Neo

Appearance Neo, themed after Neapolitan ice cream, had the appropriate trio of colors in her hair and on her outfit. While sometimes altered via illusion for disguise, her hair color was typically half pink and half brown, with white streaks on the pink side. As of Volume 6, Neo's hair was also styled differently. It was noticeably thicker with a slight wave to it along with shorter bangs and missing her white streaks. The white streaks appeared as an emotional reaction to her parents' deaths in Roman Holiday.

Neo's natural eye color changed between brown, pale pink, and white, and they could alternate coloration in differing combinations, with this ability apparently being entirely under her control. Neo appeared to have a condition known as heterochromia iridum, where the eyes of a subject have two different colors. In her case, it was complete heterochromia, where one iris in its entirety was a different color from the other. During her childhood, her left eye was pink, and her right eye was brown. In Volume 3, she was seen wearing green eyeshadow, starting with her paramedic disguise.

Despite being in her twenties by the start of RWBY, Neo was also rather diminutive in stature, compared to the rest of the main cast, including Ruby Rose, as shown in the height chart presented by Monty Oum. This was demonstrated in "No Brakes", when she stood up against Yang Xiao Long, as Neo was only able to reach her chin despite wearing high heels.

Original (Volumes 2-6)

Neo wore a white cropped wide, broad tailed jacket with a pink interior, collar, a single pink button and large pink cuffs. She wore skintight brown leather pants with a dark belt that had a gray buckle and an additional narrow belt under it. Under her jacket was a brown over bust whalebone corset, curved in the middle and at the bottom, which exposed her hips. She also wore a multitude of black beaded necklaces, which hung haphazardly around her neck. Neo also wore black and white spat styled under the knee boots alongside black gloves.

Personality Unlike Roman Torchwick, who appeared as a cold and calculating career criminal, Neo was a more unstable unpredictable dangerous killer.

Neo was a mute who cannot speak and as such communicated purely through body language, miming, or text messages. She had been mute since birth.

Neo was stated to be cruel, vicious, and sadistic, as seen in her smile as she prepared to stab Yang in "No Brakes", as well as in "Round One" when she proceeded to brutally stomp on her opponents face with a cruel smile despite him being physically unable to continue their match. However, she did seem to exhibit fear and hesitance when she knew she was outmatched, fleeing if her opponent proved to be as such. This could be seen when Raven Branwen appeared and engaged her on the White Fang cargo train. She was rather perceptive and was able to recognize superior abilities to her own, despite her confidence. Neo was also seen to have a vengeful side by her attempt to kill Cinder Fall in "The Coming Storm" for her part in Roman Torchwick's death, only stopping when she revealed her Maiden powers.

Neo was highly determined when she set her mind to a task, often dealing with any problems presented to her efficiently and competently. During her battle against Team JNPR, Neo took notice of Lie Ren's protectiveness of Nora Valkyrie and took advantage of that by transforming into her using her Semblance to make him hesitate. She also used Emerald Sustrai and Hazel Rainarts's escape as a cover to steal the Relic of Knowledge and skip away in the dust cloud created from Monstra's explosion.

Additionally, she was extremely ruthless, easily turning to murder as a means of achieving her goals and often doing so with a playful demeanor. In "Worthy", she alongside Cinder and Arthur Watts massacred the people stationed at the Atlas Command Center.

Neo possessed a desire to be validated whenever she accomplishes a task, as well as to be treated as an equal by a partner or superior. She was happy with working with Roman, as he often acknowledged her for completing a job. However, while working for Cinder, she was irritated by her lack of recognition or respect towards her. She was further angered when Cinder took the Relic of Knowledge from her without a word of gratitude and failed to give her credit for successfully stealing the Relic, as well as taking credit for her accomplishments to redeem herself before Salem. These actions eventually resulted in her going against Cinder's orders for her own wishes.

