Katsune "Kitty" Akatsuya

Katsune Jeri is a member of Team JEGR. She is mostly inspired by the titular character of the fairy tale The Fox Sister, with a little influence from various anime shows. This is apparent primarily in her weapon, Heaven's Fang, which is both a giant bladed lance and a bolt-action anti-tank shotgun. Her primary nickname is Kitty.

Appearance
Kitty is fairly short for her age, not having quite hit her growth spurt yet, despite being 16 years of age. Despite her nickname, she is a fox faunus, possessing a large, fluffy fox tail, which would be difficult to hide even if she was so inclined. In fact, her shoulder-length hair is spiked on the sides in such a way as to create the illusion of a pair of fox ears as well. Said hair, and the fur on her tail, are both fox-red, though her hair has white highlights and is slightly spiky, with a yellow cross-shaped pin on her bangs. She wears a short-sleeved, thigh-length dress ("It's a battle skirt!") with a loose, flowing bottom and a gold bow on the neckline, as well as a vest, long gloves (not elbow-length), and boots. She wears a belt on which she wears a magazine of ammo for Heaven's Fang on one side, and Heaven's Maw itself sheathed on the other. Her dress is the same fox-red as her hair, blocked with gold trim. Her vest, gloves, and boots are black. Her eyes are green. She has a small scar on the bridge of her nose.

Personality
Kitty is a rather shy individual, stemming from a lack of social interaction. 'Once bitten, twice shy' is a motto that could easily be applied to her. However, once someone shows her some kindness and actually tries to be her friend, they'll find a rather enthusiastic, trigger-happy weaponsmith. Oddly, her shyness doesn't make her hide her faunus heritage, as she was encouraged by her father to always be proud of who she was, and if people didn't like it, then that was their problem. This sometimes makes her very nervous. She is a fan of My Little Pony, building weapons, and classic cult movies like Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas and The Big Lebowski.

Backstory
Kitty was placed in an orphanage as a baby, but she had the good fortune of being adopted by loving parents. The parents, high-ranking white-collar workers at the Vulcan Refinery Corporation, had three sons, but they wished for a daughter. Even upon discovering that she was a faunus, her new parents loved her and proceeded to adopt her. Her two eldest brothers, did not like her at all. They attempted to frame her for various wrongdoings, but the youngest brother stood up for her and helped her to expose their brothers' lies.

As she grew, even her elder brothers came to respect her, and she became more outgoing. At first, her parents tried to shelter her from the outside world, fearful of what they would say or do to her, but her curiosity and newfound outgoing nature proved too much. Around this time, her father, a graduate of Beacon Academy (or Bacon Academy, as he called it), taught her how to protect herself, in case anyone should ever try to harm her. A bit of a weapons geek (a trait he passed on to her), he helped Kitty build Heaven's Fang when she was accepted into Pharos Academy, a high-school level institution equivalent to Signal, and she's kept it with her ever since.

Training at Pharos was hard for her as a faunus. She experienced a great deal of prejudice and racism from the other kids, and even from adults who refused to do anything about it. As a result, she locked herself up with her studies and hobbies, which included video games, comic books, and building weapons. In fact, possibly the only person at Pharos to treat her like a decent person is Aurea Melankranz, whom she quickly adopted as a big sister figure. Her lack of a social life allowed her to focus exclusively on training, and as a result she was accepted into Beacon a year early, where she hopes to find less prejudice against her kind, and maybe even finally be accepted.

Weapon
Her cause is just, her will is strong, and her gun is very, very large.

Heaven's Fang is a New-Type Anti-Tank Bladed Lance Rifle (NABLR). It has four forms. The first is a form used solely for storage, in which it shrinks to make it easier to carry. It has no combat utility in this form, except possibly bludgeoning someone with it. In this form it can be placed in a carrying container that looks kind of like a heavy-duty metal briefcase painted in red and gold warning stripes. The briefcase is locked with a six-digit combination lock.

Heaven's Fang's second form is its ranged form. Despite its name, it functions as more of a shotgun than a rifle, with powerful anti-armor capabilities at close range. In both this form and its melee form (see below), it uses heavy high-caliber rounds as ammo, using impact dust as the propellant. The weapon is box-fed, with the magazine loaded either in the back of the rifle, or in melee mode, below the blades and swept back diagonally. Kitty carries additional armor-piercing rounds for particularly resilient enemies, and it has a pistol-like grip, the kind normally found on standard gunblades. It can be set to either burst-fire mode, firing several rounds at once, or single-fire bolt-action mode for greater accuracy and recoil. A pair of gold booster exhausts decorate the area where the weapon meets the pistol grip, one on each side of the weapon pointing up and back, and they spew fire whenever Kitty uses her semblance. The gun is huge, big enough to fit .700 caliber anti-aircraft shells.

