Neo

Neopolitan, born Trivia Vanille and now better known as Neo, was a character in RWBY. She was the partner of Roman Torchwick, with the two sharing a close and possible romantic bond. Her weapon of choice was called Hush, a parasol with a concealed blade. She first appeared in "Painting the Town...". After the Fall of Beacon, she hunted down Cinder Fall in revenge for Roman's death, but subsequently joined forces with her, shifting her target to Ruby Rose.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.[15] 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.

In “Rude, Red, and Royal”, Neo’s Semblance evolved further, where she now had the ability to make multiple copies of herself. These clones were semi-autonomous, able to either copy movements of Neo or perform commands given by her. She could also control them at will and the clones themselves retained the ability to physically attack others, such as the Jabberwalker.

In “The Parfait Predicament”, it was shown that she could create clones of other beings as well, such as the Jabberwalker, and could even have them mimic the speech and voice of the original.

As seen in “The Perils of Paper Houses“, her Semblance could seemingly replicate another being to the point of copying their unique abilities. This is implied when the Jabberwalker clones attempted to devour Ruby, suggesting that the clones also possessed the original’s ability to permanently kill a Afteran by eating them, though this is currently unconfirmed.

In "Tea Amidst Terrible Trouble", Neo created clones of Penny Polendina, Pyrrha Nikos, Ozpin, Leonardo Lionheart, Clover Ebi, James Ironwood, Oscar Pine and Roman Torchwick. Her clones were able to perfectly replicate their voice, facial expressions and even to a degree, their personalities and fighting styles. She could also construct complex constructs such as appliances and even entire buildings, having replicated a copy of the Vanille Manor, complete with functioning lights and furniture and portraits of her memories. She could even create functioning weapons using her Semblance, as shown where she recreated Miló and Akoúo̱, Floating Array, The Long Memory, Stalwart, Melodic Cudgel, Due Process, had Milo and Akouo, Due Process, Melodic Cudgel and Stalwart fire rounds, and Milo and Akouo change forms.

Furthermore, as implied in "The Perils of Paper Houses", Neo possessed a connection to her constructs and could project her psyche through them, first shown where she remotely transformed one of her Jabberwalker clones into herself to send Ruby a message of her targeting her. Later, she projected her thoughts and feelings through her clones of Ruby’s friends and acquaintances, signified when their eyes turned into her heterochromia of pink and brown.

Neo's power was shown at its strongest when she had her final confrontation with Ruby in "Tea Amidst Terrible Trouble": she created a large Tea Room for Ruby to walk in, hosting a tea party of sorts with fallen comrades of Ruby. Her projections had enough autonomy to speak, fight and even bleed. They speak in Neo's stead, acting as a way for her to verbally communicate what she hated about Ruby and how she had personally failed them, all which quickly broke Ruby's spirit.