Neo was extremely loyal to Roman and very close with him. She willingly carried out his demands and he was the only one she did not show contempt towards. Likewise, Roman never got upset with Neo like he did with others, and they were very proficient in wordlessly coordinating attacks. Neo was shown to be devastated after his death, and wears Roman's hat in memory of him. She is solely driven by a need to exact revenge for what happened to him and has gone to near suicidal lengths to do so, including facing Cinder alone. Neo had a previously lonely life until she met Roman, and after his death her life returned to said state. This is illustrated by her disheveled appearance in "The Coming Storm".

Later, Neo took fights slightly more seriously becoming even more sadistic, cruel, and merciless than before. Previously, during her V2 fight with Yang, Neo toyed with her before knocking the girl unconscious and afterwards unsheathing Hush. Similarly, in her V3 fight against Ruby, Neo opted not to use her sword to fight, and later used it to threaten Ruby, which ultimately turned out to be her undoing when she used Hush to send her flying. Comparatively, in current fights, while she continued to mock her opponents, Neo used her blade more frequently and is shown dispatching foes much more quickly and not dragging out finishing moves any longer than necessary. It's implied that this notable change in behavior may be a result either of her perceived feelings of guilt for having failed Roman when he needed her the most, frustration at all of the constant delays towards avenging him, growing fed-up with all of the ridiculous situations she's found herself in or even a combination of all three.

In RWBY: Roman Holiday, it is shown that Neo was abused by her father and mother for not being the perfect child, due to her inability to speak, heterochromia, and unruly behavior. She had an imaginary friend named "Neopolitan", who she subconsciously used as a scapegoat to take the blame for her own rebellious desires that she had externalized. This was due to her parents simultaneously punishing her for her wants while not taking them seriously, as well as her loneliness and desire to be free—"Neopolitan" was everything Trivia had wanted to be.

Eventually, Trivia realized that "Neopolitan" was an externalization of her own desires—that she and "Neopolitan" were one and the same. All the violently lashing out at those who wronged her, rule-breaking and illegal activities, taunting, freedom and danger "Neopolitan" had pursued was just what Trivia had wanted, but felt she wasn't allowed to after a series of events—including her introducing herself as Neopolitan rather than Trivia to Roman, which she felt was "right" and gave her "a fresh start", with the metaphorical final straw being her mother physically shattering the illusion of "Neopolitan" conjured by Overactive Imagination in front of Trivia. When Trivia took on her new identity and name as Neopolitan, she viciously and fervently enforced her own wants and whims in contradiction to how long she'd been forced to repress them. Similarly, she took great pride in herself and cared little of how other people perceived or felt about her, in contrast to how her parents had insisted their image mattered more than anything else, including Neo's desires.

At the end of Roman Holiday, during the fight at the Vanille Estate involving Neo, Roman Torchwick, Senior Xiong, and Lil' Miss Malachite, Neo made a split-second decision to trick Lil' Miss into triggering a Dust explosion on the third floor in order to escape the fight, though the explosion ended up unintentionally killing her father and she suspected also her mother. This was Neo's first experience with the death of someone known to her, uncertain of how to react and feeling that it didn't affect her, although she gains her iconic white stripes in her hair at this time, indicating she was impacted by their deaths no matter what she thought. Her inability to legitimately process her parents' deaths was indicative of her larger inability to handle grief, as further shown by her single-minded revenge driven handling of Roman's death.

In “Tea Amidst Terrible Trouble”, after she drove Ruby to ascend in the Ever After, she became a broken and emotionless person herself as she realized she only wanted revenge, not to conquer the Ever After, and now that she achieved it, she no longer had a purpose. She became so broken that the Curious Cat was able to take over her body to fulfill their own agenda.

Powers and Abilities In "No Brakes", Neo proved herself to be a highly skilled combatant, able to defeat Yang in a one-on-one fight, seemingly playing with her opponent as she was able to defeat her without taking anything more than a glancing hit. Her fighting style was highly evasive, dodging, deflecting or maneuvering around her opponent's strikes until she had exhausted them, or was ready for a counterattack. Neo also displayed incredible reflexes and speed, dodging several of Yang's attacks with ease, even when holding her umbrella in one hand.

