Katsune "Kitty" Akatsuya

"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."

"I want an explosion the size of Vale."

'Kitty' Lacuna is a member of [Team Pending]. She is mostly inspired by the titular character of the fairy tale The Fox Sister, with a little Gears of War. This is apparant primarily in her weapon, Heaven's Maw, which is both a chainsword and an automatic assault rifle.

Appearance


Despite her nickname, Kitty is a fox faunus. She has large fox ears, 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 Maw 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. She's fairly short for her age, not having quite hit her growth spurt yet, despite being 16 years of age.

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 Maw 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 Maw is, essentially, a chainsword with a gun stuck on top of it, and can be used either as a machine gun or as a chainsword. Heaven's Maw uses high-caliber rounds, and has a small canister of red dust that powers the chainsword form. Its teeth have special grooves allowing it to pick up dust from this canister, essentially (in conjunction with her aura) setting it on fire. The bolt is on the side of the weapon, below the adjustable scope. Finally, it can be locked up with numerous safeties and a combination lock to prevent anyone else from using it. Heaven's Maw is fox-red with black underparts, a black barrel and 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 to power Heaven's Maw's chainsword mode, as well as to power a magazine of explosive rounds, and she can use it in conjunction with her aura to set its chain on fire for a finishing blow. In the most desperate of circumstances, she can overload the dust chamber and use up all of her dust at once to fire a massive beam of energy. Her semblance is the ability to form explosive glyphs that can be used to propel her through the air, or to destroy whatever object it's placed on. The amount of energy required, and thus how tiring it is to use, depends on the size of the explosion or the size of the object destroyed.

Relationships


<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;-qt-block-indent:0;text-indent:0px;">Kitty's father, Laurence Lacuna, nickname Lex, is her only living relative that she knows of. He is part of the board of directors for the Vulcan Refinery Corporation.

Trivia
<li style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;-qt-block-indent:0;text-indent:0px;">Kitty is based off the lesser-known fairy tail 'The Fox Sister'.</li></li> <li style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;-qt-block-indent:0;text-indent:0px;">Her favorite food is liver. This is a direct reference to the character she was based on.</li></li> <li style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;-qt-block-indent:0;text-indent:0px;">She first appeared in an RWBY RP on the Giant in the Playground forums.</li></li> <li style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;-qt-block-indent:0;text-indent:0px;">Kitty's last name (Lacuna) was based on the name of a protagonist from Final Fantasy VIII, Laguna Loire.</li></li> <li style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;-qt-block-indent:0;text-indent:0px;">Kitty's first name was originally 'Katherine', but was changed to fit Monty Oum's naming rule.</li></li> <li style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;-qt-block-indent:0;text-indent:0px;">Her first name, 'Kadmium', is based on the word 'cadmium', which is a base metal. It is also a series of colors whose dye uses cadmium as the primary component.</li></li> <li style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;-qt-block-indent:0;text-indent:0px;">Kitty's favorite music is the Super Ponybeat songs from the My Petite Pony franchise.</li></li>