#rougethebot

Topic: Neo (Spoilers)

Following the pattern of RWBY villains being sidelined in RRBW, Neo also gets this pretty badly. Due to Team Dark members having skills to detect Neo, she takes heavy losses. She's still a competent fighter in her own right, but Rouge—whose abilities completely counter hers—exists in the story, and the plot pits her against Rouge quite a lot, causing her to have a weaker track record in her fights in this fic.

Neo is Roman's partner-in-crime and bodyguard rolled into one, functioning as his number two. Compared to her boss and ally Roman, Neo is way more dangerous and skilled, with Eggman saying she's got potential. However, because she's still partners with Roman, Eggman and Metal Sonic both think she's wasting her abilities working with that idiot. They don't understand why Neopolitan serves Roman, even though she's the strongest of their little duo with the ability to overthrow him as Vale's crime boss.

Neo's 'Overactive Imagination' Semblance lets her create incredibly realistic illusions that can easily fool most opponents. However, the illusions themselves are just visual ones, so an opponent with sharp enough hearing can avoid being fooled, as she found out the hard way against Rouge. Neo is renowned for dancing around her opponents while taking no hits and non-verbally taunting them throughout, making them enraged and sloppy. She finds herself on the receiving end of this in her fight against Rouge, whose hearing not only renders her Semblance useless, but whose greater experience as both a spy and fighter lets her avoid all her attacks—something that quickly gets under Neo's skin. When Rouge asks her to raise one finger if she stays silent by choice and two if she's really mute or not, Neo answers by giving her the middle finger.

Neo was a rather tricky fighter to go up against in canon, but the fanfic series introduces characters who can directly combat her Semblance. Omega's robotic sensors won't be fooled by her illusions, but it's with Rouge where we see it fully—her enhanced hearing (as she's a bat) allows her to notice which is the illusion and which isn't. In true Iron117Prime fashion, she's beaten easily by Rouge in the train fight. Later chapters aren't too kind to her either, and even when she's not fighting Rouge, the latter is always in the vicinity as a support unit to whoever Neo's fighting. She's another example of the female high-ranking warrior (in relation to Roman) who's trounced very easily by newcomer heroes. She's on the receiving end of this from Rouge, whose abilities pretty much counter hers. Oddly enough, the fic is the first to feature two of these—the other being Cinder. Before they fight, Rouge even lampshades another factor of this character archetype by asking, "Don't suppose I can convince you to change sides and not waste your life on something stupid?"

Neo has a few notable quirks: she does an eyelid pull taunt to Metal Sonic when he walks away from her and Roman, and she has a serious berserk button—don't ask her about her mother or how she raised her. After Roman's death, she teams up with Mimic to avenge him, even though she honestly doesn't like the shapeshifter, demonstrating pragmatic villainy. Like in canon, she develops a serious grudge against the one responsible for Torchwick's death—only instead of Ruby, it's Qrow.

My Mixed Feelings: See, Qrow kills Roman, unlike canon where Neo just believed Cinder's claims of Ruby killing Roman (she didn't). Here, Qrow indeed did it, and Neo saw it, thus she realistically wouldn't change her opinion. Though the implications suggest she'll redeem herself... but why would she? In canon, she went all the way to make Ruby kill herself, breaking her down physically and mentally till she was nearly an empty shell and lost the will to fight back.