives her several different abilities. Her power proves to be both defensive and offensive. Since Sooraya transforms into a sand cloud, it should be noted that this gives her the ability to ‘fly’. Now, Sooraya’s flight is different than most because technically she isn’t flying, but willing the movement of her sand form psionically through the air in a whirling motion. Though after a few months of practice, Sooraya has been able to assemble her sand form to look more like a woman instead of a cloud of sand. Thus giving her a ghostly appearance in her sand form.

Defensively Sooraya can use her ability to avoid serious harm, such as bullets, and knifes, which wouldn’t damage her sand cloud form. She can also use the ability to sneak between small spaces and cracks, or to create a sandstorm to hide objects, people, and places from view. Another notable part of her defense is the fact that her consciousness is spread amongst thousands to billions of particles of sands, making it extremely difficult to communicate and read her mind telepathically.

Offensively Sooraya can be extremely dangerous. Her ability lets her rotate the movement of her sands at extremely high speeds. Since sand is like microscopic rocks, they have sharp edges. When rotating at high speeds, these particles of sand are like miniature knives. Sooraya can tear the flesh from someone’s bones in seconds. She can also enter someone’s lungs and esophagus and cause internal bleeding and suffocation. Not only can she swirl her sand to create a miniature sand storm, but Sooraya can also tighten her sand cloud to create dirt devils.

Her metamorphic abilities have also altered her human form as well. In her human form her skin, muscles and bones have grown stronger, and more resistant to damage. This is not to say she is impervious to damage, just makes impact from falls and hits less damaging. If falling from ten feet could break someone’s legs, then it would take the impact of a fall from fifteen to twenty to break hers.

In the future Sooraya will probably be able to not only to transform parts of her body into bursts of sand, but also condense her sand form into a solid structure, and land-based form. She may even be able to also incorporate other sand and dirt into her form to increase her size.

=Weaknesses= Sooraya’s main weaknesses are other elemental forces. It’s like playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons; each element is weakened by the next. Other elemental type abilities can cause her much difficulty in battle. Air, or telekinetic type powers can take control of her sand form, rendering her useless in battle, or causing her to be a danger to herself and her teammates. Spraying water on Sooraya in her sand form causes her silicon particles to clump together and become weighted down. Meaning she cannot become airborne. This wouldn’t be a problem if she was able to increase her density, and become land-based, however she isn’t at that level yet.

The most dangerous element to Sooraya is that of Fire. Like we all know, glass comes from heat and sand. If fire is used against Sooraya, she can be turned into a glass clump or statue. Which would be like putting her into a coma, if not reversed. If she were to be shattered, then she would be killed. Unless her mutation evolved so she would be able to control the crystalline structure.

Also keep in mind that when Sooraya is not in her sand form she is susceptible to any type of telepathic or physical harm. While her bones and muscles may be stronger due to her mutation, they aren’t bricks. Shooting, stabbing, being punched or even hit with a golf club would do a significant amount of damage to her as well as cause her a tremendous amount of pain if not death. She can get ill and can be put under telepathic control.