Automne Reynard

"All the humans are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life."

Automne Reynard is a Fox Faunus who is currently a first-year student at Beacon Academy. She alludes to the fox in Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. She usually appears nonchalant and disinterested, but actually is embroiled in a conflict of loyalty. Automne is currently a member of Team RASB.

Personality
Automne is generally very relaxed and gives off a sense of self-contentment. She comes off as very nice because she is polite and well-mannered, and is competent in social situations despite not being particularly verbose. She is also rather witty, and tends to downplay things that might cause others to become very alarmed.

She has a tendency to want to prove herself to other people, especially those who think she may be lacking in certain areas due to being Faunus.

Although Automne is very polite and easygoing, it is difficult for someone to legitimately gain her respect. Character traits she really dislikes are bragging, acting weak, and being generally suspicious for no reason.

Automne is very straightforward in a non-aggressive way, and is very perceptive and honest. However, she dislikes bringing up her past and is good at maneuvering a conversation away from this topic. She cares a lot about the people close to her, and is almost always very reliable.

Because she grew up on the streets, Automne will drop her cool and resort to brutal, "underhanded" fighting when pushed into a corner or when she feels that her life is being seriously threatened. The truth is that she enrolled in Beacon Academy not to become a Huntress and a defender of the people, but to develop her abilities to a level where she can become a high-ranking member of the White Fang and use that position to establish Faunus rights in society by whatever means necessary.

Appearance
Automne has dark orange eyes and hair. Her hair is tied into two low twintails, giving a slight impression of fox ears. Due to her being a Faunus, Automne has a long fox tail that almost touches the ground when she stands upright. Her tail is the same color as her hair. Her Huntress outfit consists of a sleeveless red shirt-vest and orange-transitioning-to-black cargo crops with the bottoms folded up. She wears short black boots that are folded down and black gloves and arm guards. Her rapier is strapped to an X-shaped leather sheath that wraps around her torso, mostly for mobility. She wears a dog tag with her name, symbol, and the phrase "We Are Responsible" on it, which she tucks underneath her shirt.

She has a small dueling scar under her left eye from an accident in sparring when she was younger. Although they are mostly concealed, she is covered in faded scars on her torso, arms, and legs from when she was confined and abused.

Weapon
Automne wields a Compact Multi-Piece Dueling Rapier which can be quickly folded away or disassembled. Its main form is that of a sword, although it can also detach a small dagger from its hilt which can be reassembled into a pistol. It has a slot in the grip that can contain and utilize a Dust crystal, although normally Automne doesn't use this component. Automne finds the concept of naming weapons to be outdated and so her sword remains nameless.

She also carries a switchblade hidden in the side of her boot for when her other weapons are out of reach.

Abilities
Her fighting style is drawn from that of contemporary competitive sabre fencers. This means that she focuses on making fast slashing or stabbing hits towards exposed areas rather than blunt heavy strikes, and attempting to avoid taking any blows in return. This requires her to be quite flexible, have top reflexes and observation skills, and constantly make split-second decisions. Because she is light and is faster than many opponents, this rather refined style works well for her. Her combat involves approximately 80 percent weapon and 20 percent kicking, since in an unarmed battle she realizes that she would have serious trouble overpowering physically more built opponents. She also has high stamina, which gives her the upper hand when the opponent gets tired or impatient.

Automne does her best to battle within a distance where she can strike the opponent without them being able to reach her. However, if she is grabbed then her Semblance will kick in, allowing herself to become freed. If for whatever reason this is insufficient, she will usually reach for her switchblade. Experience has taught her that the slightest pity for an opponent can cost her the victory, so she is uncharacteristically cold-hearted when she is in a serious fight.

Aura
Automne's Aura is proficient and she can control it very well, although is is slightly less durable than average, hence the requirement that she be able to turn it on or off.

Semblance
Her semblance is technically Phasing, which means that she is able to enter a non-solid form for up to 60 seconds, which allows her to travel very quickly through solid matter. She primarily uses this ability to make quick escapes or for a tactical advantage while attacking. When she uses her semblance, her hair, eyes, and tail glow slightly, giving the vaguest impression of being on fire. Therefore she prefers to refer to her semblance as "Foxfire". However, she dislikes using her semblance because it is very convenient and also tiring if used in succession, and its endless possible uses cause others to see her as a "cheap" fighter or even as a weapon.

History
Arden Bell was born in the narrow streets of downtown Menagerie among the world's largest Faunus population.

After the war, many children were left orphaned, and formed child gangs that lived in the shadows. A young Fox Faunus was brought into one of these gangs by her older brother at the age of four, composed of Canid Faunus. She gave herself the name Arden and spent her childhood fighting with other child gangs and generally struggling to survive. She discovered her semblance at a very young age, and it helped her immensely in being a pickpocket and making quick getaways. She formed a close bond with the other children that she lived with, since they had to stick together in order to survive.