This was further shown in "Heroes and Monsters" where she was easily able to keep up with and defeat Ruby almost single-handedly, and in her fight with Cinder in "The Coming Storm", with Neo taking two hits and delivering four back to Cinder in a mostly even fight, only backing down when Cinder resorted to the use of her Maiden Powers. Cinder also commented Neo had 'grown stronger'. An example of that was shown in "The Enemy of Trust" with despite being completely outnumbered by both Oscar and Team JNR, she easily evaded, parried and dodged their attacks and overpowered and outmaneuvered them with quick and powerful strikes while doing so in a joking manner, hinting that Neo herself was not taking them seriously and was toying with them during the majority of their battle.

Neo had also displayed herself to be very acrobatic and exceptionally skilled in hand-to-hand combat relying on her agility to dodge and misdirect enemy movements and attacks, before retaliating with her own kick-based attacks resembling Bartitsu with the way she blocked with her parasol, and Capoeira with her acrobatic kicks. She learned this as a student at Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy for Girls, where they had a secret program for training chosen students to be assassins with a wide variety of classes in fencing, self-defense, and escape artistry. Neo excelled in all these classes and even trained under a rogue Huntress, her skills reaching the point that she could stand up against the Malachite sisters when they tried to stop her from escaping the academy.

However, Neo had also been shown to immediately back out of a fight she knew she couldn't win. She instantly retreated upon seeing Raven in "No Brakes" and stopped attacking Cinder in "The Coming Storm" when she activated her Maiden powers, despite instigating the fight in the first place. It also appeared that she had more difficulty against opponents equipped with a melee weapon, as opposed to barehanded fighters; she easily bested Yang in "No Brakes" but had a more even contest against Ruby in "Heroes and Monsters" until Roman arrived to reinforce her. During her fight with Cinder in "The Coming Storm", Neo initially held the initiative, but Cinder gradually gained the advantage once she equipped herself with dual swords. During her duel with Maria Calavera, Neo was consistently outmatched until Maria became distracted. When she faced Ruby again in "Worthy" and "The Final Word", she held the initiative, but fell for Ruby's attempt to goad her, lashing out in anger that enabled Ruby to get the better of her.

While using her weapon in sword form, Neo has displayed a sword style similar to Victorian Age fencing, as seen during her battle against Team JNPR and Oscar, where Neo held one of her hands behind her back as she made several swift sword stabs, jabs and swipes at her opponents. Notably, during her first few appearances, Neo never used Hush's blade to fight, only to down fallen opponents like Yang. Later, she is seen using it once, for a split second against Cinder and afterwards begins employing it regularly in fights.

Weapon Neo's weapon of choice was Hush, a parasol containing a long, thin blade hidden within the length of the parasol's tube, which could also project the blade's tip from the top end of it. The canopy of the parasol was made of an extremely dense, durable fabric that could repel minor Dust explosions, allowing Neo to use it as a shield or a glider. Unlike many of the weapons shown in RWBY, Hush did not appear to contain a concealed firearm or projectile weapon, therefore it could only be used for close quarters fighting.

Semblance Neo's Semblance, Overactive Imagination, allowed her to create "physical illusions that can be seen by everyone", as opposed to Emerald's Hallucinations, which usually only affect the person(s) she targets. These illusions were highly convincing and shattered like glass when she dispelled them, or someone broke them. Her most apparent use of them was creating illusions around her body, either to disguise herself or for her opponent to target while she escaped or moved unseen to another point of attack. They also seemed to be somewhat resilient to damage. While fighting Cinder, the illusion concealing Neo’s outfit was not dispelled even after taking or landing some hits. This was revised however in Volume 7, as her disguise was dispelled upon receiving a punch from Oscar. Additionally, in later volumes, she has learned to use her Semblance for psychological manipulation, exploiting the appearance of close friends and families in her enemies to torment and overpower them.

In "Our Way", Neo displayed her new mastery over her Semblance, where she managed to completely disguise an entire Mistral Airship to physically resemble an Atlas one, implying that she could maintain the facade long enough to fool the Atlas Military and cross the continental border checkpoint into Atlas.

