Emerald Sustrai

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.

For the dance, Emerald wears an olive-colored, halterneck, backless dress with a black sash around her waist, and matching heeled pumps.

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, doing so around Tukson before threatening and killing him. In "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 doing so, she defers to Cinder's judgment, quickly apologizing. Although she has no qualms about killing, judging from the nonchalant way she talked about killing Tukson and even lightheartedly joking about it afterward with Mercury, she does get a bit seems to be overwhelmed at the sheer scale of the destruction and violence being caused during the Fall of Beacon. 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.

In "Witch", Emerald and Hazel Rainart both decide to help Oscar Pine escape from Monstra, after confirming that he was telling the truth. She shows grief when Hazel is killed buying them time to escape Salem, as he was the only one besides Mercury or Cinder who showed any concern for her.

In "Ultimatum", Emerald is 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 later showed pity for the citizens of Atlas that were cowering in the subways, especially upon seeing children, and continued to walk with Yang, Oscar, Ren and Jaune even after Yang stopped holding her at gunpoint.

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 (although Ruby was distracted at the time).

Emerald's weapon of choice is Thief's Respite, a pair of dual-wielded pistols that can also be converted into a pair of kama, the blades of which can detach and be swung from chains as kusarigama. Emerald's Semblance, Hallucinations, 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 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. Her Semblance is not limited to biological opponents, but can also affect mechanical ones. In "Amity", she is able to cause both Penny Polendina and Maria Calavera to experience visual illusions, despite the first being an android and the latter having cybernetic prosthetic eyes. However, she was unable to affect Penny's heat vision sensors, which she used to locate and defeat Cinder Fall. Emerald's Semblance also seems to limit her mobility, unlike Neopolitan's; she typically remains still or moves slowly and cautiously when conjuring hallucinations.

In "War", Emerald's Semblance even extends towards Grimm, as she managed to make herself invisible from being detected by one of the Seers. As per "PvP", while Emerald's Semblance was originally limited to two people at her limit, she has expanded that number to at least three without tiring as showcased in "Witch". In "Haven's Fate" she managed to affect nine people with her Semblance simultaneously, though this put her under such strain that she lost consciousness. Her Semblance is also now powerful enough to affect Salem, who remarked on its usage.

With the evolution of her Semblance, she can sense the minds of others within a certain radius of herself and if they were weak or strong.