At the age of nine Arden was out looking for food in the evening, when she met an old man who offered her money for no apparent reason. Although very suspicious, she wasn't in any situation to pass up a chance for free money, and took it. In the following days he was found in the same location, always giving her some lien when she came up, and seemed kind enough, so Arden's wariness faded. After a few weeks she came to him in the evening as usual when he told her to come with him to his apartment, which she did, childishly assuming that she was good enough to get away from him if necessary. However, as soon as she crossed the threshold her grabbed her and injected her with a sleep serum. Thus began a nightmare.

The old man, a serial killer, took her to his isolated farm and locked her in the dark basement. For the next two months he proceeded to sadistically torture her in various ways, including branding, cutting, and biting. One day he opened the trapdoor to the basement and brought in a blonde-haired boy, his newest victim. In order to keep from going insane or losing hope, Arden approached the child and told him to "tame" her, and thus began a fervent imagination game in which the two wove an intricate story of a foreign Prince befriending a wise fox, all the while being trapped and slowly killed. After 10 months of confinement their captor's isolated farm was finally discovered and raided by police forces. He was arrested and eventually placed on death row, and currently awaits execution in prison. Arden and her "prince", Anton Couronne, were taken to a hospital to recuperate. Anton was eventually taken home by his parents, but because Arden's parents were most likely dead, she was sent to foster care instead. After about a week she was adopted by a wealthy childless elderly couple and taken to live on their estate in Vale.

The two were both retired doctors who had served in the war effort, and were still involved in much charity work. Feeling a mysterious love for this scarred, past-less child fox Faunus, the two began the painstaking effort of helping her recover both physically and mentally. To start, they gave the girl a new name, Automne Reynard, which they hoped would help her forget her traumatized memories. Their efforts eventually paid off, and they succeeded in gaining Automne's love, trust and utmost respect. They began giving her a proper education and enrolled her in a Huntsman Academy once they realized that she possessed incredible fighting potential and to teach her discipline and mental strength.

After spending five years learning how to become a polite, controlled, and privileged member of society, Automne was finally able to start looking back on the events in her early childhood. Although much time had passed, she still occasionally experienced nightmares of her abuse and certain triggers could set off repressed memories. In spite of this, she realized that she desperately wanted to know what had happened to her former Faunus gang-brothers after her disappearance. But because of her love for her adoptive grandparents, who cared immensely about her wellbeing, she knew that going back to Menagerie would not be possible in the near future. Instead, she chose to put that goal aside for now and move forward with her progress and her life and applied to Beacon Academy. She received her acceptance letter a few months later and was eager to begin her higher education.

During the initiation ceremony she ran into Respersio Caetum and defeated a giant Boarbatusk with him. She realized soon after meeting him that she was romantically attracted to him, and despite initially trying to brush it off as "hormones" decided to try and get to know him better as a teammate, at least. However, despite his Team Leader position Resper was very withdrawn from his team. Although she tried multiple times, it appeared that none of her friendly conversation-starters were really making it through his headphones. A month after classes had started Platinum Roads and Fěnhóng sè Sùzhēn rather discreetly joined Beacon Academy, and were able to connect with Resper in a way that Automne had been unable to, which made her slightly jealous.

Respersio Caetum
Automne met Respersio during the initiation test, and realized that she had a crush on him immediately. She was very impressed with his archery abilities and his handsome appearance, but not so much with his lack of verbosity, which made him come off as being gloomy all the time.

Platinum Roads
When Platinum showed up at Beacon one day as part of a police training program and was able to have a relaxed and familiar conversation with Resper, Automne became suspicious although part of this was due to a slight pang of jealousy at Platinum succeeding where she had failed. Once she learned about their shared past as C4T3R, however, this feeling faded. Although the two girls initially had trouble conversing due to Platinum's overly-straightforward personality, the two eventually become good friends.

Trivia

 * Her last name, Reynard, is taken from the French word renard, which means Fox. Specifically she is a Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) Faunus.
 * She alludes to the fox from The Little Prince. See top of page.
 * Her name is technically Automne, but most people don't bother applying the accent so she just goes by Autumn instead. Not that she cares much either way.
 * Automne is not the name she was born with, it was given to her by her adoptive grandparents. Before that, she called herself Arden, and her true surname is Bell, although she is not aware of this.
 * She really likes rock and techno music, which serves as a sort of channel for her emotions.
 * When Resper asked her what the name of her weapon was, she told him, "It's nameless". Unfortunately he took it literally and now she wonders he thinks she's a weirdo because of it.
 * Her alias Arden comes from the word ardent: Expressing or characterized by warmth or passion, emotion, or desire.   b.  Displaying or characterized by strong enthusiasm or devotion; fervent; zealous;   2.  Glowing; flashing; fierce;   3.  Hot as fire; burning.
 * Her favorite music album is Les Amants de la Bastille. Go listen to it on Youtube!
 * Automne's fatal flaw is that she cares too much about other people and basically doesn't trust them to be able to take care of themselves, and ends up confused about whom she is most loyal to when she gets too embroiled in other people's problems. This whole mindset was caused by her upbringing on the streets, when cooperation was the only way to survive. Therefore Automne is very put off by the fact that the term "friend" can be applied to someone that she only talks to every now and then. So in her mind she has true "friends" and "friendly acquaintances" in very separate categories, although she doesn't express it.