Neo also used her Semblance when communicating with others in lieu of her muteness, as seen in "Out in the Open" where she transformed into Ruby when arguing what to prioritize with Cinder.

Initially, unlike Emerald's hallucinations, Neo's illusions did not affect a person's hearing, as she was not able to mimic sound or voices; thus, if she was disguised and someone tried to talk to her, her muteness might give her away. Before her time in the Ever After, her illusions also seemed to be limited in their range; they typically only covered Neo herself, and either a short distance around her or something she was touching, such as the Mistral airship that she disguised as an Atlesian Airship in "Our Way". However, as seen in her battles against Yang, Ruby and Cinder, she could maintain an illusion after moving away- until something made contact with it, after which the illusion will shatter.

As shown in "Witch", Neo herself had showcased the ability to create a camouflage illusion across her entire body in order to hide in plain sight. She altered her physical appearance, completely blending in with the dark crimson colors of Monstra's walls. Doing so, Neo was able to observe Oscar, Emerald, and Hazel accessing the Relic of Knowledge.

Other Skills Neo herself proved to be a competent getaway driver and a highly skilled infiltrator, as shown in "Beginning of the End", where she, disguised as a paramedic, drove Cinder, Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai away to an unknown location in an Air Bus after they initiated their plan to frame Yang.

This has been proven to be one of Neo's greatest talents, as she showed that combined with her Semblance, she could easily infiltrate military compounds no matter how well guarded or secure they are. One of the best examples was when she was shown walking through an airship full of Atlesian soldiers she presumably killed to free Roman and later Neo again showed her skills in infiltration and hijacking, when she managed to easily acquire a Mistral airship after presumably infiltrating a Mistral air base to steal it without being detected or noticed by the Kingdom's military or officials. Later she showcased that she could even easily infiltrate the highly secured Atlas Academy and later escape from it with no one noticing her at all and managed to again hijack and steal an Atlesian Manta.

Neo has displayed a high level of cunning and skill in acting when using her Semblance, as seen when she observed and notices the close relationship between Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie and was able to use it to emotionally manipulate Ren into giving her an opening to attack and escape. After her Semblance evolved, Neo’s ability to psychologically manipulate others using her Semblance had also increased, as shown where she was able to make her clones of Penny, Pyrrha, Ironwood, Ozpin and Oscar act, behave and sound like the originals to the point that they were able to effectively illicit emotional anguish from Ruby. Neo also showcased the ability to make her clones of Yang, Blake, Weiss, Jaune, Nora and Ren behave similarly realistic.

With the aid of her Semblance, Neo was shown to have expertise in pickpocketing, as she was easily able to steal the Relic of Knowledge off of Oscar without him knowing until it was too late.

Weaknesses Although Neo was an exceptionally skilled melee fighter, she had a habit of dropping her guard when she decisively gained the upper hand, either out of smugness or anger; this sometimes allowed opponents to make a successful counterattack. Examples included her gloating after defeating Yang in "No Brakes" and Ruby in "Heroes and Monsters"; in both cases, this gave her opponents (Raven and Ruby) time to turn the tables on her. In "The Final Word", after Neo disarmed Ruby, Ruby provoked her anger over Torchwick's death, causing Neo to impulsively attack and fall straight into Ruby's trap. In "Tea Amidst Terrible Trouble", when Neo had Ruby at her mercy, she left herself open to a surprise attack from the Curious Cat, temporarily disrupting her attack on Ruby.

She also had a one-track mind, which while admirable in achieving her goals, presented some drawbacks. She did not care what happened to her so long as her goal was achieved, as seen in "A Place of Particular Concern", where she attempted to kill Ruby even while the two were falling through the void to their apparent deaths. This one-track focus also meant she did not consider what she'd do next if she ever achieved it. In "Tea Admist Terrible Trouble, after she tortures Ruby into ascending, she falls into a catatonic state, not knowing what to do with her life now

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