Katsune "Kitty" Akatsuya

Jeri 'Kitty' Kitsune 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 apparant primarily in her weapon, Heaven's Fang, which is both a giant bladed lance and a bolt-action anti-tank shotgun.

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 pair of large, fluffy fox ears and a large, fluffy fox tail, which would be difficult to hide even if she was so inclined. Her shoulder-length hair and the fur on her ears are both fox-red, though her hair has yellow-orange highlights and is slightly spiky. She wears a short-sleeved, thigh-length dress with a loose, flowing bottom and a bracket-shaped 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.

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.

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, but her two eldest brothers did not. 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. 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
Heaven's Fang is a New-Type Anti-Tank Bladed Lance Rifle (NABLR). It has three 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 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 resiliant 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. Two pairs of gold booster exhausts decorate the area where the weapon meets the pistol grip, one on each side of the magazine pointing down and back, and two pointing up and back, and they spew fire whenever Kitty uses her semblance.

Finally, Heaven's Fang turning it into a melee form more closely resembling a bladed lance. In this form, the shotgun portion can still be used for recoil via the exhausts, which are now right where the bladed lance meets the pistol grip. The recoil can propel the lance diagonally forward and to the side, allowing for both mobility (in conjunction with her semblance) and greater cutting power.

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.

Semblance, Dust, & Aura Abilities
Kitty's aura is somewhat underdeveloped. She can use her aura for basic abilities, such as enhancing her strength to the point where she can wield Heaven's Maw effectively, and to exert the control over it she needs to not slice her limbs off. However, she does not possess good defensive capabilities with her aura, or much ability to manifest it in other ways other than through her weapon. 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. This ability is often accompanied by a burst of flame.

Relationships

 * Kitty's father, Laurence Kitsune, nickname Lex, is her only living relative that she knows of. He is the CEO of the Vulcan Refinery Corporation.


 * 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.

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 councillor.

''"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.

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.
 * The use of an anti-tank shotgun was inspired by Gundam SEED's GAT-X103 Buster Gundam and its anti-armor shotgun.
 * The use of an anti-tank shotgun was inspired by Gundam SEED's GAT-X103 Buster Gundam and its anti-armor shotgun.
 * The use of an anti-tank shotgun was inspired by Gundam SEED's GAT-X103 Buster Gundam and its anti-armor shotgun.