Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-121.217.139.187-20130907025835/@comment-74.192.148.192-20150709181801

Monty explained to me that Nora's pink dust is partially purified red dust. Basically, white dust mixed with red dust.

White dust is associated with pure kenetic energy. It doesn't normally appear like that in nature. To achieve white dust, other colors (mostly red because it's cheap) are purified of their elemental impurities. The leftover energy manifests as pure kenetic energy.

Red dust is a slow burning propellent. This makes it excellent as a "gunpowder" or rocket propellent.

Nora's weapon relies on strong shockwaves to deal its damage. Red dust is blended with white dust to give the explosions more of a highspeed impact.

As for the timed fuses thing. It was explained in the anime that aura weapons are used to channel one's aura and allow them to manipulate the dust. This control allows for things like forcing an early detonation (Nora), gearing between firing a bullet or increasing the recoil for propultion (Yang, Ruby, etc.), or even advanced manipulation like what Glinda uses.