Finally, Heaven's Fang can turn into a melee form more closely resembling a bladed lance or a Japanese omi yari (or 'large spear') approximately two meters in length. In this form, the shotgun portion can still be used for recoil via the exhausts, which move to right where the bladed lance meets the pistol grip and flip upside down to point down and back at an angle, with the gun trigger mechanism behind that, and a shaft the length of the rest of the lance extending back from that with a small, dagger-sized extendable blade on the end. The recoil can propel the lance forward, diagonally forward and to the side, or diagonally forward and up, allowing for both mobility (in conjunction with her semblance) and greater cutting power. The shaft can also shrink, turning the weapon into more of a sword than a lance.

Heaven's Fang is fox-red with black underparts, a black barrel and red rubber grip, gold exhausts and accents, and three gold warning stripes towards the tip. Always visible on the side is an inscription reading "Gun ex Machina".

Semblance, Dust, & Aura Abilities
Kitty's aura is somewhat unevenly-developed. She can use her aura at its most basic level in all areas, like all huntresses. However, while she's skilled in using it for offensive purposes (channeling it through her weapon or through her fists/feet), she does not possess good defensive capabilities with it, or much capability in manifesting it in ways other than through something that can hit an enemy. She uses red dust as the detonation charge for a magazine of armor-piercing rounds, and carries a spare magazine of fire dust ammo for recoil-based attacks, and to cause small explosions on impact. Her semblance is Kinesis, which allows her to absorb and control the kinetic energy of an object. This allows her to enhance or alter her own movement, power her weapon, and create small kinetic explosions. However, if she channels the kinetic energy through her body (such as after being hit), she takes damage as if she were hit with said energy full-force. This ability is often accompanied by a burst of flame. Dust can be channeled through her semblance, allowing various effects. For example, when she uses her semblance to charge, using fire dust might leave a trail of fire behind her. Or, if falling from a great height, she might use earth dust to cause spikes of earth to radiate out from her impact crater when she lands. However, given the choice, she will always use fire dust.

Relationships

 * Aurea Melankranz is an old friend of Kitty's from Pharos Academy, during the summer before they attended Beacon. Aurea was one of the few people to accept Kitty as a friend, and they formed a strong sisterly bond.
 * During her time at Pharos, Kitty met Oliver Browning, a young man cross-training from Signal as part of police training, when he saved her from some bullies. She would later meet him again at Beacon.

Quotes

 * "Machines are great friends. They don't care if you're a human or a faunus, they'll never bully you, and they will always be there when you need them. Some of them can be a bit ... picky, though." —Kitty, to her school councilor.


 * "I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning pyromaniac." —Kitty, when confronted about her fighting style, paraphrasing Sherlock Holmes.


 * "I want an explosion the size of Vale." —Kitty, when asked about what she hoped her semblance would be.
 * "My cause is just, my will is strong, and my gun is very, very large." —Kitty, quoting that Doom guy after building her weapon.

Development

 * Year 1
 * Semester 1
 * The Weaponsmith and the Chef
 * Kitty gets on the airship to Beacon.
 * Kitty meets Gris Géant, with whom she'd later be partnered in the initiation trial.
 * A New Life, A New Home (Ongoing)
 * Kitty meets Rune Phenex, who immediately makes a bad first impression, and Edwin Jay Chemest.
 * Sisterly Bonds (Ongoing)
 * Kitty runs into Aurea Melankranz, her friend and adopted big sister from Pharos Academy.
 * Help Wanted (Ongoing)
 * Kitty meets Nikolai T. Galbenis and Kimi Shiyami.
 * Kitty begins work as a weapons tester for some extra income (and to pursue her own hobby).

Trivia

 * Kitty is based off the lesser-known fairy tale 'The Fox Sister'.
 * Her favorite food is liver. This is a direct reference to the character she was based on.
 * She first appeared in an RWBY RP on the Giant in the Playground forums.
 * Kitty's first name was originally 'Katherine', but was changed to fit Monty Oum's naming rule.
 * Her given name, Katsune, refers to the Japanese nine-tailed fox. This makes her fit in with her team, all of whom are based on various mythological animals. In addition, katsune refers to 'kitsune', which is the Japanese word for fox, and foxes are red. This satisfies Monty Oum's naming rule, as evidenced by Cardin Winchester, whose naming rule is satisfied by being named after a red animal, in his case a cardinal.
 * The use of an anti-tank shotgun was inspired by Gundam SEED's GAT-X103 Buster Gundam and its anti-armor shotgun.